The London Coffee Houses伦敦的咖啡馆
作者：托马斯·巴宾顿·麦考利 罗怀宇
拾忆的歌词
来源：《英语世界》2022年第03期
舞思爱羔露        The coffee house must not be dismissed with a cursory mention. It might indeed at that time have been not improperly called a most important political institution. No Parliament had sat for years.1 The municipal council of the City had ceased to speak the sense of the citizens. Public meetings， harangues， resolutions， and the rest of the modern machinery of agitation had not yet come into fashion. Nothing resembling the modern newspaper existed. In such circumstances the coffee houses were the chief organs through which the public opinion of the metropolis vented itself.
苏有朋相见太晚我和我的祖国伴奏        The first of these establishments had been set up by a Turkey merchant， who had acquired among the Mohammedans a taste for their favourite beverage. The convenience of being able to make appointments in any part of the town， and of being able to pass eve
nings socially at a very small charge， was so great that the fashion spread fast. Every man of the upper or middle class went daily to his coffee house to learn the news and to discuss it. Every coffee house had one or more orators to whose eloquence the crowd listened with admiration， and who soon became， what the journalists of our own time have been called， a fourth Estate of the realm2.
        The Court3 had long seen with uneasiness the growth of this new power in the state. An attempt had been made， during Danby’s administration4， to close the coffee houses. But men of all parties missed their usual places of resort so much that there was a universal outcry. The government did not venture， in opposition to a feeling so strong and general， to enforce a regulation of which the legality might well be questioned. Since that time ten years had elapsed， and during those years the number and influence of the coffee houses had been constantly increasing.power of love
        Foreigners remarked that the coffee house was that which especially distinguished London from all other cities; that the coffee house was the Londoner’s home; and that tho
鲁伯特 格林特se who wished to find a gentleman commonly asked， not whether he lived in Fleet Street or Chancery Lane， but whether he frequented the Grecian or the Rainbow. Nobody was excluded from these places who laid down his penny at the bar. Yet every rank and profession， and every shade of religious and political opinion， had its own headquarters.
        There were houses near Saint James’s Park where fops congregated， their heads and shoulders covered with black or flaxen wigs， not less ample than those which are now worn by the Chancellor and by the Speaker of the House of Commons. The wig came from Paris and so did the rest of the fine gentleman’s ornaments， his embroidered coat， his fringed gloves， and the tassel which upheld his pantaloons. The conversation was in that dialect which， long after it had ceased to be spoken in fashionable circles， continued， in the mouth of Lord Foppington5， to excite the mirth of theatres. The atmosphere was like that of a perfumer’s shop. Tobacco in any other form than that of richly scented snuff was held in abomination.
        If any clown， ignorant of the usages of the house， called for a pipe， the sneers of the whole assembly and the short answers of the waiters soon convinced him that he had better go somewhere else. Nor， indeed， would he have had far to go. For， in general， the coffee rooms reeked with tobacco like a guardroom; and strangers sometimes expressed their surprise that so many people should leave their own firesides to sit in the midst of eternal fog and stench. Nowhere was the smoking more constant than at Will’s. That celebrated house， situated between Covent Garden and Bow Street， was sacred to polite letters. There the talk was about poetical justice and the unities of place and time. There was a faction for Perrault6 and the moderns， a faction for Boileau7 and the ancients. One group debated whether Paradise Lost ought not to have been in rhyme. To another an envious poetaster demonstrated that Venice Preserved8 ought to have been hooted from the stage. Under no roof was a greater variety of figures to be seen. There were Earls in stars and garters， clergymen in cassocks and bands， pert Templars， sheepish lads from the Universities， translators and index makers in ragged coats of frieze.