or nothing of the sort; and the consequence is, that few dubious attachments were conciliated, few wavering opinions fixed, few introductions offered,-few encouragements or temptations of any sort held out. What made this state of things the more provoking was, that the Tory leaders of the time to which we allude were far from deficient in the requisites: indeed, of all the statesmen we feel at liberty to name, perhaps Canning was the best fitted for playing this peculiar game of popularity. His known love of intellectual accomplishment, whatever way displayed, would have taken away all appearance of calculation from his advances; the memory of his own early struggles would have given an air of truth to his sympathy; and his frank open cordiality of manner, with the natural unaffected bonhommie of his character, were sure to make an attached friend of every one who might be brought into casual communication with him. Then, his fund of animal spirits, and the extreme excitability of his temperament, were such as invariably to hurry him, nolentem volentem, into the full rush and flush of conviviality. At the latter period of his life, when his health began to break, he would sit down with an evident determination to be abstinent-eat sparingly of the simplest soup, take no sauce with his fish, and mix water in his wine; but as the repartee began to sparkle and the anecdote to circulate, his assumed caution was imperceptibly relaxed, he gradually gave way to temptation, and commonly ended by eating of everything, and taking wine with everybody-the very beau-ideal of an Amphitryon. We are happy to find that this important branch of party-management has now begun to be considered with more

attention.

We have hardly space enough remaining to notice the other subjects of the Original' at length; not even the two so pointedly announced along with that we have just been discussing-namely, the art of attaining high health, and the art of travelling; but this is the less to be regretted, as both are referred to pretty nearly the same principles on which the art of dining and dinner-giving is based.

Health obviously depends in a great measure on the number, quality, and quantity of our meals; and the grand point for dyspeptic magistrates is to avoid hurry, agitation, anxiety, and distraction of every sort whilst the digestive organs are at work. In confirmation of this doctrine we shall relate an anecdote of M. de Suffrein, which has reached us from a source of undoubted authenticity. During the time this gentleman was commanding for the French in the East, he was one day waited on by a deputation of natives, who requested an audience just as he was sitting down to dinner. He quietly heard out the message, and as quietly

desired

desired the messenger to inform the deputation that it was a precept of the Christian religion, from which no earthly consideration would induce him to depart, never to attend to business of any kind at dinner-time. The deputation went away lost in admiration at the piety of the commandant.

The only original feature in Mr. Walker's instructions to travellers is what he terms the basket-system;' i. e. always to provide yourself with a basket of provisions at starting, to prevent the necessity of stopping and be prepared for accidents that may occur upon the way. Now, to our minds, one of the greatest pleasures in travelling is this very stopping which Mr. Walker is so anxious to avoid; nothing being pleasanter in anticipation, and nothing more agreeable when it comes, than an improvised dinner on the road; without which, indeed, the monotony of a long day's journey through most countries of Europe would be intolerable. There is always, moreover, some amusement to be picked up at a table-d'hôte; but be sure to follow Count Charles de Mornay's practice whenever it is your fortune to dine at one. On such occasions he always instructs his valet to come in and sit down with the company, place himself at the top or bottom of the table, treat his master as a perfect stranger, and help him to the best of every thing.

Another topic of great immediate interest discussed in the 'Original,' is the institution of clubs, which are gradually working as complete a revolution in the constitution of society as they have already effected in the architectural appearance of our streets. Superficial talkers fancy that the change in question is a fitting subject for regret, but we feel satisfied that they are wrong, and we are glad to find so sensible an observer as Mr. Walker agreeing with us.

One of the greatest and most important modern changes in society is the present system of clubs. The facilities of living have been wonderfully increased by them in many ways, whilst the expense has been greatly diminished. For a few pounds a year advantages are to be enjoyed which no fortunes except the most ample can procure. I can best illustrate this by a particular instance. The only club I belong to is the Athenæum, which consists of twelve hundred members, amongst whom are to be reckoned a large proportion of the most eminent persons in the land, in every line-civil, military, and ecclesiastical, peers spiritual and temporal (ninety-five noblemen and twelve bishops), commoners, men of the learned professions, those connected with science, the arts, and commerce, in all its principal branches, as well as the distinguished who do not belong to any particular class. Many of these are to be met with every day living with the same freedom as in their own houses. For six guineas a year every member has the command of an excellent

VOL. LV. NO. CX.

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library,

library, with maps, of the daily papers, English and foreign, the principal periodicals, and every material for writing, with attendance for whatever is wanted. The building is a sort of palace, and is kept with the same exactness and comfort as a private dwelling. Every member is a master without any of the trouble of a master. He can come when he pleases and stay away as long as he pleases, without anything going wrong. He has the command of regular servants without having to pay or to manage them. He can have whatever meal or refreshment he wants, at all hours, and served up with the cleanliness and comfort of his own house. He orders just what he pleases, having no interest to think of but his own. In short, it is impossible to suppose a greater degree of liberty in living.

Clubs, as far as my observation goes, are favourable to economy of time. There is a fixed place to go to, everything is served with comparative expedition, and it is not customary in general to remain long at table. They are favourable to temperance. It seems that when people can freely please themselves, and when they have an opportunity of living simply, excess is seldom committed. From an account I have of the expenses at the Athenæum, in the year 1832, it appears that 17,323 dinners cost, on an average, 2s. 9 d. each, and that the average quantity of wine for each person was a small fraction more than half-a-pint.'

The difference between the expenditure at the Athenæum and the other principal clubs is not sufficient to affect the inference. The Windham is the most expensive-perhaps from Lord Nugent's wish to keep off the Irish members. The Senior United Service is the cheapest, probably from the number of absent members, and the practised though liberal economy of the messtable. The vulgar habit of associating the notion of gentility with expense is invariably discountenanced at these establishments. The Duke of Wellington may be often seen at the Senior United dining on a joint; and on one occasion, when he was charged fifteenpence instead of a shilling for it, he bestirred himself till the odd threepence was struck off. The motive was obvious; he took the trouble of objecting, to give his sanction to the principle.

The objection that the neglect of female society is caused by clubs is sufficiently refuted by the facts:-In the first place, female society is not neglected by any who are capable of appreciating it, and, in the second place, the larger clubs are notoriously deserted from nine till after midnight, when Crockford's begins to fill again. There is also an occasional muster of whist-players at the Travellers, of whom Prince Talleyrand, during his residence in London, invariably made one. He is but an indifferent player, though he has a great advantage in his imperturbability of face. It was a deficiency in this respect that made the late Duke of York

York so constant a loser. His face was a sort of index to his hand, and his friend Sir Thomas Stepney used to tell a story of seeing him lose a rubber of three hundred guineas (they were playing for twenty-five-guinea points besides the bet) by simply looking exceedingly blank on taking up his cards, which encouraged his right hand adversary to finesse upon him in direct defiance of the

odds.

It is a fact worth recording, that the Travellers' Club originated in a suggestion of the late Lord Londonderry. He promoted it with a view to the accommodation of foreigners who, when properly recommended, receive an invitation for the period of their stay. At most of the other clubs foreign ambassadors, and a limited number of other foreigners of distinction, are also admissible without contribution for the same period. The liberality of the Frankfort Cassino, where any member may introduce as many strangers as he pleases, could not be imitated in a metropolis like London, without a sacrifice on the part of the contributing members greater than can reasonably be expected of them.

Lord Byron, in one of his letters from Italy, mentions the ‹ Alfred' as an agreeable evening lounge in his early days, when, he says, his schoolfellow Peel, and other clever people, were in the habit of coming there; but the Alfred' received its coup de grace from a well-known story (rather an indication than a cause of its decline), to the effect, that Mr. Canning, whilst in the zenith of his fame, dropped in accidentally at a housedinner of twelve or fourteen, stayed out the evening, and made himself remarkably agreeable-without any one of the party suspecting who he was. The dignified clergy, who, with the higher class of lawyers, have now migrated to the Athenæum' and University' clubs, formerly mustered in such force at the Alfred,' that Lord Alvanley, on being asked in the bay window at White's,' whether he was still a member, somewhat irreverently replied- Not exactly I stood it as long as I could, but when the seventeenth bishop was proposed, I gave in. I really could not enter the place without being put in mind of my catechism.' Sober-minded people may be apt to think this formed the best possible reason for his lordship's remaining where he was. It is hardly necessary to say, that the presence of the bishops and judges is universally regarded as an unerring test of the high character of a club.

Miss Berry's account of the manner in which ladies and gentlemen passed their time previously to the institution of clubs, confirms our belief that the ladies have lost nothing by them:

The taverns and coffee-houses supplied the place of the clubs we have since seen established. Although no exclusive subscription belonged to any of these, we find by the account which Colley Cibber

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gives

gives of his first visit to Will's in Covent Garden, that it required an introduction to this society not to be considered as an impertinent intruder. There the veteran Dryden had long presided over all the acknowledged wits and poets of the day, and those who had the pretension to be reckoned among them. The politicians assembled at the St. James's coffee-house, from whence all the articles of political news in the first Tatlers' are dated. The learned frequented the Grecian coffee-house in Devereux Court. Locket's, in Gerard Street, Soho, and Pontac's, were the fashionable taverns where the young and gay met to dine: and White's, and other chocolate houses, seem to have been the resort of the same company in the morning. Three o'clock, or at latest four, was the dining hour of the most fashionable persons in London, for in the country no such late hours had been adopted. In London, therefore, soon after six, the men began to assemble at the coffee-house they frequented, if they were not setting in for hard drinking, which seems to have been less indulged in private houses than in taverns. The ladies made visits to one another, which it must be owned was a much less waste of time when considered as an amusement for the evening, than now as being a morning occupation.'†

It thus appears that the evening amusements of the sexes were perfectly distinct.

Mr. Walker has another mode of accounting for this assumed neglect:

If female society be neglected, it is not owing to the institution of clubs, but more probably to the long sittings of the House of Commons, and to the want of easy access to family circles. For the most part female society is only to be met with at formal and laborious dinners, and over-crowded and frivolous parties, attendance on the latter of which men of sense soon find out to be a nuisance and a degradation. It was said by a man of high rank, large fortune, and extraordinary accomplishments [Mr. Walker means the late Earl of Dudley, we believe,] that he did not know a single house in London where he could venture to ask for a cup of tea; and though this might not be literally true it argues a lamentable degree of restraint.'

Before quitting the subject of clubs, it may be as well to state, that the account given of the Carlton Club by a northern cotemporary is singularly adapted to mislead. That club is no more a political union in the sense in which the writer uses the term, than Brookes'; which, by the way, has been brought to the verge of ruin by its politics. We allude not merely to the Alvanley and

It is remarkable that the morning lounge in the bay window is still the grand attraction of White's.

+ Comparative view of the Social Life of England and France.-By the Editor of Madame du Deffand's Letters. First Part, p. 273. A Second Part has been published, and makes us only the more anxious for a third, in which the bad effects of the late revolutionary changes on society in both countries might be traced.

Raphael