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Amidst the rival contests of the Dutch and the English East India Companies, the honour of introducing its use into Europe may be claimed by both. Dr. Short conjectures that tea might have been known in England as far back as the reign of James I., for the first fleet set out in 1600; but had the use of this shrub been known, the novelty would have been chronicled among our dramatic writers, whose works are the annals of our prevalent tastes and humours. It is rather extraordinary that our East India Company should not have discovered the use of this shrub in their early adventures; yet it certainly was not known in England so late as in 1641, for in a scarce Treatise of Warm Beer,' where the title indicates the author's design to recommend hot in preference to cold drinks, he refers to tea only by quoting the Jesuit Maffei's account, that "they of China do for the most part drink the strained liquor of an herb called Chia, hot." The word Cha is the Portuguese term for tea, retained to this day, which they borrowed from the Japanese while our intercourse with the Chinese made us, no doubt, adopt their term Theh, now prevalent throughout Europe, with the exception of the Portuguese. The Chinese origin is still preserved in the term Bohea, tea which comes from the country of Vouhi; and that of Hyson was the name of the most considerable Chinese then concerned in the trade.

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The best account of the early use, and the prices of tea in England, appears in the handbill of one who may be called our first Tea-maker. This curious handbill bears no date, but as Hanway ascertained that the price was sixty shillings in 1660, this bill must have been dispersed about that period.

Thomas Garway, in Exchange Alley, tobacconist and coffeeman, was the first who sold and retailed tea, recommending it for the cure of all disorders. The following shop-bill is more curious than any historical account we have.

"Tea in England hath been sold in the leaf for six pounds, and sometimes for ten pounds the pound weight, and in respect of its former scarceness and dearness it hath been only used as a regalia in high treatments and entertainments, and presents made thereof to princes and grandees, till the year 1657. The said Garway did purchase a quantity thereof, and first publicly sold the tea in leaf or drink, made according to the directions of the most knowing merchants into those Eastern countries. On the knowledge of the said Garway's continued care and industry in obtaining the best tea, and making drink thereof, very many noblemen, physicians, merchants, &c., have ever since sent to him for the said leaf, and daily resort to his house to drink the drink thereof. He sells tea from 16s, to 50s, a pound."

Probably tea was not in general use domestically so late as in 1687; for in the diary of Henry, Earl of Clarendon, he registers that "Père Couplet supped with me, and after supper we had tea, which he said was really as good as any he had drank in China." Had his lordship been in the general habit of drinking tea, he had not, probably, made it a subject for his diary.

While the honour of introducing tea may be disputed between the English and the Dutch, that of coffee remains between the English and the French. Yet an Italian intended to have occupied the place of honour; that admirable traveller, Pietro della Valle, writing from Constantinople in 1615, to a Roman, his fellow-countryman, informing him, that he should teach Europe in what manner the Turks took what he calls "Cahué," or as the word is written in an Arabic and English pamphlet, printed at Oxford, 1659, on "the nature of the drink Kauhi or Coffee." As this celebrated traveller lived in 1652, it may excite surprise that the first cup of coffee was not drank at Rome: this remains for the discovery of some member of the Arcadian Society.' Our own Purchas, at the time that Valle wrote, was also "a Pilgrim." and well knew what was "Coffa," which "they drank as hot as they

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can endure it; it is as black as soot, and tastes not much unlike it; good they say for digestion and mirth."

It appears, by Le Grand's 'Vie Privée des François,' that the celebrated Thevenot, in 1658, gave coffee after dinner; but it was considered as the whim of a traveller; neither the thing itself nor its appearance was inviting: it was probably attributed by the gay to the humour of a vain philosophical traveller. But ten years afterwards a Turkish ambassador at Paris made the beverage highly fashionable. The elegance of the equipage recommended it to the eye, and charmed the women: the brilliant porcelain cups, in which it was poured, the napkins fringed with gold, and the Turkish slaves on their knees presenting it to the ladies, seated on the ground on cushions, turned the heads of the Parisian dames. This elegant introduction made the exotic beverage a subject of conversation, and in 1672, an Armenian at Paris, at the fair-time, opened a coffee-house. But the custom still prevailed to sell beer and wine, and to smoke and mix with indifferent company in their first imperfect coffee-houses. A Florentine, one Procopc, celebrated in his day as the arbiter of taste in this department, instructed by the error of the Armenian, invented a superior establishment, and introduced ices: he embellished his apartment, and those who had avoided the offensive coffee-houses, repaired to Procope's where literary men, artists, and wits resorted, to inhale the fresh and fragrant steam. Le Grand says, that this establishment holds a distinguished place in the literary history of the times. It was at the coffee-house of Du Laurent that Saurin, La Motte, Danchet, Boindin, Rousseau, &c., met; but the mild steams of the aromatic berry could not mollify the acerbity of so many rivals, and the witty malignity of Rousseau gave birth to those famous couplets on all the coffee-drinkers, which occasioned his misfortunes and his banishment.

Such is the history of the first use of coffee and its houses in Paris. We, however, had the use before even the time of Thevenot; for an English Turkish merchant brought a Greek servant in 1652, who, knowing how to roast and make it, opened a house to sell it publicly. I have also discovered his hand-bill, in which he sets forth,

"The vertue of the coffee drink, first publiquely made and sold in England, by Pasqua Rosee, in St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill, at the sign of his own head.”

For about twenty years after the introduction of coffee in this kingdom, we find a continued series of invectives against its adoption, both in medicinal and domestic views. The use of coffee, indeed, seems to have excited more notice, and to have had a greater influence on the manners of the people, than that of tea. It seems at first to have been more universally used, as it still is on the Continent; and its use is connected with a resort for the idle and the curious: the history of coffee-houses is often that of the manners, the morals, and the politics of a people. Even in its native country the government discovered that extraordinary fact, and the use of the Arabian berry was more than once forbidden where it grows for Ellis, in his 'History of Coffee,' 1774, refers to an Arabian MS. in the King of France's library, which shows that coffee houses in Asia were sometimes suppressed. The same fate happened on its introduction into England.

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TIME is a circumstance no less inseparable from religious actions than place, for man consisting of a soul and body cannot always be actually engaged in the service of God: that is the privilege of angels, and souls freed from the fetters of mortality. So long as we are here, we must worship God with respect to our present state, and consequently of necessity have some definite and particular time to do it in.

Now, that a inan might not be left to a floating uncertainty in a matter of so great importance, in all ages and nations men have been guided by the very dictates of nature to pitch upon some certain seasons, wherein to assemble and meet together to perform the public offices of religion. What and how many were the public festivals instituted and observed, either amongst Jews or Gentiles, I am not concerned to take notice of. For the ancient Christians, they ever had their peculiar seasons, their solemn and stated times of meeting together to perform the common duties of divine worship; of which, because the Lord's-day challenges the precedency of all the rest, we shall begin first with that. And, being unconcerned in all the controversies which in the late times were raised about it, I shall only note some instances of the piety of Christians in reference to this day, which I have observed in passing through the writers of those times.

For the name of this day of public worship, it is sometimes, especially by Justin Martyr and Tertullian, called Sunday, because it happened upon that day of the week which by the heathens was dedicated to the sun; and therefore, as being best known to them, the Fathers commonly made use of it in their Apologies to the heathen governors. This title continued after the world became Christians, and seldom it is that it passes under any other name in the imperial edicts of the first Christian emperors. But the more proper and prevailing name was Kupiakη, or Dies Dominica, the Lord's-day, as it is called by St. John himself, as being that day of the week whereon our Lord made his triumphant return from the dead. This, Justin Martyr assures us, was the original of the title. "Upon Sunday," says he, "we all assemble and meet together, as being the first day wherein God, parting the darkness from the rude chaos, created the world, and the same day whereon Jesus Christ our Saviour rose again from the dead; for he was crucified the day before Saturday, and the day after (which is Sunday) he appeared to his apostles and disciples:" by this means- ·observing a kind of analogy and proportion with the Jewish Sabbath, which had been instituted by God himself. For as that day was kept as a commemoration of God's Sabbath, or resting from the work of creation, so was this set apart to religious uses, as the solemn memorial of Christ's resting from the work of our redemption in this world, completed upon the day of his resurrection. Which brings into my mind that custom of theirs so universally common in those days, that whereas at other times they kneeled at prayers, on the Lord's-day they always prayed standing, as is expressly affirmed both by Justin Martyr and Tertullian; the reason of which we find in the author of the Questions and Answers in Justin Martyr. "It is," says he, "that by this means we may be put in mind both of our fall by sin, and our resurrection or restitution by the grace of Christ ; that for six days we pray upon our knees, as in token of our fall by sin; but that on the Lord's-day we do not bow the knee, does symbolically represent our resurrection by which through the grace of Christ we are delivered from our sins, and the power of death." This, he there tells us, was a custom derived from the very times of the apostles, for which he cites Irenæus in his book concerning Easter; and this custom was maintained with so much vigour, that, when some began to neglect it, the great council of Nice took notice of it, and ordained that there should be a constant uniformity in this case, and that on the Lord's-day (and at such times as were usual) men should stand when they made their prayers to God. So fit and reasonable did they think it to do all possible honour to that day on which Christ rose from the dead. Therefore we may observe, all along in the sacred story, that after Christ's resurrection the apostles and primitive Christians did especially assemble upon the first day of the week: and, whatever they might do at other times, yet there are many passages that intimate that the first day of the weck was their most solemn time of meeting. On this day it was that they were met toge

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ther when our Saviour first appeared to them, and so again the next week after: and on this day they were assembled when the Holy Ghost so visibly came down upon them, when Peter preached that excellent sermon, converted and baptised three thousand souls. Thus, when St. Paul was taking his leave at Troas, upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, i. e., as almost all agree, to celebrate the holy sacrament, he preached to them, sufficiently intimating that upon that day it was their usual custom to meet in that manner, and elsewhere giving directions to the church of Corinth (as he had done in the like to other churches) concerning their contributions to the poor suffering brethren, he bids them lay it aside upon the first day of the week, which seems plainly to respect their religious assemblies upon that day, for then it was that every one according to his ability deposited something for the relief of the poor, and the uses of the church.

After the apostles the Christians constantly observed this day, meeting together for prayer, expounding and hearing of the Scriptures, celebration of the sacraments, and other public duties of religion. "Upon the day called Sunday," says Justin Martyr, "all of us that live either in city or country meet together in one place;" and what they then did he there describes, of which afterwards. This, doubtless, Pliny meant, when, giving Trajan an account of the Christians, he tells him that they were wont to meet together to worship Christ stato die, upon a set certain day; by which he can be reasonably understood to design no other but the Lord's-day; for, though they probably mct at other times, yet he takes notice of this only, either because the Christians, whom he had examined, had not told him of their meeting at other times, or because this was their most public and solemn convention, and which in a manner swallowed up the rest. By the violent persecutions of those times the Christians were forced to meet together before day. So Pliny in the same place tells the emperor that they assembled before daylight to sing their morning hymns to Christ, whence it is that Tertullian so often mentions these nocturnal convocations. This gave occasion to their spiteful adversaries to calumniate and asperse them. The heathen in Minucius charges them with their night congregations, upon which account they are there scornfully called Catebrosa et lucifugax natio, an "obscure and skulking generation ;" and the very first thing that Celsus objects to is, that the Christians had private and clancular [secret] assemblies, or combinations. To which Origen answers, "that, if it were so, they might thank them for it who would not suffer them to exercise it more openly; that the Christian doctrine was sufficiently evident and obvious, and better known through the world than the opinions and sentiments of their best philosophers; and that, if there were some mysteries in the Christian religion which were not communicated to every one, it was no other thing than what was common in the several sects of their own philosophy. But to return.

They looked upon the Lord's-day as a time to be celebrated with great expressions of joy, as being the happy memory of Christ's resurrection, and accordingly restrained whatever might savour of sorrow and sadness. Fasting on that day they prohibited with the greatest severity, accounting it utterly unlawful, as Tertullian informs us. It was a very bitter censure that of Ignatius (or of whosoever that epistle was, for certainly it was not his), that whoever fasts on a Lord's-day is a murderer of Christ. However, it is certain that they never fasted on those days, no, not in the time of Lent itself; nay, the Montanists, though otherwise great pretenders to fasting and mortification, did yet abstain from it on the Lord's-day. And, as they accounted it a joyful and good day, so they did whatever they thought might contribute to the honour of it. No sooner was Constantine come over to the church, but his principal care was about the Lord's-day. He commanded it to be solemnly observed, and that by all persons whatsoever. He made it to all a day of rest; that men might

have nothing to do but to worship God, and be better instructed in the Christian faith, and spend their whole time without any thing to hinder them in prayer and devotion, according to the custom and discipline of the church. And for those in his army, who yet remained in their paganism and infidelity, he commanded them upon Lord's-days to go out into the fields, and there pour out their souls in hearty prayers to God; and, that none might pretend their own inability to the duty, ho himself composed and gave them a short form of prayer, which he enjoined them to make use of every Lord's-day: so careful was he that this day should not be dishonoured or misemployed, even by those who were yet strangers and enemies to Christianity. He moreover ordained that there should be no courts of judicature open upon this day, no suits or trials at law; but that for any works of mercy, such as emancipating and setting free of slaves or servants, this might be done. That there should be no suits nor demanding debts upon this day was confirmed by several laws of succeeding emperors; and that no arbitrators, who had the umpirage of any business lying before them, should at that time have power to determine to take up litigious causes, penalties being entailed upon any that transgressed herein. Theodosius the Great, anno 386, by a second law ratified one which he had passed long before, wherein he expressly prohibited all public shows upon the Lord's-day, that the worship of God might not be confounded with those profane solemnities. This law the younger Theodosius some years after confirmed and enlarged, enacting, that on the Lord's-day (and some other festivals there mentioned) not only Christians, but even Jews and heathens, should be restrained from the pleasure of all sights and spectacles, and the theatres be shut up in every place; and whereas it might so happen that the birthday or inauguration of the emperor might fall upon that day, therefore to let the people know how infinitely he preferred the honour of God, before the concerns of his own majesty and greatness, he commanded that, if it should so happen, that then the imperial solemnity should be put off, and deferred till another day.

I shall take notice but of one instance more of their great observance of this day, and that was their constant attendance upon the solemnities of public worship. They did not think it enough to read and pray and praise God at home, but made conscience of appearing in the public assemblies, from which nothing but sickness and absolute necessity did detain them: and if sick, or in prison, or under banishment, nothing troubled them more than that they could not come to church, and join their devotions to the common services. If persecution at any time forced them to keep a little close, yet no sooner was there the least mitigation, but they presently returned to their open duty, and publicly met all together. No trivial pretences, no light excuses, were then admitted for any one's absence from the congregation, but, according to the merit of the cause, severe censures were passed upon them. The synod of Illiberis provided that if any man dwelling in a city (where usually churches were nearest hand) should for three Lord's-days absent himself from the church, he should for some time be suspended the communion, that he might appear to be corrected for his fault.

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