equestrations by his sovereign's kind nod, and "God bless you, my old
friend!"

Whitehall naturally became the chief staple of news. Whenever there was
a rumour that anything important had happened or was about to happen,
people hastened thither to obtain intelligence from the fountain head.
The galleries presented the appearance of a modern club room at an
anxious time. They were full of people enquiring whether the Dutch mail
was in, what tidings the express from France had brought, whether John
Sobiesky had beaten the Turks, whether the Doge of Genoa was really
at Paris These were matters about which it was safe to talk aloud. But
there were subjects concerning which information was asked and given
in whispers. Had Halifax got the better of Rochester? Was there to be a
Parliament? Was the Duke of York really going to Scotland? Had Monmouth
really been summoned from the Hague? Men tried to read the countenance
of every minister as he went through the throng to and from the royal
closet. All sorts of auguries were drawn from the tone in which His
Majesty spoke to the Lord President, or from the laugh with which His
Majesty honoured a jest of the Lord Privy Seal; and in a few hours the
hopes and fears inspired by such slight indications had spread to all
the coffee houses from Saint James's to the Tower. [128]

The coffee house must not be dismissed with a cursory mention. It might
indeed at that time have been not improperly called a most important
political institution. No Parliament had sat for years The municipal
council of the City had ceased to speak the sense of the citizens.
Public meetings, harangues, resolutions, and the rest of the modern
machinery of agitation had not yet come into fashion. Nothing resembling
the modern newspaper existed. In such circumstances the coffee houses
were the chief organs through which the public opinion of the metropolis
vented itself.

The first of these establishments had been set up by a Turkey merchant,
who had acquired among the Mahometans a taste for their favourite
beverage. The convenience of being able to make appointments in any part
of the town, and of being able to pass evenings socially at a very small
charge, was so great that the fashion spread fast. Every man of the
upper or middle class went daily to his coffee house to learn the news
and to discuss it. Every coffee house had one or more orators to whose
eloquence the crowd listened with admiration, and who soo