“Nares rising paused; then gave, the contest done,
  To Weston, Taylor’s Hymns and Alciphron,
  And Rochester’s Address to lemans loose;
  To Tew, Parr’s Sermon and the game of goose;
  To Coote the foolscap, as the best relief
  A dean could hope; last to the hoary chief
  He filled a cup; then placed on Norbury’s back
  The Sunday suit of customary black. 
  The gabbling ceased; with fixed and serious look
  Gray glanced from high, and owned his rival, COOK.”

W.
Lincoln’s Inn, Dec. 17.

Coffee, the Lacedaemonian Black Broth.—­Your correspondent “R.O.” inquires what modern author suggests the probability of coffee being the black broth of the Lacedaemonians?  The suggestion, I think, originated with George Sandys, the translator of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.  Sandys travelled in the Turkish empire in 1610.  He first published his Notes in 1615.  The following is from the 6th edit. 1652, p. 52.:—­

“Although they be destitute of taverns, yet have they their coffa-houses, which something resemble them.  Their sit they, chatting most of the day, and sip of a drink called coffa (of the berry that it is made of), in little China dishes, as hot as they can suffer it; black as soot, and tasting not much unlike it (why not that black broth which was in use among the Lacedaemonians?) which helpeth, as they say, digestion, and procureth alacrity,” &c.

Burton also (Anatomy of Melancholy) describes it as “like that black drink which was in use among the Lacedaemonians, and perhaps the same.”

E.B.  PRICE.

* * * * *

QUERIES.

THE LAST OF THE VILLAINS.

It would be an interesting fact if we could ascertain the last bondsman by blood—­nativus de sanguine—­who lived in this country.  The beginning of the seventeenth century is the period usually referred to as the date of the extinction of personal villenage.  In the celebrated argument in the case of the negro Somerset (State Trials, vol. xx. p. 41), an instance as late as 1617-18 is cited as the latest in our law books. (See Noy’s Reports, p. 27.) It is probably the latest recorded claim, but it is observable that the claim failed, and that the supposed villain was adjudged to be a free man.  I can supply the names of three who were living near Brighton in the year 1617, and whose thraldom does not appear to have been disputed.  Norden, from whose unpublished Survey of certain Crown Manors I have extracted the following notice, adverts to the fact, but seems to think that the times were rather unfavourable to any attempt by the lord of the manor to put his rights in force.