which has undoubtedly declined; and at one time, perhaps, it occupied
more attention among the higher classes of society than we ever wish
to see it do again. Yet, taken in moderation, we can perceive no
reason to condemn this branch of sport more than others. "If so great
a personage as Sophocles could think it fitting to display his science
in public, in the trifling game of ball, why may not an English
gentleman exercise his skill on a coach-box? If the Athenians, the
most polished nation of all antiquity, deemed it _an honour_ to be
considered skilful charioteers, why should Englishmen consider it a
disgrace? To be serious, our amateur or _gentlemen-coachmen_ have
done much good: the road would never have been what it now is, but for
the encouragement they gave, by their notice and support, to all
persons connected with it. Would the Holyhead road have been what it
is, had there been no such persons as the Hon. Thomas Kenyon, Sir
Henry Parnell, and Mr. Maddox? Would the Oxford coachmen have set so
good an example as they have done to their brethren of 'the bench,'
had there been no such men on their road as Sir Henry Peyton, Lord
Clonmel, the late Sir Thomas Mostyn; that Nestor of coachmen, Mr.
Annesley; and the late Mr. Harrison of Shelswell? Would not the
unhappy coachmen of five-and-twenty years back have gone on, wearing
out their breeches with the bumping of the old coach-box, and their
stomachs with brandy, had not Mr. Warde of Squerries, after many a
weary endeavour, persuaded the proprietors to place their boxes upon
springs--the plan for accomplishing which was suggested by Mr.
Roberts, nephew to then proprietor of the White Horse, Fetter Lane,
London, but now of the Royal Hotel, Calais? What would the Devonshire
road have been, but for the late Sir Charles Bamfylde, Sir John
Rogers, Colonel Prouse, Sir Lawrence Palk, and others? Have the advice
and the practice of such experienced men as Mr. Charles Buxton, Mr.
Henry Villebois, Mr. Okeover, Sir Bellingham Graham, Mr. John Walker,
Lord Sefton, Sir Felix Agar,[33] Mr. Ackers, Mr. Maxse, Hon. Fitzroy
Stanhope, Colonel Spicer, Colonel Sibthorpe, _cum multis aliis_, been
thrown away upon persons who have looked up to them as protectors?
Certainly not: neither would the improvement in carriages--stage-coaches
more especially--have arrived at its present height, but for the
attention and suggestions of such persons as we have been speaking
of."
A commemoration of long service in the coaching department may be
related here. In the autumn of 1835, a handsome compliment was paid to
Mr. Charles Holmes, the driver and part proprietor of the Blenheim
coach (from Woodstock to London) to celebrate the completion of his
twentieth year on that well-appointed coach, a period that had elapsed
without a single accident to his coach, his passengers, or himself;
and during which time, with the exception of a very short absence from
indisposition, he had driven his sixty-five miles every day, making
somewhere about twenty-three thousand miles a year. The numerous
patrons of the coach entered into a subscription to present him with a
piece of plate; and accordingly a cup, bearing the shape of an antique
vase, the cover surmounted by a beautifully modelled horse, with a
coach and four horses on one side, and a suitable inscription on the
other, was presented to Mr. Holmes by that staunch patron of the road,
Sir Henry Peyton, Bart., in August, at a dinner at the Thatched House
Tavern, St. James's-street, to which between forty and fifty gentlemen
sat down. The list of subscribers amounted to upwards of two hundred
and fifty, including among others the Duke of Wellington.
FOOTNOTES:
[30] Athenæum review of Captain Gronow's Anecdotes.
[31] Athenæum, No. 1739.
[32] Written, it must be recollected, some thirty years since.
Reprinted in Murray's 'Reading for the Rail.'
[33] Perhaps one of the finest specimens of good coachmanship was
performed by Sir Felix Agar. He made a bet, which he won, that he
would drive his own four-horses-in-hand, up Grosvenor-place, down the
passage into Tattersall's Yard, around the pillar which stands in the
centre of it, and back again into Grosvenor-place, _without either of
his horses going at a slower pace than a trot_.
WHIST CLUBS.
To Hoyle has been ascribed the invention of the game of Whist. This is
certainly a mistake, though there can be no doubt that it was indebted
to him for being first specially treated of and introduced to the
public in a scientific manner. He also wrote on piquet, quadrille, and
backgammon, but little is known of him more than he was born in 1672,
and died in Cavendish-square on 29th August, 1769, at the advanced age
of ninety-seven. He was a barrister by profession, and Registrar of
the Prerogative in Ireland, a post worth £600 a year. His treatise on
Whist, for which he received from the publisher the sum of £1000, ran
through five editions in one year, besides being extensively pirated.
"Whist, Ombre, and Quadrille, at Court were used,
And Bassett's power the City dames amused,
Imperial Whist was yet but slight esteemed,
And pastime fit for none but rustics deemed.
How slow at first is still the growth of fame!
And what obstructions wait each rising name!
Our stupid fathers thus neglected, long,
The glorious boast of Milton's epic song;
But Milton's muse at last a critic found,
Who spread his praise o'er all the world around;
And Hoyle at length, for Whist performed the same,
And proved its right to universal fame."
Whist first began to be popular in England about 1730, when it was
very closely studied by a party of gentlemen, who formed a sort of
Club, at the Crown Coffee-house in Bedford-row. Hoyle is said to have
given instructions in the game, for which his charge was a guinea a
lesson.
The Laws of Whist have been variously given.[34] More than half a
century has elapsed since the supremacy of "long whist" was assailed
by a reformed, or rather revolutionized form of the game. The
champions of the ancient rules and methods did not at once submit to
the innovation. The conservatives were not without some good arguments
on their side; but "short whist" had attractions that proved
irresistible, and it has long since fully established itself as the
only game to be understood when whist is named. But hence, in the
course of time, has arisen an inconvenience. The old school of players
had, in the works of Hoyle and Cavendish, manuals and text-books of
which the rules, cases, and decisions were generally accepted. For
short whist no such "volume paramount" has hitherto existed. Hoyle
could not be safely trusted by a learner, so much contained in that
venerable having become obsolete. Thus, doubtful cases arising out of
the short game had to be referred to the best living players for
decision. But there was some confusion in the "whist world," and the
necessity of a code of the modern laws and rules of this "almost
perfect" game had become apparent, when a combined effort was made by
a committee of some of the most skilful to supply the deficiency.
The movement was commenced by Mr. J. Loraine Baldwin, who obtained the
assistance of a Committee, including members of several of the best
London Clubs well known as whist players. They were deputed to draw up
a code of rules for the game, which, if approved, was to be adopted by
the Arlington Club. They performed their task with the most decided
success. The rules they laid down as governing the best modern
practice have been accepted, not only by the Arlington, but the Army
and Navy, Arthur's, Boodle's, Brookes's, Carlton, Conservative,
Garrick, Guards, Junior Carlton, Portland, Oxford and Cambridge,
Reform, St. James's, White's, etc. To the great section of the whist
world that do not frequent Clubs, it may be satisfactory to know the
names of the gentlemen composing the Committee of Codification, whose
rules are to become law. They are Admiral Rous, chairman; Mr. G.
Bentinck, M.P.; Mr. J. Bushe; Mr. J. Clay, M.P.; Mr. C. Greville; Mr.
R. Knightley, M.P.; Mr. H. B. Mayne; Mr. G. Payne; and Colonel Pipon.
The _Laws of Short Whist_[35] were in 1865 published in a small
volume; and to this strictly legal portion of the book is appended _A
Treatise on the Game_, by Mr. J. Clay, M.P. for Hull. It may be read
with advantage by the commencing student of whist and the advanced
player, and with pleasure even by those who are totally ignorant of
it, and have no wish to learn it. There are several incidental
illustrations and anecdotes, that will interest those not gifted with
the faculties good whist requires. Mr. Clay is reported to be one of
the best, if not the very best, of modern players. The Dedication is
as follows: "To the Members of the Portland Club, admitted among whom,
as a boy, I have passed many of the pleasantest days of my life, I
have learned what little I know of Whist, and have formed many of my
oldest friendships, this Treatise on Short Whist is dedicated with
feelings of respect and regard, by their old playfellow, J. C."
Leaving his instructions, like the rules of the committee, to a more
severe test than criticism, we extract from his first chapter a
description of the incident to which short whist owes its origin. It
will probably be quite new to thousands who are familiar with the
game.
"Some eighty years back, Lord Peterborough, having one night lost a
large sum of money, the friends with whom he was playing proposed to
make the game five points instead of ten, in order to give the loser a
chance, at a quicker game, of recovering his loss. The new game was
found to be so lively, and money changed hands with such increased
rapidity, that these gentlemen and their friends, all of them leading
members of the Clubs of the day, continued to play it. It became
general in the Clubs, thence was introduced to private houses,
travelled into the country, went to Paris, and has long since so
entirely superseded the whist of Hoyle's day, that of short whist
alone I propose to treat. I shall thus spare the reader, the learning
much in the old works that it is not necessary for him to know, and
not a little which, if learned, should be at once forgotten."
Graham's, in St. James's-street, the greatest of Card Clubs, was
dissolved about five-and-twenty years back.
FOOTNOTES:
[34] Abridged from the _Times_ journal.
[35] _The Laws of Short Whist_, edited by J. L. Baldwin, and a
Treatise on the Game, by J. C. Harrison, 59, Pall Mall.
PRINCE'S CLUB RACQUET COURTS.
In the early history of the metropolis we find the Londoners warmly
attached to outdoor sports and pastimes; although time and the spread
of the great city have long obliterated the sites upon which these
popular amusements were enjoyed. Smithfield, we know, was the
town-green for centuries before it became the focus of its fanatic
fires; Maypoles stood in various parts of the City and suburbs, as
kept in remembrance by name to this day; football was played in the
main artery of the town--Fleet-street and the Strand, for instance;
_paille malle_ was played in St. James's Park, and the street which is
named after the game; and tennis and other games at ball were enjoyed
on open grounds long before they were played in covered courts; while
the bowling-greens in the environs were neither few nor far between,
almost to our time.
Tennis, we need scarcely state here, was originally played with the
hand, at first naked, then covered with a thick glove, to which
succeeded the bat or racquet, whence the present name of the game. A
few of our kings have been tennis-players. In the sixteenth century
tennis courts were common in England, being attached to country
mansions. Later, playing-courts were opened in the metropolis: for
example, to the houses of entertainment which formerly stood at the
opposite angles of Windmill-street and the Haymarket were attached
tennis-courts, which lasted to our time: one of these courts exists in
James-street, Haymarket, to this day. To stroll out from the heated
and crowded streets of the town to the village was a fashion of the
last century, as we read in the well-remembered line--
"Some dukes at Marybone bowl time away."
Taking into account the vast growth of the metropolis, we are not
surprised at so luxurious a means of healthful enjoyment as a racquet
court presents being added to the establishments or institutions of
this very clubbable age. Hitherto Clubs had been mostly appropriated
to the purposes of refection; but why should not the social refinement
be extended to the enjoyment of so health-giving sport and manly a
pastime as racquet? The experiment was made, and with perfect success,
immediately upon the confines of one of the most recent settlements of
fashion--Belgravia. It is private property, and bears the name of
"Prince's Club Racquet Courts."
The Club, established in 1854, is built upon the Pavilion estate, in
the rear of the north side of Sloane-street, the principal entrance
being from Hans-place. The grounds are of considerable extent, and
were originally laid out by Capability Brown. They were almost
environed with lofty timber-trees; and the genius of landscape
gardening, fostered by wealth, rendered this glade in the Brompton
groves of old a sort of rural elysium.
The Pavilion estate was once the property of Holland, the well-known
architect, who planned Sloane-street and Hans-place, as a building
speculation; and, in the grounds nearly between them, built himself
what was then considered a handsome villa, the front of which was
originally designed by Holland as a model for the Prince of Wales's
Pavilion at Brighton; hence the name, the Pavilion estate. In the
grounds, among the remains of Brown's ornamental work, was an
icehouse, amidst the imitative ruins of a priory. Here, also, were the
Ionic columns (isolated) which were formerly in the screen of Carlton
House.
The Club buildings comprise seven closed courts; a tennis court;
gallery and refreshment rooms; baths, and a Turkish bath.
Prince's Club is a subscription establishment; and its government is
vested in a committee. Gentlemen desirous of becoming members of the
Club must be proposed and seconded by two of its members. Two of the
rules enact--that members have the privilege of introducing two
friends, but that such visitors, if they play, be charged double the
rate charged to members; and that no hazard, dice, or game of chance
be allowed in this Club. Their Royal Highnesses the Prince of Wales
and the Duke of Cambridge are members.
AN ANGLING CLUB.
Professor Owen is accustomed to relate the following very amusing
incident, which occurred in a Club of some of the working scientific
men of London, who, with a few others, after their winter's work of
lecturing is over, occasionally sally forth to have a day's fishing.
"We have," says Professor Owen, "for that purpose taken a small river
in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, and near its banks there
stands a little public-house, where we dine soberly and sparingly, on
such food as old Izaak Walton loved. We have a rule that he who
catches the biggest fish of the day shall be our president for the
evening. In the course of one day, a member, not a scientific man, but
a high political man, caught a trout that weighed 3½ lb.; but earlier
in the day he had pulled out a barbel of half a pound weight. So while
we were on the way to our inn, what did this political gentleman do
but, with the butt-end of his rod, ram the barbel down the trout's
throat, in which state he handed his fish to be weighed. Thus he
scored four pounds, which being the greatest weight he took the
chair.
"As we were going away from home, a man of science,--it was the
President of the Royal Society,--said to the man of politics, 'If you
don't want that fine fish of yours, I should like to have it, for I
have some friends to dine with me to-morrow.' My Lord took it home,
and I heard no more until we met on the next week. Then, while we were
preparing our tackle, the President of the Royal Society said to our
high political friend, 'There were some very extraordinary
circumstances, do you know, about that fish you gave me. I had no idea
that the trout was so voracious; but that one had swallowed a
barbel.'--'I am astonished to hear your Lordship say so,' rejoined an
eminent naturalist; 'trout may be voracious enough to swallow
minnows--but a barbel, my Lord! There must be some mistake.'--'Not at
all,' replied his lordship, 'for the fact got to my family that the
cook, in cutting open the throat, had found a barbel inside; and as my
family knew I was fond of natural history, I was called into the
kitchen. There I saw the trout had swallowed a barbel, full half a
pound weight.'--'Out of the question, my Lord,' said the naturalist;
'it's altogether quite unscientific and unphilosophical.'--'I don't
know what may be philosophical in the matter--I only know I am telling
you a matter of fact,' said his Lordship; and the dispute having
lasted awhile, explanations were given, and the practical joke was
heartily enjoyed. And" (continued Professor Owen) "you will see that
both were right and both were wrong. My Lord was right in his
fact--the barbel was inside the trout; but he was quite wrong in his
hypothesis founded upon that fact, that the trout had therefore
swallowed the barbel,--the last was only matter of opinion."
THE RED LIONS.
In 1839, when the British Association met in Birmingham, several of
its younger members happened, accidentally, to dine at the Red Lion,
in Church-street. The dinner was pleasant, the guests well suited to
each other, and the meeting altogether proved so agreeable, that it
was resolved to continue it from year to year, wherever the
Association might happen to meet. By degrees the "Red Lions"--the name
was assumed from the accident of the first meeting-place--became a
very exclusive Club; and under the presidency of Professor Edward
Forbes, it acquired a celebrity which, in its way, almost rivalled
that of the Association itself. Forbes first drew around him the small
circle of jovial philosophers at the Red Lion. The names of Lankester,
Thomson, Bell, Mitchell, and Strickland are down in the old
muster-roll. Many were added afterwards, as the Club was kept up in
London, in meetings at Anderton's, in Fleet-street. The old cards of
invitation were very droll: they were stamped with the figure of a red
lion erect, with a pot of beer in one paw, and a long clay pipe in the
other, and the invitation commenced with "The carnivora will feed" at
such an hour. Forbes, who, as _pater omnipotens_, always took the
chair at the first chance meeting round the plain table of the inn,
gave a capital stock of humour to this feeding of the naturalists by
taking up his coat-tail and roaring whenever a good thing was said or
a good song sung; and, of course, all the other Red Lions did the
same. When roaring and tail-wagging became so characteristic an
institution among the members, Mr. Mitchell, then secretary of the
Zoological Society, presented a fine lion's skin to the Club; and ever
after the President sat with this skin spread over his chair, the paws
at the elbows, and the tail handy to be wagged. Alas! this tail no
longer wags at Birmingham, and after vibrating with languid emotion in
London, has now ceased to show any signs of life. The old Red Lion has
lost heart, and has slumbered since the death of Forbes.
At the Meeting of the British Association at Birmingham, in 1865, an
endeavour was made to revive the Red Lion dinner on something like its
former scale; the idea being probably suggested by the circumstance of
the Club having been originated in Birmingham. Lord Houghton, who is,
we believe, "an old Red," presided; but the idiosyncrasy of the real
Red Lion, and his intense love of plain roast and boiled, were missed:
some sixty guests sat down, _not_ at the Red Lion, but at a hotel
banquet. Not one of the celebrants on this occasion had passed through
his novitiate as a Red Lion cub: he was not asked whether he could
roar or sing a song, or had ever said a good thing, one of which
qualifications was a _sine quâ non_ in the old Club. There were,
however, some good songs: Professor Rankine sang "The Mathematician in
Love," a song of his own. Then, there are some choice spirits among
these philosophers. After the banquet a section adjourned to the B.
Club, members of which are chiefly chemical in their serious moments.
Indeed, all through the meeting there was a succession of jovial
parties in the identical room at the Red Lion.[36]
THE COVENTRY, ERECTHEUM, AND PARTHENON CLUBS.
The Coventry, or Ambassadors' Club was instituted about twelve years
since, at No. 106, Piccadilly, facing the Green Park. The handsome
stone-fronted mansion occupies the site of the old Greyhound inn, and
was bought by the Earl of Coventry of Sir Hugh Hunlock, in 1764, for
£10,000, subject to the ground-rent of £75 per annum. The Club enjoyed
but a brief existence: it was closed in March, 1854.
The Erectheum Club, St. James's-square, corner of York-street, was
established by Sir John Dean Paul, Bart., and became celebrated for
its good dinners. The Club-house was formerly the town depôt of
Wedgwood's famous "ware;" and occupies the site of the mansion built
for the Earl of Romney, the handsome Sydney of De Grammont's Memoirs.
The Parthenon Club-house (late Mr. Edwards's), east side of
Regent-street, nearly facing St. Philip's Chapel, was designed by
Nash: the first floor is elegant Corinthian. The south division was
built by Mr. Nash for his own residence; it has a long gallery,
decorated from a _loggia_ of the Vatican at Rome: it is now the
_Gallery of Illustration_.
"The Coventry Club was a Club of most exclusive exquisites, and was
rich in diplomacy; but it blew up in admired confusion. Even so did
Lord Cardigan's Club, founded upon the site of Crockford's. The
Clarence, the Albion, and a dozen other small Clubs have all
dissolved, some of them with great loss to the members, and the
Erectheum and Parthenon thought it prudent to join their forces to
keep the wolf from the door."--_New Quarterly Review._
FOOTNOTES:
[36] Abridged from the _Daily News_.
ANTIQUARIAN CLUBS,--THE NOVIOMAGIANS.
We have already seen how the more convivially disposed members of
Learned Societies have, from time to time, formed themselves into
Clubs. The Royals have done so, _ab initio_. The Antiquaries appear to
have given up their Club and their Anniversary Dinner; but certain of
the Fellows, resolving not to remain _impransi_, many years since,
formed a Club, styled "Noviomagians," from the identification of the
Roman station of Noviomagus being just then discovered, or rather
"Rife and celebrated in the mouths
Of wisest men."
One of the Club-founders was Mr. A. J. Kempe; and Mr. Crofton Croker
was president more than twenty years. Lord Londesborough and Mr.
Corner, the Southwark antiquary, were also Noviomagians; and in the
present Club-list are Sir William Betham, Mr. Fairholt, Mr. Godwin,
Mr. S. C. Hall, Mr. Lemon, etc. The Club dine together once a month
during the season at the old tavern next the burial-place of Joe
Miller in Portugal Street. Here the Fellows meet for the promotion of
good fellowship and antiquarian pursuits. "Joking minutes are kept, in
which would be found many known names, either as visitors or
associates,--Theodore Hook, Sir Henry Ellis, Britton, Dickens,
Thackeray, John Bruce, Jerdan, Planché, Bell, Maclise, etc." The Club
and its visitors may have caught inspiration here; for in their
sallies _movere jocum_, they have imitated the wits at Strawberry
Hill, and found Arms for the Club, with a butter-boat rampant for the
crest, which is very significant.
In 1855, Lord Mayor Moon, F.S.A., entertained at the Mansion House the
Noviomagians, and the office-bearers of the Society of Antiquaries to
meet them. After dinner, some short papers were read, including one by
Mr. Lemon, of the State Paper Office, presenting some curious
illustrations of the state of society in London in the reign of James
I., showing the "Migration of Citizens Westward." (See _Romance of
London_, vol. iii. pp. 315-320.)
THE ECCENTRICS.
Late in the last century there met at a tavern kept by one Fulham, in
Chandos Street, Covent Garden, a convivial Club called "The
Eccentrics," which was an offshoot of "The Brilliants." They next
removed to Tom Rees's, in May's-buildings, St. Martin's-lane, and
here they were flourishing at all hours, some five-and-twenty years
since. Amongst the members were many celebrities of the literary and
political world; they were always treated with indulgence by the
authorities. An inaugural ceremony was performed upon the making of a
member, which terminated with a jubilation from the President. The
books of the Club up to the time of its removal from May's-buildings
are stated to have passed into the possession of Mr. Lloyd, the
hatter, of the Strand, who, by the way, was eccentric in his business,
and published a small work descriptive of the various fashions of hats
worn in his time, illustrated with characteristic engravings.
From its commencement the Eccentrics are said to have numbered upwards
of 40,000 members, many of them holding high social position: among
others, Fox, Sheridan, Lord Melbourne, and Lord Brougham. On the same
memorable night that Sheridan and Lord Petersham were admitted, Hook
was also enrolled; and through this Club membership, Theodore is
believed to have obtained some of his high connexions. In a novel,
published in numbers, some five-and-twenty years since, the author, F.
W. N. Bayley, sketched with graphic vigour the meetings of the
Eccentrics at the old tavern in May's-buildings.
DOUGLAS JERROLD'S CLUBS.
One of the chapters in "_The Life and Remains of Douglas Jerrold_," by
his son, Blanchard Jerrold, discourses most pleasantly of the several
Clubs to which Mr. Jerrold became attached. He was of a clubbable
nature, and delighted in wit-combats and brilliant repartees, the
flash of which was perfectly electric.