Second series

Preface

. While introducing to English readers a new volume of French essays on British life and character, I venture to intrude a few remarks of a thoroughly personal nature. Some excellent friends, who were kind enough to criticise my previous efforts, while generally applauding my translation, regretted that I had not sufficiently adhered to the English idiom. Let me explain to them that this was done advisedly : it was my opinion that the great merit of these articles from the Revue des Deux Mondes lay in the circum stance that they were written by a Frenchman for his countrymen. I thought, too, that many an author might sit down to-morrow and write a far more correct work about England, but I con siderably doubted whether he would find any readers. The field has been so trampled, that it is impossible to discover the smallest unknown plant in it. Granted, then, that I had offered myself in my

PREFACE.

. IV author's place, and produced a symmetrically cor rect work, in which every fact had been carefully weighed and tested, and every heterodox opinion had been discarded, — what would have been the result ? My volume would have become as flat as a yesterday-opened bottle of champagne. It is true that I have here and there added foot-notes, for the purpose of correcting detail errors ; but, as a rule, I have allowed M. Esquiros to speak for himself, and have translated his language with the most scrupulous accuracy. I do not think that, on comparison with the original, a single word will be found omitted, and I have studied to produce a Chinese imitation, simply from the fact that I wish M. Esquiros, and not myself, to appeal to an English audience. My desire is, and will be in future, to show what opinions a most intelligent foreigner entertains about English manners and customs, and wish to stand entirely aloof.

My great anxiety has, therefore, been to reproduce, in decent and colloquial English, the very words my friend has employed, in articles of which the English leading journals have already spoken in the highest terms." LASCELLES WRAXALL. Drayton Terrape, West Bromptou. PAOE 1 37 CONTENTS.

Chapter I

Origin of Clubs— The Mermaid— The Devil Tavern— Will's Coffee House — Dryden — Button's and Addison — Dr. Johnson — The Turk's Head — The Literary Club — The Blue Stockings — The King of Clubs —Lord Ward— The Kitcat Club— The Beefsteak Clubs— Peg Woffington — Captain Morris — The Spectator on Clubs — The Mohocks .

Chapter II

Subscription Clubs — Crockford — Pigeons at Brooks's — White's — Pall Mall — Modern Clubs — House Committees — The Kitchen at the Reform — Origin of Modern Clubs — The United Service — Rapid Growth of Clubs.— University Clubs — The Athenæum — The Garrick ■ — Mr. Thackeray and Mr. Yates — The Travellers — The Oriental — Mixed Clubs — Political Clubs — The Reform and the Carlton .

Chapter III

Admission to Clubs — The Club-man — Influences of Club Life — ■ Theodore Hook— The Wrekin— Douglas Jerrold— Our Club— The Unsuccessful Club — The Savage Club — The Debating Clubs — The Alpine Club — Free and Easies — The Story Tellers — Character of English Society 69

Chapter IV

London Theatres — The Belle Sauvage — Legitimate Drama — Drury Lane — The Keans — The Princess's — Shaksperian Revivals — Hamlet — Covent Garden Theatre — The Kembles — The Haymarket — Buckstone — Hiss Amy Sedgwick — She Stoops to Conquer . . £3

Chapter V

Sadler's Wells — Mr. Phelps — Miss Atkinson — Astley's — Mr. Tom Taylor— The New Adelphi— Mr. Webster— The Dead Heart— The Colleen Bawn — The Lyceum — Madame Celeste — The St. James's Theatre— The Olympic and Mr. Robson— The Standard— Dramatic Authors — Subvention to the Theatres . . . . . .124 VI CONTENTS. PAGE 165 190 212 241

Chapter VI

English Pantomimes — The Lord Chamberlain — Music Halls — Miracle Plays — Easter Burlesques — History of Pantomimes — Boxing Kight —The Workshop— The Painting Room — Behind the Scenes — Ballet Girls — Stage Morals — Mr. Nelson Lee

Chapter VII

English Comedy — Voltaire and Lord Chesterfield — The Stage Irishman — The Scotchman — The British Sailor— Mr. Widdicomb— Mr. Coyne's Black Sheep — Mr. Alfred Wigan — Charles Mathews — Burlesque — The Strand Theatre — Mr. William Brough — Anecdote of Sheridan ...........

Chapter VIII

The Church and the Theatres — Positions of Actors — Marriage of Actresses — A curious Incident — Migrations of Actors — The "Era" Newspaper — Theatrical Funds — The Dramatic College — The Theatrical Profession : its Virtues and Defects .....

Chapter IX

Paper-making— Progr*ess of the Art — The Oldest English Baper Mill — Fourdrinier — The Rag Shop — A curious Collection — The Street Grubber — Rag-picking — Marine Stores — Value of Rags— Foreign Export Duties — Progress of Free Trade .....

CHAPTER 5.

Dartford Paper-mills — The manufacture of Paper — The Devil — The Washing Machines — The Breaking-in Engine — Foolscap — Skeleton Dressers — The Finishing House — Watermarks — Cottages of the Workmen — Effect of the Removal of the Paper Duty . . . 269

Chapter XI

The General Post Office— Six o'Clock, p.m. — History of the Post Office — The Mail Coach — Railway Mail Service — The Postman — Rowland Hill — Smith and Son — "The Illustrated London News" — "The Daily Telegraph" — "The Shoreditch Observer" — Novel Uses of Paper 301

Chapter XII

Sporting Life— The Turf— The Derby — The Road— Epsom Town — The Course— St. George's Bill— Turfites— The Blue Ribbon of the Turf— The Paddock— The Start— Kettledrum— Baron Nicholson- Ascot— The St. Leger CONTENTS. VII

Chapter XIII. Page

Newmarket — Horse Breeding — The Race Course — The Devil's Dyke- Lord Stamford's Stable — Mr. Dawson — Thoroughbred Horses — Flying Childers — A Training Establishment— The Two Thousand — Jockeys — Their Social Condition— Celebrated Jockeys — Temptations ........... 356

Chapter XIV

Tattersall's — The Subscription Room — The Betting Ring — Betting Men* ■ — The Swell — Book-making — The Leviathan — Book-makers — Tipsters — Sporting Papers — "Bell's Life" — "The Sporting Life" — Tramps — The Jockey Club — Running Rein — Conclusion . .

Chapter I. Origin Of Clubs The Mermaid The Devil Tavern Wills' Coffee

HOUSE DRTDEN BUTTON'S AND ADDISON DR. JOHNSON THE TURK'S HEAD THE LITERARY CLUB THE BLUE STOCKINGS THE KING OF CLUBS LORD WARD THE KITCAT CLUB THE BEEFSTEAK CLUBS PEG WOFFINGTON CAPTAIN MORRIS THE SPECTATOR ON CLUBS — THE MOHOCKS. As inhabitants of a country where Clubs played a part, more or less important, in two Revolutions, where a Jockey Club and a Railway Club still exist, as well as a considerable number of Circles, the French will perhaps feel surprised at being told that they have never possessed " Clubs " in the English sense of the word. We assumed the name, but we did not appropriate the thing : it is easier to borrow the language of a foreign nation, than to lay hold of its institutions. Any person who has lived in England very speedily perceives, that nothing resembling the English Clubs exists or can exist on the Continent, for these assemblies U presuppose rights, guarantees, and before all a lengthened training in liberty, which are not found in other countries.

The English refer the origin of Clubs to one of the ruling instincts of our nature. " Man," they say, "is a sociable animal, and as such joined his fellow-men in order to augment his own comfort and pleasures." This feeling, it is true, exists everywhere ; but circumstances have been more or less favourable, according to the country, to the development of the associations. In England men have for a very lengthened period found the elements of security in the laws and the national character. The principal motive that seems to have guided the first founders of Clubs was the attraction of frequent intercourse with chosen persons who shared their tastes and opinions. The hand of authority, however powerful it might be, could never have established these harmonious groups, which formed themselves spontaneously round a common centre and thought.

The Clubs have been constituted in the same way as English Society, by virtue of the law of affinities ; and in this free medium indi viduals combine, just as particles are aggregated. There are certain persons we feel more thoroughly at home with than with others, and I heard an English lady say the other day, " I am only at all pretty in company where I feel pleased and where pretty women are present. I was frightful last evening, for we spent it at Lady W 's." It is ENGLISH CLUBS. 3 the same with wit, conversation, and all the gifts of human nature, as with beauty. The English consider that the pleasures of social life are best cultivated among honourable persons who suit each other. There would be a deficiency, therefore, in these essays, if I were to pass by those Institutions which have so long exerted an influence on the literature, politics, manners, and domestic genius of Great Britain.

What the Clubs have been, and what they are, could not be strange to English life. In the his tory of the old Clubs, we follow the history of the national character, and of the manner in which it was formed : in the management of the modern Clubhouses we find the image of modern society, with its luxury, its spirit of order, and, we are com pelled to add, its material appetites. The new forms of association have become in London a want, the necessity of the age. The life of an Englishman (I mean especially an Englishman belonging to the more or less aristocratic classes) is comprised for him in the three circles which, according to his idea, embrace everything — family, club, and country. Clubs commenced in England with liberty, and nothing like them was in existence prior to the brilliant reign of Elizabeth.

Up to that period the authorities had been too suspicious to tolerate permanent associations ; while, on the other hand, the times were too gloomy, the social conditions too badly established, and individual action and B confidence too circumscribed, for the idea of meeting to occur to the citizens. The first Clubs formed in London, in a century which has been called the golden age of English poesy, were literary clubs. The oldest one known was held at an old tavern with the sign of the " Mermaid," in Friday Street.""" Sir Walter Raleigh was the founder of this society. No man ever more greatly surprized his contenqioraries through his wit, eloquence, voyages, chivalrous adventures, sumptuous elegance, and his tragical fate. Tradition has it that at this same Mermaid the first potatoes were eaten which Walter Raleigh had brought from America together with tobacco.

The other principal members of the Club were Shakspere, Ben Jonson, Francis Beaumont, and John Fletcher. The English regret, and justly so, that such conversations among such men have been lost for ever : but though O -*" O walls may have ears, they have no memory ; and moreover, the walls of the old tavern fell long ago. 7 o ***** Two memorials alone can give us an idea of what was said at the Mermaid, of the flashes of wit that were emitted beneath those gloomy ceilings, and * I am bound to remark here that the word " club " is not found in the works of Shakspere or his contemporaries ; but the thing existed before the name. This name is first met with in the essayists of the reign of Queen Anne, and appears to be derived from the Saxon word " cleafan," to divide, because the expenses were equally divided among the members.

THE MERMAID. which have not been transmitted to us : one of them is a letter of Beaumont, in which he speaks enthusiastically of this Club, which had already ceased to exist; and the other is a narrative, alas! too short, by Thomas Fuller, who had been a witness of the combats of wit between Shakspere and Ben Jonson. He compares Master Jonson to a large Spanish galley, powerfully built in learning, and solid but slow in its movements ; Shakspere, on the other hand, was an English man-of-war, inferior in height to his rival, but a better sailor, who knew how to take advantage of every wind, so quick and inventive was his wit. This is all that remains to us of this ancient Club, whose shadow sleeps with those who sleep. Ben Jonson, who was born ten years after Shakspere, founded at a later date another Club, which met at the celebrated Devil Tavern, between the Temple Gates and the Bar.

Shakspere, at that period, had doubtless retired to the country. The new Club was installed in a ball-room, which had been honoured by the name of the Hall of Apollo : a bust of the man whom the English now call " rare Ben " surmounted the door, and beneath this bust was an inscription in letters of gold. In addition to this welcome, Ben Jonson himself wrote for the Club a species of code in Latin verse, under the title of Leges conviviales. According to the statutes, ladies were admitted, and with them educated, gay, polished, and honest men : torpidity, coarseness, and in temperance, were excluded. In a dark corner, visitors might indulge in soft quarrels and amorous sighs, but they must not engage in discussions on sacred things, read insipid poetry, or improvise bad verses. If we may believe tradition, these rules, and, more still, the moral authority of Ben Jonson, checked excesses, and disconcerted liber tinism and frivolity.

His literary reputation, his love of the table, and his great talent for speaking, attracted round him a band of wits" and good livers, among whom the most note worthy were Carew, Martin, Selden, Cotton, and Donne. In spite of Jonson's enthusiastic verses about the excellences of the divine liquor, the conversation of the Club members, it is said, was worth more than their wine. Moreover, friends could only invite each other to moderate libations, and each paid his share of the reckoning. It is not known how long this Club lasted, or how it ended. The objects of such meetings, and the motives that guided the first founders of Clubs, are at any rate clearly indicated by Beaumont, who expresses an opinion that it is the same with wit as other things — people have more when in the company of those who possess it, in the same Avay as they play better at cards and chess with a good player.

The literary and other Clubs seem to have disappeared when the stern times of Cromwell DRYDEN. 7 arrived. A gloomy Puritanism at that clay opposed all profane amusements and recreations. The reign of Charles II. , on the contrary, was an epoch of regeneration for Clubs as for Theatres. A few years after the Restoration, the great house of call for authors, artists, clever speakers, and loungers, was Wills' Coffee House, standing at the corner of Bow Street. There Dryden reigned in his easy chair ; in winter the chair was placed at its appointed spot near the fire, in summer it was transported to the balcony. The company assem bled on the first floor, which was then called the dining-room floor (now the drawing-room), where there were separate tables. They generally re mained till midnight.

Social ranks and conditions were confounded, and stars of every magnitude, and ribbons of all colours, were seen there. It is even said that young men of fashion and of letters deemed it an honour to take from time to time a pinch from Dryden's snuff-box. Monarch elect by universal assent, he himself fixed the subject for literary discussion, and the room was generally crowded with persons anxious to hear it. One clay a lad of twelve years of age stepped into the assembly : it was Pope, who was attracted by a wish to see the aged Dryden. Wills' Coffee House w-as the meeting-place for eminent men, loungers, clergy, and novelists, up till 1710, and jokes and news not to be found in the writings of the day passed from mouth to mouth. The chiefs spoke, the regular visitors formed a circle round them, and came to listen and be astounded.

After the year 1710 the house was occupied by a perfumer. Some time after, Button's Coffee House was opened opposite to Wills'. It was here that Addison. when beginning to reign, installed his seat of empire. Instead of accepting his court as Dryden had done, he selected it ; for, possessing a weak temperament, and a timid though am bitious character, he sought success by secret and covert ways. His adepts were Steele, Budgell, Tickell, Phillips, and Carey, with whom he insti tuted a species of literary confraternity, such as the French called in 1820 un cenacle. The keeper of the coffee-house had been a servant of Lady Warwick, whom Addison was courting at the time. The regular visitors spent long hours, according to the fashion of literary men of the day, in drinking and smoking ; Addison himself setting the example.

It has been said that this great essayist sought in vain means to free himself of his natural timidity, and Mr. Thackeray reproaches him with never having understood women. And how could he have studied them in coffee-houses and taverns 1 There, in a circle of fervent admirers and disciples, he displayed that elegance and grace of diction"; which was celebrated by Pope. Button's Coffee House was the editorial office of the Guardian. There was SAMUEL JOHNSON. 9 at the doorway a lion's head, with gaping jaws, which acted as a letter box, and the correspondence of the journal was slipped into it.* The Editors, that is to say, the Club, met in a little room at the back of the house. Addison, quarrelling at a later date with the Countess of Warwick, withdrew his patronage from Button, and transferred the Club to a tavern, where, if we may believe Dr. Johnson, lie sat late, and continued to indulge in too copious libations.

Like Dryden, and like Addison, whom he succeeded, Samuel Johnson frequented London taverns. He was pleased to see the smiling face of the land lord, the eagerness of the waiter, and the liberty that prevailed among the guests ; a chair in a tavern was, in his opinion, the seat of human felicity. The Doctor had just made arrangements with his publisher for the famous English Dictionary, and boasted that he would alone complete w-hat had occupied forty French Academicians, when he founded in 1749 his first Club in Ivy Lane. The members, ten in number, assembled every Tuesday evening, at the King's Head Beef Steak House. * This emblem was borrowed from the Venetian Republic, where near the Palace of the Doges, were lions' heads in marble, into which pieces of paper were thrown, denouncing all that took place in the city.

The lion's head of the Guardian, which had been surnamed " the strongest head in the kingdom," was kept for a long time as a literary relic at the Shakspere Tavern, in Covent Garden ; it is now in the possession of the Bedford family. Johnson at that time lived in a poor lodging near Temple Bar, the part of London most haunted by what have lately been called literary ghosts. The English have for these great men a species of superstition which honours them : they love to follow the shade of the Doctor through the narrow and obscure streets he walked along at night, touching the posts which he passed, and picking up orange-peel. His wralk, we are told, was that of a whale ; he rolled onward by virtue of a mechanism independent of his feet. The visitor is still shown some of the houses he lived in, and in Inner Temple Lane the staircase and chambers where the giant had his den.

Fleet Street is full of recollections of his life. It was here that one night he offered his arm to a lady of quality, to help her in crossing the street, and the lady gave him a shilling, taking him for a waterman. It was in this part of town too that, when old and broken down with disease, he found, on a cold damp night, a poor barefooted girl lying on the ground more than half dead ; he raised her in his arms, laid her on his back, carried her to his house, put her in his own bed without fear of scandal, and restored her health. His strength was athletic. One day while walking along the street, in a momentary absence of mind he took a heavy load from a porter's back and carried it some distance. The porter was at first quarrelsome, but at the sight of Johnson's imposing stature he stopped short, and DR. JOHNSON. 11 thought that the best thing he could do was to take up his bundle without a word.

With an excellent heart and a robust mind, though candid, rough, and vehement, the Doctor personified the defects and qualities of his race ; hence I am not surprised at the tenderness of the English for the memory of the great critic, nor at the influence he exercised over the age. The members of his club were merchants, booksellers, physicians, and dissenting ministers. Here while the steak bubbled on the fire, Johnson indulged with valiant ardour in discussion and controversy. He spoke on all subjects with the authority given him by unbounded knowledge, an abundance of words which could only be compared to a river, and a bitterness of retort that discon certed his adversaries. Determined never to be beaten, he disputed rather for victory than for truth ; thoroughly versed in controversy, he would affirm one day with an air of solemnity that good predominated in the world, and to-morrow defend the contrary thesis with equal animation.

Stand ing in a circle of hearers, he would rush furiously at his antagonist, and crush him by any means ; but when the fight was over he would repent his victory, and say aloud before his adversary, " He was right, and I was wrong." A year before his death the Doctor had the idea of reorganising this Club which he founded in his youth ; when, to his great regret, he learned that the landlord was no longer in this world, and the house shut up. The assembly at Ivy Lane was eclipsed by the famous Club which Johnson founded in 1764. It was held at the Turk's Head, in Gerrard Street, Soho, the street in which Dryden had lived. The idea of the new Club was ventilated by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great artist whom Johnson loved, and who painted the portrait of Goldsmith. The members met once a week at nine in the evening, and the conversation was kept up till far into the night.

The Club gradually grew till it counted five-and-thirty members, and admission to it was an honour obtained by ballot. At first this assembly had no name, but after the death of Garrick it was christened the Literary Club. Garrick was the friend and quondam pupil of Johnson : they both came to London together, one to try his fortune on the stage, the other in letters. A short time after the opening of the Club, Sir Joshua mentioned it to the celebrated actor, who answered, " It is a good idea, and I think I will be one of you." This answer greatly displeased the impetuous Johnson. " He be one of us ! " he ex claimed, " and how does he know that we shall let him \ The first Duke in England has no right to use such language." Garrick, however, was admitted some time after, and Johnson himself supported the election of the English Roscius.

He was, according to Boswell, one of the most agreeable members of the Club ; and when Garrick died, all the members resolved to be present at his funeral. THE LITERARY CLUB. 13 It is interesting to introduce oneself in thought to this memorable Club, of which, thanks to tradition, written memorials, and portraits, the English are enabled to reproduce the most eminent members. Here are assembled the illustrious heads which will live for ever under Reynolds' pencil. Here is Burke the orator with his spectacles ; here the table on which were served the omelette for Nugent and the lemon for Johnson ; here is Gibbon the historian, who sits down tapping with his fingers the lid of his snuff-box; here is Sir Joshua holding his ear-trumpet to listen. At length there rises in the midst of the group the gigantic form, and strange and massive face, of the Doctor, with his brown coat, his worn black stockings, his grey wig, his large hands, his bitten nails, his rolling eyes, and twitching nose, his mighty voice, and his repartees which fall like a sledge-hammer on the heads of his adversaries.

We fancy we are present at one of the meetings where Johnson proposed Sheridan as a candidate, because he was the man who had written the two best comedies of the day ; when he attacked Swift with the violence of an English bull; and, before all, the one when he deplored the death of Goldsmith. The Doctor was fond of the author of the " Vicar of Wakefield," but he did not spare from his stino*s even those whose talent he admired. The charming poet and delicious humorist was not above the weaknesses of self-esteem : he was anxious to shine in a circle of wits among whom his reputation, his Irish accent, and his simple vanity, gave him a place of his own. He complained about the inexhaustible eloquence of his friend Johnson, and the supremacy the other members of the Club granted him. " Sir," he said to Boswell, " you make a monarchy of what ought to be a republic."

In 1783 Dr. Johnson founded another Club in Essex Street at the Essex Head, where the members met thrice a week. This house was kept by an old servant of Mr. Thrale, a friend of the Doctor. The terms were low, and the exjienses slight. Any one who missed a meeting paid a forfeit of twopence, each of the members was president in turn, and the waiter's fee was a penny. This great ardour of Johnson for founding Clubs is explained by his character and mode of life. He had been married, but lost his wife at an early age, and these night meetings became from that time the only amusement he could find after a clay of labour and solitude. When old and pursued by the terrors of death, he did not give up his visit to Clubs, for, as he said, " it was the last link that bound him to life." In these meetings he was excessively sensitive as to anything that might be said to him about the state of his health.

The evening when he went to the Tamelian Club, founded by a learned physician, Dr. A she, one of the members said to him, that he saw life comino* back to the cheeks of the author of "Rasselas." THE KING OF CLUBS. 15 Johnson took his hand and exclaimed, "You are one of the best friends I ever had in the world ! " About the same period, that is to say, from 1746 to 176S, certain London coffee-houses con tinued to be fashionable, and attract wits. Jones's in Great Russell Street had nearly seven hundred subscribers at a guinea a-head, and the society was nearly the same as that of the Literary Club. There could be met Johnson, Garrick, Murphy, Goldsmith, Reynolds, Foote, and other men of talent, mingled with men of the w-orld. The club tables and books were preserved by Mr. Webster, a medalhst, who occupied some years ago the first floor of the house.

There was also, about the year 1781, a literary Club that met at Mrs. Montague's, and was called the " Blue-Stocking Club." It was at that clay the fashion for women of wit to have parties, in which they took part in the conversation of clever men, who were animated by the desire of pleasing. Miss Hannah More, who lived in the time of Johnson, wrote a poem in which she de scribed a Blue-Stocking Club, with the characters of the most prominent persons. In 1801 a Club was founded under the title of the " King of Clubs," which met one Saturday a month at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand, and the literary element prevailed in it. The founder was Robert Smith, also known by the name of Bobus, who had been Attorney-General at Calcutta. The other principal members were Lord Holland, Lord Henry Petty (afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne), Sir James Scarlett, who became Lord Abinger, Sir James Mackintosh, Lord Erskine, Samuel Rogers, the banker-poet, author of the " Pleasures of Memory," and Sharpe, whom the English called Conversation Sharpe.

This Club had a great reputation for wit, and the questions of discussion were books, authors, and the topics of the day. Strangers were allowed admission as honorary members, and among those thus introduced was Curran, the celebrated Irish orator. He did not come up to general expectation at first, for he maintained for a long time an obstinate silence ; but towards the close of the even ing he proposed a toast — " To all absent friends." This toast was specially addressed to his neighbour at table, Lord Avonmore, an Irish Judge, who was subject to absence of mind. He then told his lordship quietly that his health had just been drunk. But the Judge had his revenge. One day, while sitting in Court, a donkey began braying in the middle of one of Curran's most splendid bursts of oratory. "Stop, Mr. Curran," he exclaimed, " one at a time, if you please."