Let him live till he's hanged,
For which no man will care.'
OF CERTAIN CLUBS AND CLUB-WITS UNDER ANNE.
The Origin of Clubs.—The Establishment of Coffee-houses.—The October Club.—The Beef-steak Club.—Of certain other Clubs.—The Kit-kat Club.—The Romance of the Bowl.—The Toasts of the Kit-kat.—The Members of the Kit-kat.—A good Wit, and a bad Architect.—'Well-natured Garth.'—The Poets of the Kit-kat.—Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax.—Chancellor Somers.—Charles Sackville, Lord Dorset.—Less celebrated Wits.
I suppose that, long before the building of Babel, man discovered that he was an associative animal, with the universal motto, 'L'union c'est la force;' and that association, to be of any use, requires talk. A history of celebrated associations, from the building society just mentioned down to the thousands which are represented by an office, a secretary, and a brass-plate, in the present day, would give a curious scheme of the natural tendencies of man; while the story of their failures—and how many have not failed, sooner or later!—would be a pretty moral lesson to your anthropolaters who Babelize now-a-days, and believe there is nothing which a company with capital cannot achieve. I wonder what object there is, that two men can possibly agree in desiring, and which it takes more than one to attain, for which an association of some kind has not been formed at some time or other, since first the swarthy savage learned that it was necessary to unite to kill the lion which infested the neighbourhood! Alack for human nature! I fear by far the larger proportion of the objects of associations would be found rather evil than good, and, certes, nearly all of them might be ranged under two heads, according as the passions of hate or desire found a common object in several hearts. Gain on the one hand—destruction on the other—have been the chief motives of clubbing in all time.
A delightful exception is to be found, though—to wit, in associations for the purpose of talking. I do not refer to parliaments and philosophical academies, but to those companies which have been formed for the sole purpose of mutual entertainment by interchange of thought.
Now, will any kind reader oblige me with a derivation of the word 'Club?' I doubt if it is easy to discover. But one thing is certain, whatever its origin, it is, in its present sense, purely English in idea and in existence. Dean Trench points this out, and, noting the fact that no other nation (he might have excepted the Chinese) has any word to express this kind of association, he has, with very pardonable natural pride, but unpardonably bad logic, inferred that the English are the most sociable people in the world. The contrary is true; nay, was true, even in the days of Addison, Swift, Steele—even in the days of Johnson, Walpole, Selwyn; ay, at all time since we have been a nation. The fact is, we are not the most sociable, but the most associative race; and the establishment of clubs is a proof of it. We cannot, and never could, talk freely, comfortably, and generally, without a company for talking. Conversation has always been with us as much a business as railroad-making, or what not. It has always demanded certain accessories, certain condiments, certain stimulants to work it up to the proper pitch. 'We all know' we are the cleverest and wittiest people under the sun; but then our wit has been stereotyped. France has no 'Joe Miller;' for a bon-mot there, however good, is only appreciated historically. Our wit is printed, not spoken; our best wits behind an inkhorn have sometimes been the veriest logs in society. On the Continent clubs were not called for, because society itself was the arena of conversation. In this country, on the other hand, a man could only chat when at his ease; could only be at his ease among those who agreed with him on the main points of religion and politics, and even then wanted the aid of a bottle to make him comfortable. Our want of sociability was the cause of our clubbing, and therefore the word 'club' is purely English.
This was never so much the case as after the Restoration. Religion and politics never ran higher than when a monarch, who is said to have died a papist because he had no religion at all during his life, was brought back to supplant a furious puritanical Protectorate. Then, indeed, it was difficult for men of opposite parties to meet without bickering; and society demanded separate meeting-places for those who differed. The origin of clubs in this country is to be traced to two causes—the vehemence of religious and political partisanship, and the establishment of coffee-houses. These certainly gave the first idea of clubbery. The taverns which preceded them had given the English a zest for public life in a small way. 'The Mermaid' was, virtually, a club of wits long before the first real club was opened, and, like the clubs of the eighteenth century, it had its presiding geniuses in Shakespeare and Rare Ben.