Nor ball, nor concert, nor theatre can boast,
With all their frippery and senseless fun;
Nor broiling taverns, when they shine the most,
By hot unruly spirits overrun;--
In dance, or song, or drunken laugh, and toast,
With elegance and comfort, cheaply won,--
To cheer the spirits and to refine the man:
Hail! books and mocha,--cigars and the divan!
It is with feelings of pleasure we have remarked of late years the change
that has gradually taken place in regard to places of public nightly
amusement. Formerly, the metropolis had no other allurements than were
comprised in the theatre or the tavern,--the former of these being but too
frequently a precursor to the latter; and that latter, in its turn, among
young men in general, to scenes of a worse, and, in the end, more fatal
description. As a preventative in a great degree to the above incentives
to dissipation, must we welcome the appearance of divans amongst us,
forming, as they do, in their quiet and elegant seclusion, a pleasing and
intellectual contrast to their more boisterous contemporaries. Divan, or
more properly speaking, _Diwan_, by some writers is said to be of eastern
origin, and the plural of _diw_, a devil. The appellation, says a Persian
lexicographer, was first bestowed by a sovereign of Persia, who, on
observing his crafty counsellors in high conclave, exclaimed, _Inan diwan
end_--"these men are devils." _Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur_, may
be pertinently applied, in this instance, to the councils of more
sovereigns than those of Ispahan. Another derivation, and a more probable
one, perhaps, is the Turkish word for sopha,--a luxury abundantly supplied
in every divan in Turkey. In that country it is a chamber of council held
by the Grand Seignior, his pashas, or other high tributaries, in which all
the councillors assembled smoke their chibouques during the debate in all
the sedate pomp of eastern magnificence. The interiors of these divans are
represented by travellers as superbly grand, falling little short of the
far-famed description of their harems. Coffee, it must be remarked, is the
common beverage used by the Turks whilst smoking, and is commonly handed
round with little or no milk or sugar, in small china cups. Taken thus,
perhaps, nothing harmonizes with smoking so well on the palate; as the
Rev. Dr. Walsh says, in his Travels in Turkey, speaking of tobacco, and in
whose judicious remarks we cannot but concur, "I do not wonder at the
general use of this most indispensable of Turkish luxuries; it is always
the companion of coffee (mocha), and there is something so exceedingly
congenial in the properties of both, that nature seems to have intended
them for inseparable associates. We do not know how to use tobacco in this
country, but defile and deteriorate it with malt liquor. When used with
coffee, and after the Turkish fashion, it is singularly grateful to the
taste, and refreshing to the spirits; counteracting the effects of fatigue
and cold, and appeasing the cravings of hunger, as I have experienced."
The popularity of divans in England may be best known by the rapid
increase of their numbers since their first adoption here.
At the present period there are no less than six popular divans
(independent of several obscure ones) in London.