was a member of it, and perhaps Chaucer, though,
if the latter, it could only have been very shortly
before his death. But we do not hear much of
clubs in this country until the time of Elizabeth
or James the First. We are all, however,
familiarly acquainted with the famous literary association
which has cast an undying halo round the
name of the Mermaid Tavern. It was there that
the most illustrious poets and scholars of that
grand age were accustomed to meet; it was
there that the "wit combats" between
Shakespeare and Ben Jonson took place, of which
"old Church Fuller" has given so lively an
account; and it was there that, according to
Beaumont, the conversation was so brilliant
that the air became charged with a sort of
electric influence, capable of making " the
two next companies right witty, though but
downright fools" before. It is to be regretted
that we have not more particulars of the origin
and development of the Mermaid Club. It is even
somewhat doubtful whether Shakespeare was
a member; and the pleasant tradition that the
society was founded by Sir Walter Raleigh seems
to rest on no sufficient authority. Then there
was the Apollo Club, held at the Devil Tavern,
in Fleet-street, of which Jonson was president,
and for which he framed a Welcome in
verse, inscribed in gold letters on a black board:
this, together with the bust of "the boon
Delphic god" placed above the door of the
principal room, called " The Oracle of Apollo,"
may still be seen at the banking-house of the
Messrs. Child, which occupies the site of the old
hostelry, or very nearly so.

At both of these clubs the conversation, we may
suppose, was solely literary; but in the troublous
times half a century or so later, political clubs
came into being. The most famous was the Rota,
which was founded in 1659 as a debating society
of high republican principles. It derived its
name from a plan it approved, of changing
a certain number of members of Parliament
annually by rotation. Harrington, author of
Oceana, who was strongly in favour of a
commonwealth and of the ballot, was one of the
leading intellects of this club, where he used to
deliver earnest speeches in support of his views;
and so was a much more famous man, to wit,
John Milton. The society, as might be expected,
was broken up after the Restoration in May,
1660; but, in the January of that year, Pepys
was present at a debate on the government
of ancient Rome. During the protectorate of
Oliver Cromwell, there was a secret royalist club
called "The Sealed Knot," which at one time
organised a general insurrection in favour of
Charles Stuart; but a treacherous member, who
was in Cromwell's pay as a spy, gave information,
and caused the arrest of the conspirators.
A story prevailed about the close of the
seventeenth century, that Milton established during
the Commonwealth a club called the Calves'
Head Club, in ridicule of the fate of Charles
the First, and that the members even continued
to meet secretly after the Restoration. An axe
was hung up in the club-room, and divers
grotesque ceremonials, of a treasonable and regicidal
character, were gone through. It appears,
however, to be very doubtful whether any such club
existed in Milton's time, and it is at any rate
intrinsically improbable that a man of his severe
and lofty intellect would have connected himself
with such ribaldry. Yet that certain
observances of a similar kind did actually take
place several years later, seems likely enough;
for it is reported that on January 30, 1735,
some wild young fellows met at a tavern
in Suffolk-street, Charing-cross, called
themselves the Calves' Head Club, burnt a calf's
head in a bonfire in front of the house,
dipped their napkins in red wine, and waved
them out of the window. One gentleman, more
rash than the rest, or more heated with wine,
openly drank to the health of the army which
dethroned the king. A mob collected in front of
the house, were treated with strong beer, and
for a time joined in the celebration; but
subsequently, taking offence at something said or done*
they attacked the house, and made so serious
a riot that it was found necessary to call out the
Guards. Such, at least, is the account given,
at the time by more than one writer; but two
gentlemen who were present on the occasion—a
Mr. A. Smyth and Lord Middlesex—affirm, in
letters to Spence, the writer of the well-known
Anecdotes, that the meeting was accidental, and
without any reference to the anniversary of the
beheading of Charles the First; that the bonfire
was made in a mere drunken freak; that the
toasts drunk out of the window were loyal
toasts; and that an Irish priest, probably
irritated at the toast of " The Protestant Succession,"
excited the mob to commit acts of
violence. This is the last we hear of Calves' Head
Clubs; but, allowing the account given by
Lord Middlesex and Mr. Smyth to be correct,
there seems little doubt that some such associations
were really formed from time to time, as a
mode of expressing political feeling, and as a sort
of counter-demonstration to the absurd and
violent sermons which used to be preached in the
churches on the 30th of January. An old print
is in existence, called " The True Effigies of the
Members of the Calves' Head Club, held on the
30th of January, 1734, in Suffolk-street, in the
county of Middlesex." A copy of this print is
to be seen in Hone's Every-Day Book, vol. ii.
The date, it will be observed, is that of the year
before the riot; and there are two other prints
of the same treasonable association, one after a
drawing by Hogarth, besides several allusions in
contemporary literature. In the sketch copied
by Hone, we see a gentleman at the centre
window with a calf's head in his hand, which he is
apparently about to throw into the bonfire
beneath. At his side is a gentleman dipping
his napkin in wine; at another window is a
man in a mask, with an axe in his hand, and some
one holding up what looks like a calf's head.