These eminent physicians sat and prescribed for the maladies of their mates, Chapter punch; ‘If one won’t do, call for a second.’ But clubs, whatever they may have been, are anything but unfavourable to temperance now. The worst that can be honestly thought of them is—that they may minister to selfishness.
Thus are clubs an exception to the usual tendency of the moral law of gravitation—downwards. What is there in common, save the name, between the Athenæum of to-day, and the Roxburghe of the beginning of the century?
The entertainments of the latter have found their way into print under the title ‘Roxburghe Revels; or, An Account of the Annual Display, culinary and festivous, interspersed incidentally with matters of Moment or Merryment.’[225]
George III. was an example of moderation. One of his biographers, Edward Holt, observes:—
Exercise, air, and little diet were the grand fundamentals in the King’s idea of health and sprightliness: his Majesty fed chiefly on vegetables and drank little wine. The Queen was what many private gentlewomen styled whimsically abstemious.
The story is told that at Worcester, the mayor, knowing that the King never took drink before dinner, asked him if he would be pleased to take a jelly, when the King replied: ‘I do not recollect drinking a glass of wine before dinner in my life, yet upon this pleasing occasion I will venture.’ A glass of rich old Mountain was served, when his Majesty immediately drank ‘Prosperity to the Corporation and Citizens of Worcester.’ This occurred in the twenty-eighth year of the King’s reign (1788). The rigid rule was still observed by his Majesty, as we learn from an incident which occurred twelve years later. One morning, when visiting as usual his stables, the King heard the following conversation between the grooms: ‘I don’t care what you say, Robert, but every one agrees that the man at the Three Tuns makes the best purl in Windsor.’ ‘Purl, purl!’ said the King, quickly. ‘Robert, what’s purl?’ This was explained to be warm beer with a glass of gin, &c. His Majesty listened attentively, and turning round, said: ‘I dare say, very good drink, but too strong for the morning; never drink in a morning.’
In the description of the King’s visit to Whitbread’s brewery, we learn incidentally the large scale on which even then the wholesale trade was conducted—e.g. in the great store were three thousand and seven barrels of beer. The stone cistern, into which he entered, held four thousand barrels of beer. The royal party were offered some of Whitbread’s entire.
The King drank and responded to toasts. Thus, at a dinner of The Knights, we read that towards the end of the first course, a large gilt cup was brought to the Sovereign by the cupbearer. The King drank to the knights, who, being at his Majesty’s command, informed of the same by Garter, stood up uncovered, pledged the King, and then sat down.
At the jubilee, the commemoration of the fiftieth year of the King’s reign, the mayor at the banquet gave ‘The King, God bless him, and long may he reign over a free and united people,’ which was drunk with three times three.
The general habits of the time formed a striking contrast to the personal example of the King. In the recently issued elaborate Life of George IV., by Percy Fitzgerald, we get a picture into the social manners and customs prevailing about 1787:—