ale house, you must gorge yourself with pot after pot.... But here,
for a penny or two, you may spend two or three hours, have the
shelter of a house, the warmth of a fire, the diversion of company;
and conveniency, if you please, of taking a pipe of tobacco; and
all this without any grumbling or repining. Secondly. For sobriety.
It is grown, by the ill influences of I know not what hydropick
stars, almost a general custom amongst us, that no bargain can be
drove, or business concluded between man and man, but it must be
transacted at some publick-house ... where continual sippings ...
would be apt to fly up into their brains, and render them drowsy
and indisposed ... whereas, having now the opportunity of a
coffee-house, they repair thither, take each man a dish or two (so
far from causing, that it cures any dizziness, or disturbant
fumes): and so, dispatching their business, go out more sprightly
about their affairs, than before.... Lastly, For diversion ...
where can young gentlemen, or shop-keepers, more innocently and
advantageously spend an hour or two in the evening than at a
coffee-house? Where they shall be sure to meet company, and, by the
custom of the house, not such as at other places stingy and
reserved to themselves, but free and communicative, where every man
may modestly begin his story, and propose to, or answer another, as
he thinks fit.... So that, upon the whole matter, spight of the
idle sarcasms and paltry reproaches thrown upon it, we may, with no
less truth than plainness, give this brief character of a
well-regulated coffee-house, (for our pen disdains to be an
advocate for any sordid holes, that assume that name to cloke the
practice of debauchery,) that it is the sanctuary of health, the
nursery of temperance, the delight of frugality, and academy of
civility, and free-school of ingenuity.

_The Ale Wives' Complaint Against the Coffee-houses_, a dialogue between
a victualer's wife and a coffee man, at difference about spiriting away
each other's trade, also was issued in 1675.

As early as 1666, and again in 1672, we find the government planning to
strike a blow at the coffee houses. By the year 1675, these "seminaries
of sedition" were much frequented by persons of rank and substance, who,
"suitable to our native genius," says Anderson,[80] "used g