The quality of this drink is cold and dry; and though it be a drier, yet it neither heats nor inflames more than hot posset. It so encloseth the orifice of the stomach, and fortifies the heat within, that it is very good to help digestion; and therefore of great use to be taken about three or four o’clock afternoon, as well as in the morning. It much quickens the spirits, and makes the heart lightsome; it is good against sore eyes, and the better if you hold your head over it and take in the steam that way. It suppresseth fumes exceedingly, and therefore is good against the headache, and will very much stop any defluxion of rheums that distil from the head upon the stomach, and so prevent and help consumptions and the cough of the lungs. It is excellent to prevent and cure the dropsy, gout, and scurvy.... It is 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.... 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. And indeed its virtues must have been generally conceded, for it became fashionable in the reign of Charles II., and is thus alluded to by Pope, who attributes to it an additional virtue:-- Coffee, which makes the politician wise, And see through all things with his half-shut eyes.[149] The authors of the _History of Signboards_ state that the ‘Rainbow,’ in Fleet Street, opposite Chancery Lane, is the oldest coffee-house in London:-- I find it recorded that one James Farr, a barber, who kept the coffee-house, which is now the Rainbow, by the Inner Temple gate (one of the first in England), was, in the year 1657, presented by the inquest of St. Dunstan’s in the West, for making and selling a sort of liquor called Coffee, as a great nuisance and prejudice to the neighbourhood, &c., and who would have thought London would ever have had near three thousand such nuisances, and that coffee would have been (as now) so much drank by the best of quality and physicians. The presentation here alluded to is still preserved among the records of St. Sepulchre’s church. It says:-- We present James Farr, barber, for making and selling a drink called coffee, whereby, in making the same, he annoyeth his neighboors by evill smells, and for keeping of fire the most part night and day, whereby his chimney and chamber has been set on fire, to the great danger and affreightment of his neighboors.[150] Roger North, attorney-general to James II., says:--