Volume I Part 17 (1/2)

Having been very well entertained, in the last of your Speculations that I have yet seen, by your Specimen upon Clubs, which I therefore hope you will continue, I shall take the Liberty to furnish you with a brief Account of such a one as perhaps you have not seen in all your Travels, unless it was your Fortune to touch upon some of the woody Parts of the _African_ Continent, in your Voyage to or from _Grand Cairo_. There have arose in this University (long since you left us without saying any thing) several of these inferior Hebdomadal Societies, as _the Punning Club_, _the Witty Club_, and amongst the rest, the _Handsom Club_; as a Burlesque upon which, a certain merry Species, that seem to have come into the World in Masquerade, for some Years last past have a.s.sociated themselves together, and a.s.sumed the name of the _Ugly Club_: This ill-favoured Fraternity consists of a President and twelve Fellows; the Choice of which is not confin'd by Patent to any particular Foundation (as _St. John's_ Men would have the World believe, and have therefore erected a separate Society within themselves) but Liberty is left to elect from any School in _Great Britain_, provided the Candidates be within the Rules of the Club, as set forth in a Table ent.i.tuled _The Act of Deformity_. A Clause or two of which I shall transmit to you.

I. That no Person whatsoever shall be admitted without a visible Quearity in his Aspect, or peculiar Cast of Countenance; of which the President and Officers for the time being are to determine, and the President to have the casting Voice.

II. That a singular Regard be had, upon Examination, to the Gibbosity of the Gentlemen that offer themselves, as Founders Kinsmen, or to the Obliquity of their Figure, in what sort soever.

III. That if the Quant.i.ty of any Man's Nose be eminently miscalculated, whether as to Length or Breadth, he shall have a just Pretence to be elected.

_Lastly_, That if there shall be two or more Compet.i.tors for the same Vacancy, _caeteris paribus_, he that has the thickest Skin to have the Preference.

Every fresh Member, upon his first Night, is to entertain the Company with a Dish of Codfish, and a Speech in praise of _aesop_; [2] whose portraiture they have in full Proportion, or rather Disproportion, over the Chimney; and their Design is, as soon as their Funds are sufficient, to purchase the Heads of _Thersites, Duns Scotus, Scarron, Hudibras_, and the old Gentleman in _Oldham_, [3] with all the celebrated ill Faces of Antiquity, as Furniture for the Club Room.

As they have always been profess'd Admirers of the other s.e.x, so they unanimously declare that they will give all possible Encouragement to such as will take the Benefit of the Statute, tho' none yet have appeared to do it.

The worthy President, who is their most devoted Champion, has lately shown me two Copies of Verses composed by a Gentleman of his Society; the first, a Congratulatory Ode inscrib'd to Mrs. _Touchwood_, upon the loss of her two Fore-teeth; the other, a Panegyrick upon Mrs.

_Andirons_ left Shoulder. Mrs. _Vizard_ (he says) since the Small Pox, is grown tolerably ugly, and a top Toast in the Club; but I never hear him so lavish of his fine things, as upon old _Nell Trot_, who constantly officiates at their Table; her he even adores, and extolls as the very Counterpart of Mother _s.h.i.+pton_; in short, _Nell_ (says he) is one of the Extraordinary Works of Nature; but as for Complexion, Shape, and Features, so valued by others, they are all meer Outside and Symmetry, which is his Aversion. Give me leave to add, that the President is a facetious, pleasant Gentleman, and never more so, than when he has got (as he calls 'em) his dear Mummers about him; and he often protests it does him good to meet a Fellow with a right genuine Grimmace in his Air, (which is so agreeable in the generality of the _French_ Nation;) and as an Instance of his Sincerity in this particular, he gave me a sight of a List in his Pocket-book of all of this Cla.s.s, who for these five Years have fallen under his Observation, with himself at the Head of 'em, and in the Rear (as one of a promising and improving Aspect),

Sir, Your Obliged and Humble Servant,

Alexander Carbuncle.' [Sidenote: Oxford, March 12, 1710.]

R.

[Footnote 1: Abbe Paul Scarron, the burlesque writer, high in court favour, was deformed from birth, and at the age of 27 lost the use of all his limbs. In 1651, when 41 years old, Scarron married Frances d'Aubigne, afterwards Madame de Maintenon; her age was then 16, and she lived with Scarron until his death, which occurred when she was 25 years old and left her very poor. Scarron's comparison of himself to the letter Z is in his address 'To the Reader who has Never seen Me,'

prefixed to his 'Relation Veritable de tout ce qui s'est pa.s.se en l'autre Monde, au combat des Parques et des Poetes, sur la Mort de Voiture.' This was ill.u.s.trated with a burlesque plate representing himself as seen from the back of his chair, and surrounded by a wondering and mocking world. His back, he said, was turned to the public, because the convex of his back is more convenient than the concave of his stomach for receiving the inscription of his name and age.]

[Footnote 2: The Life of aesop, ascribed to Planudes Maximus, a monk of Constantinople in the fourteenth century, and usually prefixed to the Fables, says that he was 'the most deformed of all men of his age, for he had a pointed head, flat nostrils, a short neck, thick lips, was black, pot-bellied, bow-legged, and hump-backed; perhaps even uglier than Homer's Thersites.']

[Footnote 3: The description of Thersites in the second book of the Iliad is thus translated by Professor Blackie:

'The most Ill-favoured wight was he, I ween, of all the Grecian host.

With hideous squint the railer leered: on one foot he was lame; Forward before his narrow chest his hunching shoulders came; Slanting and sharp his forehead rose, with shreds of meagre hair.'

Controversies between the Scotists and Thomists, followers of the teaching of Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, caused Thomist perversion of the name of Duns into its use as Dunce and tradition of the subtle Doctor's extreme personal ugliness. Doctor Subtilis was translated The Lath Doctor.

Scarron we have just spoken of. Hudibras's outward gifts are described in Part I., Canto i., lines 240-296 of the poem.

'His beard In cut and dye so like a tile A sudden view it would beguile: The upper part thereof was whey; The nether, orange mix'd with grey.

This hairy meteor, &c.'

The 'old Gentleman in _Oldham_' is Loyola, as described in Oldham's third satire on the Jesuits, when