Coffee and Tee

Drinking tea became popular in England during the Restoration. At that time, it was a very costly drink: a pound of tea cost 10 pounds. By 1700 the price was reduced to one pound, but this was still a big expense for ordinary British families, whose annual income ranged between 15 and 50 pounds a year. The first coffeehouse opened in London in 1652. By 1663 London had 82 coffeehouses; by 1700 the number had grown to somewhere between 500 and 2000.

 

The Enlightenment and Neoclassicism

The Enlightenment was a European philosophical and literary movement that in England is often called “The Age of Reason.” It is characterized by a profound faith in the power of human reason and a devotion to clarity of thought. With the Restoration came a return to Anglicanism as England's state religion and a realization that future monarchs would have to share their authority with Parliament, whose influence had increased substantially. A related literary movement was Neoclassicism, which reached its pinnacle in the poetry, prose, and criticism of Samuel Johnson. Its major tenet was the conviction that the classical authors of ancient Greece and Rome had perfected the rules and norms that should govern the writing of literature for all time.

 

The Great Fire of London