ABSTRACT
A broadside ballad satirising the close relationship between coffee-houses and news. An orthodox ballad in form, it comprises fourteen eight-line stanzas in alternating tetrameter and trimeter, rhymed abab, with the last line of each stanza an evolving refrain repeating with variation ‘It cannot but be true’. The narrative relates the function of news in the coffee-house, and the role of the coffee-house in the dissemination and production of news. The satire is directed against excessive regard for novelty and fresh intelligence in Restoration urban life, of which the coffee-house is emblematic. To the satirist, the coffee-house is the natural home of the news-monger, a person busily involved in the collecting and narrating of news. The satire testifies to the close relation between coffee-houses and the dissemination of news, both printed in the form of newsbooks, diurnals and pamphlets, and unprinted news such as rumour and gossip, and manuscript newsletters. The topic of the satire, and the nature of its production, suggest that this ballad was Royalist and counter-republican.
