172 Sir Edward Morgan's Song of " The Mug.” being nests of sedition caused several attempts to be made by the Government in 1679 to regulate, if not to suppress them. But they had grown already too popular to be easily closed authoritatively. The gibes of those who preferred the panacea of "a Mug, a Mug," were, on the whole, more effectual for repression. We give the Mug-House ditty, because one verse attacks the seditious Coffeedrinker and another denounces the villainies of stumming wine (see Vol. IV. p. 53). If we choose to hum it to the Beggar's Opera tune, "If the heart of a man is oppress'd with care,' "there is no extra charge incurred for infringement of some bogus copyright:— The Gallant's Worthy Commendation of the Mug. 1682. I' f Sorrow the Tyrant invade thy Breast, Draw out the foul Fiend by the Lug, the Lug; No thought of Tomorrow disturb thy rest, But dash out its brains with a Mug, a Mug. If business unluckily go not well, Let dull Fools their own ill Fortune hug: If thy Wife be not one of the best, the best, Or the weight of thy Forehead weigh down thy breast, If thy Mistress prove peevish, and will not 'gree, Ne'r pine, ne'r pine, for the scornful Pug, Let Zealots o're Coffee new Plots divine, And lace with fresh Treasons the Pagan Drug; And fools let them still for new changes tug; And drink the King's Health in a Mug, a Mug. Then, then to the Queen let the next advance, That scorn the stum'd Notion of Spain and France; Not Spaniard or Florentine can vie with our Stout, Here in 1682 (and also in " A Satyr against Coffee," for which see p. 184; is the euphemism to lace Coffee" with brandy, etc., which many would have believed to be modern in phrase and practice. But what is new, that has not been aforetime? History repeats itself, and the Machiavellian Shaftesbury with his intrigues for Mob-popularity and stummed' Claret-drinking has been remembered and imitated in the tactics of another disturber of ancient landmarks. Libellous Satyrs and Coffee-House Politicians. W "From evening's Coffee, lac'd with long Argument Of the King's Power and Rights of Parliament, -The Deliquium, or Grievance of the Nation. HILE critics sat approvingly in the pit of the Duke's Theatre, ready to applaud each stroke of wit that told against dull cits or intriguing Statesmen of the faction opposed to the Court, the Whigs dispersed wholesale their libellous pamphlets, and circulated their manuscript lampoons at the Coffee-houses. Most of these places were in their pay, and were regarded as the hot-beds of sedition. It had not always been so, for the oppressed Cavaliers had formed their chief supporters before the Restoration. Rugge's Diurnal mentions Coffee, Chocolate, "and a kind of drink called Tee, sold in almost every street in 1659." But by the year 1675-76 the amount of disaffection and plotting, encouraged among frequenters of the Coffee-houses, became so notorious that Charles sent out a Proclamation against them, as being nests of "false-Intelligencers," and seditious pamphlets. The professional libeller, Julian, "Secretary of the Muses," is reported to have distributed many of his scandalous manuscripts, from under his cloak, at these ill-regulated haunts of gossip. Clubs and coteries assembled therein. They made matters unpleasant for unintroduced strangers and suspicious outsiders. No one was safe who presumed to utter an opinion against the authority of the mobile vulgus; nevertheless spies lurked among them, as they did everywhere. Dryden, Shadwell, D'Urfey, Ravenscroft, and other dramatists, both in plays and in their Prologues or Epilogues, sowed lampoons broadcast, political and social. In the theatres might be equal obscenity mingled with the mirth, but much more malignity was found among the Coffee-house Politicians. On p. 172 appears the Mug-house song, with its defiant permission: Let Zealots o're Coffee new Plots divine, And Lace with fresh Treasons the Pagan Drug; etc. 174 Lace applied to Coffee, and to Libellers. With this compare the conclusion of our Roxburghe Ballads' "Satyr The "lacing" required for coffee was then, as it is now, un petit verre d'eau de vie; but, as our motto shows, it was also doctored with long political argumentation. The lacing suitable to the pamphleteers Langley Curtis, Henry Care, and scandalous Dick Janeway, was such as shortly afterwards, in 1685, tickled the catastrophe of the peripatetic unphilosophers, Dangerfield and Oates, at the cart's-tail. We are no declaimers against any amount of "tight lacing" required to bring their bodies into shape. Palmam "Call you this Backing your Friends?" 175 qui meruit ferat: better than Swanbill corsets. They had been used to back-biting of another sort, and deserved all they got in requital. Pamphleteers had an uneasy time of it, amid turns and vagaries, for whatever was popular and rewarded to-day became libellous to-morrow; either punished by parliament as breach of privilege, or by judges shown to be treasonable, involving fine, imprisonment, and pillory. While the Popish-Plot mania perverted reason, every word whether spoken or printed against the perjurer Oates had been dangerous utterance. There were miscreants like Dangerfield lurking ready to hide treasonable documents in the houses of innocent men, who might be charged with a guilty knowledge; and there were spies and libellers like Everard, false to both sides, who were paid to produce or to forge evidence against obnoxious persons. Sir William Waller the busybody was perpetually searching for incriminatory papers; although he preferred "portable property " of value: very seldom accounted for, when once it had fallen into his clutches. 176 Sir Edmundbury Godfrey used as a Shuttlecock. After Coleman's death, rumours floated that the Jesuits had hidden treasure in the Savoy, therefore Waller searched it assiduously. Among the discontented flitted Charles Blount, the reputed author of an Appeal from the Country to the City, late in 1679 (see Bagford Bds., p. 761, note). Others attribute it to Robert Ferguson, whose new edition of The Growth of Popery was used to increase a dread of the Duke of York's succession to the Crown. Frank Smith and Jane Curtis were tried at Guildhall on Feb. 7, 168, for publishing scandalous libels, he having printed for the Whigs a paper of their Association. Ben Harris, after long detention, was fined £500, and had to give security for good behaviour, for publishing the above Appeal from the Country; but his gang of sympathizers would not allow anything to be thrown at him, while he stood in the pillory. They took opposite measures afterwards, when Nathanael Thompson got into trouble, more than once. He suffered severely both in person and pocket, but consistently held on, as a loyal Tory, and must have found support somewhere, or he would have been absolutely ruined. Along with John Farewell and William Paine he underwent trial at Guildhall on the 20th of June, 1682, "for writing, printing, and publishing two scandalous libells entituled Letters to Mr. Miles Prance, insinuating that Sir Edmondbury Godfrey killed himself, thereby defaming the justice of the whole nation" (i.e. that to disguise the suicide and avoid confiscation of his property his relations had transpierced the body and removed it to Primrose Hill; compare p. 169). They were convicted, as the Whigs arranged, and Mr. Justice Jones gave sentence on July 3rd, each being fined £100, while Thompson and Farewell were also condemned to the pillory. This was at the very time of the Dubois and Papillion commotion. A few months later, Dryden thus wrote in his Prologue to the Duke of Guise, December, 1682: Make London independent of the Crown [Shadwell and Settle. This was, in short, to play "the Eutopian Game" that had hitherto been in fashion, like ancient Saturnalia revived; as alluded to in our ballad of "Tom and Will" (Vol. IV. p. 200), and in the following verse from the Loyal Song of The Plotting Cards Revived: This is like some Eutopian Game, Where Servant-Maids controul their Dame, And Kings are Servants made; Felons their Judges do indict, And he a Traytor is down-right |