All About Coffee, William H. Ukers [short story to read .txt] 📗
- Author: William H. Ukers
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The boy replies, O Sir, however
You'r very welcome, we do never
Our Candles, Pipes or Fier grutch
To daily customers and such,
They'r Company (without expence,)
For that's sufficient recompence.
Here at a table all alone,
Sits (studying) a spruce youngster, (one
Who doth conceipt himself fully witty,
And's counted one o' th' wits o' th' City,)
Till by him (with a stately grace,)
A Spanish Don himself doth place.
Then (cap in hand) a brisk Monsieur
He takes his seat, and crowds as near
As possibly that he can come.
Then next a Dutchman takes his room.
The Wits glib tongue begins to chatter,
Though't utters more of noise than matter,
Yet 'cause they seem to mind his words,
His lungs more battle still affords
At last says he to Don, I trow
You understand me? Sennor no
Says th' other. Here the Wit doth pause
A little while, then opes his jaws,
And says to Monsieur, you enjoy
Our tongue I hope? Non par ma foy,
Replies the Frenchman: nor you, Sir?
Says he to th' Dutchman, Neen mynheer,
With that he's gone, and cries, why sho'd
He stay where wit's not understood?
There in a place of his own chusing
(Alone) some lover sits a musing,
With arms across, and's eyes up lift,
As if he were of sence bereft.
Till sometimes to himself he's speaking,
Then sighs as if his heart were breaking.
Here in a corner sits a Phrantick,
And there stands by a frisking Antick,
Of all sorts some and all conditions
Even Vintners, Surgeons and Physicians.
The blind, the deaf, and aged cripple
Do here resort and Coffee tipple.
Now here (perhaps) you may expect
My Muse some trophies should erect
In high flown verse, for to set forth
The noble praises of its worth.
Truth is, old Poets beat their brains
To find out high and lofty strains
To praise the (now too frequent) use
Of the bewitching grapes strong juice,
Some have strain'd hard for to exalt
The liquor of our English Mault
Nay Don has almost crackt his nodle
Enough t'applaud his Caaco Caudle.
The Germans Mum, Teag's Usquebagh,
(Made him so well defend Tredagh,)
Metheglin, which the Brittains tope,
Hot Brandy wine, the Hogans hope.
Stout Meade which makes the Russ to laugh,
Spic'd Punch (in bowls) the Indians quaff.
All these have had their pens to raise
Them Monuments of lasting praise,
Onely poor Coffee seems to me
No subject fit for Poetry
At least 'tis one that none of mine is,
So I do wave 't, and here write—
FINIS.
News from the Coffe House; in which is shewn their several sorts of Passions appeared in 1667. It was reprinted in 1672 as The Coffee House or News-mongers' Hall.
Several stanzas from these broadsides have been much quoted. They serve to throw additional light upon the manners of the time, and upon the kind of conversation met with in any well frequented coffee house of the seventeenth century, particularly under the Stuarts. They are finely descriptive of the company characteristics of the early coffee houses. The fifth stanza of the edition of 1667, inimical to the French, was omitted when the broadside was amended and reprinted in 1672, the year that England joined with France and again declared war on the Dutch. The following verses with explanatory notes are from Timbs:
News from the Coffe House
You that delight in Wit and Mirth,
And long to hear such News,
As comes from all Parts of the Earth,
Dutch, Danes, and Turks, and Jews,
I'le send yee to a Rendezvouz,
Where it is smoaking new;
Go hear it at a Coffe-house,
It cannot but be true.
There Battles and Sea-Fights are Fought,
And bloudy Plots display'd;
They know more Things then ere was thought
Or ever was betray'd:
No Money in the Minting-house
Is halfe so Bright and New;
And comming from a Coffe-house
It cannot but be true.
Before the Navyes fall to Work,
They know who shall be Winner;
They there can tell ye what the Turk
Last Sunday had to Dinner;
Who last did Cut Du Ruitters[75] Corns,
Amongst his jovial Crew;
Or Who first gave the Devil Horns,
Which cannot but be true.
A Fisherman did boldly tell,
And strongly did avouch,
He Caught a Shoal of Mackarel,
That Parley'd all in Dutch,
And cry'd out Yaw, yaw, yaw Myne Here;
But as the Draught they Drew
They Stunck for fear, that Monck[76] was there,
Which cannot but be true.
***
There's nothing done in all the World,
From Monarch to the Mouse
But every Day or Night 'tis hurld
Into the Coffe-house.
What Lillie[77] or what Booker[78] can
By Art, not bring about,
At Coffe-house you'l find a Man,
Can quickly find it out.
They know who shall in Times to come,
Be either made, or undone,
From great St. Peters street in Rome,
To Turnbull-street[79] in London;
***
They know all that is Good, or Hurt,
To Dam ye, or to Save ye;
There is the Colledge, and the Court,
The Country, Camp and Navie;
So great a Universitie,
I think there ne're was any;
In which you may a Schoolar be
For spending of a Penny.
***
Here Men do talk of every Thing,
With large and liberal Lungs,
Like Women at a Gossiping,
With double tyre of Tongues;
They'l give a Broad-side presently,
Soon as you are in view,
With Stories that, you'l wonder at,
Which they will swear are true.
The Drinking there of Chockalat,
Can make a Fool a Sophie:
'Tis thought the Turkish Mahomet
Was first Inspir'd with Coffe,
By which his Powers did Over-flow
The Land of Palestine:
Then let us to, the Coffe-house go,
'Tis Cheaper farr then Wine.
You shall know there, what Fashions are;
How Perrywiggs are Curl'd;
And for a Penny you shall heare,
All Novells in the World.
Both Old and Young, and Great and Small,
And Rich, and Poore, you'l see;
Therefore let's to the Coffe All,
Come All away with Mee.
Finis.
Robert Morton made a contribution to the controversy in Lines Appended to the Nature, Quality and Most Excellent Vertues of Coffee in 1670.
There was published in 1672 A Broad-side Against Coffee, or the Marriage of the Turk, verses that attained considerable fame because of their picturesque invective. They also stressed the fact that Pasqua Rosées partner was a coachman, and imitated the broken English of the Ragusan youth:
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.
The first one to be illustrated
An eight-page folio, the last argument to be issued in defense of coffee before Charles II sought to follow in the footsteps of Kair Bey and Kuprili, was issued in the early part of 1675. It was entitled Coffee Houses Vindicated. In answer to the late published Character of a Coffee House. Asserting from Reason, Experience and good Authors the Excellent Use and physical Virtues of that Liquor ... With the Grand Convenience of such civil Places of Resort and ingenious Conversation.
The advantage of a coffee
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