1892 Drinks of the world

DRINKS.

159

coffee and liqueur, but according to the French poet DeHUe, who hved at a time very near our own, coffee itself was included under the latter category

"Cest tol, divin cafe, dont ralmable liqueur > Sans alterer la tete epanouit le cceur " :

which presents us with a view of coffee akin to that held by Cowper of tea, when he talks in his Task (Book IV.) of " the cups That cheer but not inebriate." till long after the distillation of wine had been recog- nised, probably about the fourteenth century. Many years elapsed before these preparations escaped from the domination of the alchemists. Those religious who employed distillation for the confection of balsams and panaceas seem to have been the first to discover them to the world. Montaigne, in the strange account he has written of his travel in Italy, speaks of the Jesuits of Vicenza — the Jesitates as he calls them — who had a liquor shop in their fair monastery, in which were sold phials of scent for a crown. The good fathers appear to have busied themselves in the inter- vals of their religious exercises with distilling waters of different herbs and flowers for the public use, as well for medicine as for sensual delight. Speaking of Verona, Montaigne says he saw also a religious of monks who call themselves Jesuates of St. Jerosme. They are dressed in white under a smoked robe with little white caps. They are not priests, neither do Liqueurs, indeed, properly so called were not known