ABSTRACT
A large half-sheet verse broadsheet handbill, perhaps printed as an advertisement for coffee, coffee-houses and the retail coffee business of Paul Greenwood. As well as two poems, adding up to 110 lines of rhymed verse couplets in rudimentary Hudibrastic pentameter, the broadside offers a naïve engraved illustration, the earliest visual record of a coffee-house outside the Levant. The engraving is a lozenge set into the title, comprising two compartments. In the upper compartment, the left side depicts a coffee shrub laden with berries, captioned with the words ‘The Desarts of Arabia’; the right side a grape vine laden with grapes: both are surmounted with an ornamental crown. The contrast between coffee and wine is developed at length in the first poem (ll. 1–78). In the lower compartment is an interior view of a corner of a coffee-house, depicting a single central table with five gentlemen, one smoking, two wearing hats (perhaps Nonconformists), and three with wigs (perhaps cavaliers). The cavaliers have oversize ornamental sleeves and pockets. The variety exhibited by the men’s costume may indicate the diverse interests of the clientele. A boy waiter approaches the table carrying a dish and a black jug, presumably containing coffee. On the table are three flat bowl-like coffee dishes and a pipe. The room has two windows, with small lozenge-shaped glass.
