CHAPTER I

FOOD AND DRINK

In considering the manners and customs of London during the seventeenth century we are met with the difficulty that a long civil war, followed by a visitation of Plague and a dreadful Fire, cuts the periods into two parts, and that after the war is over and the King restored we find great changes, in religious thought and ideas, in manners and customs, in society and fashions. The seventeenth corresponds in this respect with the nineteenth century; in our own time we have emerged out of eighteenth-century ideas, which prevailed until displaced by the silent though rapid revolution of the Victorian age. In the seventeenth century there is a similar revolution, but violent and created by the sword.

The City of 1670, as we have seen by our study of the map, resembled in very few details the London of 1640. We must endeavour to bear that point very carefully in mind. And if we take the latter, rather than the former half of the century for consideration, it is because the former half offers little change from the London of Queen Elizabeth.

The rents of houses varied, of course, with the site and the size. It would appear that for £30 a year one could rent a house of moderate size in any but the most expensive parts of the town. On Ludgate Hill or in Cheapside the rents were a great deal higher.

Of the furniture in such a house I have an inventory belonging to the year 1680. There were four bedrooms. One of these, the principal room, was furnished with a carved bedstead, which had a canopy and a valence; curtains, a looking-glass, and four chairs. The other three bedrooms were less splendidly furnished. There was, however, a plentiful supply of blankets, pillows, bolsters, and feather beds. There were two parlours. One of these was hung with tapestry; curtains of green cloth and a green carpet adorned it; it contained two tables, a clock case, a leather chair, a plush chair, six green cloth chairs, and two green stools. There was a cupboard and one of the tables had a drawer. The other parlour was more simply furnished, and was hung with grey linsey woolsey and gilt leather.

Carpets were advertised for sale in 1660; they were Turkey carpets and intended for the cover of tables; for the floors there was matting in those houses where rushes were not still used. Oil-cloth was introduced about the same time; made “after the German manner” either of linen, cloth, taffeta, or wool.

Hangings of leather and of velvet were commonly used; the furniture with tables not laid on trestles but provided with carved and decorated supports; chairs with inlaid work and carving richly upholstered; couches, sideboards, stools, all carved; paintings richly framed hanging from the walls show a great advance on the Tudor time.

The inventory of the kitchen shows that pewter was the material commonly used for plates and dishes. There is no mention of china ware. Probably it was kept for the use of the master and mistress in the parlour cupboard. There are wooden platters, pewter candlesticks and pewter pint pots. And there is no mention of forks. Yet forks by that time were well known. In 1652 Heylin speaks of “the use of silver forks which is by some of our spruce gallants taken up of late.” It would seem, therefore, that twenty-five years later they had not got into general use.

The family took breakfast at eight. The meal consisted of cold meat, small beer, and oat cake. This was not an invariable rule. Pepys once breakfasts off bread and butter, sweetmeats, and strong wine; on another occasion he has oysters, anchovies, and neats’ tongues. When Cosmo, Duke of Tuscany, visited England he had breakfast with a country gentleman, and it consisted almost entirely of Italian wine. Archbishop Sancroft used to take two cups of coffee and a pipe of tobacco. A learned physician recommended for breakfast two poached eggs, bread and butter, and a cup of claret.

The amount of small beer consumed in every household was enormous. It must be remembered that it was not only the national beverage, but, for a great many people, the only beverage. Children drank it as well as adults; tea was as yet only a luxury or a fashion. The household of which I am speaking drank three quarts of beer a day for every member. It seems impossible. We must remember, however, that people drank a great deal more then than now—a thing of which I have no direct proof, yet of which I am perfectly satisfied; that breakfast, dinner, and supper would easily account for two quarts, and the remaining quart was spread over the rest of the day. Benjamin Franklin’s fellows in the printing office drank each his three quarts a day.

Ale, of which there were various kinds, and wine were served in the best parlour at dinner. On the variety of drinks Chamberlayne speaks:—

“Since the late Rebellion, England hath abounded in variety of Drinks (as it did lately in variety of Religions) above any nation in Europe. Besides all sorts of the best wines from Spain, France, Italy, Germany, there are sold in London above twenty sorts of other Drinks, as Brandy, Coffee, Chocolate, Tee, Aromatick, Mum, Sider, Perry, Mede, Metheglin, Beer, Ale, many sorts of Ales, very different, as Cock, Stepony, Stich-back, Hull, North-Devon, Sambidge, Betony, Scurvy-grass, Sage-Ale, Colledge-Ale, etc., a piece of wantonness whereof none of our Ancestors were ever guilty.”

Howell sends a bottle of Metheglin to a friend with a recommendation to use it for a morning draught. What were the heads of our seventeenth-century ancestors made of that they could drink this heavy, powerful stuff before breakfast?

“To inaugurate a good and jovial New Year to you, I send you a morning’s draught, viz. a bottle of Metheglin. Neither Sir John Barleycorn or Bacchus had anything to do with it; but it is the pure juice of the Bee, the laborious Bee, and King of Insects. The Druids and old British Bards were wont to take a Carouse hereof before they entered into their Speculations; and if you do so when your Fancy labours with any thing, it will do you no Hurt, and I know your Fancy to be very good.

But this Drink always carries a kind of State with it, for it must be attended with a brown Toast; nor will it admit but of one good Draught, and that in the morning; if more, it will keep a-humming in the head, and so speak too much of the House it comes from, I mean the Hive, as I gave a caution elsewhere.”

Let us go on to repeat an observation forced upon us in every age, that London has always been a great place for good living. We learn from Pepys what a profusion of food was offered at a dinner given at his own house. The quantity of food habitually taken was much greater then than now. People got up earlier; though they took little exercise for the sake of exercise, yet they were in the open air a great deal; on the river quiescent; in the gardens sitting, strolling, or playing bowls; they all grew sleek and fat. These people had probably taken very little breakfast, a few radishes, a draught of small ale or claret, a piece of bread. The hour of dinner had advanced; it was now served at one o’clock, or sometimes at two; it was the principal event of the day. Food was simpler and less composed of made dishes than in the days of Whittington and Picard. We find served roast chicken, veal, mutton and beef, tongue, salmon, stewed carp, pies of goose, fish, turkey, eels, and everything else. The people served their dinner in courses, each course being, in fact, after the ancient custom, a complete dinner in itself. There was a great deal of dining together, as Pepys lets us see continually, and after dinner they sat and talked and drank. In the matter of drink they were catholic. It does not seem that the merchants did much business after dinner, for then began the time of rest, recreation, and drinking; then came the theatre or the tavern, later on the coffee-house, though in the evening Pepys, who was an industrious official, got through a good deal of work.

Fresh meat was scarce, and even impossible to get, in the winter. In the country, and perhaps in town as well, housewives had to lay in a great stock of beef for pickling; it was bought in pieces and in quantities of 70 lbs. at a time for the pickling tub; salt beef was the standard winter dish, garnished with a great quantity of parsnips as a corrective. Children and servants had no forks; small beer was brewed at home, and gentlemen thought no more of a pint of wine than working men think now of a pint of beer.

The fashion of putting the dinner on the table at once began to be changed soon after the Restoration, when the dishes were presented one after the other in some sort of order; but I find in boarding-houses and in private houses, long after this, the custom of putting everything on the table at the same time.

At dinner the women sat together at the upper end and helped every one, conversing freely the while.

We find some excellent specimens of dinners in the _Diary_ of Pepys. Here is the menu of a grand dinner (April 4, 1665):—

“A Fricasse of rabbits and chickens, a leg of mutton boiled, three carps on a dish, a great dish of a side of a lamb, a dish of roasted pigeons, a dish of four lobsters, three tarts, a lamprey pie (a most rare pie), a dish of anchovies, good wine of several sorts, and all things mighty noble and to my great content.”

About prices I find that a leg of mutton cost half-a-crown; a hand of pork eighteenpence; butter was eightpence a pound; sugar, sixpence; candles, fivepence; bacon, sevenpence; rice, sevenpence; tea was sixty shillings a pound. They seem to have had all our vegetables, all our fruit, and all our spices. But the fruit lasted only a short time; oranges appeared at Christmas, but were then unripe and sour; they lasted till April or May; strawberries lasted three or four weeks; cherries about the same time. They knew how to preserve fruit for a short time; and they pickled everything, including nasturtium buds, lime-tree buds, and elder roots. In the stillroom the housewife made wine out of cowslips, gooseberries, raspberries, and any kind of fruit; she also made certain cordials and strong waters; and she made plague water, hysterical water, fever water, and many other efficacious remedies in case of need.

The supper, of which very little is said, was served at five or six; it was, like breakfast, a mere informal stay. Cold meat with a “sallet,” a tankard of strong ale, and a pipe of tobacco generally formed this meal.

As additional notes on food, one may note that asparagus was common, but as yet very dear; goose-pie was a favourite dish; buttered shrimps were also much in demand; vinegar and pepper were taken with roast beef; the potato was in use since the year 1586, but as yet by no means universally known; roast mutton was stuffed with oysters; young peacock was a stately dish, served only on great occasions; oysters were stewed with white wine; pigeons were stuffed, in the season, with green gooseberries; radishes were taken with meat as a salad; grapes were boiled in butter and served with sips of bread and sugar; turkey was stuffed with cloves; hot salmon was thought unwholesome; dates were put into broth; they used habitually mushrooms, sorrel, capers, and snails.

When a man gave a great dinner, he did not expect it to be prepared at home but ordered it at the cooks’ shops, whence it was carried through the streets in a kind of triumphal procession, a server with an apron and a white cap going before. The fiddlers and the trumpeters went the round of the cooks’ shops every day in order to learn where their services might be accepted.

In Howell’s _Letters_ we read how, on one occasion, he finds a cook for a lady, and thus describes his qualities:—

“You spoke to me for a Cook who had seen the World abroad, and I think the Bearer hereof will suit your Ladyship’s Turn. He can marinate Fish, make Gellies; he is excellent for a piquant Sauce and the Haugot; besides, Madam, he is passing good for an Olla. He will tell your Ladyship that the reverend Matron the _Olla Podrida_ hath Intellectuals and Senses; Mutton, Beef, and Bacon are to her as the Will, Understanding, and Memory are to the Soul; Cabbage, Turneps, Artichokes, Potatoes and Dates are her five senses, and Pepper the Common-sense; she must have Marrow to keep Life in her, and some Birds to make her light; by all means she must go adorned with Chains of Sausages. He is also good at larding Meat after the Mode of France.”

The reign of the tavern still continued. Most of the citizens frequented the tavern every day. It was complained that the tradesman, who ought to have been in his shop, too often spent his mornings in the tavern, leaving his shop to the care of his ’prentices. There were many men in London who, being visitors, strangers, unmarried, or houseless, habitually took their dinner at the tavern.

The ordinary price for dinners at a tavern was a shilling, but one might pay a great deal more; dinners could be ordered for five shillings, or even ten shillings a head. The most fashionable tavern was Locket’s at Charing Cross, where is now Drummond’s Bank. Adam Locket started his tavern in the reign of Charles the Second; he died in 1688, and was succeeded by his son, Edward Locket. It was a very famous tavern. Cunningham quotes a column and a half of contemporary mention of Locket’s house. Here is one from Price and Montague, _The Hind and Panther, Transversed_:—

“Come, at a crown a head ourselves we’ll treat, Champagne our liquor and ragouts our meat; Thus hand in hand we’ll go to court, dear cuz, To visit Bishop Martin and King Buz; With evening wheels we’ll drive about the Park, Finish at Locket’s and reel home i’ th’ dark.”

It can hardly be pretended that tea was a national drink in the seventeenth century. It was not even a fashionable beverage. It was offered as a curious foreign drink, being prepared with great care and according to rule, and taken with a certain amount of anxiety as to the possible consequences. Precautions were taken against these consequences. Thus in Congreve’s _Way of the World_, Mrs. Millicent’s lover allows her to be “Sole Empress of her tea-table,” a reservation which sufficiently indicates the want of confidence in the beverage, and she must promise to banish from the table “orange brandy, aniseed, cinnamon, citron and Barbadoes water, together with ratafia and the most noble spirit of clary.” The price of tea, which was then about fifty shillings a pound, though it rapidly went down, prevented any but the rich from taking it. Long after this it is noticed that the City ladies took brandy after their tea as a corrective. The earliest mention of tea in this country is an advertisement in the _Mercurius Politicus_ of 1658, which is as follows:—

“That excellent, and by all physicians approved, China drink, called by the Chineans Tcha, by other nations Tay, alias Tee, is sold at the Sultaness Head Coffee-House, in Sweeting’s Rents, by the Royal Exchange, London.”

And Thomas Garway or Garraway at the same time issued a broadside in which he offers tea to the public at sixteen shillings to fifty shillings the pound and proclaims its virtues:—

“The Quality is moderately hot, proper for winter or summer. The drink is declared to be most wholesome, preserving in perfect health until extreme old age. The particular virtues are these. It maketh the body active and lusty. It helpeth the headache, giddiness and heaviness thereof. It removeth the obstructions of the spleen. It is very good against the stone and gravel.... It taketh away the difficulty of breathing, opening obstructions. It is good against lippitude distillations, and cleareth the sight. It removeth lassitude, and cleanseth and purifieth adust humours and a hot liver. It is good against crudities, strengthening the weakness of the stomach, causing good appetite and digestion, and particularly for men of a corpulent body, and such as are great eaters of flesh. It vanquisheth heavy dreams, easeth the brain, and strengtheneth the memory. It overcometh superfluous sleep, and prevents sleepiness in general, a draught of the infusion being taken, so that, without trouble, whole nights may be spent in study without hurt to the body. It prevents and cures agues, surfeits, and fevers by infusing a fit quantity of the leaf, thereby provoking a most gentle vomit and breathing of the pores, and hath been given with wonderful success. It (being prepared and drunk with milk and water) strengtheneth the inward parts and prevents consumptions.... It is good for colds, dropsies, and scurvies, and expelleth infection.... And that the virtue and excellence of the leaf and drink are many and great is evident and manifest by the high esteem and use of it (especially of late years) by the physicians and knowing men of France, Italy, Holland, and other parts of Christendom, and in England it hath been sold in the leaf for six pounds, and sometimes for ten pounds the pound-weight; and in respect of its former scarceness and dearness, it hath been only used as a regalia in high treatments and entertainments, and presents made thereof to princes and grandees till the year 1657” (Chambers’s _Book of Days_, vol. ii. p. 666).

Rugge’s _Diurnal_ says that tea was sold in every street in London in 1659. That statement we cannot believe, especially when we are reminded that a couple of pounds was a present fit for the King to receive. A couple of pounds of a commodity sold in every street in London? On the contrary, there is every kind of evidence that in the seventeenth century tea was perhaps the fashion, but never became a national beverage. Pepys mentions it once or twice, but tea formed no part of his ordinary diet. Evelyn, I believe, does not mention it at all. In the winter of 1683–1684 the Thames was frozen over, and in the fair that was held upon the river, tea, among other things, was sold. No one, I think, ever imagined that tea would become the national beverage, excluding beer from breakfast and from the afternoon meal. A learned physician, Dr. Lister, writing at the close of the century, says that tea and coffee “are permitted by God’s Providence for lessening the number of mankind by shortening life, as a kind of silent plague.” Many attacks were made upon the tea-table. It took men away from the pipe and bottle; it brought together men and women inclined for vice and gave them an opportunity; it was very costly; it offered a drink only fit for women; it destroyed the strength of man and the beauty of woman. The hostility to tea lingered during the whole of the eighteenth century.

In 1652 the first coffee-house was opened in St. Michael’s Alley, Cornhill, by one Pasqua Rosee, a native of Ragusa, servant to a Turkey merchant who brought him from Smyrna. Coffee had been introduced into Oxford a little earlier. The following is a copy of Rosee’s handbill (see Chambers’s _Book of Days_, vol. i. p. 170):—

THE VERTUE OF THE COFFEE DRINK

_First made and publickly sold in England by Pasqua Rosee._

“The grain or berry called coffee, groweth upon little trees only in the deserts of Arabia. It is brought from thence, and drunk generally throughout all the Grand Seignour’s dominions. It is a simple, innocent thing, composed into a drink, by being dried in an oven, and ground to powder, and boiled up with spring water, and about half a pint of it to be drunk fasting an hour before, and not eating an hour after, and to be taken as hot as possibly can be endured; the which will never fetch the skin off the mouth, or raise any blisters by reason of that heat.

The Turks’ drink at meals and other times is usually water, and their diet consists much of fruit; the crudities whereof are very much corrected by this drink.

The quality of this drink is cold and dry; and though it be drier, yet it neither heats, nor inflames more than hot posset. It so incloseth the orifice of the stomach, and fortifies the heat within, that it is very good to help digestion; and therefore of great use to be taken about three or four o’clock afternoon, as well as in the morning. It much quickens the spirits, and makes the heart lightsome; it is good against sore eyes, and the better if you hold your head over it and take in the steam that way. It suppresseth fumes exceedingly, and therefore is good against the headache, and will very much stop any defluxion of rheums, that distil from the head upon the stomach, and so prevent and help consumptions and the cough of the lungs.

It is excellent to prevent and cure the dropsy, gout, and scurvy. It is known by experience to be better than any other drying drink for people in years, or children that have any running humours upon them, as the king’s evil, etc. It is a most excellent remedy against the spleen, hypochondriac winds, and the like. It will prevent drowsiness, and make one fit for business, if one have occasion to watch, and therefore you are not to drink of it after supper, unless you intend to be watchful, for it will hinder sleep for three or four hours.

It is observed that in Turkey, where this is generally drunk, that they are not troubled with the stone, gout, dropsy, or scurvy, and that their skins are exceeding clear and white. It is neither laxative nor restringent.

_Made and sold in St. Michael’s Alley in Cornhill, by Pasqua Rosee, at the sign of his own head._”

Evelyn (writing of the year 1637) says:—

“There came in my tyme to the Coll: one Nathaniel Couopios out of Greece from Cyrill the Patriarch of Constantinople who, returning many years afterwards was made (as I understand) Bishop of Smyrna. He was the first man I ever saw drink coffee, which custom came not into England for thirty years after.”

The coffee-houses, thus begun, multiplied rapidly. The new drink, which did not intoxicate, became popular; the coffee-houses were places where men could sit and talk without getting drunk; it was a cheap amusement, and, in a time of great political agitation and excitement, the coffee-house became a power of immense influence. For this reason the Government became alarmed, and, in 1675, endeavoured to suppress the new institution. The attempt was a failure. The coffee-houses were already the favourite meeting-places of men of all professions and of all opinions. In the graver places where physicians, divines, and responsible merchants met, the conversation was serious over coffee and tobacco. In other coffee-houses the company were diverted with songs, music, and even tumbling.

Some of the coffee-houses offered the attraction of a museum of curiosities, probably things brought from the East by sailors.

I have before me one of the earliest tracts on the subject of coffee. It is a doggerel poem dated 1665, called “The Character of a Coffee-House.” How is one to know a coffee house? By the signs:—

“And if you see the great Morat With Shash on’s head instead of hat, Or any _Sultan_ in his dress, Or picture of a _Sultaness_, Or _John’s_ admired curl’d pate, Or th’ great _Mogul_ in’s Chair of State, Or _Constantine_ the _Grecian_, Who fourteen years was th’ only man That made _Coffee_ for th’ great _Bashaw_, Although the man he never saw, Or if you see a _Coffee_-cup Filled from a Turkish pot, hung up Within the clouds, and round it _Pipes_, _Wax candles_, _Stoppers_, these are types And certain signs (with many more Would be too long to write them ’ore), Which plainly do Spectators tell That in that house they _Coffee_ sell. Some wiser than the rest (no doubt), Say they can by the smell find’t out; In at a door (say they), but thrust Your Nose, and if you scent _burnt Crust_, Be sure there’s _Coffee_ sold that’s good, For so by most ’tis understood.”

What are the benefits conferred by coffee? The coffee-man tells you:—

“But if you ask, what good does Coffee? He’ll answer, Sir, don’t think I scoff yee, If I affirm there’s no disease Men have that drink it but find ease. Look, there’s a man who takes the steam In at his Nose, has an extreme

Worm in his pate, and giddiness, Ask him and he will say no less. There sitteth one whose Droptick belly Was hard as flint, now’s soft as jelly. There stands another holds his head ’Ore th’ Coffee-pot, was almost dead Even now with Rhume; ask him hee’ll say That all his Rhum’s now past away. See, there’s a man sits now demure And sober, was within this hour Quite drunk, and comes here frequently, For ’tis his daily Mady. More, it has such reviving power ’Twill keep a man awake an houre, Nay, make his eyes wide open stare Both Sermon time and all the prayer.”

The company are next treated at length. There are the usurer, the furiosol, the virtuoso, the player, the country clown, the pragmatick, the phanatick, the knight, the mechanick, the dealer in old shoes, one in an ague, the Frenchman, the Dutchman, the Spaniard:—

“Here in a corner sits a Phrantick, And there stands by a frisking Antick. Of all sorts some, and all conditions, E’en Vintners, Surgeons, and Physicians. The blind, the deaf, the aged cripple Do here resort and coffee tipple.”

The chocolate-house was another place of resort. It was noted for its decorations, being not only beautifully painted and gilt, but also provided with looking-glasses all round the room. But as yet the people were afraid of taking even a cup of chocolate without a dram to fortify the stomach. “Bring in,” says the gallant, “two dishes of chocolate and a glass of cinnamon water.” And the City ladies, if they invited friends to a tea-drinking, finished with cordials to counteract any bad effects.

The use of tobacco had by this time become universal. Sorbière says that men spent half their time over tobacco. Even women and children smoked pipes; some men took tobacco and pipes to bed with them in case of being sleepless. I find in one of Howell’s Letters a dissertation on the use of tobacco, which is more instructive than any other contemporary document:—

“To usher in again old Janus, I send you a parcel of Indian perfume, which the Spaniard calls the Holy Herb, in regard of the various Virtues it hath; but we call it Tobacco; I will not say it grew under the King of Spain’s Window, but I am told it was gathered near his Gold-Mines of Potosi (where they report, that in some Places there is more of that Ore than Earth), therefore it must needs be precious Stuff; if moderately and seasonably taken (as I find you always do) ’tis good for many Things; it helps Digestion, taken a-while after Meat; a leaf or two being steeped o’er Night in a little White-wine is a Vomit that never fails in its Operations; it is a good Companion to one that converseth with dead Men; for if one hath been poring long upon a book, or is toil’d with the Pen, and stupify’d with study, it quickeneth him, and dispels those Clouds that usually o’erset the Brain. The smoke of it is one of the wholesomest scents that is, against all contagious Airs, for it o’er-masters all other smells, as King James, they say, found true, when being once a Hunting, a Shower of Rain drove him into a Pigsty for Shelter, where he caus’d a Pipeful to be taken on purpose; It cannot endure a Spider or a Flea, with such like Vermin, and if your Hawk be troubled with any such being blown into his feathers, it frees him; it is good to fortify and to preserve the sight, the smoke being let in round about the Balls of the Eyes once a week, and frees them from all rheums, driving them back by way of Repurcussion; being taken backward ’tis excellent good against the Cholic, and taken into the Stomach, it will heat and cleanse it; for I could instance in a great Lord (my Lord of Sunderland, President of York) who told me that he taking it downward into his Stomach, it made him cast up an Imposthume, Bag and all, which had been a long time engendering out of a Bruise he had received at Foot-ball, and so preserv’d his life for many years. Now to descend from the substance of the smoke to the ashes, ’tis well known that the medicinal virtues thereof are very many; but they are so common, that I will spare the inserting of them here; but if one would try a pretty conclusion, how much smoke there is in a Pound of Tobacco, the Ashes will tell him; for let a pound be exactly weighed, and the ashes kept charily, and weighed afterwards, what wants of a Pound Weight in the Ashes cannot be deny’d to have been smoke, which evaporated into Air. I have been told that Sir Walter Raleigh won a Wager of Queen Elizabeth upon this Nicety.

The Spaniards and Irish take it most in powder or smutchin, and it mightily refreshes the Brain, and I believe there’s as much taken this way in Ireland, as there is in Pipes in England; one shall commonly see the serving-maid upon the washing-block, and the swain upon the plough-share, when they are tired with Labour, take out their boxes of Smutchin, and draw it into their Nostrils with a Quill, and it will beget new spirits in them, with a fresh Vigor to fall to their Work again. In Barbary, and other parts of Africk, it is wonderful what a small pill of Tobacco will do; for those who used to ride post through the sandy Deserts, where they meet not with anything that’s potable or edible, sometimes three Dayes together, they use to carry small Balls or Pills of Tobacco, which being put under the Tongue, it affords them a perpetual Moisture, and takes off the Appetite for some days.”