how the jest does take,
Yet grin, and give ye for the vine's pure blood
A loathsome potion, not yet understood,
Syrop of soot, or essence of old shoes,
Dasht with diurnals and the books of news?

Other complaints arose from the mixture of the company in the first
coffee-houses. In "A Broadside against Coffee, or the Marriage of the
Turk," 1672, the writer indicates the growth of the fashion:--

Confusion huddles all into one scene,
Like Noah's ark, the clean and the unclean;
For now, alas! the drench has credit got,
And he's no gentleman who drinks it not.
That such a dwarf should rise to such a stature!
But custom is but a remove from nature.

In "The Women's Petition against Coffee," 1674, they complained that
"it made men as unfruitful as the deserts whence that unhappy berry is
said to be brought; that the offspring of our mighty ancestors would
dwindle into a succession of apes and pigmies; and on a domestic
message, a husband would stop by the way to drink a couple of cups of
coffee." It was now sold in convenient penny-worths; for in another poem
in praise of a coffee-house, for the variety of information obtained
there, it is called "a penny university."

Amidst these contests of popular prejudices, between the lovers of
forsaken Canary, and the terrors of our females at the barrenness of an
Arabian desert, which lasted for twenty years, at length the custom was
universally established; nor were there wanting some reflecting minds
desirous of introducing the use of this liquid among the labouring
classes of society, to wean them from strong liquors. Howell, in
noticing that curious philosophical traveller, Sir Henry Blount's
"Organon Salutis," 1659, observed that "this coffa-drink hath caused a
great sobriety among all nations: formerly apprentices, clerks, &c.,
used to take their morning draughts in ale, beer, or wine, which often
made them unfit for business. Now they play the good-fellows in this
wakeful and civil drink. The worthy gentleman, Sir James Muddiford, who
introduced the practice hereof first in London, deserves much respect of
the whole nation." Here it appears, what is most probable, that the use
of this berry was introduced by other Turkish merchants, besides Edwards
and his servant Pasqua. But the custom of drinking coffee among the
labouring classes does not appear to have lasted; and when it was
recently even the cheapest beverage, the popular p