VII. Did you not wantonly, and grossly, and indecently, insult Mr Conway, the actor, in your View of the English Stage, and publish A RETRACTING LIE, in order to escape a caning? VIII. Do you know the Latin for a goose? As soon as Mr Hazlitt answers these eight simple questions, other eight of a more complex nature, and worded more gravely, await his attention, from AN OLD FRIEND WITH A NEW FACE. Greenwich. ACCOUNT OF SOME CURIOUS CLUBS IN LONDON, ABOUT THE BEGINNING OF THE 18TH CENTURY. MR EDITOR, THE perusal of that admirable poem of William Wastle, "the Mad Banker of Amsterdam," in which the Dilettanti Society of Edinburgh makes so distinguished a figure, recalled to my recollection a curious enough volume published in 1709, entitled, "the Secret History of Clubs in London, with their original, and the characters of the most noted members thereof." Perhaps your readers may not be displeased with some account of these clubs of a former age, which seem, if I mistake not, to have been worthy of vying not only with that which is pleased to call itself the Dilettanti," but even with the Antiquarian and Royal Societies of Edinburgh, the Union and Bain-Waters. True indeed, that, unlike some of these, they neglected to publish their transactions and reports,-by which the "world has been defrauded of many a high design." But they have found a contemporary historian, who has philosophically described the ruling spirit of each, and from his work we can perceive what a powerful influence they must have exercised on the character of the times. Perhaps the influence of such clubs was stronger when confined to vivâ voce and extempore communications between themselves and the public, than can be justly claimed by any of the above modern Philosophical Institutions. It is undeniable that much truth evaporates in conversation, and is lost-but it is equally so, that much truth is compressed in written documents, and is never found. Thus, one year's unpublished transactions of "the KitCat," and "the Golden Fleece," may have told more effectually on the age than one year's transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Those members spoke-and what they said is forgotten. These members wroteand what they did write, if not forgotten, is, at least, not remembered. But the clubs to which I allude exerted a living influence,—they blended with the spirit of the age-they coloured it, and were coloured by itin every company some unknown member lurked-their jokes, their gibes, their criticisms, their manners, their speculations, their opinions, sometimes won, and sometimes forced their way into ordinary life,— and thus the dress, the language, the deportment, the current ideas of the day, were all, by means unperceived by dim-eyed moralists, charactered by these all-powerful Associations of convivial spirits. Were any future philosopher to attribute to the Dilettanti or Royal Societies of Edinburgh, an important influence on the spirit of the age, he might indeed refer to the Report of the former on the Church of St Giles, and to Mr M'Vey Napier's Essay on the writings of Lord Bacon in the latter in support of his theory ;but then, it might be shewn that the magistrates of Edinburgh preferred Mr Elliot's design to that of the "Committee of six;" and that, in spite of even the favourable character given of him by the Librarian of the Writers to the Signet, Lord Bacon's writings were almost as little known in Scotland as those of his most erudite eulogist. But I intend, with your leave, to enter more fully into this subject on a future occasion, and to attempt an "Estimate of the Character and Influence of our present Philosophical Institutions, from Bain Waters down to the Royal Society of Edinburgh inclusive." Meanwhile, allow me to occupy a few columns of your inimitable Miscellany (I observe, the contributors to Constable's facetiously call his, 66 your valuable miscellany)," with some details of the principal London Clubs that flourished about the end of the 17th century. The volume in which their history is recorded, is dedicated to that "luciferous and sublime lunatic, the Emperor of the Moon," as an expression of the author's gratitude" to your illustrious highness for the wonderful favours I have oft received, at late hours, from the refulgent horns of your revolving throne.' The dedication breathes throughout a noble spirit of independence, and a strain of dignified satire against the great men of the world, who then, as now, flattered poor authors but to betray. "I expect nothing but your moonshine to reward my labours." Our author likewise favours us with a very entertaining little preface, of which the following sentences would almost seem to have been written within these three months, so applicable are they to the worthy gentlemen in this City, who have sung out so dolefully against the poetry of Mr William Wastle. 66 Tagging of verse, and writing of books, are become as sharp trades in this keen age, as making of knives and scissors; and if the former, as well as the latter, are not well ground to a smart edge, they may lie upon the bookseller's stall till they are bought up by the band-box maker. Yet, if they happen to be so sharp as to scratch a courtier on the forehead, cut an alderman for the simples, scarrify a knave that is but rich and powerful, cut off a leg that is not worth standing upon, or shave the smooth face of some booby who is fat withal, there is presently a worse roaring with 'em than there is with a foolish child that has hook'd his fingers into a clasped knife," &c. Our author then proceeds to deliver his sentiments on clubs in general. The object of clubs, he says, is often asserted to be the promotion of trade, humane conversation, the communication of curious and scientific matter; but, in his opinion, "Most considerate men, who have ever been engaged in such sort of compotations, have found, by experience, that the general end thereof is a promiscuous encouragement of vice, faction, and folly, at the unnecessary expence of that time and money which might be better employed in their own business, or spent with much more comfort in their several families." He then declaims with great eloquence against all political clubs, which, according to him, have produced all the revolutions that ever af flicted mankind; but wishing to give no offence to any party or person, he excludes such clubs from his work, and thus limits his subject-matter. "But as all ages have been made merry by the fantastical whimsies, and ridiculous affections of such humoursome societies as have made themselues a town-talk by their singular follies, inebrious extravagancies, comical projections, vitious encouragements, and uncommon practices, I am perswaded to believe, it can be thought no breach of morality or good manners to expose the va nity of those whimsical clubs, who have been proud to distinguish themselues by such amusing denominations, that the most motheir titles without bursting into laughter ; : rose Cynick would be scarce able to hear nor have the frantick customs, jocular diversions, and preposterous government of such fuddle-cap assemblies been less remarkable than their several distinctions. I.-The Virtuoso's Club. This club was at first established by some of the principal members of the Royal Society, and its design was to propagate new whims, advance mechanical exercises, and to 66 promote useless as well as useful experiments." "Some, by those hermetical bellows, call'd an Æolipile, would be trying, with an empty bottle, whether nature would admit of a vacuum. Others, like busie chandlers, would be handling their scales to nicely discover the difference in the weight betwixt wine and and water. A third sort of phylosophers would be condensing the smoak of their tobacco into oyl upon their pipes, and then assert the same, in spite of her nine lives, to be rank poison to a cat. A fifth cabal perhaps would be a knot of mathematicians, who would sit so long wrangling about squaring the circle, till, with drinking and rattleing, they were ready to let fall a nauseous perpendicular from their mouths. scription of a full night. The following is an animated de "This club of Vertuoso's, upon a full night, when some eminent maggot-munger, for the satisfaction of the society, had appointed to demonstrate the force of air, by some hermetical pot-gun, to shew the difference of the gravity between the smoak of tobacco and that of colts-foot and bittany, or to try some other such like experiment, were always compos'd of such an odd mixture of mankind, that, like a society of ringers at a quarterly feast, here sat a nice beau next to a dirty blacksmith; there a purblind philosopher next to a talkative spectaclemaker; yonder a half-witted whim of quality next to a ragged mathematician; on the other side, a consumptive astronomer next to a water-gruel physician; above them, a transmutator of mettals next to a philosopher-stone-hunter; at the lower-end, a pratting engineer next to a clumsie-fisted mason; at the upper end of all, perhaps, an atheistical chymist next to a whimsieheaded lecturer; and these the learned of the wise-akers wedged here and there with quaint artificers and noisy opperators, in all faculties; some bending beneath the load of years and indefatigable labour, some as thin-jaw'd and heavy-ey'd, with abstemious living and nocturnal studdy, as if, like Pha roah's lean-kine, they were design'd by heaven to warn the world of a famine; others, looking as wild, and deporting themselves as frenzically, as if the disapointment of their projects had made them subject to a lunacy." At last this club fell into decay and dissolution. "Many jests, by the ridiculers of ingi. nuity, us'd to be put upon this grave assembly of philosophizing vertuoso's, till, at length, quite tir'd with the affronts of the town, and their own unprofitable labours, they dwindl'd from an eminent club of experimental philosophers, into a little cinical cabal of half-pint moralists, who now meet every night at the same tavern, over their five-penny nipperkins, and set themselves up for nice regulators of their natural appetites, refusing all healths, each taking off his thimble-full according to the liberty of his own conscience, paying, just to a farthing, what himself calls for; and starting at a minute, that they may have one leg in their beds exactly as Bow-bell proclaims the hour of nine. II.-The Order of the Golden Fleece. The worthy knights of this order are thus emphatically described. "This rattle-brain'd society of mechanick worthies, were most solemnly establish'd, several years since, by the whimsical contrivance of a merry company of tipling citizens, and jocular change-brokers, that they might meet every night, and wash away their consciences with salubrious claret, that the mental reservations, and falacious assurances, the one had us'd in their shops; and the deceitful wheedles, and stock-jobbing honesty, by which the other had out-witted their merchants, might be no impediment to their nights rest, but that they might sleep without repentance, and rise the next day with a strong propensity to the same practice." Each member, on admittance, had a name assigned to him, descriptive of his peculiar character and endowments, as, for example, Sir Timothy Addlepate, Sir Talkative Dolittle, Sir Ninny Sneer, Sir Skinny Fretwell, Sir Rumbus Rattle, Sir Boozy Prateall, Sir Nicolas Ninny, Sir Gregory Growler, Sir Sipall Paylittle, &c. This club flourished amain till the suicide of its leading member, the effects of which are thus stated. "And then the dull fraternity, thro' want of a merry Zany to exercise their lungs with a little seasonable laughter, and unhappily neglecting to be shav'd and blooded, fell into such a fit of the melancholly dumps, that several of the order were in great danger of a straw-bed and a dark-room, if they had not neglected their nocturnal revels, and forsaken frensical claret, for sober watergruel; and worse company, for the penitential conversation of their own families: So that upon these misfortunes, the knights put a stop to their collar-days; laid aside their installment; proclaim'd a cessation of bumpers for some time, till those who were sick had recover'd their health, and others their senses; and then, the better to prevent the debasement of their honour, by its growing too common, they adjourn'd their society from the Fleece in Cornhill, to the Three Tuns in Southwark, that they might be more retir'd from the bows and compliments of the London apprentices, who us'd to salute the noble knights by their titles, as they pas'd too and fro about their common occasions." III.-The No Nose Club. The origin of this club is thus, facetiously related. A certain whimsical gentleman, having taken a fancy to see a large party of noseless persons, invited every one he met in the streets to dine on a certain day at a tavern, where he formed them all into a brotherhood bearing the above name. ing order'd a very plentiful dinner, ac"The gentleman, against the time, havhis guests, that he might not be surpris'd at quainted the vintner who were like to be so ill-favour'd an appearance, but pay them that respect, when they came to ask for him, that might encourage them to tarry. When the morning came, no sooner was the hand the hour prefix'd, but the No-Nose comof Covent-Garden dial upon the stroak of heads and cripples to a mumper's feast, askpany began to drop in apace, like scalding for Mr Crumpton, which was the feign'd name the gentleman had taken upon him, succeeding one another so thick, with jarring voices, like the brazen strings of a crack'd dulcimore, that the drawer could scarce shew one up stairs before he had another to conduct; the answer at the bar being, to all that enquir'd, that Mr Crumpton had been there, and desir'd every one that ask'd for him would walk up stairs, and he would wait upon 'em presently. As the number encreas'd, the surprise grew the greater among all that were present, who star'd at one another with such unaccustom❜d bashfulness, and confus'd odness, as if every sinner beheld their own iniquities in the faces of their companions. However, seeing the cloth laid in extraordinary order, every one was curious, when once enter'd,. to attend the sequel: At length a snorting old fellow, whose nose was utterly swallow'd up by his cheeks, as if his head had been troubl'd with an earthquake, having a little more impudence than the rest of the snuffietonians, Egad,' says he, if by chance we ་ 6 should fall together by the ears, how long might we all fight before we should have bloody noses? 'Ads-flesh,' says another, now you talk of noses, I have been looking this half hour to find one in the company.' 'God be prais'd,' says a third, tho' we have no noses we have e'ery one a mouth, and that, by spreading of the table, seems at present to be the most useful member.' A meer trick, I dare engage,' says a bridge-fallen lady, that is put upon us by some whimsical gentleman, that loves to make a jest of other peoples misfortunes." Let him jest and be damn'd,' cries a dubsnouted bully, if he comes but among us, and treats us handsomely. If he does not,' says he, I'll pull him by the nose till he wishes himself without one, like the rest of the company.' Pray, gentlemen and ladies,' cries an old drowthy captain of Whitefriers, who had forsaken the pleasures of whoring for those of drinking, 'don't let us sit and choak at the fountain-head ;' and with that they knocked for the drawer, and asked him, "If they might not call for wine without the danger of being stop'd for the reckoning? Who answer'd, yes, for what they pleas'd, only the gentleman desir'd it might be the forfeiture of a quart, if any one should presume to put their nose in the glass.' 999 This club met once a month for a whole joyous year, when its founder and patron died, and then "the flatfaced community were unhappily dissolved." An Elegy was recited at the final meeting, from which the followextract is not without pathos. "Mourn for the loss of such a generous friend, Whose lofty Nose no humble snout disdain'd; But tho' of Roman height, could stoop so low As to sooth those who ne'er a Nose could shew. Ah! sure no noseless club could ever find But where proud Beauties, strutting Beaux, and all, Must soon into the noseless fashion fall; Thither your friend in complaisance is gone To have his Nose, like yours, reduced to none." IV.-The Surly Club. "This wrangling society was chiefly composed of master carmen, lightermen, old Billingsgate porters, and rusty tun-belly'd badge watermen, and kept at a Mungril tavern near Billingsgate-Dock, where city dames us'd to treat their journey-men with sneakers of punch and new oisters. The principal ends that the members propos'd, in thus convening themselves together once a week, were to exercise the spirit of con tradiction; and to teach and perfect one another in the art and mistery of foul language, that they might not want impudence to abuse passengers upon the Thames, gentlemen in the street, lash their horses for their own faults, and curse one another heartily when they happen'd to meet and jostle at the corner of a street. He that could put on a countenance like a boatswain in hard-weather, and growl and snarl like a curst mastiff over a bullock's liver, was a member fit for the thwarting society; and the more indirect answers, or surly impertinent returns he could make to any question, the more he was respected for his contradictory humour, and cross-grain'd abilities: for if any grumbling associate was so far corrupted with good manners, as to make a civil reply to any thing that was ask'd him, he was look'd upon to be an effeminate coxcomb, who had suck'd in too much of his mother's milk; and for his affectation of gentility, was turn'd out of the company, for by the orders of the society, their whole evenings conversation was to consist of nothing but surly interruptions, and cross purposes. And when any new candidate made a tender of his service to the noisy board, if the responses that he gave upon his knotty examination, were not as opposit to their queries, as the petulant answers of a provok'd wife, to the whimsical interrogatories of a drunken husband, he was rejected, as unworthy of any post in contumacious assembly." V.-The Club of Ugly Faces. "To answer the tallyman's superabounding snout, a second had a chin as long as a grave patriarchal beard, and in shape like a shoeing-horn. A third, disfigur'd with a mouth like a gallon-pot, when both sides are squees'd near close together. A fourth, with a nose like the pummel of an andiron, and as full of warts as the beak of a cropper pidgeon. A fifth, with eyes like a tumbler, one bigger than the other. A sixth, with a pair of convex cheeks, as if, like Eolus, the god of the winds, he had stop'd his breath for a time, to be the better able to discharge a hurrican. A seventh, with as many wens and warts upon his forehead as there are knots and prickles upon an old thornback. An eighth, with a pair of skinny jaws that wrap'd over in folds, like the top of an old boot, or the hide of a rhinoceros. A ninth, with a tush strutting beyond his lips, as if he had been begot by a man-teger. A tenthwith a hair-lip that had drawn his mouth into as many corners as a minc'd pye, made by the hussifly wife of a formal mathematician. The eleventh, with a huge Lauderdale head, as big, in circumference, as the golden ball under St Paul's cross, and a face so fiery, that the ruddy front of the orbicular lump, which stood so elevated upon his lofty shoulders, made it look like the flaming urn on the top of the monument. A twelfth, with a countenance as if his parents, when he was young, had clap'd his chin upon an anvil, and gave him a knock upon the crown with a smith's sledge, that had shorten'd his phiz, and struck all his features out of their proper places; with many other such comical, clownish, surly, antick, moody, booby faces, that the wooden gravers, who cut the prints for the frightful heads, upon stone-bottles, and the carvers, who us'd to noch out preposterous cherubs upon base-viols, and stern whiskers upon barbers blocks, were often introduc'd upon their club-nights, by some interest or other, on purpose to oblige their fancy with new originals, that each might sell their commodities, for the singularity of the faces with which they had adorn'd 'em." Both the above clubs dwindled away in a few years. The SURLY CLUB SO growled that they were indicted as a nuisance; and the UGLY FACES having behaved very unhandsomely in black-balling a candidate whose qualifications were indisputable, the presisident, who was esteemed the ugliest man of his day, left the chair; and the club having thus lost its chief deformity, the members no longer felt a pride in belonging to it;—the secretary-treasurer resigned, the funds, amounting to 17s. 4d., were equally divided among thirty-seven persons, and the Club of Ugly Faces was no more. No less than thirty other clubs are described in this singular volume. But I fear that I have already occupied too much of your pages, so shall conclude my extracts with the following account of a singular association, the MAN-HUNTING CLUB. "A parcel of wild young rakes, whose principal education had been in Chancery Lane, among those vertuous accademies the sober offices of the law and equity, frequenting a tavern near the Tenniscourt playhouse, on the back of Lincolns-Inn Fields, at length settled a club there, that they might every evening project new extravagancies to exercise the ungovernable fury of their uncultivated youth. Among the rest of their wild maggots, and whimsical contrivances that they put in practice, to entertain the brutality of unpolish'd nature, they had form'd a new sort of pastime, which was hunting of men over LincolnsInn Fields, that they should happen to meet crossing at ten or eleven a clock at night; so that about those hours two or three couple of hair-brain'd puppies us'd frequently to be commanded out by the Chairman (to which honourable post the first comer was intituled), who were to beat about for game, and to report, upon their return, what sport they had met with, for the diversion of the company. When the mischievous fools had thus shaken off their humanity, and taken upon 'em the bestial imitation of hounds, wolves, and tigers, they would lie perdu upon the grass in one of the borders of the fields, till they heard some single person treading along the pathway; then up would they all start with their swords drawn, and running furiously towards him, would cry aloud," That's he; bloody-wounds, that's he :" Upon which, away would run the person, whether gentle or simple, as if the devil drove him, with the pack of two-leg'd whelps, making such a noise at his heels, that the persecuted mortal, to escape the fury of his followers, would spur on nature with his fear to such a violent speed, that, with overstraining, the poor hunted runaway, especially if a breeches that made him stink as strong as coward, generally drop'd something in his either a fox or pole-cat. Thus they scour'd him along like a buck in a paddy-course, till he had taken sanctuary in some of the adjacent streets, where he would run commonly into an ale-house, half dead with fear, to recover breath, and to mundify his breeches; and there amuse them with such a terrible story, as if he had not only run, but fought the gantlope thro' a regiment of his hands as well as his heels, from a gang ruffians, and bravely defended himself by of rogues, or a drunken company of madmen. If they happend to bolt upon a sturdy gentleman, that would rather chuse to die in the bed of honour than to owe his safety to a nimble pair of heels, the cowards would shear off; cry they were all mistaken; that it was not he: But who ever ran for it, they pursu'd as close as if they murder; that their game being terrify'd were fully resolv'd both for robbery and with dreadful apprehensions, would scour o'er the field like an insolvent debtor before a herd of bailiffs, or a new marry'd seaman from a gang of pressmasters. And when the rakehelly hunters had thus delighted themselves with the mad recreation of three or four chases, then tir'd with their sport, they would return to the club, and entertain their associates with the particulars of their pastime." ANALYTICAL ESSAYS ON THE EARLY ENGLISH DRAMATISTS. No V. The White Devil; or, Vittoria Corombona.-WEBSTER. THIS Play is so disjointed in its action, -the incidents are so capricious and so involved,-and there is, throughout, such a mixture of the horrible and the absurd-the comic and the tragic-the pathetic and the ludicrous,- |