The book of The Cheese

by Unknown

FOOTNOTES:

[3] This non sequitur has already appeared in print.

CHAPTER VII.
CLUB LIFE AT THE “CHEESE”

The feast of reason and the flow of soul.—Pope.

One of the most interesting features of the “Cheese” is its club life. It is not the stately and withal solemn life of the modern West-end club, but it is the social and intensely human life of the club as Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, understood it. When the Doctor, Sir Joshua, and some others established “The Club” in 1764, the members were to meet once a month and take supper, passing their evening in witty discourses.

At the “Old Cheshire Cheese” the Johnsonian tradition is naturally strong; it pervades the whole place, and all the clubs which hold their regular or occasional meetings there endeavour, as much as our less heroic days will allow, to emulate the example of the giants of the days gone by.

The following is a complete list of the clubs actually in existence at the present time:—The Johnson Club, founded about 25 years; Sawdust Club, founded 1906; Ye Punchbowlers; the Mitre Club, founded November, 1903; “Ourselves,” founded 1897; St. Dunstan’s, founded 1790; Rump Steak Club; the Dickens Club.

The following further details regarding the Cheshire Cheese Clubs of the past as well as the present may be found not without interest. The place of honour is given to—

THE JOHNSON CLUB.

This club is composed of many men eminent in literature and art, or distinguished in other ways. The club, which is literary and social, and is restricted to thirty-one members, was founded about twenty-five years ago. The members bind themselves to sup together annually on or about December 13, the anniversary of the Doctor’s death, but various other meetings are held throughout the year. The constitution of the club is thus described by Dr. George Birkbeck Hill, the well-known editor of the latest and best edition of “Boswell.” “We are,” he says (in the Atlantic Monthly of January, 1896), “in strict accordance with the great Lexicographer’s definition, ‘an assembly of good fellows meeting under certain conditions’; the conditions being that we shall do honour to the immortal memory of Dr. Samuel Johnson by supping together four times a year, and by swallowing as much beefsteak pudding, punch, and tobacco smoke as the strength of each man’s constitution admits. A few of the weaker brethren—among whom unhappily I am included—whose bodily infirmity cannot respond to the cheerful Johnsonian cry, ‘Who’s for poonsh?’ do their best to play their part by occasionally reading essays on Johnsonian subjects, and by seasoning their talk with anecdotes and sayings of the great Doctor. We are tolerated by the jovial crew, for they see that we mean well, and are as ‘clubbable’ as nature allows. Our favourite haunt is the OLD CHESHIRE CHEESE, the only tavern in Fleet Street left unchanged by what Johnson called that ‘fury of innovation’ which, beginning with Tyburn and its gallows-tree, has gradually transformed London. The Mitre—‘where he loved to sit up late’; where he made Boswell’s head ache, not with the port wine, but with the sense he put into it; where, at their first supper, he called to him with warmth, ‘Give me your hand, I have taken a liking to you’; where, nearly a century later, Hawthorne, in memory of the two men, dined ‘in the low, sombre coffee-room’—the Mitre has been rebuilt.

“The Cock, most ancient of taverns, has followed its ‘plump head-waiter’ along the road of mortality, although, fortunately, its fittings and furniture are still preserved with the house which, under the same name, has risen on the other side of the street. The Old Cheshire Cheese stands as it stood in the days when Goldsmith used to pass its side door on his way up the dark entry to his lodgings in Wine Office Court. The jolly host who owns the freehold can show title-deeds going back almost to the time of the Great Fire of London.

“There, on the ground floor, we meet our ‘Prior’ sitting on a bench, above which is set in the wall a brass tablet bearing the following inscription:—

“‘The Favourite Seat of
Dr. SAMUEL JOHNSON.
Born September 18, 1709; Died December 13, 1784.

“‘In him a noble understanding and a masterly intellect were united to great independence of character and unfailing goodness of heart, which won the admiration of his own age, and remain as recommendations to the reverence of posterity.

“‘No, sir! there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness has been produced as by a good tavern.—Johnson.’

“In this same room, with its floor as ‘nicely sanded’ as when Goldsmith knew it, our club gathers from time to time; here, undisturbed in our thoughts by a single modern innovation except the gas, we sup on one of those beefsteak puddings for which the Cheshire Cheese has been famous from time immemorial. So vast is it in all its glorious rotundity that it has to be wheeled in on a table; it disdains a successor in the same line, and itself alone satisfies forty hungry guests. ‘A magnificent hot apple pie stuck with bay leaves,’ our second course, recalls the supper with which Johnson ‘celebrated the birth of the first literary child of Mrs. Lennox, the novelist, when at five in the morning his face still shone with meridian splendour though his drink had been only lemonade.’[4] The talk is of the liveliest; from time to time toasts are drunk and responded to.”

The centenary of the death of Dr. Johnson was celebrated in December, 1884, and the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News of the 20th of that month thus refers to the Doctor’s connection with the ancient hostelry:—“Whoever has heard of the grand old Doctor knows well that the greater part of his life was passed between Ludgate Hill and Temple Bar, and that the most interesting portion of it revolved about Gough Square. There seems to be little doubt that while he lived here, the Old Cheshire Cheese tavern was, as is claimed for it, the haunt which he most favoured, and where much of that sledgehammer wisdom was coaxed forth or teased forth, which Boswell has recorded that, as Macaulay put it, the memory of Johnson might keep alive the fame of his works.”

Many notable men have sat down at the Johnson centenary dinners in the Cheshire Cheese. At that held on December 13, 1894, for example, the chair was taken by Mr. Augustine Birrell, Q.C., M.P., then most popularly known as the author of “Obiter Dicta,” but subsequently to become President of the Board of Education and later Chief Secretary for Ireland in a Liberal Government. From the Sketch of December 19, which devoted to this particular festivity a page and half of illustrated literary matter, is taken the following extract:—“The most interesting figure of the evening was undoubtedly Mr. Dobson. His health was proposed just in such a way as it must have been in the days when men of letters indited odes to one another.” Then followed the reading of gentle imitations of Mr. Dobson’s style, but exigency of space precludes our quoting more than a couple of stanzas from a delightful perversion of “The Ladies of St. James’s”:—

The Journalists of Fleet Street

Have precious little cash,

They put their all in papers

Which swiftly go to smash;

But Publishers, my Publishers,

Sit twirling of their thumbs

While sweated clerks with ledgers

Tot up colossal sums.

The Journalists of Fleet Street

While taking of their ease,

Invoke the frequent tankard

That haunts the Cheshire Cheese;

But Publishers, my Publishers,

As epicures enjoy

The wines of Mr. Nicols,

And soups of the Savoy.

THE RHYMERS’ CLUB.

Another club which affected the stern, uncushioned comforts of the “Cheese” was known as the Rhymers’ Club, and we betray no secret when we give the names of the members, for are they not written in the book of their poetic deeds? In this book, published through Elkin Mathews in 1892, the composition of the club is thus recorded: Ernest Dowson, Edwin J. Ellis, G. A. Greene, Lionel Johnson, Richard Le Gallienne, Victor Plarr, Ernest Radford, Ernest Rhys, T. W. Rolleston, Arthur Symons, John Todhunter, W. B. Yeats.

When such sweet singers meet, it may well be believed that the night was ambrosial, care and the world were banished, and the contests of the “Cheese” and of the “Mermaid”—in miniature, it is no discourtesy to say—live again, as Mr. Rhys sings:

As once Rare Ben and Herrick

Set older Fleet Street mad,

With wit not esoteric,

And laughter that was lyric,

And roystering rhymes and glad.

As they, we drink defiance

To-night to all but Rhyme,

And most of all to Science

And all such skins of lions

That hide the ass of time.

A very considerable poet and proseman, Mr. John Davidson, a Scotchman, by the way, from the vicinity of Paisley, in his work, “A Full and True Account of the Wonderful Mission of Earl Lavender, which Lasted One Night and One Day, with a History of the Pursuit of Earl Lavender and Lord Brumm, by Mrs. Scamler and Maud Emblem,” brings two of his characters, Mr. Gurdon and Sir Harry Emblem, into the “Cheese” in a condition which would spell ruin to the landlord were it generally adopted. The two gentlemen had spent some £40 in eight days, and now they are “on the rocks” in a Strand restaurant. But foreigners have hard hearts, and so the delightful couple find their way to the Cap and Bells, which every Fleet Streeter will recognise as the Cheshire Cheese. They order supper, and, though unprepared to pay, are prepared to justify their deeds. They were quite unconventional in the matter of settlement of accounts; they were financially naked, yet they were not ashamed. Fortunately for the landlord, it happens that on this night the Guild of Prosemen (oh, sarcastic Mr. Davidson!), otherwise the Rhymers’ Club, are holding their meeting, and one of the members, acting more like an impulsive poet than a mere proseman, settles their account and introduces them to the club. There we must say farewell to Mr. Davidson’s creations, but we cannot leave the Rhymers without quoting, by the kindness of the author and publisher, the following exquisite:—

BALLADE OF THE CHESHIRE CHEESE
IN FLEET STREET.

I know a home of antique ease

Within the smoky city’s pale,

A spot wherein the spirit sees

Old London through a thinner veil.

The modern world so stiff and stale,

You leave behind you when you please,

For long clay pipes and great old ale

And beefsteaks in the “Cheshire Cheese.”

Beneath this board Burke’s, Goldsmith’s knees

Were often thrust—so runs the tale—

’Twas here the Doctor took his ease

And wielded speech that like a flail

Threshed out the golden truth. All hail,

Great Souls! that met on nights like these

Till morning made the candles pale,

And revellers left the “Cheshire Cheese.”

By kindly sense and old decrees

Of England’s use they set their sail;

We press to never-furrowed seas,

For vision-worlds we breast the gale,

And still we seek and still we fail,

For still the “glorious phantom” flees.

Ah well! no phantom are the ale

And beefsteaks of the “Cheshire Cheese.”

Envoi.

If doubts or debts thy soul assail,

If Fashion’s forms its current freeze,

Try a long pipe, a glass of ale,

And supper at the “Cheshire Cheese.”

“THE 49 CLUB.”

This is a more recent club which met at the “Cheese” to partake, as their “Chronicle” has it, of “a curious mysterie

Yclept ye 49 pudding,

Also Grylled Bones,

Also Stewed Cheese,

together with such Olde Ales, Costlie Wines, and strong waters as may suit ye taste, purse, or conscience of ye Members.”

The Chronicle of this club is very diverting, and begins with a motto not from Goethe,

Ein guter Trunk
Macht Alte junk

which is, after all, a very partial and temporary truth. For the guidance of other social clubs I cannot refrain from quoting in extenso the article headed “Rules”:—

“The Rules of the Club being of the sort once heard are never forgotten, there is no need to repeat them in this Chronicle.”

So much for the Forty-niners.

THE SOAKERS’ CLUB.

“We’ll have flesh for holidays, fish for fasting days, and moreo’er puddings and flapjacks; and thou shalt be welcome,” was the Shakesperean motto of this frankly christened club. The pious founder of the club, in a finely printed booklet, declared that “it was deemed a requisite that your club should flourish under some rollicking epithet such as had not previously been ‘empounded’ by any other fraternity. The title should be terse; it should also be outrageous. It should smack of the caveau, and have the scent of the beeswing. Accordingly, many have been the creations that have in turn possessed the mind of your promoters. Fuddling clubs, gorging clubs, out Heroding Herod clubs—these comprised a whole hand of clubs, in which was not a single trump. Then did your promoters bethink themselves of that unctuous cognomen, ‘The Soakers.’ The title is a nudity.... The name of ‘The Soakers’ Club’ is selected only as conveying a sharp antithetical travestie upon our sober habits as moderate men.” This last statement is consolatory, for it would have been unpleasant if the club had come to the “Cheese” merely to make manifest their loyalty to their name. They were good fellows, and, though not quite antithetical to their designation did not allow it to run riot with their moderate tendencies. They dined at the “Cheese” regularly for years, but their numbers did not increase, owing probably to the frank brutality of their title, and the natural result was that they gradually dwindled away.

THE ST. DUNSTAN’S CLUB.

No wife, however shrewd, could object to her marital slave being a member of the St. Dunstan’s, while even the most angelic of ladies would scarcely like to see her lord flourishing as a leader among “The Soakers.” Therefore has the St. Dunstan’s flourished like a green bay tree for over a century. Its proud boast is that it has contributed more Common Councilmen and Aldermen (and consequently Lord Mayors) to the Corporation of the City of London than any other club in the Metropolis.

The St. Dunstan’s is pre-eminently a social club, neither party nor religion entering into its management. As may be expected, its members (now limited to twenty-eight) are leading men in their respective walks of life. The St Dunstan’s Club is called after the courageous English saint who, according to tradition, once pulled Satan by the nose with a pair of pincers. This episode in the life of the holy friar is represented on the insignia of the club. The club legend is that St. Dunstan shook the devil all round the boundaries of the parish, and then dropped him in the Temple, hence the origin of the name of the “Devil’s Own” applied to the legal profession, hence also the name of the “Devil” tavern, nearly opposite St. Dunstan’s Church, where the Apollo Club was presided over by Ben Jonson. Fleet Streeters can no longer “go to the Devil,” in the sense of going to any particular tavern, but anyone of respectability may be introduced to Child’s Bank, No. 1 Fleet Street, which stands on the Devil’s site. The bankers preserve in their parlour Jonson’s Latin rules set down for the guidance of the club.

It appears by the Minute Book that the St. Dunstan’s Club was first established at Anderton’s Coffee House on March 10, 1790, by the Rev. Joseph Williamson, the then Vicar of St. Dunstan’s, Mr. Nicholls, of St. Bride’s, Deputy of the South Side of the Ward of Farringdon Without, and some fifteen others, inhabitants of Fleet Street and its immediate vicinity. The club was limited to thirty members, whereof twenty-six were to be inhabitants of the parish, and four gentlemen resident in the ward. A chairman, treasurer, and secretary, were annually elected at the first meeting of the club in the month of October, and the toasts were fixed by resolution to be as follows:—

1st.—The King.

2nd.—The Queen, the Prince of Wales, and the rest of the Royal Family.

3rd.—Unanimity to this Parish.

4th.—Prosperity to the Ward.

5th.—The Absent Members.

At the first regular meeting of the club Mr. Brewer, of St. Sepulchre’s, who was the Deputy for the North Side of the Ward, was duly elected a member, and at a meeting held on October 17, 1792, the celebrated John Wilkes, Alderman of the Ward, was unanimously elected an honorary member. The subscription to the club was one guinea per annum, and the principal source of income appears to have been derived from wagers for bottles of wine amongst the members, the annual elections for Common Councilmen in the Ward always producing a good number of bets as to the position of the various members of the club at the declaration of the poll. Wagers were laid about every conceivable thing under the sun, as a few of the following examples will show:—

January 25, 1792.—“Mr. Whipham laid Mr. P. North a gallon of claret that 14 days from this date the 3 per Cent. Consols would be 95 per cent.” Mr. Whipham lost.

January 16, 1793.—“Mr. P. North lays Mr. Hounsom a bottle of wine that he (Mr. P. North) will be in bed before 2 o’clock the next morning (January 17), and Mr. Hounsom lays Mr. P. North that he has lost the above wager.”

June 12, 1793.—“Mr. P. North lays that Mr. Hounsom will not forget to pay Mr. Thorne the 2d. to-morrow in the course of the day which he (Mr. Thorne) had lent and advanced for him to pay the waiter 2d. for a Welsh rarebit which Mr. Hounsom had for his supper.”

January 19, 1793.—“Mr. Thorne reported that Mr. Hounsom had paid him the 2d. at half-past 9 o’clock in the morning.”

June 12, 1793.—“Mr. Lambe and Mr. Dep. Nicholls ‘1 bottle.’ Mr. Lambe lays that Mr. Dep. Nicholls knows Miss W——. Upon explanation Mr. Dep. Nicholls lost. Mr. Jones and Mr. J. North ‘1 bottle.’ Mr. Jones lays that neither Mr. Lambe nor Mr. Dep. Nicholls knows Miss W——. Mr. Jones lost. Mr. Dep. Nicholls requested that the club would permit him to pay a bottle for having termed Miss W—— Mr. Hounsom’s friend instead of neighbour. Ordered that it be granted. Mr. Lambe and Mr. J. North ‘a bottle.’ Mr. Lambe lays that he (Mr. Lambe) never ran away from a good thing. After some discussion it was decided that Mr. Lambe had lost the bet.”

In 1795 a great number of bets were made about the wearing of hair powder, and the wagering was so keen that counsel’s opinion was taken as to who had won the respective bets; the original opinion and decision of the counsel (Mr. George Bond, of Serjeants’ Inn) is attached to the Minute Book.

It was also the custom of the club to wager on the “first letter” of the King’s or Queen’s Speech after the words “My Lords and Gentlemen.” This naturally afforded great scope for speculation, which, it appears by the minutes, the members were accustomed to take full advantage of. When the funds of the club were low the following among other expedients was adopted:—

February 22, 1792.—“Resolved that any member of this club elected to any office of honour or emolument shall pay for the benefit of the club one bottle of port wine.”

April 8, 1795.—“Mr. Hounsom and Mr. Whipham ‘1 bottle.’ Mr. Hounsom lays that the Prince of Wales will not have issue within the space of 12 months. Mr. Fisher and Mr. Williams ‘1 bottle.’ Mr. Fisher lays that the Prince of Wales will have issue within the space of 12 months. Mr. Thorne and Mr. George ‘1 bottle.’ Mr. Thorne lays that the Princess of Wales will be delivered of a son or daughter within 12 calendar months.”

April 22, 1795.—“Rev. Mr. Williamson and Mr. Ustonson ‘1 bottle.’ Mr. Williamson lays that the Princess of Wales is not delivered of a son or daughter within 12 calendar months. Mr. Butterworth and Mr. Piggott ‘1 bottle.’ Mr. Butterworth lays that the Prince of Wales will not have issue within 12 months.”

THE LEGITIMIST CLUB.

Before leaving the subject of “Cheese” clubs one more of the many which have enjoyed on occasion the hospitality of the “Cheese” may be mentioned. Most people in this land, and presumably everybody in America, would consider this club somewhat belated. It has an idea that King Edward is a usurper, and that the rightful sovereign of these isles and of the empire is some foreign potentate whom even his own states disown. The following paragraph from the Daily Telegraph of March 25, 1895, will show that whatever we may think of the views of its members, the excellence of their taste in gastronomy cannot be called in question:—

“A few gentlemen are still left in this hasteful, bustling, and forgetful age who have time to remember that James I. ascended the throne of England on March 24, 1603. It is hardly necessary to add that they are members of the Thames Valley Legitimist Club, who spend their leisure in moaning over the extinguished glories of their country since the expulsion of James II. Taking advantage of the fact that yesterday was not only the anniversary of the date just given, but was also Mothering Sunday, when the rigidity of the Lenten fast is temporarily suspended, they dined together last evening in the Old Cheshire Cheese, and after doing justice to the famous Johnsonian puddings and other viands, amused themselves after their wont by inspecting a piece of the scaffold on which some unfortunate followers of the House of Stuart were executed. The health of the Queen was drunk, and it was incidentally mentioned as a fact not generally known that, with two exceptions, every sovereign in Europe was descended from the saintly mother of the monarch whose anniversary they were that day celebrating. The health of Charles VII. of Spain, whoever he may be, was duly honoured.”

Dr Johnson’s house in Gough Square (By permission of Messrs. Ingram Brothers, Proprietors of “The Sketch.”)