88

Quarrels with the King.

tion, and from that time Lady Castlemaine, lodged in White-· hall, began her empire over the king of England. That man, 'who never said a foolish thing, and never did a wise one,' was the slave of this imperious and most impudent of women. She forced him to settle on her an immense fortune, much of which she squandered at the basset-table, often staking a thousand pounds at a time, and sometimes losing fifteen thousand pounds a-night.

Nor did her wickedness end here. We have some pity for one, who, like La Vallière, could be attracted by the attentions of a handsome, fascinating prince: we pity though we blame. But Lady Castlemaine was vicious to the very marrow : not content with a king's favour, she courted herself the young gallant of the town. Quarrels ensued between Charles and his mistress, in which the latter invariably came off victorious, owing to her indomitable temper; and the scenes recorded by De Grammont-when she threatened to burn down Whitehall, and tear her children in pieces-are too disgraceful for insertion. She forced the reprobate monarch to consent to all her extortionate demands: rifled the nation's pockets as well as his own; and at every fresh difference, forced Charles to give her some new pension. An intrigue with Jermyn, discovered and objected to by the King, brought on a fresh and more serious difference, which was only patched up by a patent of the Duchy of Cleveland. The Duchess of Cleveland was even worse than the Countess of Castlemaine. Abandoned in time by Charles, and detested by all people of any decent feeling, she consoled herself for the loss of a real king by taking up with a stage one. Hart and Goodman, the actors, were successively her cavalieri; the former had been a captain in the army; the latter a student at Cambridge. Both were men of the coarsest minds and most depraved lives. Goodman, in after-years was so reduced that, finding, as Sheridan advised his son to do, a pair of pistols handy, a horse saddled, and Hounslow Heath not a hundred miles distance, he took to the pleasant and profitable pastime of which Dick Turpin is the patron saint. He was all but hanged for his daring robberies, but unfortunately not quite so. He lived to suffer such indi

The Beau's Second Marriage.

89

gence, that he and another rascal had but one under-garment between them, and entered into a compact that one should lie in bed while the other wore the article in question. Naturally enough the two fell out in time, and the end of Goodman— sad misnomer-was worse than his beginning: such was the gallant whom the imperious Duchess of Cleveland vouchsafed to honour.

The life of the once beautiful Barbara Villiers grew daily more and more depraved at the age of thirty she retired to Paris, shunned and disgraced. After numerous intrigues abroad and at home, she put the crowning point to her follies by falling in love with the handsome Fielding, when she herself numbered sixty five summers.

Whether the Beau still thought of fortune, or whether having once tried matrimony, he was so enchanted with it as to make it his cacoethes, does not appear: the legend explains not for what reason he married the antiquated beauty only three weeks after he had been united to the supposed widow. For a time he wavered between the two, but that time was short: the widow discovered his second marriage, claimed him, and in so doing revealed the well-kept secret that she was not a widow; indeed, not even the relict of John Deleau, Esq., of Whaddon, but a wretched adventurer of the name of Mary Wadsworth, who had shared with Mrs. Villars the plunder of the trick. The Beau tried to preserve his dignity, and throw over his duper, but in vain. The first wife reported the state of affairs to the second; and the duchess, who had been shamefully treated by Master Fielding, was only too glad of an opportunity to get rid of him. She offered Mary Wadsworth a pension of £100 a year, and a sum of £200 in ready money, to prove the previous marriage. The case came on, and Beau Fielding had the honour of playing a part in a famous state trial.

With his usual impudence he undertook to defend himself at the Old Bailey, and hatched up some old story to prove that the first wife was married at the time of their union to one Brady; but the plea fell to the ground, and the fine gentleman was sentenced to be burned in the hand. His interest in cer

90

The Last Days of Fops and Beaux.

tain quarters saved him this ignominious punishment which would, doubtless, have spoiled a limb of which he was particularly proud. He was pardoned: the real widow married a far more honourable gentleman, in spite of the unenviable notoriety she had acquired; the sham one was somehow quieted, and the duchess died some four years later, the more peacefully for being rid of her tyrannical mate.

Thus ended a petty scandal of the day, in which all the parties were so disreputable that no one could feel any sympathy for a single one of them. How the dupe himself ended is not known. The last days of fops and beaux are never glorious. Brummell died in slovenly penury; Nash in contempt. Fielding lapsed into the dimmest obscurity; and as far as evidence goes, there is as little certainty about his death as of that of the Wandering Jew. Let us hope that he is not still alive though his friends seemed to have cared little whether he were so or not, to judge from a couple of verses written by one of them:

:

OF CERTAIN CLUBS AND CLUB-WITS UNDER

ANNE.

The Origin of Clubs.-The Establishment of Coffee-houses.-The October Club. -The Beef-steak Club.-Of certain other Clubs.-The Kit-kat Club.-The Romance of the Bowl.-The Toasts of the Kit-kat.-The Members of the Kit-kat. A good Wit, and a bad Architect.-' Well-natured Garth.'-The Poets of the Kit-kat.-Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax.-Chancellor Somers.-Charles Sackville, Lord Dorset.-Less celebrated Wits.

SUPPOSE that, long before the building of Babel,

man discovered that he was an associative animal, with the universal motto, 'L'union c'est la force;' and that association, to be of any use, requires talk. A history of celebrated associations, from the building society just mentioned down to the thousands which are represented by an office, a secretary, and a brass-plate, in the present day, would give a curious scheme of the natural tendencies of man; while the story of their failures-and how many have not failed, sooner or later!—would be a pretty moral lesson to your anthropolaters who Babelize now-a-days, and believe there is nothing which a company with capital cannot achieve. I wonder what object there is, that two men can possibly agree in desiring, and which it takes more than one to attain, for which an association of some kind has not been formed at some time or other, since first the swarthy savage learned that it was necessary to unite to kill the lion which infested the neighbourhood! Alack for human nature! I fear by far the larger proportion of the objects of associations would be found rather evil than good, and, certes, nearly all of them might be ranged under two heads, according as the passions of hate or desire found a common object in several hearts. Gain on the one hand

92

The Origin of Clubs.

destruction on the other-have been the chief motives of clubbing in all time.

A delightful exception is to be found, though-to wit, in associations for the purpose of talking. I do not refer to parliaments and philosophical academies, but to those companies which have been formed for the sole purpose of mutual entertainment by interchange of thought.

Now, will any kind reader oblige me with a derivation of the word 'Club?' I doubt if it is easy to discover. But one thing is certain, whatever its origin, it is, in its present sense, purely English in idea and in existence. Dean Trench points this out, and, noting the fact that no other nation (he might have excepted the Chinese) has any word to express this kind of association, he has, with very pardonable natural pride, but unpardonably bad logic, inferred that the English are the most sociable people in the world. The contrary is true; nay, was true, even in the days of Addison, Swift, Steele-even in the days of Johnson, Walpole, Selwyn; ay, at all time since we have been a nation. The fact is, we are not the most sociable, but the most associative race; and the establishment of clubs is a proof of it. We cannot, and never could, talk freely, comfortably, and generally, without a company for talking. Conversation has always been with us as much a business as railroad-making, or what not. It has always demanded certain accessories, certain condiments, certain stimulants to work it up to the proper pitch. 'We all know' we are the cleverest and wittiest people under the sun; but then our wit has been stereotyped. France has no 'Joe Miller;' for a bon-mot there, however good, is only appreciated historically. Our wit is printed, not spoken; our best wits behind an inkhorn have sometimes been the veriest logs in society. On the Continent clubs were not called for, because society itself was the arena of conversation. In this country, on the other hand, a man could only chat when at his ease; could only be at his ease among those who agreed with him on the main points of religion and politics, and even then wanted the aid of a bottle to make him comfortable. Our want of sociability was the