d abbots and bishops who dispensed the favors
of Heaven, and you the dreaded templars who armed yourselves for
the extermination of the Saracens, you knew nothing of the sweet
restoring influence of our modern chocolate, nor of the
thought-inspiring bean of Arabia--how I pity you!

O. de Gourcuff's _De la Cafe, epitre attribue a Senece_, is deserving of
honorable mention.

An early French writer pays this tribute to the inspirational effects of
coffee:

It is a beverage eminently agreeable, inspiring and wholesome. It
is at once a stimulant, a cephalic, a febrifuge, a digestive, and
an anti-soporific; it chases away sleep, which is the enemy of
labor; it invokes the imagination, without which there can be no
happy inspiration. It expels the gout, that enemy of pleasure,
although to pleasure gout owes its birth; it facilitates digestion,
without which there can be no true happiness. It disposes to
gaiety, without which there is neither pleasure nor enjoyment; it
gives wit to those who already have it, and it even provides wit
(for some hours at least) to those who usually have it not. Thank
heaven for Coffee, for see how many blessings are concentrated in
the infusion of a small berry. What other beverage in the world can
compare with it? Coffee, at once a pleasure and a medicine; Coffee,
which nourishes at the same moment the mind, body and imagination.
Hail to thee! Inspirer of men of letters, best digestive of the
gourmand. Nectar of all men.

In Bologna, 1691, Angelo Rambaldi published _Ambrosia arabica, caffe
discorso_. This work is divided into eighteen sections, and describes
the origin, cultivation, and roasting of the bean, as well as telling
how to prepare the beverage.

During the time that Milan was under Spanish rule, Cesare Beccaria
directed and edited a publication entitled _Il Caffe_, which was
published from June 4, 1764, to May, 1766, "edited in Brescia by
Giammaria Rizzardi and undertaken by a little society of friends,"
according to the salutatory. Besides the Marchese Beccaria, other
editors and contributors were Pietro and Alexander Verri, Baillon,
Visconti, Colpani, Longhi, Albertenghi, Frisi, and Secchi. The same
periodical, with the same editorial staff, was published also in Venice
in the Typografia Pizzolato.

Another publication called _Il Caffe_, devoted to arts, letters, and
science, w