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LIBRARY Brigham Young University
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UNIVERSITY
BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY
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CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
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CLUB LIFE OF LONDON
WITH
ANECDOTES OF THE CLUBS, COFFEE-HOUSES AND TAVERNS OF THE METROPOLIS
DURING THE 17th, 18th, AND 19th CENTURIES. By JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A.
Beef- steak Society's Emblem.
IN TWO VOLUMES. — VOL. I.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINOTON STREET
^Jublisfjer i<x ©roittarg to p?cr Majestg.
1866.
FEINTED BY
JOHN EDWAED TAYLOE, LITTLE QUEEN STEEET,
LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.
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BKfSHAM YOUI
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CONTENTS.
Page
origin or clubs 1
MEEMAID CLUB 8
APOLLO CLUB 10
EARLY POLITICAL CLUBS 15
OCTOBER CLUB , 17
SATURDAY AND BROTHERS CLUBS 19
SCRIBLERUS CLUB 23
calves' HEAD CLUB . 25
king's head club 35
street clubs 38
the mohocks '..'. 39
blasphemous clubs 1 44
mug-house clubs 45
kit-kat club 55
tatler's club in shire-lane 63
royal society club , 65
x>i CONTENTS.
Page COVENTRY, ERECTHEUM, AND PARTHENON CLUBS . . . 305
ANTIQUARIAN CLUBS, — THE NOVIOMAGIANS 308
THE ECCENTRICS 307
DOUGLAS JERROLD'S CLUBS 308
CHESS CLUBS 313
APPENDIX.
almack's 31(3
clubs at the thatched house 318
kit-kat club 319
watier's club 320
CLUBS OF 1814 321
V
GAMING-HOUSES KEPT BY LADIES 323
PREFACE.
Pictures of the Social Life of the Metropolis during the last two centuries are by no means rare. We pos- sess them in Diaries, Memoirs, and Correspondence, in almost countless volumes, that sparkle with humour and gaiety, alternating with more serious phases, — poli- tical or otherwise, — according to the colour and com- plexion, and body of the time. Of such pictures the most attractive are Clubs.
Few attempts have, however, been made to focus the Club-life of periods, or to assemble with reasonable limits, the histories of the leading Associations of club- bable Men, — of Statesmen and Politicians, Wits and Poets, Authors, Artists, and Actors, and "men of wit and pleasure," which the town has presented since the days of the Restoration ; or in more direct succession, from the reign of Queen Anne, and the days of the Tatler and Spectator, and other Essayists in their wake.
vi PREFACE.
The present Work aims to record this Club-life in a series of sketches of the leading Societies, in which, without assuming the gravity of history or biography, sufficient attention is paid to both to give the several narratives the value of trustworthiness. From the mul- titude of Clubs it has been found expedient to make a selection, in which the Author has been guided by the popular interest attached to their several histories. The same principle has been adopted in bringing the Work up to our own time, in which the customary reticence in such cases has been maintained.
Of interest akin to that of the Clubs have been consi- dered scenes of the Coffee-house and Tavern Life of the period, which partake of a greater breadth of humour, and are, therefore, proportionally attractive, for these sections of the Work. The antiquarianism is sparse, or briefly descriptive ; the main object being personal cha- racteristics, the life and manners, the sayings and doings, of classes among whom conviviality is often mixed up with better qualities, and the finest humanities are blended with the gladiatorship and playfulness of wit and humour.
With a rich store of materials at his command, the Author, or Compiler, has sought, by selection and con- densation, to avoid the long-windedness of story-telling ; for the anecdote should be, like the viand, — "'twere
PKEFACE. vii
well if it were done quickly." Although the staple of the book is compiled, the experience and information which the Author has gathered by long familiarity with the Metropolis have enabled him to annotate and illus- trate in his own progress, notwithstanding the "lion's share " of the labour is duly awarded to others.
Thus, there are grouped in the present volume sketches of One Hundred Clubs, ranging from the Mermaid, in Bread-street, to the Garrick, in Covent Garden. Considering the mixed objects of these Clubs, though all belonging to the convivial or jovial system, strict classification was scarcely attainable : hence chro- nological sequence has been adopted, with the advantage of presenting more connected views of social life than could have been gained by the former arrangement.
The Second Volume is devoted to the Coffee-house and Tavern Life, and presents a diversity of sketches, anecdotes, and reminiscences, whose name is Legion.
To the whole is appended a copious Index, by which the reader may readily refer to the leading subjects, and multitudinous contents of the Work.
CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
ORIGIN OF CLUBS.
The Club, in the general acceptation of the term, may
be regarded as one of the earliest offshoots of Man's
habitually gregarious and social inclination ; and as an
instance of that remarkable influence which, in an early
stage of society, the powers of Nature exercise over the
fortunes of mankind. It may not be traceable to the
time
" When Adam dolve, and Eve span ;*'
but, it is natural to imagine that concurrent with the force of numbers must have increased the tendency of men to associate for some common object. This may have been the enjoyment of the staple of life; for, our elegant Essayist, writing with ages of experience at his beck, has truly said, ' ' all celebrated Clubs were founded upon eating and drinking, which are points where most men agree, and in which the learned and the illiterate, the dull and the airy, the philosopher and the buffoon, can all of them bear a part."
VOL. I. B
2 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
For special proof of the antiquity of the practice it may suffice to refer to the polished Athenians, who had, besides their general symposia, friendly meetings, where every one sent his own portion of the feast, bore a pro- portionate part of the expense, or gave a pledge at a fixed price. A regard for clubbism existed even in Lycurgan Sparta : the public tables consisted generally of fifteen persons each, and all vacancies were filled up by ballot, in which unanimous consent was indispensable for election; and the other laws, as described by Plu- tarch, differ but slightly from those of modern Clubs. Justus Lipsius mentions a bona fide Roman Club, the members of which were bound by certain organized rules and regulations. Cicero records (De Senectute) the pleasure he took in frequenting the meetings of those social parties of his time, termed confraternities, where, according to a good old custom, a president was ap- pointed ; and he adds that the principal satisfaction he received from such entertainments, arose much less from the pleasures of the palate than from the opportunity thereby afforded him of enjoying excellent company and conversation.*
The cognomen Club claims descent from the Anglo- Saxon; for Skinner derives it from clifian, cleofian (our cleave), from the division of the reckoning among the guests around the table. The word signifies uniting to divide, like clave, including the correlative meanings to adhere aud to separate. " In conclusion, Club is evi- dently, as far as form is concerned, derived from cleave " (to split), but in signification it would seem to be more closely allied to cleave (to adhere) . It is not suprising
* Sketch of the Rise and Progress of the Royal Society Club. 1860. (Not published.)
ORIGIN OF CLUBS. 3
that two verbs, identical in form (in Eng.) and con- nected in signification, should sometimes coalesce.*
To the Friday- street or more properly Bread-street Club, said to have been originated by Sir Walter Raleigh, was long assigned the priority of date in England ; but we have an instance of two centuries earlier. In the reign of Henry IV., there was a Club called " La Court de bone Compagnie," of which the worthy old poet Occleve was a member, and probably Chaucer. In the works of the former are two ballads, written about 1413 ; one, a congratulation from the brethren to Henry Somer, on his appointment of the Sub-Treasurer of the Ex- chequer, and who received Chaucer's pension for him. In the other ballad, Occleve, after dwelling on some of their rules and observances, gives Somer notice that he is expected to be in the chair at their next meeting, and that the " sty ward" has warned him that he is
" for the dyner array e Ageyn Thirsday next, and nat is delaye."
That there were certain conditions to be observed by this Society, appears from the latter epistle, which com- mences with an answer to a letter of remonstrance the " Court " has received from Henry Somer, against some undue extravagance, and a breach of their rules. f This Society of four centuries and a half since was evidently a jovial company.
* Notes and Queries, 3rd S. i. p. 295, in which is noted : — " A good illustration of the connexion between the ideas of di- vision and union is afforded by the two equivalent words partner and associe, the former pointing especially to the division of profits, the latter to the community of interests."
t Notes and Queries, No. 234, p. 383. Communicated by Mr. Edward Foss, F.S.A.
b 2
4 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
Still, we do not yet find the term "Club." Mr. Carlyle, in his History of Frederick the Great, assumes that the vow of the Chivalry Orders — Gelubde — in vogue about a.d. 1190, "passed to us in a singularly dwindled condition : Club we now call it." To this it is objected that the mere resemblance in sound of Gelubde and Club is inconclusive, for the Orders of Templars, Hospi- tallers, and Prussian Knights, were never called clubs in England ; and the origin of the noun need not be sought for beyond its verb to club, when persons joined in paying the cost of the mutual entertainment. Moreover, Klubb in German means the social club ; and that word is borrowed from the English, the native word being Zeche, which, from its root and compound, conveys the idea generally of joint expenditure, and specially in drinking.*
About the end of the sixteenth or the beginning of the seventeenth century, there was established the famous Club at the Mermaid Tavern, in Bread-street, of which Shakspeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Raleigh, S el- den, Donne, &c, were members. Ben Jonson had a Club, of which he appears to have been the founder, that met at the Devil Tavern, between Middle-Temple gate and Temple Bar.
Not until shortly after this date do we find the word Club. Aubrey says : " We now use the word clubbefor a sodality in a taverne." In 1659, Aubrey became a member of the Rota, a political Club, which met at the Turk's Head, in New Palace Yard : " here we had," says Aubrey, " (very formally) a balloting box, and balloted how things should be carried, by way of Tentamens.
* Notes and Queries, 2nd S., vol. xii. p. 386. Communicated by Mr. Buckton.
ORIGIN OF CLUBS. 5
The room was every evening as full as it could be crammed."'5*' Of this Rota political Club .we shall presently say more. It is worthy of notice that poli- tics were thus early introduced into English Club-life. Dryden, some twenty years after the above date, asks : c< What right has any man to meet in factious Clubs to vilify the Government ?"
Three years after the Great Fire, in 1669, there was established in the City, the Civil Club, which exists to this day. All the members are citizens, and are proud of their Society, on account of its antiquity, and* of its being the only Club which attaches to its staff the reputed office of a chaplain. The members appear to have first clubbed together for the sake of mutual aid and support; but the name of the founder of the Club, and the cir- cumstances of its origin, have unfortunately been lost with its early records. The time at which it was esta- blished was one of severe trials, when the Great Plague and the Great Fire had broken up much society, and many old associations; the object and recommendation being, as one of the rules express it, "that members should give preference to each other in their respective callings •" and that " but one person of the same trade or profession should be a member of the Club." This is the rule of the old middle-class clubs called " One of a Trade."
The Civil Club met for many years at the Old Ship Tavern, in Water-lane, upon which being taken down, the Club removed to the New Corn Exchange Tavern, in Mark Lane. The records, which are extant, show among former members Parliament men, baronets, and aldermen ; the chaplain is the incumbent of St. Olave- * Memoir of Aubrey, by John Britton, qto., p. 36.
6 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
by-the-Tower, Hart- street. Two high carved chairs, bearing date 1669, are used by the stewards.
At the time of the Revolution, the Treason Club, as it was commonly called, met at the Rose tavern, in Covent Garden, to consult with Lord Colchester, Mr. Thomas Wharton, Colonel Talmash, Colonel Godfrey, and many others of their party ; and it was there resolved that the regiment under Lieutenant-Colonel Langstone's command should desert entire, as they did, on Sunday, Nov. 1688*
In Friday-street, Cheapside, was held the Wednesday Club, at which, in 1695, certain conferences took place uuder the direction of William Paterson, which ulti- mately led to the establishment of the Bank of England. Such is the general belief; but Mr. Saxe Bannister, in his Life of Paterson, p. 93, observes : " It has been a matter of much doubt whether the Bank of England was originally proposed from a Club or Society in the City of London. The Dialogue Conferences of the Wednes- day Club, in Friday -street, have been quoted as if first published in 1695. No such publication has been met with of a date before 1706;" and Mr. Bannister states his reasons for supposing it was not preceded by any other book. Still, Paterson wrote the papers entitled the Wednesday Club Conferences.
Club is denned by Dr. Johnson to be " an assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions •" but by Todd, " an association of persons subjected to particular rules." It is plain that the latter definition is at least not that of a Club, as distinguished from any other kind of association ; although it may be more comprehensive than is necessary, to take in all the gatherings that in * Macpherson's History of England, vol. iii.— Original papers.
ORIGIN OF CLUBS. 7
modern times have assumed the name of Clubs. John- son's, however, is the more exact account of the true old English Club.
The golden period of the Clubs was, however, in the time of the Spectator, in whose rich humour their me- mories are embalmed. " Man/' writes Addison, in No. 9, " is said to be a sociable animal ; and as an instance of it we may observe, that we take all occasions and pretences of forming ourselves into those little nocturnal assem- blies, which are commonly known by the name of Clubs. When a set of men find themselves agree in any par- ticular, though never so trivial, they establish themselves into a kind of fraternity, and meet once or twice a week, upon the account of such a fantastic resemblance."
Pall Mall was noted for its tavern Clubs more than two centuries since. " The first time that Pepys men- tions Pell Mell," writes Cunningham, ' ' is under the 26th of July, 1660, where he says { We went to Wood's (our old house for clubbing), ' and there we spent till ten at night.' This is not only one of the earliest references to Pall Mall as an inhabited locality, but one of the earliest uses of the word ' clubbing,' in its modern signification of a Club, and additionally interesting, seeing that the street still maintains what Johnson would have called its ' clubbable ' character."
In Spence's Anecdotes {Supplemental,) we read : " There was a Club held at the King's Head, in Pall Mall, that arrogantly called itself ' The World.' Lord Stanhope, then (now Lord Chesterfield), Lord Herbert, &c, were members. Epigrams were proposed to be written on the glasses, by each member after dinner ; once, when Dr. Young was invited thither, the Doctor would have declined writing, because he had no diamond :
8 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
Lord Stanhope lent him his, and he wrote imme- diately—
" ' Accept a miracle, instead of wit ;
See two dull lines with Stanhope's pencil writ.' "
The first modern Club mansion in Pall Mall was No. 86, opened as a subscription house, called the Albion Hotel. It was originally built for Edward Duke of York, brother of George III., and is now the office of Ordnance, (correspondence.)
THE MERMAID CLUB.
This famous Club was held at the Mermaid Tavern, which was long said to have stood in Friday-street, Cheapside ; but Ben Jonson has, in his own verse, settled it in Bread-street :
" At Bread-street's Mermaid having dined and merry, Proposed to go to Holborn in a wherry."
Ben Jonson, ed. Giffbrd, viii. 242.
Mr. Hunter also, in his Notes on Shakspeare, tells us that " Mr. Johnson, at the Mermaid, in Bread-street, vintner, occurs as creditor for 17s. in a schedule annexed to the will of Albain Butler, of Clifford's Inn, gentleman, in 1603. Mr. Burn, in the Beaufoy Catalogue, also ex- plains : " the Mermaid in Bread-street, the Mermaid in Friday-street, and the Mermaid in Cheap, were all one and the same. The tavern, situated behind, had a way to it from these thoroughfares, but was nearer to Bread- street than Friday-street." In a note, Mr. Burn adds : M The site of the Mermaid is clearly defined from the cir-
THE MERMAID CLUB. 9
cumstance of W. R., a haberdasher of small wares, c twixt Wood-street and Milk-street/ adopting the same sign 1 over against the Mermaid Tavern in Cheapside/ " The Tavern was destroyed in the Great Fire.
Here Sir Walter Raleigh is .traditionally said to have instituted " The Mermaid Club." Gifford has thus de- scribed the Club, adopting the tradition and the Friday- street location : " About this time [1603] Jonson pro- bably began to acquire that turn for conviviality for which he was afterwards noted. Sir Wr alter Raleigh, previously to his unfortunate engagement with the wretched Cobham and others, had instituted a meeting of beaux esprits at the Mermaid, a celebrated tavern in Friday-street. Of this Club, which combined more talent and genius than ever met together before or since, our author was a member ; and here for many years he regu- larly repaired, with Shakspeare, Beaumont, Fletcher, Selden, Cotton, Carew, Martin, Donne, and many others, whose names, even at this distant period, call up a min- gled feeling of reverence and respect." But this is doubted. A writer in the Athenmum, Sept. 16, 1865, states : "The origin of the common tale of Raleigh found- ing the Mermaid Club, of which Shakspeare is said to have been a member, has not been traced. Is it older than Gifford ? " Again : " Gifford's apparent invention of the Mermaid Club. Prove to us that Raleigh founded the Mermaid Club, that the wits attended it under his presidency, and you will have made a real contribution to our knowledge of Shakspeare's time, even if you fail to diow that our Poet was a member of that Club." The tradition, it is thought, must be added to the long list of Shakspearian doubts.
Nevertheless, Fuller has described the wit-combats
10 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
between Shakspeare and Ben Jonson, li which he beheld/5 meaning with his mind's eye, for he was only eight years of age when Shakspeare died ; " a circumstance/' says Mr. Charles Knight, "which appears to have been forgot- ten by some who have written of these matters." But we have a noble record left of the wit-combats in the celebrated epistle of Beaumont to Jonson : —
" Metkinks the little wit I had is lost Since I saw you ; for wit is like a rest Held up at tennis, which men do the best With the best gamesters : what things have we seen Done at the Mermaid ! heard words that have been So nimble, and so full of subtile flame, As if that every one from whence they came Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, And had resolv'd to live a fool the rest Of his dull life ; then when there hath been thrown Wit able enough to justify the town For three days past, wit that might warrant be For the whole city to talk foolishly 'Till that were cancelJ.'d : and when that was gone We left an air behind us, which alone Was able to make the two next companies Right witty ; though but downright fools, mere wise."
THE APOLLO CLUB.
The noted tavern, with the sign of St. Dunstan pulling the Devil by the nose, stood between Temple Bar and the Middle Temple gate. It was a house of great resort in the reign of James I., and then kept by Simon Wadloe.
THE APOLLO CLUB. 11
In Ben Jonson' s Staple of News, played in 1625, Pennyboy Canter advises, to
"Dine in Apollo, with Pecunia At brave Duke Wadloe's."
Pennyboy junior replies —
" Content, i' th' faith ; Our meal shall be brought thither ; Simon the King Will bid us welcome.' '
At what period Ben Jonson began to frequent this tavern is not certain ; but we have bis record that he wrote The Devil is an Asse, played in 1616, when he and his boys (adopted sons) " drank bad wine at the Devil." The principal room was called " the Oracle of Apollo/' a large room evidently built apart from the tavern ; and from Prior's and Charles Montagu's Hind and Panther Transversed it is shown to have been an upper apartment, or on the first story : —
" Hence to the Devil — Thus to the place where Jonson sat, we climb, Leaning on the same rail that guided him."
Above the door was the bust of Apollo ; and the fol- lowing verses, " the Welcome/' were inscribed in gold letters upon a black board, and " placed over the door at the entrance into the Apollo :
"Welcome all, who lead or follow, To the Oracle of Apollo — Here he speaks out of his pottle, Or the tripos, his Tower bottle ; All his answers are divine, Truth itself doth flow in wine. Hangup all the poor hop-drinkers, Cries old Sim the king of skinkers ;
12 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
He that half of life abuses,
That sits watering with the Muses.
Those dull girls no good can mean us ;
Wine it is the milk of Venus,
And the Poet's horse accounted :
Ply it, and you all are mounted.
'Tis the true Phcebeian liquor,
Cheers the brain, makes wit the quicker,
Pays all debts, cures all diseases,
And at once three senses pleases.
Welcome all, who lead or follow,
To the Oracle of Apollo"
Beneath these verses was the name of the author, thus inscribed — " O Rare Ben Jonson," a posthumous tribute from his grave in Westminster Abbey. The bust appears modelled from the Apollo Belvedere, by some skilful person of the olden day, but has been several times painted. " The Welcome," originally in- scribed in gold letters, on a thick black-painted board, lias since been wholly repainted and gilded; but the old thickly-lettered inscription of Ben's day may be seen as an embossment upon the modern painted back- ground. These poetic memorials are both preserved in the banking-house of the Messrs. Child.
" The Welcome/' says Mr. Burn, " it may be in- ferred, was placed in the interior of the room ; so also, above the fireplace, were the Rules of the Club, said by early writers to have been inscribed in marble, but were in truth gilded letters upon a black-painted board, similar to the verses of the Welcome. These Rules are justly admired for the conciseness and elegance of the La- tinity." They have been felicitously translated by Alex- ander Broome, one of the wits who frequented the Devil, and who was one of Ben Jonson's twelve adopted poetical sons. Latin inscriptions were also placed in
THE APOLLO CLUB. 13
other directions, to adorn the house. Over the clock in the kitchen, in 1731, there remained " Si nocturna tibi noceat potatio vini, hoc in mane bibes iterum, et fuerit medicina." Aubrey reports his uncle Danvers to have said that " Ben Jonson, to be near the Devil tavern, in King James's time, lived without Temple-barre, at a combemaker's shop, about the Elephant and Castle f and James, Lord Scudamore has, in his Homer a la Mode, a travesty, said —
" Apollo had a flamen, Who in 's temple did say Amen."
This personage certainly Ben Jonson represented in the great room of the Devil tavern. Hither came all who desired to be " sealed of the tribe of Ben." " The Leges Conviviales" says Leigh Hunt, "which Jonson wrote for his Club, and which are to be found in his works, are composed in his usual style of elaborate and compiled learning, not without a taste of that dictato- rial self-sufficiency, which, notwithstanding all that has been said by his advocates, and the good qualities he undoubtedly possessed, forms an indelible part of his character. ' Insipida poemata/ says he, ' nulla reci- tantur ' (Let nobody repeat to us insipid poetry) ; as if all that he should read of his own must infallibly be otherwise. The Club at the Devil does not appear to have resembled the higher one at the Mermaid, where Shakspeare and Beaumont used to meet him. He most probably had it all to himself."
In the Rules of the Apollo Club, women of character were not excluded from attending the meetings — Probce femince non repudiantur. Marmion, one of Jon son's contemporary dramatists, describes him in his presiden- tial chair, as " the boon Delphic god :" —
14 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
" Careless. I am full
Of Oracles. I am come from Apollo.
Emilia. From Apollo !
Careless. From the heaven
Of my delight, where the boon Delphic god Drinks sack, and keeps his bacchanalia, And has his incense and his altars smoaking, And speaks in sparkling prophecies ; thence I come, My brains perfumed with the rich Indian vapour, And heightened with conceits. From tempting beauties, From dainty music and poetic strains, From bowls of nectar and ambrosial dishes, From witty varlets, fine companions, And from a mighty continent of pleasure, Sails thy brave Careless."
Randolph was by Ben Jonson, adopted for his son, and that upon the following occasion. " Mr. Randolph having been at London so long as that he might truly have had a parley with his Empty Purse, was resolved to see Ben Jonson, with his associates, which, as he heard, at a set time kept a Club together at the Devil Tavern, neere Temple Bar : accordingly, at the time appointed, he went thither, but being unknown to them, and want- ing money, which to an ingenious spirit is the most daunting thing in the world, he peeped in the room where they were, which being espied by Ben Jonson, and seeing him in a scholar's threadbare habit, f John Bo- peep/ says he, l come in/ which accordingly he did ; when immediately they began to rhyme upon the mean- ness of his clothes, asking him if he could not make a verse ? and without to call for a quart of sack : there being four of them, he immediately thus replied,
" I, John Bo-peep, to you four sheep, — With each one his good fleece ; If that you are willing to give me five shilling, 'Tis fifteen-pence a-piece."
THE APOLLO CLUB. 15
"By Jesus !" quoth Ben Jonson (his usual oath), " I believe this is my son Randolph •" which being made known to them, he was kindly entertained into their company, and Ben Jonson ever after called him son. He wrote The Muses' Looking-glass, Cambridge Duns, Parley with his Empty Purse, and other poems.
We shall have more to say of the Devil Tavern, which has other celebrities besides Jonson.
EARLY POLITICAL CLUBS.
Our Clubs, or social gatherings, which date from the Restoration, were exclusively political. The first we hear of was the noted Rota, or Coffee Club, as Pepys calls it, which was founded in 1659, as a kind of debating society for the dissemination of republican opinions, which Harrington had painted in their fairest colours in his Oceana. It met in New Palace Yard, u where they take water at one Miles's, the next house to the staires, at one Miles's, where was made purposely a large ovall table, with a passage in the middle for Miles to deliver his coffee." Here Harrington gave nightly lectures on the advantage of a commonwealth and of the ballot. The Club derived its name from a plan, which it was its design to promote, for changing a certain number of Members of Parliament annually by rotation. Sir "William Petty was one of its members. Round the table, " in a room every evening as full as it could be crammed," says Aubrey, sat Milton and Marvell, Cyriac Skinner, Harrington, Nevill, and their friends, discuss- ing abstract political questions. Aubrey calls them " dis-
16 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
ci pies and virtuosi." The place had its dissensions and brawls : " one time Mr. Stafford and his friends came in drunk from the tavern, and affronted the Junto; the soldiers offered to kick them down stayres, but Mr. Harrington's moderation and persuasion hindered it."
To the Rota, in January, 1660, came Pepys, and " heard very good discourse in answer to Mr. Harring- ton's answer, who said that the state of the Roman government was not a settled government; and so it was no wonder the balance of prosperity was in one hand, and the command in another, it being therefore always in a posture of war : but it was carried by ballot that it was a steady government ; though, it is true, by the voices it had been carried before that, that it was an unsteady government. So to-morrow it is to be proved by the opponents that the balance lay in one hand and the government in another." The Club was broken up after the Restoration ; but its members had become marked men. Harrington's Oceana is an imaginary account of the construction of a commonwealth in a country, of which Oceana is the imaginary name. 11 Rota-men" occurs by way of comparison in Hudibras, part ii. canto 3 :
'* But Sidrophel, as full of tricks As Rota-men of politics."
Besides the Rota, there was the old Royalist Club, " The Sealed Knot," which, the year before the Restora- tion, had organized a general insurrection in favour of the King. Unluckily, they had a spy amongst them — Sir Richard Willis, — who had long fingered Cromwell's money, as one of his private "intelligencers;" the leaders, on his information, were arrested, and com- mitted to prison.
17
THE OCTOBER CLUB.
The writer of an excellent paper in the National Review, No. VIII.,. well observes that " Politics under Anne had grown a smaller and less dangerous game than in the preceding century. The original political Clubs of the Commonwealth, the Protectorate, and the Restoration, plotted revolutions of government. The Parliamentary Clubs, after the Revolution of 1688, ma- noeuvred for changes of administration. The high-fly- ing Tory country gentleman and country member drank the health of the King — sometimes over the water- decanter, and flustered himself with bumpers in honour of Dr. Sacheverell and the Church of England, with true-blue spirits of his own kidney, at the October Club," which, like the Beef Steak Club, was named after the cheer for which it was famed, — October ale ; or rather, on account of the quantities of the ale which the members drank. The hundred and fifty squires, Tories to the backbone, who, under the above name, met at the Bell Tavern, in King Street, Westminster, were of opinion that the party to which they belonged were too backward in punishing and turning out the Whigs ; and they gave infinite trouble to the Tory ad- ministration which came into office under the leader- ship of Harley, St. John, and Harcourt, in 1710. The Administration were for proceeding moderately with their rivals, and for generally replacing opponents with partisans. The October Club were for immediately im- peaching every member of the Whig party, and for
vol. i. c
18 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
turning out, without a day's grace, every placeman who did not wear their colours, and shout their cries.
Swift was great at the October Club, and he was employed to talk over those who were amenable to reason, and to appease a discontent which was hastily ripening into mutiny. There are allusions to such ne- gotiations in more than one passage of the Journal to Stella, in 1711. In a letter, February 10, 1710-11, he says : " We are plagued here with an October Club ; that is, a set of above a hundred Parliament men of the country, who drink October beer at home, and meet every evening at a tavern near the Parliament, to con- sult affairs, and drive things on to extremes against the Whigs, to call the old ministry to account, and get off five or six heads." Swift's Advice humbly offered to the Members of the October Club, had the desired effect of softening some, and convincing others, until the whole body of malcontents was first divided and finally dis- solved. The treatise is a masterpiece of Swift's poli- tical skill, judiciously palliating those ministerial errors which could not be denied, and artfully intimating those excuses, which, resting upon the disposition of Queen Anne herself, could not, in policy or decency, be openly pleaded.
The red-hot "tantivies," for whose loyalty the October Club was not thorough-going enough, seceded from the original body, and formed " the March Club/' more Jacobite and rampant in its hatred of the Whigs, than the Society from which it branched.
King Street would, at this time, be a strange location for a Parliamentary Club, like the October ; narrow and obscure as is the street, we must remember that a cen- tury ago, it was the only thoroughfare to the Palace
THE BROTHEES CLUB. 19
at Westminster and the Houses of Parliament. When the October was broken up, the portrait of Queen Anne, by Dahl, which ornamented the club-room, was bought of the Club, after the Queen's death, by the Corpora- tion of Salisbury, and may still be seen in their Council- chamber. (Cunningham's Handbook, 2nd edit., p. 364.)
THE SATURDAY, AND BROTHERS CLUBS.
Few men appear to have so well studied the social and political objects of Club-life as Dean Swift. One of his resorts was the old Saturday Club. He tells Stella (to whom he specially reported most of his club arrangements), in 1711, there were " Lord Keeper, Lord Rivers, Mr. Secretary, Mr. Harley, and I." Of the same Club he writes, in 1713 : " I dined with Lord Treasurer, and shall again to-morrow, which is his day, when all the ministers dine with him. He calls it whipping-day. It is always on Saturday ; and we do, indeed, rally him about his faults on that day. I was of the original Club, when only poor Lord Rivers, Lord Keeper, and Lord Bolingbroke came ; but now Ormond, Anglesey, Lord Stewart, Dartmouth, and other rabble intrude, and I scold at it ; but now they pretend as good a title as I ; and, indeed, many Saturdays I am not there. The company being too many, I don't love it."
In the same year Swift framed the rules of the Bro- thers Club, which met every Thursday. " The end of our Club," he says, " is to advance conversation and
c2
20 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
friendship, and to reward learning without interest or recommendation. We take in none but men of wit, or men of interest ; and if we go on as we began, no other Club in this town will be worth talking of."
The Journal about this time is very full of Brothers Arran and Dupplin, Masham and Ormond, Bathurst and Harcourt, Orrery and Jack Hill, and other Tory magnates of the Club, or Society as Swift preferred to call it. We find him entertaining his " Brothers M at the Thatched House Tavern, in St. James's Street, at the cost of seven good guineas. He must have been an influential member ; he writes : ' ' We are now, in all, nine lords and ten commoners. The Duke of Beaufort had the confidence to propose his brother-in-law, the Earl of Danby, to be a member; but I opposed it so warmly, that it was waived. Danby is not above twenty, and we will have no more boys; and we want but two to make up our number. I staid till eight, and then we all went away soberly. The Duke of Ormondes treat last week cost £20, though it was only four dishes and four without a dessert; and I bespoke it in order to be cheap. Yet I could not prevail to change the house. Lord Treasurer is in a rage with us for being so extravagant ; and the wine was not reckoned neither, for that is always brought in by him that is presi- dent."
Not long after this, Swift writes : " Our Society does not meet now as usual ; for which I am blamed ; but till Treasurer will agree to give us money and em- ployments to bestow, I am averse to it, and he gives us nothing but promises. We now resolve to meet but once a fortnight, and have a committee every other week of six or seven, to consult about doing some good.
THE BROTHERS CLUB. 21
I proposed another message to Lord Treasurer by three principal members, to give a hundred guineas to a certain person, and they are to urge it as well as they can."
One day, President Arbuthnot gives the Society a dinner, dressed in the Queen's kitchen : " we eat it in Ozinda's Coffee-house just by St. James's. We were never merrier or better company, and did not part till after eleven." In May, we hear how " fifteen of our Society dined together under a canopy in an arbour at Parson's Green last Thursday. I never saw anything so fine and romantic."
Latterly, the Club removed to the Star and Garter, in Pall Mall, owing to the dearness of the Thatched House ; after this, the expense was wofully complained of. At these meetings, we may suppose, the litera- ture of politics formed the staple of the conversation. The last epigram, the last pamphlet, the last Exa- miner, would be discussed with keen relish ; and Swift mentions one occasion oh which an impromptu sub- scription was got up for a poet, who had lampooned Marlborough ; on which occasion all the company sub- scribed two guineas each, except Swift himself, Arbuth- not, and Friend, who only gave one. Bolingbroke, who was an active member, and Swift, were on a footing of great familiarity. St. John used to give capital dinners and plenty of champagne and burgundy to his literary coadjutor, who never ceased to wonder at the ease with which our Secretary got through his labours, and who worked for him in turn with the sincerest devotion, though always asserting his equality in the sturdiest manner.
Many pleasant glimpses of convivial meetings are
22 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
afforded in the Journal to Stella, when there was " much drinking, little thinking/' and the business which they had met to consider was deferred to a more convenient season. Whether (observes a contemporary) the power of conversation has declined or not, we certainly fear that the power of drinking has ; and the imagination dwells with melancholy fondness on that state of society in which great men were not forbidden to be good fellows, which we fancy, whether rightly or wrongly, must have been so superior to ours, in which wit and eloquence succumb to statistics, and claret has given place to coffee.
The Journal to Stella reveals Swift's sympathy for poor starving authors, and how he carried out the ob- jects of the Society, in this respect. Thus, he goes to see " a poor poet, one Mr. Diaper, in a nasty garret, very sick," described in the Journal as " the author of the Sea Eclogues, poems of Mermen, resembling pastorals and shepherds ; and they are very pretty, and the thought is new." Then Swift tells us he thinks to recommend Diaper to the Society ; he adds, " I must do something for him, and get him out of the way. I hate to have any new wits rise ; but when they do rise, I would en- courage them ; but they tread on our heels, and thrust us off the stage." Only a few days before, Swift had given Diaper twenty guineas from Lord Bolingbroke.
Then we get at the business of " the Brothers," when we learn that the printer attended the dinners ; and the Journal tells us : " There was printed a Grub-street speech of Lord Nottingham, and he was such an owl to complain of it in the House of Lords, whc have taken up the printer for it. I heard at Court that Walpole, (a great Whig member,) said that I and my whimsical
THE SCRIBLEKUS CLUB. 23
Club writ it at one of our meetings, and that I should pay for it. He will find he lies ; and I shall let him know by a third hand my thoughts of him." ..." To- day I published The Fable of Midas, a poem printed on a loose half-sheet of paper. I know not how it will take; but it passed wonderfully at our Society to-night." At one dinner, the printer's news is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had sent Mr. Adisworth, the author of the Examiner, twenty guineas.
There were gay sparks among cc the Brothers," as Colonel or " Duke " Disney, " a fellow of abundance of humour, an old battered rake, but very honest ; not an old man, but an old rake. It was he that said of Jenny Kingdown, the maid of honour, who is a little old, ' that since she could not get a husband, the Queen should give her a brevet to act as a married woman.' " — Journal to Stella.
THE SCRIBLERUS CLUB.
" The Brothers," as we have already seen, was a poli- tical Club, which, having, in great measure served its purpose, was broken up. Next year, 1714, Swift was again in London, and in place of "the Brothers," formed the celebrated " Scriblerus Club," an association rather of a literary than a political character. Oxford and St. John, Swift, Arbuthnot, Pope, and Gay, were members. Satire upon the abuse of human learning was their leading object. The name originated as fol- lows. Oxford used playfully to call Swift Martin, and
24 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
from this sprung Martinus Scriblerus. Swift, as is well known, is the name of one species of swallow, (the largest and most powerful flier of the tribe,) and Martin is the name of another species, the wall- swallow, which constructs its nest in buildings.
Part of the labours of the Society has been preserved in P. P., Clerk of the Parish, the most memorable satire upon Burnet's History of his Own Time, and part has been rendered immortal by the Travels of Lemuel Gulliver ; but, says Sir Walter Scott, in his Life of Swift, " the violence of political faction, like a storm that spares the laurel no more than the cedar, dispersed this little band of literary brethren, and pre- vented the accomplishment of a task for which talents so various, so extended, and so brilliant, can never again be united. "
Oxford and Bolingbroke, themselves accomplished scholars, patrons and friends both of the persons and to genius thus associated, led the way, by their mutual ani- mosity, to the dissolution of the confraternity. Their discord had now risen to the highest pitch. Swift tried the force of humorous expostulation in his fable of the Fagot, where the ministers are called upon to contribute their various badges of office, to make the bundle strong and secure. But all was in vain ; and, at length, tired with this scene of murmuring and discontent, quarrel, misunderstanding, and hatred, the Dean, who was almost the only common friend who laboured to compose these differences, made a final effort at reconciliation ; but his scheme came to nothing, and Swift retreated from the scene of discord, without taking part with either of his contending friends, and went to the house of the Re- verend Mr. Gery, at Upper Letcombe, Berkshire, where
THE CALVES' HEAD CLUB. 25
he resided for some weeks, in the strictest seclusion. This secession of Swift, from the political world excited the greatest surprise : the public wondered, — the party writers exulted in a thousand ineffectual libels against the retreating champion of the high church, — and his friends conjured him in numerous letters to return and reassume the task of a peacemaker ; this he positively declined.
THE CALVES1 HEAD CLUB.
The Calves' Head Club, in " ridicule of the memory of Charles I.," has a strange history. It is first noticed in a tract reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany . It is entitled "The Secret History of the Calves' Head Club ; or the Republican unmasked. Wherein is fully shown the Religion of the Calves' Head Heroes, in their Anni- versary Thanksgiving Songs on the 30th of January, by them called Anthems, for the years 1693, 1694, 1695, 1696, 1697. Now published to demonstrate the restless implacable Spirit of a certain party still amongst us, who are never to be satisfied until the present Establish- ment in Church and State is subverted. The Second Edition. London, 1703." The Author of this Secret History, supposed to be Ned Ward, attributed the origin of the Club to Milton, and some other friends of the Commonwealth, in opposition to Bishop Nixon, Dr. Sanderson, and others, who met privately every 30th of January, and compiled a private form of service for the day, not very different from that long used. " After the
26 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
Restoration," says the writer, " the eyes of the govern- ment being upon the whole party, they were obliged to meet with a great deal of precaution ; but in the reign of King William they met almost in a public manner, apprehending no danger." The writer further tells us, lie was informed that it was kept in no fixed house, but that they moved as they thought convenient. The place where they met when his informant was with them was in a blind alley near Moorfields, where an axe hung up in the club-room, and was reverenced as a principal symbol in this diabolical sacrament. Their bill of fare was a large dish of calves' heads, dressed several ways, by which they represented the king and his friends who had suffered in his cause ; a large pike, with a small one in his mouth, as an emblem of tyranny ; a large cod's head, by which they intended to represent the person of the king singly ; a boar's head with an apple in its mouth, to represent the king by this as bestial, as by their other hieroglyphics they had done foolish and tyrannical. After the repast was over, one of their elders presented an Icon Basilike, which was with great solemnity burnt upon the table, whilst the other anthems were singing. After this, another produced Milton's Defensio Populi Anglicani, upon which all laid their hands, and made a protestation in form of an oath for ever to stand by and maintain the same. The company only consisted of In- dependents and Anabaptists; and the famous Jeremy White, formerly chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, who no doubt came to sanctify with his pious exhortations the ribaldry of the day, said grace. After the table-cloth was removed, the anniversary anthem, as they impiously called it, was sung, and a calf's skull filled with wine, or other liquor; and then a brimmer went about to the
THE CALVES HEAD CLUB. 27
pious memory of those worthy patriots who had killed the tyrant and relieved their country from his arbitrary sway : and, lastly, a collection was made for the mer- cenary scribbler, to which every man contributed accord- ing to his zeal for the cause and ability of his purse.
The tract passed, with many augmentations as value- less as the original trash, through no less than nine edi- tions, the last dated 1716. Indeed, it would appear to be a literary fraud, to keep alive the calumny. All the evidence produced concerning the meetings is from hearsay : the writer of the Secret History had never himself been present at the Club; and his friend from whom he professes to have received his information, though a Whig, had no personal knowledge of the Club. The slanderous rumour about Milton having to do with the institution of the Club may be passed over as un- worthy of notice, this untrustworthy tract being the only authority for it. Lowndes says, " this miserable tract has been attributed to the author of Hudibras ;" but it is altogether unworthy of him.
Observances, insulting to the memory of Charles I., were not altogether unknown. Hearne tells us that on the 30th of January, 1706-7, some young men in All Souls College, Oxford, dined together at twelve o' clock, and amused themselves with cutting off the heads of a number of woodcocks, " in contempt of the memory of the blessed martyr." They tried to get calves' -heads, but the cook refused to dress them.
Some thirty years after, there occurred a scene which seemed to give colour to the truth of the Secret History. On January 30, 1735, " Some young noblemen and gen- tlemen met at a tavern in Suffolk-street, called them- selves the Calves' Head Club, dressed up a calf s head in
28 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
a napkin, and after some hurras threw it into a bonfire, and dipped napkins in their red wine and waved them out of the window. The mob had strong beer given them, and for a time hallooed as well as the best, but taking disgust at some healths proposed, grew so outrageous that they broke all the windows, and forced themselves into the house ; but the guards being sent for, prevented further mischief. The Weekly Chronicle of February 1, 1735, states that the damage was estimated at ' some hun- dred pounds/ and that the guards were posted all night in the street, for the security of the neighbourhood."
In I/Abbe Le Blanc's Letters we find this account of the affair : — " Some young men of quality chose to abandon themselves to the debauchery of drinking healths on the 30th of January, a day appointed by the Church of England for a general fast, to expiate the murder of Charles I., whom they honour as a martyr. As soon as they were heated with wine, they began to sing. This gave great offence to the people, who stopped before the tavern, and gave them abusive language. One of these rash young men put his head out of the window and drank to the memory of the army which dethroned this King, and to the rebels which cut off his head upon a scaffold. The stones immediately flew from all parts, the furious populace broke the windows of the house, and would have set fire to it ; and these silly young men had a great deal of difficulty to save themselves."
Miss Banks tells us that "Lord Middlesex, Lord Boyne, and Mr. Seawallis Shirley, were certainly pre- sent ; probably, Lord John Sackville, Mr. Ponsonby, afterwards Lord Besborough, was not there. Lord Boyne's finger was broken by a stone which came in at the window. Lord Harcourt was supposed to be pre-
THE CALVES' HEAD CLUB, 29
sent." Horace Walpole adds : " The mob destroyed part of the house ; Sir William (called Hellfire) Stanhope was one of the members."
This riotous occurrence was the occasion of some verses in The Grub-street Journal, from which the fol- lowing lines may be quoted as throwing additional light on the scene : —
" Strange times ! when noble peers, secure from riot, Can't keep Noll's annual festival in quiet, Through sashes broke, dirt, stones, and brands thrown at e'm, Which, if not scand- was brand-alum magnatum. Forced to run down to vaults for safer quarters, And in coal-holes their ribbons hide and garters. They thought their feast in dismal fray thus ending, Themselves to shades of death and hell descending ; This might have been, had stout Clare Market mobsters, With cleavers arm'd, outmarch'd St. James's lobsters ; Numskulls they'd split, to furnish other revels, And make a Calves'-head Feast for worms and devils."
The manner in which Noll's (Oliver Cromwell's) "annual festival" is here alluded to, seems to show that the bonfire, with the calf's-head and other accompani- ments, had been exhibited in previous years. In con- firmation of this fact, there exists a print entitled The True Effigies of the Members of the Calves1 -Head Club, held on the 30th of January, 1734, in Suffolk Street, in the County of Middlesex ; being the year before the riotous occurrence above related. This print shows a bonfire in the centre of the foreground, with the mob ; in the background, a house with three windows, the central window exhibiting two men, one of whom is about to throw the calfVhead into the bonfire below. The window on the right shows three persons drinking
30 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
healths ; that on the left;, two other persons, one of whom wears a mask, and has an axe in his hand.
There are two other prints, one engraved by the father of Vandergncht, from a drawing by Hogarth.
After the tablecloth was removed (says the au- thor), an anniversary anthem was sung, and a calf's- skull filled with wine or other liquor, and out of which the company drank to the pious memory of those worthy patriots who had killed the tyrant ; and lastly, a collec- tion was made for the writer of the anthem, to which every man contributed according to his zeal or his means. The concluding lines of the anthem for the year 1697 are as follow : —
" Advance the emblem of the action,
Fill the calf's skull full of wine ; Drinking ne'er was counted faction,
Men and gods adore the vine. To the heroes gone before us,
Let's renew the flowing howl ; While the lustre of their glories
Shines like stars from pole to pole."
The laureate of the Club and of this doggrel was Benjamin Bridgwater, who, alluding to the observance of the 30th of January by zealous Royalists, wrote : —
" They and we, this day observing, Differ only in one thing ; They are canting, whining, starving ; We, rejoicing, drink, and sing."
Among Swift's poems will be remembered " Roland's Invitation to Dismal to dine with the Calf's-Head Club" :—
" While an alluding hymn some artist sings, We toast ' Confusion to the race of kings.' "
THE CALVES HEAD CLUB. 31
Wilson, in his Life of De Foe, doubts the truthful- ness of Ward's narrative, but adds : " In the frighted mind of a high-flying churchman, which was continually haunted by such scenes, the caricature would easily pass for a likeness." " It is probable," adds the honest bio- grapher of De Foe, " that the persons thus collected to- gether to commemorate the triumph of their principles, although in a manner dictated by bad taste, and out- rageous to humanity, would have confined themselves to the ordinary methods of eating and drinking, if it had not been for the ridiculous farce so generally acted by the Royalists upon the same day. The trash that is- sued from the pulpit in this reign, upon the 30th of January, was such as to excite the worst passions in the hearers. Nothing can exceed the grosness of lan- guage employed upon these occasions. Forgetful even of common decorum, the speakers ransacked the voca- bulary of the vulgar for terms of vituperation, and hurled their anathemas with wrath and fury against the objects of their hatred. The terms rebel and fanatic were so often upon their lips, that they became the re- proach of honest men, who preferred the scandal to the slavery they attempted to establish. Those who could profane the pulpit with so much rancour in the support of senseless theories, and deal it out to the people for religion, had little reason to complain of a few absurd men who mixed politics and calves' heads at a tavern ; and still less, to brand a whole religious community with their actions."
The strange story was believed till our own time, when it was fully disproved by two letters written a few days after the riotous occurrence, by Mr. A. Smyth, to Mr. Spence, and printed in the Appendix to his Artec-
32 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
dotes, 2nd edit. 1858: in one it is stated, "The affair has been grossly misrepresented all over the town, and in most of the public papers : there was no calf 's-head exposed at the window, and afterwards thrown into the fire, no napkins dipt in claret to represent blood, nor nothing that could give any colour to any such reports. The meeting (at least with regard to our friends) was entirely accidental," etc. The second letter alike con- tradicts the whole story ; and both attribute much of the disturbance to the unpopularity of the Administra- tion ; their health being unluckily proposed, raised a few faint claps but a general hiss, and then the disturb- ance began. A letter from Lord Middlesex to S pence, gives a still fuller account of the affair. By the style of the letter one may judge what sort of heads the mem- bers had, and what was reckoned the polite way of speak- ing to a waiter in those days : —
"Whitehall, Feb. ye 9th, 1735.
" Dear Spanco, — I don't in the least doubt but long before this time the noise of the riot on the 30th of January has reached you at Oxford ; and though there has been as many lies and false reports raised upon the occasion in this good city as any reasonable man could expect, yet I fancy even those may be improved or in- creased before they come to you. Now, that you may be able to defend your friends (as I don't in the least doubt you have an inclination to do), I'll send you the matter of fact literally and truly as it happened, upon my honour. Eight of us happened to meet together the 30th of January, it might have been the 10th of June, or any other day in the year, but the mixture of the company has convinced most reasonable people by this
THE CALVES HEAD CLUB. 33
time that it was not a designed or premeditated affair. We met, then, as I told you before, by chance upon this day, and after dinner, having drunk very plentifully, especially some of the company, some of us going to the window unluckily saw a little nasty fire made by some boys in the street, of straw I think it was, and imme- diately cried out, ' D — n it, why should not we have a fire as well as anybody else V Up comes the drawer, ' D — n you, you rascal, get us a bonfire/ Upon which the imprudent puppy runs down, and without making any difficulty (which he might have done by a thousand excuses, and which if he had, in all probability, some of us would have come more to our senses), sends for the faggots, and in an instant behold a large fire blazing before the door. Upon which some of us, wiser, or rather soberer than the rest, bethinking themselves then, for the first time, what day it was, and fearing the con- sequences a bonfire on that day might have, proposed drinking loyal and popular healths to the mob (out of the window), which by this time was very great, in order to convince them we did not intend it as a ridicule upon that day. The healths that were drank out of the window were these, and these only : The King, Queen, and Royal Family, the Protestant Succession, Liberty and Property, the present Administration. Upon which the first stone was flung, and then began our siege : which, for the time it lasted, was at least as furious as that of Philipsbourg ; it was more than an hour before we got any assistance ; the more sober part of us, doing this, had a fine time of it, fighting to prevent fighting ; in danger of being knocked on the head by the stones that came in at the windows ; in danger of being run through by our mad friends, who, sword in hand, swore
VOL. I. D
34 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
they would go out, though they first made their way through us. At length the justice, attended by a strong body of guards, came and dispersed the populace. The person who first stirred up the mob is known ; he first gave them money, and then harangued them in a most violent manner; I don't know if he did not fling the first stone himself. He is an Irishman and a priest, and belonging to Imberti, the Venetian Envoy. This is the whole story from which so many calves' heads, bloody napkins, and the Lord knows what, has been made ; it has been the talk of the town and the country, and small beer and bread and cheese to my friends the garretteers in Grub-street, for these few days past. I, as well as your friends, hope to see you soon in town. After so much prose, I can't help ending with a few verses : —
" O had I lived in merry Charles's days, When dull the wise were called, and wit had praise ; When deepest politics could never pass For aught, but surer tokens of an ass ; When not the frolicks of one drunken night Could touch your honour, make your fame less bright ; Tho' mob-form'd scandal rag'd, and Papal spight."
" Middlesex."
To sum up, the whole affair was a hoax, kept alive by the pretended " Secret History." An accidental riot, following a debauch on one 30th of January, has been distributed between two successive years, owing to a misapprehension of the mode of reckoning time preva- lent in the early part of the last century ; and there is no more reason for believing in the existence of a Calves' Head Club in ] 734-5 than there is for believing it exists in 1864.
35
THE KING'S HEAD CLUB.
Another Club of this period was the " Club of Kings," or "the King Club/' all the members of which were called " King." Charles himself was an honorary mem- ber.
A more important Club was "the King's Head Club/' instituted for affording the Court and Govern- ment support, and to influence Protestant zeal : it was designed by the unscrupulous Shaftesbury : the mem- bers were a sort of Decembrists of their day ; but they failed in their aim, and ultimately expired under the ridicule of being designated " Hogs in armour." " The gentlemen of that worthy Society," says Roger North, in his Examen, " held their evening sessions continually at the King's Head Tavern, over against the Inner Temple Gate. But upon the occasion of the signal of a green ribbon, agreed to be worn in their hats in the days of street engagements, like the coats-of-arms of valiant knights of old, whereby all warriors of the Society might be distinguished, and not mistake friends for enemies, they were called also the Green Ribbon Club. Their seat was in a sort of Carfour at Chancery-lane end, a centre of business and company most proper for such anglers of fools. The house was double balconied in the front, as may be yet seen, for the clubsters to issue forth in fresco with hats and no peruques ; pipes in their mouths, merry faces, and diluted throats, for vocal encouragement of the canaglia below, at bonfires, on usual and unusual occasions. They admitted all strangers
d 2
36 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
that were confidingly introduced ; for it was a main end of their Institution to make proselytes, especially of the raw estated youth, newly come to town. This copious Society were to the faction in and about London a sort of executive power, and, by correspondence, all over England. The resolves of the more retired councils of the ministry of the Faction were brought in here, and orally insinuated to the company, whether it were lyes, defamations, commendations, projects, etc., and so, like water diffused, spread all over the town ; whereby that which was digested at the Club over night, was, like nourishment, at evpry assembly, male and female, the next day : — and thus the younglings tasted of political administration, and took themselves for notable counsel- lors."
North regarded the Green Ribbon Club as the focus of disaffection and sedition, but his mere opinions are not to be depended on. Walpole calls him "the volu- minous squabbler in behalf of the most unjustifiable ex- cesses of Charles the Second's Administration." Never- theless, his relation of facts is very curious, and there is no reason to discredit his account of those popular " routs," to use his own phrase, to which he was an eye- witness.
The conversation and ordinary discourse of the Club', he informs us, " was chiefly upon the subject of Braveur, in defending the cause of Liberty and Property ; what every true Protestant and Englishman ought to venture to do, rather than be overpowered with Popery and Slavery." They were provided with silk armour for defence, " against the time that Protestants were to be massacred," and, in order "to be assailants upon fair occasion," they had recommended to them, " a certain
THE KING'S HEAD CLUB. 37
pocket weapon which, for its design and efficacy, had the honour to be called a Protestant Flail. The handles resembled a farrier's blood-stick, and the fall was joined to the end by a strong nervous ligature, that, in its swing, fell just short of the hand, and was made of Lignum Vitce, or rather, as the Poets termed it, Mortis" This engine was " for street and crowd-work, and lurk- ing perdue in a coat-pocket, might readily sally out to execution ; and so, by clearing a great Hall or Piazza, or so, carry an Election by choice of Polling, called knocking down I" The armour of the hogs is further described as " silken back, breast, and potts, that were pretended to be pistol-proof, in which any man dressed up was as safe as in a house, for it was impossible any one would go to strike him for laughing, so ridiculous was the figure, as they say, of hogs in armour."
In describing the Pope-burning procession of the 17th of November, 1680, Roger North says, that il the Rab- ble first changed their title, and were called the Mob in the assemblies of this Club. It was their Beast of Bur- then, and called first, mobile vulgus, but fell naturally into the contraction of one svllable, and ever since is be- come proper English.'' #
We shall not describe these Processions : the grand object was the burning of figures, prepared for the occa- sion, and brought by the Mob in procession, from the further end of London with "staffiers and link -boys, sounding/' and "coming up near to the Club-Quality in the balconies, against which was provided a huge bon- fire ; " " and then, after numerous platoons and volleys of squibs discharged, these Bamboches were, with re- doubled noise, committed to the flames." These out- rageous celebrations were suppressed in 1683.
38 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
STREET CLUBS.
During the first quarter of the last century, there were formed in the metropolis " Street Clubs/' of the inhabi- tants of the same street ; so that a man had but to stir a few houses from his own door to enjoy his Club and the societjr of his neighbours. There was another induce- ment : the streets were then so unsafe, that " the nearer home a man's club lay, the better for his clothes and his purse. Even riders in coaches were not safe from mounted footpads, and from the danger of upsets in the huge ruts and pits which intersected the streets. The passenger who could not afford a coach had to pick his way, after dark, along the dimly-lighted, ill-paved thoroughfares, seamed by filthy open kennels, besprinkled from pro- jecting spouts, bordered by gaping cellars, guarded by feeble old watchmen, and beset with daring street-rob- bers. But there were worse terrors of the night than the chances of a splashing or a sprain, — risks beyond those of an interrogatory by the watch, or of a ' stand and deliver' from a footpad." These were the lawless rake-hells who, banded into clubs, spread terror and dis- may through the streets. Sir John Fielding, in his cautionary book, published in 1776, described the dan- gerous attacks of intemperate rakes in hot blood, who, occasionally and by way of bravado, scour the streets, to show their manhood, not their humanity ; put the watch to flight ; and now and then murdered some harmless, in- offensive person. Thus, although there are in London no ruffians and bravos, as in some parts of Spain and Italy*
THE MOHOCKS. 39
who will kill for hire, yet there is no resisting anywhere the wild sallies of youth, and the extravagances that flow from debauchery and wine." One of our poets has given a necessary caution, especially to strangers, in the fol- lowing lines : —
" Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, And sign your will before you sup from home ; Some fiery fop with new commission vain, Who sleeps on brambles 'till he kills his man ; Some frolic drunkard, reeling from a feast, Provokes a broil, and stabs you in a jest. Yet, ev'n these heroes, mischievously gay, Lords of the street, and terrors of the way ; Flush'd as they are with folly, youth, and wine, Their prudent insults to the poor confine ; Afar they mark the flambeau's bright approach, And shun the shining train and gilded coach."
THE MOHOCKS.
This nocturnal fraternity met in the days of Queen Anne : but it had been for many previous years the favour- ite amusement of dissolute young men to form themselves into Clubs and Associations for committing all sorts of excesses in the public streets, and alike attacking orderly pedestrians, and even defenceless women. These Clubs took various slang designations. At the Restoration they were "Mums" and " Tityre-tus." ; They were suc- ceeded by the " Hectors w and " Scourers," when, says Shadwell, " a man could not go from the Rose Tavern to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice." Then came the " Nickers," whose delight it was to
40 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
smash windows with showers of halfpence; next were the " Hawkabites ;" and lastly, the " Mohocks." These last are described in the Spectator, No. 324, as a set of men who have borrowed their name from a sort of can- nibals, in India, who subsist by plundering and devour- ing all the nations about them. The president is styled u Emperor of the Mohocks ;" and his ar,ms are a Turkish crescent, which his imperial majesty bears at present in a very extraordinary manner engraven upon his forehead ; in imitation of which the Members prided themselves in tattooing ; or slashing people's faces with, as Gay wrote, "new invented wounds." Their avowed design was mischief, and upon this foundation all their rules and orders were framed. They took care to drink themselves to a pitch beyond reason or humanity, and then made a general sally, and attack all who were in the streets. Some were knocked down, others stabbed, and others cut and carbonadoed. To put the watch to a total rout, and mortify some of those inoffensive militia, was reckoned a coup oV eclat. They had special barbarities, which they executed upon their prisoners. " Tipping the lion " was squeezing the nose flat to the face, and boring out the eyes with their fingers. " Dancing-masters " were those who taught their scholars to cut capers by running swords through their legs. The " Tumblers " set women on their heads. The " Sweaters " worked in parties of half- a-dozen, surrounding their victims with the points of their swords. The Sweater upon whom the patient turned his back, pricked him in "that part whereon school- boys are punished;" and, as he veered round from the smart, each Sweater repeated this pinking operation; " after this jig had gone two or three times round, and the patient was thought to have sweat sufficiently, he
THE MOHOCKS. 41
was very handsomely rubbed down by some attendants, who carried with them instruments for that purpose, when they discharged him. An adventure of this kind is narrated in No. 332 of the Spectator : it is there termed a bagnio, for the orthography of which the writer consults the sign-posts of the bagnio in Newgate-street and that in Chancery-lane.
Another savage diversion of the Mohocks was their thrusting women into barrels, and rolling them down Snow or Ludgate Hill, as thus sung by Gay, in his Trivia : —
" Now is the time that rakes their revels keep ; Kindlers of riot, enemies of sleep. His scattered pence the flying Nicker flings, And with the copper shower the casement rings. Who has not heard the Scourer's midnight fame ? Who has not trembled at the Mohock's name ? Was there a watchman took his hourly rounds Safe from their blows, or new-invented wounds ? I pass their desperate deeds and mischiefs, done Where from Snow -hill black steepy torrents run; How matrons, hooped within the hogshead's womb, Were tumbled furious thence ; the rolling tomb O'er the stones thunders, bounds from side to side : So Regulus, to save his country, died."
Swift was inclined to doubt these savageries, yet went in some apprehension of them. He writes, just at the date of the above Spectator : " Here is the devil and all to do with these Mohocks. Grub-street papers about them fly like lightning, and a list printed of near eighty put into several prisons, and all a lie, and I begin to think there is no truth, or very little, in the whole story. He that abused Davenant was a drunken gentleman ; none of that gang. My man tells me that one of the
42 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
lodgers heard in a coffee-house, publicly, that one design of the Mohocks was upon me, if they could catch me ; and though I believe nothing of it, I forbear walking late; and they have put me to the charge of some shillings already." — Journal to Stella, 1712.
Swift mentions, among the outrages of the Mohocks, that two of them caught a maid of old Lady Winchilsea's at the door of her house in the Park with a candle, and had just lighted out somebody. They cut all her face, and beat her without any provocation.
At length, the villanies of the Mohocks were at- tempted to be put down by a Royal proclamation, issued on the 18th of March, 1712 : this, however, had very little effect, for we soon find Swift exclaiming: "They go on still, and cut people's faces every night ! but they sha'n't cut mine ; I like it better as it is."
Within a week after the Proclamation, it was pro- posed that Sir Roger de Coverley should go to the play, where he had not been for twenty years. The Spectator, No. 335, says : " My friend asked me if there would not be some danger in coming home late, in case the Mohocks should be abroad. fI assure you/ says he, f I thought I had fallen into their hands last night ; for I observed two or three lusty black men that followed me half-way up Fleet- street,, and mended their pace be- hind me, in proportion as I put on to get away from them." However, Sir Roger threw them out, at the end of Norfolk Street, where he doubled the corner, and got shelter in his lodgings before they could imagine what was become of him. It was finally arranged that Captain Sentry should make one of the party for the play, and that Sir Roger's coach should be got ready, the fore wheels being newly mended. " The Captain,"
THE MOHOCKS. 43
says the Spectator, " who did not fail to meet me at the appointed hour, bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that he had put on the same sword which he made use of at the battle of Steenkirk. Sir Roger's servants, and among the rest, my old friend the butler, had, I found, pro- vided themselves with good oaken plants, to attend their master upon this occasion. When he placed him in his coach, with myself at his left hand, the Captain before him, and his butler at the head of his footmen in the rear, we convoyed him in safety to the playhouse." The play was Ambrose Phillips's new tragedy of The Distressed Mother : at its close, Sir Roger went out fully satisfied with his entertainment; and, says the Spectator, " we guarded him to his lodging in the same manner that we guarded him to the playhouse."
The subject is resumed with much humour, by Bud- gell, in the Spectator, No. 347, where the doubts as to the actual existence of Mohocks are examined. " They will have it," says the Spectator, "that the Mohocks are like those spectres and apparitions which frighten several towns and villages in Her Majesty's dominions, though they were never seen by any of the inhabitants. Others are apt to think that these Mohocks are a kind of bull-beggars, first invented by prudent married men and masters of families, in order to deter their wives and daughters from taking the air at unseasonable hours; and that when they tell them f the Mohocks will catch them/ it is a caution of the same nature with that of our forefathers, when they bid their children have a care of Raw-head and Bloody-bones." Then we have, from a Correspondent of the Spectator, " the manifesto of Taw Waw Eben Zan Kaladar, Emperor of the Mohocks," vindicating his imperial dignity from the false aspersions
44 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
cast on it, signifying the imperial abhorrence and detes- tation of such tumultuous and irregular proceedings; and notifying that all wounds, hurts, damage, or detri- ment, received in limb or limbs, otherwise than shall be hereafter specified, shall be committed to the care of the Emperor's surgeon, and cured at his own expense, in some one or other of those hospitals which he is erect- ing for that purpose.
Among other things it is decreed " that they never tip the lion upon man, woman, or child, till the clock at St. Dunstan's shall have struck one;" "that the sweat be never given till between the hours of one and two;" " that the sweaters do establish their hummums in such close places, alleys, nooks and corners, that the patient or patients may not be in danger of catching cold;" "that the tumblers, to whose care we chiefly commit the female sex, confine themselves to Drury-lane and the purlieus of the Temple," etc. " Given from our Court at the Devil Tavern," etc.
The Mohocks held together until nearly the end of the reign of George the First.
BLASPHEMOUS CLUBS.
The successors of the Mohocks added blasphemy to riot. Smollett attributes the profaneness and profligacy of the period to the demoralization produced by the South Sea Bubble ; and Clubs were formed specially for the indulgence of debauchery and profaneness. Promi- nent among these was " the Hell-fire Club," of which the Duke of Wharton was a leading spirit : —
MUG-HOUSE CLUBS. 45
" Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days, Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise. Born with whate'er could win it from the wise, Women and fools must like him, or he dies. Though wondering senates hung on all he spoke, The club must hail him master of the joke." — Pope.
So high did the tide of profaneness run at this time, that a Bill was brought into the House of Lords for its suppression. It was in a debate on this Bill that the Earl of Peterborough declared, that though he was for a Parliamentary King, he was against a Parliamentary religion ; and that the Duke of Wharton pulled an old family Bible out of his pocket, in order to controvert certain arguments delivered from the episcopal bench.
MUG-HOUSE CLUBS.
Among the political Clubs of the metropolis in the early part of the eighteenth century, one of the most popular was the Mug-house Club, which met in a great Hall in Long Acre every Wednesday and Saturday, during the winter. The house received its name from the simple circumstance, that each member drank his ale (the only liquor used) out of a separate mug. The Club is described as a mixture of gentlemen, lawyers, and statesmen, who met seldom under a hundred. In A Journey through England, 1 722, we read of this Club :
" But the most diverting and amusing of all is the Mug-house Club in Long Acre.
" They have a grave old Gentleman, in his own gray Hairs, now within a few months of Ninety years old, who
46 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
is their President, and sits in an arm'd chair some steps higher than the rest of the company to keep the whole Room in order. A Harp plays all the time at the lower end of the Room ; and every now and then one or other of the Company rises and entertains the rest with a song, and (by the by) some are good Masters. Here is no- thing drunk but Ale, and every Gentleman hath his separate Mug, which he chalks on the Table where he sits as it is brought in ; and every one retires when he pleases, as from a Coffee-house.
" The Room is always so diverted with Songs, and drinking from one Table to another to one another's Healths, that there is no room for Politicks, or anything that can sow'r conversation.
" One must be there by seven to get Room, and after ten the Company are for the most part gone.
" This is a Winter's Amusement, that is agreeable enough to a Stranger for once or twice, and he is well diverted with the different Humours, when the Mugs overflow."
Although in the early days of this Club there was no room for politics, or anything that could sour conversa- tion, the Mug-house subsequently became a rallying-place for the most virulent political antagonism, arising out of the change of dynasty, a weighty matter to debate over mugs of ale. The death of Anne brought on the Ha- nover succession. The Tories had then so much the better of the other party, that they gained the mob on all public occasions to their side. It then became necessary for King George's friends to do something to counteract this tendency. Accordingly, they esta- blished Mug-houses, like that of Long Acre, through- out the metropolis, for well-affected tradesmen to meet
MUG-HOUSE CLUBS. 47
and keep up the spirit of loyalty to the Protestant suc- cession. First, they had one in St. John's-lane, chiefly under the patronage of Mr. Blenman, member of the Middle Temple, who took for his motto, " Pro rege et lege/' Then arose the Roebuck Mug-house, in Cheap- side, the haunt of a fraternity of young men, who had been organized for political action before the end of the late reign.
According to a pamphlet on the subject, dated in 1717, "the next Mug-houses opened in the City were at Mrs. Read's, in Salisbury -court, in Fleet-street, and at the Harp in Tower-street, and another at the Roebuck in Whitechapel. About the same time several other Mug- houses were erected in the suburbs, for the reception and entertainment of the like loyal Societies : viz. one at the Ship, in Tavistock-street, Covent Garden, which is mostly frequented by royal officers of the army, another at the Black Horse, in Queen-street near Lincoln's Inn Fields, set up and carried on by gentlemen, servants to that noble patron of loyalty, to whom this vindication of it is inscribed [the Duke of Newcastle] ; a third was set up at the Nag's Head, in James-street, Covent Garden ; a fourth at the Fleece, in Burleigh-street, near Exeter Change; a fifth at the Hand and Tench, near the Seven Dials ; several in Spittlefields, by the French re- fugees ; one in Southwark Park ; and another in the Artillery-ground." Another noted Mug-house was the Magpie, without Newgate, which house still exists as the Magpie and Stump, in the Old Bailey. At all these houses it was customary in the forenoon to exhibit the whole of the mugs belonging to the establishment, in a row in front of the house.
The frequenters of these several Mug-houses formed
48 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
themselves into " Mug-house Clubs," known severally by some distinctive name, and each club had its Presi- dent to rule its meetings and keep order. The President was treated with great ceremony and respect : he was conducted to his chair every evening at about seven o'clock, by members carrying candles before and behind him, and accompanied with music. Having taken a seat, he appointed a Vice-president, and drank the health of the company assembled, a compliment which the company returned. The evening was then passed in drinking successively loyal and other healths, and in singing songs. Soon after ten they broke up, the Presi- dent naming his successor for the next evening ; and before he left the chair, a collection was made for the musicians.
We shall now see how these Clubs took so active a part in the violent political struggles of the time. The Jacobites had laboured with much zeal to secure the alliance of the street mob, and they had used it with great effect, in connexion with Dr. Sacheverell, in over- turning Queen Anne's Whig Government, and paving the way for the return of the exiled family. Disap- pointment at the accession of George I. rendered the party of the Pretender more unscrupulous ; the mob was excited to greater excesses, and the streets of the metro- polis were occupied by an infuriated rabble, and pre- sented a nightly scene of riot. It was under these circumstances that the Mug-house Clubs volunteered, in a very disorderly manner, to be champions of order; and with this purpose it became part of their evening's entertainment to march into the street, and fight the Jacobite mob. This practice commenced in the autumn of 1715, when the Club called the Loyal Society, which
MUG-HOUSE CLUBS. 40
met at the Roebuck in Cheapside, distinguished itself by its hostility to Jacobitism. On one occasion this Club burned the Pretender in effigy. Their first conflict with the mob, recorded in the newspapers, occurred on the 31st of January, 1715, the birthday of the Prince of Wales, which was celebrated by illuminations and bon- fires. There were a few Jacobite alehouses, chiefly on Holborn Hill, in SacheverelFs period ; and on Ludgate- hill : the frequenters of the latter stirred up the mob to raise a riot there, put out the bonfire, and break the windows which were illuminated. The Loyal Society men, receiving intelligence of what was going on, hurried to the spot, and thrashed and defeated the rioters.
On the 4th of November in the same year, the birthday of King William III., the Jacobite mob made a large bonfire in the Old Jewry, to burn an effigy of the King; but the Mug-house men came upon them again, gave them " due chastisement with oaken plants," extinguished their bonfire, and carried King William in triumph to the Roebuck. Next day was the comme- moration of Gunpowder Treason, and the loyal mob had its pageant. A long procession was formed, having in front a figure of the infant Pretender, accompanied by two men bearing each a warming-pan, in allusion to the story about his birth ; and followed by effigies in gross caricature of the Pope, the Pretender, the Duke of Ormond, Lord Bolingbroke, and the Earl of Marr, with halters round their necks; and all of them were to be burned in a large bonfire made in Cheapside. The pro- cession, starting from the Roebuck, went through New- gate-street, and up Holborn-hill, where they compelled the bells of St. Andrew's church, of which Sacheverell was rector, to ring ; thence through Lincoln's Inn Fields
VOL. I. E
50 CLUB LIFE OF LOXDOX.
and Covent Garden to the gate of St. James's Palace ; returning by way of Pall Mall and the Strand, and through St. Paul's Churchyard. They had met with no interruption on their way, but on their return to Cheap- side, they found that, during their absence, that quarter had been invaded by the Jacobite mob, who had carried away all the fuel which had been collected for the bonfire. On November 17, in the same year, the Loyal Society met at the Roebuck to celebrate the anniversary of the Accession of Queen Elizabeth ; and, while busy with their mugs, they received information that the Jacobites were assembled, in great force, in St. MartinVle- Grand, and were preparing to burn the effigies of King William and King George, along with the Duke of Marlborough. They were so near, in fact, that their party-shouts of High Church, Ormond, and King James, must have been audible at the Roebuck, which stood opposite Bow Church. The Jacobites were starting on their proces- sion, when they were overtaken in Newgate Street, by the Mug-house men from the Roebuck, and a desperate encounter took place, in which the Jacobites were de- feated, and many of them were seriously injured. Meanwhile the Roebuck itself had been the scene of a much more serious tumult. During the absence of the great mass of the members of the Club, another body of Jacobites, much more numerous than those en- gaged in Newgate Street, suddenly assembled, attacked the Roebuck Mug-house, broke its windows, and those of the adjoining houses, and with terrible threats, at- tempted to force the door. One of the few members of the Loyal Society who remained at home, discharged a gun upon those of the assailants who were attacking the door, and killed one of their leaders. This and the
MUG-HOUSE CLUBS. 5J
approach of the Lord Mayor and city officers, caused the mob to disperse ; but the Roebuck was exposed to attacks during several following nights, after which the mobs remained tolerably quiet during the winter.
Early in 1716, however, these riots were renewed with greater violence, and preparations were made for an active campaign. The Mug-houses were re-fitted, and re-opened with ceremonious entertainments. New songs were composed to stir up the Clubs ; and collec- tions of these Mug-house songs were printed. The Jacobite mob was heard beating with its well-known call, marrow-bones and cleavers, and both sides were well equipped with staves of oak, their usual arms for the fray, though other weapons and missiles were in common use. One of the Mug-house songs thus de- scribes the way in which these street fights were con- ducted : —
" Since the Tories could not fight, And their master took his flight,
They labour to keep up their faction ; With a bough and a stick, And a stone and a brick,
They equip their roaring crew for action.
" Thus in battle array, At the close of the day,
After wisely debating their plot, Upon windows and stall They courageously fall,
And boast a great victory they've got.
" But, alas ! silly boys ! For all the mighty noise
Of their ' High Church and Ormond for ever !' A brave Whig, with one hand, At George's command,
Can make their mightiest hero to quiver."
E 2
52 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
On March 8, another great Whig anniversary, the day of the death of William TIT., commenced the more serious Mug-house riots of 1716. A large Jacobite mob assembled to their own watch-cry, and marched along Cheapside, to attack the Roebuck ; but they were soon driven back by a small party of the Royal Society, who then marched in procession through Newgate Street, to the Magpie and Stump, and then by the Old Bailey to Ludgate Hill. When about to return, they found the Jacobite mob had collected in great force in their rear ; and a fierce engagement took place in Newgate Street, when the Jacobites were again worsted. Then, on the evening of the 23rd of April, the anniversary of the birth of Queen Anne, there were great battles in Cheapside, and at the end of Giltspur Street; and in the immediate neighbourhood of the Roebuck and the Magpie. Other great tumults took place on the 29th of May, Restoration Day; and on the 10th of June, the Pretender's birthday. From this time the Roebuck is rarely mentioned.
The Whigs, who met in the Mug-house, kept by Mr. Read, in Salisbury Court , Fleet Street, appear to have been peculiarly noisy in their cups, and thus ren- dered themselves the more obnoxious to the mob. On one occasion, July 20, their violent party-toasts, which they drank in the parlour with open windows, collected a large crowd of persons, who became at last so in- censed by some tipsy Whigs inside, that they com- menced a furious attack upon the house, and threatened to pull it down and make a bonfire of its materials in the middle of Fleet Street. The Whigs immediately closed their windows and barricaded the doors, having sent a messenger by a back door, to the Mug-house — in
MUG-HOUSE CLUBS. 53
Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, begging that the per- sons there assembled would come to the rescue. The call was immediately responded to; the Mug-house men proceeded in a body down the Strand and Fleet Street, armed with staves and bludgeons, and com- menced an attack on the mob, who still threatened the demolition of the house in Salisbury Court. The in- mates sallied out, armed with pokers and tongs, and whatever they could lay their hands upon, and being joined by their friends from Covent Garden, the mob was put to flight, and the Mug-house men remained masters of the field.
The popular indignation was very great at this de- feat ; and for two days crowds collected in the neigh - bourhood, and vowed they would have revenge. But the knowledge that a squadron of horse was drawn up at Whitehall, ready to ride into the City on the first alarm, kept order. On the third day, however, the people found a leader in the person of one Vaughan, formerly a Bridewell boy, who instigated the mob to take revenge for their late defeat. Thev followed him with shouts of " High Church and Ormond ! down with the Mug-house !" and Read, the landlord, dreading that they would either burn or pull down his house, pre- pared to defend himself. He threw up a window, and pre- sented a loaded blunderbuss, and vowed he would dis- charge its contents in the body of the first man who advanced against his house. This threat exasperated the mob, who ran against the door with furious yells. Read was as good as his word, — he fired, and the unfor- tunate man Vaughan fell dead upon the spot. The people, now frantic, swore to hang up the landlord from his own sign-post. They forced the door, pulled down the
54 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
sign, and entered the house, where Read would assur- edly have been sacrificed to their fury, if they had found him. He, however, had with great risk escaped by a back-door. Disappointed at this, the mob broke the furniture to pieces, destroyed everything that lay in their way, and left only the bare walls of the house. They now threatened to burn the whole street, and were about to set fire to Head's house, when the Sheriffs, with a posse of constables, arrived. The Riot Act was read, but disregarded ; and the Sheriffs sent to White- hall for a detachment of the military. A squadron of horse soon arrived, and cleared the streets, taking five of the most active rioters into custody.
Read, the landlord, was captured on the following day, and tried for the wilful murder of Vaughan ; he was, however, acquitted of the capital charge, and found guilty of manslaughter only. The five rioters were also brought to trial, and met with a harder fate. They were all found guilty of riot and rebellion, and sen- tenced to death at Tyburn.
This example damped the courage of the rioters, and alarmed all parties; so that we hear no more of the Mug-house riots, until a few months later, a pamphlet appeared with the title, Down with the Mug ; or Rea- sons for suppressing the Mug-houses, by an author who
only gave the initials Sir H M , but who seems
to have so much of what was thought to be a Jacobite spirit, that it provoked a reply, entitled the Mug Vindi- cated.
The account of 1722 states that many an encounter they had, and many were the riots, till at last the Govern- ment was obliged by an Act of Parliament to put an end to this strife, which had this good effect, that upon
THE KIT-KAT CLUB. 55
pulling down of the Mug-house in Salisbury Court, for which some boys were hanged on this Act, the city has not been troubled with them since.
There is some doubt as to the first use of the term " Mug-house." In a scarce Collection of One Hundred and Eighty Loyal Songs, ail written since 1678, Fourth Edition, 1694, is a song in praise of the " Mug," which shows that Mug-houses had that name previous to the Mug-house riots. It has also been stated that the beer- mugs were originally fashioned into a grotesque resemblance of Lord Shaftesbury's face, or " ugly mug," as it was called, and that this is the derivation of the word.
THE KIT-KAT CLUB.
This famous Club was a threefold celebrity — political, literary, and artistic. It was the great Society of Whig leaders, formed about the year 1700, temp. William III., consisting of thirty- nine noblemen and gentlemen zealously attached to the House of Hanover ; among whom the Dukes of Somerset, Richmond, Grafton, Devonshire, and Marlborough, and (after the accession of George I.) the Duke of Newcastle; the Earls of Dorset, Sunderland, Manchester, Wharton, and King- ston ; Lords Halifax and Somers ; Sir Robert Walpole, Vanbrugh, Congreve, Granville, Addison, Garth, Mayn- waring, Stepney, and Walsh. They are said to have first met at an obscure house in Shire-lane, by Temple Bar, at the house of a noted mutton-pieman, one Christopher Katt ; from whom the Club, and the pies that formed a
5G CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
standing dish at the Club suppers, both took their name of Kit-Kat. In the Spectator, No. 9, however, they are said to have derived their title not from the maker of the pie, but from the pie itself, which was called a Kit-Kat, as we now say a Sandwich ; thus, in a prologue to a comedy of 1 700 :
" A Kit-Kat is a supper for a lord ; "
but Dr. King, in his Art of Cookery, is for the pieman :
" Immortal made, as Kit-Kat by bis pies."
The origin and early history of the Kit-Kat Club is obscure. Elkanah Settle addressed, in 1699, a manu- script poem " To the most renowned the President and the rest of the Knights of the most noble Order of the Toast," in which verses is asserted the dignity of the Society ; and M alone supposes the Order of the Toast to have been identical with the Kit-Kat Club : this was in 1699. The toasting-glasses, which we shall presently mention, may have something to do with this presumed identity.
Ned Ward, in his Secret History of Clubs, at once connects the Kit-Kat Club with Jacob Tonson, " an amphibious mortal, chief merchant to the Muses." Yet this is evidently a caricature. The maker of the mutton- pies, Ward maintains to be a person named Christopher, who lived at the sign of the Cat and Fiddle, in Gray's Inn-lane, whence he removed to keep a pudding-pye shop, near the Fountain Tavern, in the Strand. Wrard commends his mutton-pies, cheese-cakes, and custards, and the pieman's interest in the sons of Parnassus ; and his inviting " a new set of Authors to a collation of oven trumpery at his friend's house, where they were nobly entertained with as curious a batch of pastry delicacies as
THE KIT-KAT CLUB. 57
ever were seen at the winding-up of a Lord Mayor's feast;" adding that "there was not a mathematical figure in all Euclid's Elements but what was presented to the table in baked wares, whose cavities were filled with fine eatable varieties fit for the gods or poets." Mr. Charles Knight, in the Shilling Magazine, No. 2, maintains that by the above is meant, that Jacob Tonson, the bookseller, was the pieman's " friend," and that to the customary "whet" to his authors he added the pastry entertainment. Ward adds, that this grew into a weekly meeting, provided his, the bookseller's friends would give him the refusal of their juvenile productions. This " generous proposal was very readily agreed to by the whole poetic class, and the cook's name being Christopher, for brevity called Kit, and his sign being the Cat and Fiddle, they very merrily derived a quaint denomination from puss and her master, and from thence called themselves of the Kit-Cat Club."
A writer in the Book of Days, however, states, that Christopher Cat, the pastry-cook, of King- street, West- minster, was the keeper of the tavern, where the Club met; but Shire-lane was, upon more direct authority, the pieman's abode.
We agree with the National Review, that " it is hard to believe, as we pick our way along the narrow and filthy pathway of Shire- lane, that in this blind alley [?], some hundred and fifty years ago, used to meet many of the finest gentlemen and choicest wits of the days of Queen Anne and the first George. Inside one of those frowsy and low-ceiled rooms, now tenanted by abandoned women or devoted to the sale of greengroceries and small coal, — Halifax has conversed and Soraers unbent, Addison mellowed over a bottle, Congreve flashed his wit, Van- brugh let loose his easy humour, Garth talked and rhymed."
58 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
The Club was literary and gallant as well as political. The members subscribed 400 guineas for the encourage- ment of good comedies in 1709. The Club had its toast- ing-glasses, inscribed with a verse, or toast, to some reigning beauty; among whom were the four shining daughters of the Duke of Marlborough — Lady Godol- phin, Lady Sunderland, Lady Bridge water, and Lady Monthermer; Swift's friends, Mrs. Long and Mrs. Bar- ton, the latter the lovely and witty niece of Sir Isaac Newton ; the Duchess of Bolton, Mrs. Brudenell, and Lady Carlisle, Mrs. Di. Kirk, and Lady Wharton.
Dr. Arbutlmot, in the following epigram, seems to derive the name of the Club from this custom of toasting ladies after dinner, rather than from the renowned maker of mutton-pies : —
" Whence deathless Kit-Kat took his name,
Few critics can unriddle : Some say from pastrycook it came,
And some from Cat and Fiddle. From no trim beaus its name it boasts,
Grey statesmen or green wits, But from this pell-mell pack of toasts
Of old Cats and young Kits."
Lord Halifax wrote for the toasting-glasses the follow- ing verses in 1703 : —
The Duchess of St. Albans.
The line of Vere, so long renown'd in arms, Concludes with lustre in St. Albans' charms. Her conquering eyes have made their race complete : They rose in valour, and in beauty set.
The Duchess of Beaufort. Offspring of a tuneful sire, Blest with more than mortal fire ;
THE KIT-KAT CLUB. 59
Likeness of a Mother's face, Blest with more than mortal grace : You with double charms surprise, With his wit, and with her eyes.
The Lady Mary Churchill.
Fairest and latest of the beauteous race,
Blest with your parent's wit, and her first blooming face ;
Born with our liberties in William's reign,
Your eyes alone that liberty restrain.
The Lady Sunderland.
All Nature's charms in Sunderland appear, Bright as her eyes, and as her reason clear ; Yet still their force to man not safely known, Seems undiscover'd to herself alone.
The Mademoiselle Sjoanheim.
Admir'd in Germany, ador'd in France, Your charms to brighten glory here advance : The stubborn Britons own your beauty's claim, And with their native toasts enrol your name.
To Mrs. Barton.
Beauty and wit strove, each in vain, To vanquish Bacchus and his train ; But Barton with successful charms, From both their quivers drew her arms. The roving God his sway resigns, And awfully submits his vines.
In Spence's Anecdotes (note) is the following addi- tional account of the Club : " You have heard of the. Kit- Kat Club," says Pope to Spence. "The master of the house where the club met was Christopher Katt ; Tonson was secretary. The day Lord Mohun and the Earl of Berkeley were entered of it, Jacob said he saw they were
CO CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
just going to be ruined. When Lord Mohun broke down the gilded emblem on the top of his chair, Jacob complained to his friends, and said a man who would do that, would cut a man's throat. So that he had the good and the forms of the society much at heart. The paper was all in Lord Halifax's handwriting of a subscription of four hundred guineas for the encouragement of good comedies, and was dated 1709, soon after they broke up. Steele, Addison, Congreve, Garth, Vanbrugh, Manwa- ring, Stepney, Walpole, and Pulteney, were of it ; so was Lord Dorset and the present Duke. Manwaring, whom we hear nothing of now, was the ruling man in all con- versations ; indeed, what he wrote had very little merit in it. Lord Stanhope and the Earl of Essex were also members. Jacob has his own, and all their pictures, by Sir Godfrey Kneller. Each member gave his, and he is going to build a room for them at Barn Elms."
It is from the size at which these portraits were taken (a three-quarter length), 36 by 28 inches, that the word Kit-Kat came to be applied to pictures. Tonson had the room built at Barn Elms ; but the apartment not being sufficiently large to receive half-length pictures, a shorter canvas was adopted. In 1817, the Club-room was standing, but the pictures had long been removed ; soon after, the room was united to a barn, to form a riding-house.
In summer the Club met at the Upper Flask, Hamp- stead Heath, then a gay resort, with its races, ruffles, and private marriages.
The pictures passed to Richard Tonson, the descendant of the old bookseller, who resided at Water-Oakley, on the banks of the Thames : he added a room to his villa, and here the portraits were hung. On his death the pictures
THE KIT-KAT CLUB. 61
were bequeathed to Mr. Baker, of Bayfordbury, the re- presentative of the Tonson family : all of them were in- cluded in the Art Treasures Exhibition at Manchester and some in the International Exhibition of 1862.
The political significance of the Club was such that Walpole records that though the Club was generally mentioned as " a set of wits/' they were in reality the patriots that saved Britain. According to Pope and Tonson, Garth, Vanbrugh, and Congreve were the three most honest-hearted, real good men of the poetical members of the Club. •
There were odd scenes and incidents occasionally at the club meetings. Sir Samuel Garth, physician to George I., was a witty member, and wrote some of the inscriptions for the toasting-glasses. Coming one night to the club, Garth declared he must soon be gone, hav- ing many patients to attend ; but some good wine being produced, he forgot them. Sir Richard Steele was of the party, and reminding him of the visits he had to pay, Garth immediately pulled out his list, which num- bered fifteen, and said, " It's no great matter whether I see them to-night, or not, for nine of them have such bad constitutions that all the physicians in the world can't save them ; and the other six have such good constitu- tions that all the physicians in the world can't kill them."
Dr. Hoadley, Bishop of Bangor, accompanied Steele and Addison to one of the Whig celebrations by the Club of King William's anniversary; when Steele had the double duty of celebrating the day and drinking his friend Addison up to conversation pitch, he being hardly warmed by that time. Steele was not fit for it. So, John Sly, the hatter of facetious memory, being in the
62 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
house, took it into his head to come into the company on his knees, with a tankard of ale in his hand, to drink off to the immortal memory, and to return in the same manner. Steele, sitting next Bishop Hoadley, whispered him, u Do laugh : it is humanity to laugh." By-and-by, Steele being too much in the same condition as the hat- ter, was put into a chair, and sent home. Nothing would satisfy him but being carried to the Bishop of Bangor's, late as it was. However, the chairmen carried him home, and got him upstairs, when his great com- plaisance would wait on them downstairs, which he did, and then was got quietly to bed. Next morning Steele sent the indulgent bishop this couplet :
" Virtue with so much ease on Bangor sits, All faults he pardons, though he none commits."
Mr. Knight successfully defends Tonson from Ward's satire, and nobly stands forth for the bookseller who identified himself with Milton, by first making Paradise Lost popular, and being the first bookseller who threw open Shakespeare to a reading public. " The statesmen of the Kit-Kat Club," he adds, " lived in social union with the Whig writers who were devoted to the charge of the poetry that opened their road to preferment ; the band of orators and wits were naturally hateful to the Tory authors that Harley and Bolingbroke were nursing into the bitter satirists of the weekly sheets. Jacob Tonson naturally came in for a due share of invective. In a poem entitled l Factions Displayed/ he is ironically in- troduced as " the Touchstone of all modern wit;" and he is made to vilify the great ones of Barn Elms :
" ' I am the founder of your loved Kit-Kat, A club that gave direction to the State :
THE TATLER S CLUB. 63
'Twas there we first instructed all our youth
To talk profane, and laugh at sacred truth :
We taught them how to boast, and rhyme, and bite,
To sleep away the day, and drink away the night.' '
Tonson deserved better of posterity.
THE TATLER'S CLUB
IN SHIRE-LANE.
Shire-lane, alias Rogue-lane, (which fallethinto Fleet- street by Temple Bar,) has lost its old name — it is now called Lower SerleVplace. If the morals of Shire-lane have mended thereby, we must not repine. >
Here lived Sir Charles Sedley ; and here his son, the dramatic poet, was born, " neere the Globe." Here, too, lived Elias Ashmole, and here Antony a Wood dined with him : this was at the upper end of the lane= Here, too, was the Trumpet tavern, where Isaac Bickerstaff met his Club. At this house he dated a great number of his papers ; and hence he led down the lane, into Fleet- street, the deputation of " Twaddlers " from the country, to Dick's Coffee-house, which we never enter without remembering the glorious humour of Addison and Steele, in the Tatler, No. 86. Sir Harry Quickset, Sir Giles Wheelbarrow, and other persons of quality, having reached the Tatler's by appointment, and it being settled that they should " adjourn to some public-house, and enter upon business," the precedence was attended with much difficulty ; when, upon a false alarm of " fire," all
Gt CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
ran down as fast as they could, without order or cere- mony, and drew up in the street.
The Tatler proceeds : "In this order we marched down Sheer-lane, at the upper end of which I lodge. When we came to Temple Bar, Sir Harry and Sir Giles got over, but a run of coaches kept the rest of us on this side of the street ; however, we all at last landed, and drew up in very good order before Ben Tooke's shop, who favoured our rallying with great humanity ; from whence we proceeded again, until we came to Dick's Coffee-house, where I designed to carry them. Here we were at our old diffi- culty, and took up the street upon the same ceremony. We proceeded through the entry, and were so neces- sarily kept in order by the situation, that we were now got into the coffee-house itself, where, as soon as we had arrived, we repeated our civilities to each other; after which we marched up to the high table, which has an ascent to it enclosed in the middle of the room. The whole house was alarmed at this entry, made up of per- sons of so much state and rusticity."
The Tatter's Club is immortalized in his No. 132. Its members are smokers and old story-tellers, rather easy than shining companions, promoting the thoughts tranquilly bedward, and not the less comfortable to Mr. Bickerstaff because he finds himself the leading wit among them. There is old Sir Jeffrey Notch, who has had misfortunes in the world, and calls every thriving man a pitiful upstart, by no means to the general dis- satisfaction ; there is Major Matchlock, who served in the last Civil Wars, and every night tells them of his having been knocked off his horse at the rising of the London apprentices, for which he is in great esteem ; there is honest Dick Reptile, who says little himself, but
THE ROYAL SOCIETY CLUB. 65
who laughs at all the jokes ; and there is the elderly bencher of the Temple, and, next to Mr. BickerstafF, the wit of the company, who has by heart the couplets of Hudibras, which he regularly applies before leaving the Club of an evening ; and who, if any modern wit or town frolic be mentioned, shakes his head at the dulness of the present age, and tells a story of Jack Ogle. As for Mr. BickerstafF himself, he is esteemed among them because they see he is something respected by others ; but though they concede to him a great deal of learn- ing, they credit him with small knowledge of the world, " insomuch that the Major sometimes, in the height of his military pride, calls me philosopher ; and Sir Jeffrey, no longer ago than last night, upon a dispute what day of the month it was then in Holland, pulled his pipe out of his mouth, and cried, ' What does the scholar say to that?'"
Upon Addison's return to England, he found his friend Steele established among the wits ; and they were both received with great honour at the Trumpet, as well as at Will's, and the St. James's.
The Trumpet public-house lasted to our time ; it was changed to the Duke of York sign, but has long disap- peared : we remember an old drawing of the Trumpet, by Sam. Ireland, engraved in the Monthly Magazine.
THE ROYAL SOCIETY CLUB.
In Sir R. Kaye's Collection, in the British Museum, we find the following account of the institution of a
VOL. I. 7
CO CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
Society, which at one time numbered among its mem- bers some of the most eminent men in London, in a communication to the Rev. Sir R. Kaye by Sir Joseph AylofFe, an original member : — " Dr. Halley used to come on a Tuesday from Greenwich, the Royal Obser- vatory, to Child's Coffeehouse, where literary people met for conversation : and he dined with his sister, but sometimes they stayed so long that he was too late for dinner, and they likewise, at their own home. They then agree to go to a house in Dean's-court, between an alehouse and a tavern, now a stationer's shop, where there was a great draft of porter, but not drank in the house. It was kept by one Reynell. It was agreed that one of the company should go to Knight's and buy fish in Newgate-street, having first informed himself how many meant to stay and dine. The ordinary and liquor usually came to half-a-crown, and the dinner only consisted of fish and pudding. Dr. Halley never eat anything but fish, for he had no teeth. The number seldom exceeded five or six. It began to take place about 1731 ; soon afterwards Reynell took the King's Arms, in St. Paul's Churchvard, and desired Dr. Hallev to go with him there. He and others consented, and they began to have a little meat. On Dr. Halley's death, Martin Foulkes took the chair. They afterwards removed to the Mitre (Fleet-street) , for the convenience of the situation with respect to the Royal Society, and as it was near Crane-court, and numbers wished to be- come members. It was necessary to give it a form. The number was fixed at forty members ; one of whom was to be Treasurer and Secretary of the Royal Society." Out of these meetings is said to have grown the Royal Society Club, or, as it was styled during the first
THE EOYAL SOCIETY CLUB. 07
half century of its existence, the Club of Royal Philoso- phers. " It was established for the convenience of cer- tain members who lived in various parts, that they might assemble and dine together on the days when the Society held its evening meetings; and from its almost free admission of members of the Council detained by business, its liberality to visitors, and its hospitable re- ception of scientific foreigners, it has been of obvious utility to the scientific body at large." (Rise and Pro- gress of the Club, privately printed.)
The foundation of the Club is stated to have been in the year 1743, and in the Minutes of this date are the following : —
" Rules and Orders to be observed by the Thursday's Club, called the Royal Philosophers. — A Dinner to be ordered every Thursday for six, at one shilling and six- pence a head for eating. As many more as come to pay one shilling and sixpence per head each. If fewer than six come, the deficiency to be paid out of the fund sub- scribed. Each Subscriber to pay down six shillings, viz. for four dinners, to make a fund. A pint of wine to be paid for by every one that comes, be the number what it will, and no more, unless more wine is brought in than that amounts to."
In addition to Sir U. Kaye's testimony to the exist- ence of a club of an earlier date than 1743, there are in the Minutes certain references to " antient Members of the Club j" and a tradition of the ill omen of thirteen per- sons dining at the table said to be on record in the Club papers : " that one of the Royal Philosophers enter- ing the Mitre Tavern, and finding twelve others about to discuss the fare, retreated, and dined by himself in another apartment, in order to avert the prognostic/'
f 2
68 CLUB LIFE OF LOXDOX.
Still, no such statement is now to be found entered, and if ever it were recorded, it must have been anterior to 1 743 j curiously enough, thirteen is a very usual number at these dinners.
The original Members were soon increased by various Fellows of the Society j and at first the club did not consist exclusively of Royals; but this arrangement, not having been found to work well, the membership was confined to the Fellows, and latterly to the number of forty. Every Member was allowed to introduce one friend ; but the President of the Royal Society was not limited in this respect.
We must now say a few words as to the several places at which the Club has dined. The Society had their Anniversary Dinner at Pontack's celebrated French eating-house, in Abchurch-lane, City, until 1746. Evelyn notes : " 30 Nov. 1694. Much importuned to take the office of President of the Royal Society, but I again de- clined it. Sir Robert Southwell was continued. We all dined at Pontac's, as usual." Here, in 1699, Dr. Bentley wrote to Evelyn, asking him to meet Sir Chris- topher Wren, Sir Robert Southwell, and other friends, at dinner, to consider the propriety of purchasing Bishop Stillingfleet's library for the Royal Society.
From Pontack's, which was found to be inconveni- ently situated for the majority of the Fellows, the So- ciety removed to the Devil Tavern, near Temple Bar.
The Minutes record that the Club met at the Mitre Tavern, in Fleet- street, " over against Fetter-lane," from the date of their institution ; this house being chosen from its being handy to Crane-court, where the Society then met. This, be it remembered, was not the Mitre Tavern now standing in Mitre-court, but " the Mitre
THE ROYAL SOCIETY CLUB. 69
Tavern, in Fleet-street," mentioned by Lilly, in his Life, as the place where he met old Will. Poole, the astrologer, then living in Ram -alley. The Mitre, in Fleet-street, Mr. J. H. Burn, in his excellent Account of the Beau- foy Tokens, states to have been originally established by a William Paget, of the Mitre in Cheapside, who removed westward after his house had been destroyed in the Great Fire of September, 1666. The house in Fleet- street was lastly Saunders's Auction-room, No. 39, and was demolished by Messrs. Hoare, to enlarge the site for their new banking-house, the western portion of which now occupies the tavern site. The now Mitre Tavern, in Mitre court, formerly Joe's, is but a recent assumption of name.*
In 1780, the Club removed to the Crown and Anchor Tavern, in the Strand, where they continued to dine for sixty-eight years, until that tavern was converted, in 1848, into a Club-house. Then they removed to the Freemasons' Tavern, in Great Queen Street ; but, in 1857, on the removal of the Royal Society to Burling- ton House, Piccadilly, it was considered advisable to keep the Club meetings at the Thatched House, in St. James's Street, where they continued until that tavern was taken down.
During the early times, the docketings of the Club accounts show that the brotherhood retained the title of Royal Philosophers to the year 1786, when it seems they were only designated the Royals ; but they have now settled into the " Royal Society Club." The elec- tions are always an exciting matter of interest, and the fate of candidates is occasionally severe, for there are va-
* See Walks and Talks about London, p. 246. The Mitre in Fleet-street was also the house frequented by Dr. Johnson.
70 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
rious instances of rejections on two successive annual ballots, and some have been black-balled even on a third venture : some of the defeated might be esteemed for talent, yet were considered unclubbable.
Some of the entries in the earliest minute-book are very curious, and show that the Philosophers did not restrict themselves to " the fish and pudding dinner." Here is the bill of fare for sixteen persons, a few years after the Club was established : " Turkey, boiled, and oysters; Calves' head, hashed; Chine of Mutton; Apple pye; 2 dishes of herrings; Tongue and udder; Leg of pork and pease ; Srloin of beef; Plum pudding ; butter and cheese." Black puddings are stated to have figured for many years at every dinner of the Club.
The presents made to the Club were very numerous, and called for special regulations. Thus, under the date of May 3, 1750, it is recorded : " Resolved, nem. con., That any nobleman or gentleman complimenting this company annually with venison, not less than a haunch, shall, during the continuance of such annuity, be deemed an Honorary Member, and admitted as often as he comes, without paying the fine, which those Members do who are elected by ballot." At another Meeting, in the same year, a resolution was passed, " That any gentleman complimenting this Society annually with a Turtle shall be considered as an Honorary Member;" and that the Treasurer do pay Keeper's fees and carriage for all venison sent to the Society, and charge it in his account. Thus, besides gratuities to cooks, there are numerous chronicled entries of the following te- nour : — " Keeper's fees and carriage of a buck from the Hon. P. Yorke, 14s. ; Fees, etc., for Venison and Salmon, £1. 15s; Do., half a Buck from the Earl of
THE ROYAL SOCIETY CLUB, 71
Hard wick, £1. 5s. ; Fees and carriage for a Buck from H. Read, Esq., £\. 3s. 6d. ; Fees for Venison and Game from Mr. Banks, £1. 9s. 6d. ; . . . August 15, 1751. The Society being this day entertained with halfe a Bucke by the Most Honble the Marquis of Rockingham, it was agreed, nem. con., to drink his health in claret. Sept. 5th, 1751. — The Company being entertained with a whole Bucke (halfe of which was dressed to-day) by Henry Read, Esq., his health was drunk in claret, as usual ; and Mr. Cole (the landlord) was desired to dis- pose of the halfe, and give the Company Venisons instead of it next Thursday." The following week the largess is again gravely noticed : " The Company being this day regaled with the other halfe of Mr. Read's buck (which Mr. Cole had preserved sweet), his health was again drank in claret."
Turtle has already been mentioned among the pre- sents. In 1784, the circumnavigator Lord Anson ho- noured the Club by presenting the members with a magnificent Turtle, when the Club drank his Lordship's and other turtle donors' healths in claret. On one oc- casion, it is stated that the usual dining-room could not be occupied on account of a turtle being dressed which weighed 400 lb. ; and another minute records that a turtle, intended to be presented to the Club, died on its way home from the West Indies.
James Watt has left the following record of one of the Philosophers' turtle feasts, at which he was present : — " When I was in London in 1785, 1 was received very kindly by Mr. Cavendish and Dr. Blagden, and my old friend Smeaton, who has recovered his health, and seems hearty. I dined at a turtle feast with them, and the se- lect Club of the Royal Society; and never was turtle
72 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
eaten with greater sobriety and temperance, or more good fellowship."
The gift of good old English roast-beef also occurs among the presents, as in the subjoined minute, under the date of June 27, 1751, when Martin Folkes presided : " William Hanbury, Esq., having this day entertained the company with a chine of Beef which was 34 inches in length, and weighed upwards of 140 pounds, it was agreed, nem. con., that two such chines were equal to half a Bucke or a Turtle, and entitled the Donor to be an Honorary Member of this Society."
Then we have another record of Mr. H anbury's mu- nificence, as well his conscientious regard for minute- ness in these matters, as in this entry : " Mr. Han- bury sent this day another mighty chine of beef, and, having been a little deficient with regard to annual pay- ments of chines of beef, added three brace of very large carp by way of interest." Shortly after, we find Lord Morton contributing u two pigs of the China breed."
In addition to the venison, game, and other viands, there was no end of presents of fruits for dessert. In 1752, Mr. Cole (the landlord) presented the company with a ripe water-melon from Malaga. In 1753, there is an entry showing that some tusks, a rare and savoury fish, were sent by the Earl of Morton ; and Egyptian Cos-lettuces were supplied by Philip Miller, who, in his Gardener's Dictionary, describes this as the best and most valuable lettuce known ; next he presented " four Cantaloupe melons, equal — if not superior — in flavour to pine-apples." In July, 1763, it is chronicled that Lord Morton sent two pine-apples, cherries of two sorts, melons, gooseberries of two sorts, apricots, and currants of two sorts.
THE ROYAL SOCIETY CLUB. 73
However, this practice of making presents got to be unpopular with the Fellows at large, who conceived it to be undignified to receive such gifts; and, in 1779, it was " resolved that no person in future be admitted into the Club in consequence of any present he shall make to it." This singular custom had been in force for thirty years. The latest formal thanks for " a very fine haunch of venison" were voted to Lord Darnlev on the 17th of June, 1824.
The Club Minutes show the progressive rise in the charges for dinner. From 1743 to 1756 the cost was Is. 6d. a head. In the latter year it was resolved to give 3s. per head for dinner and wine, the commons for ab- sentees to remain at Is. 6d., as before. In 1775, the price was increased to 4s. a head, including wine, and 2d. to the waiter; in 1801, to 5s. a head, exclusive of wine, the increased duties upon which made it necessary for the members to contribute an annual sum for the expense of wine, over and above the charge of the tavern bills.
In 1775, the wine was ordered to be laid in at a price not exceeding .£45 a pipe, or Is. 6d. a bottle ; to have a particular seal upon the cork, and to be charged by the landlord at 2s. 6d. a bottle. The Club always dined on the Society's meeting-day. Wray, writing of a Club- meeting in 1776, says that, "after a capital dinner of venison, which was absolutely perfect, we went to an- other sumptuous entertainment, at the Society, where five electrical eels, all alive, from Surinam, were exhi- bited ; most of the company received the electrical stroke ; and then we were treated with the sight of a sucking alligator, very lively."
It has been more than once remarked that a public
74 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
dinner of a large party of philosophers and men of science and letters generally turns out to be rather a dull affair; perhaps, through the embarras of talent at table. Not so, however, the private social Clubs, the offshoots of Public Societies, like the Royal Society Club, and others we could mention. The Royals do not appear to have been at all indifferent to these post- prandial wit-combats. " Here, my jokes I crack with high-born Peers/' writes a Philosopher, alluding to the Club dinners; and Admiral Smyth, in his unpublished Rise and Progress, tells us, that to this day "it unites hilarity, and the macrones verborum of smart repartee, with strictures on science, literature, the fine arts — and, indeed, every branch of human knowledge."
The administration of the affairs of the Club was mi- nutely attended to: when, in 1776, it was considered necessary to revise "the commons/' a committee was appointed for the purpose, consisting of Messrs. Aubert, Cuthburt, Maskelyne, Russell, and Solander, who de- cided that " should the number of the company exceed the number provided for, the dinner should be made up with the beefstakes, mutton-chops, lamb-chops, veal- cutlets, or pork-stakes, instead of made dishes, or any dearer provisions." And " that twopence per head be allowed for the waiter (which seems to have been the regu- lar gratuity for many years). Then, the General Com- mittee had to report that the landlord was to charge for gentlemen's servants, " one shilling each for dinner and a pot of porter ;" and " that when toasted cheese was called for, he was to make a charge for it."
In 1784, the celebrated geologist, Faujas de Saint- Fond (Barthelemy,) with four other distinguished fo- reigners, partook of the hospitality of the Club, of
THE ROYAL SOCIETY CLUB. 75
which, in 1797, M. Faajas published an account. " He mentions the short prayer or grace with which Dr. Maskelyne blessed the company and the food — the solid meats and unseasoned vegetables — the quantities of strong beer called porter, drank out of cylindrical pewter pots d'un seul trait — the cheese to provoke the thirst of drinkers — the hob-a-nobbing of healths — and the detestable coffee. On the whole, however, this honest Frenchman seems to have been delighted with the en- tertainment, or, as he styles it, f the convivial and un- assuming banquet/" and M. Faujas had to pay l seven livres four sols ' for his commons. Among the lighter incidents is the record of M. Aubert having received a present from the King of Poland, begged to have an opportunity of drinking His Majesty's health, and per- mission to order a bottle of Hermitage, which being granted, the health was drank by the company present ; and upon one of the Club-slips of 1798, after a dinner of twenty-two, is written, "• Seven shillings found under the table."
The dinner-charges appear to have gradually pro- gressed from Is. 6d. to 10s. per head. In 1858-9 the Club-dinners had been 25, and the number of dinners 309, so that the mean was equal to 12*36 for each meeting, the visitors amounting to 49 ; and it is further computed, that the average wine per head of late, waste included, is a considerable fraction less than a pint, im- perial standard measure, in the year' s consumption.
Among the distinguished guests of the Club are many celebrities. Here the chivalrous Sir Sidney Smith de- scribed the atrocities of Djezza Pasha; and here that cheerful baronet — Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin — by relating the result of his going in a jolly-boat to attack a whale,
76 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
and in narrating the advantages specified in his proposed patent for fattening fowls, kept " the table in a roar." At this board, also, our famous circumnavigators and orien- tal voyagers met with countenance and fellowship — as Cook, Furneaux, Clerke, King, Bounty Bligh, Vancou- ver, Guardian Riou, Flinders, Broughton, Lestock, Wil- son, Huddart, Bass, Tuckey, Horsburgh, &c; while the Polar explorers, from the Hon. Constantine Phipps in 1773, down to Sir Leopold M'Clintock, in 1860, were severally and individually welcomed as guests. But, besides our sterling sea-worthies, we find in ranging through the documents that some rather outlandish visi- tors were introduced through their means, as Chet Quang and Wanga Tong, Chinese; Ejutak and Tuklivina, Esquimaux ; Thayen-danega, the Mohawk chief; while Omai, of Ularetea, the celebrated and popular savage, of Cook's Voyages, was so frequently invited, that he is latterly entered on the Club papers simply as Mr. Omai."
The redoubtable Sir John Hill dined at the Club in company with Lord Baltimore on the 30th of June, 1748. Hill was consecutively an apothecary, actor, playwright, novelist, botanist, journalist, and physician ; and he published upon trees and flowers, Betty Canning, gems, naval history, religion, cookery, and what not. Having made an attempt to enter the Royal Society, and finding the door closed against him, — perhaps a pert vivacity at the very dinner in question sealed the rejection, — he revenged himself by publishing an mpudent quarto volume, vindictively satirizing the Society.
Ned Ward, in his humorous Account of the Clubs of London, published in 1709, describes " the Virtuoso's Club as first established by some of the principal mem-
THE EOYAL SOCIETY CLUB. 77
bers of the Royal Society, and held every Thursday, at a certain Tavern in Cornhill, where the Vintner that kept it has, according to his merit, made a fortunate step from his Bar to his Coach. The chief design of the aforementioned Club was to propagate new whims, ad- vance mechanical exercises, and to promote useless as well as useful experiments." There is humour in this, as well as in his ridicule of the Barometer : " by this no- table invention," he says, " our gentlemen and ladies of the middle quality are infallibly told when it's a right season to put on their best clothes, and when they ought not to venture an intrigue in the fields without their cloaks and umbrellas." His ridicule of turning salt water into fresh, finding a new star, assigning reasons for a spot in the moon, and a " wry step " in the sun's pro- gress, were Ward's points, laughed at in his time, but afterwards established as facts. There have been greater mistakes made since Ward's time; but this does not cleanse him of filth and foulness.
Ward's record is evidence of the existence of the Royal Society Club, in 1709, before the date of the Minutes. Dr. Hutton, too, records the designation of Halley's Club — undoubted testimony; about 1737, he, Halley, though seized with paralysis, once a week, within a very short time of his death, met his friends in town, on Thursdays, the day of the Royal Society's meeting, at "■ Dr. Halley's Club." Upon this evidence Admiral Smyth establishes the claim that the Royal Society Club was actually es- tablished by a zealous philosopher, "who was at once proudly eminent as an astronomer, a mathematician, a physiologist, a naturalist, a scholar, an antiquary, a poet, a meteorologist, a geographer, a navigator, a nautical surveyor, and a truly social member of the community —
7S CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
in a word, our founder was the illustrious H alley — the Admirable Crichton of science."
A memorable dirner-party took place on August the 11th, 1859, when among the visitors was Mr. Thomas Maclear (now Sir Thomas), the Astronomer-Royal at the Cape of Good Hope, who had just arrived in Eng- land from the southern hemisphere, after an absence of a quarter of a century. " On this day, were present, so to speak, the representatives of the three great applica- tions by which the present age is distinguished, namely, of Railways, Mr. Stephenson ; of the Electric Telegraph, Mr. Wheatstone ; and of the Penny Post, Mr. Rowland Hill — an assemblage never again to occur." [Admiral Smyth's History of the Club.)
Among the anecdotes which float about, it is related that the eccentric Hon. Henry Cavendish, "the Club- Crcesus, attended the meetings with only money enough in his pocket to pay for his dinner, and that he may have declined taking tavern-soup, may have picked his teeth with a fork, may invariably have hung his hat on the same peg, and may have always stuck his cane in his right boot ; but more apocryphal is the anecdote that one evening Cavendish observed a very pretty girl looking out from an upper window on the opposite side of the street, watching the philosophers at dinner. She attracted notice, and one by one they got up and mustered round the window to admire the fair one. Cavendish, who thought they were looking at the moon, bustled up to them in his odd way, and when he saw the real object of their study, turned away with intense disgust, and grunted out " Pshaw ;" the amorous conduct of his bro- ther Philosophers having horrified the woman-hating Cavendish.
THE EOYAL SOCIETY CLUB. 79
Another assertion is that he, Cavendish, left a thump- ing legacy to Lord Bessborough, in gratitude for his Lordship's piquant conversation at the Club; but no such reason can be found in the Will lodged at Doctors' Commons. The Testator named therein three of his Club-mates, namely, Alexander Dalrymple, to receive 5000/., Dr. Hunter 5000/., and Sir Charles Blagden (coadjutor in the Water question), 15,000/. After cer- tain other bequests, the will proceeds, — " The remainder of the funds (nearly 700,000/.) to be divided, one- sixth to the Earl of Bessborough, while the cousin, Lord George Henry Cavendish, had two-sixths, instead of one/' " it is therefore," says Admiral Smyth; "patent that the money thus passed over from uncle to nephew, was a mere consequence of relationship, and not at all owing to any flowers or powers of conversation at the Royal Society Club."
Admiral Smyth, to whose admirable precis of the History of the Club we have to make acknowledgment, remarks that the hospitality of the Royal Society has been " of material utility to the well-working of the whole machine which wisdom called up, at a time when knowledge was quitting scholastic niceties for the truths of experimental philosophy. This is proved by the num- ber of men of note — both in ability and station ■ — who have there congregated previously to repairing to the evening meeting of the body at large ; and many a qua- lified person who went thither a guest has returned a can- didate. Besides inviting our own princes, dukes, mar- quises, earls, ministers of state, and nobles of all grades to the table, numerous foreign grandees, prelates, am- bassadors, and persons of distinction — from the King of Poland and Baron Munchausen, down to the smart little
50 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
abbe and a i gentleman unknown ' — are found upon the Club records. Not that the amenities of the frater- nity were confined to these classes, or that, in the Club- bian sense, they form the most important order; for bishops, deans, archdeacons, and clergymen in general — astronomers — mathematicians — sailors — soldiers — en°i- neers — medical practitioners — poets — artists — travellers — musicians — opticians— men of repute in every acquire- ment, were, and ever will be, welcome guests. In a word, the names and callings of the visitors offer a type of the philosophical discordia concors ; and among those guests possessed of that knowledge without which genius is almost useless, we find in goodly array such choice names as Benjamin Franklin, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Gibbon, Costard, Bryant, Dalton, Watt, Bolton, Ten- nant, Wedgwood, Abyssinian Bruce, Attwood, Boswell, Brinkley, Rigaucl, Brydone, Ivory, Jenner, John Hunter, Brunei, Lysons, Wreston, Cramer, Kippis, Westmacott, Corbould, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Turner, De La Beche, et hoc genus omne."
The President of the Royal Society is elected Presi- dent of the Club. There were always more candidates for admission than vacancies, a circumstance which had some influence in leading to the formation of a new Club, in 1847, composed of eminent Fellows of the Society. The name of this new Association is "the Philosophical Club," and its object is " to promote, as much as possible, the scientific objects of the Royal Society, to facilitate in- tercourse between those Fellows who are actively en- gaged in cultivating the various branches of Natural Science, and who have contributed to its progress; to increase the attendance at the Evening Meetings, and to encourage the contribution and the discussion of papers/'
THE COCOA-TREE CLUB. 81
Nor are the dinners forgotten ; the price of each not to exceed ten shillings.
The statistical portion of the Annual Statement of 1860, shows that the number of dinners for the past year amounted to 25, at which the attendance was 312 persons, 62 of whom were visitors, the average being = 12*48 each time : and the Treasurer called attention to the fact that out of the Club funds in the last twelve- month, they had paid not less than £9. 6s. for soda and seltzer water; £8. 2s. 6d. for cards of invitation and postage; and £25 for visitors, that is, 8s. 0|^. per head.
THE COCOA-TREE CLUB.
This noted Club was the Tory Chocolate-house of Queen Anne's reign; the Whig Coffee-house was the St. James's, lower down, in the same street, St. James's. The party distinction is thus defined : — " A Whig will no more go to the Cocoa- tree or Ozinda's, than a Tory will be seen at the coffee-house of St. James's."
The Cocoa-tree Chocolate-house was converted into a Club, probably before 1746, when the house was the head- quarters of the Jacobite party in Parliament. It is thus referred to in the above year by Horace Wal- pole, in a letter to George Montagu: — "The Duke has given Brigadier Mordaunt the Pretender's coach, on condition he rode up to London in it. ' That I will, Sir,' said he ; ' and drive till it stops of its own accord at the Cocoa-tree.' "
Gibbon was a member of this Club, and has left this
VOL. I. g
S2 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
entry, in his journal of 1762: — "Nov. 24. I dined at the Cocoa Tree with * * *, who, under a great appear- ance of oddity, conceals more real humour, good sense, and even knowledge, than half those who laugh at him. We went thence to the play (The Spanish Friar) ; and when it was over, retired to the Cocoa-tree. That re- spectable body, of which I have the honour of being a member, affords every evening a sight truly English. Twenty or thirty, perhaps, of the first men in the king- dom in point of fashion and fortune supping at little tables covered with a napkin, in the middle of a coffee- room, upon a bit of cold meat, or a sandwich, and drink- ing a glass of punch. At present we are full of King's counsellors and lords of the bedchamber; who, having jumped into the ministry, make a very singular medley of their old principles and language with their modern ones." At this time, bribery was in full swing: it i3 alleged that the lowest bribe for a vote upon the Peace of Fontainebleau, was a bank-note of £200; and that the Secretary of the Treasury afterwards acknowledged £25,000 to have been thus expended in a single morn- ing. And in 1765, on the debate in the Commons on the Regency Bill, we read in the Chatham Corre- spondence : " The Cocoa-tree have thus capacitated Her Royal Highness (the Princess of Wales) to be Regent : it is well they have not given us a King, if they have not; for many think, Lord Bute is King."
Although the Cocoa-tree, in its conversion from a Chocolate-house to a Club, may have bettered its reputa- tion in some respects, high play, if not foul play, was known there twenty years later. Walpole, writing to Mann, Feb. 6, 1780, says: "Within this week there has been a cast at hazard at the Cocoa-tree, (in St.
ALMACKS CLUB. 83
James's Street,) the difference of which amounted to one hundred and fourscore thousand pounds. Mr. O'Birne, an Irish gamester, had won one hundred thou- sand pounds of a young Mr. Harvey of Chigwell, just started into an estate by his elder brother's death. O'Birne said, " You can never pay me." " I can/' said the youth : " my estate will sell for the debt." " No/' said O. ; " I will win ten thousand — you shall throw for the odd ninety." They did, and Harvey won.
The Cocoa-tree was one of the Clubs to which Lord Byron belonged.
ALMACK'S CLUB.
Almack's, the original Brookes's, on the south side of the Whig Club-house, was established in Pall Mall, on the site of the British Institution, in 1764, by twenty- seven noblemen and gentlemen, including the Duke of Roxburgh e, the Duke of Portland, the Earl of Strathmore, Mr. Crewe (afterwards Lord Crewe), and Mr. C. J. Fox.
Mr. Cunningham was permitted to inspect the origi- nal Rules of the Club, which show its nature : here are a few.
"21. No gaming in the eating-room, except tossing up for reckonings, on penalty of paying the whole bill of the members present.
"22. Dinner shall be served up exactly at half-past four o'clock, and the bill shall be brought in at seven.
" 26. Almack shall sell no wines in bottles that the Club approves of, out of the house.
6 2
84 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
' ' 30. Any member of this Society that shall become a candidate for any other Club, (old White's excepted,) shall be ipso facto excluded, and his name struck out of the book.
"40. That every person playing at the new guinea table do keep fifty guineas before him.
"41. That every person playing at the twenty guinea table do not keep less than twenty guineas before him."
That the play ran high may be inferred from a note against the name of Mr. Thynne, in the Club-books : "Mr. Thynne having won only 12,000 guineas during the last two months, retired in disgust, March 21st, 1772."
Some of its members were Maccaronis, the "curled darlings" of the day : they were so called from their affectation of foreign tastes and fashions, and were cele- brated for their long curls and eye-glasses. Much of the deep play was removed here. "The gaming at Almack's," writes Walpole to Mann, February 2, 1770, " which has taken the pas of White's, is worthy the de- cline of our empire, or commonwealth, which you please. The young men of the age lose ten, fifteen, twenty thousand pounds in an evening there. Lord Stavordale, not one-and-twenty, lost £11,000 there last Tuesday, but recovered it by one great hand at hazard. He swore a great oath, f Now, if 1 had been playing deep, I might have won millions.' His cousin, Charles Fox, shines equally there, and in the House of Commons. He was twenty-one yesterday se'nnight, and is already one of our best speakers. Yesterday he was made a Lord of the Admiralty." Gibbon, the historian, was also a member, and he dates several letters from here. On June 24, 1776, he writes : " Town grows empty, end
ALMACK'S. 85
this house, where I have passed many agreeable hours, is the only place which still invites the flower of the English youth. The style of living, though somewhat expensive, is exceedingly pleasant ; and, notwithstanding the rage of play, I have found more entertainment and rational society than in any other club to which I belong."
The play was certainly high — only for rouleaus of £50 each, and generally there was £ 10,000 in specie on the table. The gamesters began by pulling off their em- broidered clothes, and put on frieze greatcoats, or turned their coats inside outwards for luck. They put on pieces of leather (such as are worn by footmen when they clean the knives) to save their laced ruffles; and to guard their eyes from the light and to prevent tumbling their hair, wore high-crowned straw hats with broad brims, and adorned with flowers and ribbons ; masks to con- ceal their emotions when they played at quinz. Each gamester had a small neat stand by him, to hold his tea; or a wooden bowl with an edge of ormolu, to hold the rouleaus.
Almack's was subsequently Goosetree's. In the year 1780, Pitt was then an habitual frequenter, and here his personal adherents mustered strongly. The members, we are told in the Life of Wilberforce, were about twenty- five in number, and included Pratt (afterwards Lord Camden), Lords Euston, Chatham, Graham, Duncannon, Althorp, Apsley, G. Cavendish, and Lennox ; Messrs. Eliot, Sir Andrew St. John, Bridgeman (afterwards Lord Bradford), Morris Robinson (afterwards Lord Rokeby), R. Smith (afterwards Lord Carrington), W. Grenville (afterwards Lord Grenville), Pepper Arden (afterwards Lord Alvanley, Mr. Edwards, Mr. Marsham, Mr. Pitt,
SO CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Bankes, Mr. Thomas Steele, Ge- neral Smith, Mr. Windham.
In the gambling at Goosetree's, Pitt played with characteristic and intense eagerness. When Wilber- force came up to London in 1780, after his return to Parliament, his great success coloured his entry into public life, and he was at once elected a member of the leading clubs — Miles' s and Evans's, Brookes' s and Boodle's, White's and Goosetree's. The latter was Wil- berforce's usual resort, where his friendship with Pitt, whom he had slightly known at Cambridge, greatly in- creased: he once lost i^lOO at the faro-table, and on another night kept the bank, by which he won j£600 ; but he soon became weaned from play.
ALMACK'S ASSEMBLY.ROOMS.
In the year following the opening of Al mack's Club in Pall Mall, Almack had built for him by Robert Mylne, the suite of Assembly Ilooms, in King-street, St. James's, which was named after him, " Almaek's," and was occasionally called " Willis's Ilooms," after the next proprietor. Almack likewise kept the Thatched House Tavern, in St. James's-street,
Almaek's was opened Feb. 20, 1765, and was adver- tised to have been built with hot bricks and boiling water: the ceilings were dripping with wet; but the Duke of Cumberland, the Hero of Culloden, was there. Gilly Williams, a few days after the opening, in a letter to George Selwyn, writes : " There is now opened at
ALMACKS. 87
Aimack's, in three very elegant new-built rooms, a ten- . guinea subscription, for which you have a ball and supper once a week, for twelve weeks. You may imagine by the sum the company is chosen ; though, refined as it is, it will be scarce able to put out old Soho (Mrs. Cornelys) out of countenance. The men's tickets are not transferable, so, if the ladies do not like us, they have no opportunity of changing us, but must see the same persons for ever." ..." Our female Aimack's flourishes beyond description. Aimack's Scotch face, in a bag-wig, waiting at supper, would divert you, as would his lady, in a sack, making tea and curtseying to the duchesses."
Five years later, in 1770, Walpole writes to Montagu : " There is a new Institution that begins to make, and if it proceeds, will make a considerable noise. It is a Club of both sexes, to be erected at Aimack's, on the model of that of the men of White's. Mrs. Fitzroy, Lady Pembroke, Mrs. Meynell, Lady Molyneux, Miss Pelham, and Miss Lloyd, are the foundresses. I am ashamed to say I am of so young and fashionable so- ciety ; but as they are people I live with, I choose to be idle rather than morose. I can go to a young supper without forgetting how much sand is run out of the hour-glass."
Mrs. Boscawen tells Mrs. Delany of this Club of lords and ladies who first met at a tavern, but subse- quently, to satisfy Lady Pembroke's scruples, in a room at Aimack's. " The ladies nominate and choose the gentlemen and vice versa, so that no lady can exclude a lady, or gentleman a gentleman." Ladies Rochford, Harrington, and Holderness were black-balled, as was the Duchess of Bedford, who was subsequently admitted !
88 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
Lord March and Brook Boothby were black-balled by the ladies, to their great astonishment. There was a dinner, then supper at eleven, and, says Mrs. Boscawen, " play will be deep and constant, probably." The frenzy for play was then at its height. " Nothing within my memory comes up to it!" exclaims Mrs. Delany, who attributes it to the prevailing ' ' avarice and extravagance." Some men made profit out of it, like Mr. Thynne, " who has won this year so considerably that he has paid off all his debts, bought a house and furnished it, disposed of his horses, hounds, etc., and struck his name out of all expensive subscriptions. But what a horrid reflection it must be to an honest mind to build his fortune on the ruin of others 1"
Almack's large ball-room is about one hundred feet in length, by forty feet in width ; it is chastely decorated with gilt columns and pilasters, classic medallions, mirrors, etc., and is lit with gas, in cut-glass lustres. The largest number of persons ever present in this room at one ball was 1700.
The rooms are let for public meetings, dramatic read- ings, concerts, balls, and occasionally for dinners. Here Mrs. Billington, Mr. Braham, and Signor Naldi, gave concerts, from 1808 to 1810, in rivalry with Madame Catalani, at Hanover-square Rooms; and here Mr. Charles Kemble gave, in 1844, his Readings from Shakspeare.
The Balls at Almack's are managed by a Committee of Ladies of high rank, and the only mode of admission is by vouchers or personal introduction.
Almack's has declined of late years; " a clear proof that the palmy days of exclusiveness are gone by in England ; and though it is obviously impossible to pre-
BKOOKES'S CLUB. 89
vent any given number of persons from congregating and re-establishing an oligarchy, we are quite sure that the attempt would be ineffectual, and that the sense of their importance would extend little bej^ond the set.""* In 1831 was published Almack's, a novel, in which the the leaders of fashion were sketched with much free- dom, and identified in A Key to Almack's, by Benjamin Disraeli.
BROOKES'S CLUB.
We have just narrated the establishment of this Club — how it was originally a gaming club, and was farmed at first by Almack. It was subsequently taken by Brookes, a wine-merchant and money-lender, according to Selwyn ; and who is described by Tickell, in a copy of verses addressed to Sheridan, when Charles James Fox was to give a supper at his own lodgings, then near the Club :—
" Derby shall send, if not his plate, his cooks, And know, I Ve brought the best champagne from Brookes, From liberal Brookes, whose speculative skill Is hasty credit, and a distant bill ; Who, nursed in clubs, disdains a vulgar trade, Exults to trust, and blushes to be paid."
From Pall Mall Brookes's Club removed to No. 60, on the west side of St. James's-street, where a handsome house was built at Brookes' s expense, from the designs of Henry Holland, the architect ; it was opened in October,
* Quarterly Review, 1840.
90 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
1778. The concern did not prosper; for James Hare writes to George Selwyn, May 18, 1779, (( we are all beggars at Brookes's, and he threatens to leave the house, as it yields him no profit." Mr. Cunningham tells us that Brookes retired from the Club soon after it was built, and died poor about the year 1782.
Lord Crewe, one of the founders of the Club in Pall Mall, died in 1829, after sixty-five years' membership of Brookes's. Among its celebrities were Burke and Sir Joshua .Reynolds, Garrick and Hume, Horace Walpole, Gibbon, and Sheridan and Wilberforce. Lord March, afterwards Duke of Queensberry, was one of its noto- rieties— "the old Q., whom many now living can re- member, with his fixed eye and cadaverous face, watch- ing the flow of the human tide past his bow-window in Pall Mall." — National Review, 1857. [This is hardly correct as to locality, since the Club left Pall Mall in 1778, and a reminiscent must be more than 80 years of age.] Among Selwyn's correspondents are Gilly Williams, Hare, Fitzpatrick, the Townshends, Burgoyne, Storer, and Lord Carlisle. R. Tickell, in " Lines from the Hon. Charles Fox to the Hon. John Townshend cruising," thus describes the welcome that awaits Townshend, and the gay life of the Club : —
" Soon as to Brookes's thence thy footsteps bend, What gratulations thy approach attend ! See Gibbon tap his box ; auspicious sign, That classic compliment and evil combine. See Beauclerk's cheek a tinge of red surprise, And friendship gives what cruel health denies. Important Townshend ! what can thee withstand ? The ling'ring black-ball lags in Boothby's hand. E'en Draper checks the sentimental sigh ; And Smith, without an oath, suspends the die."
BROOKES S CLUB. 91
Mr. Wilberforce has thus recorded his first appear- ance at Brookes's : " Hardly knowing any one, I joined, from mere shyness, in play at the faro-tables, where George Selwyn kept bank. A friend, who knew my inexperience, and regarded me as a victim decked out for sacrifice, called to me, c What, Wilberforce, is that you?' Selwyn quite resented the interference, and, turning to him, said, in his most expressive tone, ( Oh, Sir, don't interrupt Mr. Wilberforce; he could not be better employed V "
The Prince of Wales, one day at Brookes's, expatiating on that beautiful but far-fetched idea of Dr. Darwin's, that the reason of the bosom of a beautiful woman being the object of such exquisite delight for a man to look upon, arises from the first pleasurable sensations of warmth, sustenance, and repose, which he derives there- from in his infancy ; Sheridan replied, " Truly hath it been said, that there is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous. All children who are brought up by hand must derive their pleasurable sensations from a very different source; yet I believe no one ever heard of any such, when arrived at manhood, evincing any very rapturous or amatory emotions at the sight of a wooden spoon." This clever exposure of an ingenious absurdity shows the folly of taking for granted every opinion which may be broached under the sanction of a popular name.
The conversation at Brookes's, one day, turning on Lord Henry Petty's projected tax upon iron, one mem- ber said, that as there was so much opposition to it, it would be better to raise the proposed sum upon coals. " Hold ! my dear fellow," said Sheridan, " that would be out of the frying pan into the fire, with a vengeance."
Mr. Whitbread, one evening at Brookes's, talked
92 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
loudly and largely against the Ministers for laying what was called the war tax upon malt : every one present concurred with him in opinion, but Sheridan could not resist the gratification of a hit at the brewer himself. He wrote with his pencil upon the back of a letter the following lines, which he handed to Mr. Whitbread, across the table : —
" They've raised the price of table drink ; What is the reason, do you think ? The tax on malt 's the cause I hear — But what has malt to do with beer ?"
Looking through a Number of the Quarterly Beview, one day, at Brookes' s, soon after its first appearance, Sheridan said, in reply to a gentleman who observed that the editor, Mr. Gifford, had boasted of the power of conferring and distributing literary reputation ; " Very likely ; and in the present instance I think he has done it so profusely as to have left none for himself."
Sir Philip Francis was the convivial companion of Fox, and during the short administration of that states- man was made a Knight of the Bath. One evening, Roger Wilbraham came up to a whist-table at Brookes's, where Sir Philip, who for the first time wore the ribbon of the Order, was engaged in a rubber, and thus ac- costed him. Laying hold of the ribbon and examining it for some time, he said : " So, this is the way they have rewarded you at last : they have given you a little bit of red ribbon for your services, Sir Philip, have they? A pretty bit of red ribbon to hang about your neck ; and that satisfies you, does it ? Now, I wonder what I shall have. — What do you think they will give me, Sir Philip ?"
BROOKES S CLUB. 93
The newly-made Knight, who had twenty-five guineas depending on the rubber, and who was not very well pleased at the interruption, suddenly turned round, and looking at him fiercely, exclaimed, " A halter, and be d — d to you \"
George III. invariably evinced a strong aversion to Fox, the secret of which it is easy to understand. His son, the Prince of Wales, threw himself into the arms of Fox, and this in the most undisguised manner. Fox lodged in St. James's- street, and as soon as he rose, which was very late, had a levee of his followers, and of the members of the gaming club, at Brookes' s, all his dis- ciples. His bristly black person, and shagged breast quite open, and rarely purified by any ablutions, was wrapped in a foul linen night -gown, and his bushy hair dishevelled. In these cynic weeds, and with epicurean good-humour, did he dictate his politics, and in this school did the heir of the Crown attend his lessons, and imbibe them.
Fox's love of play was desperate. A few evenings before he moved the repeal of the Marriage Act, in February, 1772, he had been at Brompton on two errands : one to consult Justice Fielding on the penal laws ; the other to borrow ten thousand pounds, which he brought to town at the hazard of being robbed. Fox played admirably both at whist and piquet ; with such skill, indeed, that by the general admission of Brookes' s Club, he might have made four thousand pounds a-year, as they calculated, at those games, if he could have confined himself to them. But his misfortune arose from playing games at chance, particularly at Faro. After eating and drinking plentifully, he sat down to the Faro table, and inevitably rose a loser. Once, indeed, and once only, he won about eight thousand pounds in
9 l CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
the course of a single evening. Part of the money he paid away to his creditors, and the remainder he lost almost immediately. Before he attained his thirtieth year, he had completely dissipated everything that he could either command, or could procure by the most ruinous expedients. He had even undergone, at times, many of the severest privations annexed to the vicissi- tudes that mark a gamester's progress ; frequently wanting money to defray the common daily wants of the most pressing nature. Topham Beauclerc, who lived much in Fox's society, affirmed, that no man could form an idea of the extremities to which he had been driven in order to raise money, after losing his last guinea at the Faro table. He was reduced for successive days to such distress, as to borrow money from the waiters of Brookes's. The very chairmen, whom he was unable to pay, used to dun him for their arrears. In 1781, he might be considered as an extinct volcano, for the pecuniary aliment that had fed the flame was long con- sumed. Yet he then occupied a house or lodgings in St. JamesVstreet close to Brookes' s, where he passed almost every hour which was not devoted to the House of Commons. Brookes' s was then the rallying point or rendezvous of the Opposition; where, while faro, whist, and supper prolonged the night, the principal members of the Minority in both Houses met, in order to compare their information, or to concert and mature their parlia- mentary measures. Great sums were then borrowed of Jews at exorbitant premiums. Fox called his outward room, where the Jews waited till he rose, the Jerusalem Chamber. His brother Stephen was enormously fat; George Selwyn said he was in the right to deal with Shylocks, as he could give them pounds of flesh.
BROOKES'S CLUB. 95
When Fox lodged with his friend Fitzpatrick, at Mackie's, some one remarked that two such inmates would be the ruin of Mackie, the oilman ; " No," said George Selwyn ; " so far from ruining him, they will make poor Mackie' s fortune ; for he will have the credit of having the finest pickles in London."
The ruling passion of Fox was partly owing to the lax training of his father, who, by his lavish allowances, fostered his propensity for play. According to Chester- field, the first Lord Holland " had no fixed principles in religion or morality," and he censures him to his son for being "too unwary in ridiculing and exposing them." He gave full swing to Charles in his youth : " let nothing be done," said his Lordship, "to break his spirit; the world will do that for him." [Selwyn.) At his death, in 1774, he left him £154,000 to pay his debts ; it was all bespoke, and Fox soon became as deeply pledged as before.
Walpole, in 1781, walking up St. James's-street, saw a cart and porters at Fox's door ; with copper and an old chest of drawers, loading. His success at faro had awakened a host of creditors ; but, unless his bank had swelled to the size of the Bank of England, it could not have yielded a sou apiece for each. Epsom, too, had been unpropitious ; and one creditor had actually seized and carried off Fox's goods, which did not seem worth removing. Yet, shortly after this, whom should Walpole find sauntering by his own door but Fox, who came up and talked to him at the coach-window, on the Marriage Bill, with as much sang froid as if he knew nothing of what had happened.
It was at the sale of Fox's library in this year that Walpole made the following singular note: — "1781,
90 CLUB LIFE OF LOXDOX.
June 20. Sold by auction, the library of Charles Fox, which had been taken in execution. Amongst the books was Mr. Gibbon's first volume of ' Roman History/ which appeared, by the title-page, to have been given by the author to Mr. Fox, who had written in it the follow- ing anecdote : — ( The author at Brookes's said there was no salvation for the country till six heads of the princi- pal persons in the administration were laid on the table ; eleven days later, the same gentleman accepted the place of Lord of Trade under those very ministers, and has acted with them ever since ! ' Such was the avidity of bidders for the smallest production of so wonderful a genius, that by the addition of this little record, the book sold for three guineas."
Lord Tankerville assured Mr. Rogers that Fox once played cards with Fitzpatrick at Brookes's from ten o'clock at night till near six o* clock the next afternoon, a waiter standing by to tell them " whose deal it was," they being too sleepy to know. Fox once won about eight thousand pounds ; and one of his bond-creditors, who soon heard of his good luck, presented himself, and asked for payment. " Impossible, Sir," replied Fox ; " I must first discharge my debts of honour." The The bond-creditor remonstrated. " Well, Sir, give me your bond." It was delivered to Fox, who tore it in pieces, and threw them into the fire. " Now, Sir," said Fox, " my debt to you is a debt of honour ;" and im- mediately paid him.
Amidst the wildest excesses of vouth, even while the perpetual victim of his passion for play, Fox eagerly cul- tivated at intervals his taste for letters, especially the Greek and Roman historians and poets; and he found resources in their works, under the most severe depres-
BKOOKES S CLUB. 97
sions occasioned by ill-success at the gaming-table. One morning, after Fox had passed the whole night in com- pany with Topham Beauclerc at faro, the two friends were about to separate. Fox had lost throughout the night, and was in a frame of mind approaching despera- tion. Beauclerc's anxiety tor the consequences which might ensue led him to be early at Fox's lodgings ; and on arriving, he inquired, not without apprehension, whether he had risen. The servant replied that Mr. Fox was in the drawing-room, when Beauclerc walked upstairs, and cautiously opened the door, expecting to behold a frantic gamester stretched on the floor, bewail- ing his losses, or plunged in moody despair ; but he was astonished to find him reading a Greek Herodotus. "What would you have me do?" said Fox, " I have lost my last shilling." Upon other occasions, after staking and losing all that he could raise at faro, in- stead of exclaiming against fortune, or manifesting the agitation natural under such circumstances, he would lay his head on the table, and retain his place, but, ex- hausted by mental and bodily fatigue, almost imme- diately fall into a profound sleep.
One night, at Brookes' s, Fox made some remark on Government powder, in allusion to something that had happened. Adams considered it a reflection, and sent Fox a challenge. Fox went out, and took his station, giv- ing a full front. Fitzgerald said, " You must stand side- ways." Fox said, " Why I am as thick one way as the other," — " Fire," was given : Adams fired, Fox did not, and when they said he must, he said, "■ Fll be d — d if I do. I have no quarrel." They then advanced to shake hands. Fox said, "Adams, you'd have killed me if it had not been Government powder." The ball hit him in the groin.
VOL. I. H
98 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
Another celebrated character, whofrequented Brookes' s in the days of Selwyn, "was Dunning-, afterwards Lord Ashburton ; and many keen encounters passed between them. Dunning was a short, thick man, with a turn-up nose, a constant shake of the head, and latterly a dis- tressing hectic cough — but a wit of the first water. Though he died at the comparatively early age of fifty- two, he amassed a fortune of ^8150,000 during twenty- five years' practice at the bar ; and lived notwithstand- ing, so liberally, that his mother, an attorney's widow, some of the wags at Brookes's wickedly recorded, left him in dudgeon on the score of his extravagance, as humorously sketched at a dinner at the lawyer's country-house near Fulham, when the following con- versation was represented to have occurred : —
" John," said the old lady to her son, after dinner, during which she had been astounded by the profusion of the plate and viands, — " John, I shall not stop another day to witness such shameful extravagance."
" But, my dear mother," interrupted Dunning, " you ought to consider that I can afford it : my income, you know — "
"No income," said the old lady impatiently, "can stand such shameful prodigality. The sum which your cook told me that very turbot cost, ought to have sup- ported any reasonable family for a week."
" Pooh, pooh ! my dear mother," replied the dutiful son, "you would not have me appear shabby. Besides, what is a turbot?"
" Pooh, pooh ! what is a turbot ?" echoed the irritated dame: " don't pooh me, John: I tell you such goings- on can come to no good, and you'll see the end of it before long. However, it sha'n't be said your mother
BROOKES'S CLUB. 99
encouraged such sinful waste, for Fll set off in the coach to Devonshire to-morrow morning."
u And notwithstanding," said Sheridan, " all John's rhetorical efforts to detain her, the old lady kept her word."
Sheridan's election as a member of Brookes' s took place under conflicting circumstances. His success at Stafford met with fewer obstacles than he had to en- counter in St. JamesVstreet, where Selwyn's poli- tical aversions and personal jealousy were very formi- dable, as were those of the Earl of Bessborough, and they and other members of the Club had determined to exclude Sheridan. Conscious that every exertion would be made to ensure his success, they agreed not to absent themselves during the time allowed by the regu- lations of the Club for ballots ; and as one black ball sufficed to extinguish the hopes of a candidate, they repeatedly prevented his election. In order to remove so serious an impediment, Sheridan had recourse to artifice. On the evening when it was resolved to put him up, he found his two inveterate enemies posted as usual. A chairman was then sent with a note, written in the name of her father-in-law, Lord Bessborough, acquainting him that a fire had broken out in his house in Cavendish Square, and entreating him immediately to return home. Unsuspicious of any trick, as his son and daughter-in-law lived under his roof, Lord Bess- borough unhesitatingly quitted the room, and got into a sedan-chair. Selwyn, who resided not far from Brookes' s in Cleveland-row, received, nearly at the same time, a verbal message to request his presence, in con- sequence of Miss Fagniani, (whom he had adopted as his daughter,) being suddenly seized with alarming
h2
100 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
indisposition. This summons he obeyed ; and no sooner was the room cleared, than Sheridan being proposed a member, a ballot took place, when he was immediately chosen. Lord Bessborough and Selwyn returned with- out delay, on discovering the imposition that had been practised on their credulity, but they were too late to prevent its effects.
Such is the story told by Selwyn, in his Memoirs ; but the following account is more generally acredited. The Prince of Wales joined Brookes's Club, to have more frequent intercourse with Mr. Fox, one of its earliest members, and who, on his first acquaintance with Sheridan, became anxious for his admission to the Club. Sheridan was three times proposed, but as often had the black ball in the ballot, which disqualified him. At length, the hostile ball was traced to George Selwyn, who objected, because his (Sheridan's) father had been upon the stage. Sheridan was apprised of this, and desired that his name might be put up again, and that the further conduct of the matter might be left to himself. Accordingly, on the evening when he was to be balloted for, Sheridan arrived at Brookes' s arm-in-arm with the Prince of Wales, just ten minutes before the balloting began. They were shown into the candidates' waiting- room, when one of the club-waiters was ordered to tell Mr. Selwyn that the Prince desired to speak with him immediately. Selwyn obeyed the summons, and Sheri- dan, to whom this version of the affair states, Sheridan had no personal dislike, entertained him for half-an-hour with some political story, which interested him very much, but had no foundation in truth. During Selwyn's absence, the balloting went on, and Sheridan was chosen ; and the result was announced to himself and the Prince
BROOKES'S CLUB. 101
by the waiter, with the preconcerted signal of stroking his chin with his hand. Sheridan immediately rose from his seat, and apologizing for a few minutes' absence, told Selwyn that " the Prince would finish the narrative, the catastrophe of which he would find very remarkable."
Sheridan now went upstairs, was introduced to the Club, and was soon in all his glory. The Prince, in the meantime, had not the least idea of being left to conclude a story, the thread of which (if it had a thread) he had entirely forgotten. Still, by means of Selwyn's occasional assistance, the Prince got on pretty well for a few minutes, when a question from the listener as to the flat contradiction of a part of His Royal Highness' story to that of Sheridan, completely posed the narrator, and he stuck fast. After much flounder- ing, the Prince burst into a loud laugh, saying, " D — n the fellow, to leave me to finish the infernal story, of which I know as much as a child unborn ! But, never mind, Selwyn ; as Sheridan does not seem inclined to come back, let me go upstairs, and I dare say Fox or some of them will be able to tell you all about it." They adjourned to the club room, and Selwyn now detected the manoeuvre. Sheridan then rose, made a low bow, and apologized to Selwyn, through his dropping into such good company, adding, "They have just been making me a member without even <one black ball, and here I am." " The devil they have !"exclaimed Selwyn. — " Facts speak for themselves," said Sheridan ; " and I thank you for your friendly suffrage ; and now, if you will sit down by us, I will finish my story." — " Your story ! it is all a lie from beginning to end," exclaimed Selwyn. amidst loud laughter from all parts of the room.
Among the members who indulged in high play was
102 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
Alderman Combe, who is said to have made as much money in this way as he did by brewing. One evening, whilst he filled the office of Lord Mayor, he was busy at a full hazard-table at Brookes' s, where the wit and the dice- box circulated together with great glee, and where Beau Brummell was one of the party. " Come, Mashtub," said Brummell, who was the caster, " what do you set ?" — " Twenty-five guineas/' answered the Alderman. — " Well, then/' returned the Beau, (C have at the mare's pony" (25 guineas). He continued to throw until he drove home the brewer's twelve ponies, running; and then, getting up, and making him a low bow, whilst pocketing the cash, he said, " Thank you, alderman ; for the future, I shall never drink any porter but yours." — "I wish, Sir," replied the brewer," that every other blackguard in London would tell me the same."
"FIGHTING FITZGERALD"
AT BROOKES'S.
This notorious person, George Robert Fitzgerald, though nearly related to one of the first families in Ireland (Leinster), was executed in 1786, for a murder which he had coolly premeditated, and had perpetrated in a most cruel and cowardly manner.
His duelling propensities had kept him out of all the first Clubs in London. He once applied to Admiral Keith Stewart to propose him as a candidate for Brookes's ; when the Admiral, knowing that he must either fight or comply with his request, chose the latter. Accordingly, on the night when the ballot was to take
" FIGHTING FITZGEKALD " AT BROOKES'S. 103
place (which was only a mere form in this case, for even Keith Steward had resolved to black-ball him), the duellist accompanied the Admiral to St. Jameses-street, and waited in the room below, while the ballot was taken. This was soon done ; for, without hesitation, each member threw in a black ball; and when the scrutiny came, the company were not a little amazed to find not even one white ball among the number. How- ever, the rejection being carried nem. con,, the question was, which of the members had the hardihood to an- nounce the result to the expectant candidate. No one would undertake the office, for the announcement was thought sure to produce a challenge ; and a duel with Fitzgerald had, in most cases, been fatal to his opponent. The general opinion was that the proposer, Admiral Stewart, should convey the intelligence. " No, gentle- men," said he, " I proposed the fellow because I knew you would not admit him ; but, by Jove, I have no incli- nation to risk my life against that of a madman."
" But, Admiral," replied the Duke of Devonshire,* u there being no white ball in the box, he must know that you have black-balled him as well as the rest, and he is sure to call you out at all events."
This posed the Admiral, who, after some hesitation, proposed that the waiter should tell Fitzgerald that there was one black ball, and that his name must be put up again if he wished it. All concurred in the propriety of this plan, and the waiter was dispatched on the mission. In the meantime, Fitzgerald had frequently rung the bell to inquire " the state of the poll," and
* This was the bon-vivant Duke who had got ready for him every night, for supper, at Brookes's, a broiled blade-hone of mutton.
104 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON
had sent each waiter to ascertain, but neither durst return, when Mr. Brookes took the message from the waiter who was descending the staircase, and boldly entered the room, with a coffee equipage in his hand. "Did you call for coffee, Sir?" said Mr. Brookes, smartly. " D — n your coffee, Sir ! and you too," an- swered Mr. Fitzgerald, in a voice which made the host's blood run cold. n I want to know, Sir, and that with- out one moment's delay, Sir, if I am chose yet V
" Oh, Sir \" replied Mr. Brookes, attempting to smile away the appearance of fear, " I beg your pardon, Sir, but I was just coming to announce to you, Sir, with Admiral Stewart's compliments, Sir, that unfortunately there was one black ball in the box, Sir; and conse- quently, by the rules of the Club, Sir, no candidate can be admitted without a new election, Sir ; — which cannot take place, by the standing regulations of the Club, Sir, until one month from this time, Sir."
During this address, Fitzgerald's irascibility appeared to undergo considerable mollification ; and at its close, he grasped Brookes's hand, saying, " My dear Brookes, I'm chose ; but there must be a small matter of mistake in my election :" he then persuaded Brookes to go up- stairs, and make his compliments to the gentlemen, and say, as it was only a mistake of one black ball, they would be so good as to waive all ceremony on his ac- count, and proceed to re-elect their humble servant with- out any more delay at all." Many of the members were panic-struck, foreseeing a disagreeable finale to the farce which they had been playing. Mr. Brookes stood silent, waiting for the answer. At length, the Earl of March (afterwards Duke of Queensberry) said aloud, " Try the effect of two balls : d — n his Irish impudence,
" FIGHTING FITZGEEALD AT BROOKES S. 105
if two balls don't take effect upon him, I don't know what will." This proposition was agreed to, and Brookes was ordered to communicate the same.
On re-entering the waiting-room, Mr. Fitzgerald eagerly inquired, " Have they elected me right, now, Mr. Brookes ?" the reply was, " Sorry to inform you that the result of the second balloting is — that two black balls were dropped, Sir." — " Then," exclaimed Fitzgerald, " there's now two mistakes instead of one." He then persuaded Brookes again to proceed upstairs, and tell the honourable members to " try again, and make no more mistakes." General Fitzpatrick proposed that Brookes should reply, " His cause was all hopeless, for that he was black- balled all over, from head to foot, and it was hoped by all the members that Mr. Fitzgerald would not persist in thrusting himself into society where his company was declined." This message was of no avail : no sooner had Fitzgerald heard it than he exclaimed : " Oh, I perceive it is a mistake altogether, Mr. Brookes, and I must see to the rectifying of it myself, there's nothing like dating with principals ; so, I'll step up at once, and put this thing to rights, without any more unnecessary delay."
In spite of Mr. Brookes's remonstrance, that his en- trance into the Club-room was against all rule and eti- quette, Fitzgerald flew upstairs, and entered the room without any further ceremony than a bow, saying to the members, who indignantly rose at the intrusion, " Your servant, gentlemen — I beg ye will be sated."
Walking up to the fireplace, he thus addressed Ad- miral Stewart : — " So, my dear Admiral, Mr. Brookes informs me that I have been elected three times."
" You have been balloted for, Mr. Fitzgerald, but I am sorry to say you have not been chosen," said Stewart.
106 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
"Well, then," replied the duellist, "did you black- ball me ?" — " My good Sir," answered the Admiral, " how could you suppose such a thing?" — " Oh, I sup- posed no such thing, my dear fellow ; I only want to know who it was that dropped the black balls in by ac- cident, as it were \>s
Fitzgerald now went up to each individual member, and put the same question seriatim, " Did you black-ball me, Sir?" until he made the round of the whole Club; and in each case he received a reply similar to that of the Admiral. When he had finished his inquisition, he thus addressed the whole body : " You see, Gentle- men, that as none of ye have black-balled me, / must be chose ; and it is Mr. Brookes that has made the mistake. But I was convinced of it from the beginning, and I am only sorry that so much time has been lost as to prevent honourable gentlemen from enjoying each other's com- pany sooner." He then desired the waiter to bring him a bottle of champagne, that he might drink long life to the Club, and wish them joy of their unanimous elec- tion of a rael gentleman by father and mother, and who never missed Ids man."
The members now saw that there was nothing to be done but to send the intruder to Coventry, which they appeared to do by tacit agreement ; for when Admiral Stewart departed, Mr. Fitzgerald found himself cut by all his " dear friends." The members now formed parties at the whist-table ; and no one replied to Fitzgerald's observations nor returned even a nod to the toasts and healths which he drank in three bottles of champagne, which the terrified waiter placed before him, in succes- sion. At length, he arose, made a low bow, and took leave, promising to "come earlier next night, and have
AKTHURS CLUB. 107
a little more of it." It was then agreed that half-a- dozen stout constables should be in waiting the next evening to bear him off to the watch-house, if he at- tempted again to intrude. Of this measure, Fitzgerald seemed to be aware ; for he never again showed himself at Brookes's; though he boasted everywhere that he had been unanimously chosen a member of the Club.
ARTHUR'S CLUB.
This Club, established more than a century since, at No. 69, St. Jameses-street, derives its name from Mr. Arthur, the master of White's Chocolate-house in the same street. Mr. Cunningham records : " Arthur died in June, 1761, in St. James's-place ; and in the following October, Mr. Mackreth married Arthur's only child, and Arthur's Chocolate-house, as it was then called, became the property of this Mr. Mackreth."
Walpole, writing in 1759, has this odd note: " I stared to-day at Piccadilly like a country squire ; there are twenty new stone houses : at first I concluded that all the grooms that used to live there, had got estates and built palaces. One young gentleman, who was get- ting an estate, but was so indiscreet as to step out of his way to rob a comrade, is convicted, and to be trans- ported ; in short, one of the waiters at Arthur's. George Selwyn says, ' What a horrid idea he will give us of the people in Newgate ?"'
Mackreth prospered ; for Walpole, writing to Mann, in 1774, speaking of the New Parliament, says : "Bob,
108 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
formerly a waiter at White's, was set up by rny nephew for two boroughs, and actually is returned for Castle Rising with Mr. Wedderburne ;
" ' Servus curru portatur eodem ;*
which I suppose will offend the Scottish Consul, as most of his countrymen resent an Irishman standing for West- minster, which the former reckon a borough of their own. For my part, waiter for waiter, I see little dif- ference ; they were all equally ready to cry, ' Coming, coming, Sir/ "
Mackreth was afterwards knighted ; and upon him ap- peared this smart and well-remembered epigram :
" When Mackreth served in Arthur's crew, He said to Kumbold, ' Black my shoe;'
To which he answer'd, ' Ay, Bob.' But when return'd from India's land, And grown too proud to brook command,
He sternly answer'd, ' Nay, Bob.' "
The Club-house was rebuilt in 1825, upon the site of the original Chocolate-house, Thomas Hopper, architect, at which time it possessed more than average design : the front is of stone, and is enriched with fluted Corin- thian columns.
WHITE'S CLUB.
This celebrated Club was originally established as " White's Chocolate-house," in 1698, five doors from the bottom of the west side of St. JamesVstreet, " ascend- ing from St. James's Palace." (Hatton, 1708.) A print
white's CLUB. 109
of the time shows a small garden attached to the house : at the tables in the house or garden, more than one high- wayman took his chocolate, or threw his main, before he quietly mounted his horse, and rode down Piccadilly towards Bagshot." (Doran's Table Traits.) It was destroyed by fire, April 28, 1733, when the house was kept by Mr. Arthur, who subsequently gave his name to the Club called Arthur's, still existing a few doors above the original White's. At the fire, young Arthur's wife leaped out of a second floor window, upon a feather-bed, without much hurt. A fine collection of paintings, be- longing to Sir Andrew Fountaine, valued at 3000/., was entirely destroyed. The King and the Prince of Wales were present above an hour, and encouraged the firemen and people to work at the engines ; a guard being or- dered from St. James's, to keep off the populace. His Majesty ordered twenty guineas to be distributed among the firemen and others that worked at the engines, and five guineas to the guard ; and the Prince ordered the firemen ten guineas. " The incident of the fire," says Mr. Cunningham, " was made use of by Hogarth, in Plate VI. of the Rake's Progress, representing a room at White's. The total abstraction of the gamblers is well expressed by their utter inattention to the alarm of the fire given by watchmen, who are bursting open the doors. Plate IV. of the same pictured moral repre- sents a group of chimney-sweepers and shoe-blacks gam- bling on the ground ovej-against White's. To indicate the Club more fully, Hogarth has inserted the name Black's."
Arthur, thus burnt out, removed to Gaunt' s Coffee- house, next the St. James's Coffee-house, and which bore the name of " White's" — a myth. The Tatler, in
110 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
his first Number, promises that u all accounts of gal- lantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under the article of White's Chocolate-house." Addison, in his Prologue to Steele's Tender Husband, catches " the ne- cessary spark" sometimes "taking snuff at White's."
The Chocolate-house, open to any one, became a pri- vate Club-house : the earliest record is a book of rules and list of members of the old Club at White's, dated October 30th, 1736. The principal members were the Duke of Devonshire ; the Earls of Cholmondeley, Ches- terfield, and Rockingham ; Sir John Cope, Major-Ge- neral Churchill, Bubb Dodington, and Colley Cibber. Walpole tells us that the celebrated Earl of Chesterfield lived at White's, gaming and pronouncing witticisms among the boys of quality ; " yet he says to his son, that a member of a gaming club should be a cheat, or he will soon be a beggar," an inconsistency which re- minds one of old Fuller's saw : " A father that whipt his son for swearing, and swore himself whilst he whipt him, did more harm by his example than good by his correction."
Swift, in his Essay on Modern Education, gives the Chocolate-house a sad name. " I have heard," he says, " that the late Earl of Oxford, in the time of his mi- nistry, never passed by White's Chocolate-house (the common rendezvous of infamous sharpers and noble cullies) without bestowing a curse upon that famous Academy, as the bane of half the English nobility."
The gambling character of the Club may also be ga- thered from Lord Lyttelton writing to Dr. Doddridge, in 1750. "The Dryads of Hagley are at present pretty secure, but I tremble to think that the rattling of a dice-box at White's may one day or other (if my son
WHITES CLUB. Ill
should be a member of that noble academy) shake down all our fine oaks. It is dreadful to see, not only there, but almost in every house in town, what devastations are made by that destructive fury, the spirit of play."
SwifVs character of the company is also borne out by Walpole, in a letter to Mann, December 16, 1748 : " There is a man about town, Sir William Burdett, a man of very good family, but most infamous character. In short, to give you his character at once, there is a wager entered in the bet-book at White's (a MS. of which I may one day or other give you an account), that the first baronet that will be hanged is this Sir William Burdett."
Again, Glover, the poet, in his Autobiography, tells us : " Mr. Pelham (the Prime Minister) was originally an officer in the army, and a professed gamester ; of a narrow mind, low parts, etc. . . . By long experience and attendance he became experienced as a Parliament man ; and even when Minister, divided his time to the last between his office and the club of gamesters at White's." And, Pope, in the Dunciad, has :
" Or chair'd at White's, amidst the doctors sit, Teach oaths to gamesters, and to nobles wit."
The Club removed, in 1755, to the east side of St. James's-street, No. 38. The house had had previously a noble and stately tenant ; for here resided the Coun- tess of Northumberland, widow of Algernon, tenth Earl of Northumberland, who died 1688. " My friend Lady Suffolk, her niece by marriage," writes Walpole, " has talked to me of her having, on that alliance, vi- sited her. She then lived in the house now White's, at the upper end of St. James's-street, and was the last
112 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
who kept up the ceremonious state of the old peerage. When she went out to visit, a footman, bareheaded, walked on each side of her coach, and a second coach with her women attended her. I think, too, that Lady Suffolk told me that her granddaughter-in-law, the Du- chess of Somerset, never sat down before her without leave to do so. I suppose the old Duke Charles [the proud Duke] had imbibed a good quantity of his stately pride in such a school." [Letter to the Bishop of Dro- more, September 18, 1792.) This high-minded dame had published a " Volume of Prayers."
Among the Rules of the Club, every member was to pay one guinea a year towards having a good cook ; the names of all candidates were to be deposited with Mr. Arthur or Bob [Mackreth] . In balloting, every member was to put in his ball, and such person or per- sons who refuse to comply with it, shall pay the supper reckoning of that night ; and, in 1 769, it was agreed that ' every member of this Club who is in the Billiard- Room at the time the Supper is declared upon table, shall pay his reckoning if he does not sup at the Young Club/ »
Of Colley Cibber's membership we find this odd ac- count in Davies's Life of Garrick : — " Colley, Ave told, had the honour to be a member of the great Club at White's; and so I suppose might any other man who wore good clothes and paid his money when he lost it. But on what terms did Cibber live with this society ? Why, he feasted most sumptuously, as I have heard his friend Victor say, with an air of triumphant exultation, with Mr. Arthur and his wife, and gave a trifle for his dinner. After he had dined, when the Club-room door was opened, and the Laureate was introduced, he was
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saluted with loud and joyous acclamation of f O King Coll! Come in, King Coll !' and 'Welcome, welcome, King Colley I' And this kind of gratulation, Mr. Victor thought, was very gracious and very honourable."
In the Rules quoted by Mr. Cunningham, from the Club-books, we find that in 1780, a dinner was ready every day during the sitting of Parliament, at a reckon- ing of 1.2s. per head; in 1797, at 10s. 6d. per head, malt liquors, biscuits, oranges, apples, and olives in- cluded ; hot suppers provided at 8s. per head ; and cold meat, oysters, etc., at 4s., malt liquor only included. And, " that Every Member who plays at Chess, Draughts, or Backgammon do pay One Shilling each time of play- ing by daylight, and half- a -crown each by candle- light."
White's was from the beginning principally a gaming Club. The play was mostly at hazard and faro; no member wras to hold a faro Bank. Whist was com- paratively harmless. Professional gamblers, who lived by dice and cards, provided they were free from the im- putation of cheating, procured admission to White's. It was a great supper-house, and there was play before and after supper, carried on to a late hour and heavy amounts. Lord Carlisle lost 10,000/. in one night, and was in debt to the house for the whole. He tells Selwyn of a set, in which at one point of the game, stood to win 50,000/. Sir John Bland, of Kippax Park, who shot himself in 1755, as we learn from Walpole, flirted away his whole fortune at hazard. " He t'other night exceeded what was lost by the late Duke of Bedford, having at one period of the night, (though he recovered the greater part of it,) lost two-and-thirty thousand pounds."
Lord Mountford came to a tragic end through his
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gambling. He had lost money ; feared to be reduced to distress ; asked for a Government appointment, and determined to throw the die of life or death, on the answer he received from Court. The answer was unfa- vourable. He consulted several persons, indirectly at first, afterwards pretty directly — on the easiest mode of finishing life ; invited a dinner-party for the day after ; supped at White's, and played at whist till one o'clock of the New Year's morning. Lord Robert Bertie drank to him "a happy new year;" he clapped his hand strangely to his eyes. In the morning, he sent for a lawyer and three witnesses, executed his will j made them read it twice over, paragraph by paragraph ; asked the lawyer if that will would stand good though a man were to shoot himself. Being assured it would, he said, " Pray stay, while I step into the next room," — went into the next room, and shot himself.
Walpole writes to Mann : " John Damier and his two brothers have contracted a debt, one can scarcely ex- pect to be believed out of England, — of 70,000/. . . . The young men of this age seem to make a law among themselves for declaring their fathers superannuated at fifty, and thus dispose of their estates as if already their own." "Can you believe that Lord Foley's two sons have borrowed money so extravagantly, that the interest they have contracted to pay, amounts to 18,000/. a year."
Fox's love of play was frightful : his best friends are said to have been half-ruined in annuities, given by them as securities for him to the Jews. Five hundred thou- sand a year of such annuities, of Fox and his Society, were advertised to be sold, at one time : Walpole won- dered what Fox would do when he had sold the estates
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of all his friends. Here are some instances of his desperate play. Walpole further notes that in the de- bate on the Thirty-nine Articles, February 6, 1772, Fox did not shine, " nor could it be wondered at. He had sat up playing at hazard at Almack's, from Tuesday evening the 4th, till five in the afternoon of Wednesday, 5th. An hour before he had recovered 12,000/. that he had lost, and by dinner, which was at five o'clock, he had ended losing 1 1,000/. On the Thursday, he spoke in the above debate ; went to dinner at past eleven at night ; from thence to White's, where he drank till seven the next morning ; thence to Almack's, where he won 6,000/.; and between three and four in the afternoon he set out for Newmarket. His brother Stephen lost 11,000/. two nights after, and Charles 10,000/. more on the 13th ; so that, in three nights, the two brothers, the eldest not twenty-five, lost 32,000/.
Walpole and a party of friends, (Dick Edgecumbe, George Selwyn, and Williams,) in 1756, composed a piece of heraldic satire — a coat-of-arms for the two gaming-clubs at White's, — which was " actually engrav- ing from a very pretty painting of Edgecumbe, whom Mr. Chute, as Strawberry King at arms," appointed their chief herald-painter. The blazon is vert (for a card- table) ; three parolis proper on a chevron sable (for a hazard-table) ; two rouleaux in sal tire between two dice proper, on a canton sable; a white ball (for election) argent. The supporters are an old and young knave of clubs ; the crest, an arm out of an earl's coronet shaking a dice-box ; and the motto, " Cogit amor nummi." Round the arms is a claret-bottle ticket by way of order. The painting above mentioned by Walpole of " the Old and Young Club at Arthur's " was bought at the sale of
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116 CLUB LIFE OF LONDON.
Strawberry Hill by Arthur's Club-house for twenty-two shillings.
At White's, the least difference of opinion invariably ended in a bet, and a book for entering the particulars of all bets was always laid upon the table ; one of these, with entries of a date as early as 1744, Mr. Cunningham tells us, had been preserved. A book for entering bets is still laid on the table.
In these betting books are to be found bets on births, deaths, and marriages ; the length of a life, or the du- ration of a ministry ; a placeman's prospect of a coro- net ; on the shock of an earthquake ; or the last scandal at Ranelagh, or Madame Cornelys's. A man dropped down at the door of White's ; he was carried into the house. Was he dead or not ? The odds were imme- diately given and taken for and against. It was proposed to bleed him. Those who had taken the odds the man was dead, protested that the use of a lancet would affect the fairness of the bet.
Walpole gives some of these narratives as good stories ,c made on White's." A parson coming into the Club on the morning of the earthquake of 1750, and hearing bets laid whether the shock was caused by an earthquake or the blowing-up of powder-mills., went away in horror, protesting they were such an impious set, that he be- lieved if the last trump were to sound, they would bee puppet-show against Judgment." Gilly Williams writes to Selwyn, 1764, " Lord Digby is very soon to be mar- ried to Miss Fielding." Thousands might have been won in this house (White's), on his Lordship not know- ing that such a being existed.
Mr. Cunningham tells us that " the marriage of a young lady of rank would occasion a bet of a hundred
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guineas, that she would give birth to a live child before
the Countess of ■, who had been married three or
even more months before her. Heavy bets were pend- ing, that Arthur, who was then a widower, would be mar- ried before a member of the Club of about the same age, and also a widower ; and that Sarah, Duchess of Marl- borough, would outlive the old Duchess of Cleveland."
" One of the youth at White's," writes Walpole to Mann, July 10, 1744, " has committed a murder, and intends to repeat it. He betted £1500 that a man could live twelve hours under water ; hired a desperate fellow, sunk him in a ship, by way of experiment, and both ship and man have not appeared since. Another man and ship are to be tried for their lives, instead of Mr. Blake, the assassin."
Walpole found at White's, a very remarkable entry in their very — very remarkable wager-book, which is still preserved. "Lord Mountford bets Sir John Bland twenty guineas that Nash outlives Cibber." " How odd," says Walpole, " that these two old creatures, selected for their antiquities, should live to see both their wagerers put an end to their own lives ! Cibber is within a few days of eighty-four, still hearty, and clear, and well. I told him I was glad to see him look so well. c Faith/ said he, fit is very well that I look at all.'" Lord Mountford would have been the winner : Cibber died in 1757; Nash in 1761.
Here is a nice piece of Selwyn' s ready wit. He and Charles Townshend had a kind of wit combat together. Selwyn, it is said, prevailed ; and Charles Townshend took the wit home in his carriage, and dropped him at White's. " Remember," said Selwyn, as they parted, "this is the first set-down you have given me to-day."
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" St. Leger," says Walpole, " was at the bead of these luxurious heroes — he is the hero of all fashion. I never saw more dashing vivacity and. absurdity with some flashes of parts. He had a cause the other day for duck- ing a sharper, and was going to swear ; the judge said to him, ' I see, Sir, you are very ready to take an oath/ 1 Yes, my Lord/ replied St. Leger, ' my father was a judge/ " St. Leger was a lively club member. " Rigby," writes the Duke of Bedford, July 2, 1751, "the town is grown extremely thin within this week, though White's continues numerous enough, with young people only, for Mr. St. Leger' s vivacity, and the idea the old ones have of it, prevent