e healthy better.
Epicures drink it for want of an appetite; _bon vivants_, to
remove the effects of a surfeit of wine; gluttons, as a remedy for
indigestion; politicians, for the vertigo; doctors, for drowsiness;
prudes, for the vapors; wits, for the spleen; and beaux to
improve their complexions; summing up, by declaring tea to be
a treat for the frugal, a regale for the luxurious, a successful
agent for the man of business, and a bracer for the idle.

Poets and verse-makers joined the chorus in praise of tea, in
Greek and Latin. One poet pictures Hebe pouring the delightful
cup for the goddesses, who, finding it made their beauty
brighter and their wit more brilliant, drank so deeply as to
disgust Jupiter, who had forgotten that he, himself,

"Drank tea that happy morn,
When wise Minerva of his brain was born."

Laureant Tate, who wrote a poem on tea in two cantos,
described a family jar among the fair deities, because each
desired to become the special patroness of the ethereal drink
destined to triumph over wine. Another versifier exalts it at the
expense of its would-be rival, coffee:

"In vain would coffee boast an equal good,
The crystal stream transcends the flowing mud,
Tea, even the ills from coffee spring repairs,
Disclaims its vices and its virtues shares."

Another despairing enthusiast exclaims:

"Hail, goddess of the vegetable, hail!
To sing thy worth, all words, all numbers, fail!"

The new beverage did not have the field all to itself, however,
for, while it was generally admitted that

Tea was fixed, and come to stay.
It could not drive good meat and drink away.

Lovers of the old and conservative customs of the table were
not anxious to try the novelty. Others shied at it; some flirted
with it, in tiny teaspoonfuls; others openly defied and attacked it.
Among the latter were a number of robust versifiers and
physicians.

"'Twas better for each British virgin,
When on roast beef, strong beer and sturgeon,
Joyous to breakfast they sat round,
Nor were ashamed to eat a pound."

The fleshly school of doctors were only too happy to disagree
with their brethren respecting the merits and demerits of the
new-fangled drink; and it is hard to say which were most bitter,
the friends or the foes of tea.

Maria Theresa's physician, Count Belchigen, attribute