FFEE HOUSE.

Enter, Sirs, freely, but first, if you please,
Peruse our civil orders, which are these.

First, gentry, tradesmen, all are welcome hither,
And may without affront sit down together:
Pre-eminence of place none here should mind,
But take the next fit seat that he can find:
Nor need any, if finer persons come,
Rise up to assigne to them his room;
To limit men's expence, we think not fair,
But let him forfeit twelve-pence that shall swear;
He that shall any quarrel here begin,
Shall give each man a dish t' atone the sin;
And so shall he, whose compliments extend
So far to drink in _coffee_ to his friend;
Let noise of loud disputes be quite forborne,
No maudlin lovers here in corners mourn,
But all be brisk and talk, but not too much,
On sacred things, let none presume to touch.
Nor profane Scripture, nor sawcily wrong
Affairs of state with an irreverent tongue:
Let mirth be innocent, and each man see
That all his jests without reflection be;
To keep the house more quiet and from blame,
We banish hence cards, dice, and every game;
Nor can allow of wagers, that exceed
Five shillings, which ofttimes much trouble breed;
Let all that's lost or forfeited be spent
In such good liquor as the house doth vent.
And customers endeavour, to their powers,
For to observe still, seasonable hours.
Lastly, let each man what he calls for pay,
And so you're welcome to come every day.

The early coffee houses were often up a flight of stairs, and consisted
of a single large room with "tables set apart for divers topics." There
is a reference to this in the prologue to a comedy of 1681 (quoted by
Malone):

In a coffee house just now among the rabble
I bluntly asked, which is the treason table?

This was the arrangement at Man's and others favored by the wits, the
_literati_, and "men of fashionable instincts." In the distinctly
business coffee houses separate rooms were provided at a later time for
mercantile transactions. The introduction of wooden partitions--wooden
boxes, as at a tavern--was also of somewhat later date.

A print of 1674 shows five persons of different ranks in life, one of
them smoking, sitting on chairs around a coffee-house table, on which
are small basins, or dishes, without saucers, and tobacco pipes, while a
coffee boy is serving coffee.

In the beginning, only coffee was dispensed in the English coffee
houses. Soon chocolate, sherbert, and tea were added; but the places
still maintained