UC-MRLF $B 75D =10t3 m^f' ^A^^ n^sfe. mn -^-^AA ■:^.. r^ '^^'i :2V V r^i jMi w l^;*: ;^ BERKELEY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CAIIFORNIA THE ENGLISH AT HOME ESSAYS FROM THE " REVUE DES DEUX MONDES:' SECOND SERIES. ALPHONSE xJSQUIROS. AUTHOR OF THE ''DUTCH AT HOME," ETC. TRANSLATED BV LASCELLES WRAXALL. LONDON : CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. MDCCCLXII. (Registered accordinii to International CopyrigU Act.) LONDON: BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITKFKIARS. EU4 PREFACE. While introducing to English readers a new volume of French essays on British life and character, I venture to intrude a few remarks of a thoroughly personal nature. ' Some excellent friends, who were kind enough to criticise my previous efforts, while generally applauding my translation, regretted that I had not sufficiently adhered to the English idiom. Let me explain to them that this was done advisedly : it was my opinion that the great merit of these articles from the Revue des Deuw Mondes lay in the circum- stance that they were written by a Frenchman for his countrymen. I thought, too, that many an author might sit down to-morrow and write a far more correct work about England, but I con- siderably doubted whether he would find any readers. The field has been so trampled, that it is impossible to discover the smallest unknown plant in it. Granted, then, that I had offered myself in my 663 iv PREFACE. author's place, and produced a symmetrically cor- rect work^ in which every fact had been carefully weighed and tested, and every heterodox opinion had been discarded, — what would have been the result ? My volume would have become as flat as a yesterday-opened bottle of champagne. It is true that I have here and there added foot-notes, for the purpose of correcting detail errors ; but, as a rule, I have allowed M. Esquiros to speak for himself, and have translated his language with the most scrupulous accuracy. I do not think that, on comparison with the original, a single word will be found omitted, and I have studied to produce a Chinese imitation, simply from the fact that I wish M. Esquiros, and not myself, to appeal to an English audience. My desire is, and will be in future, to show what opinions a most intelhgent foreigner entertains about English manners and customs, and wish to stand entirely aloof. My great anxiety has, therefore, been to reproduce, in decent and colloquial English, the very words my friend has employed, in articles of which the English leading journals have already spoken in the highest terms. LASCELLES WRAXALL. Drayton Terrace, West Bromjjton. / CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Origin of Clubs— The Mermaid—The Devil Tavern— Will's Coffee House — Di-yden — Button's and Addison — Dr. Johnson — The Turk's Head — The Literary Club — The Blue Stockings — The King of Clubs —Lord Ward— The Kitcat Club— The Beefsteak Clubs— Peg Wof- fington — Captain Morris — The Spectator on Clubs — The Mohocks . 1 CHAPTER IL Subscription Clubs — Crockford — Pigeons at Brooks's— White's — Pall Mall — Modern Clubs — House Committees^ The Kitchen at the Reform — Origin of Modern Clubs — The United Service — Rapid Growth of Clubs — University Clubs — The Athenaeum — The Garrick — Mr. Thackeray and Mr. Yates — The Travellers — The Oriental — Mixed Clubs— Political Clubs— The Reform and the Carlton . .87 CHAPTER III Admission to Clubs — The Club-man — Influences of Club Life — Theodore Hook — The Wrekin — Douglas Jerrold — Our Club — The Unsuccessful Club — The Savage Club — The Debating Clubs — Tlie Alpine Club — Free and Easies — The Story Tellers — Character of English Society 69 CHAPTER IV. London Theatres — The Belle Sauvage — Legitimate Drama — Drury Lane — The Keans — The Princess's — Shaksperian Revivals — Hamlet — Covent Garden Theatre — The Kembles— The Haymarket — Buck- stone — Miss Amy Sedgwick — She Stoops to Conquer . . . P3 CHAPTER V. Sadler's Wells — Mr. Phelps — Miss Atkinson — Astley's — Mr. Tom Taylor— The New Adelphi— Mr. Webster— The Dead Heart— Tlie Colleen Bawn — The Lyceum — Madame Celeste — The St. James's Theatre— The Olympic and Mr. Robson— The Standard — Dramatic Authors — Subvention to the Theatres 124 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. PAGK English Pantomimes — The Lord Chamberlain— Music Halls— Miracle Plays — Kaster Burlesques — Histoiy of Pantomimes — Boxing Night — The Workshop — The Painting Room — Behind the Scenes — Ballet Girls — Stage Morals— Mr, Nelson Lee 165 CHAPTER Vn. English Comedy — Voltaire and Lord Chesterfield — The Stage Irish- man — The Scotchman — The British Sailor— Mr. Widdicomb — Mr. Coyne's Black Sheep — Mr, Alfred Wigan — Charles Mathews — Bur- lesque — The Strand Theatre — Mr. William Brough — Anecdote of Sheridan 190 CHAPTER VIII. The Church and the Theatres — Positions of Actors — Marriage of Actresses — A curious Incident — Migrations of Actors — The " Era" Newspaper — Theatrical Funds — The Dramatic College — The Thea- trical Profession : its Virtues and Defects ..... 212 CHAPTER IX. Paper-making — Progress of the Art — The Oldest English Paper Mill — Fourdrinier — The Rag Shop — A curious Collection — The Street Grubber— Rag-picking — Marine Stores — Value of Rags — Foreign Export Duties — Progress of Free Trade . . . . .211 CHAPTER X. Dartford Paper-mills — The manufacture of Paper — The Devil — The Washing Machines — The Breaking-in Engine — Foolscap — Skeleton Dressers — The Finishing House — Watermarks — Cottages of the Workmen — Effect of the Removal of the Paper Duty . . .269 CHAPTER XI, The General Post Office— Six o' Clock, p. 31. — History of the Post Office — The Mail Coach — Railway Mail Service— The Postman — Rowland Hill — Smith and Son — "The Illustrated London News" — "The Daily Telegraph " — " The Shoreditch Observer" — Novel of Paper 301 CHAPTER XIL Sporting Life— The Turf— The Derby— The Road— Epsom Town— The Course— St. George's Bill— Turfites— The Blue Ribbon of the Turf— The Paddock— The Start— Kettledrum— Baron Nicholson— Ascot— The St. Leger 318 CONTENTS. Vll CHAPTER XIII. PAGE Newmarket — Horse Breeding — The Race Course— The Devil's Dyke — Lord Stamford's Stable — Mr. Dawson — Thoroughbred Horses — Flying Childers — A Training Establishment — The Two Thousand — Jockeys — Their Social Condition — Celebrated Jockeys — Tempta- tions ...... 356 CHAPTER XIV. Tattersall's — The Subscription Room — The Betting Ring — Betting Men — The Swell — Book-making— The Leviathan — Book-makers — Tip- sters—Sporting Papers — "Bell's Life" — "The Sporting Life" — Tramps — The Jockey Club — Running Rein — Conclusion . . 388 THE ENGLISH AT HOME. CHAPTER I. ORIGIN OF CLUBS THE MERMAID THE DEVIL TAVERN WILLS' COFFEE HOUSE DRYDEN BUTTON'S AND ADDISON DR. JOHNSON THE TURK's HEAD THE LITERARY CLUB THE BLUE STOCKINQS THE KINO OF CLUBS LORD WARD THE KrrCAT CLUB THE BEEFSTEAK CLUBS PEG WOFFINGTON CAPTAIN MORRIS THE SPECTATOR ON CLUBS — THE MOHOCKS. As inhabitants of a country where Clubs played a part, more or less important, in two Revolutions, where a Jockey Club and a Railway Club still exist, as well as a considerable number of Circles, the French will perhaps feel surprised at being told that they have never possessed " Clubs " in the English sense of the word. We assumed the name, but we did not appropriate the thing : it is easier to borrow the language of a foreign nation, than to lay hold of its institutions. Any person who has lived in England very speedily perceives, that nothing resembling the English Clubs exists or can exist on the Continent, for these assemblies 2 THE EIs^GLISH AT HOME. presuppose rights, guarantees, and before all a lengthened training in liberty, which are not found in other countries. The English refer the origin of Clubs to one of the ruling instincts of our nature. " Man," they say, "is a sociable animal, and as such joined his fellow-men in order to augment his own comfort and pleasures.'^ This feeling, it is true, exists everywhere ; but circumstances have been more or less favourable, according to the country, to the development of the associations. In England men have for a very lengthened period found the elements of security in the laws and the national character. The principal motive that seems to have guided the first founders of Clubs was the attrac- tion of frequent intercourse with chosen persons who shared their tastes and opinions. The hand of authority, however powerful it might be, could never have estabhshed these harmonious groups, which formed themselves spontaneously round a common centre and thought. The Clubs have been consti- tuted in the same way as English Society, by virtue of the law of affinities ; and in this free medium indi- viduals combine, just as particles are aggregated. There are certain persons we feel more thoroughly at home with than with others, and I heard an English lady say the other day, " I am only at all pretty in company where I feel pleased and where pretty women are present. I was frightful last evening, for we spent it at Lady W 's." It is ENGLISH CLUBS. 3 the same with wit, conversation, and all the gifts of human nature, as with beauty. The English consider that the pleasures of social life are best cultivated among honourable persons who suit each other. There would be a deficiency, therefore, in these essays, if I were to pass by those Institutions which have so long exerted an, influence on the literature, politics, manners, and domestic genius of Great Britain. What the Clubs have been, and what they are, could not be strange to English life. In the his- tory of the old Clubs, we follow the history of the national character, and of the manner in which it was formed : in the management of the modern Clubhouses we find the image of modern society, with its luxury, its spirit of order, and, we are com- pelled to add, its material appetites. The new forms of association have become in London a want, the necessity of the age. The life of an Englishman (I mean especially an Englishman belonging to the more or less aristocratic classes) is comprised for him in the three circles which, according to his idea, embrace everything — family, club, and country. Clubs commenced in England with hberty, and nothing like them was in existence prior to the brilliant reign of Elizabeth. Up to that period the authorities had been too suspicious to tolerate permanent associations ; while, on the other hand, the times were too gloomy, the social conditions too badly estabhshed, and individual action and B 2 4 THE ENGLISH AT HOME. confidence too circumscribed, for the idea of meeting to occur to the citizens. The first Clubs formed in London, in a century which has been called the golden age of English poesy, were literary clubs. The oldest one known was held at an old tavern with the sign of the " Mermaid," in Friday Street.'"* Sir Walter Raleigh was the founder of this society. No man ever more greatly surprized his contemporaries through his wit, eloquence, voyages, chivalrous adventures, sumptuous elegance, and his tragical fate. Tradition has it that at this same Mermaid the first potatoes were eaten which Walter Ealeigh had brought from America toge- ther with tobacco. The other principal members of the Club were Shakspere, Ben Jonson, Francis Beaumont, and John Fletcher. The English regret, and justly so, that such conversations among such men have been lost for ever ; but though walls may have ears, they have no memory ; and moreover, the walls of the old tavern fell long ago. Two memorials alone can give us an idea of what was said at the Mermaid, of the flashes of wit that were emitted beneath those gloomy ceilings, and * I am bound to remark here tliat the word " club " is not found in the works of Shakspere or his contemporaries ; but the thing existed before the name. This name is first met with in the essayists of the reign of Queen Anne, and appears to be derived from the Saxon word " cleafan," to divide, because the expenses were equally divided among the members. THE MERMAID. 5 wliicli have not been transmitted to us : one of them is a letter of Beaumont, in which he speaks enthusiastically of this Club, which had already ceased to exist; and the other is a narrative, alas! too short, by Thomas Fuller, who had been a witness of the combats of wit between Shakspere and Ben Jonson. He compares Master Jonson to a large Spanish galley, powerfully built in learning, and solid but slow in it-s movements ; Shakspere, on the other hand, was an English man-of-war, infe- rior in height to his rival, but a better sailor, who knew how to take advantage of every wind, so quick and inventive was his wit. This is all that remains to us of this ancient Club, whose shadow sleeps with those who sleep. Ben Jonson, who was born ten years after Shakspere, founded at a later date another Club, which met at the celebrated Devil Tavern, between the Temple Gates and the Bar. Shakspere, at that period, had doubtless retired to the country. The new Club was installed in a ball-room, which had been honoured by the name of the Hall of Apollo : a bust of the man whom the Enghsh now call " rare Ben '' surmounted the door, and beneath this bust was an inscription in letters of gold. In addition to this welcome, Ben Jonson himself wrote for the Club a species of code in Latin verse, under the title of Leges conmviales. According to the statutes, ladies were admitted, and with them educated, gay, polished, 6 THE ENGLISH AT HOME. and honest men : torpidity, coarseness, and in- temperance, were excluded. In a dark corner, visitors might indulge in soft quarrels and amorous sighs, but they must not engage in discussions on sacred things, read insipid poetry, or improvise bad verses. If we may behove tradition, these rules, and, more still, the moral authority of Ben Jonson, checked excesses, and disconcerted liber- tinism and frivolity. His literary reputation, his love of the table, and his great talent for speaking, attracted round him a band of wits and good livers, among whom the most note- worthy were Carew, Martin, Selden, Cotton, and Donne. In spite of Jonson's enthusiastic verses about the excellences of the divine liquor, the conversation of the Club members, it is said, was worth more than their wine. Moreover, friends could only invite each other to moderate libations, and each paid his share of the reckoning. It is not known how long this Club lasted, or how it ended. The objects of such meetings, and the motives that guided the first founders of Clubs, are at any rate clearly indicated by Beaumont, who expresses an opinion that it is the same with wit as other things — people have more when in the company of those who possess it, in the same way as they play better at cards and chess with a good player. The literary and other Clubs seem to have disappeared when the stern times of Cromwell DRYDEK. 7 arrived. A gloomy Puritanism at that day opposed all profane amusements and recreations. The reign of Charles II., on the contrary, was an epoch of regeneration for Clubs as for Theatres. A few years after the Restoration, the great house of call for authors, artists, clever speakers, and loungers, was Wills' Coffee House, standing at the corner of Bow Street. There Dryden reigned in his easy chair ; in winter the chair was placed at its appointed spot near the fire, in summer it was transported to the balcony. The company assem- bled on the first floor, which was then called the dining-room floor (now the drawing-room), where there were separate tables. They generally re- mained till midnight. Social ranks and conditions were confounded, and stars of every magnitude, and ribbons of all colours, were seen there. It is even said that young men of fashion and of letters deemed it an honour to take from time to time a pinch from Dryden's snuff'-box. Monarch elect by universal assent, he himself fixed the subject for literary discussion, and the room was generally crowded with persons anxious to hear it. One day a lad of twelve years of age stepped into the assembly : it was Pope, who was attracted by a wish to see the aged Dryden. Wills' Coffee House was the meeting-place for eminent men, loungers, clergy, and novelists, up till 1710, and jokes and news not to be found in the writings of the day passed from mouth to 8 THE ENGLISH AT HOME. moutli. The chiefs spoke, the regular visitors formed a circle round them, and came to listen and be astounded. After the year 1710 the house was occupied by a perfumer. Some time after, Button's Coffee House was opened opposite to Wills'. It was here that Addison, when beginning to reign, installed his seat of empire. Instead of accepting his court as Dryden had done, he selected it ; for, possessing a weak temperament, and a timid though am- bitious character, he sought success by secret and covert ways. His adepts were Steele, Budgell, Tickell, Phillips, and Carey, with whom he insti- tuted a species of literary confraternity, such as the French called in 1820 un cenacle. The keeper of the coffee-house had been a servant of Lady Warwick, whom Addison was courting at the time. The regular visitors spent long hours, according to the fashion of literary men of the day, in drinking and smoking ; Addison himself setting the example. It has been said that this great essayist sought in vain means to free himself of his natural timidity, and Mr. Thackeray reproaches him with never having understood women. And how could he have studied them in coffee-houses and taverns ? There, in a circle of fervent admirers and disciples, he displayed that elegance and grace of diction \ which was celebrated by Pope. Button's CoflPee House was the editorial office of the Guardian. There was SAMUEL JOHNSON. 9 at the doorway a lion's head, with gaping jaws, which acted as a letter box, and the corre- spondence of the journal was slipped into it.* The Editors, that is to say, the Club, met in a Httle room at the back of the house. Addison, quarrelling at a later date with the Countess of Warwick, withdrew his patronage from Button, and transferred the Club to a tavern, where, if we may believe Dr. Johnson, he sat late, and continued to indulge in too copious libations. Like Dryden, and like Addison, whom he suc- ceeded, Samuel Johnson frequented London taverns. He was pleased to see the smiling face of the land- lord, the eagerness of the waiter, and the liberty that prevailed among the guests ; a chair in a tavern was, in his opinion, the seat of human felicity. The Doctor had just made arrangements with his publisher for the famous English Dictionary, and boasted that he would alone complete what had occupied forty French Academicians, when he founded in 1749 his first Club in Ivy Lane. The members, ten in number, assembled every Tuesday evening, at the King's Head Beef Steak House. * This emblem was borrowed from the Yenetian Republic, where near the Palace of the Doges, were lions' heads in marble, into which pieces of paper were thrown, denouncing all that took place in the city. The lion's head of the Guardian, which had been surnamed " the strongest head in the kingdom," was kept for a long time as a literary relic at the Shakspere Tavern, in Covent Garden ; it is now in the possession of the Bedford family. 10 THE ENGLISH AT HOME. Johnson at that time lived in a poor lodging near Temple Bar, the part of London most haunted by what have lately been called literary ghosts. The English have for these great men a species of superstition which honours them : they love to follow the shade of the Doctor through the narrow and obscure streets he walked along at night, touching the posts which he passed, and picking up orange-peel. His walk, we are told, was that of a whale ; he rolled onward by virtue of a mechanism independent of his feet. The visitor is still shown some of the houses he lived in, and in Inner Temple Lane the staircase and chambers where the giant had his den. Fleet Street is full of recollections of his life. It was here that one night he offered his arm to a lady of quality, to help her in crossing the street, and the lady gave him a shilling, taking him for a waterman. It was in this part of town too that, when old and broken down with disease, he found, on a cold damp night, a poor barefooted girl lying on the ground more than half dead ; he raised her in his arms, laid her on his back, carried her to his house, put her in his own bed without fear of scandal, and restored her health. His strength was athletic. One day while walking along the street, in a momentary absence of mind he took a heavy load from a porter's back and carried it some distance. The porter was at first quarrelsome, but at the sight of Johnson's imposing stature he stopped short, and DR. JOHKSON. n thought that the best thing he could do was to take up his bundle without a word. With an excellent heart and a robust mind, though candid, rough, and vehement, the Doctor personified the defects and qualities of his race ; hence I am not surprised at the tenderness of the English for the memory of the great critic, nor at the influence he exercised over the age. The members of his club w^ere merchants, booksellers, physicians, and dissenting ministers. Here while the steak bubbled on the fire, Johnson indulged with valiant ardour in discussion and controversy. He spoke on all subjects with the authority given him by unbounded knowledge, an abundance of words which could only be compared to a river, and a bitterness of retort that discon- certed his adversaries. Determined never to be beaten, he disputed rather for victory than for truth ; thoroughly versed in controversy, he would affirm one day with an air of solemnity that good predominated in the world, and to-morrow defend the contrary thesis with equal animation. Stand- ing in a circle of hearers, he would rush furiously at his antagonist, and crush him by any means ; but when the fight was over he would repent his victory, and say aloud before his adversary, "He was right, and I was wrong.'' A year before his death the Doctor had the idea of reorganising this Club which he founded in his youth ; when, to his great regret, he learned that the landlord was no longer in this world, and the house shut up. 12 THE ENGLISH AT HOME. The assembly at Ivy Lane was eclipsed by the famous Club which Johnson founded in 1 764. It was held at the Turk's Head, in Gerrard Street, Soho, the street in which Dryden had lived. The idea of the new Club was ventilated by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great artist whom Johnson loved, and who painted the portrait of Goldsmith. The members met once a week at nine in the evening, and the conversation was kept up till far into the night. The Club gradually grew till it counted five-and-thirty members, and admission to it was an honour obtained by ballot. At first this assembly had no name, but after the death of Garrick it was christened the Literary Club. Garrick was the friend and quondam pupil of Johnson : they both came to London together, one to try his fortune on the stage, the other in letters. A short time after the opening of the Club, Sir Joshua mentioned it to the celebrated actor, who answered, " It is a good idea, and I think I will be one of you." This answer greatly displeased the impetuous Johnson. " He be one of us ! " he ex- claimed, " and how does he know that we shall let him "? The first Duke in England has no right to use such language." Garrick, however, was admitted some time after, and Johnson himself supported the election of the English Roscius. He was, accord- ing to Boswell, one of the most agreeable members of the Club ; and when Garrick died, all the mem- bers resolved to be present at his funeral. THE LITERARY CLUB. 13 It is interesting to introduce oneself in thought to this memorable Club, of which, thanks to tra- dition, written memorials, and portraits, the English are enabled to reproduce the most eminent members. Here are assembled the illustrious heads which will live for ever under Reynolds' pencil. Here is Burke the orator with his spec- tacles ; here the table on which were served the omelette for Nugent and the lemon for Johnson ; here is Gibbon the historian, who sits down tapping with his fingers the lid of his snuff-box ; here is Sir Joshua holding his ear-trumpet to listen. At length there rises in the midst of the group the gigantic form, and strange and massive face, of the Doctor, with his brown coat, his worn black stock- ings, his grey wig, his large hands, his bitten nails, his rolling eyes, and twitching nose, his mighty voice, and his repartees which fall like a sledge-hammer on the heads of his adversaries. We fancy we are present at one of the meetings where Johnson proposed Sheridan as a candidate, because he was the man who had written the two best comedies of the day ; when he attacked Swift with the violence of an English bull ; and, before all, the one when he deplored the death of Goldsmith. The Doctor was fond of the author of the " Yicar of Wakefield,^' but he did not spare from his stings even those whose talent he admired. The charm- ing poet and delicious humorist was not above the weaknesses of self-esteem : he was anxious to shine 14 THE ENGLISH AT HOME. ill a circle of wits among whom his reputation, his Irish accent, and his simple vanity, gave him a place of his own. He complained about the inexhaustible eloquence of his friend Johnson, and the supremacy the other members of the Club granted him. " Sir,'' he said to Bos well, " you make a monarchy of what ought to be a republic." In 1783 Dr. Johnson founded another Club in Essex Street at the Essex Head, where the mem- bers met thrice a week. This house was kept by an old servant of Mr. Thrale, a friend of the Doctor. The terms were low, and the expenses slight. Any one who missed a meeting paid a forfeit of twopence, each of the members was president in turn, and the waiter's fee was a penny. This great ardour of Johnson for founding Clubs is explained by his character and mode of life. He had been married, but lost his wife at an early age, and these night meetings became from that time the only amusement he could find after a day of labour and solitude. When old and pursued by the terrors of death, he did not give up his visit to Clubs, for, as he said, " it was the last Hnk that bound him to life." In these meetings he was excessively sensitive as to anything that might be said to him about the state of his health. The evening when he went to the Tamelian Club, founded by a learned physician. Dr. Ashe, one of the members said to him, that he saw life comins; back to the cheeks of the author of "Rasselas." THE KING OF CLUBS. 15 Johnson took his hand and exclaimed, " You are one of the best friends I ever had in the world ! " About the same period, that is to say, from 1746 to 1768, certain London coffee-houses con- tinued to be fashionable, and attract wits. Jones's in Great Russell Street had nearly seven hundred subscribers at a guinea a-head, and the society was nearly the same as that of the Literary Club. There could be met Johnson, Garrick, Murphy, Goldsmith, Reynolds, Foote, and other men of talent, mingled with men of the world. The club- tables and books were preserved by Mr. Webster, a medalhst, who occupied some years ago the first floor of the house. There was also, about the year 1781, a literary Club that met at Mrs. Montague's, and was called the " Blue-Stocking Club." It was at that day the fashion for women of wit to have parties, in which they took part in the conversation of clever men, who were animated by the desire of pleasing. Miss Hannah More, who lived in the time of Johnson, wrote a poem in which she de- scribed a Blue-Stocking Club, with the characters of the most prominent persons. In 1801 a Club was founded under the title of the " King of Clubs,'' which met one Saturday a month at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand, and the literary element prevailed in it. The founder was Robert Smith, also known by the name of Bobus, who had been Attorney-General at Calcutta. The other principal members were 16 THE ENGLISH AT HOME. Lord Holland, Lord Henry Petty (afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne), Sir James Scarlett, who became Lord Abinger, Sir James Mackintosh, Lord Erskine, Samuel Rogers, the banker-poet, author of the " Pleasures of Memory," and Sharpe, whom the English called Conversation Sharpe. This Club had a great reputation for wit, and the questions of discussion were books, authors, and the topics of the day. Strangers were allowed admission as honorary members, and among those thus introduced was Curran, the celebrated Irish orator. He did not come up to general expecta- tion at first, for he maintained for a long time an obstinate silence ; but towards the close of the even- ing he proposed a toast — " To all absent friends." This toast was specially addressed to his neigh- bour at table. Lord Avonmore, an Irish Judge, who was subject to absence of mind. He then told his lordship quietly that his health had just been drunk. But the Judge had his revenge. One day, while sitting in Court, a donkey began braying in the middle of one of Curran's most splendid bursts of oratory. " Stop, Mr. Curran," he exclaimed, " one at a time, if you please." The barrister took the hint, but when the Judge began summing up, the same noise was heard, and Lord Avonmore looked anxiously at the bar. Curran replied, " It's the echo of the Court, my Lord." Another visitor to the Club was the celebrated Lord Ward, who was introduced by Mr. Rogers. SAMUEL EOGERS. 17 The latter, at the time, displayed all the signs of bad health, and as the banker had behaved very shabbily to his noble friend in money matters, his lordship avenged himself by merciless jokes. When Mr. Rogers returned from Spa, he remarked that the place was filled with visitors, and that he had been unable to procure a bed. " What's that you say *? ^' Lord Ward asked. " Was there no room in the churchyard ? '^ Another time, Murray, the publisher, on seeing a likeness of Rogers in the Club-room, burst into raptures at the resemblance. " It is Hke life," he said. " You mean like death," his lordship retorted. And as the poet-banker hap- pened to enter the room at the moment, he added, " Sam, I heard the sound of your hearse stopping at the door ; after all though, you are rich enough to keep one.'^ Such jests on such a subject will appear, I fear, rather in bad taste, but they are part of the English temper and character. The intrepid Saxon race likes to mock at everything which inspires man with a feeHng of fear. Ill- ness, death, the hangman, the gibbet, the terrors of the natural and supernatural world, become to him a subject for buffoonery in conversation and on the stage. ^^ The EngUsh laugh, as if in defi- ance, and ridicule everything," one of them said to me, " excepting money losses." These sharp laconic sallies at the sight or thought of gloomy things and inevitable evils, emanate from a certain pride which opposes derision to the blows of Fate. 18 THE ENGLISH AT HOME. I must, moreover, add, that Rogers, though so often killed in the jokes of Lord Ward, attained a venerable old age for all that. As for the King of Clubs, it had the fate of all royalties that dazzle, but do not last long ; in spite of the repar- tees of Sharpe, the talent of Mackintosh, and the confessions of Lord Erskine, it did not survive 1830. By the side of the Literary Clubs there were the Political Clubs. The latter date back to the reign of Charles IL ; and one of the most cele- brated was the Club, or, to speak more correctly, the Confederacy, of the Kings. This Holy Alli- ance was formed shortly after the Restoration ; it admitted statesmen and citizens of all ranks of society, provided that each of them consented to bear the title of King. Such a sobriquet was regarded as a sufficient guarantee of good monar- chical principles, and would exclude the repub- licans. Charles IL was himself an honorary member of this society, but it is believed that he never attended its meetings. Another political reunion of that day was the King's Head Club : it was composed of Whigs, and members wearing a green ribbon in their hats, to distinguish them from the Tories, who had hoisted a red ribbon. They met in the evening, near the Inner Temple Gate. The Institution proposed before all to make proselytes, and readily admitted young men fresh arrivals in London. The resolutions of the leaders THE HOGS m AEMOUR. 19 spread from mouth to mouth, and what had been said over night at the Club became on the morrow town-talk. This innocuous assembly was a species of executive power which kept up a correspond- ence with all England. In the Club the debates most frequently turned on the defence of liberty and property, and there was a fondness for evoking the red spectre of Papistry and inflaming Protes- tant zeal. Under the pretext that the Reformers were menaced wdth speedy massacre, the members were urged to wear silken cuirasses, which at that day were supposed to be bullet-proof. This was the death of the Club, for in England, as in France, ridicule kills. In the end, the stern club- bists thus accoutred received the nickname of " Hogs in armour,'' and this Society, which had done some good service, was soon dissolved. The numerous Clubs formed at that period in Great Britain exercised a beneficial influence upon manners. They served to refasten those social bonds between citizens which had been broken by the civil wars ; and in those troublesome times, taverns became the meeting-places for men who were brought together by a sympathy of opinion and feelings. Round the social board and with chosen companions, men uttered in a low voice their hopes and fears, and the cup that went the round was the symbol of reconciliation and fra- ternity. In this w^ay the disunited elements of society had a tendency to be reunited, and the c 2 20 THE ENGLISH AT HOME. harmony restored by the Clubs was destined to spread at a later date throughout the nation. These Institutions were the cradles of that liberty of speech which at the present day forms one of the traits and conquests of the British character. The epoch of the political and other Clubs was the beginning of the 18th century : at that time flourished the Scriblerus Club, to which Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot belonged ; and also the Octo- ber Club. The 'latter seems to have derived its name from a change of ministry. Harley having been appointed Premier in October, more than 200 Members of Parliament formed themselves into an association. More royalist than the Queen, they blamed the Tory Ministry for not sweeping away all the Whigs who still remained in office, and tried to hasten the progress of the new government, which they considered too slow. Although this Club had a political rather than a literary tinge, it was composed of men of talent and statesmen who were at that time considered the arbiters of taste. The new publications were read and discussed there, and one of the most influential members of the Club was Swift, whose authority caused several members to be accepted or rejected. This assembly of impatient Tories created a sensation, but it does not appear to have exercised any great pressure on the affairs of the time. Queen Anne was alarmed, Harley unde- cided, and the Brothers (for such the members THE KITCATS. 21 called one another) could only groan at the inac- tion of their party, who did not know how to profit by victory. In opposition to this Society we have the Kit- Cat Club. This, the most famous Club that ever existed, owed its origin to the English liking for mutton pies. A few years before the Revolution of 1688, there lived in Shire Lane, near Temple Bar, a pastrycook, who had become celebrated in his art. Attracted by the reputation of the mutton pies, Lords Montague and Dorset, the poets Prior and Garth, Jacob Tonson, the book- seller, and some others, used to meet in the shop. As the sign was a cat and a fiddle, and the name of the master of the house was Christopher, the Club which was founded a little while after took the name of Kit-Cat. At the moment when this Society was instituted, the country was in very critical circumstances, seven Protestant bishops were confined in the Tower, and the Papists were agitating in the name of James II. The members of the Club proceeded to Shire Lane under the pretext of eating mutton pies : but in reality they arranged the measures for repressing the san- guinary insurrection that soon broke out. " The men of the Kit-Cat Club," said Horace Walpole, " though regarded as gourmands and frivolous people? are after all the true patriots who saved Great Britain.'^ The Club long survived its original design, and Christopher, who had grown rich. 22 THE EIs^GLISH AT HOME. established himself at the Fountain Tavern in the Strand. During the reign of Queen Anne, the Club contained more than forty members of the highest rank and merit, among whom the most remarkable were the Dukes of Somerset, Marl- borough and Richmond, Sir Richard Steele, Addi- son, Congreve, and Garth — who was an active and zealous Whig. Sir Godfrey Kneller painted their portraits at three-quarter length, and hence comes the name of Kitcats given by artists to portraits of those particular dimensions. The attention of the Club was not limited to political matters, but also extended to literary subjects. This Club even- voted a sum of 400 guineas to encourage the drama. At the period when civil dissensions were begin- ning to grow calmer, it was thought advisable to enlarge the basis of the Clubs, by founding these Institutions on the material wants of life. It was more easy to agree about a good dish, than on religious and philosophical questions. The learned and the unlettered man, the Whig and Tory, the orthodox protestant and the dissenter, were able? at any rate, to agree on matters of eating and drinking. This fraternity of the table engendered after a while toleration of opinion. There were in London the Calves' Head Club, which met at Charing, the Eel-pie and the Goose Clubs. The love of good cheer, however, did not exclude pohtical sentiments, and some of these associations MRS. WOPFINGTOlir. occupied themselves at the same time with affairs of state. Of all the gastronomic Clubs, the most celebrated is the Beef-steak Club. There seem to have been two Societies of this name. The first whose origin is unknown, but which may date back to the reign of Charles II., had for its Presi- dent the famous actress Mrs. Peg Woffington, the only lady admitted to the Club,' — ^but then she could box like a man.* The members wore round their necks a golden gridiron, suspended from a green ribbon. The second Beef-steak Club sprang into life in 1735. Rich, the celebrated harlequin and manager of Covent Garden Theatre, was pre- paring the scenery for a pantomime to be performed the same evening, when he received a visit from several gentlemen. One of them, the Earl of Peter- borough, having remained till a late hour, the manager, unintimidated by the presence of his noble visitor, began broiling a beef-steak for his dinner, and then unceremoniously invited the Earl to share his modest meal. Peterborough was so pleased with the beef-steak and the actor's con- versation, that next week he returned, accom- panied by several friends, and asked for the banquet to be repeated. From these circumstances * One evening, when she had played with great success the part of Sir Harry Weldon, she went into the green-room, where Quin happened to be. *' Only think," she said to him, "half the audience take me for a man." "Luckily," Quia replied, *' the other half know the contrary." 24 THE ENGLISH AT HOME. originated the Beef-steak Club, which was rendered iUustrious by the names of Hogarth, Sir James Thornhill, Sheridan, Fox, and Brougham. From Covent Garden the Club was removed to the back of the Lyceum Theatre, and the members, twenty- four in number, dined at four o'clock every Satur- day, from the end of November to the end of June. The dining-room was appropriate to the character of the Club : it was panelled with oak, with the arms of the Society — a gridiron — carved in relief. At the moment when the clock struck five, a curtain was raised, and discovered the kitchen, in which the cooks could be seen engaged with their various duties. Two lines from Macbeth served as motto to this culinary laboratory, and in the centre was suspended the original gridiron of the Club, a venerable relic, that had survived two fires. After dinner, when the cloth was removed, the President seated himself in an arm chair, raised on a dais above the floor, and decorated with the little three- cornered hat in which Garrick in his day played the part of Ranger. The glorious days of the Beef-steak Club were at the beginning of the 19th century, when it counted among its members John Kemble, the Duke of Clarence, Ferguson, and the Duke of Norfolk.* We can suppose that at such a meeting * Renowned for his adventures, witty sayings, and gluttony. One evening, after dining at the Beef-steak Club, he turned into one of the Covent Garden taverns, and asked for a dish of CAPTAIN" MORRIS. 25 good cheer and good wine were only the seasoning of wit. Among the last names connected with the Beef-steak Club figures that of Captain Morris. He was born in 1745, but survived most of the merry guests whom he had amused by his gaiety, his rich imagination, and his poetical sallies. He was the sun of the table, and composed some of the most popular English ballads. The Nestor of song, he himself compared his muse to the flying fish. At the present day his Bacchic strains require the clinking of glass and the joyous echoes of the Club of which Captain Morris was poet-laureate. Type of the true Londoner, he preferred town to country, and the shady side of Pall Mall to the most brilliant sunshine illumining nature. Toward the end of his life, however, he let himself be gained over by the charms of the rural life he had ridiculed, and retired to a villa at Brockham, given him by the Duke of Norfolk. Before starting he bade farewell to the Club in verse. He reappeared there as a visitor in 1835, and the members pre- sented him with a large silver bowl bearing an appropriate inscription. Although at that time eighty-nine years ot age, he had lost none of his gaiety of heart. He died a short time after, and peas and an ortolan. The waiter, deceived by the rustic appearance of the Duke, told his master that a market-gardener had had the impudence to order an ortolan. "If he had ordered a dozen, let him have them at once," replied the landlord, who had recognised his Grace. 2G THE ENGLISH AT HOME. with him expired the glory of the Club of which he had been one of the last ornaments. Only the name has survived of this celebrated gathering where so much wit was expended, but it was of the sort which evaporates with the steam of dishes and bowls of punch. It was the character of the old clubs to satisfy all the tastes of human nature. A countryman who came up to London looked for a Club appro- priate to his nature and turn of mind, just as a coquette goes from shop to shop to choose the ribbons that best suit her complexion. If he were phlegmatic, he proceeded to the Humdrum Club in Ivy Lane ; and on entering the room witnessed a solemn scene. The members all maintained a pro- found silence, each having a pipe in his mouth and a pot of beer in his hand : they looked like a con- gregation of sages, or deaf and dumb men. When- ever one of them laid his pipe on the table, they waited for what he was going to say, and for the oracles that were about to issue from so great a mouth — but " it was only to spit," says Goldsmith, who was present at one of their meetings. The turbulent people formed the Eattling Club, while strong-minded men went to the Philosophical Society, where any one who produced a fresh argument against religion was admitted for the sum of fourpence, which was expended in punch.' However strange a man's character might be, he found in London companions with whom to cul- THE thieves' club. 27 tivate his prevailing mania. Those fond of birds met once a week at a Httle pot-house in Rosemary Lane, where the Bird-fancier^s Club was held : those fond of tulips met at the Florists' Club : while the dandies of the day assembled at the Beaux' Club, where nothing was talked about but clothes, ribbons, and new fashions. Men of morose and cross temper formed the Surly Club, which met near Billingsgate Dock : there they abused every- body, and ill-treated each other with ferocious joy. The usurers sought the company of their fellows at the Split-farthing Club. Hopkins, immortalised by Pope, was a member of this Club, which met in a dark room to save oil and candles. Commercial men who had failed consoled each other at the Unfortunate Club, which met at the sign of the Tumble-down Dick in the Mint : a simple bankruptcy was a suflScient title for admission, but a fraudulent one was preferred. The mendicants dragged themselves to the Beggars' Club, where blind men regained their sight, and the dumb speech. Thieves went nightly to the Half Moon, a small tavern in the Old Bailey : it was the Thieves' Club. The market-women assembled at the Flat- cap Club, which was for a season the gathering place of gallants and coffee-room haunters : the young gentlemen paid their court to these ladies with burnt brandy and formidable mugs of porter. Each man was thus enabled to join a society har- monising with his tastes, habits, and disposition. 28 THE ENGLISH AT HOME. Englishmen of a more or less Gascon character desired entrance to the Lying Club, whose origin I must describe. Sir Harry Blunt, a man of wit, and remarkable for his skill in loading his stories with false colours, received one day some strangers who had come to study the customs and curiosities of London. He took them to the Bell tavern in Westminster, where they dined sumptuously. At table each person tried to amuse the company by narrating the most extraordinary and fabulous ad- ventures, and the evening proved so agreeable to Sir Harry that he resolved to form a Club on the same model. The first rule was that whoever spoke a word of truth between six and ten p.m. would be con- demned to pay for a gallon of wine, the sort to be chosen by the President. The candidates underwent an examination, and telling falsehoods was not suffi- cient, they must be told artistically ; any impro- bable feature was regarded in the same light as truth, and incurred equal punishment. The President wore a blue cap and red feather ; but if one of the members during the evening told a falsehood more daring and splendid than the President, the latter at once yielded to the victor his chair and the attributes of his dignity. These associations having always been a mirror of the national character, we may expect to find in old England a great number of eccentric Clubs. One of the most celebrated was the Ugly Club. It was started at Cambridge during the reign of THE WLY CLUB. 29 diaries II., and began with a dinner to which the ughest men in the town were invited. Some of them decKned the honour, but after a certain amount of difficulty the society was founded. At the inau- gural banquet a student of King's College, who had been surnamed Crab on account of his ill-looks, bravely accepted the office of chaplain. The mem- bers, however, were less fortunate in the election of a president, for no one was particularly anxious for this sort of superiority. The rules of the Club were engraved on a tablet. No one could be ad- mitted unless adorned with some striking defor- mity, and when two candidates were equally ugly, the one who had the thickest skin was selected. The new member on his entrance treated the Club to a dish of codfish, and made a speech in praise of -^sop. The portrait of the celebrated Hunch- back also hung on the walls of the club-room with those of Thersites, Duns Scotus, Scarron, and Hudibras. The Club became renowned, and the members, encouraged by their success, sent Charles 11. an invitation to join them. The King laughed heartily, and said he could not come himself, but would send them a couple of bucks. The Club was at a later date founded in London under the same title by Hatchet, who had the honour of introducing a new word into the English language, and the inhabitants of Great Britain still give the name of hatchet-faced to a peculiar sort of ugli- ness. This gentleman was very celebrated for the 30 THE EIliTGLISH AT HOME. length and size of his nose, about which an infini- tude of anecdotes is told. After him, Jack Wilkes was elected perpetual president of the Chib in the early part of the reign of George III., and Gabriel Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau, was unanimously elected an honorary member when he paid his visit to London. The Ugly Club had a rival in the No-nose Club. A gentleman of strange humour, while walking about the streets of London, was struck one day by the great number of noseless men he met, and hit on the idea of inviting them to dine at a tavern. Here he organised them into a fraternal society. This Club assembled once a month, but, at the end of a year, the founder died. The members — who, in their own words, were not men " to let them- selves be led by the nose " — would not submit to another chief, and separated. At the last meeting one of the poets of the Club read an elegy in honour of the friend they had lost, who had gone to see their patroness snub-nosed Death. Still in virtue of the principle that like will join to like, a Club of Fat Men was formed in the last century. The latter gentlemen did not meet to in- dulge in wit or light conversation, but to behave nobly to one another. The room they met in, which was of dimensions appropriate to the objects of the Club, had two entrances, one through a door of moderate size, and the other through spacious folding doors. If the candidate could enter by ECCENTRIC CLUBS. 31 the first, he was considered unworthy ; but if he was stopped on his passage by his venerable corpulence, the doors of honour were immediately opened to him, and he was hailed as a brother by the im- posing assembly ; so that the first condition for admission to this Club was inability to enter it. In opposition to the Club of Fat Men, a Thin Club was founded in the same town : a considerable market town Addison calls it, without mentioning its name. The latter, who were thin and envious? represented their rivals as men of bad principles, and managed so cleverly as to deprive them of the public favour. The two factions rent each other for several years, and the thin men threatened to shut the fat men out of the civic ofiices, when they at length consented to make a compact. It was agreed that, in future, the two chief officers should be selected, one from each Club. These two officials were consequently coupled annually according to the law of contrasts, one fat and the other lean. Height, and other accidents of nature, also served as the basis for strange associations. There was, for instance, in London, a Tall Club. These gentlemen proposed, according to their statement, to save the human race from the decadence with which it was menaced by the invasion of little men, and the ravages these pigmies performed on the heart of woman. The little men, knowing that union makes strength, formed themselves, on their 32 THE ENGLISH AT HOME. side, into a coalition, called the Short Club. This Club was founded on December 10, the shortest day of the year : the meeting-place was in the little Piazza, and from the windows could be seen PowelFs puppets, a species of theatre and actors, for whom the members of the Society had a thorough paternal sympathy. The first time they took possession of their Club-room, the table came up to their chins, and the President disappeared in his chair, so that, in spite of the presence of that dignitary, the chair was almost vacant. It was then decided that this inconvenient furniture, made for ordinary mortals, should be abolished, and chairs, tables, and other articles, better suited to the stature of the clubbists, should be substituted. The latter having recognised, with great good sense, that it was not so ridiculous to be little, as to try and appear tall, all swore, on forming the Club, that they would bravely beard those hyperbolical mon- sters, the members of the Tall Club. The statutes consequently declared severe penalties against any man who placed cork-soles on his shoes, who stood on tiptoe in the mob, who wore a tall wig or a high hat to add to his height, who mounted a lofty horse, or sat on a large book to exalt himself in his seat. As the Club was composed of men of letters, no opportunity was neglected of relating historical anecdotes that did honour to little men. They incessantly sang a psean to httle David — who con- quered the giant Goliath ; little Alexander the THE SIGHIITG CLUB. 33 Great ; Pepin the Short ; Httle Luxembourg, who made a great king of Louis XIV. ; and above all, the poet Horace, whom Augustus called lepidis- simum homunculum. Pope tells us that he belonged to this band of dwarfs : being so short of body, with long arms and long legs, he compared him- self to a spider. If we may believe him, it was the unanimous opinion of his co-clubmen, that, as the size of the human race had constantly decreased since creation, it was the intention of nature that man should be little. They flattered themselves, there- fore, that by the aid of progress their fellow-men would some day attain perfection, — that is to say, the type of shortness which the Little Club so well represented. I should be astonished had not love been a factor among the eccentric Clubs. There was in fact at London the Fringe Glove Club, and at Oxford the Sighing Club. A mistress, and a poem in honour of that mistress, were the candidate's diploma of admission. The man who expressed the violence of his passion in the most pathetic terms was elected President for the night. As the bond of this association was some misfortune of the heart, the members shunned the society of other men, and united together in order not to incur ridicule. Nothing could be more incoherent than their speeches : the Sigher who entered the room did not address his fellow members, but threw himself into a chair, and cried, speaking to himself, 34j the ENGLISH AT HOME. ** I have seen her. She was never so lovely as this evening ! She looked at me. Alas ! it is all over with you, my heart ! '' T^he others, with a piece of lace or a broken fan in their hands, paid no attention to his elegies^ as they were themselves absorbed in their love dreams and extravagant soliloquies. The rivals, instead of fighting a duel, drank together to the health of their lady love as many times as there were letters in her name, and the conqueror was the man who proposed the most killing toasts. There was also the Widows' Club, consisting of ladies who were seeking a consoler. These ladies had at first resolved to hang the Club-room with the portraits of the dear departed ; but as these pictures would have covered all the walls (one of them had been married seven times), they recalled their first decision, and eventually set up their own likenesses. One of them, addressing her tearful neighbour, said to her> " You are crying, my dear, less for the husband you have lost, than for the one you would like to have." These strange Clubs * were at any rate in- offensive, but by their side were others of a gloomy and dangerous nature. I will not dwell on the * Ought I to count among the literary or the eccentric clubs a party of London men who met at the Boar's Head in East- cheap, the same tavern which FalstafF frequented with his jolly companions ? Each of the members of the club chose one of Shakespeare's characters : one was Falstaff, another Prince Henry, a third Bardolph, and so on. THE MOHOCKS. 35 Duellists' Club, whose President had killed twelve men in affairs of honour, nor on the Man-killers' Club, to gain admission to which a man must prove one homicide at the least, nor the Terrible Club, whose members were distinguished by the length of their swords. Thank Heaven ! these Clubs did not live long. The Sheriff interfered : the hangman laid hands on the men of honour, the knights of blood, and had such a thorough settlement with them that the savage Clubs ended with most of their members on the gallows. A similar fraternity, held together by a desire for evil and hatred of other men, created more sensa- tion than all the rest in the reign of Queen Anne ; it was the Mohock Club, the name being borrowed from a tribe of savages. The President, who called himself Emperor of the Mohocks, wore a crescent on his forehead. Like the " Treize " of Balzac, the Mohocks declared war against the human race, and formed an offensive and defensive alliance among themselves. Beating the watch, attacking persons in the street, treating their prisoners — male and female — in the most barbarous and revolting manner, was regarded by them as a brilliant deed. Their rage was only appeased when they reached the ill-famed spots of which they had constituted themselves the protectors. The Mohocks underwent the same fate as the Duellists, the Terribles, and the Assassins : the rope broke up their Club. In a large city like London, D 2 36 THE ENGLISH AT HOME. we may expect to find some of these illegal asso- ciations even up to recent times. Lord Chief Justice Holt spent a rackety youth, and had been a member of a Club of rufiians. One day, when he was presiding at the Old Bailey, a man was convicted of highway robbery. In the criminal. Holt recognised one of his old comrades, and behoving that he was unknown, and perhaps excited by curiosity, he asked him what had become of the other members of the dangerous Club to which the prisoner had had the misfortune to belong. The poor devil gave a profound bow, and rephed, with a heavy sigh : " Ah ! they are all hanged, with the exception of your lordship and myself!" Such is a history of a few old Clubs. At the present day, what a difference ! Palaces of marble have been substituted for the humble taverns and coffee-houses which served as nests for the asso- ciations of the last century. The revolution as regards architecture and the system of manage- ment has been so great, that linguists have asked themselves if the name of Club can be given to establishments which offer so little resemblance with the congregation of good fellows defined by grave Dr. Johnson. I will not stop to discuss about a word, for I prefer to study at once the constitution, origin, and life of the modern club- houses. CHAPTER II. SUBSCRIPTION CLUBS CROCKFORD PIGEONS AT BROOKS'S white's PALL MALL — MODERN CLUBS HOUSE COM- MITTEES THE KITCHEN AT THE REFORM ORIGIN OF MODERN CLUBS THE UNITED SERVICE RAPID GROWTH OF CLUBS UNIVERSITY CLUBS THE ATHEN^UM THE GARRICK MR. THACKERAY AND MR. YATES THE TRAVELLERS — ^THE ORIENTAL MIXED CLUBS POLITICAL CLUBS THE REFORM AND THE CARLTON. The Clubs now existing in London are divided into two classes. There are some kept by a private person, who engages to supply the members with certain advantages in consideration of entrance money and an annual subscription. There are others which in no way resemble individual enter- prises, for they are based on the absolute principle of responsibility. Let us dwell first on the former, which are the eldest, are called by the name of " Subscription Clubs," and form the transition between the old and new systems. They are only three in number, Brooks's, White's, and Boodle's, though, up to 1844, Crockford's existed. They are thus called after the name of the original pro- prietor, and are all more or less tainted with the social evil of gambling. 38 THE ENGLISH AT HOME. William Crockford began his career by keeping a fishmonger's stall in the Strand. Having gained a great deal of money, not so much by his trade as by gambling and betting on races, he eventually estabhshed a celebrated house, at which the 6lite of London society assembled after the Opera was over, and fabulous sums were lost and won there. Several gloomy episodes are connected with his " Hell," which, however, assumed a holiday appear- ance. A major in the Guards lost a heavy sum of money, and committed a forgery in consequence, which was discovered, and brought him to ^N'ew- gate. Before the trial, he found means to escape, through the devotion of a servant, who came to see him in prison and changed clothes with him. Thus disguised, the major eluded the vigilance of the gaolers, and soon reached a place of safety, leaving behind him his worthy servant, who was tried and condemned to a year's imprisonment. As this affair created a sensation, Crockford under the circumstances spared neither efforts nor money to save one of the victims of gambling from the hands of justice. His Club was, after the event, still frequented by the highest nobility of England. To the attraction of play he added that of good eating ; his suppers were excellent ; the finest wines flowed in streams; and the head cook, — the celebrated Louis Eustache Tide, — was considered the greatest professor of the culinary art to be found in Europe. Crockford, who was surnamed Brooks's. 39 the Leviathan of Play, died enormously rich in 1844, and with him expired this rouge-et-noir house, disguised beneath the name of a Club, which had cast such a deplorable lustre around. The three other Clubs, Brooks's, White's, and Boodle's, have never possessed such a decidedly gambling character. Brooks's was originally a coffee-house — some sa}^ an hotel — which, about the year 1770, was the meeting-place of the leaders of the Opposition. The political influence of this Club was so great that it constituted a species of government within government. Bound the name of Brooks, who was the master of the house, clustered the far more celebrated names of Fox, Burke, Grenville, Windham, Grey, Selwyn, and Sheridan. It w^ould lead us too far to relate the witticisms and anecdotes that made the repu- tation of this select assembly. One day when Sheridan left the Club, he met, in St. James's Street, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York. " We were just discussing the point," said the Duke, " whether you are a rogue or a fool." "I am between both," Sheridan rephed, as he placed himself between the royal pair, and took each by the arm. Sheridan was thrice rejected when proposed for Brooks's Club : one black ball was sufficient for this, and this veto was each time deposited in the voting urn by Selden, on the pretext that Sheridan's father had been an actor. This obstacle was at length removed by the Prince 40 THE ENGLISH AT HOME. of Wales, who engaged Selden in a private con- versation at the moment when the voting took place. A great amount of wit was expended in this Club, but I regret to add, that a great deal of money was also spent and lost. Though it did not entirely renounce its political hue, Brooks^s became in course of time a tolerated gambling- house, where certain members of the aristocracy sought refuge to evade the law prohibiting gam- bling. In 1799, four well-feathered pigeons be- came members of the Club, with fortunes which, together, attained the enormous amount of two millions. In less than a year all four were en- tirely ruined, and one of them, a young man of noble family, was obliged to borrow of a club waiter eighteen-pence to pay the carriage of a hamper sent him by a country friend, who was ignorant of this sudden conversion of a millionnaire into a beggar. But what on earth did he want in this Club 1 White's, in St. James's Street, like Brooks's, is one of the oldest Clubs in London. It owes its origin to a man of the name of White, who, in 1698, kept at the same spot a coffee, or as it was then called, a chocolate-house. The Club, pro- perly so called, only dates from 1736, and it was the gathering-place of the Tory party. It is less celebrated than Brooks's for witticisms, for, according to Walter Scott's observation, the Tories are generally less jovial companions than the A MINISTER MADE A BUTT OF. 41 Whigs, and the illustrious noveHst, in spite of his opinions, sought the society of the latter when he wished to render himself amused. White's, how- ever, knew some splendid days during the briUiant period of Pitt, Dundas, K-ose, and Canning. Pitt used to make great fun there of a well-known mys- tification, to w^hich his friend Dundas fell a victim during a political trip in Scotland. The latter, who was a Minister at the time, sent for a barber, while he was staying in Edinburgh, and the Scotch Figaro, before beginning his task, made himself the echo of the dissatisfaction then prevaiHng in the city and a part of the country against the statesman, by saying ironically, "We are much obliged to you, Mr. Dundas, for the part you have played in London." " What, are you a politician V' Dundas asked, emphatically ; "I sent for a barber." *' Oh, very good, I will shave you," the practitioner replied, with a bow. He really shaved one cheek of the Minister, and then suddenly passed the back of the razor across his neck, exclaiming, " There, traitor, that is for you 1 " After doing which, he ran out of the house at full speed. Dundas thought for a moment that his throat was really cut, and shouted for help. The news that the Minister was assassinated spread through the whole city, but the alarm was soon converted into a general outburst of laughter, and the barber became for a day the hero of the popular favour. Pitt, in allusion to this event, was fond of asking 42 THE ENGLISH AT HOME. Dundas whether he was quite sure of having his head on his shoulders. But these mental diver- sions were combined from an early period with games of a worse character, and the arms of the Club have been described by a wit as " dice on a field vert,'' and the motto, " Cogit amor nummi" At the beginning of the present century, White's was extremely rich, and in 1813 it gave to the Emperor of Eussia, the King of Prussia, and the other allied sovereigns, a dinner that cost no less than 9849/. Three weeks later the same Club banqueted the Duke of Wellington with equal splendour. White's is still in existence, and indeed occupies a very stately mansion in St. James's Street, but at the present day it is only celebrated for its dinners, and the friendly feeling kept up among the members, who are all rich, quiet, and conservative. I will not dwell any longer on the subscription Clubs, which offer but a slight interest in com- parison with the Club-houses of the new regime. These establishments, kept by a master, and whose members contributed an annual sum to cover the expenses, under the surveillance of a com- mittee, have been recently succeeded by institu- tions of an entirely different character. There is a new class of Club, the members of which com- bine to hire or build a house, engage servants, and supply themselves at cost price with all that is sold at considerable profit in restaurants and PALL MALL. 43 hotels. These Club-houses are true aristocratic households. The first time I walked in London in the vicinity of St. James's Park, I was struck by the sight of splendid houses, standing at a certain distance from each other, and. which gave to this part of the town a character of wealth and majesty. They were in all styles, Greek, Roman, Italian, simple or decorated, but had a family resem- blance to each other. My surprise was augmented in Pall Mall, where palaces succeeded, palaces. I saw all around me colonnades, porticos, bas reliefs, friezes, and other architectural ornaments. As these noble buildings, however, had not the cha- racter of public edifices, and as I was still under the influence of the ideas Frenchmen form as to the English aristocracy, I asked myself what old families could be rich enough to stand such ruinous expenses in keeping up establishments of this size. An Englishman undertook to dispel my illusions, by telling me that each of these princely resi- dences was occupied, as he said, by a collective Lord. I had in fact before me the Club-houses of London, the palaces erected on the principle of association for material comforts and the pleasures of social life. They are at once hotels, eating- houses, cafes, reading-rooms, and libraries. Such establishments are not the property of an individual, but belong to numerous bodies of partners. The Club-houses represent the true monuments of the 44 THE ENGLISH AT HOME. age, and the oldest of them do not date back beyond 1826. The stranger especially stops in surprise in front of the Carlton Club, an immense edifice, built from the designs of Sir Robert Smirke, and which reminds him of the Library of St. Mark, at Venice. The profusion of ornaments only yields here to the richness of the material : columns of polished red granite, coupled two and two, decorate the fa9ade of the building, wdiich is surmounted by a terrace, surrounded by a stone balustrade of severe and yet elegant design. In the same street, Pall Mall, is the Army and Navy Club, whose style English architects have borrowed from the Cornaro palace : the walls are covered with old naval and military trophies, above which runs a frieze loaded with arabesques, foliage, and figures. These two Clubs eclipse, though they do not obliterate, other and somewhat older buildings — the Keform Club, built in 1840, after the designs of Sir C. Barry, the United Service, the Athe- naeum, the Travellers', the Oxford and Cambridge, the University, the Union, and Arthur's. If the modern Club-houses attract the eye by the mass, extent, richness, and external beauties of the archi- tecture, the visitor is no less astounded by the pomp and elegance displayed in the interior of these establishments. You have scarce passed the perist3de ere you find yourself in a lobby, guarded by two servants, the hall porter and his assistant. It is their duty LONDON CLUBS. 45 to watch that no one enters the house, except those whose names are entered in a book. As a general rule, these two functionaries, dressed in black, and white neckcloths, have under their orders one or two pages in livery, whose duty it is to carry messages and letters to the Club members, whilst the stranger waits for an answer in a recep- tion-room. If by special favour he is permitted to visit the estabhshment, he will then enter the hall, where the architects have lavished, even more than elsewhere, all the resources of their own art and of statuary. I will quote, as a delicious effect of light, and as type of what the English called the chaste style, the hall of the Conservative, which is hghted by a circular glass roof, and thus seems to have the dome of heaven as a cupola. As a specimen of a different style, the hall of the Reform Club, all lustrous with marble and gold, is admirable. From a pavement of scagliola mosaic spring up saffron-coloured columns, which support a gallery and an open ceiling. Maple or mahogany doors open into the different apart- ments on the ground floor — the morning-room, the reading or news-room, and the dining-rooms, all of which have mirrors of extraordinary height, ceilings adorned with festoons and cornices, rich encaustic paintings, immense gilt branched chan- dehers, and sofas dear to indolence. A staircase leads to the two or three other floors of the house : some architects have striven to bestow all 46 THE EKGLISH AT HOME. the wealth of decoration on these marble or stone staircases, while others, despairing of making such an object agreeable to the sight, have expended all their skill in hiding it. On the first floor are the drawing-room, library, and the accessory rooms."^ The drawing-room, in most of the Clubs, displays a luxury in furniture and ornamentation which the English themselves have qualified as extravagant. The walls are covered with velvet paper. The columns are of Sienna marble. The ceiling is decorated with gilt moulding, and the oak floor is covered with a soft Turkey carpet : in a word, all affects an air of splendour and ostenta- tion which defies the eye of the millionnaire : indeed, nothing finer can be seen in the Queen's palace. The library is distinguished by the number of books, the size of the room, and pilas- ters of grey or green marble, terminating in bronze capitals. On the second or third floor are the billiard rooms, while the upper part is occu- pied by the bedrooms of the servants and other officials. In the Club-houses the architect pro- posed to combine the character of a mansion with the wants of a first-class hotel. Hence we must not overlook the kitchen, which is frequently the greatest marvel in these establishments, through * These accessories are the smoking-room, tlie least decorated in the house, and the card-room, which has been carefully made small in order to limit the number of players. Games of chance, strictly so called, are prohibited in the modern club-houses. MODEEN CLUBS. 47 its cleanliness, the brilliancy of the fires, the move- ment of the spits and cooks, and the dimensions of the tables and dressers. In the basement of some of these houses there is also a steam-engine to pump water to the upper floors, apparatus for dis- tributing heat through the various apartments — in short, a perfect mechanical system by which the house lives, if I may be allowed the expression, like the fairy palaces in Perrault's tales.'"'' The modern Club-houses differ from the old subscription Clubs in the fact that they are no longer, as formerly, enterprises bearing the name of an individual who, in consideration of an annual subscription from each member, undertook to de- fray the expenses and pocketed the profits. At the present day the Club-men are not subscribers, but co-proprietors of their Club. For the average sum of twenty pounds entrance money, and ten guineas a year, each member, admitted by ballot, can go where he likes, do what he pleases in the house, read, write, dine alone or with a friend, mix in conversation or withdraw into a corner with a * A few figures will give an idea of the importance and wealth of these institutions. The Athenaeum cost in building alone 35,0001, the furniture 6000Z., the linen and plate 2500L, the library 4000^., and the stock of wiue in the cellars represents, it is said, an average of 3500?. to 4000?. Tlie establishment pays annually upwards of 800?. for coals and other combustibles, 1000?. for gas, oil, and wax candles, 400?. for newspapers and magazines, 240?. for writing paper and pens, 80?. for ice, and 2000?. for wines and spirits. The cellar alone of the United Service is estimated at 7722?. 48 THE ENGLISH AT HOME. newspaper, or the last new magazine. At the Club, he is at home : as twelve hundredth part of the master of the house, he commands an army of servants, from the footman in laced coat, velvet breeches and silk stockings, up to the little page with gilt buttons, whom a duchess might envy. He has his cook, his bath, his plate, and his easy chair by the fire, where he can build castles in the air, although the fiction is a reality, for he exercises a right over all that this palace out of the Arabian Nights possesses. The Club governs itself by virtue of a committee chosen among the members, and which generally consists of from thirty to forty persons. From three to eight of them form the head of this elective authority, and meet once a week to settle 'financial affairs, make contracts with the tradesmen, engage or dismiss servants, and inquire into any complaints that may be made by Club-members. This general committee also prepares the annual reports, which are printed, and issued to all the members of the association. As one committee could not extend its surveillance over all the branches of domestic economy, it is assisted by sub-committees, which have a special character, and are called house-committees. There is the wine-committee, composed of connoisseurs of that article, which looks after the cellar and bottling ; and there is the book-committee, which manages the library department. In Clubs where there are billiard tables, a billiard committee MONSIEUR SOYER. 49 is chosen among the patrons of the game. These committees are assisted by a secretary, who is also intrusted with the official correspondence of the Club. So much for the direction : the rest is handed over to the care of the house-steward, who has under his orders the waiters and other ser- vants. Now the resemblance between the consti- tution of the Club-houses and that of representative government in England can be easily traced. From an economical point of view, the organis- ation of these modern establishments offers more than one advantage. The members of the Club obtain at cost price food, drink, and all the other amenities of luxury, and no one derives any profit from what they consume. Not only do the members pay no toll to a middleman, but, as their purchases are made on a large scale, they obtain objects of superior quality of a cheaper rate. It has been said that the English of olden times clubbed to spend money, and the English of to-day to save it, and this is true, at least with those who have contracted any luxurious habits. In the dining room there is a daily bill of fare, from which each member selects what he prefers, and the dishes come up from the kitchen by means of a machine called a " lift.'' The cook is one of the principal personages in the establishment, and most frequently a Frenchman, who deserves the title of an artiste, through his talent, education, and mode of Hfe."^^ * The most celebrated of all was, a few years ago, M. Soyer, 50 THE ENGLISH AT HOME. You can have an excellent dinner at a Club for the same sum which a bad one at a tavern costs you. In addition to the comfort of good cheer must be added the pleasures of a well-laid table, a magnificently hghted room, and splendid attend- ance. It appears too, if we may judge from the experience of the Clubs, that sobriety is developed in the midst of abundance, and that a man covets in a lesser degree those superfluities of life, w^hich he constantly has before his eyes, if not under his hand. Statistics^ of the expenses of the Junior United in 1839, proves that 29*527 dinners cost on an average, two shillings and three pence. The reports of three other large Clubs show also that the quantity of wine drunk by each person was, during six years, a little under a pint a day. I certainly notice, it is true, a slight difference between these later accounts and those of some head cook of tlie Reform Club, and author of a book entitled * ' Gastronomic Regeneration. " The idea of this immortal work gourmands say occurred to him one day when looking in the library of a noble lord at the works of Shakspeare, Milton, and Johnson, splendidly bound, but covered with dust and neglected, while a cookery book bore marks of honourable service, for it was consulted daily. "That," he said to himself, "is the road to fame." Soyer produced an entire revolution in the culinary art ; and he introduced the mechanical arrangement in the kitchen of the Reform Club which is considered a master- piece. He was the first to employ steam in turning spits and other apparatus, in warming plates, browning joints,