A Broad-side Against COFFEE;
Or, the
Marriage of the Turk
Coffee, a kind of Turkish Renegade,
Has late a match with Christian water made;
At first between them happen'd a Demur,
Yet joyn'd they were, but not without great stir;
***
Coffee was cold as Earth, Water as Thames,
And stood in need of recommending Flames;
***
Coffee so brown as berry does appear,
Too swarthy for a Nymph so fair, so clear:
***
A Coachman was the first (here) Coffee made,
And ever since the rest drive on the trade;
Me no good Engalash! and sure enough,
He plaid the Quack to salve his Stygian stuff;
Ver boon for de stomach, de Cough, de Ptisick
And I believe him, for it looks like Physick.
Coffee a crust is charkt into a coal,
The smell and taste of the Mock China bowl;
Where huff and puff, they labour out their lungs,
Lest Dives-like they should bewail their tongues.
And yet they tell ye that it will not burn,
Though on the Jury Blisters you return;
Whose furious heat does make the water rise,
And still through the Alembicks of your eyes.
Dread and desire, ye fall to't snap by snap,
As hungry Dogs do scalding porrige lap,
But to cure Drunkards it has got great Fame;
Posset or Porrige, will't not do the same?
Confusion huddles all into one Scene,
Like Noah's Ark, the clean and the unclean.
But now, alas! the Drench has credit got,
And he's no Gentleman that drinks it not;
That such a Dwarf should rise to such a stature!
But Custom is but a remove from Nature.
A little Dish, and a large Coffee-house,
What is it, but a Mountain and a Mouse?
***
Mens humana novitatis avidissima.

And so it came to pass that coffee history repeated itself in England. Many good people became convinced that coffee was a dangerous drink. The tirades against the beverage in that far-off time sound not unlike the advertising patter employed by some of our present-day coffee-substitute manufacturers. It was even ridiculed by being referred to as "ninny broth" and "Turkey gruel."

A brief description of the excellent vertues of that sober and wholesome drink called coffee appeared in 1674 and proved an able and dignified answer to the attacks that had preceded it. That same year, for the first time in history, the sexes divided in a coffee controversy, and there was issued The Women's Petition against Coffee, representing to public consideration the grand inconveniences accruing to their sex from the excessive use of the drying and enfeebling Liquor, in which the ladies, who had not been accorded the freedom of the coffee houses in England, as was the custom in France, Germany, Italy, and other countries on the Continent, complained that coffee made men as "unfruitful as the deserts where that unhappy berry is said to be bought." Besides the more serious complaint that the whole race was in danger of extinction, it was urged that "on a domestic message a husband would stop by the way to drink a couple of cups of coffee."

This pamphlet is believed to have precipitated the attempt at suppression by the crown the following year, despite the prompt appearing, in 1674, of The Men's Answer to the Women's Petition Against Coffee, vindicating ... their liquor, from the undeserved aspersion lately cast upon them, in their scandalous pamphlet.

The 1674 broadside in defense of coffee was the first to be illustrated; and for all its air of pretentious grandeur and occasional bathos, it was not a bad rhyming advertisement for the persecuted drink. It was printed for Paul Greenwood and sold "at the sign of the coffee mill and tobacco-roll in Cloath-fair near West-Smithfield, who selleth the best Arabian coffee powder and chocolate in cake or roll, after the Spanish fashion, etc." The following extracts will serve to illustrate its epic character:

When the sweet Poison of the Treacherous Grape,
Had Acted on the world a General Rape;
Drowning our very Reason and our Souls
In such deep Seas of large o'reflowing Bowls.
***
When Foggy Ale, leavying up mighty Trains
Of muddy Vapours, had besieg'd our Brains;
***
Then Heaven in Pity, to Effect our Cure.
***
First sent amongst us this All-healing-Berry,
At once to make us both Sober and Merry.
Arabian Coffee, a Rich Cordial
To Purse and Person Beneficial,
Which of so many Vertues doth partake,
Its Country's called Felix for its sake.
From the Rich Chambers of the Rising Sun,
Where Arts, and all good Fashions first begun,
Where Earth with choicest Rarities is blest,
And dying Phoenix builds Her wondrous Nest:
COFFEE arrives, that Grave and wholesome Liquor,
That heals the Stomack, makes the Genius quicker,
Relieves the Memory, Revives the Sad.
***
Do but this Rare ARABIAN Cordial Use,
And thou may'st all the Doctors Slops Refuse.
Hush then, dull QUACKS, your Mountebanking cease,
COFFEE'S a speedier Cure for each Disease;
How great its Vertues are, we hence may think,
The Worlds third Part makes it their common Drink:
In Breif, all you who Healths Rich Treasures Prize,
And Court not Ruby Noses, or blear'd Eyes,
But own Sobriety to be your Drift.
And Love at once good Company and Thrift;
To Wine no more make Wit and Coyn a Trophy,
But come each Night and Frollique here in Coffee.