even, or, as in Holland, go to
tea-tables; about twelve the _beau monde_ assemble in several
coffee or chocolate houses; the best of which are the Cocoatree and
White's chocolate houses, St. James', the Smyrna, Mrs. Rochford's
and the British coffee houses; and all these so near one another
that in less than an hour you see the company of them all. We are
carried to these places in chairs (or sedans), which are here very
cheap, a guinea a week, or a shilling per hour, and your chairmen
serve you for porters to run on errands, as your gondoliers do at
Venice.

If it be fine weather we take a turn into the park till two, when
we go to dinner; and if it be dirty, you are entertained at picquet
or basset at White's, or you may talk politics at the Smyrna or St.
James'. I must not forget to tell you that the parties have their
different places, where, however, a stranger is always well
received; but a Whig will no more go to the Cocoatree than a Tory
will be seen at the Coffee House, St James'.

The Scots go generally to the British, and a mixture of all sorts
go to the Smyrna. There are other little coffee houses much
frequented in this neighborhood--Young Man's for officers; Old
Man's for stock jobbers, paymasters and courtiers, and Little Man's
for sharpers. I never was so confounded in my life as when I
entered into this last. I saw two or three tables full at faro, and
was surrounded by a set of sharp faces that I was afraid would have
devoured me with their eyes. I was glad to drop two or three half
crowns at faro to get off with a clear skin, and was overjoyed I so
got rid of them.

At two we generally go to dinner; ordinaries are not so common here
as abroad, yet the French have set up two or three good ones for
the convenience of foreigners in Suffolk street, where one is
tolerably well served; but the general way here is to make a party
at the coffee house to go to dine at the tavern, where we sit till
six, when we go to the play, except you are invited to the table of
some great man, which strangers are always courted to and nobly
entertained.

Mackay writes that "in all the coffee houses you have not only the
foreign prints but several English ones with foreign occurrences,
besides papers of morality and party disputes."

"After the play,"