Who, nurs'd in clubs, disdains a vulgar trade:
Exults to trust, and blushes to be paid—'
built and opened the present club-house in St. James's Street, and thither the members of Almack's migrated. Brookes' speculative skill, however, did not make him a rich man, and the 'gentlemen' he dealt with were perhaps too gentlemanly to pay him. He died poor in 1782. Almack's at first consisted of twenty-seven members, one of whom was C.J. Fox. Gibbon, the historian, was actually a member of it, and says that in spite of the rage for play, he found the society there rational and entertaining. Sir Joshua Reynolds wanted to be a member of it too. 'You see,' says Topham Beauclerk thereupon, 'what noble ambition will make a man attempt. That den is not yet opened,' &c.
Brookes', however, was far more celebrated, and besides Fox, Reynolds, and Gibbon, there were here to be found Horace Walpole, David Hume, Burke, Selwyn, and Garrick. It would be curious to discover how much religion, how much morality, and how much vanity there were among the set. The first two would require a microscope to examine, the last an ocean to contain it. But let Tickell describe its inmates:—
'Soon as to Brookes's thence thy footsteps bend
What gratulations thy approach attend!
See Gibbon rap his box—auspicious sign,
That classic compliment and wit combine;
See Beauclerk's cheek a tinge of red surprise,
And friendship give what cruel health denies;