Chapter VIII: Part 8

Another of these small Clubs met on Wednesday evenings, at the Globe Tavern, in Fleet-street; where songs, jokes, dramatic imitations, burlesque parodies, and broad sallies of humour, were the entertainments. Here a huge ton of a man, named Gordon, used to delight Goldsmith with singing the jovial song of "Nottingham Ale," and looking like a butt of it. Here too, a wealthy pig-butcher aspired to be on the most sociable terms with Oliver; and here was Tom King, the comedian, recently risen to eminence by his performance of Lord Ogleby, in the new comedy of _The Clandestine Marriage_. A member of note was also one Hugh Kelly, who was a kind of competitor of Goldsmith, but a low one; for Johnson used to speak of him as a man who had written more than he had read. Another noted frequenter of the Globe and Devil taverns was one Glover, who, having failed in the medical profession, took to the stage; but having succeeded in restoring to life a malefactor who had just been executed, he abandoned the stage, and resumed his wig and cane; and came to London to dabble in physic and literature. He used to amuse the company at the Club by his story-telling and mimicry, giving capital imitations of Garrick, Foote, Colman, Sterne, and others. It was through Goldsmith that Glover was admitted to the Wednesday Club; he was, however, greatly shocked by the free-and-easy tone in which Goldsmith was addressed by the pig-butcher; "Come, Noll," he would say as he pledged him, "here's my service to you, old boy."

The evening's amusement at the Wednesday Club was not, however, limited; it had the variety of epigram, and here was first heard the celebrated epitaph, (Goldsmith had been reading Pope and Swift's Miscellanies,) on Edward Purdon:--

"Here lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery freed,
Who long was a bookseller's hack;
He had led such a damnable life in this world,
I don't think he'll wish to come back."

It was in April of the present year that Purdon closed his luckless life by suddenly dropping down dead in Smithfield; and as it was chiefly Goldsmith's pittance that had saved him thus long from starvation, it was well that the same friend should give him his solitary chance of escape from oblivion. "Doctor Goldsmith made this epitaph," says William Ballantyne, "in his way from his chambers in the Temple to the Wednesday evening Club at the Globe. _I think he will never come back_, I believe he said; I was sitting by him, and he repeated it more than once. _I think he will never come back!_ Ah! and not altogether as a jest, it may be, the second and the third time. There was something in Purdon's fate, from their first meeting in college to that incident in Smithfield, which had no very violent contrast to his own; and remembering what Glover had said of his frequent sudden descents from mirth to melancholy, some such faithful change of temper would here have been natural enough. 'His disappointments at these times,' Glover tells us, 'made him peevish and sullen, and he has often left his party of convivial friends abruptly in the evening, in order to go home and brood over his misfortunes.' But a better medicine for his grief than brooding over it, was a sudden start into the country to forget it; and it was probably with a feeling of this kind he had in the summer revisited Islington; he laboured during the autumn in a room of Canonbury Tower; and often, in the evening, presided at the Crown tavern, in Islington Lower Road, where Goldsmith and his fellow-lodgers had formed a kind of temporary club. At the close of the year he returned to the Temple, and was again pretty constant in his attendance at Gerard-street."[19]

FOOTNOTES:

[19] See Forster's _Life of Goldsmith_, pp. 422-424.

THE DILETTANTI SOCIETY.

The origin of this Society, which has now existed some 130 years, is due to certain gentlemen, who had travelled much in Italy, and were desirous of encouraging at home a taste for those objects which had contributed so much to their intellectual gratification abroad. Accordingly, in the year 1734, they formed themselves into a Society, under the name of Dilettanti, (literally, lovers of the Fine Arts,) and agreed upon certain Regulations to keep up the spirit of their scheme, which combined friendly and social intercourse with a serious and ardent desire to promote the Arts. In 1751, Mr. James Stuart, "Athenian Stuart," and Mr. Nicholas Revett, were elected members. The Society liberally assisted them in their excellent work, _The Antiquities of Athens_. In fact it was, in great measure, owing to this Society that after the death of the above two eminent architects, the work was not entirely relinquished; and a large number of the plates were engraved from drawings in the possession of the Dilettanti. Walpole, speaking in 1743, of the Society, in connexion with an opera subscription, says, "The nominal qualification [to be a member] is having been in Italy, and the real one, being drunk; the two chiefs are Lord Middlesex and Sir Francis Dashwood, who were seldom sober the whole time they were in Italy." We need scarcely add, that the qualifications for election are no longer what Walpole described them to have been.

In 1764, the Society being possessed of a considerable sum above what their services required, various schemes were proposed for applying part of this money; and it was at length resolved "that a person or persons properly qualified, should be sent, with sufficient appointments, to certain parts of the East, to collect information relative to the former state of those countries, and particularly to procure exact descriptions of the ruins of such monuments of antiquity as are yet to be seen in those parts."

Three persons were elected for this undertaking, Mr. Chandler, of Magdalen College, Oxford, editor of the _Marmora Oxoniensia_, was appointed to execute the classical part of the plan. Architecture was assigned to Mr. Revett; and the choice of a proper person for taking views and copying the bas-reliefs, fell upon Mr. Pars, a young painter of promise. Each person was strictly enjoined to keep a regular journal, and hold a constant correspondence with the Society.

The party embarked on June 9, 1764, in the _Anglicana_, bound for Constantinople, and were just at the Dardanelles on the 25th of August. Having visited the Sigæan Promontory, the ruins of Troas, with the islands of Tenedos and Scio, they arrived at the Smyrna on the 11th of September. From that city, as their head-quarters, they made several excursions. On the 20th of August, 1765, they sailed from Smyrna, and arrived at Athens on the 30th of the same month, having touched at Sunium and Ægina on their way. They staid at Athens till June 11, 1766, visiting Marathon, Eleusis, Salamis, Megara, and other places in the neighbourhood. Leaving Athens, they proceeded by the little island of Calauria to Trezene, Epidaurus, Argos, and Corinth. From this they visited Delphi, Patræ, Elis, and Zante, whence they sailed on the 31st of August, and arrived in England on the 2nd of November following, bringing with them an immense number of drawings, etc., the result of which was the publication, at the expense of the Society, of two magnificent volumes of _Ionian Antiquities_. The results of the expedition were also the two popular works, Chandler's Travels in Asia Minor, 1775; and his _Travels in Greece_, in the following year; also, the volume of Greek Inscriptions, 1774, containing the Sigæan inscription, the marble of which has been since brought to England by Lord Elgin; and the celebrated documents containing the reconstruction of the Temple of Minerva Polias, which Professor Wilkins illustrated in his _Prolusiones Architectonicæ_, 1837.

Walpole, in 1791, has this odd passage upon the _Ionian Antiquities_: "They who are industrious and correct, and wish to forget nothing, should go to Greece, where there is nothing left to be seen, but that ugly pigeon-house, the Temple of the Winds, that fly-cage, Demosthenes's Lantern, and one or two fragments of a portico, or a piece of a column crushed into a mud wall; and with such a morsel, and many quotations, a true classic antiquary can compose a whole folio, and call it _Ionian Antiquities_."

But, it may be asked, how came the Society to associate so freely pleasure with graver pursuits? To this it may be replied, that when the Dilettanti first met they avowed friendly and social intercourse the first object they had in view, although they soon showed that they would combine with it a serious plan for the promotion of the Arts in this country. For these persons were not scholars, nor even men of letters; they were some of the wealthiest noblemen and most fashionable men of the day, who would naturally sup with the Regent as he went through Paris, and find themselves quite at home in the Carnival of Venice. These, too, were times of what would now be considered very licentious merriment and very unscrupulous fun,--times when men of independent means and high rank addicted themselves to pleasure, and gave vent to their full animal spirits with a frankness that would now be deemed not only vulgar but indecorous, while they evinced an earnestness about objects now thought frivolous which it is very easy to represent as absurd. In assuming, however, the name of "Dilettanti" they evidently attached to it no light and superficial notion. The use of that word as one of disparagement or ridicule is quite recent. The same may be said of "Virtù," which, in the artistic sense, does not seem to be strictly academical, but that of "Virtuoso" is so, undoubtedly, and it means the "capable" man,--the man who has a right to judge on matters requiring a particular faculty: Dryden says: "Virtuoso the Italians call a man 'who loves the noble arts, and is a critic in them,' or, as old Glanville says,' 'who dwells in a higher region than other mortals.'

"Thus, when the Dilettanti mention 'the cause of virtue' as a high object which they will never abandon, they express their belief that the union into which they had entered had a more important purpose than any personal satisfaction could give it, and that they did engage themselves thereby in some degree to promote the advantage of their country and of mankind.

"Of all the merry meetings these gay gentlemen had together, small records remain. We, looking back out of a graver time, can only judge from the uninterrupted course of their festive gatherings, from the names of the statesmen, the wits, the scholars, the artists, the amateurs, that fill the catalogue, from the strange mixture of dignities and accessions to wealth for which, by the rules of the Society, fines were paid,--and above all, by the pictures which they possess,--how much of the pleasantry and the hearty enjoyment must have been mixed up with the more solid pursuits of the Members. Cast your eye over the list of those who met together at the table of the Dilettanti any time between 1770 and 1790."[20] Here occur the names of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Earl Fitzwilliam, Charles James Fox, Hon. Stephen Fox (Lord Holland), Hon. Mr. Fitzpatrick, Charles Howard (Duke of Norfolk), Lord Robert Spencer, George Selwyn, Colonel Fitzgerald, Hon. H. Conway, Joseph Banks, Duke of Dorset, Sir William Hamilton, David Garrick, George Colman, Joseph Windham, R. Payne Knight, Sir George Beaumont, Towneley, and others of less posthumous fame, but probably of not less agreeable companionship.

The funds must have largely benefited by the payment of fines, some of which were very strange. Those paid "on increase of income, by inheritance, legacy, marriage, or preferment," are very odd; as, five guineas by Lord Grosvenor, on his marriage with Miss Leveson Gower; eleven guineas by the Duke of Bedford, on being appointed First Lord of the Admiralty; ten guineas compounded for by Bubb Dodington, as Treasurer of the Navy; two guineas by the Duke of Kingston for a Colonelcy of Horse (then valued at 400_l._ per annum); twenty-one pounds by Lord Sandwich on going out as Ambassador to the Congress at Aix-la-Chapelle; and twopence three-farthings by the same nobleman, on becoming Recorder of Huntingdon; thirteen shillings and fourpence by the Duke of Bedford, on getting the Garter; and sixteen shillings and eightpence (Scotch) by the Duke of Buccleuch, on getting the Thistle; twenty-one pounds by the Earl of Holdernesse, as Secretary of State; and nine pounds, nineteen shillings and sixpence, by Charles James Fox, as a Lord of the Admiralty.

In 1814, another expedition was undertaken by the Society, when Sir William Gell, with Messrs. Gandy and Bedford, professional architects, proceeded to the Levant. Smyrna was again appointed the head-quarters of the mission, and fifty pounds per month was assigned to Gell, and two hundred pounds per annum to each of the architects. An additional outlay was required; and by this means the classical and antique literature of England was enriched with the fullest and most accurate descriptions of important remains of ancient art hitherto given to the world.

The contributions of the Society to the æsthetic studies of the time also deserve notice. The excellent design to publish _Select Specimens of Antient Sculpture preserved in the several Collections of Great Britain_ was carried into effect by Messrs. Payne Knight and Mr. Towneley, 2 vols. folio, 1809-1835. Then followed Mr. Penrose's _Investigations into the Principles of Athenian Architecture_, printed in 1851.

About the year 1820, those admirable monuments of Grecian art, called the Bronzes of Siris, were discovered on the banks of that river, and were brought to this country by the Chevalier Brondsted. The Dilettanti Society immediately organized a subscription of 800_l._, and the Trustees of the British Museum completed the purchase by the additional sum of 200_l._

It was mainly through the influence and patronage of the Dilettanti Society that the Royal Academy obtained a Charter. In 1774, the interest of 4000_l._ three per cents. was appropriated by the former for the purpose of sending two students, recommended by the Royal Academy, to study in Italy or Greece for three years.

In 1835 appeared a Second Volume on Ancient Sculpture. The Society at this time included, among a list of sixty-four names of the noble and learned, those of Sir William Gell, Mr. Towneley, Richard Westmacott, Henry Hallam, the Duke of Bedford, Sir M. A. Shee, P.R.A., Henry T. Hope; and Lord Prudhoe, afterwards Duke of Northumberland.

That a Society possessing so much wealth and social importance as the Dilettanti should not have built for themselves a mansion is surprising. In 1747 they obtained a plot of ground in Cavendish Square, for this purpose; but in 1760, they disposed of the property. Between 1761 and 1764 the project of an edifice in Piccadilly, on the model of the Temple of Pola, was agitated by the Committee; two sites were proposed, one between Devonshire and Bath Houses, the other on the west side of Cambridge House. This scheme was also abandoned.

Meanwhile the Society were accustomed to meet at the Thatched House Tavern, the large room of which was hung with portraits of the Dilettanti. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was a member, painted for the Society three capital pictures:--1. A group in the manner of Paul Veronese, containing the portraits of the Duke of Leeds, Lord Dundas, Constantine Lord Mulgrave, Lord Seaforth, the Hon. Charles Greville, Charles Crowle, Esq., and Sir Joseph Banks. 2. A group in the manner of the same master, containing portraits of Sir William Hamilton, Sir Watkin W. Wynne, Richard Thomson, Esq., Sir John Taylor, Payne Galway, Esq., John Smythe, Esq., and Spencer S. Stanhope, Esq. 3. Head of Sir Joshua, dressed in a loose robe, and in his own hair. The earlier portraits are by Hudson, Reynolds's master.

Some of these portraits are in the costume familiar to us through Hogarth; others are in Turkish or Roman dresses. There is a mixture of the convivial in all these pictures: many are using wine-glasses of no small size: Lord Sandwich, for instance, in a Turkish costume, casts a most unorthodox glance upon a brimming goblet in his left hand, while his right holds a flask of great capacity. Sir Bouchier Wray is seated in the cabin of a ship, mixing punch, and eagerly embracing the bowl, of which a lurch of the sea would seem about to deprive him: the inscription is _Dulce est desipere in loco_. Here is a curious old portrait of the Earl of Holdernesse, in a red cap, as a gondolier, with the Rialto and Venice in the background; there is Charles Sackville, Duke of Dorset, as a Roman senator, dated 1738; Lord Galloway, in the dress of a cardinal; and a very singular likeness of one of the earliest of the Dilettanti, Lord Le Despencer, as a monk at his devotions: his Lordship is clasping a brimming goblet for his rosary, and his eyes are not very piously fixed on a statue of the Venus de' Medici. It must be conceded that some of these pictures remind one of the Medmenham orgies, with which some of the Dilettanti were not unfamiliar. The ceiling of the large room was painted to represent sky, and crossed by gold cords interlacing each other, and from their knots were hung three large glass chandeliers.

The Thatched House has disappeared, but the pictures have been well cared for. The Dilettanti have removed to another tavern, and dine together on the first Sunday in every month, from February to July. The late Lord Aberdeen, the Marquises of Northampton and Lansdowne, and Colonel Leake, and Mr. Broderip, were members; as was also the late Lord Northwick, whose large collection of pictures at Thirlestane, Cheltenham, was dispersed by sale in 1859.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] Edinburgh Review, No. 214, p. 500.

THE ROYAL NAVAL CLUB.

About the year 1674, according to a document in the possession of Mr. Fitch of Norwich, a Naval Club was started "for the improvement of a mutuall Society, and an encrease of Love and Kindness amongst them;" and that consummate seaman, Admiral Sir John Kempthorne, was declared Steward of the institution. This was the precursor of the Royal Naval Club of 1765, which, whether considered for its amenities or its extensive charities, may be justly cited as a model establishment. (_Admiral Smyth's Rise and Progress of the Royal Society Club_, p. 9.) The members of this Club annually distribute a considerable sum among the distressed widows and orphans of those who have spent their days in the naval service of their country. The Club was accustomed to dine together at the Thatched House Tavern, on the anniversary of the Battle of the Nile.

"Founded on the model of the old tavern or convivial Clubs, but confined exclusively to members of the Naval Service, the Royal Naval Club numbered among its members men from the days of Boscawen, Rodney, and 'the first of June' downwards. It was a favourite retreat for William IV. when Duke of Clarence; and his comrade, Sir Philip Durham, the survivor of Nelson, and almost the last of the 'old school,' frequented it. Sir Philip, however, was by no means one of the Trunnion class. Coarseness and profane language, on the contrary, he especially avoided; but in 'spinning a yarn' there has been none like him since the days of Smollett. The loss of the Royal George, from which he was one of the few, if, indeed, not only officer, who escaped, was a favourite theme; and the Admiral, not content with having made his escape, was wont to maintain that he swam ashore with his midshipman's dirk in his teeth. Yet Sir Philip would allow no one to trench on his manor. One day, when a celebrated naval captain, with the view of quizzing him, was relating the loss of a merchantman on the coast of South America, laden with Spitalfields products, and asserting that silk was so plentiful, and the cargo so scattered, that the porpoises were for some hours enmeshed in its folds: 'Ay, ay,' replied Sir Philip, 'I believe you; for I was once cruising on that coast myself, in search of a privateer, and having lost our fore-topsail one morning in a gale of wind, we next day found it tied round a whale's neck by way of a cravat.' Sir Philip was considered to have the best of it, and the novelist was mute."[21]

FOOTNOTES:

[21] London Clubs, 1853.

THE WYNDHAM CLUB.

This Club, which partakes of the character of Arthur's and Boodle's, was founded by Lord Nugent, its object being, as stated in Rule 1, "to secure a convenient and agreeable place of meeting for a society of gentlemen, all connected with each other by a common bond of literary or personal acquaintance."

The Club, No. 11, St. James's-square, is named from the mansion having been the residence of William Wyndham, who has been described, and the description has been generally adopted as appropriate, as a model of the true English gentleman; and the fitness of the Club designation is equally characteristic. He was an accomplished scholar and mathematician. Dr. Johnson, writing of a visit which Wyndham paid him, says: "Such conversation I shall not have again till I come back to the regions of literature, and there Wyndham is 'inter stellas luna minores.'"

In the mansion also lived the accomplished John, Duke of Roxburghe; and here the Roxburghe Library was sold in 1812, the sale extending to forty-one days. Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough lived here in 1814; and subsequently, the Earl of Blessington, who possessed a fine collection of pictures.

THE TRAVELLERS' CLUB.

This famous Club was originated shortly after the Peace of 1814, by the Marquis of Londonderry (then Lord Castlereagh), with a view to a resort for gentlemen who had resided or travelled abroad, as well as with a view to the accommodation of foreigners, who, when properly recommended, receive an invitation for the period of their stay. One of the Rules directs "That no person be considered eligible to the Travellers' Club who shall not have travelled out of the British Islands to a distance of at least 500 miles from London in a direct line." Another Rule directs "That no dice and no game of hazard be allowed in the rooms of the Club, nor any higher stake than guinea points, and that no cards be introduced before dinner."

Prince Talleyrand, during his residence in London, generally joined the muster of whist-players at the Travellers'; probably, here was the scene of this felicitous rejoinder. The Prince was enjoying his rubber, when the conversation turned on the recent union of an elderly lady of respectable rank. "How ever could Madame de S---- make such a match?--a person of her birth to marry a _valet-de-chambre_!" "Ah," replied Talleyrand, "it was late in the game: at nine we don't reckon honours."

The present Travellers' Club-house, which adjoins the Athenæum in Pall-Mall, was designed by Barry, R.A., and built in 1832. It is one of the architect's most admired works. Yet, we have seen it thus treated, with more smartness than judgment, by a critic who is annoyed at its disadvantageous comparison with its more gigantic neighbours:--

"The Travellers' is worse, and looks very like a sandwich at the Swindon station--a small stumpy piece of beef between two huge pieces of bread, _i.e._ the Athenæum and the Reform Clubs, which look as if they were urging their migratory neighbour to resume the peregrinations for which its members are remarkable. Yet people have their names down ten years at the Travellers' previous to their coming up for ballot. An election reasonably extended would supply funds for a more advantageous and extended position."

The architecture is the nobler Italian, resembling a Roman palace: the plan is a quadrangle, with an open area in the middle, so that all the rooms are well lighted. The Pall-Mall front has a bold and rich cornice, and the windows are decorated with Corinthian pilasters: the garden front varies in the windows, but the Italian taste is preserved throughout, with the most careful finish: the roof is Italian tiles. To be more minute, the consent of all competent judges has assigned a very high rank to this building as a piece of architectural design; for if, in point of mere _quantity_, it fall greatly short of many contemporary structures, it surpasses nearly every one of them in _quality_, and in the artist-like treatment. In fact, it makes an epoch in our metropolitan architecture; for before, we had hardly a specimen of that nobler Italian style, which, instead of the flutter and flippery, and the littleness of manner, which pervade most of the productions of the Palladian school, is characterized by breath and that refined simplicity arising from unity of idea and execution, and from every part being consistently worked up, yet kept subservient to one predominating effect. Unfortunately, the south front, which is by far the more striking and graceful composition, is comparatively little seen, being that facing Carlton Gardens, and not to be approached so as to be studied as it deserves; but when examined, it certainly must be allowed to merit all the admiration it has obtained. Though perfect, quiet, and sober in effect, and unostentatious in character, this building of Barry's is remarkable for the careful finish bestowed on every part of it. It is this quality, together with the taste displayed in the design generally, that renders it an architectural bijou. Almost any one must be sensible of this, if he will but be at the pains to compare it with the United Service Club, eastward of which, as far as mere quantity goes, there is much more.

Another critic remarks: "The Travellers' fairly makes an epoch in the architectural history of Club-houses, as being almost the first, if not the very first, attempt, to introduce into this country that species of rich _astylar_ composition which has obtained the name of the Italian palazzo mode, by way of contradistinction from Palladianism and its orders. This production of Barry's has given a fresh impulse to architectural design, and one in a more artistic direction; and the style adopted by the architect has been applied to various other buildings in the provinces as well as in the metropolis; and its influence has manifested itself in the taste of our recent street architecture."

The Travellers' narrowly escaped destruction on October 24, 1850, when a fire did great damage to the billiard-rooms, which were, by the way, an afterthought, and addition to the original building, but by no means an improvement upon the first design, for they greatly impaired the beauty of the garden-front.

THE UNITED SERVICE CLUB.

One of the oldest of the modern Clubs, was instituted the year after the Peace of 1815, when a few officers of influence in both branches of the Service had built for them, by Sir R. Smirke, a Club-house at the corner of Charles-street and Regent-street,--a frigid design, somewhat relieved by sculpture on the entrance-front, of Britannia distributing laurels to her brave sons by land and sea. Thence the Club removed to a more spacious house, in Waterloo-place, facing the Athenæum; the Club-house in Charles-street being entered on by the Junior United Service Club; but Smirke's cold design has been displaced by an edifice of much more ornate exterior and luxurious internal appliances.

The United Service Club (Senior) was designed by Nash, and has a well-planned interior, exhibiting the architect's well-known excellence in this branch of his profession. The principal front facing Pall Mall has a Roman-Doric portico; and above it a Corinthian portico, with pediment. One of the patriarchal members of the Club was Lord Lynedoch, the hero of the Peninsular War, who lived under five sovereigns: he died in his 93rd year, leaving behind him a name to be held in honoured remembrance, while loyalty is considered to be a real virtue, or military renown a passport to fame. It is a curious fact that the Duke of Wellington fought his last battle at an earlier period of life than that in which Lord Lynedoch "fleshed his maiden sword;" and though we were accustomed to regard the Duke himself as preserving his vigour to a surprisingly advanced age, Lord Lynedoch was at his death old enough to have been the father of his Grace. The United Service was the favourite Club of the Duke, who might often be seen dining here on a joint; and on one occasion, when he was charged 1_s._ 3_d._ instead of 1_s._ for it, he bestirred himself till the threepence was struck off. The motive was obvious: he took the trouble of objecting, so that he might sanction the principle.

Among the Club pictures is Jones's large painting of the Battle of Waterloo; and the portrait of the Duke of Wellington, painted for the Club by W. Robinson. Here also are Stanfield's fine picture of the Battle of Trafalgar; and a copy, by Lane, painted in 1851, of a contemporary portrait of Sir Francis Drake, our "Elizabethan Sea-King." The Club-house has of late years been considerably enlarged.

THE ALFRED CLUB.

In the comparatively quiet Albemarle-street was instituted, in 1808, the Alfred Club, which has, _ab initio_, been remarkable for the number of travellers and men of letters, who form a considerable proportion of its members. Science is handsomely housed at the Royal Institution, on the east side of the street; and literature nobly represented by the large publishing-house of Mr. Murray, on the west; both circumstances tributary to the _otium_ enjoyed in a Club. Yet, strangely enough, its position has been a frequent source of banter to the Alfred. First it was known by its cockney appellation of _Half-read_. Lord Byron was a member, and he tells us that "it was pleasant, a little too sober and literary, and bored with Sotheby and Francis D'Ivernois; but one met Rich, and Ward, and Valentia, and many other pleasant or known people; and it was, in the whole, a decent resource in a rainy day, in a dearth of parties, or Parliament, or in an empty season."

Lord Dudley, writing to the Bishop of Llandaff, says: "I am glad you mean to come into the Alfred this time. We are the most abused, and most envied, and most canvassed, Society that I know of, and we deserve neither the one nor the other distinction. The Club is not so good a resource as many respectable persons would believe, nor are we by any means such quizzes or such bores as the wags pretend. A duller place than the Alfred there does not exist. I should not choose to be quoted for saying so, but the bores prevail there to the exclusion of every other interest. You hear nothing but idle reports and twaddling opinions. They read the _Morning Post_ and the _British Critic_. It is the asylum of doting Tories and drivelling quidnuncs. But they are civil and quiet. You belong to a much better Club already. The eagerness to get into it is prodigious."

Then, we have the _Quarterly Review_, with confirmation strong of the two Lords:--"The Alfred received its _coup-de-grâce_ from a well-known story, (rather an indication than a cause of its decline,) to the effect that Mr. Canning, whilst in the zenith of his fame, dropped in accidentally at a house dinner of twelve or fourteen, stayed out the evening, and made himself remarkably agreeable, without any one of the party suspecting who he was."

The dignified clergy, who, with the higher class of lawyers, have long ago emigrated to the Athenæum and University Clubs, formerly mustered in such great force at the Alfred, that Lord Alvanley, on being asked in the bow-window at White's, whether he was still a member, somewhat irreverently replied: "Not exactly: I stood it as long as I could, but when the seventeenth bishop was proposed I gave in. I really could not enter the place without being put in mind of my catechism." "Sober-minded people," says the _Quarterly Review_, "may be apt to think this formed the best possible reason for his lordship's remaining where he was. It is hardly necessary to say that the presence of the bishops and judges is universally regarded as an unerring test of the high character of a Club."

THE ORIENTAL CLUB.

Several years ago, the high dignitaries of the Church and Law kept the Alfred to themselves; but this would not do: then they admitted a large number of very respectable good young men, who were unexceptionable, but not very amusing. This, again, would not do. So, now the Alfred joined, 1855, the Oriental, in Hanover-square. And curiously enough, the latter Club has been quizzed equally with the Alfred. In the merry days of the _New Monthly Magazine_ of some thirty years since, we read:--"The Oriental--or, as the hackney-coachmen call it, the Horizontal Club--in Hanover-square, outdoes even Arthur's for quietude. Placed at the corner of a _cul-de-sac_--at least as far as carriages are concerned, and in a part of the Square to which nobody not proceeding to one of four houses which occupy that particular side ever thinks of going, its little windows, looking upon nothing, give the idea of mingled dulness and inconvenience. From the outside it looks like a prison;--enter it, it looks like an hospital, in which a smell of curry-powder pervades the 'wards,'--wards filled with venerable patients, dressed in nankeen shorts, yellow stockings, and gaiters, and faces to match. _There_ may still be seen pigtails in all their pristine perfection. It is the region of calico shirts, returned writers, and guinea-pigs grown into bores. Such is the _nabobery_, into which Harley-street, Wimpole-street, and Glocester-place, daily empty their precious stores of bilious humanity." Time has blunted the point of this satiric picture, the individualities of which had passed away, even before the amalgamation of the Oriental with the Alfred.

The Oriental Club was established in 1824, by Sir John Malcolm, the traveller and brave soldier. The members were noblemen and gentlemen associated with the administration of our Eastern empire, or who have travelled or resided in Asia, at St. Helena, in Egypt, at the Cape of Good Hope, the Mauritius, or at Constantinople.

The Oriental was erected in 1827-8, by B. and P. Wyatt, and has the usual Club characteristic of only one tier of windows above the ground-floor; the interior has since been redecorated and embellished by Collman.

THE ATHENÆUM CLUB.

The Athenæum presents a good illustration of the present Club system, of which it was one of the earliest instances. By reference to the accounts of the Clubs existing about the commencement of the present century, it will be seen how greatly they differed, both in constitution and purpose, from the modern large subscription-houses, called Clubs; and which are to be compared with their predecessors only in so far as every member must be balloted for, or be chosen by the consent of the rest. Prior to 1824, there was only one institution in the metropolis particularly devoted to the association of Authors, Literary Men, Members of Parliament, and promoters generally of the Fine Arts. All other establishments were more or less exclusive, comprising gentlemen who screened themselves in the windows of White's, or Members for Counties who darkened the doors of Brookes's; or they were dedicated to the Guards, or "men of wit and pleasure about town." It is true that the Royal Society had its convivial meetings, as we have already narrated; and small Clubs of members of other learned Societies, were held; but with these exceptions, there were no Clubs where individuals known for their scientific or literary attainments, artists of eminence in any class of the Fine Arts, and noblemen and gentlemen distinguished as patrons of science, literature, and the arts, could unite in friendly and encouraging intercourse; and professional men were compelled either to meet at taverns, or to be confined exclusively to the Society of their particular professions.

To remedy this, on the 17th of February, 1824, a preliminary meeting,--comprising Sir Humphry Davy, the Right Hon. John Wilson Croker, Sir Francis Chantrey, Richard Heber, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Dr. Thomas Young, Lord Dover, Davie Gilbert, the Earl of Aberdeen, Sir Henry Halford, Sir Walter Scott, Joseph Jekyll, Thomas Moore, and Charles Hatchett,--was held in the apartments of the Royal Society, at Somerset House; at this meeting Professor Faraday assisted as secretary, and it was agreed to institute a Club to be called "The Society," subsequently altered to "The Athenæum." "The Society" first met in the Clarence Club-house; but, in 1830, the present mansion, designed by Decimus Burton, was opened to the members.

The Athenæum Club-house is built upon a portion of the court-yard of Carlton House. The architecture is Grecian, with a frieze exactly copied from the Panathenaic procession in the frieze of the Parthenon,--the flower and beauty of Athenian youth, gracefully seated on the most exquisitely sculptured horses, which Flaxman regarded as the most precious example of Grecian power in the sculpture of animals. Over the Roman Doric entrance-portico is a colossal figure of Minerva, by Baily, R.A.; and the interior has some fine casts of _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of sculpture. Here the architecture is grand, massive, and severe. The noble Hall, 35 feet broad by 57 feet long, is divided by scagliola columns and pilasters, the capitals copied from the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates. This is the Exchange, or Lounge, where the members meet. The floor is the Marmorato Veneziano mosaic. Over each of the two fire-places, in a niche, is a statue--the Diana Robing and the Venus Victrix, selected by Sir Thomas Lawrence--a very fine contrivance for sculptural display. The Library is the best Club Library in London: it comprises the most rare and valuable works, and a very considerable sum is annually expended upon the collection, under the guidance of members most eminent in literature and science. Above the mantelpiece is a portrait of George IV., painted by Lawrence, upon which he was engaged but a few hours previous to his decease; the last bit of colour this celebrated artist ever put upon canvas being that of the hilt and sword-knot of the girdle; thus it remains unfinished. The bookcases of the drawing-rooms are crowned with busts of British worthies. Among the Club gossip it is told that a member who held the Library faith of the promise of the Fathers, and was anxious to consult their good works, one day asked, in a somewhat familiar tone of acquaintance with these respectable theologians, "Is Justin Martyr here?"--"I do not know," was the reply; "I will refer to the list, but I do not think that gentleman is one of our members."

Mr. Walker, in his very pleasant work, _The Original_, was one of the first to show how by the then new system of Clubs the facilities of living were wonderfully increased, whilst the expense was greatly diminished. For a few pounds a year, advantages are to be enjoyed which no fortunes, except the most ample, can procure. The only Club (he continues) I belong to is the Athenæum, which consists of twelve hundred members, amongst whom are to be reckoned a large proportion of the most eminent persons in the land, in every line,--civil, military, and ecclesiastical,--peers spiritual and temporal (ninety-five noblemen and twelve bishops), commoners, men of the learned professions, those connected with science, the arts, and commerce, in all its principal branches, as well as the distinguished who do not belong to any particular class. Many of these are to be met with every day, living with the same freedom as in their own houses, for 25 guineas entrance, and 6 guineas a year. Every member has the command of an excellent library, with maps; of newspapers, English and foreign; the principal periodicals; writing materials, and attendance. The building is a sort of palace, and is kept with the same exactness and comfort as a private dwelling. Every member is master, without any of the trouble of a master: he can come when he pleases, and stay away when he pleases, without anything going wrong; he has the command of regular servants, without having to pay or manage them; he can have whatever meal or refreshment he wants, at all hours, and served up as in his own house. He orders just what he pleases, having no interest to think of but his own. In short, it is impossible to suppose a greater degree of liberty in living.

"Clubs, as far as my observation goes, are favourable to economy of time. There is a fixed place to go to, everything is served with comparative expedition, and it is not customary in general to remain long at table. They are favourable to temperance. It seems that when people can freely please themselves, and when they have an opportunity of living simply, excess is seldom committed. From an account I have of the expenses at the Athenæum in the year 1832, it appears that 17,323 dinners cost, on an average, 2_s._ 9¾_d._ each, and that the average quantity of wine for each person was a small fraction more than half-a-pint.

"The expense of building the Club-house was 35,000_l._, and 5,000_l._ for furnishing; the plate, linen, and glass cost 2,500_l._; library, 4,000_l._, and the stock of wine in cellar is usually worth about 4000_l._: yearly revenue about 9000_l._"

The economical management of the Club has not, however, been effected without a few sallies of humour. In 1834, we read: "The mixture of Whigs, Radicals, _savants_, foreigners, dandies, authors, soldiers, sailors, lawyers, artists, doctors, and Members of both Houses of Parliament, together with an exceedingly good average supply of bishops, render the _mélange_ very agreeable, despite of some two or three bores, who 'continually do dine;' and who, not satisfied with getting a 6_s._ dinner for 3_s._ 6_d._, 'continually do complain.'"

Mr. Rogers, the poet, was one of the earliest members of the Athenæum, and innumerable are the good things, though often barbed with bitterness, which are recorded of him.

Some years ago, judges, bishops, and peers used to congregate at the Athenæum; but a club of twelve hundred members cannot be select. "Warned by the necessity of keeping up their number and their funds, they foolishly set abroad a report that the finest thing in the world was to belong to the Athenæum; and that an opportunity offered for hobnobbing with archbishops, and hearing Theodore Hook's jokes. Consequently all the little crawlers and parasites, and gentility-hunters, from all corners of London, set out upon the creep; and they crept in at the windows and they crept down the area steps, and they crept in unseen at the doors, and they crept in under bishops' sleeves, and they crept in in peers' pockets, and they were blown in by the winds of chance. The consequence has been, that ninety-nine hundredths of this Club are people who rather seek to obtain a sort of standing by belonging to the Athenæum, than to give it lustre by the talent of its members. Nine-tenths of the intellectual writers of the age would be certainly black-balled by the dunces. Notwithstanding all this, and partly on account of this, the Athenæum is a capital Club: the library is certainly the best Club library in London, and is a great advantage to a man who writes."[22]

Theodore Hook was one of the most clubbable men of his time. After a late breakfast, he would force and strain himself at large arrears of literary toil, and then drive rapidly from Fulham to town, and pay a visit "first to one Club, where, the centre of an admiring circle, his intellectual faculties were again upon the stretch, and again aroused and sustained by artificial means: the same thing repeated at a second--the same drain and the same supply--ballot or general meeting at a third, the chair taken by Mr. Hook, who addresses the members, produces the accounts, audits and passes them--gives a succinct statement of the prospects and finances of the Society--parries an awkward question--extinguishes a grumbler--confounds an opponent--proposes a vote of thanks to himself, seconds, carries it,--and returns thanks, with a vivacious rapidity that entirely confounds the unorganized schemes of the minority--then a chop in the committee-room, and just one tumbler of brandy-and-water, or _two_, and we fear the catalogue would not always close there."

At the Athenæum, Hook was a great card; and in a note to the sketch of him in the _Quarterly Review_, it is stated that the number of dinners at this Club fell off by upwards of three hundred per annum after Hook disappeared from his favourite corner, near the door of the coffee-room. That is to say, there must have been some dozens of gentlemen who chose to dine there once or twice every week of the season, merely for the chance of Hook's being there, and permitting them to draw their chairs to his little table in the course of the evening. Of the extent to which he suffered from this sort of invasion, there are several bitter oblique complaints in his novels. The _corner_ alluded to will, we suppose, long retain the name which it derived from him--_Temperance Corner_. Many grave and dignified personages being frequent guests, it would hardly have been seemly to be calling for repeated supplies of a certain description; but the waiters well understood what the oracle of the corner meant by "Another glass of toast and water," or, "A little more lemonade."

FOOTNOTES:

[22] New Quarterly Review.

THE UNIVERSITY CLUB.

In Suffolk-street, Pall Mall East, was instituted in 1824, and the Club-house, designed by Deering and Wilkins, architects, was opened in 1826. It is of the Grecian Doric and Ionic orders; and the staircase walls have casts from the Parthenon frieze. The Club consists chiefly of Members of Parliament who have received University education; several of the judges, and a large number of beneficed clergymen. This Club has the reputation of possessing the best stocked wine-cellar in London, which is of no small importance to Members, clerical or lay.

ECONOMY OF CLUBS.

Thirty years ago, Mr. Walker took some pains to disabuse the public mind of a false notion that female society was much affected by the multiplication of Clubs. He remarks that in those hours of the evening, which are peculiarly dedicated to society, he could scarcely count twenty members in the suite of rooms upstairs at the Athenæum Club. If female society be neglected, he contended that it was not owing to the institution of Clubs, but more probably to the long sittings of the House of Commons, and to the want of easy access to family circles. At the Athenæum he never heard it even hinted, that married men frequented it to the prejudice of their domestic habits, or that bachelors were kept from general society. Indeed, Mr. Walker maintains, that Clubs are a preparation and not a substitute for domestic life. Compared with the previous system of living, they induce habits of economy, temperance, refinement, regularity, and good order. Still, a Club only offers an imitation of the comforts of home, but only an imitation, and one which will never supersede the reality.

However, the question became a subject for pleasant satire. Mrs. Gore, in one of her clever novels, has these shrewd remarks:--"London Clubs, after all, are not bad things for family men. They act as conductors to the storms usually hovering in the air. The man forced to remain at home and vent his crossness on his wife and children, is a much worse animal to bear with, than the man who grumbles his way to Pall Mall, and not daring to swear at the Club-servants, or knock about the club-furniture, becomes socialized into decency. Nothing like the subordination exercised in a community of equals for reducing a fiery temper."

Mr. Hood, in his _Comic Annual_ for 1838, took up the topic in his rich vein of comic humour, and here is the amusing result:--

"CLUBS,

"TURNED UP BY A FEMALE HAND.

"Of all the modern schemes of Man
That time has brought to bear,
A plague upon the wicked plan
That parts the wedded pair!
My female friends they all agree
They hardly know their hubs;
And heart and voice unite with me,
'We hate the name of Clubs!'

"One selfish course the Wretches keep;
They come at morning chimes;
To snatch a few short hours of sleep--
Rise--breakfast--read the Times--
Then take their hats, and post away,
Like Clerks or City scrubs,
And no one sees them all the day,--
They live, eat, drink, at Clubs!

"With Rundell, Dr. K., or Glasse,
And such Domestic books,
They once put up, but now, alas!
It's hey! for foreign cooks.
'When _will_ you dine at home, my dove?'
I say to Mr. Stubbs.
'When Cook can make an omelette, love--
An omelette like the Clubs!'

"Time was, their hearts were only placed
On snug domestic schemes,
The book for two--united taste,--
And such connubial dreams,--
Friends, dropping in at close of day,
To singles, doubles, rubs,--
A little music,--then the tray,--
And not a word of Clubs!

"But former comforts they condemn;
French kickshaws they discuss,
And take their wine, the wine takes them,
And then they favour us;--
From some offence they can't digest,
As cross as bears with cubs,
Or sleepy, dull, and queer, at best--
That's how they come from Clubs!

"It's very fine to say, 'Subscribe
To Andrews'--can't you read?
When Wives, the poor neglected tribe,
Complain how they proceed!
They'd better recommend at once
Philosophy and tubs,--
A woman need not be a dunce,
To feel the wrong of Clubs.

"A set of savage Goths and Picts
Would seek us now and then,--
They're pretty pattern-Benedicts
To guide our single men!
Indeed, my daughters both declare
'Their Beaux shall not be subs
To White's, or Black's, or anywhere,--
They've seen enough of Clubs!'

"They say, without the marriage ties,
They can devote their hours
To catechize, or botanize--
Shells, Sunday Schools, and flow'rs--
Or teach a Pretty Poll new words,
Tend Covent Garden shrubs,
Nurse dogs and chirp to little birds--
As Wives do since the Clubs.

"Alas! for those departed days
Of social wedded life,
When married folks had married ways,
And liv'd like Man and Wife!
Oh! Wedlock then was pick'd by none--
As safe a lock as Chubb's!
But couples, that should be as one,
Are now the Two of Clubs!

"Of all the modern schemes of Man
That time has brought to bear,
A plague upon the wicked plan,
That parts the wedded pair!
My wedded friends they all allow
They meet with slights and snubs,
And say, 'They have no husbands now,--
They're married to the Clubs!'"

The satire soon reached the stage. About five-and-twenty years since there was produced at the old wooden Olympic Theatre, Mr. Mark Lemon's farce, _The Ladies' Club_, which proved one of the most striking pieces of the time. "Though in 1840 Clubs, in the modern sense of the word, had been for some years established, they were not quite recognized as social necessities, and the complaints of married ladies and of dowagers with marriageable daughters, to the effect that these institutions caused husbands to desert the domestic hearth and encouraged bachelors to remain single, expressed something of a general feeling. Public opinion was ostentatiously on the side of the ladies and against the Clubs, and to this opinion Mr. Mark Lemon responded when he wrote his most successful farce."[23]

Here are a few experiences of Club-life. "There are many British lions in the coffee-room who have dined off a joint and beer, and have drunk a pint of port-wine afterwards, and whose bill is but 4_s._ 3_d._ One great luxury in a modern Club is that there is no temptation to ostentatious expense. At an hotel there is an inclination in some natures to be 'a good customer.' At a Club the best men are generally the most frugal--they are afraid of being thought like that little snob, Calicot, who is always surrounded by fine dishes and expensive wines (even when alone), and is always in loud talk with the butler, and in correspondence with the committee about the cook. Calicot is a rich man, with a large bottle-nose, and people black-ball his friends.

"For a home, a man must have a large Club, where the members are recruited from a large class, where the funds are in a good state, where a large number every day breakfast and dine, and where a goodly number think it necessary to be on the books and pay their subscriptions, although they do not use the Club. Above all, your home Club should be a large Club, because, even if a Club be ever so select, the highest birth and most unexceptionable fashion do not prevent a man from being a _bore_. Every Club must have its bores; but in a large Club _you can get out of their way_."[24]

"It is a vulgar error to regard a Club as the rich man's public-house: it bears no analogy to a public-house: it is as much the private property of its members as any ordinary dwelling-house is the property of the man who built it.

"Our Clubs are thoroughly characteristic of us. We are a _proud_ people,--it is of no use denying it,--and have a horror of indiscriminate association; hence the exclusiveness of our Clubs.

"We are an _economical_ people, and love to obtain the greatest possible amount of luxury at the least possible expense: hence, at our Clubs we dine at prime cost, and drink the finest wines at a price which we should have to pay for slow poison at a third-rate inn.