presents, as in the subjoined minute, under the date of June 27, 1751,
when Martin Folkes presided: "William Hanbury, Esq., having this day
entertained the company with a chine of Beef which was 34 inches in
length, and weighed upwards of 140 pounds, it was agreed, _nem. con._,
that two such chines were equal to half a Bucke or a Turtle, and
entitled the Donor to be an Honorary Member of this Society."
Then we have another record of Mr. Hanbury's munificence, as well his
conscientious regard for minuteness in these matters, as in this
entry: "Mr. Hanbury sent this day another mighty chine of beef, and,
having been a little deficient with regard to annual payments of
chines of beef, added three brace of very large carp by way of
interest." Shortly after, we find Lord Morton contributing "two pigs
of the China breed."
In addition to the venison, game, and other viands, there was no end
of presents of fruits for dessert. In 1752, Mr. Cole (the landlord)
presented the company with a ripe water-melon from Malaga. In 1753,
there is an entry showing that some _tusks_, a rare and savoury fish,
were sent by the Earl of Morton; and Egyptian Cos-lettuces were
supplied by Philip Miller, who, in his Gardener's Dictionary,
describes this as the best and most valuable lettuce known; next he
presented "four Cantaloupe melons, equal--if not superior--in flavour
to pine-apples." In July, 1763, it is chronicled that Lord Morton sent
two pine-apples, cherries of two sorts, melons, gooseberries of two
sorts, apricots, and currants of two sorts.
However, this practice of making presents got to be unpopular with the
Fellows at large, who conceived it to be undignified to receive such
gifts; and, in 1779, it was "resolved that no person in future be
admitted into the Club in consequence of any present he shall make to
it." This singular custom had been in force for thirty years. The
latest _formal_ thanks for "a very fine haunch of venison" were voted
to Lord Darnley on the 17th of June, 1824.
The Club Minutes show the progressive rise in the charges for dinner.
From 1743 to 1756 the cost was 1_s._ 6_d._ a head. In the latter year
it was resolved to give 3_s._ per head for dinner and wine, the
commons for absentees to remain at 1_s._ 6_d._, as before. In 1775,
the price was increased to 4_s._ a head, including wine, and 2_d._ to
the waiter; in 1801, to 5_s._ a head, exclusive of wine, the increased
duties upon which made it necessary for the members to contribute an
annual sum for the expense of wine, over and above the charge of the
tavern bills.
In 1775, the wine was ordered to be laid in at a price not exceeding
£45 a pipe, or 1_s._ 6_d._ a bottle; to have a particular seal upon
the cork, and to be charged by the landlord at 2_s._ 6_d._ a bottle.
The Club always dined on the Society's meeting-day. Wray, writing of a
Club-meeting in 1776, says that, "after a capital dinner of venison,
which was absolutely perfect, we went to another sumptuous
entertainment, at the Society, where five electrical eels, all alive,
from Surinam, were exhibited; most of the company received the
electrical stroke; and then we were treated with the sight of a
sucking alligator, very lively."
It has been more than once remarked that a public dinner of a large
party of philosophers and men of science and letters generally turns
out to be rather a dull affair; perhaps, through the _embarras_ of
talent at table. Not so, however, the private social Clubs, the
offshoots of Public Societies, like the Royal Society Club, and others
we could mention. The Royals do not appear to have been at all
indifferent to these post-prandial wit-combats. "Here, my jokes I
crack with high-born Peers," writes a Philosopher, alluding to the
Club dinners; and Admiral Smyth, in his unpublished _Rise and
Progress_, tells us, that to this day "it unites hilarity, and the
_macrones verborum_ of smart repartee, with strictures on science,
literature, the fine arts--and, indeed, every branch of human
knowledge."
The administration of the affairs of the Club was minutely attended
to: when, in 1776, it was considered necessary to revise "the
commons," a committee was appointed for the purpose, consisting of
Messrs. Aubert, Cuthburt, Maskelyne, Russell, and Solander, who
decided that "should the number of the company exceed the number
provided for, the dinner should be made up with the beefstakes,
mutton-chops, lamb-chops, veal-cutlets, or pork-stakes, instead of
made dishes, or any dearer provisions." And "that twopence per head be
allowed for the waiter" (_which seems to have been the regular
gratuity for many years_). Then, the General Committee had to report
that the landlord was to charge for gentlemen's servants, "one
shilling each for dinner and a pot of porter;" and "that when toasted
cheese was called for, he was to make a charge for it."
In 1784, the celebrated geologist, Faujas de Saint-Fond (Barthélemy,)
with four other distinguished foreigners, partook of the hospitality
of the Club, of which, in 1797, M. Faujas published an account. "He
mentions the short prayer or grace with which Dr. Maskelyne blessed
the company and the food--the solid meats and unseasoned
vegetables--the quantities of strong beer called porter, drank out of
cylindrical pewter pots _d'un seul trait_--the cheese to provoke the
thirst of drinkers--the hob-a-nobbing of healths--and the detestable
coffee. On the whole, however, this honest Frenchman seems to have
been delighted with the entertainment, or, as he styles it, 'the
convivial and unassuming banquet,'" and M. Faujas had to pay 'seven
livres four sols' for his commons. Among the lighter incidents is the
record of M. Aubert having received a present from the King of Poland,
begged to have an opportunity of drinking His Majesty's health, and
permission to order a bottle of Hermitage, which being granted, the
health was drank by the company present; and upon one of the
Club-slips of 1798, after a dinner of twenty-two, is written, "Seven
shillings found under the table."
The dinner-charges appear to have gradually progressed from 1_s._
6_d._ to 10_s._ per head. In 1858-9 the Club-dinners had been 25, and
the number of dinners 309, so that the mean was equal to 12·36 for
each meeting, the visitors amounting to 49; and it is further
computed, that the average wine per head of late, waste included, is a
considerable fraction less than a pint, imperial standard measure, in
the year's consumption.
Among the distinguished guests of the Club are many celebrities. Here
the chivalrous Sir Sidney Smith described the atrocities of Djezza
Pasha; and here that cheerful baronet--Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin--by
relating the result of his going in a jolly-boat to attack a whale,
and in narrating the advantages specified in his proposed patent for
fattening fowls, kept "the table in a roar." At this board, also, our
famous circumnavigators and oriental voyagers met with countenance and
fellowship--as Cook, Furneaux, Clerke, King, _Bounty_ Bligh,
Vancouver, _Guardian_ Riou, Flinders, Broughton, Lestock, Wilson,
Huddart, Bass, Tuckey, Horsburgh, &c.; while the Polar explorers, from
the Hon. Constantine Phipps in 1773, down to Sir Leopold M'Clintock,
in 1860, were severally and individually welcomed as guests. But,
besides our sterling sea-worthies, we find in ranging through the
documents that some rather outlandish visitors were introduced through
their means, as Chet Quang and Wanga Tong, _Chinese_; Ejutak and
Tuklivina, _Esquimaux_; Thayen-danega, the _Mohawk_ chief; while Omai,
of Ularetea, the celebrated and popular savage, of _Cook's Voyages_,
was so frequently invited, that he is latterly entered on the Club
papers simply as _Mr._ Omai.
The redoubtable Sir John Hill dined at the Club in company with Lord
Baltimore on the 30th of June, 1748. Hill was consecutively an
apothecary, actor, playwright, novelist, botanist, journalist, and
physician; and he published upon trees and flowers, Betty Canning,
gems, naval history, religion, cookery, and what not. Having made an
attempt to enter the Royal Society, and finding the door closed
against him,--perhaps a pert vivacity at the very dinner in question
sealed the rejection,--he revenged himself by publishing an impudent
quarto volume, vindictively satirizing the Society.
Ned Ward, in his humorous Account of the Clubs of London, published in
1709, describes "the _Virtuoso's_ Club as first established by some of
the principal members of the Royal Society, and held every Thursday,
at a certain Tavern in Cornhill, where the Vintner that kept it has,
according to his merit, made a fortunate step from his Bar to his
Coach. The chief design of the aforementioned Club was to propagate
new whims, advance mechanical exercises, and to promote useless as
well as useful experiments." There is humour in this, as well as in
his ridicule of the Barometer: "by this notable invention," he says,
"our gentlemen and ladies of the middle quality are infallibly told
when it's a right season to put on their best clothes, and when they
ought not to venture an intrigue in the fields without their cloaks
and umbrellas." His ridicule of turning salt water into fresh, finding
a new star, assigning reasons for a spot in the moon, and a "wry step"
in the sun's progress, were Ward's points, laughed at in his time, but
afterwards established as facts. There have been greater mistakes made
since Ward's time; but this does not cleanse him of filth and
foulness.
Ward's record is evidence of the existence of the Royal Society Club,
in 1709, before the date of the Minutes. Dr. Hutton, too, records the
designation of Halley's Club--undoubted testimony; about 1737, he,
Halley, though seized with paralysis, once a week, within a very short
time of his death, met his friends in town, on Thursdays, the day of
the Royal Society's meeting, at "Dr. Halley's Club." Upon this
evidence Admiral Smyth establishes the claim that the Royal Society
Club was actually established by a zealous philosopher, "who was at
once proudly eminent as an astronomer, a mathematician, a
physiologist, a naturalist, a scholar, an antiquary, a poet, a
meteorologist, a geographer, a navigator, a nautical surveyor, and a
truly social member of the community--in a word, our founder was the
illustrious Halley--the Admirable Crichton of science."
A memorable dinner-party took place on August the 11th, 1859, when
among the visitors was Mr. Thomas Maclear (now Sir Thomas), the
Astronomer-Royal at the Cape of Good Hope, who had just arrived in
England from the southern hemisphere, after an absence of a quarter of
a century. "On this day, were present, so to speak, the
representatives of the three great applications by which the present
age is distinguished, namely, of _Railways_, Mr. Stephenson; of the
_Electric Telegraph_, Mr. Wheatstone; and of the _Penny Post_, Mr.
Rowland Hill--an assemblage never again to occur." (_Admiral Smyth's
History of the Club._)
Among the anecdotes which float about, it is related that the
eccentric Hon. Henry Cavendish, "the Club-Croesus", attended the
meetings with only money enough in his pocket to pay for his dinner,
and that he may have declined taking tavern-soup, may have picked his
teeth with a fork, may invariably have hung his hat on the same peg,
and may have always stuck his cane in his right boot; but more
apocryphal is the anecdote that one evening Cavendish observed a very
pretty girl looking out from an upper window on the opposite side of
the street, watching the philosophers at dinner. She attracted notice,
and one by one they got up and mustered round the window to admire the
fair one. Cavendish, who thought they were looking at the moon,
bustled up to them in his odd way, and when he saw the real object of
their study, turned away with intense disgust, and grunted out
"Pshaw;" the amorous conduct of his brother Philosophers having
horrified the woman-hating Cavendish.
Another assertion is that he, Cavendish, left a thumping legacy to
Lord Bessborough, in gratitude for his Lordship's piquant conversation
at the Club; but no such reason can be found in the Will lodged at
Doctors' Commons. The Testator named therein three of his Club-mates,
namely, Alexander Dalrymple, to receive 5000_l._, Dr. Hunter 5000_l._,
and Sir Charles Blagden (coadjutor in the Water question), 15,000_l._
After certain other bequests, the will proceeds,--"The remainder of
the funds (nearly 700,000_l._) to be divided, one-sixth to the Earl of
Bessborough, while the cousin, Lord George Henry Cavendish, had
two-sixths, instead of one;" "it is therefore," says Admiral Smyth,
"patent that the money thus passed over from uncle to nephew, was a
mere consequence of relationship, and not at all owing to any flowers
or powers of conversation at the Royal Society Club."
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.
Besides inviting our own princes, dukes, marquises, earls, ministers
of state, and nobles of all grades to the table, numerous foreign
grandees, prelates, ambassadors, and persons of distinction--from the
King of Poland and Baron Munchausen, down to the smart little abbé
and a 'gentleman unknown'--are found upon the Club records. Not that
the amenities of the fraternity were confined to these classes, or
that, in the Clubbian sense, they form the most important order; for
bishops, deans, archdeacons, and clergymen in general--astronomers--
mathematicians--sailors--soldiers--engineers--medical practitioners--
poets--artists--travellers--musicians--opticians--men of repute in
every acquirement, were, and ever will be, welcome guests. In a word,
the names and callings of the visitors offer a type of the philosophical
_discordia concors_; and among those guests possessed of that knowledge
without which genius is almost useless, we find in goodly array such
choice names as Benjamin Franklin, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Gibbon,
Costard, Bryant, Dalton, Watt, Bolton, Tennant, Wedgwood, _Abyssinian_
Bruce, Attwood, Boswell, Brinkley, Rigaud, Brydone, Ivory, Jenner,
John Hunter, Brunel, Lysons, Weston, Cramer, Kippis, Westmacott,
Corbould, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Turner, De La Beche, _et hoc genus
omne_."
The President of the Royal Society is elected President of the Club.
There were always more candidates for admission than vacancies, a
circumstance which had some influence in leading to the formation of a
new Club, in 1847, composed of eminent Fellows of the Society. The
name of this new Association is "the Philosophical Club," and its
object is "to promote, as much as possible, the scientific objects of
the Royal Society, to facilitate intercourse between those Fellows who
are actively engaged in cultivating the various branches of Natural
Science, and who have contributed to its progress; to increase the
attendance at the Evening Meetings, and to encourage the contribution
and the discussion of papers." Nor are the dinners forgotten; the
price of each not to exceed ten shillings.
The statistical portion of the Annual Statement of 1860, shows that
the number of dinners for the past year amounted to 25, at which the
attendance was 312 persons, 62 of whom were visitors, the average
being = 12·48 each time: and the Treasurer called attention to the
fact that out of the Club funds in the last twelvemonth, they had paid
not less than £9. 6_s._ for soda and seltzer water; £8. 2_s._ 6_d._
for cards of invitation and postage; and £25 for visitors, that is,
8_s._ 0¾_d._ per head.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] See _Walks and Talks about London_, p. 246. The Mitre in
Fleet-street was also the house frequented by Dr. Johnson.
THE COCOA-TREE CLUB.
This noted Club was the Tory Chocolate-house of Queen Anne's reign;
the Whig Coffee-house was the St. James's, lower down, in the same
street, St. James's. The party distinction is thus defined:--"A Whig
will no more go to the Cocoa-tree or Ozinda's, than a Tory will be
seen at the coffee-house of St. James's."
The Cocoa-tree Chocolate-house was converted into a Club, probably
before 1746, when the house was the head-quarters of the Jacobite
party in Parliament. It is thus referred to in the above year by
Horace Walpole, in a letter to George Montagu:--"The Duke has given
Brigadier Mordaunt the Pretender's coach, on condition he rode up to
London in it. 'That I will, Sir,' said he; 'and drive till it stops of
its own accord at the Cocoa-tree.'"
Gibbon was a member of this Club, and has left this entry, in his
journal of 1762:--"Nov. 24. I dined at the Cocoa Tree with ----, who,
under a great appearance of oddity, conceals more real humour, good
sense, and even knowledge, than half those who laugh at him. We went
thence to the play (_The Spanish Friar_); and when it was over,
retired to the Cocoa-tree. That respectable body, of which I have the
honour of being a member, affords every evening a sight truly English.
Twenty or thirty, perhaps, of the first men in the kingdom in point of
fashion and fortune supping at little tables covered with a napkin, in
the middle of a coffee-room, upon a bit of cold meat, or a sandwich,
and drinking a glass of punch. At present we are full of King's
counsellors and lords of the bedchamber; who, having jumped into the
ministry, make a very singular medley of their old principles and
language with their modern ones." At this time, bribery was in full
swing: it is alleged that the lowest bribe for a vote upon the Peace
of Fontainebleau, was a bank-note of £200; and that the Secretary of
the Treasury afterwards acknowledged £25,000 to have been thus
expended in a single morning. And in 1765, on the debate in the
Commons on the Regency Bill, we read in the _Chatham Correspondence_:
"The Cocoa-tree have thus capacitated Her Royal Highness (the Princess
of Wales) to be Regent: it is well they have not given us a King, if
they have not; for many think, Lord Bute is King."
Although the Cocoa-tree, in its conversion from a Chocolate-house to a
Club, may have bettered its reputation in some respects, high play, if
not foul play, was known there twenty years later. Walpole, writing to
Mann, Feb. 6, 1780, says: "Within this week there has been a cast at
hazard at the Cocoa-tree, (in St. James's Street,) the difference of
which amounted to one hundred and fourscore thousand pounds. Mr.
O'Birne, an Irish gamester, had won one hundred thousand pounds of a
young Mr. Harvey of Chigwell, just started into an estate by his elder
brother's death. O'Birne said, "You can never pay me." "I can," said
the youth: "my estate will sell for the debt." "No," said O.; "I will
win ten thousand--you shall throw for the odd ninety." They did, and
Harvey won."
The Cocoa-tree was one of the Clubs to which Lord Byron belonged.
ALMACK'S CLUB.
Almack's, the original Brookes's, on the south side of the Whig
Club-house, was established in Pall Mall, on the site of the British
Institution, in 1764, by twenty-seven noblemen and gentlemen,
including the Duke of Roxburghe, the Duke of Portland, the Earl of
Strathmore, Mr. Crewe (afterwards Lord Crewe), and Mr. C. J. Fox.
Mr. Cunningham was permitted to inspect the original Rules of the
Club, which show its nature: here are a few.
"21. No gaming in the eating-room, except tossing up for reckonings,
on penalty of paying the whole bill of the members present.
"22. Dinner shall be served up exactly at half-past four o'clock, and
the bill shall be brought in at seven.
"26. Almack shall sell no wines in bottles that the Club approves of,
out of the house.
"30. Any member of this Society that shall become a candidate for any
other Club, (old White's excepted,) shall be ipso facto excluded, and
his name struck out of the book.
"40. That every person playing at the new guinea table do keep fifty
guineas before him.
"41. That every person playing at the twenty guinea table do not keep
less than twenty guineas before him."
That the play ran high may be inferred from a note against the name of
Mr. Thynne, in the Club-books: "Mr. Thynne having won only 12,000
guineas during the last two months, retired in disgust, March 21st,
1772."
Some of its members were Maccaronis, the "curled darlings" of the day:
they were so called from their affectation of foreign tastes and
fashions, and were celebrated for their long curls and eye-glasses.
Much of the deep play was removed here. "The gaming at Almack's,"
writes Walpole to Mann, February 2, 1770, "which has taken the _pas_
of White's, is worthy the decline of our empire, or commonwealth,
which you please. The young men of the age lose ten, fifteen, twenty
thousand pounds in an evening there. Lord Stavordale, not
one-and-twenty, lost £11,000 there last Tuesday, but recovered it by
one great hand at hazard. He swore a great oath, 'Now, if I had been
playing _deep_, I might have won millions.' His cousin, Charles Fox,
shines equally there, and in the House of Commons. He was twenty-one
yesterday se'nnight, and is already one of our best speakers.
Yesterday he was made a Lord of the Admiralty." Gibbon, the historian,
was also a member, and he dates several letters from here. On June 24,
1776, he writes: "Town grows empty, and this house, where I have
passed many agreeable hours, is the only place which still invites the
flower of the English youth. The style of living, though somewhat
expensive, is exceedingly pleasant; and, notwithstanding the rage of
play, I have found more entertainment and rational society than in any
other club to which I belong."
The play was certainly high--only for rouleaus of £50 each, and
generally there was £10,000 in specie on the table. The gamesters
began by pulling off their embroidered clothes, and put on frieze
greatcoats, or turned their coats inside outwards for luck. They put
on pieces of leather (such as are worn by footmen when they clean the
knives) to save their laced ruffles; and to guard their eyes from the
light and to prevent tumbling their hair, wore high-crowned straw hats
with broad brims, and adorned with flowers and ribbons; masks to
conceal their emotions when they played at quinz. Each gamester had a
small neat stand by him, to hold his tea; or a wooden bowl with an
edge of ormolu, to hold the rouleaus.
Almack's was subsequently Goosetree's. In the year 1780, Pitt was then
an habitual frequenter, and here his personal adherents mustered
strongly. The members, we are told in the _Life of Wilberforce_, were
about twenty-five in number, and included Pratt (afterwards Lord
Camden), Lords Euston, Chatham, Graham, Duncannon, Althorp, Apsley, G.
Cavendish, and Lennox; Messrs. Eliot, Sir Andrew St. John, Bridgeman
(afterwards Lord Bradford), Morris Robinson (afterwards Lord Rokeby),
R. Smith (afterwards Lord Carrington), W. Grenville (afterwards Lord
Grenville), Pepper Arden (afterwards Lord Alvanley), Mr. Edwards, Mr.
Marsham, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Bankes, Mr. Thomas Steele,
General Smith, Mr. Windham.