CLUB LIFE AT THE “CHEESE”
The feast of reason and the flow of soul.—POPE.
One of the most interesting features of the “Cheese” is its club
life. It is not the stately and withal solemn life of the modern
West-end club, but it is the social and intensely human life of the
club as Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, understood it. When the Doctor, Sir
Joshua, and some others established “The Club” in 1764, the members
were to meet once a month and take supper, passing their evening in
witty discourses.
At the “Old Cheshire Cheese” the Johnsonian tradition is naturally
strong; it pervades the whole place, and all the clubs which hold
their regular or occasional meetings there endeavour, as much as our
less heroic days will allow, to emulate the example of the giants of
the days gone by.
The following is a complete list of the clubs actually in existence
at the present time:—The Johnson Club, founded about 25 years;
Sawdust Club, founded 1906; Ye Punchbowlers; the Mitre Club, founded
November, 1903; “Ourselves,” founded 1897; St. Dunstan’s, founded
1790; Rump Steak Club; the Dickens Club.
The following further details regarding the Cheshire Cheese Clubs of
the past as well as the present may be found not without interest.
The place of honour is given to—
THE JOHNSON CLUB.
This club is composed of many men eminent in literature and art,
or distinguished in other ways. The club, which is literary and
social, and is restricted to thirty-one members, was founded about
twenty-five years ago. The members bind themselves to sup together
annually on or about December 13, the anniversary of the Doctor’s
death, but various other meetings are held throughout the year.
The constitution of the club is thus described by Dr. George
Birkbeck Hill, the well-known editor of the latest and best edition
of “Boswell.” “We are,” he says (in the _Atlantic Monthly_ of
January, 1896), “in strict accordance with the great Lexicographer’s
definition, ‘an assembly of good fellows meeting under certain
conditions’; the conditions being that we shall do honour to the
immortal memory of Dr. Samuel Johnson by supping together four times
a year, and by swallowing as much beefsteak pudding, punch, and
tobacco smoke as the strength of each man’s constitution admits. A
few of the weaker brethren—among whom unhappily I am included—whose
bodily infirmity cannot respond to the cheerful Johnsonian cry,
‘Who’s for poonsh?’ do their best to play their part by occasionally
reading essays on Johnsonian subjects, and by seasoning their talk
with anecdotes and sayings of the great Doctor. We are tolerated
by the jovial crew, for they see that we mean well, and are as
‘clubbable’ as nature allows. OUR FAVOURITE HAUNT IS THE OLD
CHESHIRE CHEESE, THE ONLY TAVERN IN FLEET STREET LEFT UNCHANGED by
what Johnson called that ‘fury of innovation’ which, beginning with
Tyburn and its gallows-tree, has gradually transformed London. The
Mitre—‘where he loved to sit up late’; where he made Boswell’s head
ache, not with the port wine, but with the sense he put into it;
where, at their first supper, he called to him with warmth, ‘Give me
your hand, I have taken a liking to you’; where, nearly a century
later, Hawthorne, in memory of the two men, dined ‘in the low,
sombre coffee-room’—the Mitre has been rebuilt.
“The Cock, most ancient of taverns, has followed its ‘plump
head-waiter’ along the road of mortality, although, fortunately, its
fittings and furniture are still preserved with the house which,
under the same name, has risen on the other side of the street. THE
OLD CHESHIRE CHEESE STANDS AS IT STOOD IN THE DAYS WHEN GOLDSMITH
USED TO PASS ITS SIDE DOOR on his way up the dark entry to his
lodgings in Wine Office Court. The jolly host who owns the freehold
can show title-deeds going back almost to the time of the Great Fire
of London.
“There, on the ground floor, we meet our ‘Prior’ sitting on a bench,
above which is set in the wall a brass tablet bearing the following
inscription:—
“‘THE FAVOURITE SEAT OF
DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.
_Born September 18, 1709; Died December 13, 1784._
“‘In him a noble understanding and a masterly intellect were
united to great independence of character and unfailing goodness
of heart, which won the admiration of his own age, and remain as
recommendations to the reverence of posterity.
“‘No, sir! there is nothing which has yet been contrived by
man, by which so much happiness has been produced as by a good
tavern.—JOHNSON.’
“In this same room, with its floor as ‘nicely sanded’ as when
Goldsmith knew it, our club gathers from time to time; here,
undisturbed in our thoughts by a single modern innovation except the
gas, we sup on one of those beefsteak puddings for which the Cheshire
Cheese has been famous from time immemorial. So vast is it in all
its glorious rotundity that it has to be wheeled in on a table; it
disdains a successor in the same line, and itself alone satisfies
forty hungry guests. ‘A magnificent hot apple pie stuck with bay
leaves,’ our second course, recalls the supper with which Johnson
‘celebrated the birth of the first literary child of Mrs. Lennox,
the novelist, when at five in the morning his face still shone with
meridian splendour though his drink had been only lemonade.’[4] The
talk is of the liveliest; from time to time toasts are drunk and
responded to.”
The centenary of the death of Dr. Johnson was celebrated in December,
1884, and the _Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News_ of the 20th of
that month thus refers to the Doctor’s connection with the ancient
hostelry:—“Whoever has heard of the grand old Doctor knows well that
the greater part of his life was passed between Ludgate Hill and
Temple Bar, and that the most interesting portion of it revolved
about Gough Square. There seems to be little doubt that while he
lived here, the Old Cheshire Cheese tavern was, as is claimed for it,
the haunt which he most favoured, and where much of that sledgehammer
wisdom was coaxed forth or teased forth, which Boswell has recorded
that, as Macaulay put it, the memory of Johnson might keep alive the
fame of his works.”
Many notable men have sat down at the Johnson centenary dinners in
the Cheshire Cheese. At that held on December 13, 1894, for example,
the chair was taken by Mr. Augustine Birrell, Q.C., M.P., then most
popularly known as the author of “Obiter Dicta,” but subsequently to
become President of the Board of Education and later Chief Secretary
for Ireland in a Liberal Government. From the _Sketch_ of December
19, which devoted to this particular festivity a page and half of
illustrated literary matter, is taken the following extract:—“The
most interesting figure of the evening was undoubtedly Mr. Dobson.
His health was proposed just in such a way as it must have been in
the days when men of letters indited odes to one another.” Then
followed the reading of gentle imitations of Mr. Dobson’s style, but
exigency of space precludes our quoting more than a couple of stanzas
from a delightful perversion of “The Ladies of St. James’s”:—
The Journalists of Fleet Street
Have precious little cash,
They put their all in papers
Which swiftly go to smash;
But Publishers, my Publishers,
Sit twirling of their thumbs
While sweated clerks with ledgers
Tot up colossal sums.
The Journalists of Fleet Street
While taking of their ease,
Invoke the frequent tankard
That haunts the Cheshire Cheese;
But Publishers, my Publishers,
As epicures enjoy
The wines of Mr. Nicols,
And soups of the Savoy.
THE RHYMERS’ CLUB.
Another club which affected the stern, uncushioned comforts of the
“Cheese” was known as the Rhymers’ Club, and we betray no secret
when we give the names of the members, for are they not written in
the book of their poetic deeds? In this book, published through
Elkin Mathews in 1892, the composition of the club is thus recorded:
Ernest Dowson, Edwin J. Ellis, G. A. Greene, Lionel Johnson, Richard
Le Gallienne, Victor Plarr, Ernest Radford, Ernest Rhys, T. W.
Rolleston, Arthur Symons, John Todhunter, W. B. Yeats.
When such sweet singers meet, it may well be believed that the night
was ambrosial, care and the world were banished, and the contests of
the “Cheese” and of the “Mermaid”—in miniature, it is no discourtesy
to say—live again, as Mr. Rhys sings:
As once Rare Ben and Herrick
Set older Fleet Street mad,
With wit not esoteric,
And laughter that was lyric,
And roystering rhymes and glad.
As they, we drink defiance
To-night to all but Rhyme,
And most of all to Science
And all such skins of lions
That hide the ass of time.
A very considerable poet and proseman, Mr. John Davidson, a
Scotchman, by the way, from the vicinity of Paisley, in his work,
“A Full and True Account of the Wonderful Mission of Earl Lavender,
which Lasted One Night and One Day, with a History of the Pursuit
of Earl Lavender and Lord Brumm, by Mrs. Scamler and Maud Emblem,”
brings two of his characters, Mr. Gurdon and Sir Harry Emblem, into
the “Cheese” in a condition which would spell ruin to the landlord
were it generally adopted. The two gentlemen had spent some £40 in
eight days, and now they are “on the rocks” in a Strand restaurant.
But foreigners have hard hearts, and so the delightful couple find
their way to the Cap and Bells, which every Fleet Streeter will
recognise as the Cheshire Cheese. They order supper, and, though
unprepared to pay, are prepared to justify their deeds. They were
quite unconventional in the matter of settlement of accounts; they
were financially naked, yet they were not ashamed. Fortunately for
the landlord, it happens that on this night the Guild of Prosemen
(oh, sarcastic Mr. Davidson!), otherwise the Rhymers’ Club, are
holding their meeting, and one of the members, acting more like
an impulsive poet than a mere proseman, settles their account and
introduces them to the club. There we must say farewell to Mr.
Davidson’s creations, but we cannot leave the Rhymers without
quoting, by the kindness of the author and publisher, the following
exquisite:—
BALLADE OF THE CHESHIRE CHEESE IN FLEET STREET.
I know a home of antique ease
Within the smoky city’s pale,
A spot wherein the spirit sees
Old London through a thinner veil.
The modern world so stiff and stale,
You leave behind you when you please,
For long clay pipes and great old ale
And beefsteaks in the “Cheshire Cheese.”
Beneath this board Burke’s, Goldsmith’s knees
Were often thrust—so runs the tale—
’Twas here the Doctor took his ease
And wielded speech that like a flail
Threshed out the golden truth. All hail,
Great Souls! that met on nights like these
Till morning made the candles pale,
And revellers left the “Cheshire Cheese.”
By kindly sense and old decrees
Of England’s use they set their sail;
_We_ press to never-furrowed seas,
For vision-worlds we breast the gale,
And still we seek and still we fail,
For still the “glorious phantom” flees.
Ah well! no phantom are the ale
And beefsteaks of the “Cheshire Cheese.”
ENVOI.
If doubts or debts thy soul assail,
If Fashion’s forms its current freeze,
Try a long pipe, a glass of ale,
And supper at the “Cheshire Cheese.”
“THE 49 CLUB.”
This is a more recent club which met at the “Cheese” to partake, as
their “Chronicle” has it, of “a curious mysterie
Yclept ye 49 pudding,
Also Grylled Bones,
Also Stewed Cheese,
together with such Olde Ales, Costlie Wines, and strong waters as may
suit ye taste, purse, or conscience of ye Members.”
The Chronicle of this club is very diverting, and begins with a motto
_not_ from Goethe,
Ein guter Trunk
Macht Alte junk
which is, after all, a very partial and temporary truth. For the
guidance of other social clubs I cannot refrain from quoting _in
extenso_ the article headed “Rules”:—
“The Rules of the Club being of the sort once heard are never
forgotten, there is no need to repeat them in this Chronicle.”
So much for the Forty-niners.
THE SOAKERS’ CLUB.
“We’ll have flesh for holidays, fish for fasting days, and
moreo’er puddings and flapjacks; and thou shalt be welcome,” was
the Shakesperean motto of this frankly christened club. The pious
founder of the club, in a finely printed booklet, declared that “it
was deemed a requisite that your club should flourish under some
rollicking epithet such as had not previously been ‘empounded’ by
any other fraternity. The title should be terse; it should also be
outrageous. It should smack of the _caveau_, and have the scent of
the beeswing. Accordingly, many have been the creations that have in
turn possessed the mind of your promoters. Fuddling clubs, gorging
clubs, out Heroding Herod clubs—these comprised a whole hand of
clubs, in which was not a single trump. Then did your promoters
bethink themselves of that unctuous cognomen, ‘The Soakers.’ The
title is a nudity.... The name of ‘The Soakers’ Club’ is selected
only as conveying a sharp antithetical travestie upon our sober
habits as moderate men.” This last statement is consolatory, for
it would have been unpleasant if the club had come to the “Cheese”
merely to make manifest their loyalty to their name. They were good
fellows, and, though not quite antithetical to their designation
did not allow it to run riot with their moderate tendencies. They
dined at the “Cheese” regularly for years, but their numbers did not
increase, owing probably to the frank brutality of their title, and
the natural result was that they gradually dwindled away.
THE ST. DUNSTAN’S CLUB.
No wife, however shrewd, could object to her marital slave being a
member of the St. Dunstan’s, while even the most angelic of ladies
would scarcely like to see her lord flourishing as a leader among
“The Soakers.” Therefore has the St. Dunstan’s flourished like a
green bay tree for over a century. Its proud boast is that it has
contributed more Common Councilmen and Aldermen (and consequently
Lord Mayors) to the Corporation of the City of London than any other
club in the Metropolis.
The St. Dunstan’s is pre-eminently a social club, neither party
nor religion entering into its management. As may be expected, its
members (now limited to twenty-eight) are leading men in their
respective walks of life. The St Dunstan’s Club is called after the
courageous English saint who, according to tradition, once pulled
Satan by the nose with a pair of pincers. This episode in the life of
the holy friar is represented on the insignia of the club. The club
legend is that St. Dunstan shook the devil all round the boundaries
of the parish, and then dropped him in the Temple, hence the origin
of the name of the “Devil’s Own” applied to the legal profession,
hence also the name of the “Devil” tavern, nearly opposite St.
Dunstan’s Church, where the Apollo Club was presided over by Ben
Jonson. Fleet Streeters can no longer “go to the Devil,” in the
sense of going to any particular tavern, but anyone of respectability
may be introduced to Child’s Bank, No. 1 Fleet Street, which stands
on the Devil’s site. The bankers preserve in their parlour Jonson’s
Latin rules set down for the guidance of the club.
It appears by the Minute Book that the St. Dunstan’s Club was first
established at Anderton’s Coffee House on March 10, 1790, by the Rev.
Joseph Williamson, the then Vicar of St. Dunstan’s, Mr. Nicholls,
of St. Bride’s, Deputy of the South Side of the Ward of Farringdon
Without, and some fifteen others, inhabitants of Fleet Street and its
immediate vicinity. The club was limited to thirty members, whereof
twenty-six were to be inhabitants of the parish, and four gentlemen
resident in the ward. A chairman, treasurer, and secretary, were
annually elected at the first meeting of the club in the month of
October, and the toasts were fixed by resolution to be as follows:—
1st.—The King.
2nd.—The Queen, the Prince of Wales, and the rest of the Royal Family.
3rd.—Unanimity to this Parish.
4th.—Prosperity to the Ward.
5th.—The Absent Members.
At the first regular meeting of the club Mr. Brewer, of St.
Sepulchre’s, who was the Deputy for the North Side of the Ward, was
duly elected a member, and at a meeting held on October 17, 1792,
the celebrated John Wilkes, Alderman of the Ward, was unanimously
elected an honorary member. The subscription to the club was one
guinea per annum, and the principal source of income appears to have
been derived from wagers for bottles of wine amongst the members, the
annual elections for Common Councilmen in the Ward always producing
a good number of bets as to the position of the various members of
the club at the declaration of the poll. Wagers were laid about every
conceivable thing under the sun, as a few of the following examples
will show:—
January 25, 1792.—“Mr. Whipham laid Mr. P. North a gallon of claret
that 14 days from this date the 3 per Cent. Consols would be 95 per
cent.” Mr. Whipham lost.
January 16, 1793.—“Mr. P. North lays Mr. Hounsom a bottle of wine
that he (Mr. P. North) will be in bed before 2 o’clock the next
morning (January 17), and Mr. Hounsom lays Mr. P. North that he has
lost the above wager.”
June 12, 1793.—“Mr. P. North lays that Mr. Hounsom will not forget to
pay Mr. Thorne the 2d. to-morrow in the course of the day which he
(Mr. Thorne) had lent and advanced for him to pay the waiter 2d. for
a Welsh rarebit which Mr. Hounsom had for his supper.”
January 19, 1793.—“Mr. Thorne reported that Mr. Hounsom had paid him
the 2d. at half-past 9 o’clock in the morning.”
June 12, 1793.—“Mr. Lambe and Mr. Dep. Nicholls ‘1 bottle.’ Mr. Lambe
lays that Mr. Dep. Nicholls knows Miss W——. _Upon explanation Mr.
Dep. Nicholls lost._ Mr. Jones and Mr. J. North ‘1 bottle.’ Mr. Jones
lays that neither Mr. Lambe nor Mr. Dep. Nicholls knows Miss W——. Mr.
Jones lost. Mr. Dep. Nicholls requested that the club would permit
him to pay a bottle for having termed Miss W—— Mr. Hounsom’s _friend_
instead of _neighbour_. Ordered that it be granted. Mr. Lambe and Mr.
J. North ‘a bottle.’ Mr. Lambe lays that he (Mr. Lambe) never ran
away from a good thing. After some discussion it was decided that Mr.
Lambe had lost the bet.”
In 1795 a great number of bets were made about the wearing of hair
powder, and the wagering was so keen that counsel’s opinion was
taken as to who had won the respective bets; the original opinion
and decision of the counsel (Mr. George Bond, of Serjeants’ Inn) is
attached to the Minute Book.
It was also the custom of the club to wager on the “_first letter_”
of the King’s or Queen’s Speech after the words “_My Lords and
Gentlemen_.” This naturally afforded great scope for speculation,
which, it appears by the minutes, the members were accustomed to take
full advantage of. When the funds of the club were low the following
among other expedients was adopted:—
February 22, 1792.—“Resolved that any member of this club elected to
any office of honour or emolument shall pay for the benefit of the
club one bottle of port wine.”
April 8, 1795.—“Mr. Hounsom and Mr. Whipham ‘1 bottle.’ Mr. Hounsom
lays that the Prince of Wales will not have issue within the space
of 12 months. Mr. Fisher and Mr. Williams ‘1 bottle.’ Mr. Fisher
lays that the Prince of Wales will have issue within the space of 12
months. Mr. Thorne and Mr. George ‘1 bottle.’ Mr. Thorne lays that
the Princess of Wales will be delivered of a son or daughter within
12 calendar months.”
April 22, 1795.—“Rev. Mr. Williamson and Mr. Ustonson ‘1 bottle.’
Mr. Williamson lays that the Princess of Wales is not delivered of a
son or daughter within 12 calendar months. Mr. Butterworth and Mr.
Piggott ‘1 bottle.’ Mr. Butterworth lays that the Prince of Wales
will not have issue within 12 months.”
THE LEGITIMIST CLUB.
Before leaving the subject of “Cheese” clubs one more of the many
which have enjoyed on occasion the hospitality of the “Cheese” may
be mentioned. Most people in this land, and presumably everybody in
America, would consider this club somewhat belated. It has an idea
that King Edward is a usurper, and that the rightful sovereign of
these isles and of the empire is some foreign potentate whom even his
own states disown. The following paragraph from the _Daily Telegraph_
of March 25, 1895, will show that whatever we may think of the views
of its members, the excellence of their taste in gastronomy cannot be
called in question:—
“A few gentlemen are still left in this hasteful, bustling, and
forgetful age who have time to remember that James I. ascended the
throne of England on March 24, 1603. It is hardly necessary to add
that they are members of the Thames Valley Legitimist Club, who
spend their leisure in moaning over the extinguished glories of
their country since the expulsion of James II. Taking advantage of
the fact that yesterday was not only the anniversary of the date
just given, but was also Mothering Sunday, when the rigidity of
the Lenten fast is temporarily suspended, they dined together last
evening in the Old Cheshire Cheese, and after doing justice to the
famous Johnsonian puddings and other viands, amused themselves after
their wont by inspecting a piece of the scaffold on which some
unfortunate followers of the House of Stuart were executed. The
health of the Queen was drunk, and it was incidentally mentioned as a
fact not generally known that, with two exceptions, every sovereign
in Europe was descended from the saintly mother of the monarch whose
anniversary they were that day celebrating. The health of Charles
VII. of Spain, whoever he may be, was duly honoured.”
[Illustration: Dr Johnson’s house in Gough Square (_By permission of_ MESSRS. INGRAM BROTHERS,
_Proprietors of “The Sketch.”_)]
FOOTNOTES:
[4] “The supper was elegant. Johnson had directed that a magnificent
hot apple-pie should make part of it, and this he would have stuck
with bay leaves, because, forsooth, Mrs. Lennox had written verses,
and, further, he had prepared for her a crown of bays with which,
but not till he had invoked the Muses by some ceremonies of his own
invention, he encircled her brows.”
The first literary child whose birth was here celebrated was a dreary
novel called _The Female Quixote, or the Adventures of Arabella_.