Tradition has not, unhappily, revealed the
name of that great benefactor to the human
race.

It would seem that about the middle of the
fifteenth century, the Mufti of Aden,
travelling into Persia, learned the use of it there.
The Mufti (who, by-the-by, has alone the
"privilege of kissing the Sultan's left shoulder"
—whatever that may be worth) introduced it to
his countrymen. Here was a treat for a people
whose religion condemned wine! Its fame
spread through the whole East. Mecca
reverenced it, next after the well Zemzem; Medina
sipped it round the Prophet's tomb. One
can fancy the interest excited by the approach
of a new caravan in these times, and how the
coloured groups buzzed like dragon-flies all
day round the little wooden huts of " coffee-
houses," under a sun hot enough almost to
boil the liquid. In a short time it reached
Grand Cairo. Its gradual and astonishing
popularity became a political matter. Khair
Beg, the Governor of Mecca, who seems to
have been a sound and orthodox supporter of
the " Constitution in Mosque and Bastinado,"
called a great assembly, and seemed to have
thoughts of " putting it down." The orthodox
party condemned it, though the Mufti
supported it. Orthodoxy and prejudice
conquered, and coffee was prohibited; but some
time afterwards, orders came from the Sultan
to revoke the prohibition. There was an
agitation of this kind everywhere. At
Constantinople the dervises found out that it had
been condemned by the Prophet, and a great
hubbub ensued. However, it was soon found
to be a capital thing for " the revenue," and
got toleration, on that excellent and old-
established system of government which allows
everything to go into the mouth, provided
that it is duly paid for—through the
nose!

In Europe, coffee and liberty went on
struggling for propagation together. An ingenious
parallel might be made between the progress
of Coffee and that of the Reformation in
Germany and the Revolution in England. It
reached France (Marseilles) in the early part
of our Long Parliament. It got to London
just at the commencement of the Protectorate.
Daniel Edwards, a Turkey Merchant (a bonâ
fide dealer in spices and rhubarb, and not a
poulterer, like the father of Home Tooke's
joke), brought home with him a Greek servant,
Pasqua, who understood making it. Daniel
Edwards' acquaintances were always dropping
in to try the mixture. Accordingly, the worthy
man set Pasqua up in business for himself—and
Pasqua founded a coffee-house dynasty, which
outlived that of his great contemporary, the
immortal Oliver. The elder Disraeli, in the
pleasantest of all antiquarian books, gives us
friend Pasqua's original announcement, wherein
he set forth " the vertue of the coffee-drink
first publiquely made and sold in England,
by Pasqua Rosee, in St. Michael's Alley,
Cornhill, at the sign of his own head." One looks
on this announcement with respect, as a kind
of social Magna Charta.

In due—that is, in a wonderfully short—
time, coffee came under the excise duties.
The " Statutes at Large " give us in the year
1660, a brief line, wherein "fower pence"
per gallon is imposed on it. In 1663 comes
a statute ordering the licensing of coffee-
houses. And what is our astonishment when
we find that in 1675, Charles the Second issued
a proclamation shutting them up as
seminaries of sedition? That is to say,— this
monarch did, then, what the despotic Sultan of
Constantinople could not have dared. This
document must have rather astonished those
gentlemen, then elderly, who had seen, in their
young days, Hampden and Pym walking down
to the House of Commons! This proclamation
had, however, to take itself in again very
shortly, and coffee-houses spread faster than
ever. Meanwhile, the " bluff " school had
begun to make out that coffee-drinking was a
proof of our national degeneracy. Here are
some lines from a broadside of 1663.

"For men and Christians to turn Turks, and think
To excuse the crime because 'tis in their drink!
Pure English apes! ye may, for aught I know,
Were it the mode,—learn to eat spiders too.
Should any of your grandsires' ghosts appear
In your wax-candle circles, and but hear
The name of coffee so much called upon,
Then see it drank like scalding Phlegethon,
Would they not startle, think ye? .    .    ."

By the close of the seventeenth century,
coffee-houses were universal in London, and
had assumed a distinct and important aspect.
There were political coffee-houses, and literary
coffee-houses, fashionable coffee-houses, and
mercantile coffee-houses. There is a curious
book, whose author is still read and
reprobated, Ward's " London Spy." Everybody
refers to Ward as an authority, and everybody
takes care to dismiss him with a kick—
employs him, in fact, as Swift's Houyhnhnms
employed the Yahoos—and avails himself
of him as at once useful and improper.
Indeed he is a coarse, low scribbler enough;
but still has managed to reflect in the muddy
surface of his book an image of the manners of
his times. Here is a passage concerning a
coffee-house of the time we are speaking of
("London Spy," fourth edition, 1709):—"  'Come'
says my friend, ' let us step into this
coffee-house here: as you are a stranger to the town,
it will afford you some diversion.' Accordingly,
in we went, where a parcel of muddling
muck- worms were as busy as so many rats in
an old cheese-loft; some going, some coming,
some scribbling, some talking, some drinking,
others jangling, and the whole room stinking
of tobacco, like a Dutch-scoot, or a boatswain's
cabin fire: the walls being hung with gilt
frames, as a farrier's shop with horse-shoes,
which contained abundance of rarities; viz.,
Nectar and ambrosia, may-dew, golden elixirs,
liquid snuff, dentifrices, drops, lozenges, all