CHAPTER X
THE DILETTANTI—THE CLUB—COSMOPOLITAN —KIT-KAT—ROYAL SOCIETIES’—BURLINGTON FINE ARTS—ATHENÆUM—ALFRED
Of the many convivial dining clubs which once abounded in London few now survive, though the famous and venerable Dilettanti Society happily still flourishes. Its dinners are held at the Grafton Galleries, and certain quaint old usages are still maintained. A member who speaks of the Society as “the club” has to pay some petty fine, whilst the secretary when reading the minutes puts on bands. The presence of these somewhat ecclesiastical additions to costume in one of the beautiful portraits belonging to this club once caused the late Mr. Gladstone to take the picture for that of a Bishop—which aroused some merriment.
The Society was founded about 1734 by a number of gentlemen who had travelled much in Italy, and were desirous of encouraging at home a taste for those objects which had contributed so much to their intellectual gratification abroad. Accordingly they formed themselves into a Society, under the name of Dilettanti (literally, lovers of the fine arts), and agreed upon certain regulations to keep up the spirit of their scheme, which combined friendly and social intercourse with a serious and ardent desire to promote the arts. In 1751 Mr. James Stuart (“Athenian Stuart,” as he was called) and Mr. Nicholas Revett were elected members. The Society liberally assisted them in their excellent work, “The Antiquities of Athens.” In fact, it was in great measure owing to the Dilettanti that, after the death of the above two eminent architects, the work was not entirely relinquished, and a large number of the plates were engraved from drawings in possession of the Society. It was mainly through the influence and patronage of the Dilettanti Society that the Royal Academy obtained its charter. In 1774 the interest of £4,000 three per cents. was appropriated by the former for the purpose of sending two students, recommended by the Royal Academy, to study in Italy or Greece for three years.
In old days the funds of the Society were greatly increased by the fines. Those paid “on increase of income, by inheritance, legacy, marriage, or preferment,” were very odd—for instance, 5 guineas by Lord Grosvenor, on his marriage with Miss Leveson Gower; 11 guineas by the Duke of Bedford, on being appointed First Lord of the Admiralty; 10 guineas compounded for by Bubb Dodington, as Treasurer of the Navy; 2 guineas by the Duke of Kingston, for a colonelcy of Horse (then valued at £400 per annum); £21 by Lord Sandwich, on going out as Ambassador to the Congress at Aix-la-Chapelle, and 2¾d. by the same nobleman, on becoming Recorder of Huntingdon; 13s. 4d. by the Duke of Bedford, on getting the Garter, and 16s. 8d. (Scotch) by the Duke of Buccleuch, on getting the Thistle; £21 by the Earl of Holderness, as Secretary of State; and £9 19s. 6d. by Charles James Fox, as a Lord of the Admiralty.
The general toasts originally proposed and adopted by the Society were “Viva la Virtù” “Grecian Taste and Roman Spirit,” and “Absent Members.” To these was added, by a minute of March 7, 1741/2, “Esto præclara, esto perpetua.” On March 29, 1789, it was resolved to add the toast of “The King,” which was to precede all others. This addition was no doubt due to the outburst of loyalty which took place when the King resumed his authority, after his recovery from his first attack of insanity, on March 10 of the same year.
Walpole was very severe upon the Dilettanti. “The nominal qualification for membership,” said he, “is having been in Italy, and the real one, being drunk; the two chiefs are Lord Middlesex and Sir Francis Dashwood, who were seldom sober the whole time they were in Italy.” Were the owner of Strawberry Hill to attend a meeting of the Society at the present time, he would be surprised to observe the sobriety which now prevails.
In the distant past, some of the more juvenile members occasionally did behave in a riotous manner. On January 30, 1734, for instance, a party of young men, seven of whom (Harcourt, Middlesex, Boyne, Shirley, Strode, Denny, and Sir James Gray) were members of the Dilettanti, met to celebrate the birthday of one of the company present, by a dinner at the White Eagle Tavern in Suffolk Street. The disorder caused by their drunken revels attracted a crowd of people, who were led to believe that the dinner was held to commemorate the execution of Charles I. on that day, and that a calf’s head had been served at table by way of ridicule. A bonfire was lit, and on the diners appearing at the windows they were stoned by the mob, in spite of their protestations of fidelity to the Government and the King. It ended in a riot, stirred up by a Catholic priest, which the newspapers converted into an event of historical importance.
The Dilettanti Society has never lost sight of the main objects for which it was founded, and in 1855 a project was started for reproducing by some process of engraving the whole of the Society’s collection of portraits. Sir Richard Westmacott, R.A., communicated with Mr. George Scharf, jun. (afterwards Director of the National Portrait Gallery), and received from him an estimate of the cost of engraving on wood the thirty-one portraits in question. The cost, however, was probably the reason which deterred the Society from proceeding in the matter.
The Society once met at the Star and Garter Tavern in Pall Mall, but in 1800 transferred its meetings to a great room in the Thatched House Tavern in St. James’s Street.
The ceiling here was painted to represent the sky, and was crossed by gold cords interlacing one another, from the knots of which hung three large glass chandeliers.