"It is excellent to prevent and cure the dropsy, gout,[1] and scurvy. It is known by experience to be better than any other drying drink for people in years, or children that have any running humours upon them, as the king's evil, &c. It is a most excellent remedy against the spleen, hypochondriac winds, and the like. It will prevent drowsiness, and make one fit for business, if one have occasion to watch, and therefore you are not to drink of it after supper, unless you intend to be watchful, for it will hinder sleep for three or four hours. "It is observed that in Turkey, where this is generally drunk, that they are not troubled with the stone, gout, dropsy, or scurvy, and that their skins are exceeding clear and white. It is neither laxative nor restringent. "_Made and sold in St. Michael's-alley, in Cornhill, by Pasqua Rosee, at the sign of his own head._" The new beverage had its opponents, as well as its advocates. The following extracts from _An invective against Coffee_, published about the same period, informs us that Rosee's partner, the servant of Mr. Edwards's son-in-law, was a coachman; while it controverts the statement that hot coffee will not scald the mouth, and ridicules the broken English of the Ragusan:-- "A BROADSIDE AGAINST COFFEE. "A coachman was the first (here) coffee made, And ever since the rest drive on the trade: '_Me no good Engalash!_' and sure enough, He played the quack to salve his Stygian stuff; '_Ver boon for de stomach, de cough, de phthisick._' And I believe him, for it looks like physic. Coffee a crust is charred into a coal, The smell and taste of the mock china bowl; Where huff and puff, they labour out their lungs, Lest, Dives-like, they should bewail their tongues. And yet they tell ye that it will not burn, Though on the jury blisters you return; Whose furious heat does make the water rise, And still through the alembics of your eyes. Dread and desire, you fall to 't snap by snap, As hungry dogs do scalding porridge lap. But to cure drunkards it has got great fame; Posset or porridge, will 't not do the same? Confusion hurries all into one scene, Like Noah's ark, the clean and the unclean. And now, alas! the drench has credit got, And he's no gentleman that drinks it not; That such a dwarf should rise to such a stature! But custom is but a remove from nature. A little dish and a large coffee-house, What is it but a mountain and a mouse?" Notwithstanding this opposition, coffee soon became a favourite drink, and the shops, where it was sold, places of general resort.