And so it came to pass that coffee history repeated itself in England. Many good people became convinced that coffee was a dangerous drink. The tirades against the beverage in that far-off time sound not unlike the advertising patter employed by some of our present-day coffee-substitute manufacturers. It was even ridiculed by being referred to as "ninny broth" and "Turkey gruel." [Illustration: A BROAD-SIDE OF 1672] _A brief description of the excellent vertues of that sober and wholesome drink called coffee_ appeared in 1674 and proved an able and dignified answer to the attacks that had preceded it. That same year, for the first time in history, the sexes divided in a coffee controversy, and there was issued _The Women's Petition against Coffee, representing to public consideration the grand inconveniences accruing to their sex from the excessive use of the drying and enfeebling Liquor_, in which the ladies, who had not been accorded the freedom of the coffee houses in England, as was the custom in France, Germany, Italy, and other countries on the Continent, complained that coffee made men as "unfruitful as the deserts where that unhappy berry is said to be bought." Besides the more serious complaint that the whole race was in danger of extinction, it was urged that "on a domestic message a husband would stop by the way to drink a couple of cups of coffee." This pamphlet is believed to have precipitated the attempt at suppression by the crown the following year, despite the prompt appearing, in 1674, of _The Men's Answer to the Women's Petition Against Coffee, vindicating ... their liquor, from the undeserved aspersion lately cast upon them, in their scandalous pamphlet_. The 1674 broadside in defense of coffee was the first to be illustrated; and for all its air of pretentious grandeur and occasional bathos, it was not a bad rhyming advertisement for the persecuted drink. It was printed for Paul Greenwood and sold "at the sign of the coffee mill and tobacco-roll in Cloath-fair near West-Smithfield, who selleth the best Arabian coffee powder and chocolate in cake or roll, after the Spanish fashion, etc." The following extracts will serve to illustrate its epic character: When the sweet Poison of the Treacherous Grape, Had Acted on the world a General Rape; Drowning our very Reason and our Souls In such deep Seas of large o'reflowing Bowls. * * * * * When Foggy Ale, leavying up mighty Trains Of muddy Vapours, had besieg'd our Brains; * * * * * Then Heaven in Pity, to Effect our Cure. * * * * * First sent amongst us this _All-healing-Berry_, At once to make us both _Sober_ and _Merry_.