That, bred to the dance, she is gone to a Ball.”
The honeymoon was spent at Oatlands, purchased from the Duke of York. It was thought to be a foolish investment; but when Hughes fell upon evil days he was able to sell the estate for a large sum, as the new railway skirted it, and speculative builders were anxious to acquire the land, and so some of his old prosperity returned. There was Lord Fife, an intimate friend of the Regent’s, who spent forty thousand pounds on Mademoiselle Noblet the dancer. A chapter would not suffice for an account of the vicious and foolish habits of these men.
The clubs were then a far more important feature in social life than they are to-day. They were accessible only to those who were in society, which in those days was exclusive, and consisted of a comparatively small body in which everyone knew everyone else, if not personally, at least by name. There were then no clubs for professional men save those of the first rank, or for merchants, or for the hoi polloi.
In more or less direct rivalry with the clubs were some of the hotels, and men such as Wellington, Nelson, Collingwood and Sir John Moore used them as a meeting-place—at the beginning of the eighteenth century about fifteen in number, not including, of course, the large coaching inns, coffee, eating, and the à la mode beef houses, most of which had beds for customers. First and foremost of these, kept by a French chef, Jacquiers, who had served Louis XVIII. and Lord Darnley, was the Clarendon, built upon a portion of the gardens of Clarendon House, between Bond Street and Albemarle Street, in each of which the hotel had a frontage. This was the only place in England where a French dinner was served that was worthy of mention in the same breath with those obtainable in Paris at the Maison Doré or Rocher de Cancalle’s. The prices were very high. Dinner cost three or four pounds a head, and a bottle of claret or champagne was not obtainable under a guinea. A suite of apartments was reserved for banquets, and it was in these that the famous dinner, ordered by Count D’Orsay, was given to Lord Chesterfield when he resigned the office of Master of the Buckhounds. Covers were laid for thirty, and the bill, exclusive of wine, came to one hundred and eighty guineas.
Limmer’s was another well-known hotel, the resort of the sporting world and of rich country squires. It was gloomy and ill-kept, but renowned for its plain English cooking and world-famous for gin-punch. The clergy went to Ibbetson’s, naval men to Fladong’s in Oxford Street, and army officers and men about town to Stephen’s in Bond Street. Most of these hostelries had their regular frequenters, and strangers were not, as a rule, encouraged to use them as a house of call.
Clubs were few in number. There was “The Club” of Johnson; the Cocoa-Tree, which arose out of the Tory Chocolate House of Anne’s reign; the Royal Naval Club, a favourite haunt of the Duke of Clarence; and the Eccentrics, which numbered among its members such well-known men as Fox, Sheridan, Lord Petersham, Brougham, Lord Melbourne, and Theodore Hook. Graham’s was second rate; nor was Arthur’s in the first flight. When Arthur died, his son-in-law, Mackreth, became the proprietor. He prospered, became a member of Parliament in 1774, and was afterwards knighted. His name is preserved in a very good epigram:
“When Mackreth served in Arthur’s crew,
He said to Rumbold, ‘Black my shoe’;
To which he answered, ‘Ay, Bob.’