Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 7.djvu/400

 392 NOTES AND QUERIES, [n s. vn. may 17,1913. 17 March, 1841.—Mr. Pusey Was a liberal contributor to the Club commissariat this session. On this date it is recorded that, " in consequence of the renewed expressions of applause and encore bestowed on Mr. Pusey's Madeira, he is pleased to offer (and the Club are, at least, equally pleased to accept) another bottle of the same, whenever—the present stock being exhausted—the Club shall give him five hours and a half notice,of the deficiency, so as to enable him to go down to the cellars of Pusey [Pewsey, Wilts] for the purpose of supplying the same :— distance 66+66 miles. " In the closing months of the Melbourne administration party politics ran high, and on one special occasion Lord Derby (or Lord Stanley as he was then) waxed warm in attacking a measure which Lord Morpeth (as Irish Secretary) was defending. The debate had raged—we can apply no milder word—round a particular clause which had been subjected to amendment, and which was again and again referred to as the Amended Clause. When the members of the Club sat down to dinner that evening only one chair, as chance befell, remained vacant, and that chair was next the one which Lord Morpeth occupied. After dinner had commenced Lord Stanley entered the room, and naturally had to take the only vacant seat. The other members present held their breaths, doubting whether even the traditions of Grillion's would keep the peace between two such antagonists after such an encounter. Sir Thomas Acland, however, who was in the chair, summoned a waiter, and, pointing to a dish of dressed lobster on the table, said, ' Take that dish of dressed lobster imme- diately to Lord Morpeth and Lord Stanley 1 Lord Morpeth 1 Lord Stanley 1 the amended claws I ' "—' Essays,' by Sir Spencer Walpole. As an instance of the high spirits which Cmailed. Lord Stratford de Kedcliffe found self dining solus at Grillion's on 9 March, 1864. At the end of his repast he made some amusing remarks in the Dinner Book, ending with the following :— " The Chairman having closed his dinner with a speech, he thinks it respectful to the Club, at Mr. Grillion's suggestion, to record in substance what he is assured that he said. " Mr. Grillion and Waiters I I cannot leave the room without expressing my sense of an excellent dinner, and dutiful attendance. I must not say that you have fully made up for the absence of my colleagues in the Club, but you have certainly done your best to supply the defi- ciency. You have my cordial thanks, and I hope you will drain the uncorked bottles in drinking prosperity to the Club which owes its celebrity in equal proportions to the merit of its members and the name of Grillion. " Note.—The Chairman is requested to add that his allocution was received with loud cheers— as much, no doubt, on account of its brevity, as of its eloquence." In 1860 Mr. Grillion purchased the Clarendon Hotel, which extended through from Bond Street to Albemarle Street, and a room was set aside in this new hotel for the accommodation of the Club at 20, Albemarle Street. On 25 Nov., 1826, it was resolved that the portraits of members of the Club should be engraved. Some years earlier Sir Thomas Acland had employed an artist named Joseph Slater to do crayon drawings of each member, and by this means a portfolio of drawings was issued in 1826, containing portraits of the members up to that date. This was fol- lowed in 1864 by a second series, and accom- Eanying this second volume was a valuable iographical list, ' Members of the Grillion Club from 1813 to 1863,' and with this was the following important statement from Sir Thomas Acland :— " In the year 1819 he [Sir Thomas Acland] happened to give a commission to his friend Mr. Slater, then a popular and successful draughts- man, to execute for him portraits of some twenty old Christ Church and other friends, all Members of Grillion's, who consented to the trouble of sitting for him at his personal request. The success and approval of the first sketches were great; witness those of the Hon. Frederick North Douglas, the first taken (not three months before his death), B. Wellesley, Lord Granville Somerset, Lord John Kusscll, Charles Grant, Reginald Heber,and others. The work grew and expanded, so that in five years (1824) the choice Portfolio was stored with between thirty and forty capital drawings ; and in that year our gifted and lamented friend George Hartopp being taken from us by death, his striking likeness was engraved and presented by the owner to his brother members as a most welcome memorial, and became, in fact, the commencement of the whole collection. A very short period elapsed before, by mutual agree- ment, the other members who had sat for the owner, determined each to have his own portrait engraved, and so, in fair exchange, to secure to all a complete set of existing likenesses. " The early stage progressed so rapidly, that within seven years no less than sixty-one engrav- ings were completed; and these, consolidated and embellished by Lord Dover's kind gift in 1831 of an illustrated list and an elegant vignette, formed the first volume of the collection. " Thus invigorated, the work of portraiture proceeded, with continued friendly impulse, during the course of more than thirty years, until the commencement of our Semi-Cent«nary year 1863, and its memorable celebration in May, when the additional number of engravings more than equalled that of the first volume. The com- mission to Mr. Slater had, at his death, been passed on by the owner to our distinguished friend Mr. George Richmond with universal approval; and, at the time above alluded to, a fresh consolidation into a second volume was manifestly required. The period was natural and propitious, definite in time and circumstance. Mr. Richmond felt the pressure of his labour— the possessor of the originals that of advancing years—together with the difficulty of keeping up from a distance the correlative duties of supply and demand, in the accession of still outstanding subjects. Both were naturally desirous of