Chapter II: Part 2

"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 bowl;
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.'"

Wilson, in his Life of De Foe, doubts the truthfulness 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 biographer of De Foe, "that the persons thus collected together to commemorate the triumph of their principles, although in a manner dictated by bad taste, and outrageous 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 issued 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 language employed upon these occasions. Forgetful even of common decorum, the speakers ransacked the vocabulary 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 reproach 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 _Anecdotes_, 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 contradicts the whole story; and both attribute much of the disturbance to the unpopularity of the Administration; their health being unluckily proposed, raised a few faint claps but a general hiss, and then the disturbance began. A letter from Lord Middlesex to Spence, gives a still fuller account of the affair. By the style of the letter one may judge what sort of heads the members had, and what was reckoned the polite way of speaking 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 increased 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 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 immediately cried out, 'D--n it, why should not we have a fire as well as anybody else?' 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 consequences 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 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 prevalent 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 1734-5 than there is for believing it exists in 1864.

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 member.

A more important Club was "the King's Head Club," instituted for affording the Court and Government support, and to influence Protestant zeal: it was designed by the unscrupulous Shaftesbury: the members 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 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 every assembly, male and female, the next day:--and thus the younglings tasted of political administration, and took themselves for notable counsellors."

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 voluminous squabbler in behalf of the most unjustifiable excesses of Charles the Second's Administration." Nevertheless, 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 eyewitness.

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 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 Vitæ_, or rather, as the Poets termed it, _Mortis_." This engine was "for street and crowd-work, and lurking 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_!" 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 "the Rabble first changed their title, and were called _the Mob_ in the assemblies of this Club. It was their Beast of Burthen, and called first, _mobile vulgus_, but fell naturally into the contraction of one syllable, and ever since is become proper English."

We shall not describe these Processions: the grand object was the burning of figures, prepared for the occasion, 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 bonfire;" "and then, after numerous platoons and volleys of squibs discharged, these _Bamboches_ were, with redoubled noise, committed to the flames." These outrageous celebrations were suppressed in 1683.

STREET CLUBS.

During the first quarter of the last century, there were formed in the metropolis "Street Clubs," of the inhabitants 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 society of his neighbours. There was another inducement: 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 projecting spouts, bordered by gaping cellars, guarded by feeble old watchmen, and beset with daring street-robbers. 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 dismay through the streets. Sir John Fielding, in his cautionary book, published in 1776, described the dangerous 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, inoffensive person. Thus, although there are in London no ruffians and bravos, as in some parts of Spain and Italy, 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 following 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 favourite 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 succeeded by the "Hectors" 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 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 cannibals, in India, who subsist by plundering and devouring all the nations about them. The president is styled "Emperor of the Mohocks;" and his arms 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 d'éclat_. 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 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 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 attempted 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 proposed 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. 'I assure you,' says he, '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 behind 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," 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, provided 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 Budgell, 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 '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 cast on it, signifying the imperial abhorrence and detestation of such tumultuous and irregular proceedings; and notifying that all wounds, hurts, damage, or detriment, 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 erecting 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. Prominent among these was "the Hell-fire Club," of which the Duke of Wharton was a leading spirit:--

"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_, 1722, 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 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 nothing 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 conversation, 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 Hanover 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 established Mug-houses, like that of Long Acre, throughout the metropolis, for well-affected tradesmen to meet and keep up the spirit of loyalty to the Protestant succession. 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 Cheapside, 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 refugees; 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 themselves into "Mug-house Clubs," known severally by some distinctive name, and each club had its President 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 President 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. Disappointment 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 metropolis were occupied by an infuriated rabble, and presented 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 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 bonfires. There were a few Jacobite alehouses, chiefly on Holborn Hill, in Sacheverell's 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 commemoration 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 procession, starting from the Roebuck, went through Newgate-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 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 Cheapside, 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. Martin's-le-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 procession, 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 defeated, 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 engaged in Newgate Street, suddenly assembled, attacked the Roebuck Mug-house, broke its windows, and those of the adjoining houses, and with terrible threats, attempted 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 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 collections 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 describes the way in which these street fights were conducted:--

"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."

On March 8, another great Whig anniversary, the day of the death of William III., 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 rendered 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 incensed by some tipsy Whigs inside, that they commenced 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 Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, begging that the persons 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 commenced an attack on the mob, who still threatened the demolition of the house in Salisbury Court. The inmates 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 defeat; and for two days crowds collected in the neighbourhood, 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. They 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, prepared to defend himself. He threw up a window, and presented a loaded blunderbuss, and vowed he would discharge 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 unfortunate 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 sign, and entered the house, where Read would assuredly 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 Read's house, when the Sheriffs, with a posse of constables, arrived. The Riot Act was read, but disregarded; and the Sheriffs sent to Whitehall 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 sentenced 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 Reasons 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 Vindicated_.

The account of 1722 states that many an encounter they had, and many were the riots, till at last the Government was obliged by an Act of Parliament to put an end to this strife, which had this good effect, that upon 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_, all 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 Kingston; Lords Halifax and Somers; Sir Robert Walpole, Vanbrugh, Congreve, Granville, Addison, Garth, Maynwaring, 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 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 1700:

"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 his pies."

The origin and early history of the Kit-Kat Club is obscure. Elkanah Settle addressed, in 1699, a manuscript 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 Malone 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. Ward 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 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, Westminster, 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 Somers unbent, Addison mellowed over a bottle, Congreve flashed his wit, Vanbrugh let loose his easy humour, Garth talked and rhymed."

The Club was literary and gallant as well as political. The members subscribed 400 guineas for the encouragement of good comedies in 1709. The Club had its toasting-glasses, inscribed with a verse, or _toast_, to some reigning beauty; among whom were the four shining daughters of the Duke of Marlborough--Lady Godolphin, Lady Sunderland, Lady Bridgewater, and Lady Monthermer; Swift's friends, Mrs. Long and Mrs. Barton, 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. Arbuthnot, 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 following 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;
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 Spanheim._

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 additional 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 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, Manwaring, 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 conversations; 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, Hampstead 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 were bequeathed to Mr. Baker, of Bayfordbury, the representative of the Tonson family: all of them were included 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, having 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 numbered 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 constitutions 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 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, "_Do laugh: it is humanity to laugh_." By-and-by, Steele being too much in the same condition as the hatter, 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 complaisance 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."