5 Coffee The Lost World of the London Coffeehouse The Public Domain Review PDF

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The Lost World of the London Coffeehouse

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In contrast to today’s rather mundane spawn of coffeehouse chains, the London of the 17th and 18th century was home to an eclectic and thriving coffee drinking scene. Dr Matthew Green explores the halcyon days of the London coffeehouse, a haven for caffeinefueled debate and innovation which helped to shape the modern world.

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A disagreement about the Cartesian Dream Argument (or similar) turns sour. Note the man throwing coffee in his opponent’s face. From the frontispiece of Ned Ward’s satirical poem Vulgus Brittanicus (1710) and probably more of a flight of fancy than a faithful depiction of coffeehouse practices – Source (http://farm8.staticflickr.com /7418/9451054259_d6f56d869e_o.jpg).

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rom the tar-caked wharves of Wapping to the gorgeous lamp-lit squares of St James’s and Mayfair, visitors to eighteenth-century London were amazed by an efflorescence of coffeehouses. “In London, there are a great number of coffeehouses”, wrote the Swiss noble César de Saussure in 1726, “…workmen habitually begin the day by going to coffee-rooms to read the latest news.” Nothing was funnier, he smirked, than seeing shoeblacks and other riffraff poring over papers and discussing the latest political affairs. Scottish spy turned travel writer John Macky was similarly captivated in 1714. Sauntering into some of London’s most prestigious establishments in St James’s, Covent Garden and Cornhill, he marvelled at how strangers, whatever their social

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“O, Excellent Air

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Redressing the Balance: Levinus Vincent’s Wonder Theatre of Nature (/2014/08/20 /redressingthe-balancelevinus-vincentswonder-theatreof-nature/) Bert van de Roemer explores the curiosity cabinets of the Dutch collector Levinus Vincent and how the aesthetic drive behind his meticulous ordering of the contents was in essence religious, an attempt to emphasise the wonder of God's creations by restoring the natural world to its prelapsarian harmony. …Continued (http://publicdomainrevie /2014/08/20/redressingthe-balance-levinusvincents-wonder-theatreof-nature/)

Picturing Pyrotechnics (/2014/06/25 /picturingpyrotechnics/) Simon Werrett explores how artists through the ages have responded to the challenge of representing firework displays, from the highly politicised and allegorical renderings of the early modern period to Whistler's impressionistic Nocturne in Black and Gold.

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background or political allegiances, were always welcomed into lively convivial company. They were right to be amazed: early eighteenth-century London boasted more coffeehouses than any other city in the western world, save Constantinople.

Bag”: Humphry Davy and Nitrous Oxide (/2014/08/06 /o-excellentair-bag-humphrydavy-and-nitrousoxide/)

London’s coffee craze began in 1652 when Pasqua Rosée, the Greek servant of a coffee-loving British Levant merchant, opened London’s first coffeehouse (or rather, coffee shack) against the stone wall of St Michael’s churchyard in a labyrinth of alleys off Cornhill. Coffee was a smash hit; within a couple of years, Pasqua was selling over 600 dishes of coffee a day to the horror of the local tavern keepers. For anyone who’s ever tried seventeenthcentury style coffee, this can come as something of a shock — unless, that is, you like your brew “black as hell, strong as death, sweet as love”, as an old Turkish proverb recommends, and shot through with grit.

The summer of 1799 saw a new fad take hold in one remarkable circle of British society: the inhalation of "Laughing Gas". The overseer and pioneer of these experiments was a young Humphry Davy, future President of the Royal Society. Mike Jay explores how Davy's extreme and near-fatal regime of self-experimentation with the gas not only marked a new era in the history of science but a turn toward the philosophical and literary romanticism of the century to come. …Continued (http://publicdomainrevie /2014/08/06/o-excellentair-bag-humphrydavy-and-nitrous-oxide/)

It’s not just that our tastebuds have grown more discerning accustomed as we are to silky-smooth Flat Whites; contemporaries found it disgusting too. One early sampler likened it to a “syrup of soot and the essence of old shoes” while others were reminded of oil, ink, soot, mud, damp and shit. Nonetheless, people loved how the “bitter Mohammedan gruel”, as The London Spy described it in 1701, kindled conversations, fired debates, sparked ideas and, as Pasqua himself pointed out in his handbill The Virtue of the Coffee Drink (1652), made one “fit for business” — his stall was a stone’s throw from that great entrepôt of international commerce, the Royal Exchange.

The Naturalist and the Neurologist: On Charles Darwin and James Crichton-Browne (/2014/05/28 /the-naturalistand-theneurologiston-charles-darwinand-jamescrichton-browne/) Stassa Edwards explores Charles Darwin's photography collection, which included almost forty portraits of mental patients given to him by the neurologist James Crichton-Browne. The study of these photographs, and the

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…Continued (http://publicdomainrevie /2014/06/25/picturingpyrotechnics/)

In the Image of God: John Comenius and the First Children’s Picture Book (/2014/05/14/in-theimage-of-godjohn-comeniusand-the-firstchildrens-picturebook/) In the mid 17th-century John Comenius published what many consider to be the first picture book dedicated to the education of young children, Orbis Sensualium Pictus - or The World of Things Obvious to the Senses drawn in Pictures, as it was rendered in English. Charles McNamara explores how, contrary to Comenius' declarations, the book can be seen to be as much about the invisible world as the visible. …Continued (http://publicdomainrevie /2014/05/14/inthe-image-of-godjohn-comenius-and-thefirst-childrens-picturebook/)

Victorian Occultism and the Art of Synesthesia (/2014/03/19 /victorianoccultism-and-the-

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related correspondence between the two men, would prove instrumental in the development of The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), Darwin's study on the evolution of emotions. …Continued (http://publicdomainrevie /2014/05/28/thenaturalist-and-theneurologist-on-charlesdarwin-and-jamescrichton-browne/)

A handbill published in 1652 to promote the launch of Pasqua Rosée’s coffeehouse telling people how to drink coffee and hailing it as the miracle cure for just about every ailment under the sun including dropsy, scurvy, gout, scrofula and even “mis-carryings in childbearing women” – Source (http://commons.wikimedia.org /wiki/File:The_Virtue_of_the_Coffee_Drink.jpg).

Remember — until the mid-seventeenth century, most people in England were either slightly — or very — drunk all of the time. Drink London’s fetid river water at your own peril; most people wisely favoured watered-down ale or beer (“small beer”). The arrival of coffee, then, triggered a dawn of sobriety that laid the foundations for truly spectacular economic growth in the decades that followed as people thought clearly for the first time. The stock exchange, insurance industry, and auctioneering: all burst into life in 17th-century coffeehouses — in Jonathan’s, Lloyd’s, and Garraway’s — spawning the credit, security, and markets that facilitated the dramatic expansion of Britain’s network of global trade in Asia, Africa and America. The meteoric success of Pasqua’s shack triggered a coffeehouse boom. By 1656, there was a second coffeehouse at the sign of the rainbow on Fleet Street; by 1663, 82 had sprung up within the crumbling Roman walls, and a cluster further west like Will’s in Covent Garden, a fashionable literary resort where Samuel Pepys found his old college chum John Dryden presiding over “very pleasant and witty discourse” in 1664 and wished he could stay longer — but he had to pick up his wife, who most certainly would not have been welcome.

Darkness Over All: John Robison and the Birth of the Illuminati Conspiracy (/2014 /04/02/darknessover-alljohn-robisonand-the-birthof-the-illuminaticonspiracy/) Conspiracy theories of a secretive power elite seeking global domination have long held a place in the modern imagination. Mike Jay explores the idea’s beginnings in the writings of John Robison, a Scottish scientist who maintained that the French revolution was the work of a covert Masonic cell known as the Illuminati. …Continued (http://publicdomainrevie /2014/04/02/darknessover-all-john-robisonand-the-birth-of-theilluminati-conspiracy/)

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art-of-synesthesia/) Grounded in the theory that ideas, emotions, and even events, can manifest as visible auras Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater’s Thought-Forms (1901) is an odd and intriguing work. Benjamin Breen explores these “synesthetic” abstractions and asks to what extent they, and the Victorian mysticism of which they were born, influenced the Modernist movement that flourished in the following decades. …Continued (http://publicdomainrevie /2014/03/19/victorianoccultism-and-theart-of-synesthesia/)

Encounter at the crossroads of Europe – the fellowship of Zweig and Verhaeren (/2013/12/11 /encounter-at-thecrossroadsof-europethe-fellowshipof-zweigand-verhaeren-2/) Stefan Zweig, whose works passed into the public domain this year in many countries around the world, was one of the most famous writers of the 1920s and 30s. Will Stone explores the importance of the Austrian's early friendship with the oft overlooked Belgian poet Emile Verhaeren. …Continued (http://publicdomainrevie /2013/12/11/encounterat-the-crossroadsof-europethe-fellowship-of-zweigand-verhaeren-2/)

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Frederik Ruysch: The Artist of Death (/2014/03/05 /frederik-ruyschthe-artistof-death/)

The earliest known image of a coffeehouse dated to 1674, showing the kind of coffeehouse familiar to Samuel Pepys – Source (http://archive.org/stream /allaboutcoffee00ukeruoft#page/59/mode/1up).

No respectable women would have been seen dead in a coffeehouse. It wasn’t long before wives became frustrated at the amount of time their husbands were idling away “deposing princes, settling the bounds of kingdoms, and balancing the power of Europe with great justice and impartiality”, as Richard Steele put it in the Tatler, all from the comfort of a fireside bench. In 1674, years of simmering resentment erupted into the volcano of fury that was the Women’s Petition Against Coffee. The fair sex lambasted the “Excessive use of that Newfangled, Abominable, Heathenish Liquor called COFFEE” which, as they saw it, had reduced their virile industrious men into effeminate, babbling, French layabouts. Retaliation was swift and acerbic in the form of the vulgar Men’s Answer to the Women’s Petition Against Coffee, which claimed it was “base adulterate wine” and “muddy ale” that made men impotent. Coffee, in fact, was the Viagra of the day, making “the erection more vigorous, the ejaculation more full, add[ing] a spiritual ascendency to the sperm”. There were no more Women’s Petitions after that but the coffeehouses found themselves in more dangerous waters when Charles II, a longtime critic, tried to torpedo them by royal proclamation in 1675. Traditionally, informed political debate had been the preserve of the social elite. But in the coffeehouse it was anyone’s business — that is, anyone who could afford the measly one-penny entrance fee. For the poor and those living on subsistence wages, they were out of reach. But they were affordable for anyone with surplus wealth — the 35 to 40 per cent of London’s 287,500-strong male population who qualified as ‘middle class’ in 1700 — and sometimes reckless or extravagant spenders further down the social pyramid. Charles suspected the coffeehouses were hotbeds of sedition and scandal but in the face of widespread opposition — articulated most forcefully in the coffeehouses themselves

Luuc Kooijmans explores the work of Dutch anatomist Frederik Ruysch, known for his remarkable ‘still life’ displays which blurred the boundary between scientific preservation and vanitas art. …Continued (http://publicdomainrevie /2014/03/05/frederikruysch-the-artistof-death/)

Lost in Translation: Proust and Scott Moncrieff (/2013 /11/13/lostin-translationproust-and-scottmoncrieff/) Scott Moncrieff's English translation of Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu is widely hailed as a masterpiece in its own right. His rendering of the title as Remembrance of Things Past …Continued (http://publicdomainrevie /2013/11/13/lostin-translation-proustand-scott-moncrieff/) is not, however, considered a high point. William C. Carter explores the two men's correspondence on this somewhat sticky issue and how the Shakespearean title missed the mark regarding Proust's theory of memory.

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— the King was forced to cave in and recognise that as much as he disliked them, coffeehouses were now an intrinsic feature of urban life.

The Serious and the Smirk: The Smile in Portraiture (/2013 /09/18/the-seriousand-the-smirkthe-smilein-portraiture/)

Robert BadenPowell’s Entomological Intrigues (/2013 /07/10/robertbaden-powellsentomologicalintrigues/)

Why do we so seldom see people smiling in painted portraits? Nicholas Jeeves explores the history of the smile through the ages of portraiture, from Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa to Alexander Gardner’s photographs of Abraham Lincoln. Today when someone points a camera at us, we smile. This is the cultural …Continued (http://publicdomainrevie /2013/09/18/the-seriousand-the-smirk-the-smilein-portraiture/)

In 1915 Robert BadenPowell, founder of the worldwide Scouts movement, published his DIY guide to espionage, My Adventures as a Spy Mark Kaufman explores how the book’s ideas to utilise such natural objects as butterflies, moths and leaves, worked to mythologize British resourcefulness and promote a certain ‘weaponization of the …Continued (http://publicdomainrevie /2013/07/10/robertbaden-powellsentomologicalintrigues/)

A map of Exchange Alley after it was razed to the ground in 1748, showing the sites of some of London’s most famous coffeehouses including Garraway’s and Jonathan’s – Source. (http://archive.org/stream /allaboutcoffee00ukeruoft#page/76/mode/1up)

As a Lute out of Tune: Robert Burton’s Melancholy (/2013 /05/01/as-alute-out-of-tunerobert-burtonsmelancholy/) In 1621 Robert Burton first published his masterpiece The Anatomy of Melancholy a vast feat of scholarship examining in encyclopaedic detail that most enigmatic of maladies. Noga Arikha explores the book, said to be the favorite of both Samuel Johnson and Keats, and places it

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By the dawn of the eighteenth century, contemporaries were counting between 1,000 and 8,000 coffeehouses in the capital even if a street survey conducted in 1734 (which excluded unlicensed premises) counted only 551. Even so, Europe had never seen anything like it. Protestant Amsterdam, a rival hub of international trade, could only muster 32 coffeehouses by 1700 and the cluster of coffeehouses in St Mark’s Square in Venice were forbidden from seating more than five customers (presumably to stifle the coalescence of public opinion) whereas North’s, in Cheapside, could happily seat 90 people. The character of a coffeehouse was influenced by its location within the hotchpotch of villages, cities, squares, and suburbs that comprised eighteenth-century London, which in turn determined the type of person you’d meet inside. “Some coffee-houses are a resort for learned

Vesalius and the Body Metaphor (/2013/04/18 /vesalius-and-thebody-metaphor/) City streets, a winepress, pulleys, spinning tops, a ray fish, curdled milk: just a few of the many images used by 16th century anatomist Andreas Vesalius to explain the workings of the human body in his seminal work De Humani Corporis Fabrica. Marri Lynn explores. Andreas

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within the context of the …Continued (http://publicdomainrevie /2013/05/01/as-a-luteout-of-tune-robertburtons-melancholy/)

Mary Toft and Her Extraordinary Delivery of Rabbits (/2013/03/20/marytoft-andher-extraordinarydeliveryof-rabbits/) In late 1726 much of Britain was caught up in the curious case of Mary Toft, a woman from Surrey who claimed that she had given birth to a litter of rabbits. Niki Russell tells of the events of an elaborate 18th century hoax which had King George I’s own …Continued (http://publicdomainrevie /2013/03/20/marytoft-andher-extraordinarydelivery-of-rabbits/)

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scholars and for wits,” wrote César de Saussure, “others are the resort of dandies or of politicians, or again of professional newsmongers; and many others are temples of Venus.” Flick through any of the old coffeehouse histories in the public domain and you’ll soon get a flavour of the kaleidoscopic diversity of London’s early coffeehouses. The walls of Don Saltero’s Chelsea coffeehouse were festooned with taxidermy monsters including crocodiles, turtles and rattlesnakes, which local gentlemen scientists like Sir Isaac Newton and Sir Hans Sloane liked to discuss over coffee; at White’s on St James’s Street, famously depicted by Hogarth, rakes would gamble away entire estates and place bets on how long customers had to live, a practice that would eventually grow into the life insurance industry; at Lunt’s in Clerkenwell Green, patrons could sip coffee, have a haircut and enjoy a fiery lecture on the abolition of slavery given by its barber-proprietor John Gale Jones; at John Hogarth’s Latin Coffeehouse, also in Clerkenwell, patrons were encouraged to converse in the Latin tongue at all times (it didn’t last long); at Moll King’s brothel-coffeehouse, depicted by Hogarth, libertines could sober up and peruse a directory of harlots, before being led to the requisite brothel nearby. There was even a floating coffeehouse, the Folly of the Thames, moored outside Somerset House where fops and rakes danced the night away on her rain-spattered deck.

Vesalius threw down a …Continued (http://publicdomainrevie /2013/04/18/vesaliusand-the-body-metaphor/)

Still Booking on De Quincey’s Mail-Coach (/2013 /02/20/stillbooking-on-dequinceysmail-coach/) Robin Jarvis looks at Thomas de Quincey’s essay “The English Mail-Coach, or the Glory of Motion” an...