butler, whose duty it is to provide him with wine; next there is the head-waiter, whose principal business is to take care that his assistants promptly attend to the wants of the feasters, and duly supply the required dishes, which are wound up from below by a sort of sideboard, called 'a lift,' very much after the fashion of that described by Sir Walter Scott, in his 'Peveril of the Peak,' where Chiffinch gives the excellent supper to Julian and his companion. Whether the romance suggested the contrivance to the clubbists, or the clubbists taught it to the romancer, verily this deponent saith not, nor is it of much consequence. Lastly, there is a clerk to make out the bills and keep the various accounts, who, upon some occasions, had need to be quick both of hand and eye."

Let us see now how they manage when they wish to indulge in a symposium:

"Such being the appliances, the member, who intends dining there, fills up a form of dinner-bill with the dishes that he has selected from the carte de jour. This is immediately forwarded by the head-waiter in attendance to the clerk of the kitchen, when the latter marks the established price to each dish, adding a charge of sixpence, or in some clubs of a shilling, for table-money, the object of which is to defray the expenses contingent upon bread, butter, cheese, potatoes, table-ale, and other minor necessaries of the table. When the bill has been thus filled up, it is sent back to the coffee-room, and the butler adds to it his charge for whatever wine may have been drunk, after which it is handed over to the coffee-room clerk, who sums it up, and receives the amount from the member. In this way an excellent dinner, exclusive of the wine, may be had for little more than half a crown, - a very moderate outlay, if we consider that the meal is not only of the first kind in itself, but is served up with every luxurious accompaniment. In addition to this, the member dining at his club is infinitely more independent than he could be at any tavern; he has not to buy the civility of greedy waiters, nor has he to drink more than is agreeable to himself for the benefit of the house, as is for the most part expected by superior tavern-keepers. Then, too, he may have company, or be alone, at his option, an advantage beyond all price, and which he cannot command in any public coffee-room. To carry out this arrangement, a dining-room is provided on the ground-floor, wherein from six to a dozen members may dine together, precisely as they would do at the private house of any one of them, and with every chance of having a much better dinner without the trouble or expense. The affair is thus managed: printed forms are left in the coffee-room, to which those who NO. 168.

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choose to join the house-dinner, as it is called, subscribe their names; but in this case no allowance is made for the Aberdeen man's privilege of 'taking his word again'; whoever once puts his name to this prandatory requisition may indeed choose whether he will, after all, dine there or not, but in any case he must pay his share of the reckoning, which in general amounts to seven and sixpence a head. These dinners, however, do not take place unless at least six, and in some clubs eight, members have announced their purpose of joining in them."

This

Now for the drawing-room or upstairs department:"We now ascend the stairs, and come into the drawing-room. is for the most part elegantly, nay, superbly furnished; but it is thinly tenanted, for what is a drawing-room without ladies? It is their peculiar domain, and the few congregated in their lonely palace seem like so many mourning widowers. Things look much better in the library that is next to it. There coat and waistcoat seem to be in their proper element again, and the expenditure, which is lavish, is no more than what is right and proper. A resident librarian is in attendance, every accommodation being afforded to the reader; and we may form a pretty correct average of the resources at his command, when we hear that in 1844 the books in the Athenæum amounted to twenty thousand three hundred, the accumulated result of donations, and of a fund set apart for that purpose. In the club just named this sum is said to be five hundred pounds annually, exclusive of the money devoted to periodicals.

"A card-room stands in some houses next to the library, but games of pure chance are forbidden under pain of expulsion; and even at whist no stake is allowed beyond half-guinea points.

"We must now ascend to the third story, where we shall find one billiard-room, if not more, attended by a marker. For this, as well as for cards, a separate charge is made, upon the very obvious and rational ground that it would be unfair to make the non-players pay for the extra expenses entailed by this part of the establishment. Twelve of the clubs allow smoking-rooms, which are, as they ought to be, the worstlooking part of the whole building."

"Such," says a recent French writer, "is the modern club, a sort of private restaurateur's, with the advantages of good wine, good food, respectful attendance, and moderate prices. Much has been said of the disadvantages attendant upon them; but as all of them, being twentytwo in number, are quite full, and, in some instances, with thousands of expectant candidates on the list, it seems quite plain that their utility or their agreeableness must fully counterbalance anything that can be said against them. Their names are as follows:

"The mode of admission is by ballot. In some, one negative in ten excludes the candidate; in others, a single black ball is sufficient, the most absurd of all regulations. The admission fee varies from its highest point of £32 11s. to five guineas, while the annual subscription is in most clubs six- guineas, in the lowest five; and in none does it go beyond ten."

We cannot enter into a description of these various establishments, but must refer to the work itself, after briefly quoting or condensing from the author's account of one or two of the more remarkable.

And, first, of White's. This club, though perhaps less celebrated, is superior in antiquity to Brookes's. The original "Master White," by whom or whose patrons it was founded in 1698, was in the days of Queen Anne a renowned hôte of one of the old chocolate-houses, whose noted bow-window was then as famous and favorite a fashionable lounge as now. This house formed the head-quarters of the Tories, as the other did of the Whigs; but at the present day it is even less political than Brookes's, and many members, we believe, are now common to both. It is less numerous than the other, and also affords a scantier field for anecdotes; the members of that party being, as remarked by Sir Walter Scott, of a less convivial character than the Whigs, with whom, it may be noticed, Sir Walter himself always preferred to indulge when inclined for a symposium.

Yet White's has been the scene of display for many a bel esprit. Generations of wits have traversed its portals, and the gay and the fashionable still gaze from its windows, as their predecessors gazed a century and a half ago. Many a bright spirit has in the interval shot up, blazed or flickered for a moment, and been extinguished for ever; as, doubtless, many

gain admission. It is their duty also to take in letters, and keep an account of the postage; and, for the further despatch of this part of the business, there is a letter-box, into which the various missives are dropped, and which is only opened upon the arrival of the carrier from the regular receivinghouses. In many of the clubs two or three liveried lads are kept in waiting, chiefly for the purpose of conveying messages from visitors to any of the members. Should a stranger wish to see his friend, there is a reception-room close to the hall, where he may wait, provided his appearance should seem in the eyes of the attendants to justify so much respect; but the old Roman proverb holds good here as well as elsewhere, "Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum"; for according to the fashion of your garments are the chances of your admission into the reception-room of a club-house.

We must, however, quote briefly from our author:

"Various doors opening from the vestibule lead to the several apartments upon the ground-floor, each of which has its peculiar object and designation. The first to be noticed is the morning-room, where the members meet to write letters and read the journals, which, in most of the clubs, are taken in with very little choice or restriction, except where a strong party feeling may operate to the exclusion of any journal. A republican journal, for instance, would hardly find its way into the morning-room of the Conservative; but such exceptions are very rare, and, in general, this matter is conducted with the utmost liberality. Even stationery is supplied to the members without stint or limit; and we remember to have heard of a certain popular author, now deceased, that he was in the habit of writing his novels at his club.

"The coffee-room differs in nothing but its superior elegance from the same apartment in any fashionable tavern. Rows of small tables project from each side, leaving a wide open space up the middle, for the convenience of passing to and fro. These are laid for breakfasts and luncheons, from a rather late hour in the morning till four o'clock, when, in stage phrase, the scene is struck, and the usual arrangements are made for dinner. Here the member who may wish to dine is duly supplied with a carte de jour, or, in plain English, with the daily bill of fare, from which he has the same privilege of selection that he would have at any tavern, and with the certainty that whatever he orders will be the best of its kind, and cooked in the first style of cookery. The attendants upon him are numerous and well chosen. First, there is the

butler, whose duty it is to provide him with wine; next there is the head-waiter, whose principal business is to take care that his assistants promptly attend to the wants of the feasters, and duly supply the required dishes, which are wound up from below by a sort of sideboard, called ‘a lift,' very much after the fashion of that described by Sir Walter Scott, in his 'Peveril of the Peak,' where Chiffinch gives the excellent supper to Julian and his companion. Whether the romance suggested the contrivance to the clubbists, or the clubbists taught it to the romancer, verily this deponent saith not, nor is it of much consequence. Lastly, there is a clerk to make out the bills and keep the various accounts, who, upon some occasions, had need to be quick both of hand and eye."

Let us see now how they manage when they wish to indulge in a symposium :—

"Such being the appliances, the member, who intends dining there, fills up a form of dinner-bill with the dishes that he has selected from the carte de jour. This is immediately forwarded by the head-waiter in attendance to the clerk of the kitchen, when the latter marks the established price to each dish, adding a charge of sixpence, or in some clubs of a shilling, for table-money, the object of which is to defray the expenses contingent upon bread, butter, cheese, potatoes, table-ale, and other minor necessaries of the table. When the bill has been thus filled up, it is sent back to the coffee-room, and the butler adds to it his charge for whatever wine may have been drunk, after which it is handed over to the coffee-room clerk, who sums it up, and receives the amount from the member. In this way an excellent dinner, exclusive of the wine, may be had for little more than half a crown, a very moderate outlay, if we consider that the meal is not only of the first kind in itself, but is served up with every luxurious accompaniment. In addition to this, the member dining at his club is infinitely more independent than he could be at any tavern; he has not to buy the civility of greedy waiters, nor has he to drink more than is agreeable to himself for the benefit of the house, as is for the most part expected by superior tavern-keepers. Then, too, he may have company, or be alone, at his option, an advantage beyond all price, and which he cannot command in any public coffee-room. To carry out this arrangement, a dining-room is provided on the ground-floor, wherein from six to a dozen members may dine together, precisely as they would do at the private house of any one of them, and with every chance of having a much better dinner without the trouble or expense. The affair is thus managed: printed forms are left in the coffee-room, to which those who NO. 168.

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