Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/546

2, 1860.] Timothy O’Garry, and that in consequence of the grandeur of the connection, her aunt, Miss Smith, of Devonshire Place, settled upon her 400l. per annum for her own exclusive use;—that Mrs. T. O’Garry was presented at the Drawing-Room upon “her marriage” by the consort of “The O’Garry,” and that Mrs. John Baker was so deeply impressed with the fact that a child of her own should have had a personal interview with the Gracious Sovereign, that she remained throughout the day in a state of mild hysterics, rejoicing in the discomfiture of the Baker friends who had been invited to see Mrs. O’Garry dressed for the Drawing-Room;—that, in consequence of the support afforded by the Member for Kilbadger to the Government at a time of political crisis, he was rewarded with the Governorship of one of the Windward Isles, and with the honour of knighthood; and that, consequently, Miss Anna Maria Baker is now Lady O’Garry;—finally, that Mrs. John Baker blesses the London Clubs.

As common-sense will sometimes find admission in the garb of nonsense when in its own pepper and salt clothing it would be sternly excluded from all hearing or sympathy, an attempt has been made in this little sketch to place in the mouths of fictitious speakers the arguments for and against the London Clubs. As an old clubbist I venture to think that the opinion which mainly prevails amongst ladies with regard to London Clubs, and their operations upon the minds and habits of London men, is substantially incorrect. The modern club is a purely modern institution—the growth of the last twenty years. The first London club was founded by Sir W. Raleigh in Friday Street at The Mermaid, and here Shakespeare, if he would, might have blackballed Ben Jonson; and Beaumont and Fletcher were on the committee.

Then there was Ben Jonson’s own club at the Devil Tavern, by Temple Bar, where Childs’ banking-house now stands. These were associations of literary men; and I do not think that during the reign of Elizabeth, or the first two Stuarts, the club system of London received any further development. The Commonwealth, of course, killed the clubs. A conventicle was the nearest approach to an association of this kind which would have been tolerated in those grim days. The Restoration brought back to town a more “clubbable” set of men; and we find during the reign of Charles II.—The Club of Kings, and The Club of Ugly Faces, and The King’s Head Club—the latter a political True-Blue Protestant Association set on foot by Shaftesbury for his own purposes. It held its meetings at one of the Fleet Street corners of Chancery Lane. James II. did not help forward club life—the agitation of men’s minds during his short reign was too painful to admit of regular meetings for the purposes of social intercourse. White’s and Brooke’s came in with William III.—White’s being somewhat the older of the two. I cannot find the exact date of the foundation of Boodle’s, but it was probably not much later than that of its two fellows in St. James’s Street. These three clubs grew out of the Coffee Houses celebrated by Addison and Steele, and bore the names, probably, of the owners of the establishments when a set of gentlemen resolved to hire them for their own exclusive use, and for the use of any person whom they might afterwards elect into their society. The White’s and Brooke’s of to-day are very different from the White’s and Brooke’s of one hundred and fifty, or even fifty years ago. In their former condition, when frequented by the great statesmen, and persons of chief social distinction of the day, they had but little indeed in common with modern club life. The Breakfast Club, now sadly degenerated from its ancient glories, is about a century old;—then there was the famous Literary Club of Goldsmith, Burke, Johnson, Garrick, Beauclerk, &c. Those, with the King of Clubs, founded by the late Bobus Smith, in concert with Sir James Mackintosh and the present Marquis of Lansdowne, fills up the interval between the former and present generation of clubs. The really Modern Club dates from the Reform Bill agitation, and the club as it stands is the Modern Club minus the political agitation of that stormy time. The following is the best list I could procure of institutions of this kind actually existing in London.

These forty-one clubs contain probably from thirty thousand to forty thousand members, and are much frequented; so that, for good or for evil, they constitute an important element in the social constitution of the country.

With rare exceptions, they are but large hotels or coffee-houses. They are undoubtedly very comfortable; but it only depends upon private families to make their Homes so pleasant that they may run the Clubs off the road. A Baker Banquet—take it how you will—is not a pleasant ceremony. Young men and young women will take pleasure in each other’s society if they are allowed to meet in a natural way. I have the highest respect for my dear old friend, Josiah Copperdam, of The Brutus, who tells me long stories about things as