intense eagerness. When Wilberforce came up to London in 1780, after
his return to Parliament, his great success coloured his entry into
public life, and he was at once elected a member of the leading
clubs--Miles's and Evans's, Brookes's and Boodle's, White's and
Goosetree's. The latter was Wilberforce's usual resort, where his
friendship with Pitt, whom he had slightly known at Cambridge, greatly
increased: he once lost £100 at the faro-table, and on another night
kept the bank, by which he won £600; but he soon became weaned from
play.
ALMACK'S ASSEMBLY-ROOMS.
In the year following the opening of Almack's Club in Pall Mall,
Almack had built for him by Robert Mylne, the suite of Assembly Rooms,
in King-street, St. James's, which was named after him, "Almack's,"
and was occasionally called "Willis's Rooms," after the next
proprietor. Almack likewise kept the Thatched House Tavern, in St.
James's-street.
Almack's was opened Feb. 20, 1765, and was advertised to have been
built with hot bricks and boiling water: the ceilings were dripping
with wet; but the Duke of Cumberland, the Hero of Culloden, was there.
Gilly Williams, a few days after the opening, in a letter to George
Selwyn, writes: "There is now opened at Almack's, in three very
elegant new-built rooms, a ten-guinea subscription, for which you have
a ball and supper once a week, for twelve weeks. You may imagine by
the sum the company is chosen; though, refined as it is, it will be
scarce able to put out old Soho (Mrs. Cornelys) out of countenance.
The men's tickets are not transferable, so, if the ladies do not like
us, they have no opportunity of changing us, but must see the same
persons for ever." ... "Our female Almack's flourishes beyond
description. Almack's Scotch face, in a bag-wig, waiting at supper,
would divert you, as would his lady, in a sack, making tea and
curtseying to the duchesses."
Five years later, in 1770, Walpole writes to Montagu: "There is a new
Institution that begins to make, and if it proceeds, will make a
considerable noise. It is a Club of _both_ sexes, to be erected at
Almack's, on the model of that of the men of White's. Mrs. Fitzroy,
Lady Pembroke, Mrs. Meynell, Lady Molyneux, Miss Pelham, and Miss
Lloyd, are the foundresses. I am ashamed to say I am of so young and
fashionable society; but as they are people I live with, I choose to
be idle rather than morose. I can go to a young supper without
forgetting how much sand is run out of the hour-glass."
Mrs. Boscawen tells Mrs. Delany of this Club of lords and ladies who
first met at a tavern, but subsequently, to satisfy Lady Pembroke's
scruples, in a room at Almack's. "The ladies nominate and choose the
gentlemen and _vice versâ_, so that no lady can exclude a lady, or
gentleman a gentleman." Ladies Rochford, Harrington, and Holderness
were black-balled, as was the Duchess of Bedford, who was subsequently
admitted! Lord March and Brook Boothby were black-balled by the
ladies, to their great astonishment. There was a dinner, then supper
at eleven, and, says Mrs. Boscawen, "play will be deep and constant,
probably." The frenzy for play was then at its height. "Nothing within
my memory comes up to it!" exclaims Mrs. Delany, who attributes it to
the prevailing "avarice and extravagance." Some men made profit out of
it, like Mr. Thynne, "who has won this year so considerably that he
has paid off all his debts, bought a house and furnished it, disposed
of his horses, hounds, etc., and struck his name out of all expensive
subscriptions. But what a _horrid reflection_ it must be to an honest
mind to _build_ his fortune on the ruin of others!"
Almack's large ball-room is about one hundred feet in length, by forty
feet in width; it is chastely decorated with gilt columns and
pilasters, classic medallions, mirrors, etc., and is lit with gas, in
cut-glass lustres. The largest number of persons ever present in this
room at one ball was 1700.
The rooms are let for public meetings, dramatic readings, concerts,
balls, and occasionally for dinners. Here Mrs. Billington, Mr. Braham,
and Signor Naldi, gave concerts, from 1808 to 1810, in rivalry with
Madame Catalani, at Hanover-square Rooms; and here Mr. Charles Kemble
gave, in 1844, his Readings from Shakspeare.
The Balls at Almack's are managed by a Committee of Ladies of high
rank, and the only mode of admission is by vouchers or personal
introduction.
Almack's has declined of late years; "a clear proof that the palmy
days of exclusiveness are gone by in England; and though it is
obviously impossible to prevent any given number of persons from
congregating and re-establishing an oligarchy, we are quite sure that
the attempt would be ineffectual, and that the sense of their
importance would extend little beyond the set."[8] In 1831 was
published _Almack's_, a novel, in which the leaders of fashion were
sketched with much freedom, and identified in _A Key to Almack's_,
by Benjamin Disraeli.
BROOKES'S CLUB.
We have just narrated the establishment of this Club--how it was
originally a gaming club, and was formed at first by Almack. It was
subsequently taken by Brookes, a wine-merchant and money-lender,
according to Selwyn; and who is described by Tickell, in a copy of
verses addressed to Sheridan, when Charles James Fox was to give a
supper at his own lodgings, then near the Club:--
"Derby shall send, if not his plate, his cooks,
And know, I've brought the best champagne from Brookes,
From liberal Brookes, whose speculative skill
Is hasty credit, and a distant bill;
Who, nursed in clubs, disdains a vulgar trade,
Exults to trust, and blushes to be paid."
From Pall Mall Brookes's Club removed to No. 60, on the west side of
St. James's-street, where a handsome house was built at Brookes's
expense, from the designs of Henry Holland, the architect; it was
opened in October, 1778. The concern did not prosper; for James Hare
writes to George Selwyn, May 18, 1779, "we are all beggars at
Brookes's, and he threatens to leave the house, as it yields him no
profit." Mr. Cunningham tells us that Brookes retired from the Club
soon after it was built, and died poor about the year 1782.
Lord Crewe, one of the founders of the Club in Pall Mall, died in
1829, after sixty-five years' membership of Brookes's. Among its
celebrities were Burke and Sir Joshua Reynolds, Garrick and Hume,
Horace Walpole, Gibbon, and Sheridan and Wilberforce. Lord March,
afterwards Duke of Queensberry, was one of its notorieties--"the old
Q., whom many now living can remember, with his fixed eye and
cadaverous face, watching the flow of the human tide past his
bow-window in Pall Mall."--_National Review_, 1857. [This is hardly
correct as to locality, since the Club left Pall Mall in 1778, and a
reminiscent must be more than 80 years of age.] Among Selwyn's
correspondents are Gilly Williams, Hare, Fitzpatrick, the Townshends,
Burgoyne, Storer, and Lord Carlisle. R. Tickell, in "Lines from the
Hon. Charles Fox to the Hon. John Townshend cruising," thus describes
the welcome that awaits Townshend, and the gay life of the Club:--
"Soon as to Brookes's thence thy footsteps bend,
What gratulations thy approach attend!
See Gibbon tap his box; auspicious sign,
That classic compliment and evil combine.
See Beauclerk's cheek a tinge of red surprise,
And friendship gives what cruel health denies.
Important Townshend! what can thee withstand?
The ling'ring black-ball lags in Boothby's hand.
E'en Draper checks the sentimental sigh;
And Smith, without an oath, suspends the die."
Mr. Wilberforce has thus recorded his first appearance at Brookes's:
"Hardly knowing any one, I joined, from mere shyness, in play at the
faro-tables, where George Selwyn kept bank. A friend, who knew my
inexperience, and regarded me as a victim decked out for sacrifice,
called to me, 'What, Wilberforce, is that you?' Selwyn quite resented
the interference, and, turning to him, said, in his most expressive
tone, 'Oh, Sir, don't interrupt Mr. Wilberforce; he could not be
better employed!'"
The Prince of Wales, one day at Brookes's, expatiating on that
beautiful but far-fetched idea of Dr. Darwin's, that the reason of the
bosom of a beautiful woman being the object of such exquisite delight
for a man to look upon, arises from the first pleasurable sensations
of warmth, sustenance, and repose, which he derives therefrom in his
infancy; Sheridan replied, "Truly hath it been said, that there is
only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous. All children who are
brought up by hand must derive their pleasurable sensations from a
very different source; yet I believe no one ever heard of any such,
when arrived at manhood, evincing any very rapturous or amatory
emotions at the sight of a wooden spoon." This clever exposure of an
ingenious absurdity shows the folly of taking for granted every
opinion which may be broached under the sanction of a popular name.
The conversation at Brookes's, one day, turning on Lord Henry Petty's
projected tax upon iron, one member said, that as there was so much
opposition to it, it would be better to raise the proposed sum upon
coals. "Hold! my dear fellow," said Sheridan, "that would be out of
the frying pan into the fire, with a vengeance."
Mr. Whitbread, one evening at Brookes's, talked loudly and largely
against the Ministers for laying what was called the _war tax_ upon
malt: every one present concurred with him in opinion, but Sheridan
could not resist the gratification of a hit at the _brewer_ himself.
He wrote with his pencil upon the back of a letter the following
lines, which he handed to Mr. Whitbread, across the table:--
"They've raised the price of table drink;
What is the reason, do you think?
The tax on _malt_'s the cause I hear--
But what has _malt_ to do with _beer_?"
Looking through a Number of the _Quarterly Review_, one day, at
Brookes's, soon after its first appearance, Sheridan said, in reply to
a gentleman who observed that the editor, Mr. Gifford, had boasted of
the power of conferring and _distributing literary reputation_; "Very
likely; and in the present instance I think he has done it so
profusely as to have left none for himself."
Sir Philip Francis was the convivial companion of Fox, and during the
short administration of that statesman was made a Knight of the Bath.
One evening, Roger Wilbraham came up to a whist-table at Brookes's,
where Sir Philip, who for the first time wore the ribbon of the Order,
was engaged in a rubber, and thus accosted him. Laying hold of the
ribbon and examining it for some time, he said: "So, this is the way
they have rewarded you at last: they have given you a little bit of
red ribbon for your services, Sir Philip, have they? A pretty bit of
red ribbon to hang about your neck; and that satisfies you, does it?
Now, I wonder what I shall have.--What do you think they will give me,
Sir Philip?"
The newly-made Knight, who had twenty-five guineas depending on the
rubber, and who was not very well pleased at the interruption,
suddenly turned round, and looking at him fiercely, exclaimed, "A
halter, and be d--d to you!"
George III. invariably evinced a strong aversion to Fox, the secret of
which it is easy to understand. His son, the Prince of Wales, threw
himself into the arms of Fox, and this in the most undisguised manner.
Fox lodged in St. James's-street, and as soon as he rose, which was
very late, had a levee of his followers, and of the members of the
gaming club, at Brookes's, all his disciples. His bristly black
person, and shagged breast quite open, and rarely purified by any
ablutions, was wrapped in a foul linen night-gown, and his bushy hair
dishevelled. In these cynic weeds, and with epicurean good-humour, did
he dictate his politics, and in this school did the heir of the Crown
attend his lessons, and imbibe them.
Fox's love of play was desperate. A few evenings before he moved the
repeal of the Marriage Act, in February, 1772, he had been at Brompton
on two errands: one to consult Justice Fielding on the penal laws; the
other to borrow ten thousand pounds, which he brought to town at the
hazard of being robbed. Fox played admirably both at whist and piquet;
with such skill, indeed, that by the general admission of Brookes's
Club, he might have made four thousand pounds a year, as they
calculated, at those games, if he could have confined himself to them.
But his misfortune arose from playing games at chance, particularly at
Faro. After eating and drinking plentifully, he sat down to the Faro
table, and inevitably rose a loser. Once, indeed, and once only, he
won about eight thousand pounds in the course of a single evening.
Part of the money he paid away to his creditors, and the remainder he
lost almost immediately. Before he attained his thirtieth year, he had
completely dissipated everything that he could either command, or
could procure by the most ruinous expedients. He had even undergone,
at times, many of the severest privations annexed to the vicissitudes
that mark a gamester's progress; frequently wanting money to defray
the common daily wants of the most pressing nature. Topham Beauclerc,
who lived much in Fox's society, affirmed, that no man could form an
idea of the extremities to which he had been driven in order to raise
money, after losing his last guinea at the Faro table. He was reduced
for successive days to such distress, as to borrow money from the
waiters of Brookes's. The very chairmen, whom he was unable to pay,
used to dun him for their arrears. In 1781, he might be considered as
an extinct volcano, for the pecuniary aliment that had fed the flame
was long consumed. Yet he then occupied a house or lodgings in St.
James's-street close to Brookes's, where he passed almost every hour
which was not devoted to the House of Commons. Brookes's was then the
rallying point or rendezvous of the Opposition; where, while faro,
whist, and supper prolonged the night, the principal members of the
Minority in both Houses met, in order to compare their information, or
to concert and mature their parliamentary measures. Great sums were
then borrowed of Jews at exorbitant premiums. Fox called his outward
room, where the Jews waited till he rose, the _Jerusalem Chamber_. His
brother Stephen was enormously fat; George Selwyn said he was in the
right to deal with Shylocks, as he could give them pounds of flesh.
When Fox lodged with his friend Fitzpatrick, at Mackie's, some one
remarked that two such inmates would be the ruin of Mackie, the
oilman; "No," said George Selwyn; "so far from ruining him, they will
make poor Mackie's fortune; for he will have the credit of having the
finest pickles in London."
The ruling passion of Fox was partly owing to the lax training of his
father, who, by his lavish allowances, fostered his propensity for
play. According to Chesterfield, the first Lord Holland "had no fixed
principles in religion or morality," and he censures him to his son
for being "too unwary in ridiculing and exposing them." He gave full
swing to Charles in his youth: "let nothing be done," said his
Lordship, "to break his spirit; the world will do that for him."
(_Selwyn._) At his death, in 1774, he left him £154,000 to pay his
debts; it was all bespoke, and Fox soon became as deeply pledged as
before.
Walpole, in 1781, walking up St. James's-street, saw a cart and
porters at Fox's door; with copper and an old chest of drawers,
loading. His success at faro had awakened a host of creditors; but,
unless his bank had swelled to the size of the Bank of England, it
could not have yielded a sou apiece for each. Epsom, too, had been
unpropitious; and one creditor had actually seized and carried off
Fox's goods, which did not seem worth removing. Yet, shortly after
this, whom should Walpole find sauntering by his own door but Fox, who
came up and talked to him at the coach-window, on the Marriage Bill,
with as much _sang froid_ as if he knew nothing of what had happened.
It was at the sale of Fox's library in this year that Walpole made the
following singular note:--"1781, June 20. Sold by auction, the
library of Charles Fox, which had been taken in execution. Amongst the
books was Mr. Gibbon's first volume of 'Roman History,' which
appeared, by the title-page, to have been given by the author to Mr.
Fox, who had written in it the following anecdote:--'The author at
Brookes's said there was no salvation for the country till six heads
of the principal persons in the administration were laid on the table;
eleven days later, the same gentleman accepted the place of Lord of
Trade under those very ministers, and has acted with them ever since!'
Such was the avidity of bidders for the smallest production of so
wonderful a genius, that by the addition of this little record, the
book sold for three guineas."
Lord Tankerville assured Mr. Rogers that Fox once played cards with
Fitzpatrick at Brookes's from ten o'clock at night till near six
o'clock the next afternoon, a waiter standing by to tell them "whose
deal it was," they being too sleepy to know. Fox once won about eight
thousand pounds; and one of his bond-creditors, who soon heard of his
good luck, presented himself, and asked for payment. "Impossible,
Sir," replied Fox; "I must first discharge my debts of honour." The
bond-creditor remonstrated. "Well, Sir, give me your bond." It was
delivered to Fox, who tore it in pieces, and threw them into the fire.
"Now, Sir," said Fox, "my debt to you is a debt of honour;" and
immediately paid him.
Amidst the wildest excesses of youth, even while the perpetual victim
of his passion for play, Fox eagerly cultivated at intervals his taste
for letters, especially the Greek and Roman historians and poets; and
he found resources in their works, under the most severe depressions
occasioned by ill-success at the gaming-table. One morning, after Fox
had passed the whole night in company with Topham Beauclerc at faro,
the two friends were about to separate. Fox had lost throughout the
night, and was in a frame of mind approaching desperation. Beauclerc's
anxiety for the consequences which might ensue led him to be early at
Fox's lodgings; and on arriving, he inquired, not without
apprehension, whether he had risen. The servant replied that Mr. Fox
was in the drawing-room, when Beauclerc walked upstairs, and
cautiously opened the door, expecting to behold a frantic gamester
stretched on the floor, bewailing his losses, or plunged in moody
despair; but he was astonished to find him reading a Greek Herodotus.
"What would you have me do?" said Fox, "I have lost my last shilling."
Upon other occasions, after staking and losing all that he could raise
at faro, instead of exclaiming against fortune, or manifesting the
agitation natural under such circumstances, he would lay his head on
the table, and retain his place, but, exhausted by mental and bodily
fatigue, almost immediately fall into a profound sleep.
One night, at Brookes's, Fox made some remark on Government powder, in
allusion to something that had happened. Adams considered it a
reflection, and sent Fox a challenge. Fox went out, and took his
station, giving a full front. Fitzgerald said, "You must stand
sideways." Fox said, "Why I am as thick one way as the other,"--"Fire,"
was given: Adams fired, Fox did not, and when they said he must, he
said, "I'll be d--d if I do. I have no quarrel." They then advanced to
shake hands. Fox said, "Adams, you'd have killed me if it had not been
Government powder." The ball hit him in the groin.
Another celebrated character, who frequented Brookes's in the days of
Selwyn, was Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton; and many keen
encounters passed between them. Dunning was a short, thick man, with a
turn-up nose, a constant shake of the head, and latterly a distressing
hectic cough--but a wit of the first water. Though he died at the
comparatively early age of fifty-two, he amassed a fortune of £150,000
during twenty-five years' practice at the bar; and lived
notwithstanding, so liberally, that his mother, an attorney's widow,
some of the wags at Brookes's wickedly recorded, left him in dudgeon
on the score of his extravagance, as humorously sketched at a dinner
at the lawyer's country-house near Fulham, when the following
_conversation_ was represented to have occurred:--
"John," said the old lady to her son, after dinner, during which she
had been astounded by the profusion of the plate and viands,--"John, I
shall not stop another day to witness such shameful extravagance."
"But, my dear mother," interrupted Dunning, "you ought to consider
that I can afford it: my income, you know--"
"No income," said the old lady impatiently, "can stand such shameful
prodigality. The sum which your cook told me that very _turbot_ cost,
ought to have supported any reasonable family for a week."
"Pooh, pooh! my dear mother," replied the dutiful son, "you would not
have me appear shabby. Besides, what is a turbot?"
"Pooh, pooh! what is a turbot?" echoed the irritated dame: "don't
_pooh_ me, John: I tell you such goings-on can come to no good, and
you'll see the end of it before long. However, it sha'n't be said your
mother encouraged such sinful waste, for I'll set off in the coach to
Devonshire to-morrow morning."
"And notwithstanding," said Sheridan, "all John's rhetorical efforts
to detain her, the old lady kept her word."
Sheridan's election as a member of Brookes's took place under
conflicting circumstances. His success at Stafford met with fewer
obstacles than he had to encounter in St. James's-street, where
Selwyn's political aversions and personal jealousy were very
formidable, as were those of the Earl of Bessborough, and they and
other members of the Club had determined to exclude Sheridan.
Conscious that every exertion would be made to ensure his success,
they agreed not to absent themselves during the time allowed by the
regulations of the Club for ballots; and as one black ball sufficed to
extinguish the hopes of a candidate, they repeatedly prevented his
election. In order to remove so serious an impediment, Sheridan had
recourse to artifice. On the evening when it was resolved to put him
up, he found his two inveterate enemies posted as usual. A chairman
was then sent with a note, written in the name of her father-in-law,
Lord Bessborough, acquainting him that a fire had broken out in his
house in Cavendish Square, and entreating him immediately to return
home. Unsuspicious of any trick, as his son and daughter-in-law lived
under his roof, Lord Bessborough unhesitatingly quitted the room, and
got into a sedan-chair. Selwyn, who resided not far from Brookes's in
Cleveland-row, received, nearly at the same time, a verbal message to
request his presence, in consequence of Miss Fagniani, (whom he had
adopted as his daughter,) being suddenly seized with alarming
indisposition. This summons he obeyed; and no sooner was the room
cleared, than Sheridan being proposed a member, a ballot took place,
when he was immediately chosen. Lord Bessborough and Selwyn returned
without delay, on discovering the imposition that had been practised
on their credulity, but they were too late to prevent its effects.