“There came in my tyme to the Coll: one Nathaniel Couopios out of Greece from Cyrill the Patriarch of Constantinople who, returning many years afterwards was made (as I understand) Bishop of Smyrna. He was the first man I ever saw drink coffee, which custom came not into England for thirty years after.”
The coffee-houses, thus begun, multiplied rapidly. The new drink, which did not intoxicate, became popular; the coffee-houses were places where men could sit and talk without getting drunk; it was a cheap amusement, and, in a time of great political agitation and excitement, the coffee-house became a power of immense influence. For this reason the Government became alarmed, and, in 1675, endeavoured to suppress the new institution. The attempt was a failure. The coffee-houses were already the favourite meeting-places of men of all professions and of all opinions. In the graver places where physicians, divines, and responsible merchants met, the conversation was serious over coffee and tobacco. In other coffee-houses the company were diverted with songs, music, and even tumbling.
Some of the coffee-houses offered the attraction of a museum of curiosities, probably things brought from the East by sailors.
I have before me one of the earliest tracts on the subject of coffee. It is a doggerel poem dated 1665, called “The Character of a Coffee-House.” How is one to know a coffee house? By the signs:—
“And if you see the great Morat
With Shash on’s head instead of hat,
Or any Sultan in his dress,
Or picture of a Sultaness,
Or John’s admired curl’d pate,
Or th’ great Mogul in’s Chair of State,