1832.] [ 33 ] 



AN ATTACK UPON THE CLUBS ! 



What a damned Epicurean rascal is this ! SHAKSPEARE. 



The greatest part of these men are such as prefer their own private good before all things even that 

 good which is sensual, before whatsoever is most divine. HOOKER. 



THESE fashionable clubs, springing up, like poisonous toadstools, from 

 the rank soil of luxury, idleness, and sensuality, until they darken the 

 whole metropolis with their pestiferous shade, constitute a positive nuis- 

 ance, that " has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished." 

 Not only do I deny their utility, both abstractedly and relatively, but I 

 maintain them to be fraught with all sorts of mischief. In a state of 

 semi-civilization and partial knowledge, where the surface of society is 

 broken up into incongruous masses, men of refined manners and culti- 

 vated minds may excusably secure themselves, by the companionship of 

 clubs, against the annoyances of vulgarity and ignorance : but in the 

 present state of the metropolis, when education and polished demeanour 

 are so generally diffused, that no person, moving in decent circles, is 

 likely to sit down at table with idiots and blackguards, there can be no 

 valid reason for pushing the system of luxury and exclusiveness always 

 the besetting sin of the English to that degree of proud and sullen 

 absurdity by which it is now characterized. What is the ostensible 

 ground for establishing these lay, and much worse than monkish, con- 

 vents ? Sociableness. Frivolous and false pretext ! Nothing on earth 

 can be so pointedly, so thoroughly, so unequivocally unsocial. An 

 enlightened individual, fond of intelligent society, and anxious that his 

 symposium may combine " the feast of reason and the flow of soul," 

 will invite to it as great a variety of talent as he can command, selecting 

 his company from the different professions, from men of literature, from 

 one or other of the legislative bodies, from the court, the camp, the city ; 

 in order that the conversation may be varied, lively, and delightful, and 

 that each individual, acquiring while he contributes knowledge, may at 

 least have a chance of learning from his neighbour something with which 

 he was previously unacquainted. Who that has mingled in the world 

 who that has tasted the " noctes csenas que diviim"-i-has not felt the 

 ineffable charm resulting from this collision of differently-stored minds ? 

 Who has not found that intellectual honey, like that of the bee's, iz 

 always the sweetest when it is gathered from many flowers of varying 

 growth, odour, and character ? 



In proportion as this principle is good, must that upon which our clubs 

 are formed be bad ; for it is diametrically opposite. We have military, 

 naval, literary, law, theatrical, travellers', and half a score more, funda- 

 mentally exclusive, and confined to a particular class ; the manifest ten- 

 dency of all which is to divide society as much as possible into castes, 

 not by any means dissimilar from those of the Hindoos, and not by any 

 means unlikely to terminate in an analogous, though less-marked slug- 

 gishness of mind, and inaptitude for social advancement. Corporations 

 and companies, established in the first instance for the protection of 

 particular trades and callings, are intelligible in their origin, although 

 they may have degenerated into styes of swinish gormandizing ; but 

 what shall be said to professional clubs, which, never having been able 

 to adduce any basis of utility, begin where the others have ended with 



M.M. New Series. VOL. XIII. No. 73. D 



