and consequently out of the magistracy. These factions tore the corporation in pieces for several years, till, at length, they came to this accommodation; that the two bailiffs of the town should be annually chosen out of the two clubs; by which means the principal magistrates are at this day coupled like rabbits, one fat and one lean. Every one has heard of the club, or rather the confederacy, of the Kings. This grand alliance was formed a little after the return of king Charles II, and admitted into it men of all qualities 10 and professions, provided they agreed in the surname of King, which, as they imagined, sufficiently declared the owners of it to be altogether untainted with republican and anti-monarchical principles. A Christian name has likewise been often used as a badge of distinction, and made the occasion of a club. That of the Georges, which used to meet at the sign of the George on St. George's day, and swear Before George, is still fresh in every one's memory. There are at present, in several parts of this city, what they call 20 Street clubs, in which the chief inhabitants of the street converse together every night. I remember, upon my inquiring after lodgings in Ormond street, the landlord, to recommend that quarter of the town, told me, there was at that time a very good club in it; he also told me, upon farther discourse with him, that two or three noisy country-squires who were settled there the year before had considerably sunk the price of house-rent; and that the club, to prevent the like inconvenience for the future, had thoughts of taking every house that became vacant into their own hands, till they had found a tenant for it, of a sociable nature and 30 good conversation. The Hum-drum club, of which I was formerly an unworthy member, was made up of very honest gentlemen, of peaceable dispositions, that used to sit together, smoke their pipes, and say nothing till midnight. The Mum club, as I am informed, is an institution of the same nature, and as great an enemy to noise. After these two innocent societies, I cannot forbear mentioning a very mischievous one, that was erected in the reign of king Charles II. I mean the club of Duellists, in which none was to be admitted that had not fought his man. The president of it was combat; and as for the 40 said to have killed half a dozen in single other members, they took their seats according to the number of their slain. There was likewise a side-table, for such as had only drawn blood, and shewn a laudable ambition of taking the first opportunity to qualify themselves for the first table. This club, consisting only of men of honour, did not continue long, most of the members of it being put to the sword, or hanged, a little after its institution. Our modern celebrated clubs are founded upon eating and drinking, which are points wherein most men agree, and in which 10 the learned and illiterate, the dull and the airy, the philosopher and the buffoon, can all of them bear a part. The Kit-cat itself is said to have taken its original from a mutton-pye". The Beefsteak and October clubs are neither of them averse to eating and drinking, if we may form a judgment of them from their respective titles. When men are thus knit together by a love of society, not a spirit of faction, and do not meet to censure or annoy those that are absent, but to enjoy one another; when they are thus combined for their own improvement, or for the good of others, or at least 20 to relax themselves from the business of the day by an innocent and cheerful conversation, there may be something very useful in these little institutions and establishments. I cannot forbear concluding this paper with a scheme of laws that I met with upon a wall in a little ale-house: how I came thither I may inform my reader at a more convenient time. These laws were enacted by a knot of artisans and mechanics, who used to meet every night; and as there is something in them which gives us a pretty picture of low life, I shall transcribe them word for word. 30 RULES to be observed in the Two-penny club, erected in this place for the preservation of friendship and good neighbourhood. I. Every member at his first coming in shall lay down his twopence. II. Every member shall fill his pipe out of his own box. III. If any member absents himself, he shall forfeit a penny for the use of the club, unless in case of sickness or imprisonment. IV. If any member swears or curses, his neighbour may give him a kick upon the shins. V. If any member tells stories in the club that are not true, he shall forfeit for every third lie an halfpenny. VI. If any member strikes another wrongfully, he shall pay his club for him. VII. If any member brings his wife into the club, he shall pay for whatever she drinks or smokes. VIII. If any member's wife comes to fetch him home from the club, she shall speak to him without the door. IX. None shall be admitted into the club that is of the same 10 trade with any member of it. 20 X. None of the club shall have his clothes or shoes made or mended but by a brother member. XI. No nonjuror n shall be capable of being a member. The morality of this little club is guarded by such wholesome laws and penalties that I question not but my reader will be as well pleased with them as he would have been with the Leges Convivales of Ben Jonson ", the regulations of an old Roman club cited by Lipsius, or the rules of a Symposium in an ancient Greek author.-C. No. 16. On the suggestions of correspondents; cannot assail reigning fashions; perhaps will get an assistant to do it ; no party politics. Quod verum atque decens curo et rogo, et omnis in hoc sum. What right, what true, what fit we justly call, POPE. I have received a letter, desiring me to be very satirical upon the little muff that is now in fashion; another informs me of a pair of silver garters buckled below the knee, that have been lately seen at the Rainbow coffee-house in Fleet-street; a third sends me an heavy complaint against fringed gloves. To be brief, there is scarce an ornament of either sex which one or other of my correspondents has not inveighed against with some bitterness, and recommended to my observation. I must therefore, once for all, inform my readers, that it is not my intention to sink the dignity of this my paper with reflexions upon red-heels or top30 knots, but rather to enter into the passions of mankind, and to correct those depraved sentiments that give birth to all those little extravagancies which appear in their outward dress and A PETTY CENSORSHIP. 233 behaviour. Foppish and fantastic ornaments are only indications of vice, not criminal in themselves. Extinguish vanity in the mind, and you naturally retrench the little superfluities of garniture and equipage. The blossoms will fall of themselves, when the root that nourishes them is destroyed. I shall therefore, as I have said, apply my remedies to the first seeds and principles of an affected dress, without descending to the dress itself; though at the same time I must own that I have thoughts of creating an officer under me, to be in10 titled, The censor of small wares, and of allotting him one day in a week for the execution of such his office. An operator of this nature might act under me, with the same regard as a surgeon to a physician; the one might be employed in healing those blotches and tumours which break out in the body, while the other is sweetening the blood and rectifying the constitution. To speak truly, the young people of both sexes are so wonderfully apt to shoot out into long swords or sweeping trains, bushy head-dresses or full-bottomed periwigs, with several other incumbrances of dress, that they stand in need of 20 being pruned very frequently, lest they should be oppressed with ornaments, and over-run with the luxuriance of their habits. I am much in doubt, whether I should give the preference to a Quaker that is trimmed close and almost cut to the quick, or to a beau that is loaded with such a redundance of excrescences. I must therefore desire my correspondents to let me know how they approve my project, and whether they think the erecting of such a petty censorship may not turn to the emolument of the public; for I would not do any thing of this nature rashly and without advice. 30 There is another set of correspondents to whom I must address myself in the second place; I mean such as fill their letters with private scandal, and black accounts of particular persons and families. The world is so full of ill-nature, that I have lampoons sent me by people who cannot spell, and satires composed by those who scarce know how to write. By the last post in particular I received a packet of scandal which is not legible; and have a whole bundle of letters in women's hands that are full of blots and calumnies, insomuch, that when I see the name Cælia, Phillis, Pastora, or the like, at the bottom of a scrawl, 40 I conclude on course that it brings me some account of a fallen virgin, a faithless wife, or an amorous widow. I must therefore inform these my correspondents, that it is not my design to be a publisher of intrigues, or to bring little infamous stories out of their present lurking-holes into broad day-light. If I attack the vicious, I shall only set upon them in a body; and will not be provoked by the worst usage I can receive from others to make an example of any particular criminal. In short, I have so much of a Drawcansir n in me, that I shall pass over a single foe to charge whole armies. It is not Lais or Silenus, but the harlot 10 and the drunkard, whom I shall endeavour to expose; and shall consider the crime as it appears in a species, not as it is circumstanced in an individual. I think it was Caligula who wished the whole city of Rome had but one neck, that he might behead them at a blow. I shall do, out of humanity, what that emperor would have done in the cruelty of his temper, and aim every stroke at a collective body of offenders. At the same time I am very sensible that nothing spreads a paper like private calumny and defamation; but as my speculations are not under this necessity, they are not exposed to this 20 temptation. In the next place, I must apply myself to my party-correspondents, who are continually teazing me to take notice of one another's proceedings. How often am I asked by both sides, if it is possible for me to be an unconcerned spectator of the rogueries that are committed by the party which is opposite to him that writes the letter? About two days since I was reproached with an old Grecian law, that forbids any man to stand as a neuter or a looker-on in the divisions of his country. However, as I am very sensible my paper would lose its whole 30 effect, should it run into the outrages of a party, I shall take care to keep clear of every thing which looks that way. If I can any way assuage private inflammations, or allay public ferment, I shall apply myself to it with my utmost endeavours; but will never let my heart reproach me with having done any thing towards increasing those feuds and animosities that extinguish religion, deface government, and make a nation miserable. What I have said under the three foregoing heads will, I am afraid, very much retrench the number of my correspondents: I shall therefore acquaint my reader, that if he has 40 started any hint which he is not able to pursue, if he has met |