Hook dined much at the Athenæum—often, it was said, “not wisely, but too well.” The name of his favourite spot in the dining-room—“Temperance Corner”—is still preserved. Here he used to call for toast-and-water and lemonade, which the waiters quite understood was his humorous way of indicating the various alcoholic beverages of which he was so fond. Hook loved to sit long over his meals, in which respect it is interesting to remember he was quite unlike Dickens, who often lunched standing, off sandwiches.
It was at the foot of the Athenæum staircase that the author of “Pickwick” ended his unfortunate estrangement from Thackeray, being intercepted by the latter and forced to shake hands.
Intellect rather than love of comfort formerly distinguished most members of the club, and for this reason, perhaps, the Athenæum has never been noted for its cooking. “Asiatic Sundays” was the name given to the Sabbaths, on which curry and rice always appeared on the bill of fare. Another Athenæum dinner was known for its marrow-bones and jam roly-poly puddings. Sir Edwin Landseer once denounced an Athenæum beefsteak in a terse manner: “They say there’s nothing like leather; this beefsteak is.” A boar’s head on the sideboard was described by a witty member as the head of a certain member who had at last met with the thoroughly deserved fate of decapitation.
Kinglake, the historian, lived almost entirely at the Athenæum, even when aged, infirm, and terribly deaf. People used to say that, when they talked to him, everybody in the room heard except Kinglake. Like many deaf men, he was given to shouting in people’s ears, and on one occasion was heard screaming to Thackeray at the top of his voice: “Come and sit down; I have something very private to tell you: no one must hear it but you.” Another distinguished soldier, equally deaf, used to select the smoking-room of his club for confidential conversations with members of his staff, putting momentous questions and receiving answers which were given in such a loud tone that everyone heard his official secrets.
The Athenæum has never been very favourable to the stage. Some of the great actors of the past, however, belonged to it, notably Sir Henry Irving, who was a most popular member.
Other actor members were Charles Mathews the elder, Macready, Charles Mayne Young, Charles Kemble, Charles Kean, and Daniel Terry.
Considering the partiality of literary men for tobacco, it seems curious that the only smoking-room in this club used to be in the basement. To supply a pressing need, an upper floor was a short time ago constructed at the top of the building; and smokers can now be conveyed by a lift, put in at the time of the alterations in 1900.
Membership of the Athenæum would seem to favour a man’s chances of living to a green old age, and certain members have belonged to the club for an extraordinary number of years. Mr. Lettsom Elliot, for instance, who died in 1898, had been a member since 1824, when he was elected at the first committee meeting of the club. Mr. Elliot had kept a copy of the first list of members, and in 1882 he had a reprint of this produced, which forms a record of considerable interest. On this committee were Chantrey, the sculptor; John Wilson Croker; Sir Humphry Davy; Sir Thomas Lawrence; Sir James Mackintosh; Tom Moore, the poet; Sir Walter Scott; together with some others. Amongst distinguished ordinary members have been Benjamin Brodie; Mark Isambard Brunel, the engineer; Dibdin; Isaac Disraeli; Lord Ellenborough; Michael Faraday; John Franklin; Henry Hallam; James Morier, the diplomatist, and author of “Haji Baba”; Samuel Rogers; Sir John Soane, who bequeathed to the nation the Soane Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields; Joseph Turner; Charles Kemble; Charles Mathews the elder; Westall, the artist; David Wilkie; Henry Holland; Blanco White, a friend of Coleridge’s; Whately; Newman; Jekyll, the wit; John Stuart Mill; and Herbert Spencer.
The last-named was fond of playing billiards in the club, where he is said to have made the famous remark to a very skilful antagonist: “Though a certain proficiency at this game is to be desired, the skill you have shown seems to argue a misspent youth.”
A club which somewhat resembled the present Athenæum in character was the Alfred, founded in 1808 for men of letters, travellers, and the like. It was first started at a house in Albemarle Street, when it appears to have been a very solemn institution. A member, indeed, not in sympathy with its tone, called it the “dullest place in the world, where bores prevailed to the exclusion of every other interest, and one heard nothing but idle reports and twaddling opinions. It is,” said he, “the asylum of doting Tories and drivelling quidnuncs.”