tea, recommending it for the cure of all
disorders. The following shop-bill is more curious than any historical
account we have.

"Tea in England hath been sold in the leaf for six pounds, and sometimes
for ten pounds the pound weight, and in respect of its former scarceness
and dearness it has been only used as a regalia in high treatments and
entertainments, and presents made thereof to princes and grandees till
the year 1657. The said Garway did purchase a quantity thereof, and
first publicly sold the said tea in _leaf_ or _drink_, made according to
the directions of the most knowing merchants into those Eastern
countries. On the knowledge of the said Garway's continued care and
industry in obtaining the best tea, and making drink thereof, very many
noblemen, physicians, merchants, &c., have ever since sent to him for
the said leaf, and daily resort to his house to drink the drink thereof.
He sells tea from 16s. to 50s. a pound."

Probably, tea was not in general use domestically so late as in 1687;
for in the diary of Henry, Earl of Clarendon, he registers that "Pere
Couplet supped with me, and after supper we had tea, which he said was
really as good as any he had drank in China." Had his lordship been in
the general habit of drinking tea, he had not probably made it a subject
for his diary.

While the honour of introducing tea may be disputed between the English
and the Dutch, that of coffee remains between the English and the
French. Yet an Italian intended to have occupied the place of honour:
that admirable traveller Pietro della Valle, writing from
Constantinople, 1615, to a Roman, his fellow-countryman, informing him
that he should teach Europe in what manner the Turks took what he calls
"_Cahue_," or as the word is written in an Arabic and English pamphlet,
printed at Oxford, in 1659, on "the nature of the drink _Kauhi_ or
Coffee." As this celebrated traveller lived to 1652, it may excite
surprise that the first cup of coffee was not drank at Rome; this
remains for the discovery of some member of the "Arcadian Society." Our
own Sandys, at the time that Valle wrote, was also "a traveller," and
well knew what was "_Coffa_," which "they drank as hot as they can
endure it; it is as black as soot, and tastes not much unlike it; good
they say for digestion and mirth."

It appears by Le Grand's "Vie privee des Francois," that the celebrated
Thevenot, in 1658, gave coffee after dinner; but it was considered as