Resales were prohibited, or limited to one transaction, in order to prevent an accumulation of profits, that, added to each transfer, would result ultimately in higher prices to the consumer.

The fixing of profit based on cost, and not on market or replacement value, is a thing that is impossible in normal times. Carried to the last degree, it would mean ruination; for no provision is made for declines in the market, and resulting losses. As a war measure it was inevitable, and so endured. In normal times it is like trying to make water run uphill. With a united people, it worked; but one can not have a World War always to unite the people. It has been said that government regulation of coffees caused a large increase in price to the consumer. This would be hard to prove. The trade, generally, that refused to buy at ten to twelve cents per pound because it did not, or would not believe the reports of frost damage, and thought prices too high, was frantically bidding up to twenty and twenty-two cents for 4s in March and April, 1919. According to the ideas of some enthusiasts, fifty cents was not an impossibility. Naturally such a bubble must burst eventually. Government control had nothing to do with such natural conditions as frost, or as the buyers' indifference. Expansion and inflation were in the air, and had to run their course. The year 1920 brought the aftermath; and in the deflation, coffee, with all other commodities, went down to prices far below its intrinsic value. The expected European demand did not materialize; the interior buyer was overloaded with stock; and the losses of the coffee trade in 1920 will, it is to be hoped, never be repeated.

The Story of Soluble Coffee

For nearly two decades, many coffee men and chemists have been seeking a soluble coffee, or dried coffee extract, that would simplify the preparation of the beverage. Thus far, all the products that have appeared on the market are somewhat deficient in aroma and in the more delicate flavors of coffee. A satisfying average cup of coffee can be prepared from the better brands; the chief advantages of which are rapidity of preparation, absence of any grounds, and uniformity of drink.

Considerable progress has been made in certain directions; enough to warrant telling here, though briefly, the story of soluble coffee to date.

Some there are among trade experts and coffee connoisseurs who maintain soluble coffee is an ignis fatuus; that it can never be manufactured without destroying the aromatic principle; that at best it is a delusion and a snare. Certainly, many absurd claims have been made for some of the soluble coffees on the market. However, there are others that are not without their merits; and the story of their introduction to the trade and the consuming public is entertaining and instructive.

Dr. Sartori Kato, a Japanese chemist, of Tokio, brought a soluble tea to Chicago about 1899. It was not a commercial success; but it served to bring him in touch with some coffee men and chemists, for whom he produced a soluble coffee in the same year. A company was organized to promote the product. It was called the Kato Coffee Co., and included, in addition to Dr. Kato; Fillip Kreissel, a chemist; W.R. Ruffner, a green-coffee broker; and I.D. Richheimer, a coffee roaster. Kato's soluble coffee was first sold to the public at the Pan-American Exposition in 1901. The first quantity order was received from Captain Baldwin and by him used with satisfaction on the Ziegler Arctic expedition. United States patents on a coffee concentrate, and process for making the same (soluble coffee), were granted to Sartori Kato of Chicago, assignor to the Kato Coffee Co., of the same place, on August 11, 1903.

G. Washington, who was born in Belgium of English parents, and who was living temporarily in Guatemala City, invented about 1906, a soluble coffee that was made ready for the market in 1909.

The George Washington Coffee Refining Co. was organized in 1910 to put the Washington product on the market, which it did first under the name, Red E coffee. This was later changed to G. Washington's Prepared Coffee, as an alternative to Washington's Coffee Extract, a name which was favorably regarded by all except certain authorities at the national capital. Associated with Mr. Washington at the start of the enterprise were: E. Van Etten, former vice-president of the New York Central Railroad; W.J. Arkell; Bartlett Arkell, of the Beechnut Packing Co.; C.M. Warner, of the Warner Sugar Refining Co.; and Charles E. Proctor, of the Singer Sewing Machine Co.

The G. Washington Coffee Refining Company has its coffee-roasting and preparing plant in Brooklyn; but its process is a secret one, and has never been patented.

F. Lehnhoff Wyld, who was the Washingtons' family physician when they lived in Guatemala City, and with whom Mr. Washington had discussed his work in soluble coffee, duplicated the Washington product in 1913; and, with E.T. Cabarrus, he organized the Societe du Cafe Soluble Belna, Brussels, Belgium, to put on the European market a refined soluble coffee under the brand name Belna.

Eight or ten United States patents have been granted on soluble coffees that have never been applied commercially.

Nowhere has soluble coffee met with such success as in the United States, where a number of brands followed the Kato and G. Washington products. Among them, mention should be made of the C.F. Blanke Tea & Coffee Company's Magic Cup, afterward Fairy Cup, and later, Faust brand, brought out in 1912; the Baker Importing Co.'s Barrington Hall Soluble Coffee, brought out in 1917; and the Charles G. Hires Co.'s brand, introduced to the trade in 1918.

It was the World War that brought soluble coffee to the front. E.F. Holbrook, formerly in charge of the coffee section, subsistence division, United States War Department, said, "The use of mustard gas by the Germans made it one of the most important articles of subsistence used by the army." Early in the war, soluble coffee was added to the reserve ration, three-quarters of an ounce being considered at first the proper amount per ration. After trying to put it up in sticks, tablets, capsules, and other forms, it was determined that the best method was to pack it in envelopes. A month before the signing of the armistice, the New York depot was notified that after January 1, 1919, the requirements of soluble coffee were to be 25,000 pounds per day in addition to quantities packed in reserve rations, bringing the total daily output to 42,500 pounds per day. Arrangements were made to have the total output of the New York zone, 40,000 pounds per day, packed in quarter-ounce envelopes, twenty-four to a sealed can.

I.D. Richheimer, promoter of the original soluble coffee of Kato and the Kato patent, organized the Soluble Coffee Co. of America in 1918, to supply soluble coffee to the American army overseas. After the armistice, the company began licensing other merchants under the Kato patent or offering to process the merchants' own coffee for them if desired.

William A. Hamor and Charles W. Trigg, Pittsburgh, assignors to John E. King, Detroit, were granted a United States patent in 1919 on a process for making a new soluble coffee. Their process consists in bringing the volatilized caffeol in contact with a petrolatum, or absorbing medium, where it is held until needed for combination with the evaporated coffee extract. The King Coffee Products Corp. of Detroit was organized in 1920 to manufacture this product, known as Minute coffee, and a coffee base for soft drinks, the latter being marketed under the name of Coffee Pep. Mr. King had believed for many years that soluble coffee was destined to solve many of the vexations of the coffee business, and had been experimenting with the idea since 1906. To facilitate his investigations, he established a fellowship at the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, Pittsburgh, in 1914, in charge of Charles W. Trigg. This chemically controlled research evolved a product which, after passing through the laboratory stage, was placed upon a small unit plan basis, and then patented. Five additional patents on the product were granted Messrs. Trigg and David S. Pratt in 1921; and all were assigned to John E. King.



CHAPTER XXXII

A HISTORY OF COFFEE IN LITERATURE

The romance of coffee, and its influence on the discourse, poetry, history, drama, philosophic writing, and fiction of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and on the writers of today—Coffee quips and anecdotes

Any study of the literature of coffee comprehends a survey of selections from the best thought of civilized nations, from the time of Rhazes (850-922) to Francis Saltus. We have seen in chapter III how Rhazes, the physician-philosopher, appears to have been the first writer to mention coffee; and was followed by other great physicians, like Bengiazlah, a contemporary, and Avicenna (980-1037).

Then arose many legends about coffee, that served as inspiration for Arabian, French, Italian, and English poets.

Sheik Gemaleddin, mufti of Mocha, is said to have discovered the virtues of coffee about 1454, and to have promoted the use of the drink in Arabia. Knowledge of the new beverage was given to Europeans by the botanists Rauwolf and Alpini toward the close of the sixteenth century.

The first authentic account of the origin of coffee was written by Abd-al-Kadir in 1587. It is the famous Arabian manuscript commending the use of coffee, preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, and catalogued as "Arabe, 4590."

Its title written in Arabic is as follows:

[Arabic] 4 3 2 1

which is pronounced (reading right to left):

omdat as safwa fi hall al kahwa _ _ _ __ 1 2 3 4

or; in the literary style: omdatu s safwati fi hallu 'l kahwati which means—literally, (the corresponding words being underlined and numbered)

"The maintenance of purity as ___ _ 1 2 regards the legitimacy of coffee." __ _ 3 4

or, more freely, "Argument in favor of the legitimate use of coffee."

[Arabic] kahwa, is the Arabic word for coffee.

The author is Abd-al-Kadir ibn Mohammad al Ansari al Jazari al Hanbali. That is, he was named Abd-al-Kadir, son of Mohammed.

Abd-al-Kadir means "slave of the strong one" (i.e., of God); while al Ansari means that he was a descendant of the Ansari (i.e., "helpers"), the people of Medina who received and protected the Prophet Mohammed after his flight from Mecca; al Jazari means that he was a man of Mesopotamia; and al Hanbali that in law and theology he belonged to the well known sect, or school, of the Hanbalites, so called after the great jurist and writer, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, who died at Bagdad A.H. 241 (A.D. 855). The Hanbalites are one of the four great sects of the Sunni Mohammedans.

Abd-al-Kadir ibn Mohammed lived in the tenth century of the Hegira—the sixteenth of our era—and wrote his book in 996 A.H., or 1587 A.D. Coffee had then been in common use since about 1450 A.D. in Arabia. It was not in use in the time of the Prophet, who died in 632 A.D.; but he had forbidden the drink of strong liquors which affect the brain, and hence it was argued that coffee, as a stimulant, was unlawful. Even today, the community of the Wahabis, very powerful in Arabia a hundred years ago, and still dominant in part of it, do not permit the use of coffee.

Abd-al-Kadir's book is thought to have been based on an earlier writing by Shihab-ad-Din Ahmad ibn Abd-al-Ghafar al Maliki, as he refers to the latter on the third page of his manuscript; but if so, this previous work does not appear to have been preserved. La Roque says Shihab-ad-Din was an Arabian historian who supplied the main part of Abd-al-Kadir's story. La Roque refers also to a Turkish historian.

Research by the author has failed to disclose anything about Shihab-ad-Din save his name (al Maliki means that he belonged to the Malikites, another of the four great Sunni sects), and that he wrote about a hundred years before Abd-al-Kadir. No copy of his writings is known to exist.

The illustrations show the title page of Abd-al-Kadir's manuscript, the first page, the third page, and the fly leaf of the cover, the latter containing an inscription in Latin made at the time the manuscript was first received or classified. It reads:

Omdat al safouat fl hall al cahuat.

De usu legitimo et licito potionis quae vulgo Cafe nuncupatur. Authore Abdalcader Ben Mohammed al Ansari. Constat hic liber capitibus septem, et ab authore editus est anno hegirae 996 quo anno centum et viginti anni effluxerant ex quo huius potionis usus in Arabia felice invaluerat

The translation of the Latin is:

Concerning the legitimate and lawful use of the drink commonly known as cafe by Abdalcader Ben Mohammed al Ansari. The book is composed in seven chapters and was brought out by the author in the year of the Hegira 996 at which time a hundred and twenty years had passed since the use of this drink had become firmly established in Arabia Felix.

Coffee in Poetry

The Abd-al-Kadir work immortalized coffee. It is in seven chapters. The first treats of the etymology and significance of the word cahouah (kahwa), the nature and properties of the bean, where the drink was first used, and describes its virtues. The other chapters have to do largely with the church dispute in Mecca in 1511, answer the religious objectors to coffee, and conclude with a collection of Arabic verses composed during the Mecca controversy by the best poets of the time.

De Nointel, ambassador from the court of Louis XIV to the Ottoman Porte, brought back with him to Paris from Constantinople the Abd-al-Kadir manuscript, and another by Bichivili, one of the three general treasurers of the Ottoman Empire. The latter work is of a later date than the Abd-al-Kadir manuscript, and is concerned chiefly with the history of the introduction of coffee into Egypt, Syria, Damascus, Aleppo, and Constantinople.

The following are two of the earliest Arabic poems in praise of coffee. They are about the period of the first coffee persecution in Mecca (1511), and are typical of the best thought of the day:

IN PRAISE OF COFFEE

Translation from the Arabic

O Coffee! Thou dost dispel all cares, thou art the object of desire to the scholar.

This is the beverage of the friends of God; it gives health to those in its service who strive after wisdom.

Prepared from the simple shell of the berry, it has the odor of musk and the color of ink.

The intelligent man who empties these cups of foaming coffee, he alone knows truth.

May God deprive of this drink the foolish man who condemns it with incurable obstinacy.

Coffee is our gold. Wherever it is served, one enjoys the society of the noblest and most generous men.

O drink! As harmless as pure milk, which differs from it only in its blackness.

Here is another, rhymed version of the same poem:

IN PRAISE OF COFFEE

Translation from the Arabic

O coffee! Doved and fragrant drink, thou drivest care away, The object thou of that man's wish who studies night and day. Thou soothest him, thou giv'st him health, and God doth favor those Who walk straight on in wisdom's way, nor seek their own repose. Fragrant as musk thy berry is, yet black as ink in sooth! And he who sips thy fragrant cup can only know the truth. Insensate they who, tasting not, yet vilify its use; For when they thirst and seek its help, God will the gift refuse. Oh, coffee is our wealth! for see, where'er on earth it grows, Men live whose aims are noble, true virtues who disclose.

COFFEE COMPANIONSHIP

Translation from the Arabic

Come and enjoy the company of coffee in the places of its habitation; for the Divine Goodness envelops those who partake of its feast.

There the elegance of the rugs, the sweetness of life, the society of the guests, all give a picture of the abode of the blest.

It is a wine which no sorrow could resist when the cup-bearer presents thee with the cup which contains it.

It is not long since Aden saw thy birth. If thou doubtest this, see the freshness of youth shining on the faces of thy children.

Grief is not found within its habitations. Trouble yields humbly to its power.

It is the beverage of the children of God, it is the source of health.

It is the stream in which we wash away our sorrows. It is the fire which consumes our griefs.

Whoever has once known the chafing-dish which prepares this beverage, will feel only aversion for wine and liquor from casks.

Delicious beverage, its color is the seal of its purity.

Reason pronounces favorably on the lawfulness of it.

Drink of it confidently, and give not ear to the speech of the foolish, who condemn it without reason.

During the period of the second religious persecution of coffee in the latter part of the sixteenth century, other Arabian poets sang the praises of coffee. The learned Fakr-Eddin-Aboubeckr ben Abid Iesi wrote a book entitled The Triumph of Coffee, and the poet-sheikh Sherif-Eddin-Omar-ben-Faredh sang of it in harmonious verse, wherein, discoursing of his mistress, he could find no more flattering comparison than coffee. He exclaims, "She has made me drink, in long draughts, the fever, or, rather, the coffee of love!"

The numerous contributions by early travelers to the literature of coffee have been mentioned in chronological order in the history chapters. After Rauwolf and Alpini, there were Sir Antony Sherley, Parry, Biddulph, Captain John Smith, Sir George Sandys, Sir Thomas Herbert, and Sir Henry Blount in England; Tavernier, Thevenot, Bernier, P. de la Roque, and Galland in France; Delia Valle in Italy; Olearius and Niebhur in Germany; Nieuhoff in Holland, and others.

Francis Bacon wrote about coffee in his Hist. Vitae et Mortis and Sylva Sylvarum, 1623-27. Burton referred to it in his "Anatomy of Melancholy" in 1632. Parkinson described it in his Theatrum Botanicum in 1640. In 1652, Pasqua Rosee published his famous handbill in London, a literary effort as well as a splendid first advertisement.

Faustus Nairon (Banesius) produced in Rome, in 1671, the first printed treatise devoted solely to coffee. The same year Dufour brought out the first treatise in French. This he followed in 1684 with his work, The manner of making coffee, tea, and chocolate. John Ray extolled the virtues of coffee in his Universal Botany of Plants, published in London in 1686. Galland translated the Abd-al-Kadir manuscript into French in 1699, and Jean La Roque published his Voyage de l'Arabie Heureuse in Paris in 1715. Excerpts from nearly all these works appear in various chapters of this work.

Leonardus Ferdinandus Meisner published a Latin treatise on coffee, tea, and chocolate in 1721. Dr. James Douglas published in London (1727) his Arbor yemensis fructum cofe ferens, or a description and history of the Coffee Tree. This work laid under contribution many of the Italian, German, French, and English scholars mentioned above; and the author mentioned as other sources of information: Dr. Quincy, Pechey, Gaudron, de Fontenelle, Professor Boerhaave, Figueroa, Chabraeus, Sir Hans Sloane, Langius, and Du Mont.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the poets and dramatists of France, Italy, and England found a plentiful supply in what had already been written on coffee; to say nothing of the inspiration offered by the drink itself, and by the society of the cafes of the period.

French poets, familiar with Latin, first took coffee as the subject of their verse. Vaniere sang its praises in the eighth book of his Praedium rusticum; and Fellon, a Jesuit professor of Trinity College, Lyons, wrote a didactic poem called, Faba Arabica, Carmen, which is included in the Poemata didascalica of d'Olivet.

Abbe Guillaume Massieu's Carmen Caffaeum, composed in 1718, has been referred to in chapter III. It was read at the Academy of Inscriptions. One of the panegyrists of this author, de Boze, in his Eloge de Massieu, says that if Horace and Virgil had known of coffee, the poem might easily have been attributed to them; and Thery, who translated it into French, says "it is a pearl of elegance in a rare jewel case."

The following translation of the poem from the Latin original was made for this work:

COFFEE

A Poem by Guillaume Massieu of the French Academy

(A literal prose translation from the original Latin in the British Museum.)

How coffee first came to our shores, What the nature of the divine drink is, what its use, How it brings ready aid to man against every kind of evils, I shall here begin to tell in simple verse.

You soft-spoken men, who have often tried the sweetness of this drink, If it has never deceived your wishes or mocked your hopes With its empty results, be propitious and lend a willing ear to our song. And may you, O Phoebus, kindly be present, to acknowledge As your gift the power of herbs and healthful plants, and to Dispel sad diseases from our bodies; for they say you are The author of this blessing, and may you spread your Gifts among peoples, and everywhere far and wide throughout the entire world.

Across Libya afar, and the seven mouths of the swollen Nile, Where Asia most joyfully spreads in immense fields Rich in various resources and filled with fragrant woods, A region extends. The Sabeans of old inhabited it. I believe indeed Nature, that best parent of all things, Loved this place more than all others with a tender love. Here the air of Heaven always breathes more mildly. The sun has a gentler power; here are flowers of a different clime; And the earth with fertile bosom brings forth various fruits, Cinnamon, casia, myrrh, and fragrant thyme. Amid the resources and gifts of this blessed land, Turned to the sun and the warm south winds, A tree spontaneously lifts itself into the upper air. Growing nowhere else, and unknown in earlier centuries, By no means great in size, it stretches not far its Spreading branches, nor lifts a lofty top to heaven; But lowly, after the manner of myrtle or pliant broom, It rises from the ground. Many a nut bends its rich branches. Small, like a bean, dark and dull in color, Marked by a slight groove in the centre of its hull.

To transplant this growth to our own fields Many have tried, and to cultivate it with great care. In vain; for the plant has not responded to the zeal And desires of the planters, and has rendered vain their long labor; Before day the root of the tender herb has withered away. Either this has happened through fault of climate, or grudging Earth refuses to furnish fit nourishment to the foreign plant.

Therefore come thou, whoever shall be possesed by a love for coffee, Do not regret having brought the healthful bean from the far Remote world of Arabia; for this is its bountiful mother country. The soothing draught first flowed from those regions through other Peoples; thence through all Europe and Asia, and next made its way through the entire world.

Therefore, what you shall know to be sufficient for your needs, Do you prepare long beforehand; let it be your care to have collected Yearly a copious store, and providently fill small granaries, As of yore the farmer, early mindful and provident of the future, Collected crops from his fields and garnered them in his barns, And turned his attention to the coming year.

None the less, meanwhile, must the utensils for coffee be cared for. Let not vessels suited for drinking the beverage be lacking, And a pot, whose narrow neck should be topped by a small cover And whose body should swell gradually into an oblong shape. When these things shall have been provided by you, let your Next care be to roast well the beans with flames, and to grind them when roasted. Nor should the hammer cease to crush them with many a blow, Until they lay aside their hardness, and when thoroughly ground, Become fine powder; which forthwith pack either in a bag or a box made for such uses. And wrap it in leather, and smear it over with soft wax, lest Narrow chinks be open, or hidden channels. Unless you prevent these, by a secret path gradually small Particles and whatever of value exists, and the entire strength, Would leave, wasting into empty air.



There is also a hollow machine, like a small tower, which they Call a mill, in which you can bruise the useful fruit of the Roasted bean and crush it with frequent rubbing; A revolving pivot in the middle, on an easy wheel turning, Twists its metal joints on a creaking stem. The top of the wheel, you know, is pierced with an ivory handle Which will have to be turned by hand, through a thousand revolutions, And through a thousand circles it moves the pivot. When you put a kernel in, you will turn the handle with quick hand— No delay—and you will wonder how the crackling kernel is With much grinding quickly reduced to a powder. Once only the lower compartment receives on its kindly bosom The crushed grains, which are placed in the very depths of the box.

But why do we linger over these less important matters? Greater things call us. Then is it time to drain the sweet Draught, either under the new light of the early sun In the morning, when an empty stomach demands food; Or, when, after the splendid feasts of a magnificent table The overburdened stomach suffers from too heavy load, and Unequal to the demands made upon it, seeks the aid of external heat. Then come, when now the pot grows ruddy in the fire Crackling beneath, and you shall behold the liquid, swelling With mingled powdered coffee, now bubble around the brim, Draw it from the fire. Unless you should do this, the force of The water would break forth suddenly, overflowing, and would Sprinkle the beverage on the fire beneath. Therefore, let no such accident disturb your joys. You should keep watch carefully when the water no longer Restrains itself and bubbles with the heat; then return The pot to the fire thrice and four times, until the powdered Coffee steams in the midst of the fire and blends thoroughly with the surrounding water.

This soothing drink ought to be boiled with skill, to be drunk With art—not in the way men are wont to drink other beverages—And with reason; for when you shall have taken it steaming from A quick fire, and gradually all the dregs have settled to the Very bottom, you shall not drink it impatiently at one gulp. But rather, sip it little by little, and between draughts Contrive pleasant delays; and sipping, drain it in long draughts, So long as it is still hot and burns the palate. For then it is better, then it permeates our inmost bones, and Penetrating within to the center of our vitals and our marrow, It pervades all our body with its vivifying strength. Often even merely inhaling the odor with their nostrils, men Have welcomed it, when it has bubbled up from the bottom, More refreshing than the breeze. So much pleasure is there in a delicious odor.

And now there remains awaiting us the other part of our task, To make known the secret strength of the divine draught. But who could hope to understand this wonderful blessing Or to be able to pursue so great a miracle in verse? For really, when coffee has quietly glided into your body, Taking itself within, it sheds a vital warmth through your Limbs, and inspires joyous strength in your heart. Then if There is anything undigested, with fire's help, it heats the Hidden channels, and loosens the thin pores, through which the Useless moisture exudes, and seeds of diseases flee from all your veins.

Wherefore come, O you who have a care for your health! You, whose triple chin hangs on your breast, Who drag your heavy stomach of great bulk, It is fitting for you, first of all, to indulge in the warm Beverage; for indeed it will dry the hideous flow of moisture Which oppresses your limbs, and sends forth streams of perspiration from your whole body. And in a short time, the swelling of your fat belly will Gradually begin to decrease, and it will lighten your members, now oppressed by their heavy weight.

O happy peoples, on whom Titan, rising, looks with his first light! Here, a rather free use of wine has never done harm. Law and religion forbid us to quaff the flowing wine. Here one lives on coffee. Here, then, flourishing with joyous strength One pursues life and knows not what diseases are, Nor that child of Bacchus and companion of high living—Gout; Nor what innumerable diseases through this union are ready to attack our world.

Yet, indeed, the soothing power of this invigorating drink Drives sad cares from the heart, and exhilarates the spirits. I have seen a man, when he had not yet drained a mighty Draught of this sweet nectar, walk silently with slow gait, His brow sad, and forehead rough with forbidding wrinkles. This same man who had hardly bathed his throat with the sweet Drink—no delay—clouds fled from his wrinkled brow; and He took pleasure in teasing all with his witty sayings. Nor yet did he pursue any one with bitter laughter. For this Harmless drink inspires no desire of offending, the venom Is lacking, and pleasant laughter without bitterness pleases.

And in the entire East this custom of coffee drinking Has been accepted. And, now, France; you adopt the foreign custom, So that public shops, one after the other, are opened for Drinking Coffee. A hanging sign of either ivy or laurel invites the passers-by. Hither in crowds from the entire city they assemble, and While away the time in pleasant drinking. And when once the feelings have grown warm, acted upon by The gentle heat, then good-humored laughter, and pleasant Arguments increase. General gaiety ensues, the places about resound with joyous applause. But never does the liquid imbibed overpower weary minds, but Rather, if ever slumber presses their heavy eyes and dulls The brain; and their strength, blunted, grows torpid in the Body, coffee puts sleep to flight from the eyes, and slothful inactivity from the whole frame. Therefore to absorb the sweet draught would be an advantage For those whom a great deal of long-continued labor awaits And those who need to extend their study far into the night.

And here I shall make known who taught the use of this pleasant Drink; for its virtue, unknown, has lain hidden through many Years; and reviewing, I shall relate the matter from the very beginning.

An Arab shepherd was driving his young goats to the well-known Pastures. They were wandering through lonely wastes and cropping The grasses, when a tree heavy with many berries—never seen before—met their eyes. At once, as they were able to reach the low branches, they began To pull off the leaves with many a nibble, and to pluck the tender Growth. Its bitterness attracts. The shepherd, not knowing this, Was meanwhile singing on the soft grass and telling the story of his loves to the woods. But when the evening star, rising, warned him to leave the field, And he led back his well-fed flock to their stalls, he perceived That the beasts did not close their eyes in sweet sleep, but Joyous beyond their wont, with wonderful delight throughout the Whole night jumped about with wanton leaps. Trembling with sudden Fear, the shepherd stood amazed; and crazed by the sound, he Thought these things were being done through some wicked trick of a neighbor, or by magic art.

Not far from here a holy band of brethren had built their Humble home in a remote valley; their lot it was to chant Praises of God, and to load his altars with fitting gifts. Although throughout the night the deep-toned bell resounded With great din, and summoned them to the sacred temple, often The coming of dawn found them lingering on their couches, Having forgotten to rise in the middle of the night. So great was their love of sleep!

In charge of the sacred temple, revered and obeyed by his Willing brethren, was the master, an aged man, a heavy mass of white hair on head and chin. The shepherd, hastening, came to him and told him the story, Imploring his aid. The old man smiled to himself; but He agreed to go, and investigate the hidden cause of the miracle.

When he has come to the hills, he observes the lambs, together With their mothers, gnawing the berries of an unknown plant, And cries, "This is the cause of the trouble!" And saying no More, he at once picks the smooth fruit from the heavily-laden Tree, and carries it home, places it, when washed, in pure Water, cooking it over the fire, and fearlessly drinks a large Cup of it. Forthwith a warmth pervades his veins, a living Force is diffused through his limbs, and weariness is dispelled from his aged body. Then, at length, the old man exulting in the blessing thus found, Rejoices, and kindly shares with all his brothers. They eagerly At early night-fall, indulge in pleasant banquets and drain great bowls. No longer is it hard for them to break off sweet sleep and to leave their soft beds as formerly. O fortunate ones! whose hearts the sweet draught has often Bathed. No sluggish torpor holds their minds, they briskly Rise for their prescribed duties and rejoice to outstrip the rays of the first light.

You also, whose care it is to feed minds with divine eloquence And to terrify with your words the souls of the guilty, you also Should indulge in the pleasant drink; for, as you know, it Strengthens weakness. Keen vigor is gained for the limbs from This source, and spreads through the whole body. From this source, Too, shall come new strength and new power to your voice. You also, whom oft harmful vapors harass, whose sick brain the dangerous vertigo shakes, Ah, come! In this sweet liquid is a ready medicine And none other better to calm undue agitation. Apollo planted this power for himself, they say, The story is worthy to be sung.

Once a disease most deadly to life assailed the disciples of Apollo's Mount. It spread far and wide, and attacked the brain itself. Already all the people of genius were suffering with this Disease; and the arts, deserted, were languishing along with The workers. Some even pretended to have the disease, and Assuming feigned suffering, gave themselves over to an idle life. Unpleasing work grew distasteful, and deadly inertia increased Everywhere. It pleased all, now released from work and labors, To indulge in care-free quiet. Apollo, full of indignation, did not endure longer that the deadly Contagion of such easy ruin should creep over them thus. And, That he might take away from seers all means of deception, he Enticed from the rich bosom of the earth this friendly plant, Than which no other is more ready either to refresh for work the Mind wearied by long studies, or to sooth troublesome sorrows of the head.

O plant, given to the human race by the gift of the Gods! No other out of the entire list of plants has ever vied with you. On your account sailors sail from our shores And fearlessly conquer the threatening winds, sandbanks and Dreadful rocks. With your nourishing growth you surpass dittany, Ambrosia, and fragrant panacea. Grim diseases flee from you. To You trusting health clings as a companion, and also the merry Crowd, conversation, amusing jokes, and sweet whisperings.

The poet Belighi toward the close of the sixteenth century composed a poem, which, freely translated, runs:

In Damascus, in Aleppo, in great Cairo, At every turn is to be found That mild fruit which gives so beloved a drink, Before coming to court to triumph. There this seditious disturber of the world, Has, by its unparalleled virtue, Supplanted all wines from this blessed day.

Jacques Delille (1738-1813) the didactic poet of nature, in chant vi of his "Three Reigns of Nature," thus apostrophizes the "divine nectar" and describes its preparation:

DIVINE COFFEE

Translation from the French

A liquid there is to the poet most dear, 'T was lacking to Virgil, adored by Voltaire, 'T is thou, divine coffee, for thine is the art, Without turning the head yet to gladden the heart. And thus though my palate be dulled by age, With joy I partake of thy dear beverage. How glad I prepare me thy nectar most precious, No soul shall usurp me a rite so delicious; On the ambient flame when the black charcoal burns, The gold of thy bean to rare ebony turns, I alone, 'gainst the cone, wrought with fierce iron teeth. Make thy fruitage cry out with its bitter-sweet breath; Till charmed with such perfume, with care I entrust To the pot on my hearth the rare spice-laden dust: First to calm, then excite, till it seethingly whirls, With an eye all attention I gaze till it boils. At last now the liquid comes slow to repose; In the hot, smoking vessel its wealth I depose, My cup and thy nectar; from wild reeds expressed, America's honey my table has blest; All is ready; Japan's gay enamel invites— And the tribute of two worlds thy prestige unites: Come, Nectar divine, inspire thou me, I wish but Antigone, dessert and thee; For scarce have I tasted thy odorous steam, When quick from thy clime, soothing warmths round me stream, Attentive my thoughts rise and flow light as air, Awaking my senses and soothing my care. Ideas that but late moved so dull and depressed, Behold, they come smiling in rich garments dressed! Some genius awakes me, my course is begun; For I drink with each drop a bright ray of the sun.

Maumenet addressed to Galland the following verses:

If slumber, friend, too near, with some late glass should creep— Dull, poppy-perfumed sleep— If a too fumous wine confounds at length thy brain— Take coffee then—this juice divine Shall banish sleep and steam of vap'rous wine, And with its timely aid fresh vigor thou shalt find.

Castel, in his poem, Les Plantes (The Plants) could not omit the coffee trees of the tropics. He thus addressed them in 1811:

Bright plants, the favorites of Phoebus, In these climes the rarest virtues offer, Delicious Mocha, thy sap, enchantress, Awakens genius, outvalues Parnasse!

In a collection of the Songs of Brittany in the Brest library there are many stanzas in praise of coffee. A Breton poet has composed a little piece of ninety-six verses in which he describes the powerful attraction that coffee has for women and the possible effects on domestic happiness. The first time that coffee was used in Brittany, says an old song of that country, only the nobility drank it, and now all the common people are using it, yet the greater part of them have not even bread.

A French poet of the eighteenth century produced the following:

LINES ON COFFEE

Translation from the French

Good coffee is more than a savory cup, Its aroma has power to dry liquor up. By coffee you get upon leaving the table A mind full of wisdom, thoughts lucid, nerves stable; And odd tho' it be, 't is none the less true, Coffee's aid to digestion permits dining anew. And what 's very true, tho' few people know it, Fine coffee 's the basis of every fine poet; For many a writer as windy as Boreas Has been vastly improved by the drink ever glorious. Coffee brightens the dullness of heavy philosophy, And opens the science of mighty geometry. Our law-makers, too, when the nectar imbibing, Plan wondrous reforms, quite beyond the describing; The odor of coffee they delight in inhaling, And promise the country to alter laws ailing. From the brow of the scholar coffee chases the wrinkles, And mirth in his eyes like a firefly twinkles; And he, who before was but a hack of old Homer, Becomes an original, and that 's no misnomer. Observe the astronomer who 's straining his eyes In watching the planets which soar thro' the skies; Alas, all those bright bodies seem hopelessly far Till coffee discloses his own guiding star. But greatest of wonders that coffee effects Is to aid the news-editor as he little expects; Coffee whispers the secrets of hidden diplomacy, Hints rumors of wars and of scandals so racy. Inspiration by coffee must be nigh unto magic, For it conjures up facts that are certainly tragic; And for a few pennies, coffee's small price per cup, "Ye editor's" able to swallow the Universe up.

Esmenard celebrated Captain de Clieu's romantic voyage to Martinique with the coffee plants from the Jardin des Plantes, in some admirable verses quoted in chapter II.

Among other notable poetic flights in praise of coffee produced in France mention should be made of: "L'Eloge du Cafe" (Eulogy of Coffee) a song in twenty-four couplets, Paris, Jacques Estienne, 1711; Le Cafe (Coffee), a fragment from the fourth chant (song) of La Grandeur de Dieu dans les merveilles de la Nature (The Grandeur of God in the Wonders of Nature) Marseilles; Le Cafe, extract from the fourth gastronomic song, by Berchoux; "A Mon Cafe" (To My Coffee), stanzas written by Ducis; Le Cafe, anonymous stanzas inserted in the Macedoine Poetique, 1824; a poem in Latin in the Abbe Olivier's collection; Le Bouquet Blanc et le Bouquet Noir, poesie en quatre chants; Le Cafe, C.D. Mery, 1837; Eloge du Cafe, S. Melaye, 1852.

Many Italian poets have sung the praises of coffee. L. Barotti wrote his poem, Il Caffe in 1681. Giuseppe Parini (1729-1799), Italy's great satirical and lyric poet and critic of the eighteenth century, in Il Giorno (The Day), gives a delightful pen picture of the manners and customs of Milan's polite society of the period. William Dean Howells quotes as follows from these poems (his own translation) in his Modern Italian Poets. The feast is over, and the lady signals to the cavalier that it is time to leave the table:

Spring to thy feet The first of all, and, drawing near thy lady, Remove her chair and offer her thy hand, And lead her to the other room, nor suffer longer That the stale reek of viands shall offend Her delicate sense. Thee with the rest invites The grateful odor of the coffee, where It smokes upon a smaller table hid And graced with Indian webs. The redolent gums That meanwhile burn, sweeten and purify The heavy atmosphere, and banish thence All lingering traces of the feast. Ye sick And poor, whom misery or whom hope, perchance! Has guided in the noonday to these doors. Tumultuous, naked, and unsightly throng, With mutilated limbs and squalid faces, In litters and on crutches from afar Comfort yourselves, and with expanded nostrils Drink in the nectar of the feast divine That favourable zephyrs waft to you; But do not dare besiege these noble precincts, Importunately offering her that reigns Within your loathsome spectacle of woe! And now, sir, 't is your office to prepare The tiny cup that then shall minister, Slow sipped, its liquor to thy lady's lips; And now bethink thee whether she prefer The boiling beverage much or little tempered With sweet; or if, perchance, she likes it best, As doth the barbarous spouse, then when she sits Upon brocades of Persia, with light fingers, The bearded visage of her lord caressing.

This is from Il Mezzogiorno (Noon). The other three poems, rounding out The Day, are Il Mattino (Morning), Il Vespre (Evening), and La Notte (Night). In Il Mattino, Parini sings:

Should dreary hypochondria's woes oppress thee, Should round thy charming limbs in too great measure Thy flesh increase, then with thy lips do honor To that clear beverage, made from the well-bronzed, The smoking, ardent beans Aleppo sends thee, And distant Mocha too, a thousand ship-loads; When slowly sipped it knows no rival.

Belli's Il Caffe supplies a partial bibliography of the Italian literature on coffee. There are many poems, some of them put to music. As late as 1921, there were published in Bologna some advertising verses on coffee by G.B. Zecchini with music by Cesare Cantino.

Pope Leo XIII, in his Horatian poem on Frugality composed in his eighty-eighth year, thus verses his appreciation of coffee:

Last comes the beverage of the Orient shore, Mocha, far off, the fragrant berries bore. Taste the dark fluid with a dainty lip, Digestion waits on pleasure as you sip.

Peter Altenberg, a Vienna poet, thus celebrated the cafes of his native city:

TO THE COFFEE HOUSE!

When you are worried, have trouble of one sort or another—to the coffee house! When she did not keep her appointment, for one reason or other—to the coffee house! When your shoes are torn and dilapidated—coffee house! When your income is four hundred crowns and you spend five hundred—coffee house! You are a chair warmer in some office, while your ambition led you to seek professional honors—coffee house! You could not find a mate to suit you—coffee house! You feel like committing suicide—coffee house! You hate and despise human beings, and at the same time you can not be happy without them—coffee house! You compose a poem which you can not inflict upon friends you meet in the street—coffee house! When your coal scuttle is empty, and your gas ration exhausted—coffee house! When you need money for cigarettes, you touch the head waiter in the—coffee house! When you are locked out and haven't the money to pay for unlocking the house door—coffee house! When you acquire a new flame, and intend provoking the old one, you take the new one to the old one's—coffee house! When you feel like hiding you dive into a—coffee house! When you want to be seen in a new suit—coffee house! When you can not get anything on trust anywhere else—coffee house!

English poets from Milton to Keats celebrated coffee. Milton (1608-1674) in his Comus thus acclaimed the beverage:

One sip of this Will bathe the drooping spirits in delight Beyond the bliss of dreams.

Alexander Pope, poet and satirist (1688-1744), has the oft-quoted lines:

Coffee which makes the politician wise, And see through all things with his half-shut eyes.

In Carruthers' Life of Pope, we read that this poet inhaled the steam of coffee in order to obtain relief from the headaches to which he was subject. We can well understand the inspiration which called forth from him the following lines when he was not yet twenty:

As long as Mocha's happy tree shall grow, While berries crackle, or while mills shall go; While smoking streams from silver spouts shall glide, Or China's earth receive the sable tide, While coffee shall to British nymphs be dear, While fragrant steams the bended head shall cheer, Or grateful bitters shall delight the taste, So long her honors, name and praise shall last.

Pope's famous Rape of the Lock grew out of coffee-house gossip. The poem contains the passage on coffee already quoted:

For lo! the board with cups and spoons is crowned; The berries crackle and the mill turns round; On shining altars of Japan they raise The silver lamp: the fiery spirits blaze: From silver spouts the grateful liquors glide, While China's earth receives the smoking tide. At once they gratify their scent and taste. And frequent cups prolong the rich repast Straight hover round the fair her airy band; Some, as she sipped, the fuming liquor fanned: Some o'er her lap their careful plumes displayed, Trembling, and conscious of the rich brocade. Coffee (which makes the politician wise, And see through all things with his half-shut eyes.) Sent up in vapors to the baron's brain New stratagems, the radiant lock to gain.

Pope often broke the slumbers of his servant at night by calling him to prepare a cup of coffee; but for regular serving, it was his custom to grind and to prepare it upon the table.

William Cowper's fine tribute to "the cups that cheer but not inebriate", a phrase which he is said to have borrowed from Bishop Berkeley, was addressed to tea and not to coffee, to which it has not infrequently been wrongfully attributed. It is one of the most pleasing pictures in The Task.

Cowper refers to coffee but once in his writings. In his Pity for Poor Africans he expresses himself as "shocked at the ignorance of slaves":

I pity them greatly, but I must be mum For how could we do without sugar and rum? Especially sugar, so needful we see; What! Give up our desserts, our coffee and tea?

thus contenting himself, like many others, with words of pity where more active protest might sacrifice his personal ease and comfort.

Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), and John Keats (1795-1834), were worshippers at the shrine of coffee; while Charles Lamb, famous poet, essayist, humorist, and critic, has celebrated in verse the exploit of Captain de Clieu in the following delightful verses:

THE COFFEE SLIPS

Whene'er I fragrant coffee drink, I on the generous Frenchman think, Whose noble perseverance bore The tree to Martinico's shore. While yet her colony was new, Her island products but a few; Two shoots from off a coffee tree He carried with him o'er the sea. Each little tender coffee slip He waters daily in the ship. And as he tends his embryo trees. Feels he is raising 'midst the seas Coffee groves, whose ample shade Shall screen the dark Creolian maid. But soon, alas! His darling pleasure In watching this his precious treasure Is like to fade—for water fails On board the ship in which he sails. Now all the reservoirs are shut. The crew on short allowance put; So small a drop is each man's share. Few leavings you may think there are To water these poor coffee plants— But he supplies their grasping wants, Even from his own dry parched lips He spares it for his coffee slips. Water he gives his nurslings first, Ere he allays his own deep thirst, Lest, if he first the water sip, He bear too far his eager lip. He sees them droop for want of more; Yet when they reach the destined shore, With pride the heroic gardener sees A living sap still in his trees. The islanders his praise resound; Coffee plantations rise around; And Martinico loads her ships With produce from those dear-saved slips.

In John Keats' amusing fantasy, Cap and Bells, the Emperor Elfinan greets Hum, the great soothsayer, and offers him refreshment:

"You may have sherry in silver, hock in gold, or glass'd champagne ... what cup will you drain?"

"Commander of the Faithful!" answered Hum, "In preference to these, I'll merely taste A thimble-full of old Jamaica rum." "A simple boon," said Elfinan; "thou mayst Have Nantz, with which my morning coffee's laced."

But Hum accepts the glass of Nantz, without the coffee, "made racy with the third part of the least drop of creme de citron, crystal clear."

Numerous broadsides printed in London, 1660 to 1675, have been referred to in chapter X. Few of them possess real literary merit.

"Coffee and Crumpets" has been much quoted. It was published in Fraser's Magazine, in 1837. Its author calls himself "Launcelot Littledo". The poem is quite long, and only those portions are printed here that refer particularly to "Yemen's fragrant berry":

COFFEE AND CRUMPETS

By Launcelot Littledo of Pump Court, Temple, Barrister-at-law.

There's ten o'clock! From Hampstead to the Tower The bells are chanting forth a lusty carol; Wrangling, with iron tongues, about the hour, Like fifty drunken fishwives at a quarrel; Cautious policemen shun the coming shower; Thompson and Fearon tap another barrel; "Dissolve frigus, lignum super foco. Large reponens." Now, come Orinoco!

To puff away an hour, and drink a cup, A brimming breakfast-cup of ruddy Mocha— Clear, luscious, dark, like eyes that lighten up The raven hair, fair cheek, and bella boca Of Florence maidens. I can never sup Of perigourd, but (guai a chi la tocca!) I'm doomed to indigestion. So to settle This strife eternal,—Betty, bring the kettle!

Coffee! oh, Coffee! Faith, it is surprising. 'Mid all the poets, good, and bad, and worse. Who've scribbled (Hock or Chian eulogizing) Post and papyrus with "Immortal verse"— Melodiously similitudinising In Sapphics languid or Alcaics terse No one, my little brown Arabian berry,. Hath sung thy praises—'tis surprising! very!

Were I a poet now, whose ready rhymes. Like Tommy Moore's, came tripping to their places— Reeling along a merry troll of chimes, With careless truth,—a dance of fuddled Graces; Hear it—Gazette, Post, Herald, Standard, Times, I'd write an epic! Coffee for its basis; Sweet as e'er warbled forth from cockney throttles Since Bob Montgomery's or Amos Cottle's.

Thou sleepy-eyed Chinese—enticing siren, Pekoe! the Muse hath said in praise of thee, "That cheers but not inebriates"; and Byron Hath called thy sister "Queen of Tears", Bohea! And he, Anacreon of Rome's age of iron, Says, how untruly "Quis non potius te." While coffee, thou—bill-plastered gables say, Art like old Cupid, "roasted every day."

I love, upon a rainy night, as this is, When rarely and more rare the coaches rattle From street to street, to sip thy fragrant kisses; While from the Strand remote some drunken battle Far-faintly echoes, and the kettle hisses Upon the glowing hob. No tittle-tattle To make a single thought of mine an alien From thee, my coffee-pot, my fount Castalian.

The many intervening verses cover an unhappy termination to an otherwise delightful ball. He is sitting with his charming "Mary", about to ask her to be his bride, when the unfortunate overturning of a glass of red wine into her white satin gown, at the same time overthrows all his dreams of bliss, "for the shrew displaces the angel he adored", and he resigns himself to the life of "a man in chambers."

'Tis thus I sit and sip, and sip and think. And think and sip again, and dip in Fraser, A health, King Oliver! to thee I drink: Long may the public have thee to amaze her. Like Figaro, thou makest one's eyelids wink, Twirling on practised palm thy polished razor— True Horace temper, smoothed on attic strop; Ah! thou couldst "faire la barbe a tout l'Europe."

* * * * *

Come, Oliver, and tell us what the news is; An easy chair awaits thee—come and fill 't. Come, I invoke thee, as they do the muses, And thou shalt choose thy tipple as thou wilt. And if thy lips my sober cup refuses, For ruddier drops the purple grape has spilt, We can sing, sipping in alternate verses, Thy drink and mine, like Corydon and Thyrsis.

* * * * *

Fill the bowl, but not with wine. Potent port, or fiery sherry; For this milder cup of mine Crush me Yemen's fragrant berry.

* * * * *

Gentle is the grape's deep cluster, But the wine's a wayward child; Nectar this! of meeker lustre— This the cup that "draws it mild." Deeply drink its streams divine— Fill the cup, but not with wine.

Prior and Montague inserted the following poetic vignette in their City Mouse and Country Mouse, written in burlesque of Dryden's Hind and Panther:

Then on they jogg'd; and since an hour of talk Might cut a banter on the tedious walk, As I remember, said the sober mouse, I've heard much talk of the Wits' Coffee-house; Thither, says Brindle, thou shalt go and see Priests supping coffee, sparks and poets tea; Here rugged frieze, there quality well drest, These baffling the grand Senior, those the Test, And there shrewd guesses made, and reasons given, That human laws were never made in heaven; But, above all, what shall oblige thy sight, And fill thy eyeballs with a vast delight, Is the poetic judge of sacred wit, Who does i' th' darkness of his glory sit; And as the moon who first receives the light, With which she makes these nether regions bright, So does he shine, reflecting from afar The rays he borrowed from a better star; For rules, which from Corneille and Rapin flow, Admired by all the scribbling herd below, From French tradition while he does dispense Unerring truths, 't is schism, a damned offense, To question his, or trust your private sense.

Geoffrey Sephton, an English poet and novelist, many years resident in Vienna, whose fantastic stories and fairy tales are well known in Europe, has written the following sonnets on coffee:

TO THE MIGHTY MONARCH, KING KAUHEE[350]

By Geoffrey Sephton

I

Away with opiates! Tantalising snares To dull the brain with phantoms that are not. Let no such drugs the subtle senses rot With visions stealing softly unawares Into the chambers of the soul. Nightmares Ride in their wake, the spirits to besot. Seek surer means, to banish haunting cares: Place on the board the steaming Coffee-pot! O'er luscious fruit, dessert and sparkling flask, Let proudly rule as King the Great Kauhee, For he gives joy divine to all that ask, Together with his spouse, sweet Eau de Vie Oh, let us 'neath his sovran pleasure bask. Come, raise the fragrant cup and bend the knee!

II

O great Kauhee, thou democratic Lord, Born 'neath the tropic sun and bronzed to splendour In lands of Wealth and Wisdom, who can render Such service to the wandering Human Horde As thou at every proud or humble board? Beside the honest workman's homely fender, 'Mid dainty dames and damsels sweetly tender, In china, gold and silver, have we poured Thy praise and sweetness, Oriental King. Oh, how we love to hear the kettle sing In joy at thy approach, embodying The bitter, sweet and creamy sides of life; Friend of the People, Enemy of Strife, Sons of the Earth have born thee labouring.

In America, too, poets have sung in praise of coffee. The somewhat doubtful "kind that mother used to make" is celebrated in James Whitcomb Riley's classic poem:

LIKE HIS MOTHER USED TO MAKE[351]

"Uncle Jake's Place," St. Jo., Mo., 1874.

"I was born in Indiany," says a stranger, lank and slim, As us fellers in the restaurant was kindo' guyin' him, And Uncle Jake was slidin' him another punkin pie And a' extry cup o' coffee, with a twinkle in his eye— "I was born in Indiany—more'n forty years ago— And I hain't ben back in twenty—and I'm work-in' back'ards slow; But I've et in ever' restarunt twixt here and Santy Fee, And I want to state this coffee tastes like gittin' home, to me!" "Pour us out another. Daddy," says the feller, warmin' up, A-speakin' crost a saucerful, as Uncle tuk his cup— "When I see yer sign out yander," he went on, to Uncle Jake— "'Come in and git some coffee like yer mother used to make'— I thought of my old mother, and the Posey county farm, And me a little kid again, a-hangin' in her arm, As she set the pot a-bilin', broke the eggs and poured 'em in"— And the feller kindo' halted, with a trimble in his chin; And Uncle Jake he fetched the feller's coffee back, and stood As solemn, fer a minute, as a' undertaker would; Then he sorto' turned and tiptoed to'rds the kitchen door—and next, Here comes his old wife out with him, a-rubbin' of her specs— And she rushes fer the stranger, and she hollers out, "It's him!— Thank God we've met him comin'!—Don't you know yer mother, Jim?" And the feller, as he grabbed her, says,—"You bet I hain't forgot— But," wipin' of his eyes, says he, "yer coffee's mighty hot!"

One of the most delightful coffee poems in English is Francis Saltus' (d. 1889) sonnet on "the voluptuous berry", as found in Flasks and Flagons:

COFFEE

Voluptuous berry! Where may mortals find Nectars divine that can with thee compare, When, having dined, we sip thy essence rare, And feel towards wit and repartee inclined?

Thou wert of sneering, cynical Voltaire, The only friend; thy power urged Balzac's mind To glorious effort; surely Heaven designed Thy devotees superior joys to share.

Whene'er I breathe thy fumes, 'mid Summer stars, The Orient's splendent pomps my vision greet. Damascus, with its myriad minarets, gleams! I see thee, smoking, in immense bazaars, Or yet, in dim seraglios, at the feet Of blond Sultanas, pale with amorous dreams!

Arthur Gray, in Over the Black Coffee (1902) has made the following contribution to the poetry of coffee, with an unfortunate reflection on tea, which might well have been omitted:

COFFEE

O, boiling, bubbling, berry, bean! Thou consort of the kitchen queen— Browned and ground of every feature, The only aromatic creature, For which we long, for which we feel, The breath of morn, the perfumed meal.

For what is tea? It can but mean, Merely the mildest go-between. Insipid sobriety of thought and mind It "cuts no figure"—we can find— Save peaceful essays, gentle walks, Purring cats, old ladies' talks—

* * * * *

But coffee! can other tales unfold. Its history's written round and bold— Brave buccaneers upon the "Spanish Main", The army's march across the lenght'ning plain, The lone prospector wandering o'er the hill, The hunter's camp, thy fragrance all distill.

So here's a health to coffee! Coffee hot! A morning toast! Bring on another pot.

The Tea and Coffee Trade Journal published in 1909 the following excellent stanzas by William A. Price:

AN ODE TO COFFEE

Oh, thou most fragrant, aromatic joy, impugned, abused, and often stormed against, And yet containing all the blissfulness that in a tiny cup could be condensed! Give thy contemners calm, imperial scorn— For thou wilt reign through ages yet unborn!

Some ancient Arab, so the legend tells, first found thee—may his memory be blest! The world-wide sign of brotherhood today, the binding tie between the East and West! Good coffee pleases in a Persian dell, And Blackfeet Indians make it more than well.

The lonely traveler in the desert range, if thou art with him, smiles at eventide— The sailor, as thy perfume bubbles forth, laughs at the ocean as it rages wide— And where the camps of fighting men are found Thy fragrance hovers o'er each battleground.

"Use, not abuse, the good things of this life"—that is a motto from the Prophet's days, And, dealing with thee thus, we ne'er shall come to troublous times or parting of the ways. Comfort and solace both endure with thee, Rich, royal berry of the coffee tree!

The New York Tribune published in 1915 the following lines by Louis Untermeyer, which were subsequently included in his "—— and Other Poets."[352]

GILBERT K. CHESTERTON RISES TO THE TOAST OF COFFEE

Strong wine it is a mocker; strong wine it is a beast. It grips you when it starts to rise; it is the Fabled Yeast. You should not offer ale or beer from hops that are freshly picked, Nor even Benedictine to tempt a benedict. For wine has a spell like the lure of hell, and the devil has mixed the brew; And the friends of ale are a sort of pale and weary, witless crew— And the taste of beer is a sort of a queer and undecided brown— But, comrades, I give you coffee—drink it up, drink it down. With a fol-de-rol-dol and a fol-de-rol-dee, etc.

Oh, cocoa's the drink for an elderly don who lives with an elderly niece; And tea is the drink for studios and loud and violent peace— And brandy's the drink that spoils the clothes when the bottle breaks in the trunk; But coffee's the drink that is drunken by men who will never be drunk. So, gentlemen, up with the festive cup, where Mocha and Java unite; It clears the head when things are said too brilliant to be bright! It keeps the stars from the golden bars and the lips of the tipsy town; So, here's to strong, black coffee—drink it up, drink it down! With a fol-de-rol-dol and a fol-de-rol-dee, etc.

The American breakfast cup is celebrated in up-to-date American style in the following by Helen Rowland in the New York Evening World:

WHAT EVERY WIFE KNOWS

Give me a man who drinks good, hot, dark, strong coffee for breakfast! A man who smokes a good, dark, fat cigar after dinner! You may marry your milk-faddist, or your anti-coffee crank, as you will! But I know the magic of the coffee pot! Let me make my Husband's coffee—and I care not who makes eyes at him! Give me two matches a day— One to start the coffee with, at breakfast, and one for his cigar, after dinner! And I defy all the houris in Christendom to light a new flame in his heart!

Oh, sweet supernal coffee-pot! Gentle panacea of domestic troubles, Faithful author of that sweet nepenthe which deadens all the ills that married folks are heir to. Cheery, glittering, soul-soothing, warmed hearted, inanimate friend! What wife can fail to admit the peace and serenity she owes to you? To you, who stand between her and all her early morning troubles— Between her and the before-breakfast grouch— Between her and the morning-after headache— Between her and the cold-gray-dawn scrutiny? To you, who supply the golden nectar that stimulates the jaded masculine soul, Soothes the shaky masculine nerves, stirs the fagged masculine mind, inspires the slow masculine sentiment, And starts the sluggish blood a-flowing and the whole day right!

What is it, I ask you, when he comes down to breakfast dry of mouth, and touchy of temper— That gives him pause, and silences that scintillating barb of sarcasm on the tip of his tongue, With which he meant to impale you? It is the sweet aroma of the coffee-pot—the thrilling thought of that first delicious sip!

What is it, on the morning after the club dance, That hides your weary, little, washed-out face and straggling, uncurled coiffure from his critical eyes? It is the generous coffee-pot, standing like a guardian angel between you and him! And in those many vital psychological moments, during the honeymoon, which decide for or against the romance and happiness of all the rest of married life— Those critical before-breakfast moments when temperament meets temperament, and will meets "won't"— What is it that halts you on the brink of tragedy, And distracts you from the temptation to answer back? It is the absorbing anxiety of watching the coffee boil! What is it that warms his veins and soothes your nerves, And turns all the world suddenly from a dismal gray vale of disappointment to a bright rosy garden of hope— And starts another day gliding smoothly along like a new motor car? What is it that will do more to transform a man from a fiend into an angel than baptism in the River Jordan? It is the first cup of coffee in the morning!

Coffee in Dramatic Literature

Coffee was first "dramatized", so to speak, in England, where we read that Charles II and the Duke of Yorke attended the first performance of Tarugo's Wiles, or the Coffee House, a comedy, in 1667, which Samuel Pepys described as "the most ridiculous and insipid play I ever saw in my life." The author was Thomas St. Serf. The piece opens in a lively manner, with a request on the part of its fashionable hero for a change of clothes. Accordingly, Tarugo puts off his "vest, hat, perriwig, and sword," and serves the guests to coffee, while the apprentice acts his part as a gentleman customer. Presently other "customers of all trades and professions" come dropping into the coffee house. These are not always polite to the supposed coffee-man; one complains of his coffee being "nothing but warm water boyl'd with burnt beans," while another desires him to bring "chocolette that's prepar'd with water, for I hate that which is encouraged with eggs." The pedantry and nonsense uttered by a "schollar" character is, perhaps, an unfair specimen of coffee-house talk; it is especially to be noticed that none of the guests ventures upon the dangerous ground of politics.

In the end, the coffee-master grows tired of his clownish visitors, saying plainly, "This rudeness becomes a suburb tavern rather than my coffee house"; and with the assistance of his servants he "thrusts 'em all out of doors, after the schollars and customers pay."

In 1694, there was published Jean Baptiste Rosseau's comedy, Le Caffe, which appears to have been acted only once in Paris, although a later English dramatist says it met with great applause in the French capital. Le Caffe was written in Laurent's cafe, which was frequented by Fontenelle, Houdard de la Motte, Dauchet, the abbe Alary Boindin, and others. Voltaire said that "this work of a young man without any experience either of the world of letters or of the theater seems to herald a new genius."

About this time it was the fashion for the coffee-house keepers of Paris, and the waiters, to wear Armenian costumes; for Pascal had builded better than he knew. In La Foire Saint-Germain, a comedy by Dancourt, played in 1696, one of the principal characters is old "Lorange, a coffee merchant clothed as an Armenian". In scene 5, he says to Mlle. Mousset, "a seller of house dresses" that he has been "a naturalized Armenian for three weeks."

Mrs. Susannah Centlivre (1667?-1723), in her comedy, A Bold Stroke for a Wife, produced about 1719, has a scene laid in Jonathan's coffee house about that period. While the stock jobbers are talking in the first scene of act II, the coffee boys are crying, "Fresh Coffee, gentlemen, fresh coffee?... Bohea tea, gentlemen?"

Henry Fielding (1707-1754) published "The Coffee-House Politician, or Justice caught in his own trap," a comedy, in 1730.

The Coffee House, a dramatick Piece by James Miller, was performed at the Theater Royal in Drury Lane in 1737. The interior of Dick's coffee house figured as an engraved frontispiece to the published version of the play.

The author states in the preface that "this piece is partly taken from a comedy of one act written many years ago in French by the famous Rosseau, called 'Le Caffe', which met with great applause in Paris." The coffee house in the play is conducted by the Widow Notable, who has a pretty daughter for whom, like all good mothers, she is anxious to arrange a suitable marriage.

In the first scene, an acrimonious conversation takes place between Puzzle, the Politician, and Bays, the poet, in which squabble the Pert Beau and the Solemn Beau, and other habitues of the place take part. Puzzle discovers that a comedian and other players are in the room, and insists that they be ejected or forbidden the house. The Widow is justly incensed, and indignantly replies:

Forbid the Players my House, Sir! Why, Sir, I get more by them in a Week than I do by you in seven Years. You come here and hold a paper in your hand for an Hour, disturb the whole Company with your Politics, call for Pen and Ink, Paper and Wax, beg a Pipe of Tobacco, burn out half a Candle, eat half a Pound of Sugar, and then go away, and pay Two-pence for a Dish of Coffee. I could soon shut up my doors, if I had not some other good People to make amends for what I lose by such as you, Sir.

All join the Widow in scoffing and jeering, and exit the highly discomfited Puzzle. The pretty little Kitty tricks her mother with the aid of the Player, and marries the man of her choice, but is forgiven when he is found to be a gentleman of the Temple.

The play is in one act and has several songs. The last is one of five stanzas, with music "set by Mr. Caret:"

SONG

What Pleasures a Coffee-House daily bestows! To read and hear how the World merrily goes; To laugh, sing and prattle of This, That, and T' other; And be flatter'd and ogl'd and kiss'd too, like Mother.

Here the Rake, after Roving and Tipling all Night, For his Groat in the Morning may set his Head right. And the Beau, who ne'er fouls his White fingers with Brass, May have his Sixpen' worth of—Stare in the Glass.

The Doctor, who'd always be ready to kill, May ev'ry Day here take his Stand, if he will; And the soldier, who'd bluster and challenge secure, May draw boldly here, for—we'll hold him he's sure.

The Lawyer, who's always in quest of his Prey, May find fools here to feed upon every Day; And the sage Politician, in Coffee-Grounds known, May point out the Fate of each Crown but—his own.

Then, Gallants, since ev'rything here you may find That pleasures the Fancy or profits the Mind, Come all, and take each a full Dish of Delight, And crowd up our Coffee-House every night.



John Timbs tells us this play "met with great opposition on its representation, owing to its being stated that the characters were intended for a particular family (that of Mrs. Yarrow and her daughter) who kept Dick's, the coffee-house which the artist had inadvertently selected as the frontispiece. It appears," Timbs continues, "that the landlady and her daughter were the reigning toast of the Templars, who then frequented Dick's; and took the matter up so strongly that they united to condemn the farce on the night of its production; they succeeded, and even extended their resentment to everything suspected to be this author's (the Rev. James Miller) for a considerable time after."

Carlo Goldoni, who has been called the Moliere of Italy, wrote La Bottega di Caffe, (The Coffee House), a naturalistic comedy of bourgeois Venice, satirizing scandal and gambling, in 1750. The scene is a Venetian coffee house (probably Florian's), where several actions take place simultaneously. Among several remarkable studies is one of a prattling slanderer, Don Marzio, which ranks as one of the finest bits of original character drawing the stage has ever seen. The play was produced in English by the Chicago Theatre Society in 1912. Chatfield-Taylor[353] thinks Voltaire probably imitated La Bottega di Caffe in his Le Cafe, ou l'Ecossaise. Goldoni was a lover of coffee, a regular frequenter of the coffee houses of his time, from which he drew much in the way of inspiration. Pietro Longhi, called the Venetian Hogarth, in one of his pictures presenting life and manners in Venice during the years of her decadence, shows Goldoni as a visitor in a cafe of the period, with a female mendicant soliciting alms. It is in the collection of Professor Italico Brass.

Goldoni, in the comedy The Persian Wife, gives us a glimpse of coffee making in the middle of the eighteenth century. He puts these words into the mouth of Curcuma, the slave:

Here is the coffee, ladies, coffee native of Arabia, And carried by the caravans into Ispahan. The coffee of Arabia is certainly always the best. While putting forth its leaves on one side, upon the other the flowers appear; Born of a rich soil, it wishes shade, or but little sun. Planted every three years is this little tree in the surface of the soil. The fruit, though truly very small, Should yet grow large enough to become somewhat green. Later, when used, it should be freshly ground. Kept in a warm and dry place and jealously guarded.

* * * * *

But a small quantity is needed to prepare it. Put in the desired quantity and do not spill it over the fire; Heat it till the foam rises, then let it subside again away from the fire; Do this seven times at least, and coffee is made in a moment.

In 1760 there appeared in France Le Cafe, ou l'Ecossaise, comedie, which purported to have been written by a Mr. Hume, an Englishman, and to have been translated into French. It was in reality the work of Voltaire, who had brought out another play, Socrates, in the same manner a short time before. Le Cafe, was translated into English the same year under the title The Coffee House, or Fair Fugitive. The title page says the play is written by "Mr. Voltaire" and translated from the French. It is a comedy in five acts. The principal characters are: Fabrice, a good-natured man and the keeper of the coffee house; Constantia, the fair fugitive; Sir William Woodville, a gentleman of distinction under misfortune; Belmont, in love with Constantia, a man of fortune and interest; Freeport, a merchant and an epitome of English manners; Scandal, a sharper; and Lady Alton, in love with Belmont.

Il Caffe di Campagna, a play with music by Galuppi, appeared in Italy in 1762.

Another Italian play, a comedy called La Caffettiera da Spirito was produced in 1807.

Hamilton, a play by Mary P. Hamlin and George Arliss, the latter also playing the title role, was produced in America by George C. Tyler in 1918. The first-act scene is laid in the Exchange coffee house of Philadelphia, during the period of Washington's first administration. Among the characters introduced in this scene are James Monroe, Count Tallyrand, General Philip Schuyler, and Thomas Jefferson.

The authors very faithfully reproduce the atmosphere of the coffee house of Washington's time. As Tallyrand remarks, "Everybody comes to see everybody at the Exchange Coffee House.... It is club, restaurant, merchants' exchange, everything."

The Autocrat of the Coffee Stall, a play in one act, by Harold Chapin, was published in New York in 1921.

Coffee and Literature in General

An interesting book might be written on the transformation that tea and coffee have wrought in the tastes of famous literary men. And of the two stimulants, coffee seems to have furnished greater refreshment and inspiration to most. However, both beverages have made civilization their debtor in that they weaned so many fine minds from the heavy wines and spirits in which they once indulged.

Voltaire and Balzac were the most ardent devotees of coffee among the French literati. Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832), the Scottish philosopher and statesman, was so fond of coffee that he used to assert that the powers of a man's mind would generally be found to be proportional to the quantity of that stimulant which he drank. His brilliant schoolmate and friend, Robert Hall (1764-1831), the Baptist minister and pulpit orator, preferred tea, of which he sometimes drank a dozen cups. Cowper; Parson and Parr, the famous Greek scholars; Dr. Samuel Johnson; and William Hazlitt, the writer and critic, were great tea drinkers; but Burton, Dean Swift, Addison, Steele, Leigh Hunt, and many others, celebrated coffee.

Dr. Charles B. Reed, professor in the medical school of Northwestern University, says that coffee may be considered as a type of substance that fosters genius. History seems to bear him out. Coffee's essential qualities are so well defined, says Dr. Reed, that one critic has claimed the ability to trace throughout the works of Voltaire those portions that came from coffee's inspiration. Tea and coffee promote a harmony of the creative faculties that permits the mental concentration necessary to produce the masterpieces of art and literature.

Voltaire (1694-1778) the king of wits, was also king of coffee drinkers. Even in his old age he was said to have consumed fifty cups daily. To the abstemious Balzac (1799-1850) coffee was both food and drink.

In Frederick Lawton's Balzac we read: "Balzac worked hard. His habit was to go to bed at six in the evening, sleep till twelve, and, after, to rise and write for nearly twelve hours at a stretch, imbibing coffee as a stimulant through these spells of composition."

In his Treatise on Modern Stimulants, Balzac thus describes his reaction to his most beloved stimulant:

This coffee falls into your stomach, and straightway there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move like the battalions of the Grand Army on the battlefield, and the battle takes place. Things remembered arrive at full gallop, ensign to the wind. The light cavalry of comparisons deliver a magnificent deploying charge, the artillery of logic hurry up with their train and ammunition, the shafts of wit start up like sharpshooters. Similes arise, the paper is covered with ink; for the struggle commences and is concluded with torrents of black water, just as a battle with powder.

When Balzac tells how Doctor Minoret, Ursule Minoret's guardian, used to regale his friends with a cup of "Moka," mixed with Bourbon and Martinique, which the Doctor insisted on personally preparing in a silver coffee pot, it is his own custom that he is detailing. His Bourbon he bought only in the rue Mont Blanc (now the chausse d'Antin); the Martinique, in the rue des Vielles Audriettes; the Mocha, at a grocer's in the rue de l'Universite. It was half a day's journey to fetch them.

There have been notable contributions to the general literature of coffee by French, Italian, English, and American writers. Space does not permit of more than passing mention of some of them.

The reactions of the early French and English writers have been touched upon in the chapters on the coffee houses of old London and the early Parisian coffee houses, and in the history chapters dealing with the evolution of coffee drinking and coffee manners and customs.

After Dufour, Galland, and La Roque in France, there were Count Rumford, John Timbs, Douglas Ellis, and Robinson in England; Jardin and Franklin in France; Belli in Italy; Hewitt, Thurber, and Walsh in America.

Mention has been made of coffee references in the works of Aubrey, Burton, Addison, Steele, Bacon, and D'Israeli.

Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826) the great French epicure, knew coffee as few men before him or since. In his historical elegy, contained in Gastronomy as a Fine Art, or the Science of Good Living, he exclaims:

You crossed and mitred abbots and bishops who dispensed the favors of Heaven, and you the dreaded templars who armed yourselves for the extermination of the Saracens, you knew nothing of the sweet restoring influence of our modern chocolate, nor of the thought-inspiring bean of Arabia—how I pity you!

O. de Gourcuff's De la Cafe, epitre attribue a Senece, is deserving of honorable mention.

An early French writer pays this tribute to the inspirational effects of coffee:

It is a beverage eminently agreeable, inspiring and wholesome. It is at once a stimulant, a cephalic, a febrifuge, a digestive, and an anti-soporific; it chases away sleep, which is the enemy of labor; it invokes the imagination, without which there can be no happy inspiration. It expels the gout, that enemy of pleasure, although to pleasure gout owes its birth; it facilitates digestion, without which there can be no true happiness. It disposes to gaiety, without which there is neither pleasure nor enjoyment; it gives wit to those who already have it, and it even provides wit (for some hours at least) to those who usually have it not. Thank heaven for Coffee, for see how many blessings are concentrated in the infusion of a small berry. What other beverage in the world can compare with it? Coffee, at once a pleasure and a medicine; Coffee, which nourishes at the same moment the mind, body and imagination. Hail to thee! Inspirer of men of letters, best digestive of the gourmand. Nectar of all men.

In Bologna, 1691, Angelo Rambaldi published Ambrosia arabica, caffe discorso. This work is divided into eighteen sections, and describes the origin, cultivation, and roasting of the bean, as well as telling how to prepare the beverage.

During the time that Milan was under Spanish rule, Cesare Beccaria directed and edited a publication entitled Il Caffe, which was published from June 4, 1764, to May, 1766, "edited in Brescia by Giammaria Rizzardi and undertaken by a little society of friends," according to the salutatory. Besides the Marchese Beccaria, other editors and contributors were Pietro and Alexander Verri, Baillon, Visconti, Colpani, Longhi, Albertenghi, Frisi, and Secchi. The same periodical, with the same editorial staff, was published also in Venice in the Typografia Pizzolato.

Another publication called Il Caffe, devoted to arts, letters, and science, was published in Venice in 1850-52. Still another, having the same name, a national weekly journal, was published in Milan, 1884-89.

An almanac, having the title Il Caffe, was published in Milan in 1829.

A weekly paper, called Il Caffe Pedrocchi, was published in Padua in 1846-48. It was devoted to art, literature and politics.

A publication called Coffee and Surrogates (tea, chocolate, saffron, pepper, and other stimulants) was founded by Professor Pietro Polli, in Milan, in 1885; but was short-lived.

An early English magazine (1731) contains an account of divination by coffee-grounds. The writer pays an unexpected visit, and "surprised the lady and her company in close cabal over their coffee, the interest very intent upon one whom, by her address and intelligence, he guessed was a tire woman, to which she added the secret of divining by coffee grounds. She was then in full inspiration, and with much solemnity observing the atoms around the cup; on the one hand sat a widow, on the other a maiden lady. They assured me that every cast of the cup is a picture of all one's life to come, and every transaction and circumstance is delineated with the exactest certainty."

The advertisement used by this seer is quite interesting:

An advise is hereby given that there has lately arrived in this city (Dublin) the famous Mrs. Cherry, the only gentlewoman truly learned in the occult science of tossing of coffee grounds; who has with uninterrupted success for some time past practiced to the general satisfaction of her female visitants. Her hours are after prayers are done at St. Peter's Church, until dinner.

(N.B. She never requires more than 1 oz. of coffee from a single gentlewoman, and so proportioned for a second or third person, but not to exceed that number at any one time.)

If the one ounce of coffee represented her payment for reading the future, the charge could not be considered exorbitant!

English writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were noticeably affected by coffee, and the coffee-houses of the times have been immortalized by them; and in many instances they themselves were immortalized by the coffee houses and their frequenters. In the chapters already referred to and at the close of this chapter, will be found stories, quips, and anecdotes, in which occur many names that are now famous in art and literature.

Modern journalism dates from the publication, April 12, 1709, of the Tatler, whose editor was Sir Richard Steele (1672-1729) the Irish dramatist and essayist. He received his inspiration from the coffee houses; and his readers were the men that knew them best. In the first issue he announced:

All accounts of gallantry, pleasure and entertainment shall be under the article of White's Coffee House; poetry under that of Will's Coffee House; learning under the title of Grecian; foreign and domestic news you will have from St. James's Coffee House, and what else I shall on any other subject offer shall be dated from my own apartment.

Steele's Tatler was issued three times weekly until 1711, when it suspended to be succeeded by the Spectator, whose principal contributor was Joseph Addison (1672-1719), the essayist and poet, and Steele's school-fellow.

Sir Richard Steele immortalized the Don and Don Saltero's coffee house in old Chelsea in No. 34 of the Tatler, wherein he tells us of the necessity of traveling to know the world, by his journey for fresh air, no farther than the village of Chelsea, of which he fancied that he could give an immediate description—from the five fields, where the the robbers lie in wait, to the coffee house, where the literati sit in council. But he found, even in a place so near town as this, that there were enormities and persons of eminence, whom he before knew nothing of.

The coffee house was almost absorbed by the museum, Steele says:

When I came into the coffee-house, I had not time to salute the company, before my eyes were diverted by ten thousand gimcracks round the room, and on the ceiling. When my first astonishment was over, comes to me a sage of thin and meagre countenance, which aspect made me doubt whether reading or fretting had made it so philosophic; but I very soon perceived him to be that sort which the ancients call "gingivistee", in our language "tooth-drawers". I immediately had a respect for the man; for these practical philosophers go upon a very practical hypothesis, not to cure, but to take away the part affected. My love of mankind made me very benevolent to Mr. Salter, for such is the name of this eminent barber and antiquary.

The Don was famous for his punch, and for his skill on the fiddle. He drew teeth also, and wrote verses; he described his museum in several stanzas, one of which is:

Monsters of all sorts are seen: Strange things in nature as they grew so; Some relicks of the Sheba Queen, And fragments of the fam'd Bob Crusoe.

Steele then plunges into a deep thought why barbers should go farther in hitting the ridiculous than any other set of men; and maintains that Don Saltero is descended in a right line, not from John Tradescant, as he himself asserts, but from the memorable companion of the Knight of Mancha. Steele certifies to all the worthy citizens who travel to see the Don's rarities, that his double-barreled pistols, targets, coats of mail, his sclopeta (hand-culverin) and sword of Toledo, were left to his ancestor by the said Don Quixote; and by his ancestor to all his progeny down to Saltero. Though Steele thus goes far in favor of Don Saltero's great merit, he objects to his imposing several names (without his license) on the collection he has made, to the abuse of the good people of England; one of which is particularly calculated to deceive religious persons, to the great scandal of the well-disposed and may introduce heterodox opinions. (Among the curiosities presented by Admiral Munden was a coffin, containing the body or relics of a Spanish saint, who had wrought miracles.) Says Steele:

He shows you a straw hat, which I know to be made by Madge Peskad, within three miles of Bedford; and tells you "It is Pontius Pilate's wife's chambermaid's sister's hat." To my knowledge of this very hat, it may be added that the covering of straw was never used among the Jews, since it was demanded of them to make bricks without it. Therefore, this is nothing but, under the specious pretense of learning and antiquities, to impose upon the world. There are other things which I can not tolerate among his rarities, as, the china figure of the lady in the glass-case; the Italian engine, for the imprisonment of those who go abroad with it; both of which I hereby order to be taken down, or else he may expect to have his letters patent for making punch superseded, be debarred wearing his muff next winter, or ever coming to London without his wife.

Babillard says that Salter had an old grey muff, and that, by wearing it up to his nose, he was distinguishable at the distance of a quarter of a mile. His wife was none of the best, being much addicted to scolding; and Salter, who liked his glass, if he could make a trip to London by himself, was in no haste to return.

Don Saltero's proved very attractive as an exhibition, and drew crowds to the coffee house. A catalog was published of which were printed more than forty editions. Smollett, the novelist, was among the donors. The catalog, in 1760, comprehended the following rarities:

Tigers' tusks; the Pope's candle; the skeleton of a Guinea-pig; a fly-cap monkey, a piece of the true Cross; the Four Evangelists' heads cut out on a cherry stone; the King of Morocco's tobacco-pipe; Mary Queen of Scots' pincushion; Queen Elizabeth's prayer-book; a pair of Nun's stockings; Job's ears, which grew on a tree; a frog in a tobacco stopper; and five hundred more odd relics!

The Don had a rival, as appears by A Catalogue of the Rarities to be seen at Adam's, at the Royal Swan, in Kingsland-road, leading from Shoreditch Church, 1756. Mr. Adams exhibited, for the entertainment of the curious:

Miss Jenny Cameron's shoes; Adam's eldest daughter's hat; the heart of the famous Bess Adams, that was hanged at Tyburn with Lawyer Carr, January 18, 1736-37; Sir Walter Raleigh's tobacco pipe; Vicar of Bray's clogs; engine to shell green peas with; teeth that grew in a fish's belly; Black Jack's ribs; the very comb that Abraham combed his son Isaac and Jacob's head with; Wat Tyler's spurs; rope that cured Captain Lowry of the head-ach, ear-ach, tooth-ach, and belly-ach; Adam's key of the fore and back door of the Garden of Eden, etc., etc.

These are only a few out of five hundred other equally marvellous exhibits.

The success of Don Saltero in attracting visitors to his coffee house, induced the proprietor of the Chelsea bunhouse to make a similar collection of rarities, to attract customers for his buns; and to some extent it was successful.

In the first number of the Spectator, Addison says:

There is no place of general resort wherein I do not often make my appearance. Sometimes I am seen thrusting my head into a round of politicians at Will's, and listening with great attention to the narratives that are made in those little circular audiences. Sometimes I smoke a pipe at Child's, and while I seem attentive to nothing but the Postman, overhear the conversation of every table in the room. I appear on Sunday nights at St. James' coffee house, and sometimes join the little committee of politics in the inner room as one who comes there to hear and improve. My face is likewise very well known at the Grecian, the Cocoa Tree, and in the theatres both of Drury Lane and the Hay Market. I have been taken for a merchant upon the Exchange for above these ten years, and sometimes pass for a Jew in the assembly of stock jobbers at Jonathan's; in short, wherever I see a cluster of people, I always mix with them, though I never open my lips, but in my own club.

In the second number he tells that:

I am now settled with a widow woman, who has a great many children and complies with my humor in everything. I do not remember that we have exchanged a word together for these five years; my coffee comes into my chamber every morning without asking for it, if I want fire I point to the chimney, if water, to my basin; upon which my landlady nods as much as to say she takes my meaning, and immediately obeys my signals.

Three of Addison's papers in the Spectator (Nos. 402, 481, and 568) are humorously descriptive of the coffee houses of the period. No. 403 opens with the remark that:

The courts of two countries do not so much differ from one another, as the Court and the City, in their peculiar ways of life and conversation. In short, the inhabitants of St. James, notwithstanding they live under the same laws, and speak the same language, are a distinct people from those of Cheapside, who are likewise removed from those of the Temple on the one side, and those of Smithfleld on the other, by several climates and degrees in their way of thinking and conversing together.

For this reason, the author takes a ramble through London and Westminster, to gather the opinions of his ingenious countrymen upon a current report of the king of France's death.

I know the faces of all the principal politicians within the bills of mortality; and as every coffee-house has some particular statesman belonging to it, who is the mouth of the street where he lives, I always take care to place myself near him, in order to know his judgment on the present posture of affairs. And, as I foresaw the above report would produce a new face of things in Europe, and many curious speculations in our British coffee-houses, I was very desirous to learn the thoughts of our most eminent politicians on that occasion.