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Afternoon
Thomas Jordan, News from the
Coffeehouse
The first London coffeehouse
opened in 1652. Though Charles II later tried
to suppress them as "places where the
disaffected met, and spread scandalous reports
concerning the conduct of His Majesty and
his Ministers," the public flocked to
them. By 1739 there were 551 coffeehouses
in London, including meeting places for Tories
and Whigs, people of fashion and haberdashers,
wits and clergymen, merchants and lawyers,
booksellers and authors, stockjobbers and
artists, doctors and undertakers — and
politicians of every kind. According to one
French visitor, the Abbé Prévost,
coffeehouses, "where you have the right
to read all the papers for and against the
government," were the "seats of
English liberty."
Thomas Jordan (1612?–1685),
an actor and poet, served as London city
laureate from 1671 to 1685 and invented pageants
for the annual lord mayor's shows.
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You that delight in Wit and Mirth, and
long to hear such News,
As comes from all parts of the Earth, Dutch, Danes, and Turks and Jews,
I'le send you a Rendezvous, where it is smoaking new:
Go hear it at a Coffee-house, — it cannot but be true — * * *
You shall know, there, what Fashions are; How Perrywiggs are curl'd;
And for a Penny you shall heare all Novells in the world;
Both Old and Young, and Great and Small, and Rich and Poore you'll
see:
Therefore let's to the Coffee all, Come all away with me. |
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