M. P., A Character of Coffee and Coffee-Houses (London, John Starkey, 1661), [2], 10pp.; 4°. Worcester College Library, Oxford University. ESTCR28769. Hünersdorff

This short 10-page prose satire of 25 numbered paragraphs is the first of several coffee-house ‘Characters’, but as such it continues an enduring literary tradition. Ralph Johnson, in The Scholars Guide (London, Tho. Pierrepoint, 1665), defined a Character as ‘a witty and facetious description of the nature and qualities of some person, or sort of person’ (p. 15). From the 1640s, the Character was widely adopted in political and religious controversies. The form was derived from the practice of Theophrastus (373–284 bc), who wrote thirty sketches gently satirizing contemporary types in Athenian society using a neutral and detached tone. The best-known early English imitator was Sir Thomas Overbury, whose Characters mixed in samples of characteristic speech and behaviour, and satirised occupations and places. Character-writing was often given to schoolboys as a Latin exercise in grammar schools. See Benjamin Boyce, The Theophrastan Character in England to 1642 (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1947).