Now here (perhaps) you may expect My _Muse_ some trophies should erect In high flown verse, for to set forth The _noble praises_ of its _worth_.
Truth is, _old Poets_ beat their brains To find out high and lofty strains To praise the (now too frequent) use Of the bewitching _grapes strong juice_, Some have strain'd hard for to exalt The _liquor_ of our _English Mault_ Nay _Don_ has almost crackt his _nodle_ Enough t'applaud his _Caaco Caudle_. The _Germans Mum_, _Teag's Usquebagh_, (Made him so well defend _Tredagh_,) _Metheglin_, which the _Brittains_ tope, Hot _Brandy_ wine, the _Hogans_ hope. Stout _Meade_ which makes the _Russ_ to laugh, Spic'd _Punch_ (in bowls) the _Indians quaff_. All these have had their pens to raise Them _Monuments_ of lasting praise, Onely poor _Coffee_ seems to me No subject fit for _Poetry_ At least 'tis one that none of mine is, So I do wave 't, and here write-- FINIS.
_News from the Coffe House; in which is shewn their several sorts of Passions_ appeared in 1667. It was reprinted in 1672 as _The Coffee House or News-mongers' Hall_.
Several stanzas from these broadsides have been much quoted. They serve to throw additional light upon the manners of the time, and upon the kind of conversation met with in any well frequented coffee house of the seventeenth century, particularly under the Stuarts. They are finely descriptive of the company characteristics of the early coffee houses. The fifth stanza of the edition of 1667, inimical to the French, was omitted when the broadside was amended and reprinted in 1672, the year that England joined with France and again declared war on the Dutch. The following verses with explanatory notes are from Timbs:
You that delight in Wit and Mirth, And long to hear such News, As comes from all Parts of the _Earth_, _Dutch_, _Danes_, and _Turks_, and _Jews_, I'le send yee to a Rendezvouz, Where it is smoaking new; Go hear it at a _Coffe-house_, _It cannot but be true_.
There Battles and Sea-Fights are Fought, And bloudy Plots display'd; They know more Things then ere was thought Or ever was betray'd: No Money in the Minting-house Is halfe so Bright and New; And comming from a _Coffe-house_ _It cannot but be true_.