Volume I Part 9 (1/2)

”When Mackreth served in Arthur's crew, He said to Rumbold, 'Black my shoe;'

To which he answer'd, 'Ay, Bob.'

But when return'd from India's land, And grown too proud to brook command, He sternly answer'd, 'Nay, Bob.'”

The Club-house was rebuilt in 1825, upon the site of the original Chocolate-house, Thomas Hopper, architect, at which time it possessed more than average design: the front is of stone, and is enriched with fluted Corinthian columns.

WHITE'S CLUB.

This celebrated Club was originally established as ”White's Chocolate-house,” in 1698, five doors from the bottom of the west side of St. James's-street, ”ascending from St. James's Palace.” (Hatton, 1708.) A print of the time shows a small garden attached to the house: at the tables in the house or garden, more than one highwayman took his chocolate, or threw his main, before he quietly mounted his horse, and rode down Piccadilly towards Bagshot. (Doran's _Table Traits_.) It was destroyed by fire, April 28, 1733, when the house was kept by Mr. Arthur, who subsequently gave his name to the Club called Arthur's, still existing a few doors above the original White's. At the fire, young Arthur's wife leaped out of a second floor window, upon a feather-bed, without much hurt. A fine collection of paintings, belonging to Sir Andrew Fountaine, valued at 3000_l._, was entirely destroyed. The King and the Prince of Wales were present above an hour, and encouraged the firemen and people to work at the engines; a guard being ordered from St. James's, to keep off the populace. His Majesty ordered twenty guineas to be distributed among the firemen and others that worked at the engines, and five guineas to the guard; and the Prince ordered the firemen ten guineas. ”The incident of the fire,” says Mr. Cunningham, ”was made use of by Hogarth, in Plate VI.

of the Rake's Progress, representing a room at White's. The total abstraction of the gamblers is well expressed by their utter inattention to the alarm of the fire given by watchmen, who are bursting open the doors. Plate IV. of the same pictured moral represents a group of chimney-sweepers and shoe-blacks gambling on the ground over-against White's. To indicate the Club more fully, Hogarth has inserted the name Black's.”

Arthur, thus burnt out, removed to Gaunt's Coffee-house, next the St.

James's Coffee-house, and which bore the name of ”White's”--a myth.

The _Tatler_, in his first Number, promises that ”all accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be under the article of White's Chocolate-house.” Addison, in his Prologue to Steele's _Tender Husband_, catches ”the necessary spark” sometimes ”taking snuff at White's.”

The Chocolate-house, open to any one, became a private Club-house: the earliest record is a book of rules and list of members of the old Club at White's, dated October 30th, 1736. The princ.i.p.al members were the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re; the Earls of Cholmondeley, Chesterfield, and Rockingham; Sir John Cope, Major-General Churchill, Bubb Dodington, and Colley Cibber. Walpole tells us that the celebrated Earl of Chesterfield lived at White's, gaming and p.r.o.nouncing witticisms among the boys of quality; ”yet he says to his son, that a member of a gaming club should be a cheat, or he will soon be a beggar,” an inconsistency which reminds one of old Fuller's saw: ”A father that whipt his son for swearing, and swore himself whilst he whipt him, did more harm by his example than good by his correction.”

Swift, in his _Essay on Modern Education_, gives the Chocolate-house a sad name. ”I have heard,” he says, ”that the late Earl of Oxford, in the time of his ministry, never pa.s.sed by White's Chocolate-house (the common rendezvous of infamous sharpers and n.o.ble cullies) without bestowing a curse upon that famous Academy, as the bane of half the English n.o.bility.”

The gambling character of the Club may also be gathered from Lord Lyttelton writing to Dr. Doddridge, in 1750. ”The Dryads of Hagley are at present pretty secure, but I tremble to think that the rattling of a dice-box at White's may one day or other (if my son should be a member of that n.o.ble academy) shake down all our fine oaks. It is dreadful to see, not only there, but almost in every house in town, what devastations are made by that destructive fury, the spirit of play.”

Swift's character of the company is also borne out by Walpole, in a letter to Mann, December 16, 1748: ”There is a man about town, Sir William Burdett, a man of very good family, but most infamous character. In short, to give you his character at once, there is a wager entered in the bet-book at White's (a MS. of which I may one day or other give you an account), that the first baronet that will be hanged is this Sir William Burdett.”

Again, Glover, the poet, in his _Autobiography_, tells us: ”Mr. Pelham (the Prime Minister) was originally an officer in the army, and a professed gamester; of a narrow mind, low parts, etc.... By long experience and attendance he became experienced as a Parliament man; and even when Minister, divided his time to the last between his office and the club of gamesters at White's.” And, Pope, in the _Dunciad_, has:

”Or chair'd at White's, amidst the doctors sit, Teach oaths to gamesters, and to n.o.bles wit.”

The Club removed, in 1755, to the east side of St. James's-street, No.

38. The house had had previously a n.o.ble and stately tenant; for here resided the Countess of Northumberland, widow of Algernon, tenth Earl of Northumberland, who died 1688. ”My friend Lady Suffolk, her niece by marriage,” writes Walpole, ”has talked to me of her having, on that alliance, visited her. She then lived in the house now White's, at the upper end of St. James's-street, and was the last who kept up the ceremonious state of the old peerage. When she went out to visit, a footman, bareheaded, walked on each side of her coach, and a second coach with her women attended her. I think, too, that Lady Suffolk told me that her granddaughter-in-law, the d.u.c.h.ess of Somerset, never sat down before her without leave to do so. I suppose the old Duke Charles [the proud Duke] had imbibed a good quant.i.ty of his stately pride in such a school.” (_Letter to the Bishop of Dromore_, September 18, 1792.) This high-minded dame had published a ”Volume of Prayers.”

Among the Rules of the Club, every member was to pay one guinea a year towards having a good cook; the names of all candidates were to be deposited with Mr. Arthur or Bob [Mackreth]. In balloting, every member was to put in his ball, and such person or persons who refuse to comply with it, shall pay the supper reckoning of that night; and, in 1769, it was agreed that 'every member of this Club who is in the Billiard-Room at the time the Supper is declared upon table, shall pay his reckoning if he does not sup at the Young Club.'

Of Colley Cibber's members.h.i.+p we find this odd account in Davies's _Life of Garrick_:--”Colley, we told, had the honour to be a member of the great Club at White's; and so I suppose might any other man who wore good clothes and paid his money when he lost it. But on what terms did Cibber live with this society? Why, he feasted most sumptuously, as I have heard his friend Victor say, with an air of triumphant exultation, with Mr. Arthur and his wife, and gave a trifle for his dinner. After he had dined, when the Club-room door was opened, and the Laureate was introduced, he was saluted with loud and joyous acclamation of 'O King Coll! Come in, King Coll!' and 'Welcome, welcome, King Colley!' And this kind of gratulation, Mr. Victor thought, was very gracious and very honourable.”

In the Rules quoted by Mr. Cunningham, from the Club-books, we find that in 1780, a dinner was ready every day during the sitting of Parliament, at a reckoning of 12_s._ per head; in 1797, at 10_s._ 6_d._ per head, malt liquors, biscuits, oranges, apples, and olives included; hot suppers provided at 8_s._ per head; and cold meat, oysters, etc., at 4_s._, malt liquor only included. And, ”that Every Member who plays at Chess, Draughts, or Backgammon do pay One s.h.i.+lling each time of playing by daylight, and half-a-crown each by candlelight.”

White's was from the beginning princ.i.p.ally a gaming Club. The play was mostly at hazard and faro; no member was to hold a faro Bank. Whist was comparatively harmless. Professional gamblers, who lived by dice and cards, provided they were free from the imputation of cheating, procured admission to White's. It was a great supper-house, and there was play before and after supper, carried on to a late hour and heavy amounts. Lord Carlisle lost 10,000_l._ in one night, and was in debt to the house for the whole. He tells Selwyn of a set, in which at one point of the game, stood to win 50,000_l._ Sir John Bland, of Kippax Park, who shot himself in 1755, as we learn from Walpole, flirted away his whole fortune at hazard. ”He t'other night exceeded what was lost by the late Duke of Bedford, having at one period of the night, (though he recovered the greater part of it,) lost two-and-thirty thousand pounds.”

Lord Mountford came to a tragic end through his gambling. He had lost money; feared to be reduced to distress; asked for a Government appointment, and determined to throw the die of life or death, on the answer he received from Court. The answer was unfavourable. He consulted several persons, indirectly at first, afterwards pretty directly--on the easiest mode of finis.h.i.+ng life; invited a dinner-party for the day after; supped at White's, and played at whist till one o'clock of the New Year's morning. Lord Robert Bertie drank to him ”a happy new year;” he clapped his hand strangely to his eyes.

In the morning, he sent for a lawyer and three witnesses, executed his will; made them read it twice over, paragraph by paragraph; asked the lawyer if that will would stand good though a man were to shoot himself. Being a.s.sured it would, he said, ”Pray stay, while I step into the next room,”--went into the next room, and shot himself.

Walpole writes to Mann: ”John Damier and his two brothers have contracted a debt, one can scarcely expect to be believed out of England,--of 70,000_l._... The young men of this age seem to make a law among themselves for declaring their fathers superannuated at fifty, and thus dispose of their estates as if already their own.”

”Can you believe that Lord Foley's two sons have borrowed money so extravagantly, that the interest they have contracted to pay, amounts to 18,000_l._ a year.”

Fox's love of play was frightful: his best friends are said to have been half-ruined in annuities, given by them as securities for him to the Jews. Five hundred thousand a year of such annuities, of Fox and his Society, were advertised to be sold, at one time: Walpole wondered what Fox would do when he had sold the estates of all his friends.