their status as social and temperance factors.
Constantine Jennings (or George Constantine) of the Grecian advertised
chocolate, sherbert and tea at retail in 1664-65; also free instruction
in the part of preparing these liquors. "Drams and cordial waters were
to be had only at coffee houses newly set up," says Elford the younger,
writing about 1689. "While some few places added ale and beer as early
as 1669, intoxicating liquors were not items of importance for many
years."

[Illustration: A LONDON COFFEE HOUSE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

From a wood cut of the period]

After the fire of 1666, many new coffee houses were opened that were not
limited to a single room up a flight of stairs. Because the coffee-house
keepers over-emphasized the sobering qualities of the coffee drink, they
drew many undesirable characters from the taverns and ale houses after
the nine o'clock closing hour. These were hardly calculated to improve
the reputation of the coffee houses; and, indeed, the decline of the
coffee houses as a temperance institution would seem to trace back to
this attitude of false pity for the victims of tavern vices, evils that
many of the coffee houses later on embraced to their own undoing. The
early institution was unique, its distinctive features being unlike
those of any public house in England or on the Continent. Later on, in
the eighteenth century, when these distinctive features became
obscured, the name coffee house became a misnomer.

[Illustration: COFFEE HOUSE, QUEEN ANNE'S TIME--1702-14

Showing coffee pots, coffee dishes, and coffee boy]

However, Robinson says, "the close intercourse between the habitues of
the coffee house, before it lost anything of its generous social
traditions and whilst the issue of the struggle for political liberty
was as yet uncertain, was to lead to something more than a mere jumbling
or huddling together of opposites. The diverse elements gradually united
in the bonds of common sympathy, or were forcibly combined by
persecution from without until there resulted a social, political and
moral force of almost irresistible strength."

_Coffee-House Keepers' Tokens_

The great London fire of 1666 destroyed some of the coffee houses; but
prominent among those that survived was the Rainbow, whose proprietor,
James Farr, issued one of the earliest coffee-house tokens, doubtless in
grateful memory of his escape. Farr's token shows an arched rainbow
emerging from the clo