Club Life of London Volume I Part 2

King Street would, at this time, be a strange location for a Parliamentary Club, like the October; narrow and obscure as is the street, we must remember that a century ago, it was the only thoroughfare to the Palace at Westminster and the Houses of Parliament. When the October was broken up, the portrait of Queen Anne, by Dahl, which ornamented the club-room, was bought of the Club, after the Queen's death, by the Corporation of Salisbury, and may still be seen in their Council-chamber. (Cunningham's _Handbook_, 2nd edit., p. 364.)

THE SAt.u.r.dAY, AND BROTHERS CLUBS.

Few men appear to have so well studied the social and political objects of Club-life as Dean Swift. One of his resorts was the old Sat.u.r.day Club. He tells Stella (to whom he specially reported most of his club arrangements), in 1711, there were "Lord Keeper, Lord Rivers, Mr. Secretary, Mr. Harley, and I." Of the same Club he writes, in 1713: "I dined with Lord Treasurer, and shall again to-morrow, which is his day, when all the ministers dine with him. He calls it whipping-day. It is always on Sat.u.r.day; and we do, indeed, rally him about his faults on that day. I was of the original Club, when only poor Lord Rivers, Lord Keeper, and Lord Bolingbroke came; but now Ormond, Anglesey, Lord Stewart, Dartmouth, and other rabble intrude, and I scold at it; but now they pretend as good a t.i.tle as I; and, indeed, many Sat.u.r.days I am not there. The company being too many, I don't love it."

In the same year Swift framed the rules of the Brothers Club, which met every Thursday. "The end of our Club," he says, "is to advance conversation and friends.h.i.+p, and to reward learning without interest or recommendation. We take in none but men of wit, or men of interest; and if we go on as we began, no other Club in this town will be worth talking of."

The Journal about this time is very full of _Brothers_ Arran and Dupplin, Masham and Ormond, Bathurst and Harcourt, Orrery and Jack Hill, and other Tory magnates of the Club, or Society as Swift preferred to call it. We find him entertaining his "Brothers" at the Thatched House Tavern, in St. James's Street, at the cost of seven good guineas. He must have been an influential member; he writes: "We are now, in all, nine lords and ten commoners. The Duke of Beaufort had the confidence to propose his brother-in-law, the Earl of Danby, to be a member; but I opposed it so warmly, that it was waived. Danby is not above twenty, and we will have no more boys; and we want but two to make up our number. I staid till eight, and then we all went away soberly. The Duke of Ormond's treat last week cost 20, though it was only four dishes and four without a dessert; and I bespoke it in order to be cheap. Yet I could not prevail to change the house. Lord Treasurer is in a rage with us for being so extravagant; and the wine was not reckoned neither, for that is always brought in by him that is president."

Not long after this, Swift writes: "Our Society does not meet now as usual; for which I am blamed; but till Treasurer will agree to give us money and employments to bestow, I am averse to it, and he gives us nothing but promises. We now resolve to meet but once a fortnight, and have a committee every other week of six or seven, to consult about doing _some good_. I proposed another message to Lord Treasurer by three princ.i.p.al members, to give a hundred guineas to a certain person, and they are to urge it as well as they can."

One day, President Arbuthnot gives the Society a dinner, dressed in the Queen's kitchen: "we eat it in Ozinda's Coffee-house just by St.

James's. We were never merrier or better company, and did not part till after eleven." In May, we hear how "fifteen of our Society dined together under a canopy in an arbour at Parson's Green last Thursday.

I never saw anything so fine and romantic."

Latterly, the Club removed to the Star and Garter, in Pall Mall, owing to the dearness of the Thatched House; after this, the expense was wofully complained of. At these meetings, we may suppose, the literature of politics formed the staple of the conversation. The last epigram, the last pamphlet, the last _Examiner_, would be discussed with keen relish; and Swift mentions one occasion on which an impromptu subscription was got up for a poet, who had lampooned Marlborough; on which occasion all the company subscribed two guineas each, except Swift himself, Arbuthnot, and Friend, who only gave one.

Bolingbroke, who was an active member, and Swift, were on a footing of great familiarity. St. John used to give capital dinners and plenty of champagne and burgundy to his literary coadjutor, who never ceased to wonder at the ease with which our Secretary got through his labours, and who worked for him in turn with the sincerest devotion, though always a.s.serting his equality in the st.u.r.diest manner.

Many pleasant glimpses of convivial meetings are afforded in the _Journal to Stella_, when there was "much drinking, little thinking,"

and the business which they had met to consider was deferred to a more convenient season. Whether (observes a contemporary) the power of conversation has declined or not, we certainly fear that the power of drinking has; and the imagination dwells with melancholy fondness on that state of society in which great men were not forbidden to be good fellows, which we fancy, whether rightly or wrongly, must have been so superior to ours, in which wit and eloquence succ.u.mb to statistics, and claret has given place to coffee.

The _Journal to Stella_ reveals Swift's sympathy for poor starving authors, and how he carried out the objects of the Society, in this respect. Thus, he goes to see "a poor poet, one Mr. Diaper, in a nasty garret, very sick," described in the Journal as "the author of the _Sea Eclogues_, poems of Mermen, resembling pastorals and shepherds; and they are very pretty, and the thought is new." Then Swift tells us he thinks to recommend Diaper to the Society; he adds, "I must do something for him, and get him out of the way. I hate to have any new wits rise; but when they do rise, I would encourage them; but they tread on our heels, and thrust us off the stage." Only a few days before, Swift had given Diaper twenty guineas from Lord Bolingbroke.

Then we get at the business of "the Brothers," when we learn that the printer attended the dinners; and the Journal tells us: "There was printed a Grub-street speech of Lord Nottingham, and he was such an owl to complain of it in the House of Lords, who have taken up the printer for it. I heard at Court that Walpole, (a great Whig member,) said that I and my whimsical Club writ it at one of our meetings, and that I should pay for it. He will find he lies; and I shall let him know by a third hand my thoughts of him." ... "To-day I published _The Fable of Midas_, a poem printed on a loose half-sheet of paper. I know not how it will take; but it pa.s.sed wonderfully at our Society to-night." At one dinner, the printer's news is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had sent Mr. Adisworth, the author of the _Examiner_, twenty guineas.

There were gay sparks among "the Brothers," as Colonel or "Duke"

Disney, "a fellow of abundance of humour, an old battered rake, but very honest; not an old man, but an old rake. It was he that said of Jenny Kingdown, the maid of honour, who is a little old, 'that since she could not get a husband, the Queen should give her a brevet to act as a married woman.'"--_Journal to Stella._

THE SCRIBLERUS CLUB.

"The Brothers," as we have already seen, was a political Club, which, having, in great measure served its purpose, was broken up. Next year, 1714, Swift was again in London, and in place of "the Brothers,"

formed the celebrated "Scriblerus Club," an a.s.sociation rather of a literary than a political character. Oxford and St. John, Swift, Arbuthnot, Pope, and Gay, were members. Satire upon the abuse of human learning was their leading object. The name originated as follows.

Oxford used playfully to call Swift _Martin_, and from this sprung Martinus Scriblerus. _Swift_, as is well known, is the name of one species of swallow, (the largest and most powerful flier of the tribe,) and Martin is the name of another species, the wall-swallow, which constructs its nest in buildings.

Part of the labours of the Society has been preserved in _P. P._, _Clerk of the Parish_, the most memorable satire upon Burnet's _History of his Own Time_, and part has been rendered immortal by the _Travels of Lemuel Gulliver_; but, says Sir Walter Scott, in his _Life of Swift_, "the violence of political faction, like a storm that spares the laurel no more than the cedar, dispersed this little band of literary brethren, and prevented the accomplishment of a task for which talents so various, so extended, and so brilliant, can never again be united."

Oxford and Bolingbroke, themselves accomplished scholars, patrons and friends both of the persons and to genius thus a.s.sociated, led the way, by their mutual animosity, to the dissolution of the confraternity. Their discord had now risen to the highest pitch. Swift tried the force of humorous expostulation in his fable of the f.a.got, where the ministers are called upon to contribute their various badges of office, to make the bundle strong and secure. But all was in vain; and, at length, tired with this scene of murmuring and discontent, quarrel, misunderstanding, and hatred, the Dean, who was almost the only common friend who laboured to compose these differences, made a final effort at reconciliation; but his scheme came to nothing, and Swift retreated from the scene of discord, without taking part with either of his contending friends, and went to the house of the Reverend Mr. Gery, at Upper Letcombe, Berks.h.i.+re, where he resided for some weeks, in the strictest seclusion. This secession of Swift, from the political world excited the greatest surprise: the public wondered,--the party writers exulted in a thousand ineffectual libels against the retreating champion of the high church,--and his friends conjured him in numerous letters to return and rea.s.sume the task of a peacemaker; this he positively declined.

THE CALVES' HEAD CLUB.

The Calves' Head Club, in "ridicule of the memory of Charles I.," has a strange history. It is first noticed in a tract reprinted in the _Harleian Miscellany_. It is ent.i.tled "_The Secret History of the Calves' Head Club; or the Republican unmasked_. _Wherein is fully shown the Religion of the Calves' Head Heroes, in their Anniversary Thanksgiving Songs on the 30th of January, by them called Anthems, for the years 1693, 1694, 1695, 1696, 1697. Now published to demonstrate the restless implacable Spirit of a certain party still amongst us, who are never to be satisfied until the present Establishment in Church and State is subverted._ The Second Edition. London, 1703." The Author of this _Secret History_, supposed to be Ned Ward, attributed the origin of the Club to Milton, and some other friends of the Commonwealth, in opposition to Bishop Nixon, Dr. Sanderson, and others, who met privately every 30th of January, and compiled a private form of service for the day, not very different from that long used. "After the Restoration," says the writer, "the eyes of the government being upon the whole party, they were obliged to meet with a great deal of precaution; but in the reign of King William they met almost in a public manner, apprehending no danger." The writer further tells us, he was informed that it was kept in no fixed house, but that they moved as they thought convenient. The place where they met when his informant was with them was in a blind alley near Moorfields, where an axe hung up in the club-room, and was reverenced as a princ.i.p.al symbol in this diabolical sacrament. Their bill of fare was a large dish of calves' heads, dressed several ways, by which they represented the king and his friends who had suffered in his cause; a large pike, with a small one in his mouth, as an emblem of tyranny; a large cod's head, by which they intended to represent the person of the king singly; a boar's head with an apple in its mouth, to represent the king by this as b.e.s.t.i.a.l, as by their other hieroglyphics they had done foolish and tyrannical. After the repast was over, one of their elders presented an _Icon Basilike_, which was with great solemnity burnt upon the table, whilst the other anthems were singing.

After this, another produced Milton's _Defensio Populi Anglicani_, upon which all laid their hands, and made a protestation in form of an oath for ever to stand by and maintain the same. The company only consisted of Independents and Anabaptists; and the famous Jeremy White, formerly chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, who no doubt came to sanctify with his pious exhortations the ribaldry of the day, said grace. After the table-cloth was removed, the anniversary anthem, as they impiously called it, was sung, and a calf's skull filled with wine, or other liquor; and then a brimmer went about to the pious memory of those worthy patriots who had killed the tyrant and relieved their country from his arbitrary sway: and, lastly, a collection was made for the mercenary scribbler, to which every man contributed according to his zeal for the cause and ability of his purse.

The tract pa.s.sed, with many augmentations as valueless as the original trash, through no less than nine editions, the last dated 1716.

Indeed, it would appear to be a literary fraud, to keep alive the calumny. All the evidence produced concerning the meetings is from hearsay: the writer of the _Secret History_ had never himself been present at the Club; and his friend from whom he professes to have received his information, though a Whig, had no personal knowledge of the Club. The slanderous rumour about Milton having to do with the inst.i.tution of the Club may be pa.s.sed over as unworthy of notice, this untrustworthy tract being the only authority for it. Lowndes says, "this miserable tract has been attributed to the author of _Hudibras_;" but it is altogether unworthy of him.

Observances, insulting to the memory of Charles I., were not altogether unknown. Hearne tells us that on the 30th of January, 1706-7, some young men in All Souls College, Oxford, dined together at twelve o'clock, and amused themselves with cutting off the heads of a number of woodc.o.c.ks, "in contempt of the memory of the blessed martyr." They tried to get calves'-heads, but the cook refused to dress them.

Some thirty years after, there occurred a scene which seemed to give colour to the truth of the _Secret History_. On January 30, 1735, "Some young n.o.blemen and gentlemen met at a tavern in Suffolk-street, called themselves the Calves' Head Club, dressed up a calf's head in a napkin, and after some hurras threw it into a bonfire, and dipped napkins in their red wine and waved them out of the window. The mob had strong beer given them, and for a time hallooed as well as the best, but taking disgust at some healths proposed, grew so outrageous that they broke all the windows, and forced themselves into the house; but the guards being sent for, prevented further mischief. The _Weekly Chronicle_ of February 1, 1735, states that the damage was estimated at 'some hundred pounds,' and that the guards were posted all night in the street, for the security of the neighbourhood."

In L'Abbe Le Blanc's Letters we find this account of the affair:--"Some young men of quality chose to abandon themselves to the debauchery of drinking healths on the 30th of January, a day appointed by the Church of England for a general fast, to expiate the murder of Charles I., whom they honour as a martyr. As soon as they were heated with wine, they began to sing. This gave great offence to the people, who stopped before the tavern, and gave them abusive language. One of these rash young men put his head out of the window and drank to the memory of the army which dethroned this King, and to the rebels which cut off his head upon a scaffold. The stones immediately flew from all parts, the furious populace broke the windows of the house, and would have set fire to it; and these silly young men had a great deal of difficulty to save themselves."

Miss Banks tells us that "Lord Middles.e.x, Lord Boyne, and Mr.

Seawallis s.h.i.+rley, were certainly present; probably, Lord John Sackville, Mr. Ponsonby, afterwards Lord Besborough, was not there.

Lord Boyne's finger was broken by a stone which came in at the window.

Lord Harcourt was supposed to be present." Horace Walpole adds: "The mob destroyed part of the house; Sir William (called h.e.l.lfire) Stanhope was one of the members."

This riotous occurrence was the occasion of some verses in _The Grub-street Journal_, from which the following lines may be quoted as throwing additional light on the scene:--

"Strange times! when n.o.ble peers, secure from riot, Can't keep Noll's annual festival in quiet, Through sashes broke, dirt, stones, and brands thrown at 'em, Which, if not scand- was _brand-alum magnatum_.

Forced to run down to vaults for safer quarters, And in coal-holes their ribbons hide and garters.

They thought their feast in dismal fray thus ending, Themselves to shades of death and h.e.l.l descending; This might have been, had stout Clare Market mobsters, With cleavers arm'd, outmarch'd St. James's lobsters; Numskulls they'd split, to furnish other revels, And make a Calves'-head Feast for worms and devils."

The manner in which Noll's (Oliver Cromwell's) "annual festival" is here alluded to, seems to show that the bonfire, with the calf's-head and other accompaniments, had been exhibited in previous years. In confirmation of this fact, there exists a print ent.i.tled _The True Effigies of the Members of the Calves'-Head Club, held on the 30th of January, 1734, in Suffolk Street, in the County of Middles.e.x_; being the year before the riotous occurrence above related. This print shows a bonfire in the centre of the foreground, with the mob; in the background, a house with three windows, the central window exhibiting two men, one of whom is about to throw the calf's-head into the bonfire below. The window on the right shows three persons drinking healths; that on the left, two other persons, one of whom wears a mask, and has an axe in his hand.

There are two other prints, one engraved by the father of Vandergucht, from a drawing by Hogarth.

After the tablecloth was removed (says the author), an anniversary anthem was sung, and a calf's-skull filled with wine or other liquor, and out of which the company drank to the pious memory of those worthy patriots who had killed the tyrant; and lastly, a collection was made for the writer of the anthem, to which every man contributed according to his zeal or his means. The concluding lines of the anthem for the year 1697 are as follow:--

"Advance the emblem of the action, Fill the calf's skull full of wine; Drinking ne'er was counted faction, Men and G.o.ds adore the vine.

To the heroes gone before us, Let's renew the flowing bowl; While the l.u.s.tre of their glories s.h.i.+nes like stars from pole to pole."

The laureate of the Club and of this doggrel was Benjamin Bridgwater, who, alluding to the observance of the 30th of January by zealous Royalists, wrote:--

"They and we, this day observing, Differ only in one thing; They are canting, whining, starving; We, rejoicing, drink, and sing."

Among Swift's poems will be remembered "Roland's Invitation to Dismal to dine with the Calf's-Head Club":--

"While an alluding hymn some artist sings, We toast 'Confusion to the race of kings.'"

Wilson, in his Life of De Foe, doubts the truthfulness of Ward's narrative, but adds: "In the frighted mind of a high-flying churchman, which was continually haunted by such scenes, the caricature would easily pa.s.s for a likeness." "It is probable," adds the honest biographer of De Foe, "that the persons thus collected together to commemorate the triumph of their principles, although in a manner dictated by bad taste, and outrageous to humanity, would have confined themselves to the ordinary methods of eating and drinking, if it had not been for the ridiculous farce so generally acted by the Royalists upon the same day. The trash that issued from the pulpit in this reign, upon the 30th of January, was such as to excite the worst pa.s.sions in the hearers. Nothing can exceed the grosness of language employed upon these occasions. Forgetful even of common decorum, the speakers ransacked the vocabulary of the vulgar for terms of vituperation, and hurled their anathemas with wrath and fury against the objects of their hatred. The terms rebel and fanatic were so often upon their lips, that they became the reproach of honest men, who preferred the scandal to the slavery they attempted to establish.

Those who could profane the pulpit with so much rancour in the support of senseless theories, and deal it out to the people for religion, had little reason to complain of a few absurd men who mixed politics and calves' heads at a tavern; and still less, to brand a whole religious community with their actions."

The strange story was believed till our own time, when it was fully disproved by two letters written a few days after the riotous occurrence, by Mr. A. Smyth, to Mr. Spence, and printed in the Appendix to his _Anecdotes_, 2nd edit. 1858: in one it is stated, "The affair has been grossly misrepresented all over the town, and in most of the public papers: there was no calf's-head exposed at the window, and afterwards thrown into the fire, no napkins dipt in claret to represent blood, nor nothing that could give any colour to any such reports. The meeting (at least with regard to our friends) was entirely accidental," etc. The second letter alike contradicts the whole story; and both attribute much of the disturbance to the unpopularity of the Administration; their health being unluckily proposed, raised a few faint claps but a general hiss, and then the disturbance began. A letter from Lord Middles.e.x to Spence, gives a still fuller account of the affair. By the style of the letter one may judge what sort of heads the members had, and what was reckoned the polite way of speaking to a waiter in those days:--

"Whitehall, Feb. ye 9th, 1735.