Volume I Part 2 (2/2)
Indeed, it would appear to be a literary fraud, to keep alive the calumny. All the evidence produced concerning the meetings is from hearsay: the writer of the _Secret History_ had never himself been present at the Club; and his friend from whom he professes to have received his information, though a Whig, had no personal knowledge of the Club. The slanderous rumour about Milton having to do with the inst.i.tution of the Club may be pa.s.sed over as unworthy of notice, this untrustworthy tract being the only authority for it. Lowndes says, ”this miserable tract has been attributed to the author of _Hudibras_;” but it is altogether unworthy of him.
Observances, insulting to the memory of Charles I., were not altogether unknown. Hearne tells us that on the 30th of January, 1706-7, some young men in All Souls College, Oxford, dined together at twelve o'clock, and amused themselves with cutting off the heads of a number of woodc.o.c.ks, ”in contempt of the memory of the blessed martyr.” They tried to get calves'-heads, but the cook refused to dress them.
Some thirty years after, there occurred a scene which seemed to give colour to the truth of the _Secret History_. On January 30, 1735, ”Some young n.o.blemen and gentlemen met at a tavern in Suffolk-street, called themselves the Calves' Head Club, dressed up a calf's head in a napkin, and after some hurras threw it into a bonfire, and dipped napkins in their red wine and waved them out of the window. The mob had strong beer given them, and for a time hallooed as well as the best, but taking disgust at some healths proposed, grew so outrageous that they broke all the windows, and forced themselves into the house; but the guards being sent for, prevented further mischief. The _Weekly Chronicle_ of February 1, 1735, states that the damage was estimated at 'some hundred pounds,' and that the guards were posted all night in the street, for the security of the neighbourhood.”
In L'Abbe Le Blanc's Letters we find this account of the affair:--”Some young men of quality chose to abandon themselves to the debauchery of drinking healths on the 30th of January, a day appointed by the Church of England for a general fast, to expiate the murder of Charles I., whom they honour as a martyr. As soon as they were heated with wine, they began to sing. This gave great offence to the people, who stopped before the tavern, and gave them abusive language. One of these rash young men put his head out of the window and drank to the memory of the army which dethroned this King, and to the rebels which cut off his head upon a scaffold. The stones immediately flew from all parts, the furious populace broke the windows of the house, and would have set fire to it; and these silly young men had a great deal of difficulty to save themselves.”
Miss Banks tells us that ”Lord Middles.e.x, Lord Boyne, and Mr.
Seawallis s.h.i.+rley, were certainly present; probably, Lord John Sackville, Mr. Ponsonby, afterwards Lord Besborough, was not there.
Lord Boyne's finger was broken by a stone which came in at the window.
Lord Harcourt was supposed to be present.” Horace Walpole adds: ”The mob destroyed part of the house; Sir William (called h.e.l.lfire) Stanhope was one of the members.”
This riotous occurrence was the occasion of some verses in _The Grub-street Journal_, from which the following lines may be quoted as throwing additional light on the scene:--
”Strange times! when n.o.ble peers, secure from riot, Can't keep Noll's annual festival in quiet, Through sashes broke, dirt, stones, and brands thrown at 'em, Which, if not scand- was _brand-alum magnatum_.
Forced to run down to vaults for safer quarters, And in coal-holes their ribbons hide and garters.
They thought their feast in dismal fray thus ending, Themselves to shades of death and h.e.l.l descending; This might have been, had stout Clare Market mobsters, With cleavers arm'd, outmarch'd St. James's lobsters; Numskulls they'd split, to furnish other revels, And make a Calves'-head Feast for worms and devils.”
The manner in which Noll's (Oliver Cromwell's) ”annual festival” is here alluded to, seems to show that the bonfire, with the calf's-head and other accompaniments, had been exhibited in previous years. In confirmation of this fact, there exists a print ent.i.tled _The True Effigies of the Members of the Calves'-Head Club, held on the 30th of January, 1734, in Suffolk Street, in the County of Middles.e.x_; being the year before the riotous occurrence above related. This print shows a bonfire in the centre of the foreground, with the mob; in the background, a house with three windows, the central window exhibiting two men, one of whom is about to throw the calf's-head into the bonfire below. The window on the right shows three persons drinking healths; that on the left, two other persons, one of whom wears a mask, and has an axe in his hand.
There are two other prints, one engraved by the father of Vandergucht, from a drawing by Hogarth.
After the tablecloth was removed (says the author), an anniversary anthem was sung, and a calf's-skull filled with wine or other liquor, and out of which the company drank to the pious memory of those worthy patriots who had killed the tyrant; and lastly, a collection was made for the writer of the anthem, to which every man contributed according to his zeal or his means. The concluding lines of the anthem for the year 1697 are as follow:--
”Advance the emblem of the action, Fill the calf's skull full of wine; Drinking ne'er was counted faction, Men and G.o.ds adore the vine.
To the heroes gone before us, Let's renew the flowing bowl; While the l.u.s.tre of their glories s.h.i.+nes like stars from pole to pole.”
The laureate of the Club and of this doggrel was Benjamin Bridgwater, who, alluding to the observance of the 30th of January by zealous Royalists, wrote:--
”They and we, this day observing, Differ only in one thing; They are canting, whining, starving; We, rejoicing, drink, and sing.”
Among Swift's poems will be remembered ”Roland's Invitation to Dismal to dine with the Calf's-Head Club”:--
”While an alluding hymn some artist sings, We toast 'Confusion to the race of kings.'”
Wilson, in his Life of De Foe, doubts the truthfulness of Ward's narrative, but adds: ”In the frighted mind of a high-flying churchman, which was continually haunted by such scenes, the caricature would easily pa.s.s for a likeness.” ”It is probable,” adds the honest biographer of De Foe, ”that the persons thus collected together to commemorate the triumph of their principles, although in a manner dictated by bad taste, and outrageous to humanity, would have confined themselves to the ordinary methods of eating and drinking, if it had not been for the ridiculous farce so generally acted by the Royalists upon the same day. The trash that issued from the pulpit in this reign, upon the 30th of January, was such as to excite the worst pa.s.sions in the hearers. Nothing can exceed the grosness of language employed upon these occasions. Forgetful even of common decorum, the speakers ransacked the vocabulary of the vulgar for terms of vituperation, and hurled their anathemas with wrath and fury against the objects of their hatred. The terms rebel and fanatic were so often upon their lips, that they became the reproach of honest men, who preferred the scandal to the slavery they attempted to establish.
Those who could profane the pulpit with so much rancour in the support of senseless theories, and deal it out to the people for religion, had little reason to complain of a few absurd men who mixed politics and calves' heads at a tavern; and still less, to brand a whole religious community with their actions.”
The strange story was believed till our own time, when it was fully disproved by two letters written a few days after the riotous occurrence, by Mr. A. Smyth, to Mr. Spence, and printed in the Appendix to his _Anecdotes_, 2nd edit. 1858: in one it is stated, ”The affair has been grossly misrepresented all over the town, and in most of the public papers: there was no calf's-head exposed at the window, and afterwards thrown into the fire, no napkins dipt in claret to represent blood, nor nothing that could give any colour to any such reports. The meeting (at least with regard to our friends) was entirely accidental,” etc. The second letter alike contradicts the whole story; and both attribute much of the disturbance to the unpopularity of the Administration; their health being unluckily proposed, raised a few faint claps but a general hiss, and then the disturbance began. A letter from Lord Middles.e.x to Spence, gives a still fuller account of the affair. By the style of the letter one may judge what sort of heads the members had, and what was reckoned the polite way of speaking to a waiter in those days:--
”Whitehall, Feb. ye 9th, 1735.
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