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A
coffee-house is a lay conventicle, good-fellowship turned puritan,
ill-husbandry in masquerade, whither people come, after toping
all day, to purchase, at the expense of their last penny, the
repute of sober companions: A Rota [i.e., club room], that, like
Noah's ark, receives animals of every sort, from the precise diminutive
band, to the hectoring cravat and cuffs in folio; a nursery for
training up the smaller fry of virtuosi in confident tattling,
or a cabal of kittling [i.e., carping] critics that have only
learned to spit and mew; a mint of intelligence, that, to make
each man his pennyworth, draws out into petty parcels, what the
merchant receives in bullion: he, that comes often, saves twopence
a week in Gazettes, and has his news and his coffee for the same
charge, as at a threepenny ordinary they give in broth to your
chop of mutton; it is an exchange, where haberdashers of political
small-wares meet, and mutually abuse each other, and the public,
with bottomless stories, and heedless notions; the rendezvous
of idle pamphlets, and persons more idly employed to read them;
a high court of justice, where every little fellow in a camlet
cloak takes upon him to transpose affairs both in church and state,
to show reasons against acts of parliament, and condemn the decrees
of general councils.
As
you have a hodge-podge of drinks, such too is your company, for
each man seems a leveler, and ranks and files himself as he lists,
without regard to degrees or order; so that often you may see a
silly fop and a worshipful justice, a griping rook and a grave citizen,
a worthy lawyer and an errant pickpocket, a reverend non-conformist
and a canting mountebank, all blended together to compose a medley
of impertinence.
If
any pragmatic, to show himself witty or eloquent, begin to talk
high, presently the further tables are abandoned, and all the rest
flock round (like smaller birds, to admire the gravity of the madge-howlet
[i.e., the barn-owl]). They listen to him awhile with their mouths,
and let their pipes go out, and coffee grow cold, for pure zeal
of attention, but on the sudden fall all a yelping at once with
more noise, but not half so much harmony, as a pack of beagles on
the full cry. To still this bawling, up starts Capt. All-man-sir,
the man of mouth, with a face as blustering as that of Ĉolus and
his four sons, in painting, and a voice louder than the speaking
trumpet, he begins you the story of a sea-fight; and though he never
were further, by water, than the Bear-garden. . . . yet, having
pirated the names of ships and captains, he persuades you himself
was present, and performed miracles; that he waded knee-deep in
blood on the upper-deck, and never thought to serenade his mistress
so pleasant as the bullets whistling; how he stopped a vice-admiral
of the enemy's under full sail; till she was boarded, with his single
arm, instead of grappling-irons, and puffed out with his breath
a fire-ship that fell foul on them. All this he relates, sitting
in a cloud of smoke, and belching so many common oaths to vouch
it, you can scarce guess whether the real engagement, or his romancing
account of it, be the more dreadful: however, he concludes with
railing at the conduct of some eminent officers (that, perhaps,
he never saw), and protests, had they taken his advice at the council
of war, not a sail had escaped us.
He
is no sooner out of breath, but another begins a lecture on the
Gazette, where, finding several prizes taken, he gravely observes,
if this trade hold, we shall quickly rout the Dutch, horse and foot,
by sea: he nicknames the Polish gentlemen wherever he meets them,
and enquires whether Gayland and Taffaletta be Lutherans or Calvinists?
stilo novo he interprets a vast new stile, or turnpike, erected
by his electoral highness on the borders of Westphalia, to keep
Monsieur Turenne's cavalry from falling on his retreating troops;
he takes words by the sound, without examining their sense: Morea
he believes to be the country of the Moors, and Hungary a place
where famine always keeps her court, nor is there anything more
certain, than that he made a whole room full of fops, as wise as
himself, spend above two hours in searching the map for Aristocracy
and Democracy, not doubting but to have found them there, as well
as Dalmatia and Croatia.
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