all your mene with tricks of State,
Enter and sip and then attend your Fate;
Come Drunk or Sober, for a gentle Fee,
Come n'er so Mad, I'll your Physician be.

Dr. Willis, in his _Pharmaceutice Rationalis_ (1674), was one of the
first to attempt to do justice to both sides of the coffee question. At
best, he thought it a somewhat risky beverage, and its votaries must,
in some cases, be prepared to suffer languor and even paralysis; it may
attack the heart and cause tremblings in the limbs. On the other hand it
may, if judiciously used, prove a marvelous benefit; "being daily drunk
it wonderfully clears and enlightens each part of the Soul and disperses
all the clouds of every Function."

It was a long time before recognition was obtained for the truth about
the "novelty drink"; especially that, if there were any beyond purely
social virtues to be found in coffee, they were "political rather than
medical."

Dr. James Duncan, of the Faculty of Montpellier, in his book _Wholesome
Advice against the Abuse of Hot Liquors_, done into English in 1706,
found coffee no more deserving of the name of panacea than that of
poison.

George Cheyne (1671-1743), the noted British physician, proclaimed his
neutrality in the words, "I have neither great praise nor bitter blame
for the thing."

_Coffee Prices and Coffee Licenses_

Coffee, with tea and chocolate, was first mentioned in the English
Statute books in 1660, when a duty of four pence was laid upon every
gallon made and sold, "to be paid by the maker." Coffee was classed by
the House of Commons with "other outlandish drinks."

It is recorded in 1662 that "the right coffee powder" was being sold at
the Turk's Head coffee house in Exchange Alley for "4s. to 6s. 8d. per
pound; that pounded in a mortar, 2s; East India berry, 1s. 6d.; and the
right Turkie berry, well garbled [ground] at 3s. The ungarbled [in the
bean] for less with directions how to use the same." Chocolate was also
to be had at "2s. 6d. the pound; the perfumed from 4s. to 10s."

At one time coffee sold for five guineas a pound in England, and even
forty crowns (about forty-eight dollars) a pound was paid for it.

In 1663, all English coffee houses were required to be licensed; the fee
was twelve pence. Failure to obtain a license was punished by a fine of
five pounds for every month's violation of the law. The coffee houses
were under close surveillance by government officials. One of these was
Muddiman,