enraged that the Duke of Burgundy would not agree to this truce, sent Sir Thomas Montgomery, one of his favourites, to the King of Fan ce, to pray him that he would make no other treaty with the duke than he had done with him, and particularly that he would not yield up St. Quintins. He proffered at the same time, if the King had a mind to continue the war, that he would join him, next year, in person against the duke, provided the French King would pay half his army, and give him an equivalent for the customs of wool at Calais, which was about fifty-thousand crowns per annum. Lewis XI. thanked the King for his proffer, and told Sir Thomas, the treaty was already concluded; that it was only for nine years, but the duke would have a particular treaty for himself; and thus making the best excuses he could, he made Sir Thomas a rich present of plate, and sent the English hostages home with him. Thus Lewis XI. thought himself well rid of the English, and did not care to see them any more on that side, the sea, lest they should have renewed their treaty with the Duke of Burgundy.

This prince was at last ruined by the intrigues of Lewis XI, who stirred up enemies against him on every side; and after his death he seized the Duchy of Burgundy, besides several places in Flanders. The King of England was the only prince capable to put a stop to Lewis XIth's career, and the heiress of Burgundy sent ambassadors to intreat his assistance, which the parliament came heartily into, and represented to King Edward the French King's perfidiousness, and his breach of the above-mentioned treaty, in not concluding the match betwixt the Dauphin and his daughter. But King Edward being a heavy unweildy man, and wholly addicted to his pleasures, he had no regard to their remonstrances; besides, the pension of fifty-thousand crowns, paid him every year, was a bait for his avarice. And when he was obliged to send ambassadors with sharp messages, to please his subjects, the French King always treated them well, took them off by rich presents, and gained time, by pretending that he would speedily send ambassadors with full instructions to give their master satisfaction: and at other times he proposed to share the Netherlands with him. But his chief trust was in the great number of pensioners he had in England, whom Comines names as follows: The lord chancellor, the master of the rolls, the Lord Hastings, who was great chamberlain, and in mighty favour with his master; Sir Thomas Montgomery, the Lord Howard, afterwards Duke of Norfolk; the master of the horse, Mr. Chalanger, and the marquis, son to the Queen of England, by a former marriage. To all these he gave great gifts besides their pensions, and particularly to the lord chamberlain, Hastings, a thousand marks of plate at once; and the acquittances of all those pensioners were to be seen in the French King's chamber of accounts, says Comines, except those of the Lord Hastings, who had formerly been a pensioner to the Duke of Burgundy, by Comines's interest; who, knowing his weak side, advised Lewis XI. to purchase him in the same manner, for he was at that time a great enemy to France, and mightily pressed King Edward to assist the heiress of Burgundy; but Lewis XI. bought him off, by doubling his pension. He sent it him by Mr. Cleret, master of his own houshold, and ordered him to take an acquittance for it, as he did from the lord chancellor,

the lord high-admiral, the master of the horse, and others, and as he had formerly done from the preceding lord chamberlain. But when he came to the Lord Hastings, and delivered him his message with the pension, that lord refused him an acquittance. The French gentleman insisted on it, and said, that his master might otherwise think he had cheated him, and not delivered the money. The Lord Hastings replied, That what he said was very just, but, since the money came by the King's free will, and not at his desire, he must put it into his sleeve without witness or acquittance; for it should never be said, that the great chamberlain of England was a pensioner of France, or that his acquittance should be found in the French King's chamber of accounts. Cleret was forced to comply, and, though Lewis XI. was angry at first when he told him the story, he ever after esteemed the Lord Hastings more than any of his other English pensioners, and ordered his money to be paid him, without demanding any more acquittances.

Thus, Sir, you have an account of this dishonourable treaty, how England was tricked by the French King's perfidiousness and cunning, how our allies were abused and ruined, how the exorbitant power of France was founded, though England was in a capacity to have prevented it; and how our country and parliaments were imposed upon, to the perpetual dishonour of the nation, by the French King and his pensioners.

THE NATURAL HISTORY

OF

COFFEE, THEE, CHOCOLATE, AND TOBACCO,

In four several Sections;

With a Tract of Elder and Juniper-Berries, shewing how useful they may be in our Coffee-Houses: And, also, the Way of making Mum, with some Remarks upon that Liquor. Collected from the Writings of the best Physicians, and Modern Travellers.

[From a Quarto, containing thirty-nine Pages, printed at London, for Christopher Wilkinson, at the Black Boy, over against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street, 1682.]

COFFEE

The Natural History of Coffee.
SECT. I.

NOFFEE is said to be a sort of Arabian bean, called bon, or ban, in the Eastern Countries; the drink made of it is named coava, or chaube, over all the Turkish dominions. Prosper Alpi

(who lived several years in Egypt) assures us, that he saw the tree itself, which he compares to our spindle tree, or prickwood, only the leaves were a little thicker, and harder, besides continually green t. This tree is found in the desarts of Arabia, in some parts of Persia and India, the seed, or berry, of which is called by the inhabitants buncho, bon, and ban, which being dried, and boiled with water, is the most universal drink, in all the Turkish, and several Eastern Countries, where wine is publickly forbid; it has been the most antient drink of the Arabians, and some will have the jus nigrum Spartanorum, i. e. The black broth of the Spartans, to have been the same with our coffee. The Persians at this day do tipple as much coffee off, as the Turks themselves. Tavernier in his description of Ispahan (the metropolis of Persia) is very jocose and merry, when he comes to describe the famous coffee-house of that city; he says, that the wise Sha Abas, observing great numbers of Persians to resort to that house daily, and to quarrel very much about state-affairs, appointed a moullah to be there every day betimes to entertain the tobacco-whiffers, and coffee-quaffers, with a point of law, history, or poetry; after which, the moullah rises up, and makes proclamation, that every man must retire, and to his business; upon which they all observe the moullah, who is always liberally entertained by the company. Olearius does also speak § of the great diversions, made in the coffee-houses of Persia, by their poets, and historians, who are seated in a high chair, from whence they make speeches, and tell satyrical stories, playing in the mean time with a little stick, and the same gestures, as our jugglers, and legerdemain-men, do in England.

As for the qualities and nature of coffee, our own countryman, Dr. Willis, has published a very rational account **, whose great reputation and authority are of no small force; he says, that in several head-achs, dizziness, lethargies, and catarrhs, where there is a gross habit of body, and a cold heavy constitution, there coffee may be proper, and successful; and in these cases he sent his patients to the coffe-house, rather than to the apothecary's shop; but where the temperament is hot, and lean, and active, there coffee may not be very agreeable; because it may dispose the body to inquietudes, and leanness. The doctor makes one unlucky observation of this drink, which I am afraid will cow our citizens from ever meddling with it hereafter, that it often makes men paralytick, and does so slacken their strings, as they become unfit for the sports and exercises of the bed, and their wives recreations; to confirm which, I will quote here two precedents, out of the most learned Olearius, who says, ++ that the Persians are of an opinion that coffee allays their natural heat, for which reason they drink it, that they may avoid the charge and inconveniences of many children; nay, the Per sians are so far from dissembling the fear they have thereof, that some of

Alpinus de Plant. Egyptiac. p. 26. This tree is now very common in gentlemen's green-houses in the south of England; and Ebenezer Mussel, esq. ef Bethnal-green, near London, has two of the largest and healthiest, perchance, in the nation. Dr. Mundy de Potulentis, p. 351. Tavernier's Tavels, p. 1. ? Olearius's Ambassadors Travels of Persia, book 6. p. 224. Dr. Willis Pharmaceut. Rat. p. 1. ++ Olearius's Ambassadors Travels through Persia, book 6.

them have come to the Holstein physician of that ambassy, for remedies to prevent the multiplication of children; but the doctor, being a merry, bold German, answered the Persians, that he had rather help them to get children, than to prevent them. This most famous Olearius (that made so many curious and accurate observations in his travels) tells us of a Persian King, named Sultan Mahomet Caswin, who reigned in Persia before Tamerlane's time, that was so accustomed to drinking of cahwa, or coffee, that he had an unconceivable aversion to women, and that the Queen, standing one day at her chamber window, and perceiving they were about gelding a horse, asked some standers-by, why they treated so handsome a creature in that manner; whereupon answer was made her, that he was too fiery and mettlesome, therefore they resolved to deprive him of his generative faculty. The Queen replied, That trouble might have been spared, since cahwa, or coffee, would have wrought the same effect, the experiment being already tried upon the King her husband. This King left a son, called Mahomet, after him, as our most grave and faithful traveller *does assure us, who, being come to the crown, commanded that great poet, Hakim Fardausi, to present him with some verses, for every one of which, the sophy promised him a ducat; the poet, in a short time, made sixty thousand, which, at this day, are accounted the best that ever were made in Persia, and Hakim Fardausi esteemed the Poet Laureat of the East. The treasurers, thinking it too great a sum for a poet, would have put him off with half; whereupon, Fardausi made other verses, wherein he reproached the King with avarice, and told him, he could not be of royal extraction, but must be rather descended from a shoemaker, or a baker. Mahomet, being nettled, made complaint to the Queen his mother, who, suspecting that the poet had discovered her amours, ingenuously confessed to the King her son, that, his father being impotent, through his excessive drinking of cahwa, or coffee, she fancied a baker belonging to the court, and said, if it had not been for the baker, the young King had never been what he was; so, lest the business should take wind, the poet got his full reward. But let us Teturn a little into our old serious road.

Coffee is said to be very good for those, that have taken too much drink, meat, or fruit, as the learned Schroder + will inform you; as also against shortness of breath, and rheum; and it is very famous in old obstructions, so that all the Egyptian, and Arabian women, are observed to promote their monthly courses with coffee, and to tipple constantly of it, all the time they are flowing; for which we have the undoubted authority of Prosper Alpinus, who spent several years amongst them. It is found to ease the running scorbutick gout, or rheumatism, as Mollenbroccius has affirmed .

As for the manner of preparing coffee, it is so easy, and so commonly known, that we need not mention it; only we may observe, that some of the Asiatick nations make their coffee of the coat, or husk of the berry, which they look upon to be much stronger, and more efficacious, than

Idem ibid. p. 240. + Schroder's Append. p. 24. Prosp. Alpinus, de Med. Egyptor. 1.4. de Plant. Egyptiac, ap. 118. ad. p. 122. Mollenbrock, de Arthrit. baga scorbul. p. 114.

the berry itself, so that they take a less quantity of it; but the Europeans do peel and take off the outward skin of the berries, which, being so prepared, are baked, burnt, and afterwards ground to powder; one ounce of which they mix commonly with a pint and a half of hot water, which has been boiled half away; then they are digested together, till they are well united.

The Laplanders prepare a very good drink out of juniper-berries, which some prefer before either coffee, or thee †, of which berries, we will discourse in a tract at the end of these sheets.

The Natural History of Thee, or Tea.

SECT. II.

THIS herb, thee, is commonly found in China, Japan, and some other Indian Countries; the Chinese call it thee, the Japonians, tchia: That of Japan is esteemed much the best, one pound of it being commonly sold for one-hundred pounds, as Tulpius informs us from several great men, that have been ambassadors and residents in those parts; so that most of the thee, which is brought into Europe, comes from China, and that too of the worst kind, which cannot but decay in so long a voyage; for the Dutch have been observed to dry a great quantity of sage, whose leaves, being rolled up like thee, were carried into China by them, under the name of a most rare European herb; for one pound of this dried sage, the Dutch received three pounds of thee from the Chinese, as Thevenot informs || us. There is a great controversy amongst the herbalists, to what classis this thee may be reduced. Bontius § compares it to the leaves of our wild daisy; for which Simon Pauli is very angry with him **, and gives very strong arguments, that thee is the leaves of a sort of myrtle, for, out of the leaves of myrtle, a liquor may be made, resembling thee in all qualities; therefore, the Jesuit Trigautius is of opinion tt, that several of our European forests and woods do abound with a true thee, it being observed to grow in great plenty in Tartary (which lies under the same climate with many countries of Europe) from whence, some learned men think, it came originally, for it has not been long known to the Chinese 1, they having no ancient name, or hieroglyphick characters for thee, and cha being an ancient Tartarian word. Besides, it is known to several merchants, that a great quantity of thee is brought yearly out of Tartary into Persia; and we are all acquainted with the several great conquests ||| which the Tartars have made in China, so that the Chinese have had several opportunities of learning the use of thee from the Tartars, in whose country it is observed to be in great plenty, and of little value; yet the inhabitants of China and Japan have a great esteem and opinion

History of Lapland. + Or tea. Nicol. Tulpii Observat. Med. lib. 4. c. 60. | Oldenburg's Philos. Transact. N. 14. Bontius de Medicina Indor. lib. 2. p. 97. Simon Pauli, de Thee, p. 19, 20. ++Trigautius, de Regno China, lib. 3. * Simon Pauli, de Thee, p. 25. Olearius's Ambassadors Travels in Persia, p. 241.