Chapter VI: Part 6

The venerable Bard's remains rest near the east end of his parish church of Betchworth, in the burial-ground: the grave is simply marked by a head and foot-stone, with an inscription of three or four lines: he who had sung the praises of so many choice spirits, has not here a stanza to his own memory: such is, to some extent, the natural _sequitur_ with men who outlive their companions. Morris was staid and grave in his general deportment. Moore, in his _Diary_, has this odd note: "Linley describes Colman at the Beefsteak Club quite drunk, making extraordinary noise while Captain Morris was singing, which disconcerted the latter (who, strange to say, is a very grave, steady person) considerably." Yet, Morris could unbend, with great simplicity and feeling. We have often met him, in his patriarchal "blue and buff" (blue coat and buff waistcoat), in his walks about the lovely country in which he resided. Coming, one day, into the bookseller's shop, at Dorking, there chanced to be deposited a pianoforte; when the old Bard having looked around him, to see there were no strangers present, sat down to the instrument, and played and sang with much spirit the air of "The girl I left behind me:" yet he was then past his eightieth year.

Morris's ancient and rightful office at the Steaks was to _make the punch_, and it was amusing to see him at his laboratory at the sideboard, stocked with the various products that enter into the composition of that nectareous mixture: then smacking an elementary glass or two, and giving a significant nod, the fiat of its excellence; and what could exceed the ecstasy with which he filled the glasses that thronged around the bowl; joying over its mantling beauties, and distributing the fascinating draught

"That flames and dances in its crystal bound"?

"Well has our laureate earned his wreath," (says the author of _The Clubs of London_, who was often a participator in these delights). "At that table his best songs have been sung; for that table his best songs were written. His allegiance has been undivided. Neither hail, nor shower, nor snowstorm have kept him away: no engagement, no invitation seduced him from it. I have seen him there, 'outwatching the bear,' in his seventy-eighth year; for as yet nature had given no signal of decay in frame or faculty; but you saw him in a green and vigorous old age, tripping mirthfully along the downhill of existence, without languor, or gout, or any of the privileges exacted by time for the mournful privilege of living. His face is still resplendent with cheerfulness. 'Die when you will, Charles,' said Curran to him, 'you will die in your youth.'"

FOOTNOTES:

[14] See Century of Anecdote, vol. i. p. 321.

BEEF-STEAK CLUBS.

There are other Beef-steak Clubs to be chronicled. Pyne, in his _Wine and Walnuts_, says: "At the same time the social Club flourished in England, and about the year 1749, a Beef-steak Club was established at the Theatre Royal, Dublin, of which the celebrated Mrs. Margaret Woffington was president. It was begun by Mr. Sheridan, but on a very different plan to that in London, no theatrical performer, save one _female_, being admitted; and though called a Club, the manager alone bore all the expenses. The plan was, by making a list of about fifty or sixty persons, chiefly noblemen and members of Parliament, who were invited. Usually about half that number attended, and dined in the manager's apartment in the theatre. There was no female admitted but this _Peg Woffington_, so denominated by all her contemporaries, who was seated in a great chair at the head of the table, and elected president for the season.

"'It will readily be believed,' says Mr. Victor, in his _History of the Theatres_, who was joint proprietor of the house, 'that a club where there were good accommodations, such a _lovely president_, full of wit and spirit, and _nothing to pay_, must soon grow remarkably fashionable.' It did so; but we find it subsequently caused the theatre to be pulled to pieces about the manager's head.

"Mr. Victor says of Mrs. Margaret, 'she possessed captivating charms as a jovial, witty bottle companion, but few remaining as a mere female,' We have Dr. Johnson's testimony, however, who had often gossiped with Mrs. Margaret in the green-room at old Drury, more in the lady's favour.

"This author (Victor) says, speaking of the Beef-steak Club, 'It was a club of ancient institution in every theatre; when the principal performers dined one day in the week together (generally Saturday), and authors and other geniuses were admitted members.'"

The Club in Ivy-lane, of which Dr. Johnson was a member, was originally a Beef-steak Club.

There was also a political Club, called "the Rump Steak, or Liberty Club," in existence in 1733-4. The members were in eager opposition to Sir Robert Walpole.

At the Bell Tavern, Church-row, Houndsditch, was held the Beef-steak Club, instituted by Mr. Beard, Mr. Dunstall, Mr. Woodward, Stoppalear, Bencroft, Gifford, etc.--_See Memoirs of Charles Lee Lewis_, vol. ii. p. 196.

CLUB AT TOM'S COFFEE-HOUSE.

Covent-Garden has lost many of its houses "studded with anecdote and history;" and the mutations among what Mr. Thackeray affectionately called its "rich cluster of brown taverns" are sundry and manifest. Its coffee-houses proper have almost disappeared, even in name. Yet, in the last century, in one short street of Covent-Garden--Russell-street-- flourished three of the most celebrated coffee-houses in the metropolis: Will's, Button's, and Tom's. The reader need not be reminded of Will's, with Dryden, the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_, and its wits' room on the first floor; or Button's, with its lion's head letter-box, and the young poets in the back room. Tom's, No. 17, on the north side of Russell-street, and of somewhat later date, was taken down in 1865. The premises remained with little alteration, long after they ceased to be a coffee-house. It was named after its original proprietor, Thomas West, who, Nov. 26, 1722, threw himself, in a delirium, from the second-floor window into the street, and died immediately (_Historical Register_ for 1722). The upper portion of the premises was the coffee-house, under which lived T. Lewis, the bookseller, the original publisher, in 1711, of Pope's _Essay on Criticism_. The usual frequenters upstairs may be judged of by the following passage in the _Journey through England_, first edit., 1714:--"After the play, the best company generally go to Tom's and Will's coffee-houses, near adjoining, where there is playing at piquet and the best conversation till midnight. Here you will see blue and green ribbons, with stars, sitting familiarly and talking with the same freedom as if they had left their quality and degrees of distance at home; and a stranger tastes with pleasure the universal liberty of speech of the English nation. And in all the coffee-houses you have not only the foreign prints, but several English ones, with the foreign occurrences, besides papers of morality and party disputes." Such were the Augustan delights of a memorable coffee-house of the reign of Queen Anne. Of this period is a recollection of Mr. Grignon, sen., having seen the "balcony of Tom's crowded with noblemen in their stars and garters, drinking their tea and coffee exposed to the people." We find an entry in Walpole's _Letters_, 1745:--"A gentleman, I don't know who, the other night at Tom's coffee-house, said, on Lord Baltimore refusing to come into the Admiralty because Lord Vere Beauclerk had the precedence, 'it put him in mind of Pinkethman's petition in the _Spectator_, where he complains that formerly he used to act second chair in "Diocletian," but now he was reduced to dance fifth flower-pot.'"

In 1764 there appears to have been formed here, by a guinea subscription, a Club of nearly 700 members--the nobility, foreign ministers, gentry, and men of genius of the age; the large front room on the first floor being the card-room. The Club flourished, so that in 1768, "having considerably enlarged itself of late," Thomas Haines, the then proprietor, took in the front room of the next house westward as a coffee-room. The front room of No. 17 was then appropriated exclusively as a card-room for the subscription club, each member paying one guinea annually; the adjoining apartment being used as a conversation-room. The subscription-books are before us, and here we find in the long list the names of Sir Thomas Robinson, Bart., who was designated "Long Sir Thomas Robinson," to distinguish him from his namesake, Sir Thomas Robinson, created Lord Grantham in 1761. "Long Tom," as the former was familiarly called, was a Commissioner of Excise and Governor of Barbadoes. He was a sad bore, especially to the Duke of Newcastle, the minister, who resided in Lincoln's Inn Fields. However, he gave rise to some smart things. Lord Chesterfield being asked by the latter Baronet to write some verses upon him, immediately produced this epigram:--

"Unlike my subject now shall be my song,
It shall be witty, and it shan't be long."

Long Sir Thomas distinguished himself in this odd manner. When our Sovereign had not dropped the folly of calling himself "King of France," and it was customary at the Coronation of an English Sovereign to have fictitious Dukes of Aquitaine and Normandy to represent the vassalage of France, Sir Thomas was selected to fill the second mock dignity at the coronation of George III., to which Churchill alludes in his _Ghost_; but he assigns a wrong dukedom to Sir Thomas:

"Could Satire not (though doubtful since
Whether he plumber is or prince)
Tell of a simple Knight's advance,
To be a doughty peer of France?
Tell how he did a dukedom gain,
And Robinson was Aquitain."

Of the two Sir Thomas Robinsons, one was tall and thin, the other short and fat: "I can't imagine," said Lady Townshend, "why the one should be preferred to the other; I see but little difference between them: the one is as broad as the other is long."

Next on the books is Samuel Foote, who, after the decline of Tom's, was mostly to be seen at the Bedford. Then comes Arthur Murphy, lately called to the Bar; David Garrick, who then lived in Southampton-street, (though he was not a clubbable man); John Beard, the fine tenor singer; John Webb; Sir Richard Glynne; Robert Gosling, the banker; Colonel Eyre, of Marylebone; Earl Percy; Sir John Fielding, the justice; Paul Methuen, of Corsham; Richard Clive; the great Lord Clive; the eccentric Duke of Montagu; Sir Fletcher Norton, the ill-mannered; Lord Edward Bentinck; Dr. Samuel Johnson; the celebrated Marquis of Granby; Sir F. B. Delaval, the friend of Foote; William Tooke, the solicitor; the Hon. Charles Howard, sen.; the Duke of Northumberland; Sir Francis Gosling; the Earl of Anglesey; Sir George Brydges Rodney (afterwards Lord Rodney); Peter Burrell; Walpole Eyre; Lewis Mendez; Dr. Swinney; Stephen Lushington; John Gunning; Henry Brougham, father of Lord Brougham; Dr. Macnamara; Sir John Trevelyan; Captain Donellan; Sir W. Wolseley; Walter Chetwynd; Viscount Gage, etc.;--Thomas Payne, Esq., of Leicester House; Dr. Schomberg, of Pall-Mall; George Colman, the dramatist, then living in Great Queen Street; Dr. Dodd, in Southampton-row; James Payne, the architect, Salisbury-street, which he rebuilt; William Bowyer, the printer, Bloomsbury-square; Count Bruhl, the Polish Minister; Dr. Goldsmith, Temple (1773), etc. Many a noted name in the list of 700 is very suggestive of the gay society of the period. Among the Club musters, Samuel Foote, Sir Thomas Robinson, and Dr. Dodd are very frequent: indeed, Sir Thomas seems to have been something like a proposer-general.

Tom's appears to have been a general coffee-house; for in the parish books of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, is the entry:--

£. s. d.

46 Dishes of chocolate 1 3 0
34 Jelleys 0 17 0
Biscuits 0 2 3

Mr. Haines, the landlord, was succeeded by his son. Thomas, whose daughter is living, at the age of eighty-four, and possesses a portrait, by Dance, of the elder Haines, who, from his polite address, was called among the Club "Lord Chesterfield." The above lady has also a portrait, in oil, of the younger Haines, by Grignon.

The coffee-house business closed in 1814, about which time the premises were first occupied by Mr. William Till, the numismatist. The card-room remained in its original condition; "And, here," wrote Mr. Till, many years since, "the tables on which I exhibit my coins are those which were used by the exalted characters whose names are extracted from books of the Club, still in possession of the proprietress of the house." On the death of Mr. Till, Mr. Webster succeeded to the tenancy and collection of coins and medals, which he removed to No. 6, Henrietta-street, shortly before the old premises in Russell-street were taken down. He possesses, by marriage with the grand-daughter of the second Mr. Haines, the old Club books, as well as the curious memorial, the snuffbox of the Club-room. It is of large size, and fine tortoiseshell; upon the lid, in high relief, in silver, are the portraits of Charles I. and Queen Anne; the Boscobel oak, with Charles II. amid its branches; and at the foot of the tree, on a silver plate, is inscribed Thomas Haines. At Will's the small wits grew conceited if they dipped but into Mr. Dryden's snuffbox; and at Tom's the box may have enjoyed a similar shrine-like reputation. It is nearly all that remains of the old coffee-house in Covent Garden, save the recollection of the names of the interesting personages who once thronged its rooms in stars and garters, but who bore more intellectual distinctions to entitle them to remembrance.

THE KING OF CLUBS.

This ambitious title was given to a Club set on foot about the year 1801. Its founder was Bobus Smith, the brother of the great Sydney Smith. The Club at first consisted of a small knot of lawyers, a few literary characters, and visitors generally introduced by those who took the chief part in the conversation, and seemingly selected for the faculty of being good listeners.

The King of Clubs sat on Saturday of each month, at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, in the Strand, which, at that time, was a nest of boxes, each containing its Club, and affording excellent cheer, though latterly desecrated by indifferent dinners and very questionable wine. The Club was a grand talk, the prevalent topics being books and authors; politics quite excluded. Bobus Smith was a convivial member in every respect but that of wine; he was but a frigid worshipper of Bacchus, but he had great humour and a species of wit, that revelled amidst the strangest and most grotesque combinations. His manner was somewhat of the bow-wow kind; and when he pounced upon a disputatious and dull blockhead, he made sad work of him.

Then there was Richard Sharp, a partner of Boddington's West India house, who subsequently sat in Parliament for Port Arlington, in Ireland. He was a thinker and a reasoner, and occasionally controversial, but overflowed with useful and agreeable knowledge, and an unfailing stream of delightful information. He was celebrated for his conversational talents, and hence called "Conversation Sharp;" and he often had for his guest Sir James Mackintosh, with whom he lived in habits of intimacy. Mr. Sharp published a volume of _Letters and Essays in Prose and Verse_, of which a third edition appeared in 1834. Sharp was confessedly the first of the King of Clubs. He indulged but rarely in pleasantry; but when anything of the kind escaped him, it was sure to tell. One evening, at the Club, there was a talk about Tweddel, then a student in the Temple, who had greatly distinguished himself at Cambridge, and was the Senior Wrangler and medallist of his year. Tweddel was not a little intoxicated with his University triumphs; which led Sharp to remark, "Poor fellow! he will soon find that his Cambridge medal will not pass as current coin in London." Other frequent attendants were Scarlett (afterwards Lord Abinger); Rogers, the poet; honest John Allen, brother of the bluest of the blues, Lady Mackintosh; M. Dumont, the French emigrant, who would sometimes recite his friend the Abbé de Lisle's verses, with interminable perseverance, in spite of yawns and other symptoms of dislike, which his own politeness (for he was a highly-bred man) forbade him to interpret into the absence of it in others.

In this respect, however, he was outdone by Wishart, who was nothing but quotations, and whose prosing, when he did converse, was like the torpedo's touch to all pleasing and lively converse. Charles Butler, too, in his long life, had treasured up a considerable assortment of reminiscences, which, when once set going, came out like a torrent upon you; it was a sort of shower-bath, that inundated you the moment you pulled the string.

Curran, the boast of the Irish bar, came to the King of Clubs, during a short visit to London; there he met Erskine, but the meeting was not congenial. Curran gave some odd sketches of a Serjeant Kelly, at the Irish bar, whose whimsical peculiarity was an inveterate habit of drawing conclusions directly at variance with his premises. He had acquired the name of Counsellor Therefore. Curran said he was a perfect human personification of a _non sequitur_. For instance, meeting Curran, on Sunday, near St. Patrick's, he said to him, "The Archbishop gave us an excellent discourse this morning. It was well written and well delivered; _therefore_, I shall make a point of being at the Four Courts to-morrow at ten." At another time, observing to a person whom he met in the street, "What a delightful morning this is for walking!" he finished his remark on the weather by saying, "Therefore I will go home as soon as I can, and stir out no more the whole day." His speeches in Court were interminable, and his _therefore_ kept him going on, though every one thought he had done. "This is so clear a point, gentlemen," he would tell the jury, "that I am convinced you felt it to be so the very moment I stated it. I should pay your understandings but a poor compliment to dwell on it for a minute; _therefore_, I will now proceed to explain it to you as minutely as possible."

Curran seemed to have no very profound respect for the character and talents of Lord Norbury. Curran went down to Carlow on a special retainer; it was in a case of ejectment. A new Court-house had been recently erected, and it was found extremely inconvenient, from the echo, which reverberated the mingled voices of judge, counsel, crier, to such a degree, as to produce constant confusion, and great interruption of business. Lord Norbury had been, if possible, more noisy that morning than ever. Whilst he was arguing a point with the counsel, and talking very loudly, an ass brayed vehemently from the street, adjoining the Court-house, to the instant interruption of the Chief-Justice. "What noise is that?" exclaimed his Lordship. "Oh, my Lord," retorted Curran, "it is merely the echo of the Court."

WATIER'S CLUB.

This Club was the great Macao gambling-house of a very short period. Mr. Thomas Raikes, who understood all its mysteries, describes it as very genteel, adding that no one ever quarrelled there. "The Club did not endure for twelve years altogether; the pace was too quick to last: it died a natural death in 1819, from the paralysed state of its members; the house was then taken by a set of blacklegs, who instituted a common bank for gambling. To form an idea of the ruin produced by this short-lived establishment among men whom I have so intimately known, a cursory glance to the past suggests the following melancholy list, which only forms a part of its deplorable results.... None of the dead reached the average age of man."

Among the members was Bligh, a notorious madman, of whom Mr. Raikes relates:--"One evening at the Macao table, when the play was very deep, Brummell having lost a considerable stake, affected, in his farcical way, a very tragic air, and cried out, 'Waiter, bring me a flat candlestick and a pistol.' Upon which Bligh, who was sitting opposite to him, calmly produced two loaded pistols from his coat pocket, which he placed on the table, and said, 'Mr. Brummell, if you are really desirous to put a period to your existence, I am extremely happy to offer you the means without troubling the waiter.' The effect upon those present may easily be imagined, at finding themselves in the company of a known madman who had loaded weapons about him."

MR. CANNING AT THE CLIFFORD-STREET CLUB.

There was in the last century, a debating Club, which boasted for a short time, a brighter assemblage of talent than is usually found to flourish in societies of this description. Its meetings, which took place once a month, were held at the Clifford-street Coffee-house, at the corner of Bond-street. The debaters were chiefly Mackintosh, Richard Sharp, a Mr. Ollyett Woodhouse; Charles Moore, son of the celebrated traveller; and Lord Charles Townshend, fourth son of the facetious and eccentric Marquis. The great primitive principles of civil government were then much discussed. It was before the French Revolution had "brought death into the world and all its woe."

At the Clifford-street Society, Canning generally took "the liberal side" of the above questions. His earliest prepossessions are well known to have inclined to this side; but he evidently considered the Society rather as a school of rhetorical exercise, where he might acquire the use of his weapons, than a forum, where the serious profession of opinions, and a consistent adherence to them, could be fairly expected of him. One evening, the question for debate was "the justice and expediency of resuming the ecclesiastical property of France." Before the debate began, Canning had taken some pains to ascertain on which side the majority of the members seemed inclined to speak; and finding that they were generally in favour of the resumption, he expressed his fears that the unanimity of sentiment would spoil the discussion; so, he volunteered to speak against it. He did so, and it was a speech of considerable power, chiefly in reply to the opener, who, in a set discourse of some length, had asserted the revocable conditions of the property of the church, which, being created, he said, by the state, remained ever after at its disposition. Canning denied the proposition that ecclesiastical property was the creature of the state. He contended that though it might be so in a new government, yet, speaking historically, the great as well as lesser ecclesiastical fiefs were coeval with the crown of France, frequently strong enough to maintain fierce and not unequal conflicts with it, and certainly not in their origin emanations from its bounty. The church, he said, came well dowered to the state, who was now suing for a divorce, in order to plunder her pin-money. He contended that the church property stood upon the same basis, and ought to be protected by the same sanctions, as private property. It was originally, he said, accumulated from the successive donations with which a pious benevolence ought to enrich the fountains, from which spiritual comfort ought to flow to the wretched, the poor, the forsaken. He drew an energetic sketch of Mirabeau, the proposer of the measure, by whose side, he remarked, the worst characters in history, the Cleons, the Catilines, the Cetheguses, of antiquity, would brighten into virtue. He said that the character of the lawgiver tainted the law. It was proffered to the National Assembly by hands hot and reeking from the cells of sensuality and vice; it came from a brain inflamed and distended into frenzy by habitual debauchery. These are, of course, but faint sketches of this very early specimen of Canning as a speaker. The humour and irony with which he delighted his auditors are indescribable. He displayed the same powers of pleasantry which, in maturer years, enlivened the dulness of debate, and softened the asperities of party. He was, indeed, less rapid, and more measured in his elevation; sometimes impeded in flow, probably, from too fastidious a selection of words; but it was impossible not to predict that at no very distant period he would rise into high distinction as a parliamentary speaker.

Canning was then the most handsome man about town; and his fine countenance glowed, as he spoke, with every sentiment which he uttered. It was customary during the debates at the Clifford-street Senate, for pots of porter to be introduced by way of refreshment. Canning, in his eloquent tirade against Mirabeau, handled the peculiar style of the Count's oratory with great severity. The president had, during this part of Canning's speech, given a signal for a pot of porter, which had been brought in and placed before him. It served Canning for an illustration. "Sir," said he, "much has been said about the gigantic powers of Mirabeau; let us not be carried away by the false jargon of his philosophy, or imagine that deep political wisdom resides in tumid and decorated diction. To the steady eye of a sagacious criticism, the eloquence of Mirabeau will appear to be as empty and vapid as his patriotism. It is like the beverage that stands so invitingly before you,--foam and froth at the top, heavy and muddy within."

ECCENTRIC CLUBS.

In Ward's _Secret History_, we read of the Golden Fleece Club, a rattle-brained society, originally held at a house in Cornhill, so entitled. They were a merry company of tippling citizens and jocular change-brokers, who every night washed away their consciences with claret, that the mental alienations and fallacious assurances the one had used in their shops, and the deceitful wheedling and stock-jobbing honesty by which the other had outwitted their merchants, might be no impediment to their night's rest; but that they might sleep without repentance, and rise next day with a strong propensity to the same practices. Each member on his admission had a characteristic name assigned to him; as, Sir Timothy Addlepate, Sir Nimmy Sneer, Sir Talkative Do-little, Sir Skinny Fretwell, Sir Rumbus Rattle, Sir Boozy Prate-all, Sir Nicholas Ninny Sipall, Sir Gregory Growler, Sir Pay-little, etc. The Club flourished until the decease of the leading member; when the dull fraternity, for want of a merry leader, and neglecting to be shaved and blooded, fell into the dumps, gave up their nocturnal revels, forsook frenzied claret for sober water-gruel, and a cessation of bumpers was proclaimed, till those who were sick recovered their health, and others their senses; and then, the better to prevent their debasement being known, they adjourned their Society from the Fleece in Cornhill to the Three Tuns in Southwark, that they might be more retired from the bows and compliments of the London apprentices, who used to salute the noble knights by their titles, as they passed to and fro.

Another of Ward's humorous Sketches is that of the Lying Club, at the Bell Tavern, in Westminster, with Sir Harry Blunt for its chairman.

The Clubs were fruitful sources of satire to the _Spectator_. He is merry on the Mummers, the Twopenny, the Ugly, the Fighting, the Fringe-Glove, the Humdrum, the Doldrum, and the Lovers; on Clubs of Fat Men, Tall Men, and One-Eyed Men, and of Men who lived in the same Street.

The pretentious character of the Clubs of Queen Anne's time, and the historical importance attached to their annals, are humorously satirized in the following sketch of the Everlasting Club, to which, in those days, if a man were an idle, worthless fellow, who neglected his family, and spent most of his time over a bottle, he was, in derision, said to belong.

"The Everlasting Club consists of an hundred members, who divide the whole twenty-four hours among them in such a manner, that the Club sits day and night from one end of the year to another: no party presuming to rise till they are relieved by those who are in course to succeed them. By this means, a member of the Everlasting Club never wants company; for though he is not upon duty himself, he is sure to find some who are; so that if he be disposed to take a whet, a nooning, an evening's draught, or a bottle after midnight, he goes to the Club, and finds a knot of friends to his mind.

"It is a maxim in this Club that the Steward never dies; for as they succeed one another by way of rotation, no man is to quit the great elbow-chair, which stands at the upper end of the table, till his successor is ready to fill it; insomuch that there has not been a _sede vacante_ in their memory.

"This Club was instituted towards the end, or, as some of them say, about the middle of the Civil Wars, and continued with interruption till the time of the Great Fire, which burnt them out and dispersed them for several weeks. The Steward all that time maintained his post till he had like to have been blown up with a neighbouring house, which was demolished in order to stop the fire: and would not leave the chair at last, till he had emptied the bottles upon the table, and received repeated directions from the Club to withdraw himself. This Steward is frequently talked of in the Club, and looked upon by every member of it as a greater man than the famous captain mentioned in my Lord Clarendon, who was burnt in his ship, because he would not quit it without orders. It is said that towards the close of 1700, being the great year of jubilee, the Club had it under consideration whether they should break up or continue their session; but after many speeches and debates, it was at length agreed to sit out the other century. This resolution passed in a general club _nemine contradicente_.

"It appears, by their books in general, that, since their first institution, they have smoked fifty tons of tobacco, drank thirty thousand butts of ale, one thousand hogsheads of red port, two hundred barrels of brandy, and _one_ kilderkin of small beer. There had been likewise a great consumption of cards. It is also said that they observe the law in Ben Jonson's Club, which orders the fire to be always kept in (_focus perennis esto_), as well for the convenience of lighting their pipes as to cure the dampness of the club-room. They have an old woman, in the nature of a vestal, whose business is to cherish and perpetuate the fire, which burns from generation to generation, and has seen the glass-house fires in and out above an hundred times.

"The Everlasting Club treats all other clubs with an eye of contempt, and talks even of the Kit-Kat and October as a couple of upstarts. Their ordinary discourse, as much I have been able to learn of it, turns altogether upon such adventures as have passed in their own assembly; of members who have taken the glass in their turns for a week together, without stirring out of the Club; of others who have not missed their morning's draught for twenty years together; sometimes they speak in rapture of a run of ale in King Charles's reign; and sometimes reflect with astonishment upon games at whist, which have been miraculously recovered by members of the Society, when in all human probability the case was desperate.

"They delight in several old catches, which they sing at all hours, to encourage one another to moisten their clay, and grow immortal by drinking, with many other edifying exhortations of the like nature.

"There are four general Clubs held in a year, at which time they fill up vacancies, appoint waiters, confirm the old fire-maker or elect a new one, settle contributions for coals, pipes, tobacco, and other necessaries.

"The senior member has outlived the whole Club twice over, and has been drunk with the grandfathers of some of the sitting members."

_The Lawyer's Club_ is thus described in the _Spectator_, No. 372:--"This Club consists only of attorneys, and at this meeting every one proposes to the board the cause he has then in hand, upon which each member gives his judgment, according to the experience he has met with. If it happens that any one puts a case of which they have had no precedent, it is noted down by their chief clerk, Will Goosequill (who registers all their proceedings), that one of them may go with it next day to a counsel. This is, indeed, commendable, and ought to be the principal end of their meeting; but had you been there to have heard them relate their methods of managing a cause, their manner of drawing out their bills, and, in short, their arguments upon the several ways of abusing their clients, with the applause that is given to him who has done it most artfully, you would before now have given your remarks.

"They are so conscious that their discourses ought to be kept a secret, that they are very cautious of admitting any person who is not in the profession. When any who are not of the law are let in, the person who introduces him says, he is a very honest gentleman, and he is taken, as their cant is, to pay costs." The writer adds, "that he is admitted upon the recommendation of one of their principals, as a very honest, good-natured fellow, that will never be in a plot, and only desires to drink his bottle and smoke his pipe."

_The Little Club_, we are told in the _Guardian_, No. 91, began by sending invitations to those not exceeding five feet in height, to repair to the assembly, but many sent excuses, or pretended a non-application. They proceeded to fit up a room for their accommodation, and in the first place had all the chairs, stools, and tables removed, which had served the more bulky portion of mankind for many years, previous to which they laboured under very great disadvantages. The President's whole person was sunk in the elbow-chair, and when his arms were spread over it, he appeared (to the great lessening of his dignity) like a child in a go-cart. It was also so wide in the seat, as to give a wag occasion of saying, that "notwithstanding the President sat in it, there was a _sede vacante_." "The table was so high, that one who came by chance to the door, seeing our chins just above the pewter dishes, took us for a circle of men that sat ready to be shaved, and set in half-a-dozen of barbers. Another time, one of the Club spoke contumeliously of the President, imagining he had been absent, when he was only eclipsed by a flask of Florence, which stood on the table, in a parallel line before his face. We therefore new-furnished the room, in all respects proportionably to us, and had the door made lower, so as to admit no man above five feet high, without brushing his foretop; which, whoever does, is utterly unqualified to sit amongst us."

Mr. Daniel, in his _Merrie England in the Olden Time_, has collected a further list of Clubs existing in London in 1790. He enumerates the following:--The Odd Fellows' Club; the Humbugs (held at the Blue Posts, in Covent-Garden); the Samsonic Society; the Society of Bucks; the Purl Drinkers; the Society of Pilgrims (held at the Woolpack, in the Kingsland-road); the Thespian Club; the Great Bottle Club; the Je ne sçai quoi Club (held at the Star and Garter in Pall-Mall, and of which the Prince of Wales, and the Dukes of York, Clarence, Orleans, Norfolk, Bedford, etc., were members); the Sons of the Thames Society; the Blue Stocking Club; the No Pay No Liquor Club (held at the Queen and Artichoke, in the Hampstead-road, and of which the ceremony, on a new member's introduction, was, after his paying a fee on entrance of one shilling, that he should wear a hat, throughout the first evening, made in the shape of a quart pot, and drink to the health of his brother members in a gilt goblet of ale); the Social Villagers (held at the Bedford Arms, in Camden-town), etc. Of the Villagers of our time, Sheridan Knowles, the dramatist, was a jovial member.

JACOBITE CLUB.

In the year 1854 a Correspondent of _Notes and Queries_ communicated to that journal the following interesting reminiscences of a political Club, with characteristics of the reminiscent.

"The adherents of the Stuarts are now nearly extinct; but I recollect a few years ago an old gentleman in London, who was then upwards of eighty years of age, and who was a staunch Jacobite. I have heard him say that, when he was a young man, his father belonged to a society in Aldersgate-street, called 'The Mourning Bush;' and this Bush was to be always in mourning until the Stuarts were restored." A member of this society having been met in mourning when one of the reigning family had died, was asked by one of the members how it so happened? His reply was, "that he was not mourning for the dead, but for the living." The old gentleman was father of the Mercers' Company, and his brother of the Stationers' Company: they were bachelors, and citizens of the old school, hospitable, liberal, and charitable. An instance occurred that the latter had a presentation to Christ's Hospital: he was applied to in behalf of a person who had a large family; but the father not being a freeman, he could not present it to the son. He immediately bought the freedom for the father, and gave the son the presentation. This is a rare act. The brothers have long gone to receive the reward of their goodness, and lie buried in the cemetery attached to Mercers' Hall, Cheapside.

By the above statement, the Club appears to have taken the name of the Mourning Bush Tavern, in Aldersgate, of which we shall have more to say hereafter.

THE WITTINAGEMOT OF THE CHAPTER COFFEE-HOUSE.

The Chapter Coffee-house, at the corner of Chapterhouse Court, on the south side of Paternoster-row, was, in the last century, noted as the resort of men of letters, and was famous for its punch, pamphlets, and good supply of newspapers. It was closed as a coffee-house in 1854, and then altered to a tavern. Its celebrity, however, lay in the last century. In the _Connoisseur_, January 31, 1754, we read: "The Chapter Coffee-house is frequented by those encouragers of literature, and (as they are styled by an eminent critic) 'not the worst judges of merit,' the booksellers. The conversation here naturally turns upon the newest publications; but their criticisms are somewhat singular. When they say a _good_ book, they do not mean to praise the style or sentiment, but the quick and extensive sale of it. That book is best which sells most; and if the demand for Quarles should be greater than for Pope, he would have the highest place on the rubric-post."

The house was much frequented by Chatterton, who writes to his mother: "I am quite familiar at the Chapter Coffee-house, and know all the geniuses there;" and to Mr. Mason: "Send me whatever you would have published, and direct for me, to be left at the Chapter Coffee-house, Paternoster-row." And, writing from "King's Bench for the present," May 14th, 1770, Chatterton says: "A gentleman who knows me at the Chapter, as an author, would have introduced me as a companion to the young Duke of Northumberland, in his intended general tour. But, alas! I spake no tongue but my own."

Forster relates an anecdote of Oliver Goldsmith being paymaster at the Chapter, for Churchill's friend, Lloyd, who, in his careless way, without a shilling to pay for the entertainment, had invited him to sup with some friends of Grub-street.

The Club celebrity of the Chapter was, however, the Wittinagemot, as the box in the north-east corner of the coffee-room was designated. Among its frequenters was Alexander Stevens, editor of the _Annual Biography and Obituary_, who died in 1824, and who left among his papers, printed in the _Monthly Magazine_, as "Stephensiana," his recollections of the Chapter, which he frequented in 1797 to 1805, where, he tells us, he always met with intelligent company. We give his reminiscences almost in his own words.

Early in the morning it was occupied by neighbours, who were designated the _Wet Paper Club_, as it was their practice to open the papers when brought in by the newsmen, and read them before they were dried by the waiter; a dry paper they viewed as a stale commodity. In the afternoon, another party enjoyed the _wet_ evening papers; and (says Stephens) it was these whom I met.

Dr. Buchan, author of _Domestic Medicine_, generally held a seat in this box; and though he was a Tory, he heard the freest discussion with good humour, and commonly acted as a moderator. His fine physiognomy, and his white hairs, qualified him for this office. But the fixture in the box was a Mr. Hammond, a Coventry manufacturer, who, evening after evening, for nearly forty-five years, was always to be found in his place, and during the entire period was much distinguished for his severe and often able strictures on the events of the day. He had thus debated through the days of Wilkes, of the American war, and of the French war, and being on the side of liberty, was constantly in opposition. His mode of arguing was Socratic, and he generally applied to his adversary the _reductio ad absurdum_, creating bursts of laughter.

The registrar or chronicler of the box was a Mr. Murray, an episcopal Scotch minister, who generally sat in one place from nine in the morning till nine at night; and was famous for having read, at least once through, every morning and evening paper published in London during the last thirty years. His memory being good, he was appealed to whenever any point of fact within the memory of man happened to be disputed. It was often remarked, however, that such incessant daily reading did not tend to clear his views.

Among those from whom I constantly profited was Dr. Berdmore, the Master of the Charterhouse; Walker, the rhetorician; and Dr. Towers, the political and historical writer. Dr. B. abounded in anecdote; Walker, (the Dictionary-maker,) to the finest enunciation united the most intelligent head I ever met with; and Towers, over his half-pint of Lisbon, was sarcastic and lively, though never deep.

Among our constant visitors was the celebrated Dr. George Fordyce, who, having much fashionable practice, brought news which had not generally transpired. He had not the appearance of a man of genius, nor did he debate, but he possessed sound information on all subjects. He came to the Chapter after taking his wine, and stayed about an hour, or while he sipped a glass of brandy-and-water; it was then his habit to take another glass at the London Coffee-house, and a third at the Oxford, before he returned to his house in Essex-street, Strand.

Dr. Gower, the urbane and able physician of the Middlesex, was another pretty constant visitor. It was gratifying to hear such men as Fordyce, Gower, and Buchan in familiar chat. On subjects of medicine they seldom agreed, and when such were started, they generally laughed at one another's opinions. They seemed to consider Chapter punch, or brandy-and-water, as _aqua vitæ_; and, to the credit of the house, better punch could not be found in London. If any one complained of being indisposed, the elder Buchan exclaimed, "Now let me prescribe for you without a fee. Here, John or Isaac, bring a glass of punch for Mr. ----, unless he likes brandy-and-water better. Take that, Sir, and I'll warrant you you'll soon be well. You're a peg too low; you want stimulus, and if one glass won't do, call for a second."

There was a growling man of the name of Dobson, who, when his asthma permitted, vented his spleen upon both sides; and a lover of absurd paradoxes, author of some works of merit, but so devoid of principle, that, deserted by his friends, he would have died for want, if Dr. Garthshore had not placed him as a patient in the empty Fever Institution.

Robinson, the king of the booksellers, was frequently of the party, as well as his brother John, a man of some talent; and Joseph Johnson, the friend of Priestley, and Paine, and Cowper, and Fuseli, came from St. Paul's Churchyard.

Phillips, then commencing his _Monthly Magazine_, was also on a keen look-out for recruits, and with his waistcoat pocket full of guineas, to slip his enlistment money into their hand. Phillips, in the winter of 1795-6, lodged and boarded at the Chapter, and not only knew the characters referred to by Mr. Stephens, but many others equally original, from the voracious glutton in politics, who waited for the wet papers in the morning twilight, to the comfortless bachelor, who sat till the fire was raked out at half-past twelve at night, all of whom took their successive stations, like figures in a magic lantern.

Alexander Chalmers, the workman of the Robinsons, and through their introduction editor of many large books, also enlivened the box by many sallies of wit and humour. He always took much pains to be distinguished from his namesake George, who, he used to say, carried, "the leaden mace," and he was much provoked whenever he happened to be mistaken for his namesake.

Cahusac, a teacher of the classics; M'Leod, a writer in the newspapers; the two Parrys, of the _Courier_, the organ of Jacobinism; and Captain Skinner, a man of elegant manners, who personated our nation in the procession of Anacharsis Clootz, at Paris, in 1793, were also in constant attendance.

One Baker, once a Spitalfields manufacturer, a great talker, and not less remarkable as an eater, was constant; but, having shot himself at his lodgings in Kirby-street, it was discovered that, for some years, he had had no other meal per day besides the supper which he took at the Chapter, where there being a choice of viands at the fixed price of one shilling, this, with a pint of porter, constituted his daily subsistence, till, his last resources failing, he put an end to himself.

Lowndes, the celebrated electrician, was another of our set, and a facetious man. Buchan the younger, a son of the Doctor, generally came with Lowndes; and though somewhat dogmatical, yet he added to the variety and good intelligence of our discussions, which, from the mixture of company, were as various as the contents of the newspapers.

Dr. Busby, the musician, and an ingenious man, often obtained a hearing, and was earnest in disputing with the Tories. And Macfarlane, the author of the _History of George the Third_, was generally admired for the soundness of his views; but this worthy man was killed by the pole of a coach, during an election procession of Sir Francis Burdett, from Brentford. Mr. W. Cooke, author of _Conversation_, constantly exemplified his own rules in his gentlemanly manners and well-timed anecdotes.

Kelly, an Irish school-master, and a man of polished manners, kept up warm debates by his equivocating politics, and was often roughly handled by Hammond and others, though he bore his defeats with constant good humour.

There was a young man named Wilson, who acquired the distinction of Long-bow, from the number of extraordinary secrets of the _haut ton_, which he used to retail by the hour. He was an amusing person, who seemed likely to prove an acquisition to the Wittinagemot; but, having run up a score of thirty or forty pounds, he suddenly absented himself. Miss Brun, the keeper of the Chapter, begged me, if I met with Wilson, to tell him she would give him a receipt for the past, and further credit to any amount, if he would only return to the house; "for," said she, "if he never paid us, he was one of the best customers we ever had, contriving, by his stories and conversation, to keep a couple of boxes crowded the whole night, by which we made more punch and more brandy-and-water, than from any other single cause whatever."

Jacob, afterwards an alderman and M.P., was a frequent visitor, and then as remarkable for his heretical, as he was subsequently for his orthodox, opinions in his speeches and writings.

Waithman, the active and eloquent Common Councilman, often mixed with us, and was always clear-headed and agreeable. One James, who had made a large fortune by vending tea, contributed many good anecdotes of the age of Wilkes.

Several stockbrokers visited us; and among others of that description was Mr. Blake, the banker, of Lombard-street, a remarkably intelligent old gentleman; and there was a Mr. Paterson, a North Briton, a long-headed speculator, who taught mathematics to Pitt.

Some young men of talent came among us from time to time; as Lovett, a militia officer; Hennell, a coal merchant, and some others; and these seemed likely to keep up the party. But all things have an end: Dr. Buchan died; some young sparks affronted our Nestor, Hammond, on which he absented himself, after nearly fifty years' attendance; and the noisy box of the Wittinagemot was, for some years previously to 1820, remarkable for its silence and dulness. The two or three last times I was at the Chapter, I heard no voice above a whisper; and I almost shed a tear on thinking of men, habits, and times gone by for ever!

We shall have more to say of the Chapter Coffee-house in Vol. II.

THE ROXBURGHE CLUB DINNERS.

The Roxburghe Club claims its foundation from the sale of the library of the late John, Duke of Roxburghe, in 1812, which extended to forty-one days following, with a supplementary catalogue beginning Monday, July 13, with the exception of Sundays. Some few days before the sale, the Rev. Thomas Frognall Dibdin, who claimed the title of founder of the Club, suggested the holding of a convivial meeting at the St. Alban's Tavern after the sale of June 17th, upon which day was to be sold the rarest lot, "Il Decamerone di Boccaccio," which produced £2260. The invitation ran thus:--"The honour of your company is requested, to dine with the Roxburghe _dinner_, on Wednesday, the 17th instant." At the first dinner the number of members was limited to twenty-four, which at the second dinner was extended to thirty-one. The president of this club was Lord Spencer: among the other celebrated members were the Duke of Devonshire, the Marquis of Blandford, Lord Althorp, Lord Morpeth, Lord Gower, Sir Mark Sykes, Sir Egerton Brydges, Mr. (afterwards) Baron Bolland, Mr. Dent, the Rev. T. C. Heber, Rev. Rob. Holwell Carr, Sir Walter Scott, etc.; Dr. Dibdin, secretary.

The avowed object of the Club was the reprinting of rare and ancient pieces of ancient literature; and, at one of the early meetings, "it was proposed and concluded for each member of the Club to reprint a scarce piece of ancient lore, to be given to the members, one copy being on vellum for the chairman, and only as many copies as members."

It may, however, be questioned whether "the dinners" of the Club were not more important than the literature. They were given at the St. Alban's, at Grillion's, at the Clarendon, and the Albion, taverns; the _Amphytrions_ evincing as _recherché_ taste in the _carte_, as the Club did in their vellum reprints. Of these entertainments some curious details have been recorded by the late Mr. Joseph Haslewood, one of the members, in a MS. entitled, "Roxburghe Revels; or, an Account of the Annual Display, culinary and festivous, interspersed incidentally with Matters of Moment or Merriment." This MS. was, in 1833, purchased by the Editor of the _Athenæum_, and a selection from its rarities was subsequently printed in that journal. Among the memoranda, we find it noted that, at the second dinner, a few tarried, with Mr. Heber in the chair, until, "on arriving at home, the click of time bespoke a quarter to four." Among the early members was the Rev. Mr. Dodd, one of the masters of Westminster School, who, until the year 1818 (when he died), enlivened the Club with Robin-Hood ditties and similar productions. The fourth dinner was given at Grillion's, when twenty members assembled, under the chairmanship of Sir Mark Masterman Sykes. The bill on this occasion amounted to £57, or £2. 17_s._ per man; and the twenty "lions" managed to dispose of drinkables to the extent of about £33. The reckoning, by Grillion's French waiter, is amusing:--

Dinner du 17 Juin 1815.