When the best tea was at 30_s._ a pound, the home consumption of tea was about a hundred and forty thousand pounds per annum. A quarter of a century later, in the early tea-drinking days of Dr. Johnson, the consumption had quadrupled. And yet tea was then so dear, that Garrick was cross even with his favourite actress for using it too freely. ‘I remember,’ says Johnson, ‘drinking tea with him long ago, when Peg Woffington made it, and he grumbled at her for making it too strong. He had then begun to feel money in his purse, and did not know when he should have enough of it.’ In 1745, the last year of the second tea epoch, the consumption was only seven hundred and thirty thousand pounds per annum. Yet even at this period tea was forcing itself into common use. Duncan Forbes, in his Correspondence, which ranges from 1715 to 1748, is bitter against ‘the excessive use of tea; which is now become so common, that the meanest families, even of labouring people, particularly in boroughs, make their morning’s meal of it, and thereby wholly disuse the ale, which heretofore was their accustomed drink; and the same drug supplies all the labouring women with their afternoon’s entertainments, to the exclusion of the twopenny.’ The excellent President of the Court of Session had his prejudices; and he was frightened at the notion that tea was driving out beer; and thus, diminishing the use of malt, was to be the ruin of agriculture. Some one gave the Government of the day wiser counsel than that of prohibitory duties, which he desired. In 1745, the quantity of tea retained for home consumption was 730,729 lbs. In 1746, it amounted to 2,358,589 lbs. The consumption was trebled. The duty had been reduced, in 1745, from 4_s._ per lb. to 1_s._ per lb., and 25 per cent. on the gross price. For forty years afterwards, the Legislature contrived to keep the consumption pretty equal with the increase of the population, putting on a little more duty when the demand seemed a little increasing. These were the palmy days of Dr. Johnson’s tea triumphs—the days in which he describes himself as ‘a hardened and shameless tea drinker, who has for many years diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses the evenings; with tea solaces the midnights; and with tea welcomes the morning.’ This was the third epoch—that of considerable taxation, enhancing the monopoly price of an article, sold to the people at exorbitant profits.