In Belgium, in the province of Liege, coffee is mixed with wild chicory root. This method, generally known, is at the present time practised throughout the whole of Europe; and wild chicory root then opened for Liege a new branch of commerce. Lastly, in Flanders some of the inhabitants cultivate the lupin, which they complacently call coffee, and whose seed, roasted, they drink instead of real coffee. “The infusion of coffee is thought to be beneficial to stout and phlegmatic persons, and for pains in the head; but it appears that its admixture with cream or milk prevents these good effects, on account of the relaxation it thus causes to the stomach. On the contrary, it gives strength when taken pure. It is doubtless for this reason that the inhabitants of the colonies take it three and four times a day--that is, at four o’clock in the morning, a very strong infusion, sometimes without sugar; at breakfast, with milk; after dinner, pure; and often in the afternoon, for the fourth time.”--BEAUVAIS. We are unacquainted with the period of the introduction of coffee into Europe. Rauwolf is the first who speaks of coffee, in 1588. Prospero Alpini then came, and described the coffee tree in Egypt by the name of _bon_, _bun_, or _boun_: his work appeared in 1591. In 1614, Bacon mentioned this oriental beverage, and Meissner published a treatise on it in 1621. It was not, however, until towards the year 1645, that it began to be drunk in Italy. The first _cafés_ were opened in London in 1652, and in Paris in 1669, a time at which a pound of coffee was worth forty crowns. It was principally Soliman Aga, the ambassador from Turkey, who caused coffee to become fashionable in Paris. It penetrated into Sweden in the year 1674, where it was thought of use in scorbutic diseases. The first person who made trial of coffee with milk was Nieuhoff, the Dutch ambassador in China, in imitation of tea with milk. “The physical effects of coffee are well known: it accelerates the circulation of the blood, but sometimes causes palpitation of the heart and giddiness; it has even been thought to occasion apoplexy and paralysis. Nevertheless, celebrated writers--such as Fontenelle and Voltaire--made constant use of it, almost to an abuse. They were told, _it is a slow poison_; it was indeed slow for these learned men, who died, the one at a hundred, the other eighty-four years of age. However, at the present time coffee is a beverage whose power over our intellectual or moral habits has, perhaps, never been calculated as it deserves, since it has become general, and almost suppressed the drunkenness which disgraced our ancestors at the end of their grand repasts.”--VIREY.