John Timbs

“ The King of Clubs sat on Saturday of each month, at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, in the Strand, which, at that time, was a nest of boxes, each containing its Club, and affording excellent cheer, though latterly desecrated by indifferent dinners and very questionable wine. The Club was a grand talk, the prevalent topics being books and authors; politics quite excluded. Bobus Smith was a convivial member in every respect but that of wine; he was but a frigid worshipper of Bacchus, but he had great humour and a species of wit, that revelled amidst the strangest and most grotesque combinations. ”

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

“ The Club, notwithstanding all its learned dignity in the eyes of the world, could occasionally unbend and play the fool as well as less important bodies. Some of its jocose conversations have at times leaked out; and the Society in which Goldsmith could venture to sing his song of "An Old Woman tossed in a Blanket" could not be so very staid in its gravity. Bennet Langton and Topham Beauclerk were, doubtless, induced to join the Club through their devotion to Johnson, and the intimacy of these two very young and aristocratic young men with the stern and somewhat melancholy moralist. ”

“ They adjourned to the club room, and Selwyn now detected the manœuvre. Sheridan then rose, made a low bow, and apologized to Selwyn, through his dropping into such good company, adding, "They have just been making me a member without even one black ball, and here I am." "The devil they have!" exclaimed Selwyn.—"Facts speak for themselves," said Sheridan; "and I thank you for your friendly suffrage; and now, if you will sit down by us, I will finish my story."—"Your story! it is all a lie from beginning to end," exclaimed Selwyn, amidst loud laughter from all parts of the room. ”

“ When Sir John Hawkins spoke favourably of Garrick's pretensions, "Sir," replied Johnson, "he will disturb us by his buffoonery." In the same spirit he declared to Mr. Thrale, that if Garrick should apply for admission, he would black-ball him. "Who, Sir?" exclaimed Thrale, with surprise: "Mr. Garrick—your friend, your companion—black-ball him?" "Why, Sir," replied Johnson, "I love my little David dearly—better than all or any of his flatterers do; but surely one ought to sit in a society like ours,
"Unelbowed by a gamester, pimp, or player." ”

“ Charles Morris, the Bard of the Club, sang one or two of his own songs, the quintessence of convivial mirth and fancy; at nine o'clock the Duke quitted the chair, and was succeeded by Sir John Hippisley, who had a terrible time of it: a storm of "arrowy sleet and iron shower" whistled from all points in his ears: all rules of civilized warfare seemed suspended, and even the new members tried their first timid essays upon the Baronet, than whom no man was more prompt to attack others. ”

“ I am very sorry that I have at present a circumstance before me which is of very great importance to all who have a relish for gaiety, wit, mirth, or humour: I mean the death of poor Dick Estcourt. I have been obliged to him for so many hours of jollity, that it is but a small recompense, though all I can give him, to pass a moment or two in sadness for the loss of so agreeable a man.... Poor Estcourt! Let the vain and proud be at rest, thou wilt no more disturb their admiration of their dear selves ”

“ But Brougham is an excellent member, and is a remarkable instance of the peculiar influences of this peculiar Society on the human character. We took him just as the schools of philosophy, the bar, the senate, had made him. Literary, forensic, and parliamentary habits are most intractable materials, you will say, to make a member of the Steaks, yet no man has imbibed more of its spirit, and he enters its occasional gladiatorship with the greatest glee. ”

“ We have seen how the corner-stone of the sublime Society was laid. The gridiron upon which Rich had broiled his solitary steak, being insufficient in a short time for the supernumerary guests, the gridiron was enshrined as one of the tutelary and household emblems of the Club. Fortunately, it escaped the fire which consumed Covent Garden Theatre in 1808, when the valuable stock of wine of the Club shared the fate of the building ”

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

“ But is it possible, that the greatest Peer of the realm, luxuriating amidst the prodigalities of fortune, should lament the distress which he does not relieve? the empty phrase of benevolence—the mere breath and vapour of generous sentiment, become no man; they certainly are unworthy of your Grace. Providence, my Lord Duke, has placed you in a station where the wish to do good and the doing it are the same thing. An annuity from your overflowing coffers, or a small nook of land, clipped from your unbounded domains, would scarcely be felt by your Grace ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Pictures of the Social Life of the Metropolis during the last two centuries are by no means rare. We possess them in Diaries, Memoirs, and Correspondence, in almost countless volumes, that sparkle with humour and gaiety, alternating with more serious phases,—political or otherwise,—according to the colour and complexion, and body of the time. Of such pictures the most attractive are Clubs. ”

“ Let all strangers who come to London for business, or pleasure, or curiosity, or for whatever cause, not fail to visit the Reform Club. In an age of utilitarianism, and of the search for the comfortable, like ours, there is more to be learned here than in the ruins of the Coliseum, of the Parthenon, or of Memphis. ”

“ Admiral Smyth, to whose admirable précis of the History of the Club we have to make acknowledgment, remarks that the hospitality of the Royal Society has been "of material utility to the well-working of the whole machine which wisdom called up, at a time when knowledge was quitting scholastic niceties for the truths of experimental philosophy. This is proved by the number of men of note—both in ability and station—who have there congregated previously to repairing to the evening meeting of the body at large; and many a qualified person who went thither a guest has returned a candidate. ”

“ Whether (observes a contemporary) the power of conversation has declined or not, we certainly fear that the power of drinking has; and the imagination dwells with melancholy fondness on that state of society in which great men were not forbidden to be good fellows, which we fancy, whether rightly or wrongly, must have been so superior to ours, in which wit and eloquence succumb to statistics, and claret has given place to coffee.
The Journal to Stella reveals Swift's sympathy for poor starving authors, and how he carried out the objects of the Society, in this respect. ”

“ During the first quarter of the last century, there were formed in the metropolis "Street Clubs," of the inhabitants of the same street; so that a man had but to stir a few houses from his own door to enjoy his Club and the society of his neighbours. There was another inducement: the streets were then so unsafe, that "the nearer home a man's club lay, the better for his clothes and his purse. Even riders in coaches were not safe from mounted footpads, and from the danger of upsets in the huge ruts and pits which intersected the streets. ”

“ In Ward's Secret History, we read of the Golden Fleece Club, a rattle-brained society, originally held at a house in Cornhill, so entitled. They were a merry company of tippling citizens and jocular change-brokers, who every night washed away their consciences with claret, that the mental alienations and fallacious assurances the one had used in their shops, and the deceitful wheedling and stock-jobbing honesty by which the other had outwitted their merchants, might be no impediment to their night's rest ”

“ 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. ”

“ Among other follies of the age of paper, which took place in England at the end of the reign of George III., a set of book-fanciers, who had more money than wit, formed themselves into a club, and appropriately designated themselves the Bibliomaniacs. Dr. Dibdin was their organ; and among the club were several noblemen, who, in other respects, were esteemed men of sense. Their rage was, not to estimate books according to their intrinsic worth, but for their rarity. Hence, any volume of the vilest trash, which was scarce, merely because it never had any sale, fetched fifty or a hundred pounds ”

“ In the old days when gaming was in fashion, at Watier's Club, princes and nobles lost or gained fortunes between themselves. It was the same at Brookes's, one member of which, Lord Robert Spencer, was wise enough to apply what he had won to the purchase of the estate of Woolbidding, Suffolk. Then came Crockford's hell, the proprietor of which, a man who had begun life with a fish-basket, won the whole of the ready money of the then existing generation of aristocratic simpletons. Among the men who most suffered by play was Viscount Allen, or 'King Allen,' as he was called. ”

“ Marrable, the architect, has dealt very cleverly with the quaint form over which he had to lay out his chambers. The house is Italian, and is imposing, from having been judiciously and not over-enriched. In the hall is a very beautiful Italian screen. The noble staircase is of carved oak; at the top, a landing-place, from which is entered the morning-room, the card-room, and the library. All the apartments demanded by the habits of the day—some of them were not thought necessary in the days of Garrick—are, of course provided. ”

“ The Club-house contains six floors and 134 apartments: the basement and mezzanine below the street pavement, and the chambers in the roof are not seen.
The points most admired are extreme simplicity and unity of design, combined with very unusual richness. The breadth of the piers between the windows contributes not a little to that repose which is so essential to simplicity, and hardly less so to stateliness. The string-courses are particularly beautiful, while the cornicione (68 feet from the pavement) gives extraordinary majesty and grandeur to the whole. ”

“ Among the most constant attendants were two high-born and high-bred gentlemen, closely bound together by friendship, but of widely 218 different characters and habits,—Bennet Langton, distinguished by his skill in Greek literature, by the orthodoxy of his opinions, and by the sanctity of his life; and Topham Beauclerk, renowned for his amours, his knowledge of the gay world, his fastidious taste, and his sarcastic wit. To predominate over such a society was not easy. Yet even over such a society Johnson predominated. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The large majority of the association is composed of the representatives of all the best classes of society. The number of the members is limited, and the character of the Club is social, and therefore the electing committee is compelled to exercise very vigilant care, for it is clear that it would be better that ten unobjectionable men should be excluded than that one terrible bore should be admitted. The prosperity of the Club, and the eagerness to obtain admission to it, are the best proofs of its healthy management ”