The Drinking there of _Chockalat_,

Can make a _Fool_ a _Sophie_:

'Tis thought the _Turkish Mahomet_

Was first Inspir'd with _Coffe_,

By which his Powers did Over-flow

The Land of _Palestine_:

Then let us to, the _Coffe-house_ go,

'Tis Cheaper farr then Wine.

You shall know there, what Fashions are;

How Perrywiggs are Curl'd;

And for a Penny you shall heare,

All Novells in the World.

Both Old and Young, and Great and Small,

And Rich, and Poore, you'l see;

Therefore let's to the _Coffe_ All,

Come All away with Mee.

FINIS.

Robert Morton made a contribution to the controversy in _Lines Appended

to the Nature, Quality and Most Excellent Vertues of Coffee_ in 1670.

There was published in 1672 _A Broad-side Against Coffee, or the

Marriage of the Turk_, verses that attained considerable fame because of

their picturesque invective. They also stressed the fact that Pasqua

Rosées partner was a coachman, and imitated the broken English of the

Ragusan youth:

A BROAD-SIDE AGAINST COFFEE;

OR, THE

MARRIAGE OF THE TURK

_Coffee_, a kind of _Turkish Renegade_,

Has late a match with _Christian water_ made;

At first between them happen'd a Demur,

Yet joyn'd they were, but not without great _stir_;

* * * * *

_Coffee_ was cold as _Earth, Water_ as _Thames_,

And stood in need of recommending Flames;

* * * * *

_Coffee_ so brown as berry does appear,

Too swarthy for a Nymph so fair, so clear:

* * * * *

A Coachman was the first (here) _Coffee_ made,

And ever since the rest _drive on_ the trade;

_Me no good Engalash_! and sure enough,

He plaid the Quack to salve his Stygian stuff;

_Ver boon for de stomach, de Cough, de Ptisick_

And I believe him, for it looks like Physick.

_Coffee_ a crust is charkt into a coal,

The smell and taste of the Mock _China_ bowl;

Where huff and puff, they labour out their lungs,

Lest _Dives_-like they should bewail their tongues.

And yet they tell ye that it will not burn,

Though on the Jury Blisters you return;

Whose furious heat does make the water rise,

And still through the Alembicks of your eyes.

Dread and desire, ye fall to't snap by snap,

As hungry Dogs do scalding porrige lap,

But to cure Drunkards it has got great Fame;

_Posset_ or _Porrige_, will't not do the same?

Confusion huddles all into one Scene,

Like _Noah's_ Ark, the clean and the unclean.

But now, alas! the Drench has credit got,

And he's no Gentleman that drinks it not;

That such a _Dwarf_ should rise to such a stature!

But Custom is but a remove from Nature.

A _little_ Dish, and a _large_ Coffee-house,

What is it, but a _Mountain_ and a _Mouse_?

* * * * *

_Mens humana novitatis avidissima._

[Illustration: A BROAD-SIDE OF 1670]

And so it came to pass that coffee history repeated itself in England.

Many good people became convinced that coffee was a dangerous drink. The

tirades against the beverage in that far-off time sound not unlike the

advertising patter employed by some of our present-day coffee-substitute

manufacturers. It was even ridiculed by being referred to as "ninny

broth" and "Turkey gruel."

[Illustration: A BROAD-SIDE OF 1672]

_A brief description of the excellent vertues of that sober and

wholesome drink called coffee_ appeared in 1674 and proved an able and

dignified answer to the attacks that had preceded it. That same year,

for the first time in history, the sexes divided in a coffee

controversy, and there was issued _The Women's Petition against Coffee,

representing to public consideration the grand inconveniences accruing

to their sex from the excessive use of the drying and enfeebling

Liquor_, in which the ladies, who had not been accorded the freedom of

the coffee houses in England, as was the custom in France, Germany,

Italy, and other countries on the Continent, complained that coffee made

men as "unfruitful as the deserts where that unhappy berry is said to be

bought." Besides the more serious complaint that the whole race was in

danger of extinction, it was urged that "on a domestic message a husband

would stop by the way to drink a couple of cups of coffee."

This pamphlet is believed to have precipitated the attempt at

suppression by the crown the following year, despite the prompt

appearing, in 1674, of _The Men's Answer to the Women's Petition Against

Coffee, vindicating ... their liquor, from the undeserved aspersion

lately cast upon them, in their scandalous pamphlet_.

The 1674 broadside in defense of coffee was the first to be illustrated;

and for all its air of pretentious grandeur and occasional bathos, it

was not a bad rhyming advertisement for the persecuted drink. It was

printed for Paul Greenwood and sold "at the sign of the coffee mill and

tobacco-roll in Cloath-fair near West-Smithfield, who selleth the best

Arabian coffee powder and chocolate in cake or roll, after the Spanish

fashion, etc." The following extracts will serve to illustrate its epic

character:

When the sweet Poison of the Treacherous Grape,

Had Acted on the world a General Rape;

Drowning our very Reason and our Souls

In such deep Seas of large o'reflowing Bowls.

* * * * *

When Foggy Ale, leavying up mighty Trains

Of muddy Vapours, had besieg'd our Brains;

* * * * *

Then Heaven in Pity, to Effect our Cure.

* * * * *

First sent amongst us this _All-healing-Berry_,

At once to make us both _Sober_ and _Merry_.

_Arabian_ Coffee, a Rich Cordial

To Purse and Person Beneficial,

Which of so many Vertues doth partake,

Its Country's called Felix for its sake.

From the Rich Chambers of the Rising Sun,

Where Arts, and all good Fashions first begun,

Where Earth with choicest Rarities is blest,

And dying _Phoenix_ builds Her wondrous Nest:

COFFEE arrives, that Grave and wholesome Liquor,

That heals the Stomack, makes the Genius quicker,

Relieves the Memory, Revives the Sad.

* * * * *

Do but this Rare ARABIAN Cordial Use,

And thou may'st all the Doctors Slops Refuse.

Hush then, dull QUACKS, your Mountebanking cease,

COFFEE'S a speedier Cure for each Disease;

How great its Vertues are, we hence may think,

The Worlds third Part makes it their common Drink:

In Breif, all you who Healths Rich Treasures Prize,

And Court not Ruby Noses, or blear'd Eyes,

But own Sobriety to be your Drift.

And Love at once good Company and Thrift;

To Wine no more make Wit and Coyn a Trophy,

But come each Night and Frollique here in Coffee.

[Illustration: A BROAD-SIDE OF 1674

The first one to be illustrated]

An eight-page folio, the last argument to be issued in defense of coffee

before Charles II sought to follow in the footsteps of Kair Bey and

Kuprili, was issued in the early part of 1675. It was entitled _Coffee

Houses Vindicated. In answer to the late published Character of a Coffee

House. Asserting from Reason, Experience and good Authors the Excellent

Use and physical Virtues of that Liquor ... With the Grand Convenience

of such civil Places of Resort and ingenious Conversation_.

The advantage of a coffee house compared with a "publick-house" is thus

set forth:

First, In regard of easy expense. Being to wait for or meet a

friend, a tavern-reckoning soon breeds a purse-consumption: in an

ale house, you must gorge yourself with pot after pot.... But here,

for a penny or two, you may spend two or three hours, have the

shelter of a house, the warmth of a fire, the diversion of company;

and conveniency, if you please, of taking a pipe of tobacco; and

all this without any grumbling or repining. Secondly. For sobriety.

It is grown, by the ill influences of I know not what hydropick

stars, almost a general custom amongst us, that no bargain can be

drove, or business concluded between man and man, but it must be

transacted at some publick-house ... where continual sippings ...

would be apt to fly up into their brains, and render them drowsy

and indisposed ... whereas, having now the opportunity of a

coffee-house, they repair thither, take each man a dish or two (so

far from causing, that it cures any dizziness, or disturbant

fumes): and so, dispatching their business, go out more sprightly

about their affairs, than before.... Lastly, For diversion ...

where can young gentlemen, or shop-keepers, more innocently and

advantageously spend an hour or two in the evening than at a

coffee-house? Where they shall be sure to meet company, and, by the

custom of the house, not such as at other places stingy and

reserved to themselves, but free and communicative, where every man

may modestly begin his story, and propose to, or answer another, as

he thinks fit.... So that, upon the whole matter, spight of the

idle sarcasms and paltry reproaches thrown upon it, we may, with no

less truth than plainness, give this brief character of a

well-regulated coffee-house, (for our pen disdains to be an

advocate for any sordid holes, that assume that name to cloke the

practice of debauchery,) that it is the sanctuary of health, the

nursery of temperance, the delight of frugality, and academy of

civility, and free-school of ingenuity.

_The Ale Wives' Complaint Against the Coffee-houses_, a dialogue between

a victualer's wife and a coffee man, at difference about spiriting away

each other's trade, also was issued in 1675.

As early as 1666, and again in 1672, we find the government planning to

strike a blow at the coffee houses. By the year 1675, these "seminaries

of sedition" were much frequented by persons of rank and substance, who,

"suitable to our native genius," says Anderson,[80] "used great freedom

therein with respect to the courts' proceedings in these and like

points, so contrary to the voice of the people."

In 1672, Charles II, seemingly eager to emulate the Oriental intolerants

that preceded him, determined to try his hand at suppression. "Having

been informed of the great inconveniences arising from the great number

of persons that resort to coffee-houses," the king "desired the Lord

Keeper and the Judges to give their opinion in writing as to how far he

might lawfully proceed against them."

Roger North in his _Examen_ gives the full story; and D'Israeli,

commenting on it, says, "it was not done without some apparent respect

for the British constitution." The courts affected not to act against

the law, and the judges were summoned to a consultation; but the five

who met could not agree in opinion.

Sir William Coventry spoke against the proposed measure. He pointed out

that the government obtained considerable revenue from coffee, that the

king himself owed to these seemingly obnoxious places no small debt of

gratitude in the matter of his own restoration; for they had been

permitted in Cromwell's time, when the king's friends had used more

liberty of speech than "they dared to do in any other." He urged, also,

that it might be rash to issue a command so likely to be disobeyed.

At last, being hard pressed for a reply, the judges gave such a halting

opinion in favor of the king's policy as to remind us of the reluctant

verdict wrung from the physicians and lawyers of Mecca on the occasion

of coffee's first persecution.[81] "The English lawyers, in language

which, for its civility and indefiniteness," says Robinson, "would have

been the envy of their Eastern brethren," declared that:

Retailing coffee _might_ be an innocent trade, as it _might_ be

exercised; but as it is used at present, in the nature of a common

assembly, to discourse of matters of State, news and _great

Persons_, as they are Nurseries of Idleness and Pragmaticalness,

and hinder the expence of our native Provisions, they _might_ be

thought common nuisances.

An attempt was made to mold public opinion to a favorable consideration

of the attempt at suppression in _The Grand Concern of England

explained_, which was good propaganda for his majesty's enterprise, but

utterly failed to carry conviction to the lovers of liberty.

After much backing and filling, the king, on December 23, 1675, issued a

proclamation which in its title frankly stated its object--"for the

suppression of coffee houses." It is here given in a somewhat condensed

form:

BY THE KING: A PROCLAMATION

FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF

COFFEE HOUSES

_Charles R._

Whereas it is most apparent that the multitude of Coffee Houses of

late years set up and kept within this kingdom, the dominion of

Wales, and town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and the great resort of Idle

and disaffected persons to them, have produced very evil and

dangerous effects; as well for that many tradesmen and others, do

herein mispend much of their time, which might and probably would

be employed in and about their Lawful Calling and Affairs; but

also, for that in such houses ... divers false, malitious and

scandalous reports are devised and spread abroad to the Defamation

of his Majestie's Government, and to the Disturbance of the Peace

and Quiet of the Realm; his Majesty hath thought fit and necessary,

that the said Coffee Houses be (for the future) Put down, and

suppressed, and doth ... strictly charge and command all manner of

persons, That they or any of them do not presume from and after the

Tenth Day of January next ensuing, to keep any Public Coffee House,

or to utter or sell by retail, in his, her or their house or houses

(to be spent or consumed within the same) any Coffee, Chocolet,

Sherbett or Tea, as they will answer the contrary at their utmost

perils ... (all licenses to be revoked).

Given at our Court at Whitehall, this third-and-twentieth day of

Dec., 1675, in the seven-and-twentieth year of our Reign.

GOD SAVE THE KING.

And then a remarkable thing happened. It is not usual for a royal

proclamation issued on the 29th of one month to be recalled on the 8th

day of the next; but this is the record established by Charles II. The

proclamation was made on December 23, 1675, and issued December 29,

1675. It forbade the coffee houses to operate after January 10, 1676.

But so intense was the feeling aroused, that eleven days was sufficient

time to convince the king that a blunder had been made. Men of all

parties cried out against being deprived of their accustomed haunts. The

dealers in coffee, tea, and chocolate demonstrated that the proclamation

would greatly lessen his majesty's revenues. Convulsion and discontent

loomed large. The king heeded the warning, and on January 8, 1676,

another proclamation was issued by which the first proclamation was

recalled.

In order to save the king's face, it was solemnly recited that "His

Gracious Majesty," out of his "princely consideration and royal

compassion" would allow the retailers of coffee liquor to keep open

until the 24th of the following June. But this was clearly only a royal

subterfuge, as there was no further attempt at molestation, and it is

extremely doubtful if any was contemplated at the time the second

proclamation was promulgated.

"Than both which proclamations nothing could argue greater guilt nor

greater weakness," says Anderson. Robinson remarks, "A battle for

freedom of speech was fought and won over this question at a time when

Parliaments were infrequent and when the liberty of the press did not

exist."

"_Penny Universities_"

We read in 1677 that "none dare venture into the coffee houses unless he

be able to argue the question whether Parliament were dissolved or not."

All through the years remaining in the seventeenth century, and through

most of the eighteenth century, the London coffee houses grew and

prospered. As before stated, they were originally temperance

institutions, very different from the taverns and ale houses. "Within

the walls of the coffee house there was always much noise, much clatter,

much bustle, but decency was never outraged."

At prices ranging from one to two pence per dish, the demand grew so

great that coffee-house keepers were obliged to make the drink in pots

holding eight or ten gallons.

The seventeenth-century coffee houses were sometimes referred to as the

"penny universities"; because they were great schools of conversation,

and the entrance fee was only a penny. Two pence was the usual price of

a dish of coffee or tea, this charge also covering newspapers and

lights. It was the custom for the frequenter to lay his penny on the

bar, on entering or leaving. Admission to the exchange of sparkling wit

and brilliant conversation was within the reach of all.

So great a _Universitie_

I think there ne're was any;

In which you may a Schoolar be

For spending of a Penny.

"Regular customers," we are told, "had particular seats and special

attention from the fair lady at the bar, and the tea and coffee boys."

It is believed that the modern custom of tipping, and the word "tip,"

originated in the coffee houses, where frequently hung brass-bound boxes

into which customers were expected to drop coins for the servants. The

boxes were inscribed "To Insure Promptness" and from the initial letters

of these words came "tip."

The _National Review_ says, "before 1715 the number of coffee houses in

London was reckoned at 2000." Dufour, who wrote in 1683, declares, upon

information received from several persons who had staid in London, that

there were 3000 of these places. However, 2000 is probably nearer the

fact.

In that critical time in English history, when the people, tired of the

misgovernment of the later Stuarts, were most in need of a forum where

questions of great moment could be discussed, the coffee house became a

sanctuary. Here matters of supreme political import were threshed out

and decided for the good of Englishmen for all time. And because many of

these questions were so well thought out then, there was no need to

fight them out later. England's great struggle for political liberty was

really fought and won in the coffee house.

To the end of the reign of Charles II, coffee was looked upon by the

government rather as a new check upon license than an added luxury.

After the revolution, the London coffee merchants were obliged to

petition the House of Lords against new import duties, and it was not

until the year 1692 that the government, "for the greater encouragement

and advancement of trade and the greater importation of the said

respective goods or merchandises," discharged one half of the obnoxious

tariff.

_Weird Coffee Substitutes_

Shortly after the "great fire," coffee substitutes began to appear.

First came a liquor made with betony, "for the sake of those who could

not accustom themselves to the bitter taste of coffee." Betony is a herb

belonging to the mint family, and its root was formerly employed in

medicine as an emetic or purgative. In 1719, when coffee was 7s. a

pound, came bocket, later known as saloop, a decoction of sassafras and

sugar, that became such a favorite among those who could not afford tea

or coffee, that there were many saloop stalls in the streets of London.

It was also sold at Read's coffee house in Fleet Street.

_The Coffee Men Overreach Themselves_

The coffee-house keepers had become so powerful a force in the community

in 1729 that they lost all sense of proportion; and we find them

seriously proposing to usurp the functions of the newspapers. The

vainglorious coffee men requested the government to hand over to them a

journalistic monopoly; the argument being that the newspapers of the day

were choked with advertisements, filled with foolish stories gathered by

all-too enterprising newswriters, and that the only way for the

government to escape "further excesses occasioned by the freedom of the

press" and to rid itself of "those pests of society, the unlicensed

newsvendors," was for it to intrust the coffee men, as "the chief

supporters of liberty" with the publication of a _Coffee House Gazette_.

Information for the journal was to be supplied by the habitués of the

houses themselves, written down on brass slates or ivory tablets, and

called for twice daily by the _Gazette's_ representatives. All the

profits were to go to the coffee men--including the expected increase of

custom.

Needless to say, this amazing proposal of the coffee-house masters to

have the public write its own newspapers met with the scorn and the

derision it invited, and nothing ever came of it.

The increasing demand for coffee caused the government tardily to seek

to stimulate interest in the cultivation of the plant in British

colonial possessions. It was tried out in Jamaica in 1730. By 1732 the

experiment gave such promise that Parliament, "for encouraging the

growth of coffee in His Majesty's plantations in America," reduced the

inland duty on coffee coming from there, "but of none other," from two

shillings to one shilling six pence per pound. "It seems that the French

at Martinico, Hispaniola, and at the Isle de Bourbon, near Madagascar,

had somewhat the start of the English in the new product as had also the

Dutch at Surinam, yet none had hitherto been found to equal coffee from

Arabia, whence all the rest of the world had theirs." Thus writes Adam

Anderson in 1787, somewhat ungraciously seeking to damn England's

business rivals with faint praise. Java coffee was even then in the

lead, and the seeds of Bourbon-Santos were multiplying rapidly in

Brazilian soil.

The British East India Company, however, was much more interested in tea

than in coffee. Having lost out to the French and Dutch on the "little

brown berry of Arabia," the company engaged in so lively a propaganda

for "the cup that cheers" that, whereas the annual tea imports from 1700

to 1710 averaged 800,000 pounds, in 1721 more than 1,000,000 pounds of

tea were brought in. In 1757, some 4,000,000 pounds were imported. And

when the coffee house finally succumbed, tea, and not coffee, was firmly

intrenched as the national drink of the English people.

A movement in 1873 to revive the coffee house in the form of a coffee

"palace," designed to replace the public house as a place of resort for

working men, caused the Edinburgh Castle to be opened in London. The

movement attained considerable success throughout the British Isles, and

even spread to the United States.

_Evolution of the Club_

Every profession, trade, class, and party had its favorite coffee house.

"The bitter black drink called coffee," as Mr. Pepys described the

beverage, brought together all sorts and conditions of men; and out of

their mixed association there developed groups of patrons favoring

particular houses and giving them character. It is easy to trace the

transition of the group into a clique that later became a club,

continuing for a time to meet at the coffee house or the chocolate

house, but eventually demanding a house of its own.

_Decline and Fall of the Coffee House_

Starting as a forum for the commoner, "the coffee house soon became the

plaything of the leisure class; and when the club was evolved, the

coffee house began to retrograde to the level of the tavern. And so the

eighteenth century, which saw the coffee house at the height of its

power and popularity, witnessed also its decline and fall. It is said

there were as many clubs at the end of the century as there were coffee

houses at the beginning."

For a time, when the habit of reading newspapers descended the social

ladder, the coffee house acquired a new lease of life. Sir Walter Besant

observes:

They were then frequented by men who came, not to talk, but to

read; the smaller tradesmen and the better class of mechanic now

came to the coffee-house, called for a cup of coffee, and with it

the daily paper, which they could not afford to take in. Every

coffee-house took three or four papers; there seems to have been in

this latter phase of the once social institution no general

conversation. The coffee-house as a place of resort and

conversation gradually declined; one can hardly say why, except

that all human institutions do decay. Perhaps manners declined; the

leaders in literature ceased to be seen there; the city clerk began

to crowd in; the tavern and the club drew men from the

coffee-house.

A few houses survived until the early years of the nineteenth century,

but the social side had disappeared. As tea and coffee entered the

homes, and the exclusive club house succeeded the democratic coffee

forum, the coffee houses became taverns or chop houses, or, convinced

that they had outlived their usefulness, just ceased to be.

_Pen Pictures of Coffee-House Life_

From the writings of Addison in the _Spectator_, Steele in the _Tatler_,

Mackay in his _Journey Through England_, Macaulay in his history, and

others, it is possible to draw a fairly accurate pen-picture of life in

the old London coffee house.

In the seventeenth century the coffee room usually opened off the

street. At first only tables and chairs were spread about on a sanded

floor. Later, this arrangement was succeeded by the boxes, or booths,

such as appear in the Rowlandson caricatures, the picture of the

interior of Lloyds, etc.

The walls were decorated with handbills and posters advertising the

quack medicines, pills, tinctures, salves, and electuaries of the

period, all of which might be purchased at the bar near the entrance,

presided over by a prototype of the modern English barmaid. There were

also bills of the play, auction notices, etc., depending upon the

character of the place.

Then, as now, the barmaids were made much of by patrons. Tom Brown

refers to them as charming "Phillises who invite you by their amorous

glances into their smoaky territories."

Messages were left and letters received at the bar for regular

customers. Stella was instructed to address her letters to Swift, "under

cover to Addison at the St. James's coffee house." Says Macaulay:

Foreigners remarked that it was the coffee house which specially

distinguished London from all other cities; that the coffee house

was the Londoner's home, and that those who wished to find a

gentleman commonly asked, not whether he lived in Fleet Street or

Chancery Lane, but whether he frequented the Grecian or the

Rainbow.

[Illustration: MAP SHOWING THE LOCATION OF MANY OF THE OLD LONDON

COFFEE HOUSES PREVIOUS TO THE FIRE OF 1748]

So every man of the upper or middle classes went daily to his coffee

house to learn the news and to discuss it. The better class houses were

the meeting places of the most substantial men in the community. Every

coffee house had its orator, who became to his admirers a kind of

"fourth estate of the realm."

Macaulay gives us the following picture of the coffee house of 1685:

Nobody was excluded from these places who laid down his penny at

the bar. Yet every rank and profession, and every shade of

religious and political opinion had its own headquarters.

There were houses near St. James' Park, where fops congregated,

their heads and shoulders covered with black or flaxen wigs, not

less ample than those which are now worn by the Chancellor and by

the Speaker of the House of Commons. The atmosphere was like that

of a perfumer's shop. Tobacco in any form than that of richly

scented snuff was held in abomination. If any clown, ignorant of

the usages of the house, called for a pipe, the sneers of the whole

assembly and the short answers of the waiters soon convinced him

that he had better go somewhere else.

Nor, indeed, would he have far to go. For, in general, the

coffee-houses reeked with tobacco like a guard room. Nowhere was

the smoking more constant than at Will's. That celebrated house,

situated between Covent Garden and Bow street, was sacred to polite

letters. There the talk was about poetical justice and the unities

of place and time. Under no roof was a greater variety of figures

to be seen. There were earls in stars and garters, clergymen in

cassocks and bands, pert Templars, sheepish lads from universities,

translators and index makers in ragged coats of frieze. The great

press was to get near the chair where John Dryden sate. In winter

that chair was always in the warmest nook by the fire; in summer it

stood in the balcony. To bow to the Laureate, and to hear his

opinion of Racine's last tragedy, or of Bossu's treatise on epic

poetry, was thought a privilege. A pinch from his snuff-box was an

honour sufficient to turn the head of a young enthusiast.

There were coffee-houses where the first medical men might be

consulted. Dr. John Radcliffe, who, in the year 1685, rose to the

largest practice in London, came daily, at the hour when the

Exchange was full, from his house in Bow street, then a fashionable

part of the capital, to Garraway's, and was to be found, surrounded

by surgeons and apothecaries, at a particular table.

There were Puritan coffee-houses where no oath was heard, and where

lank-haired men discussed election and reprobation through their

noses; Jew coffee-houses, where dark-eyed money changers from

Venice and Amsterdam greeted each other; and Popish coffee-houses,

where, as good Protestants believed, Jesuits planned over their

cups another great fire, and cast silver bullets to shoot the King.

Ned Ward gives us this picture of the coffee house of the seventeenth

century. He is describing Old Man's, Scotland Yard:

We now ascended a pair of stairs, which brought us into an

old-fashioned room, where a gaudy crowd of odoriferous Tom-Essences

were walking backwards and forwards, with their hats in their

hands, not daring to convert them to their intended use lest it

should put the foretops of their wigs into some disorder. We

squeezed through till we got to the end of the room, where, at a

small table, we sat down, and observed that it was as great a

rarity to hear anybody call for a dish of politicians porridge, or

any other liquor, as it is to hear a beau call for a pipe of

tobacco; their whole exercise being to charge and discharge their

nostrils and keep the curls of their periwigs in their proper

order. The clashing of their snush-box lids, in opening and

shutting, made more noise than their tongues. Bows and cringes of

the newest mode were here exchanged 'twixt friend and friend with

wonderful exactness. They made a humming like so many hornets in a

country chimney, not with their talking, but with their whispering

over their new Minuets and Bories, with the hands in their pockets,

if only freed from their snush-box. We now began to be thoughtful

of a pipe of tobacco, whereupon we ventured to call for some

instruments of evaporation, which were accordingly brought us, but

with such a kind of unwillingness, as if they would much rather

been rid of our company; for their tables were so very neat, and

shined with rubbing like the upper-leathers of an alderman's shoes,

and as brown as the top of a country housewife's cupboard. The

floor was as clean swept as a Sir Courtly's dining room, which made

us look round to see if there were no orders hung up to impose the

forfeiture of so much mop-money upon any person that should spit

out of the chimney-corner. Notwithstanding we wanted an example to

encourage us in our porterly rudeness, we ordered them to light the

wax candle, by which we ignified our pipes and blew about our

whiffs; at which several Sir Foplins drew their faces into as many

peevish wrinkles as the beaux at the Bow Street Coffee-house, near

Covent Garden, did when the gentleman in masquerade came in amongst

them, with his oyster-barrel muff and turnip-buttons, to ridicule

their foperies.

In _A Brief and Merry History of Great Britain_ we read:

There is a prodigious number of Coffee-Houses in London, after the

manner I have seen some in Constantinople. These Coffee-Houses are

the constant Rendezvous for Men of Business as well as the idle

People. Besides Coffee, there are many other Liquors, which People

cannot well relish at first. They smoak Tobacco, game and read

Papers of Intelligence; here they treat of Matters of State, make

Leagues with Foreign Princes, break them again, and transact

Affairs of the last Consequence to the whole World. They represent

these Coffee-Houses as the most agreeable things in London, and

they are, in my Opinion, very proper Places to find People that a

Man has Business with, or to pass away the Time a little more

agreeably than he can do at home; but in other respects they are

loathsome, full of smoak, like a Guard-Room, and as much crowded. I

believe 'tis these Places that furnish the Inhabitants with

Slander, for there one hears exact Account of everything done in

Town, as if it were but a Village.

At those Coffee-Houses, near the Courts, called White's, St.

James's, Williams's, the Conversation turns chiefly upon the

Equipages, Essence, Horse-Matches, Tupees, Modes and Mortgages; the

Cocoa-Tree upon Bribery and Corruption, Evil ministers, Errors and

Mistakes in Government; the Scotch Coffee-Houses towards Charing

Cross, on Places and Pensions; the Tiltyard and Young Man's on

Affronts, Honour, Satisfaction, Duels and Rencounters. I was

informed that the latter happen so frequently, in this part of the

Town, that a Surgeon and a Sollicitor are kept constantly in

waiting; the one to dress and heal such Wounds as may be given, and

the other in case of Death to bring off the Survivor with a Verdict

of Se Devendendo or Manslaughter. In those Coffee-Houses about the

Temple the Subjects are generally on Causes, Costs, Demurrers,

Rejoinders and Exceptions; Daniel's the Welch Coffee-House in Fleet

Street, on Births, Pedigrees and Descents; Child's and the Chapter

upon Glebes, Tithes, Advowsons, Rectories and Lectureships; North's

Undue Elections, False Polling, Scrutinies, etc.; Hamlin's,

Infant-Baptism, Lay-Ordination, Free-Will, Election and

Reprobation; Batson's, the Prices of Pepper, Indigo and Salt-Petre;

and all those about the Exchange, where the Merchants meet to

transact their Affairs, are in a perpetual hurry about

Stock-Jobbing, Lying, Cheating, Tricking Widows and Orphans, and

committing Spoil and Rapine on the Publick.

[Illustration: WHITE'S AND BROOKES', ST. JAMES'S STREET]

In the eighteenth century beer and wine were commonly sold at the coffee

houses in addition to tea and chocolate. Daniel Defoe, writing of his

visit to Shrewsbury in 1724, says, "I found there the most coffee houses

around the Town Hall that ever I saw in any town, but when you come into

them they are but ale houses, only they think that the name coffee house

gives a better air."

Speaking of the coffee houses of the city, Besant says:

Rich merchants alone ventured to enter certain of the coffee

houses, where they transacted business more privately and more

expeditiously than on the Exchange. There were coffee houses where

officers of the army alone were found; where the city shopkeeper

met his chums; where actors congregated; where only divines, only

lawyers, only physicians, only wits and those who came to hear them

were found. In all alike the visitor put down his penny and went

in, taking his own seat if he was an habitue; he called for a cup

of tea or coffee and paid his twopence for it; he could call also,

if he pleased, for a cordial; he was expected to talk with his

neighbour whether he knew him or not. Men went to certain coffee

houses in order to meet the well-known poets and writers who were

to be found there, as Pope went in search of Dryden. The daily

papers and the pamphlets of the day were taken in. Some of the

coffee houses, but not the more respectable, allowed the use of

tobacco.

[Illustration: COFFEE HOUSE POLITICIANS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY]

[Illustration: THE GREAT FAIR ON THE FROZEN THAMES--1683

From a broadside entitled _Wonders on the Deep_. Figure 2 is the Duke of

York's Coffee House]

Mackay, in his _Journey Through England_ (1724), says:

We rise by nine, and those that frequent great men's levees find

entertainment at them till eleven, or, as in Holland, go to

tea-tables; about twelve the _beau monde_ assemble in several

coffee or chocolate houses; the best of which are the Cocoatree and

White's chocolate houses, St. James', the Smyrna, Mrs. Rochford's

and the British coffee houses; and all these so near one another

that in less than an hour you see the company of them all. We are

carried to these places in chairs (or sedans), which are here very

cheap, a guinea a week, or a shilling per hour, and your chairmen

serve you for porters to run on errands, as your gondoliers do at

Venice.

If it be fine weather we take a turn into the park till two, when

we go to dinner; and if it be dirty, you are entertained at picquet

or basset at White's, or you may talk politics at the Smyrna or St.

James'. I must not forget to tell you that the parties have their

different places, where, however, a stranger is always well

received; but a Whig will no more go to the Cocoatree than a Tory

will be seen at the Coffee House, St James'.

The Scots go generally to the British, and a mixture of all sorts

go to the Smyrna. There are other little coffee houses much

frequented in this neighborhood--Young Man's for officers; Old

Man's for stock jobbers, paymasters and courtiers, and Little Man's

for sharpers. I never was so confounded in my life as when I

entered into this last. I saw two or three tables full at faro, and

was surrounded by a set of sharp faces that I was afraid would have

devoured me with their eyes. I was glad to drop two or three half

crowns at faro to get off with a clear skin, and was overjoyed I so

got rid of them.

At two we generally go to dinner; ordinaries are not so common here

as abroad, yet the French have set up two or three good ones for

the convenience of foreigners in Suffolk street, where one is

tolerably well served; but the general way here is to make a party

at the coffee house to go to dine at the tavern, where we sit till

six, when we go to the play, except you are invited to the table of

some great man, which strangers are always courted to and nobly

entertained.

Mackay writes that "in all the coffee houses you have not only the

foreign prints but several English ones with foreign occurrences,

besides papers of morality and party disputes."

"After the play," writes Defoe, "the best company generally go to Tom's

and Will's coffee houses, near adjoining, where there is playing at

picquet and the best of conversation till midnight. Here you will see

blue and green ribbons and stars sitting familiarly and talking with the

same freedom as if they had left their equality and degrees of distance

at home."

[Illustration: THE LION'S HEAD AT BUTTON'S COFFEE HOUSE

Designed by Hogarth, and put up by Addison, 1713 From a water color by

T.H. Shepherd]

Before entering the coffee house every one was recommended by the

_Tatler_ to prepare his body with three dishes of bohea and to purge his

brains with two pinches of snuff. Men had their coffee houses as now

they have their clubs--sometimes contented with one, sometimes belonging

to three or four. Johnson, for instance, was connected with St. James's,

the Turk's Head, the Bedford, Peele's, besides the taverns which he

frequented. Addison and Steele used Button's; Swift, Button's, the

Smyrna, and St. James's; Dryden, Will's; Pope, Will's and Button's;

Goldsmith, the St. James's and the Chapter; Fielding, the Bedford;

Hogarth, the Bedford and Slaughter's; Sheridan, the Piazza; Thurlow,

Nando's.

_Some Famous Coffee Houses_

Among the famous English coffee houses of the seventeenth-eighteenth

century period were St. James's, Will's, Garraway's, White's,

Slaughter's, the Grecian, Button's, Lloyd's, Tom's, and Don Saltero's.

St. James's was a Whig house frequented by members of Parliament, with a

fair sprinkling of literary stars. Garraway's catered to the gentry of

the period, many of whom naturally had Tory proclivities.

One of the notable coffee houses of Queen Anne's reign was Button's.

Here Addison could be found almost every afternoon and evening, along

with Steele, Davenant, Carey, Philips, and other kindred minds. Pope was

a member of the same coffee house club for a year, but his inborn

irascibility eventually led him to drop out of it.

At Button's a lion's head, designed by Hogarth after the Lion of Venice,

"a proper emblem of knowledge and action, being all head and paws," was

set up to receive letters and papers for the _Guardian_.[82] The

_Tatler_ and the _Spectator_ were born in the coffee house, and probably

English prose would never have received the impetus given it by the

essays of Addison and Steele had it not been for coffee house

associations.

Pope's famous _Rape of the Lock_ grew out of coffee-house gossip. The

poem itself contains one charming passage on coffee.[83]

Another frequenter of the coffee houses of London, when he had the money

to do so, was Daniel Defoe, whose _Robinson Crusoe_ was the precursor of

the English novel. Henry Fielding, one of the greatest of all English

novelists, loved the life of the more bohemian coffee houses, and was,

in fact, induced to write his first great novel, _Joseph Andrews_,

through coffee-house criticisms of Richardson's _Pamela_.

Other frequenters of the coffee houses of the period were Thomas Gray

and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Garrick was often to be seen at Tom's in

Birchin Lane, where also Chatterton might have been found on many an

evening before his untimely death.

_The London Pleasure Gardens_

The second half of the eighteenth century was covered by the reigns of

the Georges. The coffee houses were still an important factor in London

life, but were influenced somewhat by the development of gardens in

which were served tea, chocolate, and other drinks, as well as coffee.

At the coffee houses themselves, while coffee remained the favorite

beverage, the proprietors, in the hope of increasing their patronage,

began to serve wine, ale, and other liquors. This seems to have been the

first step toward the decay of the coffee house.

[Illustration: A TRIO OF NOTABLES AT BUTTON'S IN 1730

The figure in the cloak is Count Viviani; of the figures facing the

reader, the draughts player is Dr. Arbuthnot, and the figure standing is

assumed to be Pope]

The coffee houses, however, continued to be the centers of intellectual

life. When Samuel Johnson and David Garrick came together to London,

literature was temporarily in a bad way, and the hack writers of the

time dwelt in Grub Street.

It was not until after Johnson had met with some success, and had

established the first of his coffee-house clubs at the Turk's Head, that

literature again became a fashionable profession.

This really famous literary club met at the Turk's Head from 1763 to

1783. Among the most notable members were Johnson, the arbiter of

English prose; Oliver Goldsmith; Boswell, the biographer; Burke, the

orator; Garrick, the actor; and Sir Joshua Reynolds, the painter. Among

the later members were Gibbon, the historian; and Adam Smith, the

political economist.

Certain it is that during the sway of the English coffee house, and at

least partly through its influence, England produced a better prose

literature, as embodied alike in her essays, literary criticisms, and

novels, than she ever had produced before.

The advent of the pleasure garden brought coffee out into the open in

England; and one of the reasons why gardens, such as Ranelagh and

Vauxhall, began to be more frequented than the coffee houses was that

they were popular resorts for women as well as for men. All kinds of

beverages were served in them; and soon the women began to favor tea as

an afternoon drink. At least, the great development in the use of tea

dates from this period; and many of these resorts called themselves tea

gardens.

The use of coffee by this time, however, was well established in the

homes as a breakfast and dinner beverage, and such consumption more than

made up for any loss sustained through the gradual decadence of the

coffee house. Yet signs of the change in national taste that arrived

with the Georges were not wanting; for the active propaganda of the

British East India Company was fairly well launched during Queen Anne's

reign.

The London pleasure gardens of the eighteenth century were unique. At

one time there was a "mighty maze" of them. Their season extended from

April or May to August or September. At first there was no charge for

admission, but Warwick Wroth[84] tells us that visitors usually

purchased cheese cakes, syllabubs, tea, coffee and ale.

The four best-known London gardens were Vauxhall; Marylebone; Cuper's,

where the charge for admission subsequently was fixed at not less than a

shilling; and Ranelagh, where the charge of half a crown included "the

Elegant Regale" of tea, coffee, and bread and butter.

The pleasure gardens provided walks, rooms for dancing, skittle grounds,

bowling greens, variety entertainments, and promenade concerts; and not

a few places were given over to fashionable gambling and racing.

The Vauxhall Gardens, one of the most favored resorts of

pleasure-seeking Londoners, were located on the Surrey side of the

Thames, a short distance east of Vauxhall Bridge. They were originally

known as the New Spring Gardens (1661), to distinguish them from the old

Spring Gardens at Charing Cross. They became famous in the reign of

Charles II. Vauxhall was celebrated for its walks, lit with thousands of

lamps, its musical and other performances, suppers, and fireworks. High

and low were to be found there, and the drinking of tea and coffee in

the arbors was a feature. The illustration shows the garden brightly

illuminated by lanterns and lamps on some festival occasion. Coffee and

tea were served in the arbors.

[Illustration: VAUXHALL GARDENS ON A GALA NIGHT]

The Ranelagh, "a place of public entertainment," erected at Chelsea in

1742, was a kind of Vauxhall under cover. The principal room, known as

the Rotunda, was circular in shape, 150 feet in diameter, and had an

orchestra in the center and tiers of boxes all around. Promenading and

taking refreshments in the boxes were the principal divertisements.

Except on gala nights of masquerades and fireworks, only tea, coffee,

bread and butter were to be had at Ranelagh.

[Illustration: THE ROTUNDA IN RANELAGH GARDENS WITH THE COMPANY AT

BREAKFAST--1751]

In the group of gardens connected with mineral springs was the Dog and

Duck (St. George's Spa), which became at last a tea garden and a dancing

saloon of doubtful repute.

Still another division, recognized by Wroth, consisted mainly of tea

gardens, among them Highbury Barn, The Canonbury House, Hornsey and

Copenhagen House, Bagnigge Wells, and White Conduit House. The two last

named were the classic tea gardens of the period. Both were provided

with "long rooms" in case of rain, and for indoor promenades with organ

music. Then there were the Adam and Eve tea gardens, with arbors for

tea-drinking parties, which subsequently became the Adam and Eve Tavern

and Coffee House. Well known were the Bayswater Tea Gardens and the Jews

Harp House and Tea Gardens. All these were provided with neat, "genteel"

boxes, let into the hedges and alcoves, for tea and coffee drinkers.

_Locating the Notable Coffee Houses_

GARRAWAY'S, 3 'Change Alley, Cornhill, was a place for great mercantile

transactions. Thomas Garway, the original proprietor, was a tobacconist

and coffee man, who claimed to be the first that sold tea in England,

although not at this address. The later Garraway's was long famous as a

sandwich and drinking room for sherry, pale ale, and punch, in addition

to tea and coffee. It is said that the sandwich-maker was occupied two

hours in cutting and arranging the sandwiches for the day's consumption.

After the "great fire" of 1666 GARRAWAY'S moved into the same place in

Exchange Alley where Elford had been before the fire. Here he claimed to

have the oldest coffee house in London; but the ground on which BOWMAN'S

had stood was occupied later by the VIRGINIA and the JAMAICA coffee

houses. The latter was damaged by the fire of 1748 which consumed

GARRAWAY'S and ELFORD'S (see map of the 1748 fire).

WILL'S, the predecessor of BUTTON'S, first had the title of the RED COW,

then of the ROSE. It was kept by William Urwin, and was on the north

side of Russell Street at the corner of Bow Street. "It was Dryden who

made Will's coffee house the great resort of the wits of his time."

(_Pope_ and _Spence_.) The room in which the poet was accustomed to sit

was on the first floor; and his place was the place of honor by the

fireside in the winter, and at the corner of the balcony, looking over

the street, in fine weather; he called the two places his winter and his

summer seat. This was called the dining-room floor. The company did not

sit in boxes as subsequently, but at various tables which were dispersed

through the room. Smoking was permitted in the public room; it was then

so much in vogue that it does not seem to have been considered a

nuisance. Here, as in other similar places of meeting, the visitors

divided themselves into parties; and we are told by Ward that the young

beaux and wits, who seldom approached the principal table, thought it a

great honor to have a pinch out of Dryden's snuff-box. After Dryden's

death WILL'S was transferred to a house opposite, and became BUTTON'S,

"over against THOMAS'S in Covent Garden." Thither also Addison

transferred much company from THOMAS'S. Here Swift first saw Addison.

Hither also came "Steele, Arbuthnot and many other wits of the time."

BUTTON'S continued in vogue until Addison's death and Steele's

retirement into Wales, after which the coffee drinkers went to the

BEDFORD, dinner parties to the SHAKESPEARE. BUTTON'S was subsequently

known as the CALEDONIEN.

[Illustration: GARRAWAY'S COFFEE HOUSE IN 'CHANGE ALLEY

Garway (or Garraway) claimed to have been first to sell Tea in England]

[Illustration: BUTTON'S COFFEE HOUSE, GREAT RUSSELL STREET

Afterward it became the Caledonien

From a water color by T.H. Shepherd]

SLAUGHTER'S, famous as the resort of painters and sculptors in the

eighteenth century, was situated at the upper end of the west side of

St. Martin's Lane. Its first landlord was Thomas Slaughter, 1692. A

second SLAUGHTER'S (NEW SLAUGHTER'S) was established in the same street

in 1760, when the original SLAUGHTER'S adopted the name of OLD

SLAUGHTER'S. It was torn down in 1843-44. Among the notables who

frequented it were Hogarth; young Gainsborough; Cipriani; Haydon;

Roubiliac; Hudson, who painted the Dilettanti portraits; M'Ardell, the

mezzotinto-scraper; Luke Sullivan, the engraver; Gardell, the portrait

painter; and Parry, the Welsh harper.

TOM'S, in Birchin Lane, Cornhill, though in the main a mercantile

resort, acquired some celebrity from having been frequented by Garrick.

TOM'S was also frequented by Chatterton, as a place "of the best

resort." Then there was TOM'S in Devereux Court, Strand, and TOM'S at 17

Great Russell Street, Covent Garden, opposite BUTTON'S, a celebrated

resort during the reign of Queen Anne and for more than a century after.

THE GRECIAN, Devereux Court, Strand, was originally kept by one

Constantine, a Greek. From this house Steele proposed to date his

learned articles in the _Tatler_; it is mentioned in No. 1 of the

_Spectator_, and it was much frequented by Goldsmith. The GRECIAN was

Foote's morning lounge. In 1843 the premises became the Grecian

Chambers, with a bust of Lord Devereux, earl of Essex, over the door.

[Illustration: SLAUGHTER'S COFFEE HOUSE, ST. MARTIN'S LANE

It was taken down in 1843

From a water color by T.H. Shepherd, 1841]

[Illustration: TOM'S COFFEE HOUSE, 17 GREAT RUSSELL STREET

Used as a coffee house until 1804 and razed in 1865

From a water color by T.H. Shepherd]

LLOYD'S, Royal Exchange, celebrated for its priority of shipping

intelligence and its marine insurance, originated with Edward Lloyd, who

about 1688 kept a coffee house in Tower Street, later in Lombard Street

corner of Abchurch Lane. It was a modest place of refreshment for

seafarers and merchants. As a matter of convenience, Edward Lloyd

prepared "ships' lists" for the guidance of the frequenters of the

coffee house. "These lists, which were written by hand, contained,"

according to Andrew Scott, "an account of vessels which the underwriters

who met there were likely to have offered them for insurance." Such was

the beginning of two institutions that have since exercised a dominant

influence on the sea-carrying trade of the whole world--the Royal

Exchange Lloyd's, the greatest insurance institution in the world, and

Lloyd's Register of Shipping. Lloyd's now has 1400 agents in all parts

of the world. It receives as many as 100,000 telegrams a year. It

records through its intelligence service the daily movements of 11,000

vessels.

In the beginning one of the apartments in the Exchange was fitted up as

LLOYD'S coffee room. Edward Lloyd died in 1712. Subsequently the coffee

house was in Pope's Head Alley, where it was called NEW LLOYD'S coffee

house, but on September 14, 1784, it was removed to the northwest corner

of the Royal Exchange, where it remained until the partial destruction

of that building by fire.

[Illustration: LLOYD'S COFFEE HOUSE IN THE ROYAL EXCHANGE, SHOWING THE

SUBSCRIPTION ROOM]

In rebuilding the Exchange there were provided the Subscribers' or

Underwriters' room, the Merchants' room, and the Captains' room. _The

City_, second edition, 1848, contains the following description of this

most famous rendezvous of eminent merchants, shipowners, underwriters,

insurance, stock and exchange brokers:

Here is obtained the earliest news of the arrival and sailing of

vessels, losses at sea, captures, recaptures, engagements and other

shipping intelligence; and proprietors of ships and freights are

insured by the underwriters. The rooms are in the Venetian style

with Roman enrichments. At the entrance of the room are exhibited

the Shipping Lists, received from Lloyd's agents at home and

abroad, and affording particulars of departures or arrivals of

vessels, wrecks, salvage, or sale of property saved, etc. To the

right and left are "Lloyd's Books," two enormous ledgers. Right

hand, ships "spoken with" or arrived at their destined ports; left

hand, records of wrecks, fires or severe collisions, written in a

fine Roman hand in "double lines." To assist the underwriters in

their calculations, at the end of the room is an Anemometer, which

registers the state of the wind day and night; attached is a rain

gauge.

THE BRITISH, Cockspur Street, "long a house of call for Scotchmen," was

fortunate in its landladies. In 1759 it was kept by the sister of Bishop

Douglas, so well known for his works against Lauder and Bower, which may

explain its Scottish fame. At another period it was kept by Mrs.

Anderson, described in Mackenzie's _Life of Home_ as "a woman of

uncommon talents and the most agreeable conversation."

DON SALTERO'S, 18 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, was opened by a barber named

Salter in 1695. Sir Hans Sloane contributed of his own collection some

of the refuse gimcracks that were to be found in Salter's "museum."

Vice-Admiral Munden, who had been long on the coast of Spain, where he

had acquired a fondness for Spanish titles, named the keeper of the

house Don Saltero, and his coffee house and museum DON SALTERO'S.

SQUIRE'S was in Fulwood's Rents, Holburn, running up to Gray's Inn. It

was one of the receiving houses of the _Spectator_. In No. 269 the

_Spectator_ accepts Sir Roger de Coverley's invitation to "smoke a pipe

with him over a dish of coffee at Squire's. As I love the old man, I

take delight in complying with everything that is agreeable to him, and

accordingly waited on him to the coffee-house, where his venerable

figure drew upon us the eyes of the whole room. He had no sooner seated

himself at the upper end of the high table, but he called for a clean

pipe, a paper of tobacco, a dish of coffee, a wax candle and the

'Supplement' (a periodical paper of that time), with such an air of

cheerfulness and good humour, that all the boys in the coffee room (who

seemed to take pleasure in serving him) were at once employed on his

several errands, insomuch that nobody else could come at a dish of tea

until the Knight had got all his conveniences about him." Such was the

coffee room in the _Spectator's_ day.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF DICK'S COFFEE HOUSE

From the frontispiece to "The Coffee House--a dramatick Piece" (see

chapter XXXII)]

THE COCOA-TREE was originally a coffee house on the south side of Pall

Mall. When there grew up a need for "places of resort of a more elegant

and refined character," chocolate houses came into vogue, and the

COCOA-TREE was the most famous of these. It was converted into a club in

1746.

[Illustration: THE GRECIAN COFFEE HOUSE, DEVEREUX COURT

It was closed in 1843. From a drawing dated 1809]

WHITE'S chocolate house, established by Francis White about 1693 in St.

James's Street, originally open to any one as a coffee house, soon

became a private club, composed of "the most fashionable exquisites of

the town and court." In its coffee-house days, the entrance was

sixpence, as compared with the average penny fee of the other coffee

houses. Escott refers to WHITE'S as being "the one specimen of the class

to which it belongs, of a place at which, beneath almost the same roof,

and always bearing the same name, whether as coffee house or club, the

same class of persons has congregated during more than two hundred

years."

Among hundreds of other coffee houses that flourished during the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the following more notable ones are

deserving of mention:

[Illustration: DON SALTERO'S COFFEE HOUSE, CHEYNE WALK

From a steel engraving in the British Museum]

[Illustration: THE BRITISH COFFEE HOUSE

IN COCKSPUR STREET

From a print published in 1770]

BAKER'S, 58 'Change Alley, for nearly half a century noted for its chops

and steaks broiled in the coffee room and eaten hot from the gridiron;

the BALTIC, in Threadneedle Street, the rendezvous of brokers and

merchants connected with the Russian trade; the BEDFORD, "under the

Piazza, in Covent Garden," crowded every night with men of parts and

"signalized for many years as the emporium of wit, the seat of criticism

and the standard of taste"; the CHAPTER, in Paternoster Row, frequented

by Chatterton and Goldsmith; CHILD'S, in St. Paul's Churchyard, one of

the _Spectator's_ houses, and much frequented by the clergy and fellows

of the Royal Society; DICK'S, in Fleet Street, frequented by Cowper, and

the scene of Rousseau's comedietta, entitled _The Coffee House_; ST.

JAMES'S, in St. James's Street, frequented by Swift, Goldsmith, and

Garrick; JERUSALEM, in Cowper's Court, Cornhill, frequented by merchants

and captains connected with the commerce of China, India, and Australia;

JONATHAN'S, in 'Change Alley, described by the _Tatler_ as "the general

mart of stock jobbers"; the LONDON, in Ludgate Hill, noted for its

publishers' sales of stock and copyrights; MAN'S, in Scotland Yard,

which took its name from the proprietor, Alexander Man, and was

sometimes known as OLD MAN'S, or the ROYAL, to distinguish it from YOUNG

MAN'S, LITTLE MAN'S, NEW MAN'S, etc., minor establishments in the

neighborhood;[85] NANDO'S, in Fleet Street, the favorite haunt of Lord

Thurlow and many professional loungers, attracted by the fame of the

punch and the charms of the landlady; NEW ENGLAND AND NORTH AND SOUTH

AMERICAN, in Threadneedle Street, having on its subscription list

representatives of Barings, Rothschilds, and other wealthy

establishments; PEELE'S, in Fleet Street, having a portrait of Dr.

Johnson said to have been painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds; the PERCY, in

Oxford Street, the inspiration for the _Percy Anecdotes_; the PIAZZA, in

Covent Garden, where Macklin fitted up a large coffee room, or theater,

for oratory, and Fielding and Foote poked fun at him; the RAINBOW, in

Fleet Street, the second coffee house opened in London, having its token

money; the SMYRNA, in Pall Mall, a "place to talk politics," and

frequented by Prior and Swift; TOM KING'S, one of the old night houses

of Covent Garden Market, "well known to all gentlemen to whom beds are

unknown"; the TURK'S HEAD, 'Change Alley, which also had its tokens; the

TURK'S HEAD, in the Strand, which was a favorite supping house for Dr.

Johnson and Boswell; the FOLLY, a coffee house on a house-boat on the

Thames, which became quite notorious during Queen Anne's reign.

[Illustration: THE FRENCH COFFEE HOUSE IN LONDON, SECOND HALF OF THE

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

From the original water-color drawing by Thomas Rowlandson]

[Illustration]

[Illustration: RAMPONAUX' ROYAL DRUMMER, ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR OF THE

EARLY PARISIAN CAFÉS

Started originally as a tavern, this hostelry added coffee to its

cuisine and became famous in the reign of Louis XV The illustration is

from an early print used to advertise the "Royal Drummer's" attractions]

CHAPTER XI

HISTORY OF THE EARLY PARISIAN COFFEE HOUSES

_The introduction of coffee into Paris by Thévenot in 1657--How

Soliman Aga established the custom of coffee drinking at the court

of Louis XIV--Opening the first coffee houses--How the French

adaptation of the Oriental coffee house first appeared in the real

French café of François Procope--The important part played by the

coffee houses in the development of French literature and the

stage--Their association with the Revolution and the founding of

the Republic--Quaint customs and patrons--Historic Parisian cafés_

If we are to accept the authority of Jean La Roque, "before the year

1669 coffee had scarcely been seen in Paris, except at M. Thévenot's and

at the homes of some of his friends. Nor had it been heard of except in

the writings of travelers."

As noted in chapter V, Jean de Thévenot brought coffee into Paris in

1657. One account says that a decoction, supposed to have been coffee,

was sold by a Levantine in the Petit Châtelet under the name of _cohove_

or _cahoue_ during the reign of Louis XIII, but this lacks confirmation.

Louis XIV is said to have been served with coffee for the first time in

1664.

Soon after the arrival, in July, 1669, of the Turkish ambassador,

Soliman Aga, it became noised abroad that he had brought with him for

his own use, and that of his retinue, great quantities of coffee. He

"treated several persons with it, both in the court and the city." At

length "many accustomed themselves to it with sugar, and others who

found benefit by it could not leave it off."

Within six months all Paris was talking of the sumptuous coffee

functions of the ambassador from Mohammed IV to the court of Louis XIV.

Isaac D'Israeli best describes them in his _Curiosities of Literature_:

On bended knee, the black slaves of the Ambassador, arrayed in the

most gorgeous Oriental costumes, served the choicest Mocha coffee

in tiny cups of egg-shell porcelain, hot, strong and fragrant,

poured out in saucers of gold and silver, placed on embroidered

silk doylies fringed with gold bullion, to the grand dames, who

fluttered their fans with many grimaces, bending their piquant

faces--be-rouged, be-powdered and be-patched--over the new and

steaming beverage.

It was in 1669 or 1672 that Madame de Sévigné (Marie de Rabutin-Chantal;

1626-96), the celebrated French letter-writer, is said to have made that

famous prophecy, "There are two things Frenchmen will never

swallow--coffee and Racine's poetry," sometimes abbreviated into,

"Racine and coffee will pass." What Madame really said, according to one

authority, was that Racine was writing for Champmeslé, the actress, and

not for posterity; again, of coffee she said, "_s'en dégoûterait comme;

d'un indigne favori_" (People will become disgusted with it as with an

unworthy favorite).

Larousse says the double judgment was wrongly attributed to Mme. de

Sévigné. The celebrated aphorism, like many others, was forged later.

Mme. de Sévigné said, "Racine made his comedies for the Champmeslé--not

for the ages to come." This was in 1672. Four years later, she said to

her daughter, "You have done well to quit coffee. Mlle. de Mere has also

given it up."

[Illustration: COFFEE WAS FIRST SOLD AND SERVED PUBLICLY IN THE FAIR OF

ST.-GERMAIN

From a Seventeenth-Century Print]

However it may have been, the amiable letter-writer was destined to live

to see Frenchmen yielding at once to the lure of coffee and to the

poetical artifices of the greatest dramatic craftsman of his day.

While it is recorded that coffee made slow progress with the court of

Louis XIV, the next king, Louis XV, to please his mistress, du Barry,

gave it a tremendous vogue. It is related that he spent $15,000 a year

for coffee for his daughters.

Meanwhile, in 1672, one Pascal, an Armenian, first sold coffee publicly

in Paris. Pascal, who, according to one account, was brought to Paris by

Soliman Aga, offered the beverage for sale from a tent, which was also a

kind of booth, in the fair of St.-Germain, supplemented by the service

of Turkish waiter boys, who peddled it among the crowds from small cups

on trays. The fair was held during the first two months of spring, in a

large open plot just inside the walls of Paris and near the Latin

Quarter. As Pascal's waiter boys circulated through the crowds on those

chilly days the fragrant odor of freshly made coffee brought many ready

sales of the steaming beverage; and soon visitors to the fair learned to

look for the "little black" cupful of cheer, or _petit noir_, a name

that still endures.

When the fair closed, Pascal opened a small coffee shop on the Quai de

l'École, near the Pont Neuf; but his frequenters were of a type who

preferred the beers and wines of the day, and coffee languished. Pascal

continued, however, to send his waiter boys with their large coffee

jugs, that were heated by lamps, through the streets of Paris and from

door to door. Their cheery cry of "_café! café!_" became a welcome call

to many a Parisian, who later missed his _petit noir_ when Pascal gave

up and moved on to London, where coffee drinking was then in high favor.

[Illustration: STREET COFFEE VENDER OF PARIS--PERIOD, 1672 TO 1689--TWO

SOUS PER DISH, SUGAR INCLUDED]

Lacking favor at court, coffee's progress was slow. The French smart set

clung to its light wines and beers. In 1672, Maliban, another Armenian,

opened a coffee house in the rue Bussy, next to the Metz tennis court

near St.-Germain's abbey. He supplied tobacco also to his customers.

Later he went to Holland, leaving his servant and partner, Gregory, a

Persian, in charge. Gregory moved to the rue Mazarine, to be near the

Comédie Française. He was succeeded in the business by Makara, another

Persian, who later returned to Ispahan, leaving the coffee house to one

Le Gantois, of Liége.

About this period there was a cripple boy from Candia, known as le

Candiot, who began to cry "coffee!" in the streets of Paris. He carried

with him a coffee pot of generous size, a chafing-dish, cups, and all

other implements necessary to his trade. He sold his coffee from door to

door at two sous per dish, sugar included.

[Illustration: MANY OF THE EARLY PARISIAN COFFEE HOUSES FOLLOWED

PASCAL'S LEAD AND AFFECTED ARMENIAN DECORATIONS

From a Seventeenth-Century Print]

A Levantine named Joseph also sold coffee in the streets, and later had

several coffee shops of his own. Stephen, from Aleppo, next opened a

coffee house on Pont au Change, moving, when his business prospered, to

more pretentious quarters in the rue St.-André, facing St.-Michael's

bridge.

[Illustration: A CORNER OF THE HISTORIC CAFÉ DE PROCOPE SHOWING VOLTAIRE

AND DIDEROT IN DEBATE

From a rare water color]

All these, and others, were essentially the Oriental style of coffee

house of the lower order, and they appealed principally to the poorer

classes and to foreigners. "Gentlemen and people of fashion" did not

care to be seen in this type of public house. But when the French

merchants began to set up, first at St.-Germain's fair, "spacious

apartments in an elegant manner, ornamented with tapestries, large

mirrors, pictures, marble tables, branches for candles, magnificent

lustres, and serving coffee, tea, chocolate, and other refreshments",

they were soon crowded with people of fashion and men of letters.

In this way coffee drinking in public acquired a badge of

respectability. Presently there were some three hundred coffee houses in

Paris. The principal coffee men, in addition to plying their trade in

the city, maintained coffee rooms in St.-Germain's and St.-Laurence's

fairs. These were frequented by women as well as men.

_The Progenitor of the Real Parisian Café_

It was not until 1689, that there appeared in Paris a real French

adaptation of the Oriental coffee house. This was the Café de Procope,

opened by François Procope (Procopio Cultelli, or Cotelli) who came from

Florence or Palermo. Procope was a _limonadier_ (lemonade vender) who

had a royal license to sell spices, ices, barley water, lemonade, and

other such refreshments. He early added coffee to the list, and

attracted a large and distinguished patronage.

Procope, a keen-witted merchant, made his appeal to a higher class of

patrons than did Pascal and those who first followed him. He established

his café directly opposite the newly opened Comédie Française, in the

street then known as the rue des Fossés-St.-Germain, but now the rue de

l'Ancienne Comédie. A writer of the period has left this description of

the place: "The Café de Procope ... was also called the Antre [cavern]

de Procope, because it was very dark even in full day, and ill-lighted

in the evenings; and because you often saw there a set of lank, sallow

poets, who had somewhat the air of apparitions."

Because of its location, the Café de Procope became the gathering place

of many noted French actors, authors, dramatists, and musicians of the

eighteenth century. It was a veritable literary salon. Voltaire was a

constant patron; and until the close of the historic café, after an

existence of more than two centuries, his marble table and chair were

among the precious relics of the coffee house. His favorite drink is

said to have been a mixture of coffee and chocolate. Rousseau, author

and philosopher; Beaumarchais, dramatist and financier; Diderot, the

encyclopedist; Ste.-Foix, the abbé of Voisenon; de Belloy, author of the

_Siege of Callais_; Lemierre, author of _Artaxerce_; Crébillon; Piron;

La Chaussée; Fontenelle; Condorcet; and a host of lesser lights in the

French arts, were habitués of François Procope's modest coffee saloon

near the Comédie Française.

Naturally, the name of Benjamin Franklin, recognized in Europe as one of

the world's foremost thinkers in the days of the American Revolution,

was often spoken over the coffee cups of Café de Procope; and when the

distinguished American died in 1790, this French coffee house went into

deep mourning "for the great friend of republicanism." The walls, inside

and out, were swathed in black bunting, and the statesmanship and

scientific attainments of Franklin were acclaimed by all frequenters.

The Café de Procope looms large in the annals of the French Revolution.

During the turbulent days of 1789 one could find at the tables, drinking

coffee or stronger beverages, and engaged in debate over the burning

questions of the hour, such characters as Marat, Robespierre, Danton,

Hébert, and Desmoulins. Napoleon Bonaparte, then a poor artillery

officer seeking a commission, was also there. He busied himself largely

in playing chess, a favorite recreation of the early Parisian

coffee-house patrons. It is related that François Procope once compelled

young Bonaparte to leave his hat for security while he sought money to

pay his coffee score.

After the Revolution, the Café de Procope lost its literary prestige and

sank to the level of an ordinary restaurant. During the last half of the

nineteenth century, Paul Verlaine, bohemian, poet, and leader of the

symbolists, made the Café de Procope his haunt; and for a time it

regained some of its lost popularity. The Restaurant Procope still

survives at 13 rue de l'Ancienne Comédie.

History records that, with the opening of the Café de Procope, coffee

became firmly established in Paris. In the reign of Louis XV there were

600 cafés in Paris. At the close of the eighteenth century there were

more than 800. By 1843 the number had increased to more than 3000.

_The Development of the Cafés_

Coffee's vogue spread rapidly, and many cabaréts and famous eating

houses began to add it to their menus. Among these was the Tour d'Argent

(silver tower), which had been opened on the Quai de la Tournelle in

1582, and speedily became Paris's most fashionable restaurant. It still

is one of the chief attractions for the epicure, retaining the

reputation for its cooking that drew a host of world leaders, from

Napoleon to Edward VII, to its quaint interior.

[Illustration: THE CAFÉ DE PROCOPE IN 1743

From an engraving by Bosredon]

Another tavern that took up coffee after Procope, was the Royal

Drummer, which Jean Ramponaux established at the Courtille des

Porcherons and which followed Magny's. His hostelry rightly belongs to

the tavern class, although coffee had a prominent place on its menu. It

became notorious for excesses and low-class vices during the reign of

Louis XV, who was a frequent visitor. Low and high were to be found in

Ramponaux's cellar, particularly when some especially wild revelry was

in prospect. Marie Antoinette once declared she had her most enjoyable

time at a wild _farandole_ in the Royal Drummer. Ramponaux was taken to

its heart by fashionable Paris; and his name was used as a trade mark on

furniture, clothes, and foods.

[Illustration: THE CASHIER'S COUNTER IN A PARIS COFFEE HOUSE OF 1782

From a drawing by Rétif de la Bretonne]

The popularity of Ramponaux's Royal Drummer is attested by an

inscription on an early print showing the interior of the café.

Translated, it reads:

The pleasures of ease untroubled to taste,

The leisure of home to enjoy without haste,

Perhaps a few hours at Magny's to waste,

Ah, that was the old-fashioned way!

Today all our laborers, everyone knows,

Go running away ere the working hours close,

And why? They must be at Monsieur Ramponaux'!

Behold, the new style of café!

When coffee houses began to crop up rapidly in Paris, the majority

centered in the Palais Royal, "that garden spot of beauty, enclosed on

three sides by three tiers of galleries," which Richelieu had erected in

1636, under the name of Palais Cardinal, in the reign of Louis XIII. It

became known as the Palais Royal in 1643; and soon after the opening of

the Café de Procope, it began to blossom out with many attractive coffee

stalls, or rooms, sprinkled among the other shops that occupied the

galleries overlooking the gardens.

_Life In The Early Coffee Houses_

Diderot tells in 1760, in his _Rameau's Nephew_, of the life and

frequenters of one of the Palais Royal coffee houses, the Regency (_Café

de la Régence_):

In all weathers, wet or fine, it is my practice to go toward five

o'clock in the evening to take a turn in the Palais Royal.... If

the weather is too cold or too wet I take shelter in the Regency

coffee house. There I amuse myself by looking on while they play

chess. Nowhere in the world do they play chess as skillfully as in

Paris and nowhere in Paris as they do at this coffee house; 'tis

here you see Légal the profound, Philidor the subtle, Mayot the

solid; here you see the most astounding moves, and listen to the

sorriest talk, for if a man be at once a wit and a great chess

player, like Légal, he may also be a great chess player and a sad

simpleton, like Joubert and Mayot.

The beginnings of the Regency coffee house are associated with the

legend that Lefévre, a Parisian, began peddling coffee in the streets of

Paris about the time Procope opened his café in 1689. The story has it

that Lefévre later opened a café near the Palais Royal, selling it in

1718 to one Leclerc, who named it the Café de la Régence, in honor of

the regent of Orleans, a name that still endures on a broad sign over

its doors. The nobility had their rendezvous there after having paid

their court to the regent.

[Illustration: THE CAFÉ FOY IN THE PALAIS ROYAL, 1789

From an engraving by Bosredon]

To name the patrons of the Café de la Régence in its long career would

be to outline a history of French literature for more than two

centuries. There was Philidor the "greatest theoretician of the

eighteenth century, better known for his chess than his music";

Robespierre, of the Revolution, who once played chess with a

girl--disguised as a boy--for the life of her lover; Napoleon, who was

then noted more for his chess than his empire-building propensities; and

Gambetta, whose loud voice, generally raised in debate, disturbed one

chess player so much that he protested because he could not follow his

game. Voltaire, Alfred de Musset; Victor Hugo, Théophile Gautier, J.J.

Rousseau, the Duke of Richelieu, Marshall Saxe, Buffon, Rivarol,

Fontenelle, Franklin, and Henry Murger are names still associated with

memories of this historic café: Marmontel and Philidor played there at

their favorite game of chess. Diderot tells in his _Memoirs_ that his

wife gave him every day nine sous to get his coffee there. It was in

this establishment that he worked on his _Encyclopedia_.

Chess is today still in favor at the Régence, although the players are

not, as were the earlier patrons, obliged to pay by the hour for their

tables with extra charges for candles placed by the chess-boards. The

present Café de la Régence is in the rue St.-Honoré, but retains in

large measure its aspect of olden days.

Michelet, the historian, has given us a rhapsodic pen picture of the

Parisian cafés under the regency:

Paris became one vast café. Conversation in France was at its

zenith. There were less eloquence and rhetoric than in '89. With

the exception of Rousseau, there was no orator to cite. The

intangible flow of wit was as spontaneous as possible. For this

sparkling outburst there is no doubt that honor should be ascribed

in part to the auspicious revolution of the times, to the great

event which created new customs, and even modified human

temperament--the advent of coffee.

Its effect was immeasurable, not being weakened and neutralized as

it is today by the brutalizing influence of tobacco. They took

snuff, but did not smoke. The cabarét was dethroned, the ignoble

cabarét, where, during the reign of Louis XIV, the youth of the

city rioted amid wine-casks in the company of light women. The

night was less thronged with chariots. Fewer lords found a resting

place in the gutter. The elegant shop, where conversation flowed, a

salon rather than a shop, changed and ennobled its customs. The

reign of coffee is that of temperance. Coffee, the beverage of

sobriety, a powerful mental stimulant, which, unlike spirituous

liquors, increases clearness and lucidity; coffee, which suppresses

the vague, heavy fantasies of the imagination, which from the

perception of reality brings forth the sparkle and sunlight of

truth; coffee anti-erotic....

The three ages of coffee are those of modern thought; they mark the

serious moments of the brilliant epoch of the soul.

Arabian coffee is the pioneer, even before 1700. The beautiful

ladies that you see in the fashionable rooms of Bonnard, sipping

from their tiny cups--they are enjoying the aroma of the finest

coffee of Arabia. And of what are they chatting? Of the seraglio,

of Chardin, of the Sultana's coiffure, of the _Thousand and One

Nights_ (1704). They compare the ennui of Versailles with the

paradise of the Orient.

Very soon, in 1710-1720, commences the reign of Indian coffee,

abundant, popular, comparatively cheap. Bourbon, our Indian island,

where coffee was transplanted, suddenly realizes unheard-of

happiness. This coffee of volcanic lands acts as an explosive on

the Regency and the new spirit of things. This sudden cheer, this

laughter of the old world, these overwhelming flashes of wit, of

which the sparkling verse of Voltaire, the _Persian Letters_, give

us a faint idea! Even the most brilliant books have not succeeded

in catching on the wing this airy chatter, which comes, goes, flies

elusively. This is that spirit of ethereal nature which, in the

_Thousand and One Nights_, the enchanter confined in his bottle.

But what phial would have withstood that pressure?

The lava of Bourbon, like the Arabian sand, was unequal to the

demand. The Regent recognized this and had coffee transported to

the fertile soil of our Antilles. The strong coffee of Santo

Domingo, full, coarse, nourishing as well as stimulating, sustained

the adult population of that period, the strong age of the

encyclopedia. It was drunk by Buffon, Diderot, Rousseau, added its

glow to glowing souls, its light to the penetrating vision of the

prophets gathered in the cave of Procope, who saw at the bottom of

the black beverage the future rays of '89. Danton, the terrible

Danton, took several cups of coffee before mounting the tribune.

'The horse must have its oats,' he said.

The vogue of coffee popularized the use of sugar, which was then bought

by the ounce at the apothecary's shop. Dufour says that in Paris they

used to put so much sugar in the coffee that "it was nothing but a syrup

of blackened water." The ladies were wont to have their carriages stop

in front of the Paris cafés and to have their coffee served to them by

the porter on saucers of silver.

Every year saw new cafés opened. When they became so numerous, and

competition grew so keen, it was necessary to invent new attractions for

customers. Then was born the _café chantant_, where songs, monologues,

dances, little plays and farces (not always in the best taste), were

provided to amuse the frequenters. Many of these _cafés chantants_ were

in the open air along the Champs-Elysées. In bad weather, Paris provided

the pleasure-seeker with the Eldorado, Alcazar d'Hiver, Scala, Gaieté,

Concert du XIXme Siécle, Folies Bobino, Rambuteau, Concert Européen,

and countless other meeting places where one could be served with a cup

of coffee.

[Illustration: THE CAFÉ DES MILLE COLONNES IN 1811

From an engraving by Bosredon]

As in London, certain cafés were noted for particular followings, like

the military, students, artists, merchants. The politicians had their

favorite resorts. Says Salvandy:[86]

These were senates in miniature; here mighty political questions

were discussed; here peace and war were decided upon; here generals

were brought to the bar of justice ... distinguished orators were

victoriously refuted, ministers heckled upon their ignorance, their

incapacity, their perfidy, their corruption. The café is in reality

a French institution; in them we find all these agitations and

movements of men, the like of which is unknown in the English

tavern. No government can go against the sentiment of the cafés.

The Revolution took place because they were for the Revolution.

Napoleon reigned because they were for glory. The Restoration was

shattered, because they understood the Charter in a different

manner.

In 1700 appeared the _Portefeuille Galant_, containing conversations of

the cafés.

_The Cafés in the French Revolution_

The Palais Royal coffee houses were centers of activity in the days

preceding and following the Revolution. A picture of them in the July

days of 1789 has been left by Arthur Young, who was visiting Paris at

that time:

The coffee houses present yet more singular and astounding

spectacles; they are not only crowded within, but other expectant

crowds are at the doors and windows, listening _à gorge déployée_

to certain orators who from chairs or tables harangue each his

little audience; the eagerness with which they are heard, and the

thunder of applause they receive for every sentiment of more than

common hardiness or violence against the government, cannot easily

be imagined.

The Palais Royal teemed with excited Frenchmen on the fateful Sunday of

July 12, 1789. The moment was a tense one, when, coming out of the Café

Foy, Camille Desmoulins, a youthful journalist, mounted a table and

began the harangue that precipitated the first overt act of the French

Revolution. Blazing with a white hot frenzy, he so played upon the

passions of the mob that at the conclusion of his speech he and his

followers "marched away from the Café on their errand of Revolution."

The Bastille fell two days later.

As if abashed by its reputation as the starting point of the mob spirit

of the Revolution, Café Foy became in after years a sedate

gathering-place of artists and literati. Up to its close it was

distinguished among other famous Parisian cafés for its exclusiveness

and strictly enforced rule of "no smoking."

Even from the first the Parisian cafés catered to all classes of

society; and, unlike the London coffee houses, they retained this

distinctive characteristic. A number of them early added other liquid

and substantial refreshments, many becoming out-and-out restaurants.

_Coffee-House Customs and Patrons_

Coffee's effect on Parisians is thus described by a writer of the latter

part of the eighteenth century:

I think I may safely assert that it is to the establishment of so

many cafés in Paris that is due the urbanity and mildness

discernible upon most faces. Before they existed, nearly everybody

passed his time at the cabarét, where even business matters were

discussed. Since their establishment, people assemble to hear what

is going on, drinking and playing only in moderation, and the

consequence is that they are more civil and polite, at least in

appearance.

Montesquieu's satirical pen pictured in his _Persian Letters_ the

earliest cafés as follows:

In some of these houses they talk news; in others, they play

draughts. There is one where they prepare the coffee in such a

manner that it inspires the drinkers of it with wit; at least, of

all those who frequent it, there is not one person in four who does

not think he has more wit after he has entered that house. But what

offends me in these wits is that they do not make themselves useful

to their country.

Montesquieu encountered a geometrician outside a coffee house on the

Pont Neuf, and accompanied him inside. He describes the incident in this

manner:

I observe that our geometrician was received there with the utmost

officiousness, and that the coffee house boys paid him much more

respect than two musqueteers who were in a corner of the room. As

for him, he seemed as if he thought himself in an agreeable place;

for he unwrinkled his brows a little and laughed, as if he had not

the least tincture of geometrician in him.... He was offended at

every start of wit, as a tender eye is by too strong a light.... At

last I saw an old man enter, pale and thin, whom I knew to be a

coffee house politician before he sat down; he was not one of those

who are never to be intimidated by disasters, but always prophesy

of victories and success; he was one of those timorous wretches who

are always boding ill.

Café Momus and Café Rotonde figure conspicuously in the record of French

bohemianism. The Momus stood near the right bank of the River Seine in

rue des Prêtres St.-Germain, and was known as the home of the bohemians.

The Rotonde stood on the left bank at the corner of the rue de l'École

de Médecine and the rue Hautefeuille.

[Illustration: THE CAFÉ DE PARIS IN 1843

From an engraving by Bosredon]

Alexandre Schanne has given us a glimpse of bohemian life in the early

cafés. He lays his scene in the Café Rotonde, and tells how a number of

poor students were wont to make one cup of coffee last the coterie a

full evening by using it to flavor and to color the one glass of water

shared in common. He says:

Every evening, the first comer at the waiter's inquiry, "What will

you take, sir?" never failed to reply, "Nothing just at present, I

am waiting for a friend." The friend arrived, to be assailed by the

brutal question, "Have you any money?" He would make a despairing

gesture in the negative, and then add, loud enough to be heard by

the _dame du comptoir_, "By Jove, no; only fancy, I left my purse

on my console-table, with gilt feet, in the purest Louis XV style.

Ah! what a thing it is to be forgetful." He would sit down, and the

waiter would wipe the table as if he had something to do. A third

would come, who was sometimes able to reply, "Yes. I have ten

sous." "Good!" we would reply; "order a cup of coffee, a glass and

a water bottle; pay and give two sous to the waiter to secure his

silence." This would be done. Others would come and take their

places beside us, repeating to the waiter the same chorus, "We are

with this gentleman." Frequently we would be eight or nine sitting

at the same table, and only one customer. Whilst smoking and

reading the papers we would, however, pass the glass and bottle.

When the water began to run short, as on a ship in distress, one of

us would have the impudence to call out, "Waiter, some water!" The

master of the establishment, who understood our situation, had no

doubt given orders for us to be left alone, and made his fortune

without our help. He was a good fellow and an intelligent one,

having subscribed to all the scientific journals of Europe, which

brought him the custom of foreign students.

Another café perpetuating the best traditions of the Latin Quarter was

the Vachette, which survived until the death of Jean Moréas in 1911. The

Vachette is usually cited by antiquarians as a model of circumspection

as compared with the scores of cafés in the Quarter that were given up

to debaucheries. One writer puts it: "The Vachette traditions leaned

more to scholarship than sensuality."

In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries the Parisian café

was truly a coffee house; but as many of the patrons began to while away

most of their waking hours in them, the proprietors added other

beverages and food to hold their patronage. Consequently, we find listed

among the cafés of Paris some houses that are more accurately described

as restaurants, although they may have started their careers as coffee

houses.

_Historic Parisian Cafés_

Some of the historic cafés are still thriving in their original

locations, although the majority have now passed into oblivion. Glimpses

of the more famous houses are to be found in the novels, poetry, and

essays written by the French literati who patronized them. These

first-hand accounts give insights that are sometimes stirring, often

amusing, and frequently revolting--such as the assassination of

St.-Fargean in Février's low-vaulted cellar café in the Palais Royal.

There is Magny's, originally the haunt of such literary men as Gautier,

Taine, Saint-Victor, Turguenieff, de Goncourt, Soulie, Renan, Edmond. In

recent years the old Magny's was razed, and on its site was built the

modern restaurant of the same name, but in a style that has no

resemblance to its predecessor. Even the name of the street has been

changed, from rue Contrescarpe to the rue Mazet.

Méot's, the Véry, Beauvilliers', Massé's, the Café Chartres, the Troi

Fréres Provençaux, and the du Grand Commun, all situated in the Palais

Royal, are cafés that figured conspicuously in the French Revolution,

and are closely identified with the French stage and literature. Méot's

and Massé's were the trysting places of the Royalists in the days

preceding the outbreak, but welcomed the Revolutionists after they came

in power. The Chartres was notorious as the gathering place of young

aristocrats who escaped the guillotine, and, thus made bold, often

called their like from adjoining cafés to partake in some of their plans

for restoration of the empire. The Trois Fréres Provençaux, well known

for its excellent and costly dinners, is mentioned by Balzac, Lord

Lytton, and Alfred de Musset in some of their novels. The Café du Grand

Commun appears in Rousseau's _Confessions_ in connection with the play

_Devin du Village_.

Among the most famous of the cafés on the Rue St. Honoré were Venua's,

patronized by Robespierre and his companions of the Revolution, and

perhaps the scene of the inhuman murder of Berthier and its revolting

aftermath; the Mapinot, which has gone down in café history as the scene

of the banquet to Archibald Alison, the 22-year-old historian; and

Voisin's café, around which still cling traditions of such literary

lights as Zola, Alphonse Daudet, and Jules de Goncourt.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A TYPICAL PARISIAN CAFÉ OF THE EARLY

NINETEENTH CENTURY]

Perhaps the boulevard des Italiens had, and still has, more fashionable

cafés than any other section of the French capital. The Tortoni, opened

in the early days of the Empire by Velloni, an Italian lemonade vender,

was the most popular of the boulevard cafés, and was generally thronged

with fashionables from all parts of Europe. Here Louis Blanc, historian

of the Revolution, spent many hours in the early days of his fame.

Talleyrand; Rossini, the musician; Alfred Stevens and Edouard Manet,

artists, are some of the names still linked with the traditions of the

Tortoni. Farther down the boulevard were the Café Riche, Maison Dorée,

Café Anglais, and the Café de Paris. The Riche and the Dorée, standing

side by side, were both high-priced and noted for their revelries. The

Anglais, which came into existence after the snuffing out of the Empire,

was also distinguished for its high prices, but in return gave an

excellent dinner and fine wines. It is told that even during the siege

of Paris the Anglais offered its patrons "such luxuries as ass, mule,

peas, fried potatoes, and champagne."

Probably the Café de Paris, which came into existence in 1822, in the

former home of the Russian Prince Demidoff, was the most richly equipped

and elegantly conducted of any café in Paris in the nineteenth century.

Alfred de Musset, a frequenter, said, "you could not open its doors for

less than 15 francs."

The Café Littéraire, opened on boulevard Bonne Nouvelle late in the

nineteenth century, made a direct appeal to literary men for patronage,

printing this footnote on its menu: "Every customer spending a franc in

this establishment is entitled to one volume of any work to be selected

from our vast collection."

The names of Parisian cafés once more or less famous are legion. Some of

them are:

The Café Laurent, which Rousseau was forced to leave after writing an

especially bitter satire; the English café in which eccentric Lord

Wharton made merry with the Whig habitués; the Dutch café, the haunt of

Jacobites; Terre's, in the rue Neuve des Petits Champs, which Thackeray

described in _The Ballad of Bouillabaisse_; Maire's, in the boulevard

St.-Denis, which dates back beyond 1850; the Café Madrid, in the

boulevard Montmartre, of which Carjat, the Spanish lyric poet, was an

attraction; the Café de la Paix, in the boulevard des Capucines, the

resort of Second Empire Imperialists and their spies; the Café Durand,

in the place de la Madeleine, which started on a plane with the

high-priced Riche, and ended its career early in the twentieth century;

the Rocher de Cancale, memorable for its feasts and high-living patrons

from all over Europe; the Café Guerbois, near the rue de St. Petersburg,

where Manet, the impressionist, after many vicissitudes, won fame for

his paintings and held court for many years; the Chat Noir, on the rue

Victor Massé at Montmartre, a blend of café and concert hall, which has

since been imitated widely, both in name and feature.

[Illustration: CHESS HAS BEEN A FAVORITE PASTIME AT THE CAFÉ DE LA

RÉGENCE FOR TWO HUNDRED YEARS.]

CHAPTER XII

INTRODUCTION OF COFFEE INTO NORTH AMERICA

_Captain John Smith, founder of the Colony of Virginia, is the

first to bring to North America a knowledge of coffee in 1607--The

coffee grinder on the Mayflower--Coffee drinking in 1668--William

Penn's coffee purchase in 1683--Coffee in colonial New England--The

psychology of the Boston "tea party," and why the United States

became a nation of coffee drinkers instead of tea drinkers, like

England--The first coffee license to Dorothy Jones in 1670--The

first coffee house in New England--Notable coffee houses of old

Boston--A skyscraper coffee house_

Undoubtedly the first to bring a knowledge of coffee to North America

was Captain John Smith, who founded the Colony of Virginia at Jamestown

in 1607. Captain Smith became familiar with coffee in his travels in

Turkey.

Although the Dutch also had early knowledge of coffee, it does not

appear that the Dutch West India Company brought any of it to the first

permanent settlement on Manhattan Island (1624). Nor is there any record

of coffee in the cargo of the Mayflower (1620), although it included a

wooden mortar and pestle, later used to make "coffee powder."

In the period when New York was New Amsterdam, and under Dutch occupancy

(1624-64), it is possible that coffee may have been imported from

Holland, where it was being sold on the Amsterdam market as early as

1640, and where regular supplies of the green bean were being received

from Mocha in 1663; but positive proof is lacking. The Dutch appear to

have brought tea across the Atlantic from Holland before coffee. The

English may have introduced the coffee drink into the New York colony

between 1664 and 1673. The earliest reference to coffee in America is

1668[87], at which time a beverage made from the roasted beans, and

flavored with sugar or honey, and cinnamon, was being drunk in New York.

Coffee first appears in the official records of the New England colony

in 1670. In 1683, the year following William Penn's settlement on the

Delaware, we find him buying supplies of coffee in the New York market

and paying for them at the rate of eighteen shillings and nine pence per

pound.[88]

Coffee houses patterned after the English and Continental prototypes

were soon established in all the colonies. Those of New York and

Philadelphia are described in separate chapters. The Boston houses are

described at the end of this chapter.

Norfolk, Chicago, St. Louis, and New Orleans also had them. Conrad

Leonhard's coffee house at 320 Market Street. St. Louis, was famous for

its coffee and coffee cake, from 1844 to 1905, when it became a bakery

and lunch room, removing in 1919 to Eighth and Pine Streets.

In the pioneer days of the great west, coffee and tea were hard to get;

and, instead of them, teas were often made from garden herbs, spicewood,

sassafras-roots, and other shrubs, taken from the thickets[89]. In

1839, in the city of Chicago, one of the minor taverns was known as the

Lake Street coffee house. It was situated at the corner of Lake and

Wells Streets. A number of hotels, which in the English sense might more

appropriately be called inns, met a demand for modest accommodation[90].

Two coffee houses were listed in the Chicago directories for 1843 and

1845, the Washington coffee house, 83 Lake Street; and the Exchange

coffee house, Clarke Street between La Salle and South Water Streets.

[Illustration: TYPES OF COLONIAL COFFEE ROASTERS

The cylinder at the top of the picture was revolved by hand in the

fireplace; the skillets were set in the smouldering ashes]

The old-time coffee houses of New Orleans were situated within the

original area of the city, the section bounded by the river, Canal

Street, Esplanade Avenue and Rampart Street. In the early days most of

the big business of the city was transacted in the coffee houses. The

_brûleau_, coffee with orange juice, orange peel, and sugar, with cognac

burned and mixed in it, originated in the New Orleans coffee house, and

led to its gradual evolution into the saloon.

_How the United States Became a Nation of Coffee Drinkers_

Coffee, tea, and chocolate were introduced into North America almost

simultaneously in the latter part of the seventeenth century. In the

first half of the eighteenth century, tea had made such progress in

England, thanks to the propaganda of the British East India Company,

that, being moved to extend its use in the colonies, the directors

turned their eyes first in the direction of North America. Here,

however, King George spoiled their well-laid plans by his unfortunate

stamp act of 1765, which caused the colonists to raise the cry of "no

taxation without representation."

Although the act was repealed in 1766, the right to tax was asserted,

and in 1767 was again used, duties being laid on paints, oils, lead,

glass, and tea. Once more the colonists resisted; and, by refusing to

import any goods of English make, so distressed the English

manufacturers that Parliament repealed every tax save that on tea.

Despite the growing fondness for the beverage in America, the colonists

preferred to get their tea elsewhere to sacrificing their principles and

buying it from England. A brisk trade in smuggling tea from Holland was

started.

In a panic at the loss of the most promising of its colonial markets,

the British East India Company appealed to Parliament for aid, and was

permitted to export tea, a privilege it had never before enjoyed.

Cargoes were sent on consignment to selected commissioners in Boston,

New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. The story of the subsequent

happenings properly belongs in a book on tea. It is sufficient here to

refer to the climax of the agitation against the fateful tea tax,

because it is undoubtedly responsible for our becoming a nation of

coffee drinkers instead of one of tea drinkers, like England.

[Illustration: AN EARLY FAMILY COFFEE ROASTER

This machine, known in Holland as a "Coffee Burner," was used late in

the 18th century in New England. It hung in the fireplace or stood in

the embers]

The Boston "tea party" of 1773, when citizens of Boston, disguised as

Indians, boarded the English ships lying in Boston harbor and threw

their tea cargoes into the bay, cast the die for coffee; for there and

then originated a subtle prejudice against "the cup that cheers", which

one hundred and fifty years have failed entirely to overcome. Meanwhile,

the change wrought in our social customs by this act, and those of like

nature following it, in the New York, Pennsylvania, and Charleston

colonies, caused coffee to be crowned "king of the American breakfast

table", and the sovereign drink of the American people.

[Illustration: HISTORICAL RELICS ASSOCIATED WITH THE EARLY DAYS OF

COFFEE IN NEW ENGLAND

These exhibits are in the Museum of the Maine Historical Society at

Portland. On the left is Kenrick's Patent coffee mill. In the center is

a Britannia urn with an iron bar for heating the liquid. The bar was

encased in a tin receptacle that hung inside the cover. On the right is

a wall type of coffee or spice grinder]

_Coffee in Colonial New England_

The history of coffee in colonial New England is so closely interwoven

with the story of the inns and taverns that it is difficult to

distinguish the genuine coffee house, as it was known in England, from

the public house where lodgings and liquors were to be had. The coffee

drink had strong competition from the heady wines, the liquors, and

imported teas, and consequently it did not attain the vogue among the

colonial New Englanders that it did among Londoners of the late

seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

Although New England had its coffee houses, these were actually taverns

where coffee was only one of the beverages served to patrons. "They

were", says Robinson, "generally meeting places of those who were

conservative in their views regarding church and state, being friends of

the ruling administration. Such persons were terms 'Courtiers' by their

adversaries, the Dissenters and Republicans."

Most of the coffee houses were established in Boston, the metropolis of

the Massachusetts Colony, and the social center of New England. While

Plymouth, Salem, Chelsea, and Providence had taverns that served coffee,

they did not achieve the name and fame of some of the more celebrated

coffee houses in Boston.

It is not definitely known when the first coffee was brought in; but it

is reasonable to suppose that it came as part of the household supplies

of some settler (probably between 1660 and 1670), who had become

acquainted with it before leaving England. Or it may have been

introduced by some British officer, who in London had made the rounds of

the more celebrated coffee houses of the latter half of the seventeenth

century.

_The First Coffee License_

According to early town records of Boston, Dorothy Jones was the first

to be licensed to sell "coffee and cuchaletto," the latter being the

seventeenth-century spelling for chocolate or cocoa. This license is

dated 1670, and is said to be the first written reference to coffee in

the Massachusetts Colony. It is not stated whether Dorothy Jones was a

vender of the coffee drink or of "coffee powder," as ground coffee was

known in the early days.

[Illustration: THE MAYFLOWER "COFFEE GRINDER"

Mortar and pestle for "braying" coffee to make coffee powder, brought

over in the Mayflower by the parents of Peregrine White]

There is some question as to whether Dorothy Jones was the first to sell

coffee as a beverage in Boston. Londoners had known and drunk coffee for

eighteen years before Dorothy Jones got her coffee license. British

government officials were frequently taking ship from London to the

Massachusetts Colony, and it is likely that they brought tidings and

samples of the coffee the English gentry had lately taken up. No doubt

they also told about the new-style coffee houses that were becoming

popular in all parts of London. And it may be assumed that their tales

caused the landlords of the inns and taverns of colonial Boston to add

coffee to their lists of beverages.

_New England's First Coffee House_

The name coffee house did not come into use in New England until late in

the seventeenth century. Early colonial records do not make it clear

whether the London coffee house or the Gutteridge coffee house was the

first to be opened in Boston with that distinctive title. In all

likelihood the London is entitled to the honor, for Samuel Gardner Drake

in his _History and Antiquities of the City of Boston_, published in

1854, says that "Benj. Harris sold books there in 1689." Drake seems to

be the only historian of early Boston to mention the London coffee

house.

Granting that the London coffee house was the first in Boston, then the

Gutteridge coffee house was the second. The latter stood on the north

side of State Street, between Exchange and Washington Streets, and was

named after Robert Gutteridge, who took out an innkeeper's license in

1691. Twenty-seven years later, his widow, Mary Gutteridge, petitioned

the town for a renewal of her late husband's permit to keep a public

coffee house.

The British coffee house, which became the American coffee house when

the crown officers and all things British became obnoxious to the

colonists, also began its career about the time Gutteridge took out his

license. It stood on the site that is now 66 State Street, and became

one of the most widely known coffee houses in colonial New England.

Of course, there were several inns and taverns in existence in Boston

long before coffee and coffee houses came to the New England metropolis.

Some of these taverns took up coffee when it became fashionable in the

colony, and served it to those patrons who did not care for the stronger

drinks.

[Illustration: THE CROWN COFFEE HOUSE, BOSTON

One of the first in New England to bear the distinctive name of coffee

house; opened in 1711 and burned down in 1780]

The earliest known inn was set up by Samuel Cole in Washington Street,

midway between Faneuil Hall and State Street. Cole was licensed as a

"comfit maker" in 1634, four years after the founding of Boston; and two

years later, his inn was the temporary abiding place of the Indian

chief Miantonomoh and his red warriors, who came to visit Governor Vane.

In the following year, the Earl of Marlborough found that Cole's inn was

so "exceedingly well governed," and afforded so desirable privacy, that

he refused the hospitality of Governor Winthrop at the governor's

mansion.

[Illustration: COFFEE MAKING AND SERVING DEVICES USED IN THE

MASSACHUSETTS COLONY

These exhibits are in the Museum of the Essex Institute at Salem, Mass.

Top row, left and right, Britannia serving pots; center, Britannia table

urn; bottom row, left end, tin coffee making pot; center, Britannia

serving pots; right end, tin French drip pot]

Another popular inn of the day was the Red Lyon, which was opened in

1637 by Nicholas Upshall, the Quaker, who later was hanged for trying to

bribe a jailer to pass some food into the jail to two Quakeresses who

were starving within.

Ship tavern, erected in 1650, at the corner of North and Clark Streets,

then on the waterfront, was a haunt of British government officials. The

father of Governor Hutchinson was the first landlord, to be succeeded in

1663 by John Vyal. Here lived the four commissioners who were sent to

these shores by King Charles II to settle the disputes then beginning

between the colonies and England.

Another lodging and eating place for the gentlemen of quality in the

first days of Boston was the Blue Anchor, in Cornhill, which was

conducted in 1664 by Robert Turner. Here gathered members of the

government, visiting officials, jurists, and the clergy, summoned into

synod by the Massachusetts General Court. It is assumed that the clergy

confined their drinking to coffee and other moderate beverages, leaving

the wines and liquors to their confrères.

_Some Notable Boston Coffee Houses_

In the last quarter of the seventeenth century quite a number of taverns

and inns sprang up. Among the most notable that have obtained

recognition in Boston's historical records were the King's Head, at the

corner of Fleet and North Streets; the Indian Queen, on a passageway

leading from Washington Street to Hawley Street; the Sun, in Faneuil

Hall Square, and the Green Dragon, which became one of the most

celebrated coffee-house taverns.

The King's Head, opened in 1691, early became a rendezvous of crown

officers and the citizens in the higher strata of colonial society.

The Indian Queen also became a favorite resort of the crown officers

from Province House. Started by Nathaniel Bishop about 1673, it stood

for more than 145 years as the Indian Queen, and then was replaced by

the Washington coffee house, which became noted throughout New England

as the starting place for the Roxbury "hourlies," the stage coaches that

ran every hour from Boston to nearby Roxbury.

[Illustration: COFFEE DEVICES THAT FIGURED IN THE PIONEERING OF THE

GREAT WEST

Photographed for this work in the Museum of the State Historical Society

of Wisconsin. Left to right, English decorated tin pot; coffee and spice

mill from Lexington, Mass.; Globe roaster built by Rays & Wilcox Co.,

Berlin, Conn., under Wood's patent; sheet brass coffee mill from

Lexington, Mass.; John Luther's coffee mill, Warren, R.I.; cast-iron

hopper mill]

The Sun tavern lived a longer life than any other Boston inn. Started in

1690 in Faneuil Hall Square, it was still standing in 1902, according to

Henry R. Blaney; but has since been razed to make way for a modern

skyscraper.

[Illustration: METAL AND CHINA COFFEE POTS USED IN NEW ENGLAND'S

COLONIAL DAYS

From the collection in the Museum of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial

Association, Deerfield, Mass.]

_New England's Most Famous Coffee House_

The Green Dragon, the last of the inns that were popular at the close of

the seventeenth century, was the most celebrated of Boston's

coffee-house taverns. It stood on Union Street, in the heart of the

town's business center, for 135 years, from 1697 to 1832, and figured in

practically all the important local and national events during its long

career. Red-coated British soldiers, colonial governors, bewigged crown

officers, earls and dukes, citizens of high estate, plotting

revolutionists of lesser degree, conspirators in the Boston Tea Party,

patriots and generals of the Revolution--all these were wont to gather

at the Green Dragon to discuss their various interests over their cups

of coffee, and stronger drinks. In the words of Daniel Webster, this

famous coffee-house tavern was the "headquarters of the Revolution." It

was here that Warren, John Adams, James Otis, and Paul Revere met as a

"ways and means committee" to secure freedom for the American colonies.

Here, too, came members of the Grand Lodge of Masons to hold their

meetings under the guidance of Warren, who was the first grand master of

the first Masonic lodge in Boston. The site of the old tavern, now

occupied by a business block, is still the property of the St. Andrew's

Lodge of Free Masons. The old tavern was a two-storied brick structure

with a sharply pitched roof. Over its entrance hung a sign bearing the

figure of a green dragon.

[Illustration: THE GREEN DRAGON, THE CENTER OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LIFE

IN BOSTON FOR 135 YEARS

This tavern figured in practically all the important national affairs

from 1697 to 1832, and, according to Daniel Webster, was the

"headquarters of the Revolution"]

Patrons of the Green Dragon and the British coffee house were decidedly

opposed in their views on the questions of the day. While the Green

Dragon was the gathering place of the patriotic colonials, the British

was the rendezvous of the loyalists, and frequent were the encounters

between the patrons of these two celebrated taverns. It was in the

British coffee house that James Otis was so badly pummeled, after being

lured there by political enemies, that he never regained his former

brilliancy as an orator.

It was there, in 1750, that some British red coats staged the first

theatrical entertainment given in Boston, playing Otway's _Orphan_.

There, the first organization of citizens to take the name of a club

formed the Merchants' Club in 1751. The membership included officers of

the king, colonial governors and lesser officials, military and naval

leaders, and members of the bar, with a sprinkling of high-ranking

citizens who were staunch friends of the crown. However, the British

became so generally disliked that as soon as the king's troops evacuated

Boston in the Revolution, the name of the coffee house was changed to

the American.

The Bunch of Grapes, that Francis Holmes presided over as early as 1712,

was another hot-bed of politicians. Like the Green Dragon over the way,

its patrons included unconditional freedom seekers, many coming from the

British coffee house when things became too hot for them in that Tory

atmosphere. The Bunch of Grapes became the center of a stirring

celebration in 1776, when a delegate from Philadelphia read the

Declaration of Independence from the balcony of the inn to the crowd

assembled in the street below. So enthusiastic did the Bostonians become

that, in the excitement that followed, the inn was nearly destroyed when

one enthusiast built a bonfire too close to its walls. Another anecdote

told of the Bunch of Grapes concerns Sir William Phipps, governor of

Massachusetts from 1692-94, who was noted for his irascibility. He had

his favorite chair and window in the inn, and in the accounts of the

period it is written that on any fine afternoon his glowering

countenance could be seen at the window by the passers-by on State

Street.

After the beginning of the eighteenth century the title of coffee house

was applied to a number of hostelries opened in Boston. One of these was

the Crown, which was opened in the "first house on Long Wharf" in 1711

by Jonathan Belcher, who later became governor of Massachusetts, and

still later of New Jersey. The first landlord of the Crown was Thomas

Selby, who by trade was a periwig maker, but probably found the selling

of strong drink and coffee more profitable. Selby's coffee house was

also used as an auction room. The Crown stood until 1780, when it was

destroyed in a fire that swept the Long Wharf. On its site now stands

the Fidelity Trust Company at 148 State Street.

Another early Boston coffee house on State Street was the Royal

Exchange. How long it had been standing before it was first mentioned in

colonial records in 1711 is unknown. It occupied an ancient two-story

building, and was kept in 1711 by Benjamin Johns. This coffee house

became the starting place for stage coaches running between Boston and

New York, the first one leaving September 7, 1772. In the _Columbian

Centinel_ of January 1, 1800, appeared an advertisement in which it was

said: "New York and Providence Mail Stage leaves Major Hatches' Royal

Exchange Coffee House in State Street every morning at 8 o'clock."

In the latter half of the eighteenth century the North-End coffee house

was celebrated as the highest-class coffee house in Boston. It occupied

the three-storied brick mansion which had been built about 1740 by

Edward Hutchinson, brother of the noted governor. It stood on the west

side of North Street, between Sun Court and Fleet Street, and was one of

the most pretentious of its kind. An eighteenth century writer, in

describing this coffee-house mansion, made much of the fact that it had

forty-five windows and was valued at $4,500, a large sum for those days.

During the Revolution, Captain David Porter, father of Admiral David D.

Porter, was the landlord, and under him it became celebrated throughout

the city as a high-grade eating place. The advertisements of the

North-End coffee house featured its "dinners and suppers--small and

retired rooms for small company--oyster suppers in the nicest manner."

[Illustration: METAL COFFEE POTS USED IN THE NEW YORK COLONY

Left, tin coffee pot, dark brown, with "love apple" decoration in red,

New Jersey Historical Society, Newark; right, weighted bottom tin pot

with rose decoration, private owner]

_A "Skyscraper" Coffee House_

The Boston coffee-house period reached its height in 1808, when the

doors of the Exchange coffee house were thrown open after three years of

building. This structure, situated on Congress Street near State

Street, was the skyscraper of its day, and probably was the most

ambitious coffee-house project the world has known. Built of stone,

marble, and brick, it stood seven stories high, and cost a half-million

dollars. Charles Bulfinch, America's most noted architect of that

period, was the designer.

[Illustration: EXCHANGE COFFEE HOUSE, BOSTON, 1808, PROBABLY THE LARGEST

AND MOST COSTLY IN THE WORLD

Built of stone, marble and brick, it stood seven stories high and cost

$500,000. It was patterned after Lloyd's of London, and was the center

of marine intelligence in Boston]

Like Lloyd's coffee house in London, the Exchange was the center of

marine intelligence, and its public rooms were thronged all day and

evening with mariners, naval officers, ship and insurance brokers, who

had come to talk shop or to consult the records of ship arrivals and

departures, manifests, charters, and other marine papers. The first

floor of the Exchange was devoted to trading. On the next floor was the

large dining room, where many sumptuous banquets were given, notably the

one to President Monroe in July, 1817, which was attended by former

President John Adams, and by many generals, commodores, governors, and

judges. The other floors were given over to living and sleeping rooms,

of which there were more than 200. The Exchange coffee house was

destroyed by fire in 1818; and on its site was erected another, bearing

the same name, but having slight resemblance to its predecessor.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: PRESIDENT-ELECT WASHINGTON WELCOMED AT THE MERCHANTS

COFFEE HOUSE, NEW YORK

The reception took place April 23, 1789, one week before his

inauguration. From a painting by Charles P. Gruppe, owned by the author]

CHAPTER XIII

HISTORY OF COFFEE IN OLD NEW YORK

_The burghers of New Amsterdam begin to substitute coffee for

"must," or beer, at breakfast in 1668--William Penn makes his first

purchase of coffee in the green bean from New York merchants in

1683--The King's Arms, the first coffee house--The historic

Merchants, sometimes called the "Birthplace of our Union"--The

coffee house as a civic forum--The Exchange, Whitehall, Burns,

Tontine, and other celebrated coffee houses--The Vauxhall and

Ranelagh pleasure gardens_

The Dutch founders of New York seem to have introduced tea into New

Amsterdam before they brought in coffee. This was somewhere about the

middle of the seventeenth century. We find it recorded that about 1668

the burghers succumbed to coffee[91]. Coffee made its way slowly, first

in the homes, where it replaced the "must", or beer, at breakfast.

Chocolate came about the same time, but was more of a luxury than tea or

coffee.

After the surrender of New York to the British in 1674, English manners

and customs were rapidly introduced. First tea, and later coffee, were

favorite beverages in the homes. By 1683 New York had become so central

a market for the green bean, that William Penn, as soon as he found

himself comfortably settled in the Pennsylvania Colony, sent over to New

York for his coffee supplies[92]. It was not long before a social need

arose that only the London style of coffee house could fill.

The coffee houses of early New York, like their prototypes in London,

Paris, and other old world capitals, were the centers of the business,

political and, to some extent, of the social life of the city. But they

never became the forcing-beds of literature that the French and English

houses were, principally because the colonists had no professional

writers of note.

There is one outstanding feature of the early American coffee houses,

particularly of those opened in New York, that is not distinctive of the

European houses. The colonists sometimes held court trials in the long,

or assembly, room of the early coffee houses; and often held their

general assembly and council meetings there.

_The Coffee House as a Civic Forum_

The early coffee house was an important factor in New York life. What

the perpetuation of this public gathering place meant to the citizens is

shown by a complaint (evidently designed to revive the declining

fortunes of the historic Merchants coffee house) in the _New York

Journal_ of October 19, 1775, which, in part, said:

To the Inhabitants of New York:

It gives me concern, in this time of public difficulty and danger,

to find we have in this city no place of daily general meeting,

where we might hear and communicate intelligence from every quarter

and freely confer with one another on every matter that concerns

us. Such a place of general meeting is of very great advantage in

many respects, especially at such a time as this, besides the

satisfaction it affords and the sociable disposition it has a

tendency to keep up among us, which was never more wanted than at

this time. To answer all these and many other good and useful

purposes, coffee houses have been universally deemed the most

convenient places of resort, because, at a small expense of time or

money, persons wanted may be found and spoke with, appointments may

be made, current news heard, and whatever it most concerns us to

know. In all cities, therefore, and large towns that I have seen in

the British dominions, sufficient encouragement has been given to

support one or more coffee houses in a genteel manner. How comes it

then that New York, the most central, and one of the largest and

most prosperous cities in British America, cannot support one

coffee house? It is a scandal to the city and its inhabitants to be

destitute of such a convenience for want of due encouragement. A

coffee house, indeed, there is, a very good and comfortable one,

extremely well tended and accommodated, but it is frequented but by

an inconsiderable number of people; and I have observed with

surprise, that but a small part of those who do frequent it,

contribute anything at all to the expense of it, but come in and go

out without calling for or paying anything to the house. In all the

coffee houses in London, it is customary for every one that comes

in to call for at least a dish of coffee, or leave the value of

one, which is but reasonable, because when the keepers of these

houses have been at the expense of setting them up and providing

all necessaries for the accommodation of company, every one that

comes to receive the benefit of these conveniences ought to

contribute something towards the expense of them.

A FRIEND TO THE CITY.

_New York's First Coffee House_

Some chroniclers of New York's early days are confident that the first

coffee house in America was opened in New York; but the earliest

authenticated record they have presented is that on November 1, 1696,

John Hutchins bought a lot on Broadway, between Trinity churchyard and

what is now Cedar Street, and there built a house, naming it the King's

Arms. Against this record, Boston can present the statement in Samuel

Gardner Drake's _History and Antiquities of the City of Boston_ that

Benj. Harris sold books at the "London Coffee House" in 1689.

[Illustration: NEW YORK'S PIONEER COFFEE HOUSE, THE KING'S ARMS, OPENED

IN 1696

This view shows the garden side of the historic old house as it was

conducted by John Hutchins, near Trinity Church, on Broadway. The

observatory may have been added later]

The King's Arms was built of wood, and had a front of yellow brick, said

to have been brought from Holland. The building was two stories high,

and on the roof was an "observatory," arranged with seats, and

commanding a fine view of the bay, the river, and the city. Here the

coffee-house visitors frequently sat in the afternoons. It is not shown

in the illustration.

[Illustration: BURNS COFFEE HOUSE AS IT APPEARED ABOUT THE MIDDLE OF THE

NINETEENTH CENTURY

It stood for many years on Broadway, opposite Bowling Green, in the old

De Lancey House, becoming known in 1763 as the King's Arms, and later

the Atlantic Garden House]

The sides of the main room on the lower floor were lined with booths,

which, for the sake of greater privacy, were screened with green

curtains. There a patron could sip his coffee, or a more stimulating

drink, and look over his mail in the same exclusiveness affected by the

Londoner of the time.

The rooms on the second floor were used for special meetings of

merchants, colonial magistrates and overseers, or similar public and

private business.

The meeting room, as above described, seems to have been one of the

chief features distinguishing a coffee house from a tavern. Although

both types of houses had rooms for guests, and served meals, the coffee

house was used for business purposes by permanent customers, while the

tavern was patronized more by transients. Men met at the coffee house

daily to carry on business, and went to the tavern for convivial

purposes or lodgings. Before the front door hung the sign of "the lion

and the unicorn fighting for the crown."

For many years the King's Arms was the only coffee house in the city; or

at least no other seems of sufficient importance to have been mentioned

in colonial records. For this reason it was more frequently designated

as "the" coffee house than the King's Arms. Contemporary records of the

arrest of John Hutchins of the King's Arms, and of Roger Baker, for

speaking disrespectfully of King George, mention the King's Head, of

which Baker was proprietor. But it is generally believed that this

public house was a tavern and not rightfully to be considered as a

coffee house. The White Lion, mentioned about 1700, was also a tavern,

or inn.

_The New Coffee House_

Under date of September 22, 1709, the _Journal of the General Assembly

of the Colony of New York_ refers to a conference held in the "New

Coffee House." About this date the business section of the city had

begun to drift eastward from Broadway to the waterfront; and from this

fact it is assumed that the name "New Coffee House" indicates that the

King's Arms had been removed from its original location near Cedar

Street, or that it may have lost favor and have been superseded in

popularity by a newer coffee house. The _Journal_ does not give the

location of the "New" coffee house. Whatever the case may be, the name

of the King's Arms does not again appear in the records until 1763, and

then it had more the character of a tavern, or roadhouse.

The public records from 1709 up to 1729 are silent in regard to coffee

houses in New York. In 1725 the pioneer newspaper in the city, the _New

York Gazette_, came into existence; and four years later, 1729, there

appeared in it an advertisement stating that "a competent bookkeeper may

be heard of" at the "Coffee House." In 1730 another advertisement in the

same journal tells of a sale of land by public vendue (auction) to be

held at the Exchange coffee house.

_The Exchange Coffee House_

By reason of its name, the Exchange Coffee House is thought to have been

located at the foot of Broad Street, abutting the sea-wall and near the

Long Bridge of that day. At that time this section was the business

center of the city, and here was a trading exchange.

That the Exchange coffee house was the only one of its kind in New York

in 1732 is inferred from the announcement in that year of a meeting of

the conference committee of the Council and Assembly "at the Coffee

House." In seeming confirmation of this conclusion, is the advertisement

in 1733 in the _New York Gazette_ requesting the return of "lost sleeve

buttons to Mr. Todd, next door to the Coffee House." The records of the

day show that a Robert Todd kept the famous Black Horse tavern which was

located in this part of the city.

Again we hear of the Exchange coffee house in 1737, and apparently in

the same location, where it is mentioned in an account of the "Negro

plot" as being next door to the Fighting Cocks tavern by the Long

Bridge, at the foot of Broad Street. Also in this same year it is named

as the place of public vendue of land situated on Broadway.

By this time the Exchange coffee house had virtually become the city's

official auction room, as well as the place to buy and to drink coffee.

Commodities of many kinds were also bought and sold there, both within

the house and on the sidewalk before it.

_The Merchants Coffee House_

In the year 1750, the Exchange coffee house had begun to lose its

long-held prestige, and its name was changed to the Gentlemen's Exchange

coffee house and tavern. A year later it had migrated to Broadway under

the name of the Gentlemens' coffee house and tavern. In 1753 it was

moved again, to Hunter's Quay, which was situated on what is now Front

Street, somewhere between the present Old Slip and Wall Street. The

famous old coffee house seems to have gone out of existence about this

time, its passing hastened, no doubt, by the newer enterprise, the

Merchants coffee house, which was to become the most celebrated in New

York, and, according to some writers, the most historic in America.

It is not certain just when the Merchants coffee house was first opened.

As near as can be determined, Daniel Bloom, a mariner, in 1737 bought

the Jamaica Pilot Boat tavern from John Dunks and named it the Merchants

coffee house. The building was situated on the northwest corner of the

present Wall Street and Water (then Queen) Street; and Bloom was its

landlord until his death, soon after the year 1750. He was succeeded by

Captain James Ackland, who shortly sold it to Luke Roome. The latter

disposed of the building in 1758 to Dr. Charles Arding. The doctor

leased it to Mrs. Mary Ferrari, who continued as its proprietor until

she moved, in 1772, to the newer building diagonally across the street,

built by William Brownejohn, on the southeast corner of Wall and Water

Streets. Mrs. Ferrari took with her the patronage and the name of the

Merchants coffee house, and the old building was not used again as a

coffee house.

The building housing the original Merchants coffee house was a two-story

structure, with a balcony on the roof, which was typical of the middle

eighteenth century architecture in New York. On the first floor were the

coffee bar and booths described in connection with the King's Arms

coffee house. The second floor had the typical long room for public

assembly.

During Bloom's proprietorship the Merchants coffee house had a long,

hard struggle to win the patronage away from the Exchange coffee house,

which was flourishing at that time. But, being located near the Meal

Market, where the merchants were wont to gather for trading purposes, it

gradually became the meeting place of the city, at the expense of the

Exchange coffee house, farther down the waterfront.

[Illustration: MERCHANTS COFFEE HOUSE (AT THE RIGHT) AS IT APPEARED FROM

1772 TO 1804

The original coffee house of this name was opened on the northwest

corner of Wall and Water Streets about 1737, the business being moved to

the southeast corner in 1772]

Widow Ferrari presided over the original Merchants coffee house for

fourteen years, until she moved across the street. She was a keen

business woman. Just before she was ready to open the new coffee house

she announced to her old patrons that she would give a house-warming, at

which arrack, punch, wine, cold ham, tongue, and other delicacies of the

day would be served. The event was duly noted in the newspapers, one

stating that "the agreeable situation and the elegance of the new house

had occasioned a great resort of company to it."

Mrs. Ferrari continued in charge until May 1, 1776, when Cornelius

Bradford became proprietor and sought to build up the patronage, that

had dwindled somewhat during the stirring days immediately preceding the

Revolution. In his announcement of the change of ownership, he said,

"Interesting intelligence will be carefully collected and the greatest

attention will be given to the arrival of vessels, when trade and

navigation shall resume their former channels." He referred to the

complete embargo of trade to Europe which the colonists were enduring.

When the American troops withdrew from the city during the Revolution,

Bradford went also, to Rhinebeck on the Hudson.

During the British occupation, the Merchants coffee house was a place of

great activity. As before, it was the center of trading, and under the

British régime it became also the place where the prize ships were sold.

The Chamber of Commerce resumed its sessions in the upper long room in

1779, having been suspended since 1775. The Chamber paid fifty pounds

rent per annum for the use of the room to Mrs. Smith, the landlady at

the time.

In 1781 John Stachan, then proprietor of the Queen's Head tavern, became

landlord of the Merchants coffee house, and he promised in a public

announcement "to pay attention not only as a Coffee House, but as a

tavern, in the truest; and to distinguish the same as the City Tavern

and Coffee House, with constant and best attendance. Breakfast from

seven to eleven; soups and relishes from eleven to half-past one. Tea,

coffee, etc., in the afternoon, as in England." But when he began

charging sixpence for receiving and dispatching letters by man-o'-war to

England, he brought a storm about his ears, and was forced to give up

the practise. He continued in charge until peace came, and Cornelius

Bradford came with it to resume proprietorship of the coffee house.

Bradford changed the name to the New York coffee house, but the public

continued to call it by its original name, and the landlord soon gave

in. He kept a marine list, giving the names of vessels arriving and

departing, recording their ports of sailing. He also opened a register

of returning citizens, "where any gentleman now resident in the city,"

his advertisement stated, "may insert their names and place of

residence." This seems to have been the first attempt at a city

directory. By his energy Bradford soon made the Merchants coffee house

again the business center of the city. When he died, in 1786, he was

mourned as one of the leading citizens. His funeral was held at the

coffee house over which he had presided so well.

The Merchants coffee house continued to be the principal public

gathering place until it was destroyed by fire in 1804. During its

existence it had figured prominently in many of the local and national

historic events, too numerous to record here in detail.

Some of the famous events were: The reading of the order to the

citizens, in 1765, warning them to stop rioting against the Stamp Act;

the debates on the subject of not accepting consignments of goods from

Great Britain; the demonstration by the Sons of Liberty, sometimes

called the "Liberty Boys," made before Captain Lockyer of the tea ship

Nancy which had been turned away from Boston and sought to land its

cargo in New York in 1774; the general meeting of citizens on May 19,

1774, to discuss a means of communicating with the Massachusetts colony

to obtain co-ordinated effort in resisting England's oppression, out of

which came the letter suggesting a congress of deputies from the

colonies and calling for a "virtuous and spirited Union;" the mass

meeting of citizens in the days immediately following the battles at

Concord and Lexington in Massachusetts; and the forming of the Committee

of One Hundred to administer the public business, making the Merchants

coffee house virtually the seat of government.

When the American Army held the city in 1776, the coffee house became

the resort of army and navy officers. Its culminating glory came on

April 23, 1789, when Washington, the recently elected first president of

the United States, was officially greeted at the coffee house by the

governor of the State, the mayor of the city, and the lesser municipal

officers.

As a meeting place for societies and lodges the Merchants coffee house

was long distinguished. In addition to the purely commercial

organizations that gathered in its long room, these bodies regularly met

there in their early days: The Society of Arts, Agriculture and Economy;

Knights of Corsica; New York Committee of Correspondence; New York

Marine Society; Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York; Lodge 169,

Free and Accepted Masons; Whig Society; Society of the New York

Hospital; St. Andrew's Society; Society of the Cincinnati; Society of

the Sons of St. Patrick; Society for Promoting the Manumission of

Slaves; Society for the Relief of Distressed Debtors; Black Friars

Society; Independent Rangers; and Federal Republicans.

Here also came the men who, in 1784, formed the Bank of New York, the

first financial institution in the city; and here was held, in 1790, the

first public sale of stocks by sworn brokers. Here, too, was held the

organization meeting of subscribers to the Tontine coffee house, which

in a few years was to prove a worthy rival.

_Some Lesser Known Coffee Houses_

Before taking up the story of the famous Tontine coffee house it should

be noted that the Merchants coffee house had some prior measure of

competition. For four years the Exchange coffee room sought to cater to

the wants of the merchants around the foot of Broad Street. It was

located in the Royal Exchange, which had been erected in 1752 in place

of the old Exchange, and until 1754 had been used as a store. Then

William Keen and Alexander Lightfoot got control and started their

coffee room, with a ball room attached. The partnership split up in

1756, Lightfoot continuing operations until he died the next year, when

his widow tried to carry it on. In 1758 it had reverted into its

original character of a mercantile establishment.

[Illustration: THE TONTINE COFFEE HOUSE (SECOND BUILDING AT THE LEFT),

OPENED IN 1792

This is the original structure, northwest corner of Wall and Water

Streets, which was succeeded about 1850 by a five-story building (see

page 122) that in turn was replaced by a modern office building]

Then there was the Whitehall coffee house, which two men, named Rogers

and Humphreys, opened in 1762, with the announcement that "a

correspondence is settled in London and Bristol to remit by every

opportunity all the public prints and pamphlets as soon as published;

and there will be a weekly supply of New York, Boston and other American

newspapers." This enterprise had a short life.

The early records of the city infrequently mention the Burns coffee

house, sometimes calling it a tavern. It is likely that the place was

more an inn than a coffee house. It was kept for a number of years by

George Burns, near the Battery, and was located in the historic old De

Lancey house, which afterward became the City hotel.

Burns remained the proprietor until 1762, when it was taken over by a

Mrs. Steele, who gave it the name of the King's Arms. Edward Barden

became the landlord in 1768. In later years it became known as the

Atlantic Garden house. Traitor Benedict Arnold is said to have lodged in

the old tavern after deserting to the enemy.

The Bank coffee house belonged to a later generation, and had few of the

characteristics of the earlier coffee houses. It was opened in 1814 by

William Niblo, of Niblo's Garden fame, and stood at the corner of

William and Pine Streets, at the rear of the Bank of New York. The

coffee house endured for probably ten years, and became the gathering

place of a coterie of prominent merchants, who formed a sort of club.

The Bank coffee house became celebrated for its dinners and dinner

parties.

Fraunces' tavern, best known as the place where Washington bade farewell

to his army officers, was, as its name states, a tavern, and can not be

properly classed as a coffee house. While coffee was served, and there

was a long room for gatherings, little, if any, business was done there

by merchants. It was largely a meeting place for citizens bent on a

"good time."

Then there was the New England and Quebec coffee house, which was also a

tavern.

[Illustration: THE TONTINE BUILDING OF 1850

Northwest corner of Wall and Water Streets; an omnibus of the

Broadway-Wall-Street Ferry line is passing]

_The Tontine Coffee House_

The last of the celebrated coffee houses of New York bore the name,

Tontine coffee house. For several years after the burning of the

Merchants coffee house, in 1804, it was the only one of note in the

city.

Feeling that they should have a more commodious coffee house for

carrying on their various business enterprises, some 150 merchants

organized, in 1791, the Tontine coffee house. This enterprise was based

on the plan introduced into France in 1653 by Lorenzo Tonti, with slight

variations. According to the New York Tontine plan, each holder's share

reverted automatically to the surviving shareholders in the association,

instead of to his heirs. There were 157 original shareholders, and 203

shares of stock valued at £200 each.

[Illustration: NIBLO'S GARDEN, BROADWAY AND PRINCE STREET, 1828]

The directors bought the house and lot on the northwest corner of Wall

and Water Streets, where the original Merchants coffee house stood,

paying £1,970. They next acquired the adjoining lots on Wall and Water

Streets, paying £2,510 for the former, and £1,000 for the latter.

The cornerstone of the new coffee house was laid June 5, 1792; and a

year later to the day, 120 gentlemen sat down to a banquet in the

completed coffee house to celebrate the event of the year before. John

Hyde was the first landlord. The house had cost $43,000.

[Illustration: COFFEE RELICS OF DUTCH NEW YORK

Spice-grinder boat, coffee roaster, and coffee pots at the Van Cortlandt

Museum]

A contemporary account of how the Tontine coffee house looked in 1794 is

supplied by an Englishman visiting New York at the time:

The Tontine tavern and coffee house is a handsome large brick

building; you ascend six or eight steps under a portico, into a

large public room, which is the Stock Exchange of New York, where

all bargains are made. Here are two books kept, as at Lloyd's [in

London] of every ship's arrival and clearance. This house was built

for the accommodation of the merchants by Tontine shares of two

hundred pounds each. It is kept by Mr. Hyde, formerly a woolen

draper in London. You can lodge and board there at a common table,

and you pay ten shillings currency a day, whether you dine out or

not.

[Illustration: NEW YORK'S VAUXHALL GARDEN OF 1803

From an old print]

The stock market made its headquarters in the Tontine coffee house in

1817, and the early organization was elaborated and became the New York

Stock and Exchange Board. It was removed in 1827 to the Merchants

Exchange Building, where it remained until that place was destroyed by

fire in 1835.

It was stipulated in the original articles of the Tontine Association

that the house was to be kept and used as a coffee house, and this

agreement was adhered to up to the year 1834, when, by permission of the

Court of Chancery, the premises were let for general business-office

purposes. This change was due to the competition offered by the

Merchants Exchange, a short distance up Wall Street, which had been

opened soon after the completion of the Tontine coffee house building.

As the city grew, the business-office quarters of the original Tontine

coffee house became inadequate; and about the year 1850 a new five-story

building, costing some $60,000, succeeded it. By this time the building

had lost its old coffee-house characteristics. This new Tontine

structure is said to have been the first real office building in New

York City. Today the site is occupied by a large modern office building,

which still retains the name of Tontine. It was owned by John B. and

Charles A. O'Donohue, well known New York coffee merchants, until 1920,

when it was sold for $1,000,000 to the Federal Sugar Refining Company.

The Tontine coffee house did not figure so prominently in the historic

events of the nation and city as did its neighbor, the Merchants coffee

house. However, it became the Mecca for visitors from all parts of the

country, who did not consider their sojourn in the city complete until

they had at least inspected what was then one of the most pretentious

buildings in New York. Chroniclers of the Tontine coffee house always

say that most of the leaders of the nation, together with distinguished

visitors from abroad, had foregathered in the large room of the old

coffee house at some time during their careers.

It was on the walls of the Tontine coffee house that bulletins were

posted on Hamilton's struggle for life after the fatal duel forced on

him by Aaron Burr.

The changing of the Tontine coffee house into a purely mercantile

building marked the end of the coffee-house era in New York. Exchanges

and office buildings had come into existence to take the place of the

business features of the coffee houses; clubs were organized to take

care of the social functions; and restaurants and hotels had sprung up

to cater to the needs for beverages and food.

_New York's Pleasure Gardens_

There was a fairly successful attempt made to introduce the London

pleasure-garden idea into New York. First, tea gardens were added to

several of the taverns already provided with ball rooms. Then, on the

outskirts of the city, were opened the Vauxhall and the Ranelagh

gardens, so named after their famous London prototypes. The first

Vauxhall garden (there were three of this name) was on Greenwich Street,

between Warren and Chambers Streets. It fronted on the North River,

affording a beautiful view up the Hudson. Starting as the Bowling Green

garden, it changed to Vauxhall in 1750.

Ranelagh was on Broadway, between Duane and Worth Streets, on the site

where later the New York Hospital was erected. From advertisements of

the period (1765-69) we learn that there were band concerts twice a week

at the Ranelagh. The gardens were "for breakfasting as well as the

evening entertainment of ladies and gentlemen." There was a commodious

hall in the garden for dancing. Ranelagh lasted twenty years. Coffee,

tea, and hot rolls could be had in the pleasure gardens at any hour of

the day. Fireworks were featured at both Ranelagh and Vauxhall gardens.

The second Vauxhall was near the intersection of the present Mulberry

and Grand Streets, in 1798; the third was on Bowery Road, near Astor

Place, in 1803. The Astor library was built upon its site in 1853.

William Niblo, previously proprietor of the Bank coffee house in Pine

Street, opened, in 1828, a pleasure garden, that he named Sans Souci, on

the site of a circus building called the Stadium at Broadway and Prince

Street. In the center of the garden remained the stadium, which was

devoted to theatrical performances of "a gay and attractive character."

Later, he built a more pretentious theater that fronted on Broadway. The

interior of the garden was "spacious, and adorned with shrubbery and

walks, lighted with festoons of lamps." It was generally known as

Niblo's garden.

Among other well known pleasure gardens of old New York were Contoit's,

later the New York garden, and Cherry gardens, on old Cherry Hill.

[Illustration: TAVERN AND GROCERS' SIGNS USED IN OLD NEW YORK