Note 294 — Chapter XVIII · COFFEE-HOUSES AND TAVERNS.

Misson, speaking of coffee-houses, says: 'These Houses, which are very numerous in London, are extreamly convenient. You have all Manner of News there: You have a good Fire, which you may sit by as long as you please; You have a Dish of Coffee, you meet your Friends for the Transaction of Business, and all for a Penny, if you don't Care to spend more.' Yes, that was all—anybody, decently dressed, might have all this accommodation for One Penny. 'Laying down my Penny upon the Bar,' writes Addison,[294] and 'so briefly deposited my Copper at the Bar,' says Brown, show that the habitués spent no more; and Steele, in the first number of the Tatler, speaking of the expenses attending the production of the paper, says: 'I once more desire my readers to consider, that as I cannot keep an ingenious man to go daily to Will's under two pence each day, merely for his charges; to White's under sixpence; nor to the Grecian, without allowing him some plain Spanish (snuff) to be as able as others at the learned table,' etc.