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'"Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague!"' said Bannister, when Foote bantered Smith on the subject. The latter was not proof against the sally, and acknowledged the marriage. 'Well,' said Bannister, 'I rejoice that you have got a Sandwich from the family; but if ever you get a dinner from them, I'll be hanged.' The prophecy proved true.

Michael Kelly was an English opera-singer, a musical composer, and at one time Sheridan's manager at Drury Lane. He then went into the wine trade, when Sheridan advised him to put over his door: 'Michael Kelly, composer of wine, and importer of music.'

When I was a little boy I drew most of my notions of life and mankind from the picture-books for my use and instruction. I thought that Kings and Queens wore their crowns and sceptres all day long, and took them to bed with them, for I had thus seen them in the pictures in the books. One engraving, I remember, I saw of a severe-looking gentleman, who had thrown a gray doormat over his head, and sat behind a little desk everlastingly writing away with an enormous quill pen. It was this quill pen which specially riveted my attention. I was always given a steel pen in my writing-lessons. Why not a quill? I asked my mother who the man was, and was told he was a judge, and that what I took for a door-mat was a wig which he wore to look dignified, and the great weight of which was, moreover, intended to prevent his great legal learning from evaporating through the pores of his skull, which was bald, but compelled it to come out through his mouth only.

He used a quill pen to take notes of what was said by the parties contending before him, because that, being a natural production, could not possibly tell lies, whereas a steel pen, as an artificial contrivance, could not be depended on for veracity; wherefore, in all law proceedings, even at the lowest police court, quill pens only could be used, for the law on morality and public policy grounds strongly objects to lies; it is itself so truthful! Of course, I believed all my mother told me; children are so easy of belief if you only look serious when you tell them crammers. But I know better now, and crowns no longer represent to me sovereignty, nor wigs wisdom. Of another delusion, too, I have been cured. When I was a young man I was told that English law was the perfection of human wisdom. I believed this then, for I was only a bigger child without experience. But when I arrived at years of discretion--that is, when I began to observe and reflect--I could come to no other conclusion than that the axiom of the law's wisdom was a delusion. There are many ways of proving this, but one argument presents itself, which renders all further proofs unnecessary. Can a code which comprises a number of laws, the interpretation of whose import is liable to be declared by one judge to mean 'Yes,' whilst another as positively maintains it means 'No,' be called the perfection of human wisdom? The ever-growing frequency of appeals alone is sufficient to show that the existing laws are ambiguous in expression, and lend themselves to the idiosyncrasies of every individual judge, which is very far from perfection. Laws should be as precise in their definitions as mathematical formulae. To substantiate my reasoning, let me quote an actual case: Some twelve or thirteen years ago, the captain of a cargo steamer belonging to a London firm, while loading maize at Odessa, signed bills of lading which were ante-dated. Between the false date and the real one, a few days after, of loading, there was a considerable fall in the price of maize, and the consignees, who were the sufferers by it, brought an action against the owners of the steamer, they--the consignees--having discovered the ante-dating, and recovered ?437 damages, which the shipowners paid. On the captain's return to England, he made a claim of ?190 for wages, which claim was admitted by the firm, but they set up a counter-claim for the damages they had had to pay to the consignees, through the captain's negligence and breach of duty in signing the ante-dated bills. The case went to trial before Mr. Justice Field and a jury, and was decided in the captain's favour, both as to his wages and the counter-claim. The owners appealed, and the Divisional Court, consisting of Grove, Denman, and Wills, ordered the judgment to be set aside, and a new trial granted. The Appeal Court ordered the original judgment in favour of the captain to be restored. The owners then took the cause into the House of Lords, where Lords Watson, Blackburn, and Fitzgerald restored the order of the Divisional Court in favour of the owners, with all the costs they had incurred. Now, here was a case of breach of duty as plain as it could be, yet it took four trials, the costs amounting to about ?4,000, to decide the question. This is but one of a hundred similar cases which might be cited. With what wisdom can laws be framed which can give rise to so many judicial contradictory decisions? And the fault of this lies not with the judges, but with the legislators, whose only wisdom seems to consist in surrounding plain matter-of-fact with a network of sophistry, chicanery, and hair-splitting subtleties--a system which is constantly regretted by the judges themselves, who are ever ready to warn the public against indulgence in litigation, for English judges, as a rule, are straightforward, honourable men, who are inclined to take common-sense and impartial views, except when a political or theological bias gives a twist to their judgment. Nor can it be left out of our consideration that men educated in the legal schools of the Inns of Court, and by teachers strongly impressed with the dignity and importance of their pursuit, should adhere to it with cast-iron rigidity, thus opposing, as much as possible, the introduction of new, and in their estimation, revolutionary and destructive opinions. It is due to this adherence to, and maintenance of, the principles of a barbarous and an arbitrary regime that the judges still possess the tremendous power of committing for contempt of court any person who may make a remark displeasing to them, however innocently that remark may have been made. Years ago I defended an action brought against me by a tradesman for certain goods he alleged he had supplied me with. The action was tried in a County Court. The plaintiff made his statement, which introduced several particulars which were as new to me as they were false. But my solicitor whom I had brought with me could not know they were so. I turned towards the judge, and stated that I could prove in two minutes that there was not a word of truth in the plaintiff's statements. But the judge turned quite savagely towards me, saying:

'You must not speak to me. You have your solicitor here.'

'But,' I replied, 'my solicitor cannot know that these assertions are false!'

'Be silent!' thundered the judge. 'If you say another word I shall commit you for contempt.'

Of course I said no more, but, like the parrot, thought a lot. I knew that a judge, a mere County Court judge, who passes his life amidst the most sordid and depressing scenes of wretchedness, had the power of sending me to prison, and to keep me there till I made the most abject apology for a speech which was never intended to be offensive. Persons have been kept in prison for twenty years by the mere order of a judge, who was plaintiff, jury, and judge in every such case. This is scarcely in accordance with our ideas of justice. But this relic of a barbarous age will be abolished in time, as the Courts of Doctors' Commons, or the Palace Court, where a number of sleepy old gentlemen

'Were sittin' at their ease, A-sendin' of their writs about, And drorin' in their fees,'

In 1785 Lord Thurlow purchased Brockwell Green Farm, and other lands in the neighbourhood of Dulwich and Norwood, and chose Knight's Hill as a suitable site for a house. The house was finished, but Lord Thurlow considered it too dear--it is said to have cost ?30,000--and would never live in it, but remained in a smaller house, called Knight's Hill Farm. As he was coming from the Queen's Drawing-room, a lady asked him when he was going into his new house. 'Madam,' he replied, 'the Queen has just asked me that impudent question, and, as I would not tell her, I will not tell you.' Both the mansion and the farmhouse disappeared long ago.

The romantic marriage of Lord Eldon, then plain Mr. John Scott, of the Northern Circuit, forms a pleasant episode in legal history. Bessie Surtees was the daughter of Aubone Surtees, a banker and gentleman of honourable descent at Newcastle. Scott had met and danced with her at the assemblies in that town, and his pretensions were at first favoured by her family; but Sir William Blackett, a patrician but aged suitor, presenting himself, Bessie was urged to throw over Scott and become Lady Blackett. But Bessie was faithful, and one night descended from a window into her lover's arms, and they were married at Blackshiels, North Britain. The future Lord Eldon came to London with his young and pretty wife, and settled in a humble, small house in Cursitor Street. Their housekeeping at first must have been on a somewhat restricted scale, for Lord Eldon, in after-life, used to relate that, in those days, he frequently ran into Clare Market for sixpennyworth of sprats. It was probably owing to these privations in the early days of their married life that her husband had afterwards to complain of her stinginess and her repugnance to society. In fact, she seems to have ruled him rather sternly, for we read of his often stealing into the George Coffee House, at the top of the Haymarket, to get a pint of wine, as Lady Eldon did not permit him to enjoy it in peace at home. Cyrus Redding, who tells us this, did not like Eldon either as a Tory or as a man. 'His words,' he writes, 'were no index to his real feelings. He had a sterile soul for all things earthly, except money, doubts, and the art of drawing briefs.'

Lord Eldon's brother, Sir William Scott, had a strange matrimonial experience. His brother eloped with a man's daughter, and thus entered the wedded state somewhat illegally. Sir William may be said to have entered it, in the true sense of the word, legally--that is, as a result of his legal status. He and Lord Ellenborough presided at the Old Bailey at the trial of the young Marquis of Sligo for having, while in the Mediterranean, lured into his yacht two of the King's sailors, for which offence he was fined ?5,000, and sentenced to four months' imprisonment in Newgate. Throughout the trial his mother sat in the court, hoping that her presence would rouse in the bench or the jury feelings favourable to her son. When the above sentence was pronounced, Sir William accompanied it by a long moral jobation on the duties of a citizen. The Marchioness sent a paper full of satirical thanks to Sir William for his good advice to her son. Sir William read it as he sat on the bench, and, having looked towards the lady, received from her a glance and a smile which sealed his fate. Within four months he was tied fast to a voluble, shrill termagant, who rendered him miserable and contemptible. He removed to his wife's house in Grafton Street, and, ever economical in his domestic expenses, brought with him his own door-plate from Doctor's Commons, and placed it under the pre-existing plate of Lady Sligo. Jekyll, the punster of the day, condoled with Sir William at having to 'knock under.' Sir William had the plates transposed.

'You see, I don't knock under now,' he said to Jekyll.

'Not now,' replied the punster; 'now you knock up.'

This was said with reference to his advanced age.

Lord Erskine, another famous judge, when dining one day at the house of Sir Ralph Payne, afterwards Lord Lavington, found himself so indisposed as to be obliged to retire after dinner to another room. When he returned to the company, Lady Payne asked how he found himself. Erskine took out a piece of paper and wrote on it:

''Tis true I am ill, but I cannot complain, For he never knew pleasure who never knew Payne.'

After he had ceased to hold the Seals as Lord Chancellor--and the time he held the office was one year only--he met Captain Parry at dinner, and asked him what he and his crew lived on in the Frozen Sea. Parry replied that they lived on seals. 'And capital things too, seals are, if you only keep them long enough,' was Erskine's reply. Being invited to attend the Ministerial fish dinner at Greenwich when he was Chancellor, 'To be sure,' he answered; 'what would your dinner be without the Great Seal?' When Erskine lived at Hampstead he was asked at a dinner-party he attended, 'The soil is not the best in that part of Hampstead where your seat is?' 'No,' he answered, 'very bad; for though my grandfather was buried there as an Earl near a hundred years ago, what has sprouted from it since but a mere Baron?' Erskine married when very young, and had four sons and four daughters. When a widower and getting old he married a second time, and his latter days were passed in a state bordering on indigence. He died in 1823, in poverty. On July 17, 1826, a woman, poorly dressed, was brought before the Lord Mayor by a chimney-sweep as a person deserving assistance. The woman, being interrogated, declared herself to be Lady Erskine. The Lord Mayor conducted her into his private room, where he heard her sad story. She had lived with Lord Erskine several years before he married her, which he did in Scotland, whereby their children were legitimatized. His death left her destitute, though she had been promised a pension from Government of twelve shillings a week, which had been paid very irregularly, and finally withdrawn altogether, because she would not be parted from her youngest child. The others had been taken care of by Government. She had for years endeavoured to maintain herself by female labour, but now she was totally destitute and actually starving. The Lord Mayor liberally supplied her present wants, and promised to intercede for her with Government, with what result we have been unable to ascertain. It was Mr. H. Erskine, brother of Lord Erskine, who, after being presented to Dr. Johnson by Boswell, slipped a shilling into the latter's hand, whispering that it was for showing him his bear. Erskine could mould a jury at his pleasure, yet in Parliament he was not successful as an orator. But when pleading he was always ready with repartee. Once, when insisting on the validity of an argument before Lord Mansfield, the latter said: 'I disproved it before you were born!' 'Yes, my Lord,' replied Erskine, 'because I was not born.' Lord Erskine owned that the most discreditable passage in his life was his becoming Lord Chancellor. Some other judges seem to have had no faith in their own works. Lord Campbell was seated one day next to Chief Baron Pollock, when they were both Members of the House of Commons, and said: 'Pollock, we lawyers receive the highest wages of an infamous profession.'

Sir Nicholas Bacon was so learned in the law that he was appointed attorney in the Court of Wards, and made a Privy Councillor and Keeper of the Great Seal under Elizabeth. When the Queen visited him at Redgrave, she observed, alluding to his corpulence, that he had built the house too little for himself. 'Not so, madam,' he answered; 'but your Majesty has made me too big for my house.' A man was brought before Sir Nicholas accused of a crime which, under the Draconian laws then in force, involved the penalty of death. He was found guilty, and, asked whether he had anything to say for himself, appealed to the judge's compassion, seeing that he was a kind of relation to him, his name being Hogg. 'True,' replied Bacon; 'but Hog is not Bacon till it's hung.' And hung, or hanged, to speak correctly, he was, and thus did not save his bacon. But the jest was a cruel one.

Moll Davies was another of the King's favourites, and he is said to have fallen in love with her through her singing 'My Lodging is on the Cold Ground' in 'The Rivals,' a play altered by Davenant from Beaumont and Fletcher's 'The Two Noble Kinsmen.' Pepys frequently mentions her as a rival to Nell Gwynne. She had one daughter by Charles, who was christened Mary Tudor, and was married in 1687 to the son of Sir Francis Ratcliff, who became Earl of Derwentwater. When the King grew tired of her he settled a pension on her of ?1,000 a year. It was as a descendant of this Earl that the lady who called herself Amelia, Countess of Derwentwater, in 1868 took possession of the old baronial castle of Devilstone, or Dilston, claiming it and the estates belonging thereto, but then and now vested in Greenwich Hospital, as hers. But the Lords of the Admiralty, in 1870, defeated her claim, and she disappeared from public view.

The life of an actress had many ups and downs--as it has now--in former days. There was the eccentric Charlotte Charke, daughter of Colley Cibber, who for some mysterious reason for many years went in male attire, and who acted on the stage if she could get employment. There was then in Bear Yard, Clare Market, a theatre, occasionally used as a tennis-court and as an auction-room. 'Thither,' she says in her Memoirs, 'I adventured to see if there was any character wanting--a custom very frequent among the gentry who exhibited in that slaughter-house of dramatic poetry. One night, I remember, the "Recruiting Officer" was to be performed.... To my unbounded joy Captain Plume was so unfortunate that he came at five o'clock to say that he did not know a word of his part.... The question being put to me, I immediately replied that I could do such a thing, but was ... resolved to stand upon terms ... one guinea paid in advance, which terms were complied with.'

Another both fortunate and unfortunate actress was Mrs. Montford, whose husband was murdered as he had come to escort Mrs. Bracegirdle, after Captain Hill's attempt at abducting this lady, on her leaving the theatre, of which more hereafter. On Mrs. Montford, or Mountfort--the name is found spelt both ways--Gray wrote his ballad of 'Black-eyed Susan.' Lord Berkeley's partiality for her was so great that at his decease he left her ?300 a year, on condition that she did not marry; he also purchased Cowley, near Uxbridge, for her--the place had been the summer residence of Rich, the actor--and from time to time made her presents of considerable sums. She fell in love with a Mr. Booth, a then well-known actor, but, not wishing to lose her annuity, she did not marry him, though she gave him the preference over many others of her suitors. Mrs. Montford had an intimate friend, Miss Santlow, a celebrated dancer; but, through the liberality of one of her admirers, she became possessed of a fortune, which rendered her independent of the stage, upon which Mr. Booth proposed to her, and was accepted. This so affected Mrs. Montford that she became mentally deranged, and was brought from Cowley to London to have the best advice. As she was not violent and had lucid moments, she was not rigorously confined, but suffered to go about the house. One day she asked her attendant what play was to be performed that evening, and was told it was 'Hamlet.' In this piece, whilst she was on the stage, she had always appeared as Ophelia. The recollection struck her, and with the cunning always allied with insanity, she found means to elude the watchfulness of her servants, and to reach the theatre, where she concealed herself till the time when Ophelia was to appear, when she rushed on the stage, pushing the lady who was to act the character aside, and exhibited a more perfect representation of madness than the most consummate mimic art could produce. She was, in truth, Ophelia herself, the very incarnation of madness. Nature having made this last effort, her vital powers failed her. On going off, she prophetically exclaimed: 'It is all over!' As she was being conveyed home, 'she,' in Gray's words, 'like a lily drooping, bowed her head and died.'

Lovely Nancy Oldfield, who quitted the bar of the Mitre, in St. James's Market, then kept by her aunt, Mrs. Voss, became, towards the end of the seventeenth century, the great attraction at Drury Lane. Her intimacy with General Churchill, cousin of the great Duke of Marlborough, obtained for her a grave in Westminster Abbey. Persons of rank and distinction contended for the honour of bearing her pall, and her remains lay in state for three days in the Jerusalem Chamber!

We referred above to the attempt made by Captain Hill to carry off Mrs. Bracegirdle. Hill had offered her his hand and had been refused. He determined to abduct her by force. He induced his friend Lord Mahun to assist him. A coach was stationed near the Horseshoe Tavern in Drury Lane, with six soldiers to force her into it, which they attempted to do as she came down Drury Lane about ten o'clock at night, accompanied by her mother and brother, and a friend, Mr. Page. The attempt was resisted, a crowd collected, and Hill ordered the soldiers to let the lady go, and she was escorted home by her friends. She then sent for her friend Mr. Montford, who soon after turned the corner of Norfolk Street, where Hill challenged him, as he attributed Mrs. Bracegirdle's rejection of him to her love for Montford, which suspicion, however, was groundless, and ran him through the body before he could draw his sword. Hill made his escape; Montford died from his wounds.

Even in more recent days actresses have made good matches. Miss Anna Maria Tree, of Covent Garden, in 1825 married James Bradshaw, of Grosvenor Place; in 1831, Miss Foote, the celebrated actress, became Countess of Harrington; Miss Farren, Countess of Derby; Miss Brunton, Countess of Craven; Miss Bolton became Lady Thurlow; Miss O'Neill married a baronet; Miss Kitty Stephens became Countess of Essex; Miss Campion was taken off the stage by the aged Duke of Devonshire. The list might be greatly extended, even to our own times; but the instances quoted are sufficient to show the prizes ladies may draw in the theatrical matrimonial lottery; and there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it.

The Virtuoso Club was established by some members of the Royal Society, and held its meetings at a tavern in Cornhill. Its professed object was to 'advance mechanical exercises, and promote useful experiments'; but, according to Ned Ward, their discussions usually ended in a general shindy, and results not to be described by a modern writer. The club claimed the merit of the invention of the barometer; but, for all that, its proceedings afforded fine sport to the satirists: thus, the members were said to aim at making beer without water, living like princes on three-halfpence a day, producing a table by which a husband may discover all the particulars of the tricks his wife may play him. The ridicule showered on the club at last reduced it to a little cynical cabal of half-pint moralists, who continued to meet at the same tavern. Convivially-disposed members of other learned societies have occasionally formed themselves into clubs. Thus some antiquaries, many years since, formed a club styled 'Noviomagians.' Mr. Crofton Croker was its president more than twenty years, and many other distinguished men were members.

A number of roistering companions used to hold a club at the Golden Fleece in Cornhill, after which they named their club. Each member on his admission had a characteristic name assigned to him--as Sir Nimmy Sneer, Sir Talkative Do-little, Sir Rumbus Rattle. They eventually adjourned to the Three Tuns, Southwark.

The No-Nose Club, whether it ever existed or not, was a horrible idea in itself; it flourished only during the lifetime of its founders.

The Club of Beaus was what its name implies--a club of fops and idiots. The only merit they seem to have had was that their habits were always scrupulously clean, though their language usually was filthy. Their meetings were held at an inn in Covent Garden.

The Quacks' Club, or Physical Society, was really an offshoot of the College of Physicians, which met at a tavern near the Exchange, where they discussed medical matters. The College of Physicians at that time was in Warwick Lane, where it remained till removed, in 1825, to Trafalgar Square.

The Weekly Dancing Club, or Buttock Ball, was held at a tavern in King Street, St. Giles, and was patronized by bullies, libertines, and strumpets; footmen who had robbed their masters and turned gentlemen; chambermaids who had stolen their mistresses' clothes and set up for gentlewomen. Though called a club, it was not really a close assembly, but everyone was admitted on the payment of sixpence, and no questions asked. The Dancing Academy was first established about the year 1710 by a dancing-master over the Coal Yard gateway into Drury Lane, and was so successful that it was removed to the more commodious premises mentioned above. But at last it became such a nuisance that the authorities shut it up. The Coal Yard above mentioned, the last turning on the north-east side of Drury Lane, is said to have been the birthplace of Nell Gwynne.

A club cultivating a certain filthy habit, which I can only indicate as one practised by the French peasantry, and as described in one of Zola's novels, was established at a public-house in Cripplegate. The manner in which the proceedings of the club are set forth by their chronicler is as hideous and repulsive as the writer can make it; it could not be reproduced in any modern publication without risk of prosecution, which, indeed, would be well deserved. But the manners of the eighteenth century were excessively coarse.

The Surly Club was chiefly composed of master carmen, lightermen, and Billingsgate porters, who held their weekly meetings at a tavern near Billingsgate Dock, where City dames used to treat their journeymen with beakers of punch and new oysters. The object of their meetings was the practice of contradiction and of foul language, that they might not want impudence to abuse passengers on the Thames. This society first established the thumping-post at Billingsgate, to harden its members by whipping never to bridle their tongues from fear of corporeal punishment. Billingsgate language was, as may be supposed, much improved by them.

The Atheistical Club met at an inn in Westminster, and its name sufficiently indicates its object, namely, to take the devil's part. A trick was played on them by a man disguising himself in a bear's skin and making them believe he was the devil, which occurrence, it is said, broke up the club. Similar societies were discovered in Wells Street, and at the Angel, in St. Martin's Lane, and the members arrested; but, it turning out that in these cases the devil was less black than he was painted, the charges against them had to be withdrawn. The societies, in fact, were more political, with republican tendencies, inspired by the French Revolution, which was just then at its height, and the worship of Reason seems to have been one of their principles.

The Split-farthing Club held its weekly meetings at the Queen's Head in Bishopsgate Street, and was supposed to be composed chiefly of misers and skinflints. If any smoker among them left his box behind him, and wanted to borrow a pipe of tobacco of a brother, it would not be lent without a note of hand, which was generally written round the bowl of a pipe so as to prevent the waste of paper.

The Club of Broken Shopkeepers held its meetings at the sign of Tumble-Down Dick, a famous boozing den in the Mint in Southwark, a sanctuary of knaves, sots, and bankrupts, honest or swindling, against arrest for debt. The sign of Tumble-Down Dick was set up in derision of Richard Cromwell, the allusion to his fall from power, or 'tumble-down,' being very common in the satires published after the Restoration. There was a house with the same sign at Brentford. Of course, the professed object of the meetings of the broken shopkeepers was that of driving away and forgetting care; and any new-comer among them, if he had any cash left, was liberally allowed to expend it for the furtherance of the club's object.

The Man-Hunting Club was composed chiefly of young limbs of the law; uncultivated youths, though they were law students, formed themselves into an association to hunt men over Lincoln's Inn Fields and the neighbourhood whom they might happen to meet crossing them at ten or eleven o'clock at night. They would be concealed upon the grass in one of the borders of the fields till they heard some single person coming along, when they would spring up with their swords drawn, run towards him, and cry: 'That's he; bloody wounds, that's he!' Usually the person so attacked would run away, when they would pursue him till he took refuge in an alehouse in some neighbouring street. But if the man-hunters encountered a person of courage, ready to fight them, they would sneak off, like the curs they really were. Their meeting-place was at a tavern close to Bear Yard, Clare Market.

The Yorkshire Club held its meetings on market-days at an inn in Smithfield. It was composed of sharp country-folk, who assumed the innocence of yokels. The most flourishing members among them, says one authority, were needle-pointed innkeepers; nick and froth victuallers, honest horse chaunters, pious Yorkshire attorneys; the rest good, harmless master hostlers, two or three innocent farriers, who had wormed their masters out of their shops, and themselves into them. When met for business, their deliberations were about horseflesh, blind eyes, spavins, bounders and malinders, and how to disguise defects and get rid of the animals.

The Mock-Heroes Club met at an alehouse in Baldwin's Gardens, and was composed chiefly of attorneys' clerks and young shopkeepers. On admission the new member assumed the name of some defunct hero, and ever afterwards was at the meetings called by that name; and as the club held its meetings in the public room, though at a separate table specially reserved for them, this formal and ridiculous way of addressing one another caused no slight amusement to the other persons frequenting the room. In other respects their language was high-flown. Thus, one would face about to his left-hand neighbour, with his right hand charged with a brimming tankard, saying: 'Most noble Scipio, the love and friendship of a soldier to you. The thanks of a brother to my valiant friend Hannibal, whom I cannot but value, though I had the honour to conquer.' 'My respects to you, brave Caesar,' cries one opposite, 'remembering the battle of Pharsalia.' And so on, till they had drunk themselves under the table.

The Beggars' Club held its weekly meetings at a boozing ken in Old Street. All the sham cripples, blind men, etc., belonged to it, and there discussed the various stratagems they had adopted to excite public compassion, or intended to adopt for that purpose.

About 1735 a number of young gentlemen, who were pretenders to wit, formed themselves into a society, which met at the Rose Tavern, Covent Garden, and which they christened the Scatter-wit Society. But their literary performances were poor specimens of wit, contributed nothing to the reputation of the Rose Tavern as the resort of 'men of parts,' and consequently is not frequently mentioned in the literature of that day.

Bob Warden was the younger brother of Mr. Warden, a gentleman who, 'after having given a new turn to Jackanapes Lane, and promoted many useful objects for the good of the public, was undeservedly hanged.' We may explain here that Jackanapes Lane was the original name of Carey Street, north of the Law Courts, and the new turn Mr. Warden gave to it is the western bend connecting it with Portugal Street. Bob Warden, after his brother's death, was apprenticed to a painter, but, thinking more of his palate than his palette, he dropped the latter, and with some money left to him, established a convivial club at the Hill, in the Strand, where all sorts of queer characters, such as ruined gamesters, petticoat-pensioners, Irish captains, sharpers and cheats were welcome. As the meetings took place in a cellar, the club became known as the Cellar Club, and was the forerunner of the Coal Hole and the Lord Chief Baron Nicholson. Bob, amidst his roistering customers, drank himself to death.

The Hell Fire Club was an institution of a character similar to that of the Mohawks. It was abolished by an order of the Privy Council in 1721, 'against certain scandalous clubs,' but it must have been revived in the country, for John Wilkes, about 1750, was a notorious member of a club with the above name at Medmenham Abbey, Bucks.

The Calves' Head Club for a time had its headquarters at The Cock, an inn long since demolished, in Suffolk Street, Pall Mall. It was one of the many inns at which Pepys was 'mighty merry.' The club is said to have been originated by Milton and other partisans of the Commonwealth; and the author of the 'Secret History of the Calves' Head Club'--probably Ned Ward--gives an account of the melodramatic and diabolical ceremonies observed at their banquets. An axe was hung up in their club-room as a sacred symbol--the destroyer of the tyrant. But the eating and drinking, for which, as Addison says, clubs were instituted, were not neglected by the members. At the banquet held in 1710 there was spent on bread, beer, and ale the sum of ?2 10s.; on fifty calves' heads, ?5 5s.; on bacon, ?1 10s.; on six chickens and two capons, ?1; on three joints of veal, 18s.; on butter and flour, 15s.; on oranges, lemons, vinegar, and spices, ?1; on oysters and sausages, 15s.; on the use of pewter and linen, ?1; and on various other items additional sums, bringing the total up to ?18 6s. No wine, it will be noticed, is included in the above bill, but there is no doubt a considerable amount for this item should be added to it.

Early in the last century street clubs became common in various parts of London, that is to say, clubs in which the inhabitants of one or two streets met every night to discuss the affairs of the neighbourhood. Out of these, we suppose, arose the Mug House Club, in Long Acre, which soon found imitators in other parts of London. The members--gentlemen, lawyers, and tradesmen--met in a large room. A gentleman nearly ninety years of age was their president. A harp played at the lower end of the room, and now and then a member rose and treated the company to a song. Nothing was drunk but ale, and every gentleman had his own mug, which he chalked on the table as it was brought in.

In 1770 some young gentlemen, on returning from the grand tour it was then customary to make after leaving college--a tour which was supposed to lick the young cubs into shape and refine their manners, of course an illusion, since, whilst abroad, they associated chiefly with the scum of English society then swarming on the Continent--some of these young gentlemen, on their return, established in St. James's Street the Savoir Vivre Club, where they held periodical dinners, of which macaroni was a standing dish. This club was the nursery of the Macaronis, a phalanx of mild Hyde Park beaux, who were distinguished for nothing but the ridiculous dress they assumed. An unfinished copy of verses found among Sheridan's papers, and which Thomas Moore considered as the foundation of certain lines in the 'School for Scandal,' delineates the Macaronis in a few masterly strokes:

'Then I mount on my palfrey as gay as a lark, And, followed by John, take the dust in Hyde Park. In the way I am met by some smart Macaroni, Who rides by my side on a little bay pony; ... as taper and slim as the ponies they ride, Their legs are as slim, and their shoulders no wider,' etc.

The Savoir Vivre Club did not outlive the reign of the Macaronis, which lasted about five years, and the club ended its days--the chairmen and linkmen never having understood its foreign appellation--as a public-house bearing the name and sign of The Savoy Weavers. There were, in the last century especially, no end of Small clubs, whose objects in most cases were trivial and ridiculous. Short notice is all they deserve.

The Everlasting Club, founded in the first decade of the last century, was so called because its hundred members divided the twenty-four hours of day and night among themselves in such a manner that the club was always sitting, no person presuming to rise till he was relieved by his appointed successor, so that a member of the club not on duty himself could always find company, and have his whet or draught, as the rules say, at any time.

The tradespeople and workmen of the past seem to have had a passion for clubs; but there is this to be said in their favour, theirs were only drinking clubs. Our modern patrons of low-class clubs establish them for the worse pursuits of gambling and betting.

An Act passed in 1734 forbade time bargains under a penalty of ?500 on brokers and their clients, and of ?100 for contracting for the sale of stock of which the person was not possessed. Both these statutes were repealed circa 1860.

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