rejudices prevailed
against it, and ran in favour of tea. The contrary practice prevails on
the continent, where beggars are viewed making their coffee in the
street. I remember seeing the large body of shipwrights at Helvoetsluys
summoned by a bell, to take their regular refreshment of coffee; and the
fleets of Holland were not then built by arms less robust than the
fleets of Britain.

The frequenting of coffee-houses is a custom which has declined within
our recollection, since institutions of a higher character, and society
itself, have so much improved within late years. These were, however,
the common assemblies of all classes of society. The mercantile man, the
man of letters, and the man of fashion, had their appropriate
coffee-houses. The Tatler dates from either to convey a character of
his subject. In the reign of Charles the Second, 1675, a proclamation
for some time shut them all up, having become the rendezvous of the
politicians of that day. Roger North has given, in his Examen, a full
account of this bold stroke: it was not done without some apparent
respect to the British constitution, the court affecting not to act
against law, for the judges were summoned to a consultation, when, it
seems, the five who met did not agree in opinion. But a decision was
contrived that "the retailing of coffee and tea might be an innocent
trade; but as it was said to nourish sedition, spread lies, and
scandalise great men, it might also be a common nuisance." A general
discontent, in consequence, as North acknowledges, took place, and
emboldened the merchants and retailers of coffee and tea to petition;
and permission was soon granted to open the houses to a certain period,
under a severe admonition, that the masters should prevent all
scandalous papers, books, and libels from being read in them; and hinder
every person from spreading scandalous reports against the government.
It must be confessed, all this must have frequently puzzled the
coffee-house master to decide what was scandalous, what book was fit to
be licensed to be read, and what political intelligence might be allowed
to be communicated. The object of the government was, probably, to
intimidate, rather than to persecute, at that moment.

Chocolate the Spaniards brought from Mexico, where it was denominated
_Chocolati_; it was a coarse mixture of ground cacao and Indian corn
with rocou; but the Spaniards, liking its nourishment, improved it into
a richer co