Of the many convivial dining clubs which once abounded in London few now survive, though the famous and venerable Dilettanti Society happily still flourishes. Its dinners are held at the Grafton Galleries, and certain quaint old usages are still maintained. A member who speaks of the Society as “the club” has to pay some petty fine, whilst the secretary when reading the minutes puts on bands. The presence of these somewhat ecclesiastical additions to costume in one of the beautiful portraits belonging to this club once caused the late Mr. Gladstone to take the picture for that of a Bishop—which aroused some merriment.
The Society was founded about 1734 by a number of gentlemen who had travelled much in Italy, and were desirous of encouraging at home a taste for those objects which had contributed so much to their intellectual gratification abroad. Accordingly they formed themselves into a Society, under the name of Dilettanti (literally, lovers of the fine arts), and agreed upon certain regulations to keep up the spirit of their scheme, which combined 258friendly and social intercourse with a serious and ardent desire to promote the arts. In 1751 Mr. James Stuart (“Athenian Stuart,” as he was called) and Mr. Nicholas Revett were elected members. The Society liberally assisted them in their excellent work, “The Antiquities of Athens.” In fact, it was in great measure owing to the Dilettanti that, after the death of the above two eminent architects, the work was not entirely relinquished, and a large number of the plates were engraved from drawings in possession of the Society. It was mainly through the influence and patronage of the Dilettanti Society that the Royal Academy obtained its charter. In 1774 the interest of ￡4,000 three per cents. was appropriated by the former for the purpose of sending two students, recommended by the Royal Academy, to study in Italy or Greece for three years.
In old days the funds of the Society were greatly increased by the fines. Those paid “on increase of income, by inheritance, legacy, marriage, or preferment,” were very odd—for instance, 5 guineas by Lord Grosvenor, on his marriage with Miss Leveson Gower; 11 guineas by the Duke of Bedford, on being appointed First Lord of the Admiralty; 10 guineas compounded for by Bubb Dodington, as Treasurer of the Navy; 2 guineas by the Duke of Kingston, for a colonelcy of Horse (then valued at ￡400 per annum); ￡21 by Lord Sandwich, on going out as Ambassador to the Congress at Aix-la-Chapelle, and 2?d. by the same nobleman, on becoming Recorder of Huntingdon; 13s. 4d. by the Duke of Bedford, on getting the Garter, and 16s. 8d. (Scotch) by the Duke of Buccleuch, on 259getting the Thistle; ￡21 by the Earl of Holderness, as Secretary of State; and ￡9 19s. 6d. by Charles James Fox, as a Lord of the Admiralty.
The general toasts originally proposed and adopted by the Society were “Viva la Virtù” “Grecian Taste and Roman Spirit,” and “Absent Members.” To these was added, by a minute of March 7, 1741/2, “Esto pr?clara, esto perpetua.” On March 29, 1789, it was resolved to add the toast of “The King,” which was to precede all others. This addition was no doubt due to the outburst of loyalty which took place when the King resumed his authority, after his recovery from his first attack of insanity, on March 10 of the same year.
Walpole was very severe upon the Dilettanti. “The nominal qualification for membership,” said he, “is having been in Italy, and the real one, being drunk; the two chiefs are Lord Middlesex and Sir Francis Dashwood, who were seldom sober the whole time they were in Italy.” Were the owner of Strawberry Hill to attend a meeting of the Society at the present time, he would be surprised to observe the sobriety which now prevails.
In the distant past, some of the more juvenile members occasionally did behave in a riotous manner. On January 30, 1734, for instance, a party of young men, seven of whom (Harcourt, Middlesex, Boyne, Shirley, Strode, Denny, and Sir James Gray) were members of the Dilettanti, met to celebrate the birthday of one of the company present, by a dinner at the White Eagle Tavern in Suffolk Street. The disorder caused by their drunken revels attracted a crowd of people, who were led to believe 260that the dinner was held to commemorate the execution of Charles I. on that day, and that a calf’s head had been served at table by way of ridicule. A bonfire was lit, and on the diners appearing at the windows they were stoned by the mob, in spite of their protestations of fidelity to the Government and the King. It ended in a riot, stirred up by a Catholic priest, which the newspapers converted into an event of historical importance.
The Dilettanti Society has never lost sight of the main objects for which it was founded, and in 1855 a project was started for reproducing by some process of engraving the whole of the Society’s collection of portraits. Sir Richard Westmacott, R.A., communicated with Mr. George Scharf, jun. (afterwards Director of the National Portrait Gallery), and received from him an estimate of the cost of engraving on wood the thirty-one portraits in question. The cost, however, was probably the reason which deterred the Society from proceeding in the matter.
The Society once met at the Star and Garter Tavern in Pall Mall, but in 1800 transferred its meetings to a great room in the Thatched House Tavern in St. James’s Street.
The ceiling here was painted to represent the sky, and was crossed by gold cords interlacing one another, from the knots of which hung three large glass chandeliers.
The room formed an admirable setting for the Society’s pictures, the most remarkable of which are, of course, the three painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
A DINNER OF THE DILETTANTI SOCIETY AT THE THATCHED HOUSE.
From a drawing by T. H. Shepherd.
The first of these is a group in the manner of 261Paul Veronese, containing the portraits of the Duke of Leeds, Lord Dundas, Constantine Lord Mulgrave, Lord Seaforth, the Hon. Charles Greville, Charles Crowle, Esq., and Sir Joseph Banks. Another group in the same style contains portraits of Sir William Hamilton, Sir Watkin W. Wynne, Richard Thomson, Esq., Sir John Taylor, Payne Gallwey, Esq., John Smythe, Esq., and Spencer S. Stanhope, Esq. The portrait of Sir Joshua shows him in a loose robe, wearing his own hair.
It should be added that earlier portraits in the possession of the Society are by Hudson, Reynolds’s master.
Some are in eighteenth-century costume, others in Turkish or Roman dress. There is a convivial spirit in these pictures. Lord Sandwich, for instance, in a Turkish costume, is shown casting an affectionate glance upon a brimming goblet in his left hand, while his right holds a flask of great capacity. Sir Bourchier Wrey is seated in the cabin of a ship mixing punch and eagerly embracing the bowl, of which a lurch of the sea would seem about to deprive him; the inscription is, Dulce est desipere in loco. The Dilettanti possess a curious old portrait of the Earl of Holderness in a red cap, as a gondolier, with the Rialto and Venice in the background; there is Charles Sackville, Duke of Dorset, as a Roman senator, dated 1738; Lord Galloway in the dress of a Cardinal. A curious likeness of one of the earliest of the Dilettanti—Lord le Despencer—portrays him as a monk at his devotions, clasping a brimming goblet for his rosary, and with eyes not very piously fixed on a statue of the Venus de’ 262Medici. Some of these pictures, indeed, recall the Medmenham orgies, with which some of the Dilettanti were not unfamiliar.
In 1884 the two groups by Sir Joshua Reynolds and the portrait of himself were lent by the Society to the Grosvenor Gallery for an exhibition of the collected works of the great master. In March, 1890, on the Society’s removing from Willis’s Rooms, the two fine groups by Sir Joshua were once more deposited on loan with the Trustees of the National Gallery, until the whole collection of pictures was removed and rehung in the Society’s new room in the Grafton Gallery.
During recent years the Society has from time to time added to its pictures.
In January 1894, a portrait of Mr. William Watkiss Lloyd, painted by Miss Bush, was received by the Society from his daughter, Miss Ellen Watkiss Lloyd, having been bequeathed to the Society by her late father, who had for many years been one of its most active and respected members. After the death of Lord Leighton, President of the Royal Academy, in January 1896, the Dilettanti, being anxious to obtain a portrait of one of the most illustrious of their body, decided to have a copy made of the portrait painted by Lord Leighton of himself for the Uffizi Gallery at Florence. The work was entrusted to Mr. Charles Holroyd (now Keeper of the National Gallery of British Art), and completed before the close of the same year. In February 1896, on the resignation by Mr. (now Sir) Sidney Colvin of his post as secretary and treasurer of the Society, the Society ordered that a portrait of that 263gentleman should be added to their collection. Sir Edward Poynter undertook to paint the portrait of Mr. Colvin, which was, by permission of the Society, sent to the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1897. Another modern portrait of interest is Sir Edward Ryan, by Lord Leighton.
The Dilettanti, the membership of which at the present day is largely composed of high legal and Government officials, generally have six dinners a year, and sometimes more, at the Grafton Galleries. The ancient ceremonies, including the appointment of a functionary known as the Imp, are retained. The father of the club at the present day is Mr. W. C. Cartwright, who was originally introduced by the late Lord Houghton.
The Thatched House Tavern, in the large room of which the members of the Dilettanti Society were once wont to assemble, was for a time also the meeting-place of another somewhat similar society, the Literary Club. This is now represented by The Club, which is perhaps the most exclusive institution in Europe. So little known is the existence of this society that at the foundation of the Turf Club it was at first proposed to call it The Club; and, indeed, it was some time before the discovery that the name had been long before appropriated placed the adoption of such an appellation out of the question. The membership of The Club is limited in the extreme, which may be realized when it is stated that since its foundation, in 1764, not 300 members have secured election. Forty, according to the regulations, is the extreme limit of membership. Amongst 264distinguished men who have been members appear the names of Dr. Johnson, Boswell, Garrick, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Oliver Goldsmith, Burke, Fox, and Gibbon. In more modern times many prominent personalities have been members—amongst them Mr. Gladstone, Lord Leighton, Professor Huxley, Lord Salisbury, Lord Rosebery, Lord Goschen, the Duke of Argyll, Lord Herschell, Lord Dufferin, Lord Wolseley, Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff, Mr. Arthur Balfour, Lord Peel, Mr. Asquith, Sir Edward Poynter, and many others whose names are well known in legal, political, artistic, and literary circles.
The club was founded in 1764 by Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr. Samuel Johnson, and for some years met on Monday evenings at seven. In 1772 the day of meeting was changed to Friday, and about that time, instead of supping, they agreed to dine together once in every fortnight during the sitting of Parliament. In 1773 The Club, which soon after its foundation consisted of twelve members, was enlarged to twenty; March 11, 1777, to twenty-six; November 27, 1778, to thirty; May 9, 1780, to thirty-five; and it was then resolved that it should never exceed forty. It met originally at the Turk’s Head, in Gerrard Street, and continued to meet there till 1783, when their landlord died, and the house was soon afterwards shut up. They then removed to Prince’s, in Saville Street; and on his house being, soon afterwards, shut up, they removed to Baxter’s, which afterwards became Thomas’s, in Dover Street. In January 1792, they removed to Parsloe’s, in 265St. James’s Street; and on February 26, 1799, to the Thatched House, in the same street.
The club received the name of Literary Club at Garrick’s funeral.
In the early days of The Club, Dr. Johnson was exceedingly particular as to the admission of candidates, and would not hear of any increase in the number of members. Not long after its institution, Sir Joshua Reynolds was speaking of the club to Garrick. “I like it much,” said the great actor briskly; “I think I shall be of you.” When Sir Joshua mentioned this to Dr. Johnson, the latter, according to Boswell, was much displeased with the actor’s conceit. “He’ll be of us!” growled he; “how does he know we will permit him?”
Sir John Hawkins tried to soften Johnson, and spoke to him of Garrick in a very eulogistic way. “Sir,” replied Johnson, “he will disturb us by his buffoonery.” In the same spirit he declared to Mr. Thrale that, if Garrick should apply for admission, he would blackball him. “Who, sir?” exclaimed Thrale, with surprise: “Mr. Garrick—your friend, your companion—blackball him?” “Why, sir,” replied Johnson, “I love my little David dearly—better than all or any of his flatterers do; but surely one ought to sit, in a society like ours,
‘Unelbowed by a gamester, pimp, or player.’”
By degrees the rigour of the club relaxed; some of the members grew negligent. Beauclerk lost his right of membership by neglecting to attend. 266Nevertheless, on his marriage (with Lady Diana Spencer, daughter of the Duke of Marlborough, and recently divorced from Viscount Bolingbroke), he claimed and regained his seat in the club. The number of the members was likewise augmented. The proposition to increase it originated with Goldsmith. “It would give,” he thought, “an agreeable variety to their meetings; for there can be nothing new amongst us,” said he: “we have travelled over each other’s minds.” Johnson was piqued at the suggestion. “Sir,” said he, “you have not travelled over my mind, I promise you.” Sir Joshua, less confident in the exhaustless fecundity of his mind, felt and acknowledged the force of Goldsmith’s suggestion. Several new members therefore were elected; the first, to his great joy, was David Garrick. Goldsmith, who was now on cordial terms with the great actor, zealously promoted his election, and Johnson gave it his warm approbation.
The meetings of the Literary Club were often the occasion of much discussion between Edmund Burke and Johnson. One evening the former observed that a hogshead of claret, which had been sent as a present to the club, was almost out, and proposed that Johnson should write for another in such ambiguity of expression as might have a chance of procuring it also as a gift. One of the company said: “Dr. Johnson shall be our dictator.” “Were I,” said Johnson, “your dictator, you should have no wine; it would be my business ‘cavere ne quid detrimenti respublica caperet.’ Wine is dangerous; Rome was ruined by luxury.” Burke replied: “If 267you allow no wine as dictator, you shall not have me for master of the horse.”
Dr. Johnson for a time completely dominated the club, and once, in his usual grandiloquent manner, said to Boswell: “Sir, you got into the club by doing what a man can do. Several of the members wished to keep you out; Burke told me he doubted if you were fit for it. Now you are in, none of them are sorry.” Boswell: “They were afraid of you, sir, as it was you proposed me.” Johnson: “Sir, they knew that if they refused you they would probably have never got into another club—I would have kept them all out.”
At last, owing to his ill-temper and rudeness, the great lexicographer’s influence in the club sensibly decreased.
The club possesses a very valuable collection of autographs of former distinguished members, and amongst its memorials is a portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds, with spectacles on, similar to the picture in the Royal Collection; this portrait was painted and presented by Sir Joshua, as the founder of the club.
Another club which was once the resort of many clever and distinguished men was the Cosmopolitan, in Charles Street, Berkeley Square. This ceased to exist not very many years ago. The house in which it held its meetings had been pulled down, and though the Cosmopolitan migrated to the Alpine Club, it did not long survive the change. Its meetings were held twice a week, in the evening, no meals whatever being served, though light refreshments were supplied. The house in Charles Street had previously contained the studio of Watts 268the painter, and a great feature of the club-room was a very large picture representing a scene from the “Decameron,” which had been painted by that artist. This is now in the Tate Gallery. When the Cosmopolitan was dissolved, a certain sum of money remained, and this, on the suggestion of a former leading member, is gradually being spent in dinners at which former members from time to time foregather.
A dining club which for a time attracted considerable attention was the Roxburghe, which originated under the following circumstances: The Duke of Roxburghe was a noted bibliophile; the sale of his library, which excited great interest in 1812, lasted for forty-two days, and on the evening when the sale had been concluded the club was formed by about sixteen bibliomaniacs, after a dinner at the St. Albans Tavern, Lord Spencer being in the chair. The Roxburghe consisted mostly of men devoted to rare books. Tomes containing alterations in the title-page, or in a leaf, or in any trivial circumstance, were bought by these collectors at ￡100, ￡200, or ￡300, though the copies were often of small intrinsic worth. Specimens of first editions of all authors, and editions by the early printers, were never sold for less than ￡50, ￡100, or ￡200. So great became this mania that, in order to gratify the members of the club, facsimile copies of clumsy editions of trumpery books were reprinted. In some cases, indeed, it became worth the while of unscrupulous people to palm off forgeries upon the more credulous of these collectors.
The club issued various publications, but its 269costly dinners attracted more attention than anything else. On one occasion the bill was above ￡5 10s. per head, and the list of toasts included the “immortal memory” not only of John, Duke of Roxburghe, but of William Caxton, Dame Juliana Berners, Wynkyn de Worde, Richard Pynson, the Aldine family, and “The Cause of Bibliomania all over the World.” In one year, when Lord Spencer presided over the club feast, the “Roxburghe Revels” thus recorded the fact: “Twenty-one members met joyfully, dined comfortably, challenged eagerly, tippled prettily, divided regretfully, and paid the bill most cheerfully.”
The bill of one of the dinners of the Roxburghe Club held at Grillion’s Hotel has been preserved. Its curious phraseology is due to the French waiter who made it out:
Dinner (sic) du 17 Juin, 1815.
￡ s. d.
20 20 0 0
Desser 2 0 0
Deu sorte de Glasse 1 4 0
Glasse pour 6 0 4 0
5 Boutelle de Champagne 4 0 0
7 Boutelle de harmetage 5 5 0
1 Boutelle de Hok 0 15 0
4 Boutelle de Port 1 6 0
4 Boutelle de Maderre 2 0 0
22 Boutelle de Bordeaux 15 8 0
2 Boutelle de Bourgogne 1 12 0
[Not legible] 0 14 0
Soder 0 2 0
Biere e Ail 0 6 0
For la Lettre 0 2 0
Pour faire une prune 0 6 0
Pour un fiacre 0 2 0
— — —
Join or Log In!
You need to log in to continue reading
