The first mention of coffee in our statute books is anno 1660 (12 Car. II. c. 24), when a duty of 4d. was laid upon every gallon of coffee made and sold, to be paid by the maker. The statute 15 Car. II. c. 11. § 15. an. 1663, directs that all coffee-houses should be licensed at the general quarter sessions of the peace for the county within which they are to be kept. In 1675 King Charles II. issued a proclamation to shut up the coffee-houses, but in a few days suspended the proclamation by a second. They were charged with being seminaries of sedition. The first European author who has made any mention of coffee is Rauwolfus, who was in the Levant in 1573. * * * * * DR. DRYASDUST. Sir,--Do you or any of your readers know anything of the family of that celebrated antiquary, and do you think it probable that he was descended from, or connected with, the author of a work which I met with some time ago, intituled "Wit Revived, or A new and excellent way of Divertisement, digested into most ingenious Questions and Answers. By ASDRYASDUST TOSSOFFACAN. London: Printed for T. E. and are to be sold by most Booksellers. MDCLXXIV." 12mo. I do not know anything of the author's character, but he appears to have been a right-minded man, in so far as he (like yourself) expected to find "wit revived" by its digestion into "most ingenious questions and answers;" though his notion that asking and answering questions was a _new_ way of divertisement, seems to indicate an imperfect knowledge of the nature and history of mankind; but my query is simply genealogical. H. F. W. * * * * * MACAULAY'S "YOUNG LEVITE." Sir,--The following passage from the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, published 1651, struck me as a curious corroboration of the passage in Mr. Macaulay's _History_ which describes the "young Levite's" position in society during the seventeenth century; and as chance lately threw in my way the work from which Burton took his illustration, I take the liberty of submitting Notes of both for your examination. "If he be a trencher chaplain in a gentleman's house (as it befel Euphormio), after some seven years' service he may perchance have a living to {27} the halves, or some small rectory, with the mother of the maids at length, a poor kinswoman, or a crackt chambermaid, to have and to hold during the time of his life."--Burton, _Anat. of Mel._ part i. sect. 2. mem. 3. subsect 15. Burton is here referrng to the _Euphormionis Lusinini Satyricon_, published anno 1617. It professes to be a satire, or rather A FURIOUS INVECTIVE, on the corrupt manners of the times, and is in four parts: the 1st is dedicated to King James I.; the 2nd to Robert Cecil; the 3rd to Charles Emmanuel of Savoy; the 4th to Louis XIII., King of France.