Both Sermon time and all the prayer.”
The company are next treated at length. There are the usurer, the furiosol, the virtuoso, the player, the country clown, the pragmatick, the phanatick, the knight, the mechanick, the dealer in old shoes, one in an ague, the Frenchman, the Dutchman, the Spaniard:—
“Here in a corner sits a Phrantick,
And there stands by a frisking Antick.
Of all sorts some, and all conditions,
E’en Vintners, Surgeons, and Physicians.
The blind, the deaf, the aged cripple
Do here resort and coffee tipple.”
The chocolate-house was another place of resort. It was noted for its decorations, being not only beautifully painted and gilt, but also provided with looking-glasses all round the room. But as yet the people were afraid of taking even a cup of chocolate without a dram to fortify the stomach. “Bring in,” says the gallant, “two dishes of chocolate and a glass of cinnamon water.” And the City ladies, if they invited friends to a tea-drinking, finished with cordials to counteract any bad effects.
The use of tobacco had by this time become universal. Sorbière says that men spent half their time over tobacco. Even women and children smoked pipes; some men took tobacco and pipes to bed with them in case of being sleepless. I find in one of Howell’s Letters a dissertation on the use of tobacco, which is more instructive than any other contemporary document:—