The poet Cowper’s praise of the beverage has been sadly hackneyed; nevertheless, as the Laureate of the tea-table, his lines are worthy of further reproduction. Who cannot recall how Mrs. Gilpin scornfully characterises her neighbours’ children as being markedly inferior to her own, “As hay is to Bohea;” as though the force of comparison could no further go. Yet it is in his more serious and didactic poem that the melancholy friend of the hares exclaims:-- “Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast; Let fall the curtain, wheel the sofa round; And while the bubbling and loud hissing urn Throws up a steaming column, and the cups That cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each, So let us welcome peaceful evening in.” But Tea had its avowed enemies no less than its staunch friends. Certain old fashioned physicians did not like it. Nay, they even sneered at and denounced it. Jonas Hanway, the philanthropic but eccentric founder of the Marine and the Magdalen Societies, more bold than his compeers, actually rushed into print in order to inveigh against it. But he had reason to regret his hot-headed impetuosity. In answer to his petty attack, the beverage found a noble defender in no less a personage than Dr. Johnson, whose defence, in point of style, is among the best essays the great moralist ever penned. Hanway, however, nothing daunted, resumed the attack. Having lost his temper, he gave full scope to his prejudices, and denounced Tea as the worst of poisons and the secondary cause of all the moral, religious, and political evils that distracted mankind. Not only so, but he was rash enough to attack the leviathan of literature personally. Yet he had far better have saved his ink, for Johnson--the first time in his life that he had retorted on an adversary--fell upon him like an avalanche. Hanway having foolishly laid himself open to ridicule, most assuredly the Doctor did not spare him. Such a contest, of course, could not be regarded as equal. No possible comparison existed between the combatants. Therefore, setting aside all the hard knocks which Johnson administered to poor Jonas, it will be sufficient to produce one passage in which the eminent writer declares himself “a hardened sinner in the use of the infusion of this plant, whose tea-pot had no time to cool, who with Tea solaced the midnight, and with Tea welcomed the morning.” There is not the slightest exaggeration in this confession. What is affirmed therein is attested both by Boswell and Mrs. Thrale in their respective writings, who record that Dr. Johnson frequently exceeded a dozen large cups at one meal. It is alleged that the first command given by our gracious Queen upon her accession to the Throne was “Bring me a cup of Tea and _The Times_.” It is to be hoped that Her Majesty got the former uncoloured.