Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A56639
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A character of coffee and coffee-houses by M.P.
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M. P., 17th cent.
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1661
(1661)
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Wing P77A; ESTC R28769
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5,652
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14
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of this House going in all haste for a Midwife or to save the life of a Friend then dying must call in and drink at least his two dishes of Coffee and his two Pipes of Tobacco And which is yet more wonderful many persons prefer Coffee and the Company which love it before the gain of money for many men neglect their Callings and Vocation to tattle away their time over two or three dishes of Coffee 13. Here is no respect of persons Boldy therefore let any person who comes to drink Coffee sit down in the very Chair for here a Seat is to be given to no man That great privilege of equality is only peculiar to the Golden Age and to a Coffee-house However even here a small portion of Wit gilded over with an Estate hath an influence Mony Thou art the Man and Man but Dross to thee Or with Iuvenal I may say O nummi vobis hunc praestat honorem Vos estis fratres So also is it here in respect of Titles Children do not more for a time value their Babies than Titles are for a while here gazed on Even a as such gains as good an opinion as the place is capable of Light-things weigh much in those Scales which are here used Heavy little or nothing Wisedom and Vertue are every where used as fanatical 14. Such is the humour of the Coffee-meetings that that person shall gain more love and respect who gives to the Company a Suger-plum than he who bestows gifts more befitting men to receive and he who hath attained the Art of making an agreeable addresse to the Company and knows how by empty Complements to flatter them into a good opinion of themselves or to tattle to them little pleasing things shall assuredly thereby insinuate himself into their good opinion more than if he discoursed to them of the most Profitable Subjects with the deepest Judgment 15. Very critical and very discerning is the Assembly here The Company within a very short while will look thorow and thorow the Prudentest and most cryed-up Person A Weak part will quickly be found in him and not only Real but Imaginary Faults will be laid to his charge A Man of Reputation is so tender a Creature that he should in a manner alwayes keep within dores and never come into the Air unless chosen and cleer But by all means let him beware of the Coffee-house for here there is alwayes a thick smoak which will sully a fair colour In plain terms an assiduous frequenting the Coffee-house and exposing reason parts and estimation by conversation to the open view of the Society renders them hereby first familiar then contemptible Here a man too late will be taught that the most excellent Jewels to wit the Noblest Speculations the Dâ—vinest Truths the most Exquisite Fancies the most Meritorious Actions and the most Complacential Humours prodigally thrown away amongst a mixt number of persons become as common as Gold was once in Ierusalem that is as common as Stones 16. Such is the mixture of Persons here that me thinks I cannot better express it than by saying That at these Waters meet all sorts of Creatures Hence follows the Production of diverse monstrous Opinions and Absurdities Here is a congress of old Rome and of new of Turky Geneva and Amsterdam A Coffee-house like Logick the Lawyer and the Switzer will maintain any Cause 17. Infinite are the Contests irreconcileable the Differences here The Society hath been divided about the manner of the creeping of a Louse Were there not here a constant contention amongst the Elements of this Body it could not subsist For should all agree and be of one Iudgment they would as it were become but one Person the House would be solitary and at last one or two Persons would be the whole Company 18. However though it resemble Amsterdam being divided into innumerable different Opinions yet is it free from effects of Sedit on or War For there are no bloody Challenges here made much less Duels fought or Blows given Will you know the reason The Company in this are more Couragious than wise that they contend about triffles only but they are more Wise than couragious in that they fight not for the Victory so that in a true sense the Lion and the Lamb ly down together here 19. Such being the differences of Opinion and such the Tameness of the Company how can any one in reason think that a Coffee-house is dangerous to the Government that seeds of Sedition are here sown Principles of Liberty insinuated A Coffee-house hath alwayes been as great a Friend to Monarchy as an Enemy to Liberty The Principles of a Popular Government at the Rota were weakne'd and rendred contemptible Men of such Contrary Judgments as here meet cannot justly be feared to Agree in a Conspiracy And in truth they talk too much to be lookt on as dangerous and active Persons 20. Rather say the Fanaticks that this is not a place in which a great and generous Truth can be maintain'd that a Person full of such a Truth not being able to contein it is forc'd to whisper it in the ear of some Ingenuosus if he can find such a one This is certain that who ever intends here to discourse of Worthy Subjects judiciously ought carefully not only to chuse his Time but to pack the Company that so he may be heard but with patience 21. On the other side who ever is troubled with impertinent Fancies and ridiculous Notions is here quietly heard and sometimes heraunged The Relater hereof hath heard a young Gentleman affirm that he used to go to the Coffee-house purposely to vent his strange and wild Conceits and to rid himself of such bad Guests An opinion how foolish or fond soever here receives entertainment To this Coast as to the West-Indies you carry not rich Merchandises to Trade with but only Beads Looking-glasses Knives and such like nor shall the Merchant make returns of any other Commodities than such as are fit for the Pedlars box 22. Though the Coffee-house may be condemned for ill choice of subjects on which they discourse yet are the Company by many persons commended for this that every one of them abounds in his own sense and submits to the reason of no other Mortal following herein that great Example of the Men who inhabit the Lunary World who put the Monsieur in a Cage for discoursing like a Parrat in the words of Aristotle Every one over Coffee discourseth those things which his own reason or fancy inspire him with and he who cants in the terms of Aristotle or argues by Book is lookt on to want terms and reason of his own jurare in verba Magistri 23. Yet here being neither Moderators nor Rules were there no other reason a Man shall as soon fill a Quart Pot with Discourse as Profit by it He may as rationally expect to carry a Ship from the River of Thames to the East-Indies without a Pilot or Rules of Navigation as to manage a discourse successefully or in this School to bring it to a good Issue 24. A School it is without a Master Education is here taught without Discipline Learning if it be possible is here insinuated without Method Good Manners and commendable Humors are here infused into Men by the contemplation of the Deformity of their contrarie's as the Spartars infused into their Children hatred of Drunkenness by setting before them their drunken Helots 25. The Company that their intertainment man appear in its native colours at times divert themselves with the controverting such points as these Utrum corpus est immateriale Utrum chimaera bombinans in vacuo possit commedere secundas intentiones Utrum antiqua Roma a Christianis fundata fuit Utrum bestia honoranda sit 26. A facetious or merry Story is preferred by the Gentlemen here before a Banquet of Philosophy The Auditors lissen to him who tells a Tale gracefully with as great an attention as Orpheus his Beasts did to his Charming Musick And good reason such a person should be attentively heard nam quae comoedia Mimus Quis melior One relates he took thirty and three thousand Pipes of Tobacco in one night He tickles the Auditors They laugh heartily Another informs the Company that the night before having swallow'd a vast quantity of Ale he slinkt home and crept into Bed and that in the midst of the night he was wak'd by an Alarum made in his Guts by reason of an Insurrection therein Hereupon he riseth to expel the Rebel but his weighty A being too ponderous for an earthen Chamber-pot to bear the Pot broke and his A unluckily fell on the bedighted ground At this Story the Company laugh majore cachinno Here I at present stop having run methinks a long race in dirty way concluding with Iuvenal Aspice quid faciunt commercia An Apology to those Ingenuous Persons who frequent the Coffee-house for this description THe Describer knows there are several Virtuosi and Ingenuosi resort to the Coffee-house whom he hath the honour to be acquainted with others are his Friends Yet all the Elements here being confusedly mixt this House appears to him as a meer Chaos so that in contemplating it he cannot prefer even Light before Darkness not being here separated or distinguishable one from another amidst confusion it self Verbum sat FINIS Herb. with some little altering Herb. * by words