In the first parliament summoned by Charles the Second (March 8, 1661) Waller sat for Hastings, in Sussex, and served for different places in all the parliaments of that reign. In a time when fancy and gaiety were the most powerful recommendations to regard, it is not likely that Waller was forgotten. He passed his time in the company that was highest both in rank and wit, from which even his obstinate sobriety did not exclude him. Though he drank water, he was enabled by his fertility of mind to heighten the mirth of Bacchanalian assemblies; and Mr. Saville said that ‘no man in England should keep him company without drinking but Ned Waller.’ An excellent companion for the poet would have been Guy, Earl of Warwick, in whose ‘Tragical History’ occur the lines:-- _Phillis._ Give me some bread. I prithee, father, eat. _Guy._ Give me brown bread, for that’s a pilgrim’s meat. _Phillis._ Reach me some wine; good father, taste of this. _Guy._ Give me cold water, that my comfort is. I tell you, Lady, your great Lord and I Have thought ourselves as happy as a king, To drink the water of a christal spring. _Coffee_ came into general use in England, according to John Evelyn (_Diary_), about 1667. But he records, under date May 1637, that ‘one Nathaniel Conopios, out of Greece, from Cyrill, the Patriarch of Constantinople, was the first he ever saw drink coffee.’ Tea became a fashionable beverage in England soon after the marriage of Catharine of Braganza with Charles II. It was not exactly introduced by her, as it was procurable in London some months, at any rate, before her marriage; for Pepys writes:--‘_Sept. 28, 1660._--I did send for a cup of tea (a China drink), of which I never had drank before.’ Yet she set the fashion for the use of it. Strickland rightly considers that the use of these simple luxuries, tea, coffee, and chocolate, had gradually a beneficial influence on the manners of all classes of society, by forming a counter-charm against habits of intoxication. Waller wrote a complimentary poem on the queen, commending tea, in which are the lines:-- The best of Queens and best of herbs we owe To that bold nation, who the way did show To the fair region where the sun doth rise. All sorts of things have been scribbled about it, good, bad, and indifferent. The same Waller writes:-- The Muses’ friend, _Tea_, does our fancy aid, Repress the vapours which the head invade, And keeps the palace of the soul serene. Young could write, on the other hand:-- _Tea_; how I tremble at thy fatal stream! As Lethe, dreadful to the love of fame. What devastations on thy banks are seen! What shades of mighty names which once have been! A hecatomb of characters supplies Thy painted altars’ daily sacrifice. In sympathy with Young would be Dr. Parr, in the well-known line of gallantry:--