go to her last rest crowned with the blessings of | One bright spring, a pair of rose-buds, those ready to perish. "Her works they shall Growing in the father's garden, follow her." HELEN LEE. OSY-CHEEKED, dark-haired October Through the land was passing gayly, Crowned with maize-leaves, and behind him Followed Plenty with her horn, Calling in the later harvests, Flattering the chuckling farmer, Pelting him with ruddy apples, And with shocks of yellow corn. He it was whose royal pleasure Clothed them, stripped and left them bare; For the shivering earth to wear. Poor amends the Indian summer Painted flower, and singing-bird; Yet the train of hale October Sang and danced the harvest-home; For the merriment to come. Pleasant was the starry evening- At the call of David Lec- As the beaks of captured vessels, Hung festoons of perfect maize. Not a child had Farmer David- When the rose forsakes the cheek; And the tongue forgets to speak. Filled his hope with crimson promiseThey were gone in early June. Then there came a tiny daughter, Learned to kiss and call him " Vanished like an April snow-flake; Father;" And the mother followed soon. Then his face grew dark and stony, From the dampness and the cold; Kept his heart from growing old. And the young men, when they met her, Than a smile of Helen Lec. In the barn the youths and maidens With the life of spring and May; Songs were sung-sweet English ballads, Which their fathers and their mothers Sang together by the rivers Of the dear old father-land; Tales were told-quaint English stories- That a child could understand. Most they called on Richard Miller, Every maid became a wife. So he told how Harry Marline Whom he loved had proven true-- "An example, girls, for you!" Then said Helen, smiling archly, "I will never have a husband!" And the ear which she was husking Fell into the basket, red; Oh, the happy winter evenings! Golden days that were to be. When the voice of Spring was calling To the flowers in field and forest, "It is time to waken, children!" And the flowers obeyed the call; Violets and honey-suckles In the young bride's flaxen hair; Solemnly the village pastor Said the simple marriage-service. Of a certain little maiden Who would never have a husband?" " And as Farmer Lee looked on them, "But a worthy son have found !” WHY CLUBS AND CLUB-MEN. HY does not some great author write the "Mysteries of the Club-houses, or St. James's Street Unvailed?" asks Mr. Thackeray, in whose works the London clubs and their habitués play ne unimportant part. "History" the great Snobographer does not deal in; but who has not laughed sadly at his club portraits in that funniest and most melancholy of books, the Book of Snobs? Who does not remember Jawkins in the coffee-room of the "No Surrender" Club, waving the Standard, swaggering and haranguing; or Spitfire, great upon foreign affairs, and oracular upon the treasons of Lord Palmerston and the designs of Russia; or Fawney, with shining boots and endless greasy simper, taking a profound interest in every goodnatured man's business and dinner; or Captain Shindy, throwing all the club into an uproar about the quality of his mutton-chop; or Messrs. Spavin and Cockspur, growling together in a corner about sporting matters; or Wiggle and Waggle, the lady-killers; or Hawkins, with his handkerchief and great resonant nose; or Sir Thomas de Boots, the great military swell; or Horace Fogey; or the Major: are they not all written down, and do they not all live? Looking at the matter seriously, there is no doubt that a faithful history of the London clubs would be a history of London manners from Shakspeare down to the present time, and would throw light on some queer traits of the times, and of the great men who made the times. The most famous of the earlier London Clubs was the Mermaid, said to have been founded by Sir Walter Raleigh, and attended by Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher, Seldon, Donne, and others, the élite of the Elizabethan era. Alas! there was neither a Pepys nor a Boswell at that time to hand down to us the crumbs of wit that fell from the table of those giants of old. We are merely tantalized by Beaumont thus alluding to them, when writing from the country to his friend and fellowlaborer, Fletcher. "What things have we seen Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been So nimble and so full of subtle flame, As if that every one from whom they came Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, tenanted by abandoned women, or devoted to the sale of green groceries and small coalHalifax has conversed and Somers unbent, Ad his wit, Vanbrugh let loose his easy humor, Garth talked and rhymed. The Dukes of Som Another noted club, of nearly the same pe-dison mellowed over a bottle, Congreve flashed riod, was held in the Apollo room of the Devil Tavern at Temple Bar, on the site now occupied by Childs's well-known banking-house.erset, Richmond, Grafton, Devonshire, MarlBen Jonson wrote in choice and elegant Latin borough, and Newcastle; the Earls of Dorset, the convivial rules (leges conviviales) for this Sunderland, Manchester, Wharton, and Kingsassembly, which were engraved in letters of gold ton; Sir Robert Walpole, Granville, Mainwaron a black-board, and suspended over the fire-ing, Stepney, and Walsh-all belonged to the place. The board itself is still preserved by the Messrs. Childs. Over the door of the club-room was placed a bust of Jonson, and a number of verses, commencing "Welcome all who lead or follow, Here he speaks out of his pottle, Or the tripos his tower bottle: All his answers are divine; Truth itself doth flow in wine; Cries old Sim, the King of Skrinkers." "Old Sim" was Simon Wardloe, the landlord of the tavern, and the original of Old Sir Simon the King, the favorite song of the boisterous Squire Western. The first clubs-known by that name-were political. We read of one, in Milton's time, "at one Miles's, where was made purposely a large ovall table, with a passage in the middle for Miles to deliver his coffee." Round this table, "in a room every evening as full as it could be crammed" (says Aubrey), sat Milton and Marvell, Cyriac Skinner, Harrington, Nevill, and their friends, discussing abstract political questions. Kit-Kat. The club was literary and gallant as well as political. Its toasting-glasses, each inscribed with a verse to some "toast" or reigning beauty of the time, were long famous. The beauties have returned to dust, the glasses are long since shivered; but the verses remain. Among those they celebrate are the four shining daughters of the Duke of Marlborough-Lady Godolphin, Lady Sunderland, Lady Bridgewater, and Lady Monthermer; Swift's friends, Mrs. Long and Mrs. Barton; the lovely and witty niece of Sir Isaac Newton; the Duchess of Bolton, Mrs. Brudenell, Lady Carlisle, Mrs. Di Kirk, and Lady Wharton. Dr. B. (whoever he may be) celebrates the majestic Bolton: "Flat contradictions wage in Bolton war, Yet her the toasters as a goddess prize; Her Whiggish tongue does zealously declare For freedom, but for slavery her eyes." Mr. Mainwaring neatly insinuates his compliment to Marlborough under cover of this quatrain to his eldest daughter: "Godolphin's easy and unpracticed air Gains without art, and governs without care. This was in 1660, only three years after "the black and bitter drink called coffee," as Pepys says, was introduced to England by Daniel Ed- In 1657 the first coffee-house was established wards, a Turkey merchant. While the old par- in London by Pasqua Rosee, a Ragusan—the ty hates lasted, political clubs continued to flour-servant of Edwards, who first introduced coffee ish, and all clubs and coffee-houses had their in partnership with "one Bowman, coachman peculiar class of frequenters, who were pretty to Mr. Edwards's brother-in-law." In 1715 the sure to sympathize with each other in politics. number of coffee-houses in London was reckonThere were Rump clubs, Royalist clubs, Calfs-ed at 2000. Every class, trade, profession, and head clubs, Church of England clubs, Tory party had its favorite coffee-house. A penny clubs, Whig clubs, and so on. I was laid down at the bar on entering, and the The most famous of the Whig clubs was held price of a dish of tea or coffee seems to have at the house of a famous mutton-pie man, one been two-pence, which charge covered newsChristopher Katt, from whom the club and the papers and lights. The established frequentmutton-pies its members regaled themselves ers of the house had their set places, and rewithal both took their name of "Kit-Kat." ceived special attentions. Dryden's winterThe portraits of the members were painted for chair by the fire, and his summer-chair on the old Jacob Tonson, bookseller, and secretary of balcony, at Will's, should be remembered by the club, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, on canvases all who pass under the windows of No. 1 Bow of the uniform size of thirty-six by twenty-eight | Street, on the west side. One loves to picture inches, since known to painters as the "Kit- the glorious old man on his throne, under a Kat size." Shoe Lane, the locality where this bright summer sunset, with the brilliant young club held their meetings, is now one of the low-wits about him, proud of the honor of dipping est and poorest parts of London. The stran- a finger and thumb into his snuff-box. Cards ger-pilgrim passing through this blind alley finds it difficult to believe that here, some hundred and fifty years ago, used to meet many of the finest gentlemen and choicest wits of the days of Queen Anne and the first George. Inside one of those frowsy and low-ceiled rooms-now dupes and victims. and dice were the rule as well as coffee, tea, and chocolate; and as gambling in those days was the universal practice, gamesters and highwaymen found their account in frequenting these resorts, where they found a plenty of When M'Lean and Plunket, two dashing | After staring a little at the singularity of Swift's highwaymen, were taken in 1750, Horace Wal- manner and the oddity of the question, the genpole writes: "M'Lean had a lodging in St. tleman answered, "Yes, Sir, I thank God I reJames's Street, over against White's, and anoth-member a great deal of good weather in my time." er at Chelsea; Plunket one in Jermyn Street; "That is more," said Swift, "than I can say: and their faces are as known about St. James's I never remember any weather that was not too as any gentleman's who lives in that quarter, hot or too cold, too wet or too dry; but, howwho perhaps goes upon the road too." We all ever God Almighty contrives it, at the end of remember the figure of the highwayman in Ho- the year 'tis all very well." garth's gambling scene at White's, with the pistols peeping out of his pocket, waiting by the fireside till the heaviest winner takes his departure, in order to recoup himself of his losings. It was to exclude such characters that many favorite coffee-houses were turned into clubs. Thus Tom's (one of the haunts of the wits), a coffee-house till 1764, in that year, by a guinea subscription among nearly seven hundred of the nobility, foreign ministers, gentry, and geniuses of the age, became the card-room and place of meeting of the subscribers exclusively. To understand the large part which club and coffee-houses filled in the life of those days, we have but to refer to those delightful essays which have helped to make the times of Queen Anne almost as familiar to us as our own. Who does not remember the Ugly Club; the Everlasting Club; the Club of She Romps (bless them!); the Parish Clerks' and Lawyers' Clubs; and above all, the Spectator's own Club, with that most lovable personage of all fiction, dear, honest, simple, kindly Sir Roger de Coverley, for its central figure? Steele and Addison were confirmed club-men, tavern haunters, and coffeehouse gossips. Mrs. Steele, it is to be feared, had but little of her Dick's company at any time. The tavern in Kensington is still standing to which Addison used to steal away from the grandeur of Holland House and the society of his countess to enjoy a solitary bottle and muse over old times. It was just after Queen Anne's accession that Swift made acquaintance with the leaders of the wits at Button's. Ambrose Phillips has told the story of the strange clergyman whom the frequenters of the coffee-house had observed for some days. He knew no one, no one knew him. He would lay his hat down on a table, and walk up and down at a brisk pace for half an hour without speaking to any one, or seeming to pay attention to any thing that was going forward. Then he would snatch up his hat, pay his money at the bar, and walk off, without having opened his lips. The frequenters of the room had christened him "the Mad Parson." One evening, as Mr. Addison and the rest were observing him, they saw him cast his eyes several times upon a gentleman in boots, who seemed to be just come out of the country. At last Swift advanced toward this bucolic gentleman, as if intending to address him. They were all eager to hear what the dumb parson had to say, and immediately quitted their seats to get near him. Swift went up to the country gentleman, and in a very abrupt manner, without any previous salute, asked him, "Pray, Sir, do you know any good weather in the world?" Swift passed much of his life, most of his happiest moments, with the members of his favorite club, whom he entitled "The Brothers." "We were but eleven to-day," he writes to Stella (February, 1712). "We are now, in all, nine lords and ten commoners. The Duke of Beaufort had the confidence to propose his brotherin-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." In May, we hear how "fifteen of our society dined together under a canopy in an arbor at Parson's Green last Thursday. I never saw any thing so fine and romantic." One of the best-beloved of "The Brothers" was Colonel-or, as he was commonly called, "Duke"-Disney, "a fellow of abundance of humor," says Swift, writing to Stella in 1713; "an old battered rake, but very honest: not an old man, but an old rake. It was he that said of Jenny Kingdom, the maid-of-honor, who is a little old, 'that since she could not get a husband, the queen should give her brevet to act as a married woman."" The journal to Stella closes in June, 1713, leaving Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's, at Chester, on his way to Holyhead. Next year he was again in London, and had formed, with Arbuthnot, Pope, and Gay, the "Scriblerus Club," to which the world owes those most humorous fragments of satire on human learning which go under the name of the erudite Martinus-"The Memoirs of P. P., Clerk of the Parish," written in ridicule of "Burnet's History of his own Times," and perhaps the germs of "Gulliver." The dispersion of the club prevented the completion of Scriblerus, and robbed the world of much notable humor. So completely during the first quarter of the last century had society organized itself into clubs, that the Spectator tells us of "Street Clubs" formed by the inhabitants of the same street. Of these, but degenerate, was the Mohawk Club, and its successors, one of which was appropriately named the "Hell-Fire Club.” These unruly spirits made the streets unsafe at night. It was to protect the worthy gentleman from the Mohawks that a lusty escort attended Sir Roger de Coverley from his lodgings in Norfolk Street to the play-house and back again. cessive accretions the club rose to thirty-five members in 1780, at which number it stood when Boswell published Johnson's Life in 1791. It numbers thirty-seven at the present time. The original hour of meeting was seven every Monday evening; when the members ate an inexpensive supper, followed by a late sitting and good conversation. The passion for gambling increased enor And then, in 1731, was formed the Beefsteak Club" the Sublime Society of Beefsteaks"-which yet flourishes, and has counted among its members the greatest and most talented spirits of Britain. Garrick was an honored member of the Steaks. Perhaps the hat and sword now among the insignia of the club were the identical ones he wore that night, when, announced for "Ranger" at Drury Lane, he lingered at the club so long that the pit be-mously during the latter half of the last century. gan to growl and the gallery to ring with the ominous call of "Manager, manager!" Garrick had been sent for to Covent Garden, where the Steaks then dined. Carriages blocked up Russell Street, and detained him at the crossing. When he reached the theatre he found Dr. Ford, one of the patentees, walking up and down in anxiety. As Garrick came panting in, "I think, David," said Ford, "considering the stake you and I have in this house, you might pay more attention to its business." "True, my good friend," returned Garrick; "but I was thinking of my steak in the other house." There were play-clubs in plenty, but, aside from these, there was scarce a political club but was at the same time a play-club. "White's" was the most famous or infamous-of the whole. To show how general was the vice: "The Speaker," writes Walpole (November 22, 1751), "was railing at gaming and White's, apropos of these two prisoners. Lord Coke, to whom the conversation was addressed, replied, 'Sir, all I can say is, that they are both of them members of the House of Commons, and neither of them of White's.'" One of the rules at Brookes's was, that "Every person playing at the new quinze table do keep fifty guineas before him." During the winter of 1736 a knot of literary worthies first met at the Turk's Head under the auspices of Reynolds, Johnson, and Burke, and The best minds and hearts of the century laid the foundation of what is now called "The were drawn into the fatal vortex. The debts Literary Club." This society counts among its contracted almost exceed belief. The follies members more distinguished men than any oth-committed under the impulse of the gambling er of the London clubs. Admission to its broth-mania are sadly ridiculous. Walpole writes erhood was, in times past, considered a great (August, 1766): "Can you believe that Lord honor, eagerly coveted of men aspiring to great-Foley's two sons have borrowed money so exness. At start the number was limited to nine. travagantly, that the interest they have conSurly and self-important Hawkins-for whom tracted to pay amounts to £18,000 a year?" the word "unclubable" was invented-had been Lord Coleraine and his two brothers, their faa member of the Ivy Lane Club, and so was in-ther having bequeathed to his widow all they vited to join. The knight having refused to had left him (£1600 a year), wheedled the poor pay his portion of the reckoning for supper, be- old lady out of every farthing, leaving her a cause he usually ate no supper at home, John- beggar, dependent on a friend for subsistence. son observed, "Sir John, Sir, is a very unclub- Soon after, these precious sons told their mother able man." Topham Beauclerk, the best-na- she must come to town on business: "It was," tured man with the most ill-natured wit—the | says Walpole, to show her to the Jews, and conseeds of consumption already planted in his con- vince them hers was a good life, unless she is stitution by early excess, but the life and soul starved." "You must not suppose," he adds, of every company he mixed with; Bennett "that such actions are disapproved; for the secLangton, six feet six inches in height, a hero-ond brother is going Minister to Brussels, that worshiper and mild enthusiast; and Chamier, he may not go to jail, whither he ought to go.” then secretary in the War Office-represented pleasure, fashion, and the West End. Edmund Burke, just freed from his uncongenial service in Ireland under Single-speech Hamilton, took his place by equal right among politicians and professional penmen as the successful author of "The Vindication of Natural Society," and the "Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful," and as the unacknowledged compiler of "The Annual Register." Burke introduced to the club Dr. Nugent, his father-in-law. The nine were made up by Oliver Goldsmith, recently emerged from the more sordid misery of his early strug- Fox was notoriously the greatest gambler as gles, but still dodging the bailiffs. They clapped well as the greatest statesman of the age. Behim on the shoulder only the year after the fore he was twenty-four he owed the Jews club was formed, when the sale of "The Vicar | £100,000. He never won a large stake except of Wakefield"-thanks to the good offices of Dr. once-£8000. But no loss could ruffle him. Johnson-rescued him from their clutches. Topham Beauclerk, calling upon him one morn "Lord Mountford bets Sir John Bland twenty guineas," so runs an entry in the bettingbook at White's, "that Beau Nash outlives Cibber." This Lord Mountford aimed at reducing even natural affection to the doctrine of chances. When asked, soon after his daughter's marriage, if she was with child, he replied, "Upon my word, I don't know; I have no bet upon it." Walpole says of him, "He himself, with all his judgment in bets, I think, would have betted any man in England against himself for self-murder." The nine soon grew to twelve; and by suc-ing, after a night of terrible ill-luck, found him VOL. XV.-No. 90.-3 F |