From Blackwood's Magazine.
CLUBS AND CLUBBISTS.

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They cannot be classed or considered under the same category.

We remember the time when the female voice was raised, in rather shrill remonstrance, against the institution of those clubs, as so many direct seductions from the charms of the domestic hearth. That cry, we apprehend, is now very nearly silenced. Experience has shown that the great majority of British husbands are none the worse for having a place of occasional resort, where they can hear the news and mingle with their

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We are rather surprised that, in the present dearth of literary subjects, no enterprising caterer for the public appetite has attempted a scientific history of the rise and progress of Clubs. The field of inquiry is a vast one; and the subject might be treated either in an antiquarian, a political, a moral, or a social point of view. We trust the hint may be taken; and we shall look out for the appearance of such a work with great in- fellows-nay, we are decidedly of opinion terest. For ourselves, we may as well con- that the clubs have wrought a marked imfess at once that we are not in possession of provement in many points of minor morals. any historical information which might serve A club is, out of all sight, a better place as the groundwork for a treatise of that than a tavern; and as men must necessarily nature. We are not prepared with any data meet for the interchange and communication to prove that clubs were among the institu- of ideas, it is surely better that they should tions familiar either to the Greeks or the have a well-regulated place of meeting, than Romans; nor are we anxious to exhibit our be forced to congregate in houses where they ingenuity by arguing that the Preceptories of are expected to be unnecessarily jovial. the Templars and Knights of St. John ought believe that the club-houses have mainly conto be referred to that class of establishments. tributed to remove the reproach of deepWe take our definition from old Johnson, drinking from the present generation. The himself a notorious clubbist, and understand old tavern-club unquestionably led to an that the term ought to mean an assem- enormous deal of conviviality. On the night bly of good fellows, meeting under certain of their weekly or monthly meetings, every conditions." In these words you have the man came prepared yea, determined description of a perfect club. But alas for imbibe to the utmost of his capacity. human weakness! —it is well-nigh impossible remain sober was to commit treason against to construct a club, of which all the members the fundamental laws of the society; and shall be good fellows. Notwithstanding the many a well-disposed Christian, who would asseverations of proposer and seconder, and rather have passed the bottle, was compelled in spite of the scrutiny of the ballot, some to dispense with heel-taps. This, it will be men who have no title to the endearing name admitted, was a most abominable custom, and will necessarily get in. Constitute your loudly called for reformation. It has been society as you may-fence it with what reformed. In all good clubs, drinking is at a rules you will-you must not expect to es- discount; and instead of fostering late hours, cape without the average proportion of jolter- they have the opposite tendency. Still, heads, misanthropes, and bores. You must there is room for great improvement. In all be content to endure their presence as a tax clubs, except those in London which are upon your other comforts; and it is perhaps essentially political, where latitude must be just as well that, in this as in other matters, allowed, regulations should be made and enyou should meet with an occasional annoy- forced for early closing, and evacuation of the ance to counterbalance the amount of frui- premises. There can be no difficulty about tion. Johnson's club, we admit, was one of effecting the latter object. A fixed hour for the best ever formed. It was small and se- the stoppage of supplies, and another for the lect, and composed of highly gifted and edu- inexorable extinguishment of the lights, cated men- but those were not the days would be sufficient to settle the business, and of club-houses, the erection of which has disperse even the jovial knot of habitués who since revolutionized that branch of social frequent the smoking-room. Such arrangeeconomy. What a difference, for example, ments would tend greatly to remove the ob between the Beef-steak Club-still, we be-jections which, we fear, even now lie dormant lieve, in existence and the Carlton and in many a female bosom, and would deprive Reform, gigantic political caravanserais ! some miserable caitiffs of the mean excuse

which they are now wont to proffer to their his command. But as it is not the business wives in extenuation of their irregularities. of a general to be punctilious about pipe-clay, George could no longer aver with unblushing perpetually prying into haversacks, and exeffrontery, and without the risk of contradic- amining the contents of canteens, so neither tion, that he had been detained at "the is it the duty of the master of a house to club" until four o'clock in the morning; superintend in person the details of every and who knows but that, with the tempta- department. To him alone exclusively betion, the unwholesome habit would subside? | long the key and custody of the wineWe have heard it said that the comforts of cellar. The remainder of the bunch ought a club are hostile to the interests of matri- to be confided to the care of his helpmate mony, inasmuch as they indispose bachelors Now we cannot help fearing that our extreme from taking that most important step in clubbist, if married, would assert a larger life. We do not think there is much foun- prerogative. If so, his could not be a happy dation for this idea. It is not from amongst home; for either the lady will rebel, as we that class of men who loiter away their exist- think she is entitled to do for the honor ence at clubs, that we would advise any of housewifery; or she will subside into a young woman to expect or accept a hus- placid state of indifference, and be all day on band. Your thorough club man is, in reali- the sofa reading novels, whilst her spouse is ty, a being of exceedingly limited ideas. He in the lower regions. We cannot conceive is a member of a diminutive republic, in any lower depth of degradation to which a which he wishes to enact a conspicuous part; man can descend, than is implied by his perand he gradually weans himself from the sonally undertaking the daily dole of tea, concerns of the world, to concentrate his sugar, soap, and candles. Better to be an whole attention upon the affairs of the estab- Ethiopian at once, than pry into the mystelishment. The resignation of the club-mas-ries of a washing! Yet such things have ter is more to him than a change of dynasty. been, and are; and we have known men of He would make louder moan for the apotheo- some repute in the world, who absolutely sis of the butler than for the defeat of Lord prided themselves on the practice of this Aberdeen; and he feels a deeper interest in systematic infamy. the career of his own waiters than in that of It is a very erroneous, though general idea, any of the waiters on Providence, who are that all men ought to marry. Some there tolerably numerous about St. Stephens. The are whom nature evidently designed for celigreat object of his ambition is to be nomi- bacy, and these naturally take to the clubs as nated one of the house-committee; and he their proper sphere. Can any one fancy enters into as many intrigues for this high Major Pendennis in the bonds of hymeneal aim as ever did Fouché in the plenitude of wedlock? And yet how many Pendennises his cunning. Once on the committee, he becomes a perfect Dionysius. His high sense of moral responsibility inparts to him an almost diseased acuteness of vision ; — the waiters tremble at his approach, and shake before the authority of his call. If you have any ground of complaint, you cannot do him a greater favor than make him the confidant of your wrongs. Be sure you will receive as ample justice as though the question concerned the safety of the nation, not the overdoing of a miserable chop. We think it ex-eous sacrifice, and almost dishonor, tremely problematical whether any woman render his independence." Under no circumcould be happy with such a being. We are not, stances could a Mrs. Major Pendennis indeed, of the number of those who main- though not only gifted like an angel with actain that it is beneath the dignity of a man complishments and charms, but with those to exercise any kind of surveillance over his more weighty recommendations which are the household so far from that, we would have fertile cause of proposals have been a haphim act like a wise general, who is cognizant py woman. Therefore, better it is that the of the disposition of the whole troops under somewhat jaded veteran should adhere to his

have we all seen and known! Nor let it be supposed that the age of the major was by any means the sole obstacle. Not a week elapses but the apparition of some older bridegroom convulses the countenance of Hymen. Take twenty years and more from the shoulders of the major, and you would find him still the same. He never had a heart to give away - what heart he had, he reserved cautiously to himself; and he would have considered it, in his own phrase, a most hid

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club, wherein he may rank as a nebulous, if not a brilliant star, and perhaps be of more use as a warning than an example to others. For of all pitiable spectacles upon earth, your aged celibate clubbist, aping the language and the gait, and affecting the vices of his juniors, is the most deplorable; and, much as we reverence gray hairs, it cannot be conceded that, in his instance, they constitute a crown of glory, whether openly displayed, or furtively concealed by the ingenuity of an accomplished peruquier.

the ball-room they were wooed and won; and why should not their daughters achieve their destiny in the like locality?

Do not young ladies-spoil the prettiness of your brows by knitting them too hastily and severely before you have heard our argument. We do not intend, by any means, to pronounce an elaborate discourse against the vanities of social society — neither is it our wish that you should attain that cerulean hue, which, as Dickey Milnes, or some other modern poet, tells us, is grateBut we have heard it said, of late years - ful in the eyes of Minerva. The " purple and principally by matrons who have dispos- light of love" - these are not our words, for able daughters that clubs are bad places, the blush-rose is the only fit emblem - on inasmuch as they indispose young men to your cheeks, is worth all the indigo in the attend, as formerly, balls and assemblies, world. We do not desire that you should be where they had the best opportunity of meet- over-literary; and we consider a total indiffering with the flower of the other sex. Now, ence for science to be an excellent thing in this is a point which really requires consider-woman. Never shall we forget the area of ation; and we shall attempt to approach it the female faces that beamed upon us, when, with all candor and impartiality. We totally at a late meeting of the British Associadisclaim all knowledge of Almack's; and we tion, we read our celebrated paper on "The cast aside, as chimerical, the notion of ex- History of the Lost Ploiad." We saw, as it clusive circles. There are, of course, many were, the glittering of a thousand stars; but circles of society, some of which are far more all of them shot their rays through spectacles. difficult of access than others; but there is a Never, with our consent, shall you be cooped generic feature common to them all and up, or prevented from indulging to the full in that is the manner and style of the entertain- the innocent gayety of your hearts. But we ment. If the premier duchess were to give have a word or two to say to the mammas. a ball, her example would be closely copied, Madam, when you first came out, or made within a week after, by the dame of a dry- your début for that was then the term in salter; and thus, although the same people vogue do you happen to remember what may not meet, the same thing is essentially were the manners of the ball-room? Let us performed. Hamlet is Hamlet, whether acted refresh your memory. The staple dance was at Sadler's Wells-now, we are sorry to the quadrille, perhaps not a very lively piece say, the last refuge for the destitute Shak- of pantomime, but one which, from its naspeare or in any barn in the obscurest ture, afforded ample opportunity for convervillage-town in the north of England. sation (you may call it flirtation if you like), and was neither, in its form, too reserved nor too familiar. It was all grace and decorum. It admitted of a slight and tremulous pressure of the hand nothing more between parties ripe for declaration; and often, during the pause before the last figure, the attitude of some blushing beauty, plucking unconsciously a splendid camellia to pieces, left little doubt of the nature of those whispers which her partner had been pouring into her ear. Like Margaret in the Faust, the sweet girl was but essaying to prove her destiny from the petals of the flower. For those in a less advanced stage of understanding, there was the contrédanse, and the reel, with various other gymnastics, all of a harmless nature. But Satan had entered into paradise, though

We wonder whether it has never occurred to some mortified mother, who for three or four consecutive seasons has paraded her daughters at every ball and fashionable gathering, and undergone more trouble in helping them to dissipate their natural roses than she ever expended in their education to ask nerself the question whether, after all, she is following the best method of securing, not the happiness of her children, but their settlement in life? It is a very momentous question, but we fear that some mothers never take it into consideration. Having, in their own younger days, passed through the fire before the Moloch of fashion, they take it for granted that there is but one custom to be observed, and one course to be pursued. In

in a mild form. We may now, our dear madam, recall, without anything like bitterness of feeling, the days when we indulged together in the sweet intoxication of the waltz. It was really-we confess it with a touch of the old Adam-a most fascinating innovation. You danced divinely; and a more clipsome waist than yours we never spanned. Once, indeed, we thought- but no more of that! You married, of your own free will and accord, that red-haired monster M'Tavish, in virtue of his imaginary rentroll; and, long ago, our agony of mind, like the remembrance of an old toothache, has departed. But it was pleasant to revolve, linked with you, over the floor of the Assembly-Rooms when Spindler was in his glory, and when the waltz was kept, at least, within something like decent limits. Long before then, Byron, who certainly was not straitlaced, had published his poem of "The Waltz;" and without subscribing to his views upon our peristrephic performances, we must needs own that his satire is of double value now.

us, to be in honor of the young Lyæus. Then came the galoppe, which was a still further manifestation of the triumphal procession of Ariadne. Dancing, as one of the fine arts, now received its virtual death-blow. You saw an infuriated-looking fellow throw his arm round a girl's waist, and rush off with her as if he had been one of the troop of Romulus abducting a reluctant Sabine. Sabina, however, made no remonstrance, but went along with him quite cordially. They pursued a species of bat-like race around the room-jerking, flitting, backing, and pirouetting, without rule, and without any vestige of grace, until breath failed them, and the panting virgin was pulled up short on the arm of her perspiring partner. Ghost of Count Hamilton! shade of De Grammant! has it really come to this? You knew, in your day, something about the Castlemaines and others; but never did you witness, in public at least, such orgies as British matrons and mothers now placidly contemplate and approve.

This, however, called for a reform; and it was reformed. By what? By the introducThe waltz, as we danced it, was decent of tion of the polka- the favorite dance, and its kind. No father of a family, we think, no wonder, of the Casinos. View it philowhatever be the practice of fashion, can re- sophically, and you find it to be neither more joice in seeing his daughter's waist spanned nor less than the nuptial dance of Bacchus by the arm of some deboshed dragoon, whose and Ariadne. Our mothers or grandmothers advances she can hardly refuse without com- were staggered, and some of them shocked, mitting a breach of the idiotical rules which at the introduction of the ballet in the operamodern usage inculcates. Surely, in a free houses. What would they say now, could country, a woman ought to be free in her they see one of their female descendants abchoice even of a temporary partner; and the solutely in the embrace of some hairy animal base notion which prevails, that a lady, by-fronting him-linked to him- drawn to refusing the invitation of one man to dance, is debarred from accepting a more congenial offer, is utterly foreign and repugnant to the rules of chivalry. In the hall, or bower, the ladies are paramount, and they ought to exert their authority-remembering this, the slightest murmur against their decision ought to be considered an offence against knightly courtesy. It would be well if we had a female tribunal, with full powers of expulsion from society, to adjudicate upon such matters. But not to perpetrate a digression in favor of Provençal usages, let us return to the matter in question. We maintain now, that Lord Byron, writing under the name of Horace Horhem, was fully justified in the utterance of every couplet. The poet is a seer; and though we, perhaps, in our younger days, could descry no impropriety in the waltz, which merely admitted us to a nearer degree of contact than the former Terpsichorean evolutions, the prophetical eye of the bard foresaw the necessary consequence. The character of the waltz gradually became changed. From a graceful rotary motion, it degenerated into a Bacchic movement, sinilar, no doubt, to the first Thespian performances, which were intended, as scholars tell

him- her head reclining on his shoulder, and he perusing her charms-executing the most ungraceful of all possible movements, at the will of a notorious Tomnoddy? No doubt everything is innocent, and the whole dance is conducted- on one side at least with perfect purity of idea. But, somehow or other, these grapplings, squeezings, and approximations, look rather odd in the eyes of the unprejudiced spectator; and we, who have seen the feats of Egyptian Almas almost surpassed in British ball-rooms, may be pardoned for expressing our conviction, that a little-nay, a good deal- more of feminine reserve than is presently practised, would be vastly advantageous to the young ladies who resort to those haunts which they have been taught to consider as the matrimonial bazaar.

Of course, we do not expect that any of the fair Bacchantes will give the slightest heed to what we say. If one of them should chance- tired and languid as she is from the effect of last night's polka, through which she has been hurried in the nervous embrace of Captain Fitzurse of the Dragoons - to peruse these pages, she will set us down as a vinegared old Calvinist, who knows nothing