barking of our little wits against this innocent and wholesome drink, that is so generally used by so many mighty nations, and those too celebrated for the most witty and sagacious?

Nor wants this liquor the suffrages of excellent authors. The famous Parkinson, in his exquisite Herbal, p. 1622, commends it for the strengthening weak stomachs, helping digestion, and obstructions and tumours of the liver and spleen; the incomparable Verulam, in his Na. tural Histoty, fol. 155, amongst other encomiums, asserts, that it comforteth the brain, and, by condensing the spirits, expelleth fear, and maketh them strong and chearful; Sandys, in his Travels, and the ju dicious Sir H. B. both in his Voyage to the Levant, and elsewhere, speaks very advantageously of it: nor did the ingenious Mr. Howel, in his life-time, deny it his publick testimony in print, in a letter to Mr. Justice R. before his Organum Salutis.

After so many worthy names have given it their votes, what have our puisne quibblers to object? only this, it is black, and therefore wit must be shewn to call it Stygian puddle; and, besides this, it is bitter, and therefore a lye must be framed, that it is made of soot.

For the first, were they but so well acquainted with the prince of Latin poets, as our character-maker would make us believe he is with Ovid, by his dull, tedious, and impertinent quotation, they might remember,

Alba ligustra cadunt, vaccinia nigra leguntur.

It is the opinion of better heads, than any on their shoulders, that this liquor is no other, than that famous black broth of the Lacedemo. nians, so much celebrated by antiquity.

For its taste, it is a pitiful childish humour always to indulge our palates; diseases are removed by bitter pills, and the most sanative potions are oftentimes very ungrateful to swallow; but the truth is, this drink has nothing in it of nauseousness, nor any taste, but what, familiarised by a little use, will become pleasant and delightful.

The dull planet Saturn has not finished one revolution through his orb, since coffee-houses were first known amongst us; yet it is worth our wonder to observe how numerous they are already grown; not only here in our metropolis, but in both universities, and most cities and eminent towns throughout the nation; nor, indeed, have we any places of entertainment of more use and general conveniency, in several respects, amongst us.

First, In regard of easy expence: Being to wait for or meet a friend, a tavern-reckoning soon breeds a purse-consumption; in an ale-house, you must gorge yourself with pot after pot, sit dully alone, or be drawn in to club for others reckonings, or frowned on by your landlady, as one that cumbers the house, and hinders better guests: 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. This, to persons much concerned in the world, must needs be very injurious, should they always run to taverns or ale-houses, where continual sippings, though never so warily, would be apt to fly up into their brains, and render them drowsy and indisposed for business; 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. The like may be said of mornings draughts, which, taken in wine, ale, or beer, most times either destroy, or very much maim the business of the whole day; whereas, if people would be persuaded to play the good-fellows, in this wholesome, wakeful, innocent drink, they would find it do no less good to their bodies, and much more promote and advance their business and employments.

Lastly, For diversion. It is older than Aristotle, and will be true, when Hobbes is forgot, that man is a sociable creature, and delights in company. Now, whither shall a person, wearied with hard study, or the laborious turmoils of a tedious day, repair to refresh himself? Or where can young gentlemen, or shop-keepers, more innocently and advantageously spend an hour or two in the evening, than at a coffeehouse? 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. Discourse is pabulum animi, cos ingenii; the mind's best diet, and the great whetstone and incentive of ingenuity; by that we come to know men better than by their physiognomy. Loquere, ut te videam, speak, that I may see thee, was the philosopher's adage. To read men is acknowledged more useful than books; but where is there a better library for that study, generally, than here, amongst such a variety of humours, all expressing themselves on divers subjects, according to their respective abilities?

But our pamphlet-monger, that sputters out senseless characters faster, than any hocus can vomit inkle, will needs take upon him to be dictator of all society, and confine company to sit as mute in a coffee-house, as a quaker at a silent meeting, or himself with a little wench, when behind the hangings they are playing a game at whist. this purpose, he babbles mightily against tattling, and makes a great deal of cold mirth with three or four stale humours, that you may find a thousand times better described in a hundred old plays; yet to collect these excellent observables cost the poor soul above half a year's time, in painful pilgrimage from one coffee-house to another; where, planting himself in a dark corner, with the dexterity of short-hand, he recorded these choice remarks, whilst all the town took him for an exciseman counting the number of dishes; the world is now obliged with the fruits of his industry, which proves no more, than that some giddyheaded coxcombs, like himself (whose skulls, instead of brains, are stuffed with saw-dust) do sometimes intrude into coffee-houses, a doctrine we are easily persuaded to believe: for, if their doors had been

kept shut against all fops, it is more than probable, himself had never known so much of their humours. We confess, in multiloquio non deest vanitas, Amongst so much talk there may happen some to very little purpose. But, as we doubt not, but the royal proclamation has had the good success to prevent, for the future, any dangerous intelligence, saucy prying into arcana imperii, or irreverent reflexions on affairs of state, so, for the little innocent extravagancies, we hold them very diverting, every fool being a fiddle to the company; for, how else should our author have raised so much laughter through the town? Besides, how infinitely are the vain pratings of these ridiculous pragmaticks over-balanced by the sage and solid reasonings, here frequently to be heard, of experienced gentlemen, judicious lawyers, able physicians, ingenious merchants, and understanding citizens, in the abstrusest points of reason, philosophy, law, and publick commerce!

In brief, it is undeniable, that, as you have here the most civil, so it is, generally, the most intelligent society; the frequenting whose converse, and observing their discourses and deportment, cannot but civilise our manners, enlarge our understandings, refine our language, teach us a generous confidence and handsome mode of address, and brush off that pudor rubrusticus (as, I remember, Tully somewhere calls it) that clownish kind of modesty frequently incident to the best natures, which renders them sheepish and ridiculous in company.

So that, upon the whole matter, spight of the idle sarcasms and pal. try 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, an academy of civility, and free-school of ingenuity.

THE CHARACTER OF A FANATICK.

BY A PERSON OF QUALITY.

London, printed in the Year 1675. Quarto, containing eight Pages.

HE is a person of a more exercised faith than understanding; one

governed by instinct, not intellect; and who, like those of old, never thinks he has enough of the deity, till beside himself: You may call him, if you please, a perpetual motion, or a restless whirligig, ever turning from bad to worse; or the ignis fatuus of divinity, carried about with every wind; lest, considering whence it cometh, or whither it goeth, as even such, likewise, is every one that is born of him. It may be thought, the prophet had something like him in his eye, in that wheel (of his) within a wheel; for of himself he never was, but ill split from another; like those imperfect, dough-baked creatures, produced by the sun on the banks of Nile; so that his generation is founded in corruption, and his extraction of the same parentage with

:

monsters, not intended, but produced. His principles are like the chaos; a confused lump of every thing and nothing; or a gallimawfry of negatives; nor this, nor that, nor the other; but what he is, no man knows, no, nor the angels in heaven, nor himself to boot; this only excepted, that he is more party-coloured than Joseph's coat, and patched together of more pieces, than a taylor's cushion: Nor is his practice much unsuitable to his principles; he puts on religion as a cloke, not a garment, and varnishes his impostures with Holiness to the Lord. Thus Absalom pretends a sacrifice, when his business is rebellion; and Herod a worship, when his design is murder; nor with much wonder Machiavel, the Florentine, had taught him, he, that would gain by deceit, must first acquire a credit, by, at least, a shew of integrity; and he, that would practise upon the people, must follow the old rule of Finge Deum-Such influence have solemn looks, and verily, verily, upon the multitude, who have little else to pass them for men, but speech and figure: hence it is, that he puts off his tinsel for standard, and the maggots of his own brain, for divine inspiration: that he obtrudes his enthusiasms for visions, and justifies Homer, that even such dreams are of God: that he takes a holy pride to himself, and says to the rest of the world, stand off: that he calls the common infirmities of mankind, crying sins, national sins, bow-dyed sins; and his own mormo's, but slips and failings that he can see no sin in Jacob, nor iniquity in his Israel of God: that he calls them the only holy, only chosen, only godly, only precious, only spiritually-discerning people: that he puts a discriminating schibboleth on others; as formalists, carnalists, dry moralists, withered fig-trees, outside men, negative-holiness-men, opus-operatum-men, will-worshippers, Laodiceans, and what not that he talks of nothing but new light and prophecy, spiritual incomes, indwellings, emanations, manifestations, sealings, and the lik gibberish and canting; to which, also, the zealous twang of the nose adds no small efficay: that he runs counter to all things in power, and treads the antipodes to every thing commanded, and for no other reason, but because commanded: for it may be observed, that the Lord'sprayer was not so absolutely thrown out of the kirk, till recommended by its own directory; in short, that he calls subjection, in matters of religion, a tying up the spirit, and all injunctions, even in things indifferent, a manifest invading the sanctum sanctorum: and now the great cry is persecution for conscience; nothing in his mouth, but destitute, afflicted; and, the common corollary, but not forsaken. Alas! alas! the habitations of Jacob are swallowed, and the places of the assembly taken away: a bow is bent against the daughter of Judah, and the breach of the Virgin of Sion is like a great sea; whereas, on the other hand, let him be but as in the years passed, and the sun once more shine on his tabernacle. This success new models his conscience, and, like Aaron's rod, he swallows up every thing that lies in his way; even princes must lay their hands on their mouths, and the nobles not speak again to his words: the poor distressed is become hogan mogan and the servus servorum, dominus dominantium: the little flock claims a kingdom in condigno, and the chosen generation sets up for a royal priesthood. In short, this little horn takes a mouth to himself, speaking

mighty things, and his language is, Overturn, overturn, overturn. And now he makes his doctrine suitable to his text, and owns above-board, that dominion is founded in grace, not nature: that the goods of this world are properly the elects: that himself and his hyperdolins are the only Israelites, and all the rest Egyptians that the new Jerusalem must be propagated, as the second temple was built, with the sword in one hand, and the trowel in the other: or, as the abbot (in Henry the Third's time) gave it in absolution to the earl of Leicester, gla dium spiritualem sine gladio materiali nihil posse. What shall I add? he declares that quis suscitabit eum? was personally meant of his tribe: and yet this man has his followers, and these of the honourable women too, not a few; for, to say truth, his conversation is much after the rate of that before the flood, the sons of God among the daughters of men; devotion in all places, whether true or false, being most natural to that sex: it was the devil's policy to our first parents, for well he knew that to beguile Eve was the ready way to hook in Adam. And thus he proves a stumbling-block to the wives, and a rock of offence to the husbands. In brief, like the dragon in the Apocalypse, his tail draws a third part of the stars, and casts them to the earth; the reason is obvious, fortitudo ejus in lumbis ejus, & virtus umbilico ventris. But, to proceed, his profession is like his allegiance, a mere fucus, yet, so well laid on, one, at first sight, could not but swear it were natural : his common-place, Polyanthea, and Concordance, and the height of his school-divinity, the assemblies catechism: his prayer, a rhapsody of holy hiccoughs, sanctified barkings, illuminated goggles, sighs, sobs, yexes, gasps, and groans, not more intelligible than nauseous: how ever, to give him his due, he prays most heartily for the king, but with more distinctions, and mental reservations, than an honest man would have taken the covenant: from hence, as out of the third heaven, he falls by head and shoulders into his preachment; which what other is it, than a wild career over hill and dale, till the afternoon chimes stop him ? Ρήματα αῤῥητα, ἀῤῥητα ῥῆματα; ihump upon thump, yelp upon yelp, doctrine upon doctrine, rule upon rule, reason upon reason, text upon text, proof upon proof, direction upon direction, motive upon motive, sign upon sign, token upon token, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little effect upon effect, and uses more than innumerable; and here likewise he cries up obedience to magistrates, but with such a salva gloria dei, that he had better let it alone: as also, that they ought to be defended by their subjects, in defence, nevertheless, of the true religion, of which himself must be judge. And, for his grace at meat, what can I better compare it to, than a Canterbury hack, half pace, half gallop? so his, an odd hobbling shuffle, between a grace and a prayer, and a prayer and a grace: lastly, as to his virtues, (for it cannot be denied, but he has somewhat of that which Tully calls, adumbrata virtutum specimina) I wish it might be said of them, that they were other than masked hypocrisy; the poet hit it: Da justum sanctumque videri,

Noctem peccatis, & fraudibus objice nubem:

And, like an apt scholar, he has gotten his lesson by heart, and can