Of course, there were still left plenty of those who stuck to the tavern and despised these new inventions of tea and coffee. Indeed, for business purposes the tavern continued to be used. Transactions of all kinds were conducted in a private room at a tavern, over a bottle. If a customer came up to London, the shopkeeper took him to the tavern when, in the Rose or the Sun, they performed their business. The coffee-house never took the place of the tavern in that respect. The most extraordinary secrecy was expected and maintained on either side over the smallest matter of trade. The number of taverns was then very great. They literally lined the two most important arteries, that from St. George’s, Southwark, to Bishopsgate Street Without, and that between the Royal Exchange and the Strand.
The South East Prospect of ye Inside of ye Cathedral Church of St. PAUL’s
INTERIOR OF ST. PAUL’S
From Pennant’s London in the British Museum.
I have before me a pamphlet in doggerel verse of the year 1671 called The Search after Claret Wine: A Visitation of the Vintners.
The following is the dedication which enumerates the favourite wines:—
“To all Lovers, Admirers and Doters on Claret,
(Who tho’ at Deaths-Door, yet can hardly forbear it)
Who can Miracles credit, and fancy Red-Port
To be Sprightly Puntack, and the best of the sort;