SOCIAL CHARACTER OF THE BEVERAGE.
Since the introduction of Tea into England, but more especially
since the British public has patronised it, a marked improvement
characterises the tone and manners of Society. It is not, possibly, too
great an assumption to assert that there must exist something about
Tea specially suitable to the English constitution and climate; for
not even in Scotland or Ireland, nor in any European country, is the
beverage consumed to a like extent. Certain travellers aver that a
large consumption of the leaf obtains in Russia; but it is chiefly the
upper classes who are addicted to its use. The moujiks, peasants,
and artisans scarcely know the taste of it, for now, as in the time of
Peter the Great, they regard _vodká_ as their only national drink.
[Illustration: FIRING AND COLOURING.--When the teas are half roasted,
powdered Prussian blue, plumbago, gypsum, and turmeric are added,
except to that tea ordered pure and free from all mineral facing
powder.]
That all classes of the community in this country have derived much
benefit from the persistent use of Tea, is placed beyond dispute. It
has proved, and still proves, a highly prized boon to millions. The
artist at his easel, the author at his desk, the statesman fresh from
an exhaustive oration, the actor from the stage after fulfilling an
arduous _rôle_, the orator from the platform, the preacher from the
pulpit, the toiling mechanic, the wearied labourer, the poor governess,
the tired laundress, the humble cottage housewife, the votary of
pleasure even, on escaping from the scene of revelry, nay, the Queen on
her throne, have, one and all, to acknowledge and express gratitude for
the grateful and invigorating infusion.
Shortly after it had became fashionable to partake of Tea, persons of
quality in England were wont to invite their friends to a “dish” of the
newly-imported beverage. Lord Macaulay mentions how “Tea, which at the
time Monk brought the Army of Scotland to London (A. D. 1660), had
been handed round to be stared at and just touched with the lips as a
great rarity of China, was, eighty years later, a regular article of
import, and was soon consumed in such quantities that financiers began
to consider it as an important source of revenue.” Seven years later
Pepys has this entry in his famous Diary: “Home, and there find my wife
making of Tea, a drink which Mr. Pelling, the apothicary, tells her is
good for her cold.” That Queen Anne ranked among the votaries of the
leaf is manifest from Pope’s couplet:--
“Thou, great Anna, whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take, and sometimes Tay.”
From this time forth writers of renown make constant allusions to
the new drink. Essayists in the _Spectator_, the _Tatler_, and other
literary organs, are ever dropping remarks respecting the tea-table.
Pope, in his “Rape of the Lock,” when Belinda is declaring what
terrible things she would rather have had happen, than have lost her
favourite curl, makes her cap everything by the wish that she could be
transported to--
“Some isle
Where the gilt chariot never marks the way,
Where none learn ombre, none e’er drink Bohea,”--
than which privation she can imagine nothing worse.
Then what a source of social pleasure the “afternoon Tea” becomes!
Brady, in his well known metrical version of the “Psalms,” thus
illustrates the advantages accruing therefrom:--
“When in discourse of Nature’s mystic powers
And noblest themes, we pass the well spent hours,
Whilst all around the Virtues--sacred band--
And listening Graces, pleased attendants stand.
Thus our Tea conversations we employ,
Where with delight, instruction we enjoy,
Quaffing without the waste of time or wealth,
The sovereign drink of pleasure and of health.”
The poet Cowper’s praise of the beverage has been sadly hackneyed;
nevertheless, as the Laureate of the tea-table, his lines are worthy
of further reproduction. Who cannot recall how Mrs. Gilpin scornfully
characterises her neighbours’ children as being markedly inferior to
her own,
“As hay is to Bohea;”
as though the force of comparison could no further go. Yet it is in
his more serious and didactic poem that the melancholy friend of the
hares exclaims:--
“Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast;
Let fall the curtain, wheel the sofa round;
And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn
Throws up a steaming column, and the cups
That cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.”
But Tea had its avowed enemies no less than its staunch friends.
Certain old fashioned physicians did not like it. Nay, they even
sneered at and denounced it. Jonas Hanway, the philanthropic but
eccentric founder of the Marine and the Magdalen Societies, more bold
than his compeers, actually rushed into print in order to inveigh
against it. But he had reason to regret his hot-headed impetuosity.
In answer to his petty attack, the beverage found a noble defender
in no less a personage than Dr. Johnson, whose defence, in point of
style, is among the best essays the great moralist ever penned. Hanway,
however, nothing daunted, resumed the attack. Having lost his temper,
he gave full scope to his prejudices, and denounced Tea as the worst
of poisons and the secondary cause of all the moral, religious, and
political evils that distracted mankind. Not only so, but he was rash
enough to attack the leviathan of literature personally. Yet he had
far better have saved his ink, for Johnson--the first time in his life
that he had retorted on an adversary--fell upon him like an avalanche.
Hanway having foolishly laid himself open to ridicule, most assuredly
the Doctor did not spare him. Such a contest, of course, could not
be regarded as equal. No possible comparison existed between the
combatants. Therefore, setting aside all the hard knocks which Johnson
administered to poor Jonas, it will be sufficient to produce one
passage in which the eminent writer declares himself “a hardened sinner
in the use of the infusion of this plant, whose tea-pot had no time
to cool, who with Tea solaced the midnight, and with Tea welcomed the
morning.” There is not the slightest exaggeration in this confession.
What is affirmed therein is attested both by Boswell and Mrs. Thrale
in their respective writings, who record that Dr. Johnson frequently
exceeded a dozen large cups at one meal.
It is alleged that the first command given by our gracious Queen upon
her accession to the Throne was “Bring me a cup of Tea and _The
Times_.” It is to be hoped that Her Majesty got the former uncoloured.
For a time it appeared that so far as one class of the community was
concerned, the use of Tea was likely to be checked by the imperious
sway of inconstant Fashion. It became the custom in the houses of
the aristocracy to supply only coffee after dinner, so that, for a
period, Tea was ostracised. Recently however, a reaction has set
in, for we find that the most agreeable meetings in “Society” are
those which assemble at “the five o’clock Tea.” Accordingly one of
the whirligigs of time has so conspired, that while the fashionable
breakfast and dinner hours are completely revolutionised, the hour for
Tea has reverted to the precise period of the day at which it used to
be taken one hundred years ago. Although noble ladies have not now
black pages to hand round the tea-cups, yet the very china used by
their great grandmothers is called into requisition simply because
of its antiquity. One circumstance calls for special notice. It is
this, that in the words of Dr. Johnston[B] “Everywhere unintoxicating
and non-narcotic beverages are in general use among tribes of every
colour, beneath every sun, and in every condition of life. The custom,
therefore, must meet some universal want of our common nature.”
[B] Chemistry of Common Life.
Philanthropists and sociologists are now fully alive to the moral
effects produced by such non-intoxicant drinks as Tea and Coffee.
Intemperance is the bane of the nation. And now that legislation has
utterly failed to restrain the evils arising therefrom, philanthropy,
full of faith in the experiment, endeavours by the establishment, in
divers quarters, of quite a different class of “Public Houses,” to
arrest an evil which is assuming the gravest character. And there can
be no doubt that if the masses could be induced to substitute the pure
beverages Tea and Coffee for the deleterious fluids they are wont to
imbibe, the country would be vastly benefited by the salutary change.
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