when the other had become common.[187] Roger North thus inveighs against them:  “The use of coffee-houses seems much improved by a new invention, called chocolate-houses, for the benefit of rooks and cullies of quality, where gaming is added to all the rest, and the summons of W——­ seldom fails; as if the devil had erected a new university, and those were the colleges of its professors, as well as his schools of discipline.”  Roger North, a high Tory, and Attorney-General to James the Second, observed, however, these rendezvous were often not entirely composed of those “factious gentry he so much dreaded;” for he says “This way of passing time might have been stopped at first, before people had possessed themselves of some convenience from them of meeting for short despatches, and passing evenings with small expenses.”  And old Aubrey, the small Boswell of his day, attributes his general acquaintance to “the modern advantage of coffee-houses in this great city, before which men knew not how to be acquainted, but with their own relations, and societies;” a curious statement, which proves the moral connexion with society of all sedentary recreations which induce the herding spirit.

CHARLES THE FIRST’S LOVE OF THE FINE ARTS.

Herbert, the faithful attendant of Charles the First during the two last years of the king’s life, mentions “a diamond seal with the king’s arms engraved on it.”  The history of this “diamond seal” is remarkable; and seems to have been recovered by the conjectural sagacity of Warburton, who never exercised his favourite talent with greater felicity.  The curious passage I transcribe may be found in a manuscript letter to Dr. Birch.

“If you have read Herbert’s account of the last days of Charles the First’s life, you must remember he tells a story of a diamond seal, with the arms of England cut into it.  This, King Charles ordered to be given, I think, to the prince.  I suppose you don’t know what became of this seal, but would be surprised to find it afterwards in the Court of Persia.  Yet there Tavernier certainly carried it, and offered it for sale, as I certainly collect from these words of vol. i. p. 541.—­’Me souvenant de ce qui etoit arrive au Chevalier de Reville,’ &c.  He tells us he told the prime minister what was engraved on the diamond was the arms of a prince of Europe, but, says he, I would not be more particular, remembering the case of Reville.  Reville’s case was this:  he came to seek employment under the Sophy, who asked him ’where he had served?’ He said ’in England under Charles the First, and that he was a captain in his guards.’—­’Why did you leave his service?’ ’He was murdered by cruel rebels.’—­’And how had you the impudence,’ says the Sophy, ‘to survive him?’ And so disgraced him.  Now Tavernier was afraid, if he had said the arms of England had been on the seal, that they would have occasioned the inquiry into the old story.  You will ask how Tavernier got this seal?  I suppose that the prince, in his necessities, sold it to Tavernier, who was at Paris when the English court was there.  What made me recollect Herbert’s account on reading this, was the singularity of an impress cut on the diamond, which Tavernier represents as a most extraordinary rarity.  Charles the First was a great virtuoso, and delighted particularly in sculpture and painting.”