e battle still affords
At last says he to _Don_, I trow
You understand me? _Sennor no_
Says th' other. Here the Wit doth pause
A little while, then opes his jaws,
And says to _Monsieur_, you enjoy
Our tongue I hope? _Non par ma foy_,
Replies the _Frenchman_: nor you, Sir?
Says he to th' _Dutchman, Neen mynheer_,
With that he's gone, and cries, why sho'd
He stay where _wit's_ not understood?
There in a place of his own chusing
(Alone) some _lover_ sits a musing,
With arms across, and's eyes up lift,
As if he were of sence bereft.
Till sometimes to himself he's speaking,
Then sighs as if his heart were breaking.
Here in a corner sits a _Phrantick_,
And there stands by a frisking Antick,
Of all sorts some and all conditions
Even _Vintners_, _Surgeons_ and _Physicians_.
The _blind_, the _deaf_, and _aged cripple_
Do here resort and Coffee tipple.

Now here (perhaps) you may expect
My _Muse_ some trophies should erect
In high flown verse, for to set forth
The _noble praises_ of its _worth_.

Truth is, _old Poets_ beat their brains
To find out high and lofty strains
To praise the (now too frequent) use
Of the bewitching _grapes strong juice_,
Some have strain'd hard for to exalt
The _liquor_ of our _English Mault_
Nay _Don_ has almost crackt his _nodle_
Enough t'applaud his _Caaco Caudle_.
The _Germans Mum_, _Teag's Usquebagh_,
(Made him so well defend _Tredagh_,)
_Metheglin_, which the _Brittains_ tope,
Hot _Brandy_ wine, the _Hogans_ hope.
Stout _Meade_ which makes the _Russ_ to laugh,
Spic'd _Punch_ (in bowls) the _Indians quaff_.
All these have had their pens to raise
Them _Monuments_ of lasting praise,
Onely poor _Coffee_ seems to me
No subject fit for _Poetry_
At least 'tis one that none of mine is,
So I do wave 't, and here write--
FINIS.

[Illustration: A BROAD-SIDE OF 1667]

_News from the Coffe House; in which is shewn their several sorts of
Passions_ appeared in 1667. It was reprinted in 1672 as _The Coffee
House or News-mongers' Hall_.

Several stanzas from these broadsides have been much quoted. They serve
to throw additional light upon the manners of the time, and upon the
kind of conversation met with in any well frequented coffee house of the
seventeenth century, particularly under the Stuarts. They are finely
descriptive of the company characteristics of the early coffee houses.
The fifth stanza of the edition of 1667, inimical to the French, was
omitted when the broads