Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-01-02

thus early, the word club did not then ex-
ist. 1t is from an Anglo-Saxon verb clofan,
meaning to divide expenses; but the first
time the word is used by an English writer's
in 1863, when Aubrey the antiquary, writes:
''We now use the word Ciubbe for
a sodality held in tavern
The same author mentions a ballot box:
Here We had Every formally ballot,
ing box, and balloted how things should
be carried" During the reigns of Eliza
beth and James l. q large number of clubs
arose, some of which have become famous
owing to the great men who were members
OF them. First among these was the bril-
liant society which met at the Mermaid
Tavern, of which Shakespeare and Ben
Jonson were members. Its doings are
described in letter from Beaumont to
Ben Jonson:
What things we have seen
Done at the Mermaid - Heard words that
have been
So nimble and so full of subtitle flame,
As if everyone from whom thev came
Had meant to put his whole wit in jest,
And had resolved to live fool the rest
Ofhis dull life.
Gay Times at the Mermaid Tavern.
The meetings at the Mermaid have al
ways been an attractive subject for poets.
Browning has written of them; and there
are the lines of Keats:
Souls of poets dead and gone,
What elvsium have we known
Happy field or messy cavern
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
An earlier club than the Mermaid was
the "Apollo Club" almost the first of the
kind. 1t met at the tavern with the sign
OF the Devil" in Fleet street, and was
presided over by Ben Jonson himself, who,
in his ''Marmion," makes Careless say he has
''come from Apollo:"
From the heaven
Of my delight, where the boon Delphic god
Drinks sack, and keeps his bacchanalia
And has his affairs and his incense smoking,
And speaks in sparkling prophecies.
During the Commonwealth arose the
famous "Rota Club" which was formed for
the propagation of republican opinions. 1t
numbered among its members the most illus
trious literary men of the time. There were
Milton, Harrington, the author of "Oceana," )"
Andrew Marvell, Cyriac Skinner and
Nevill. Cecil Hay in his work on "Modern
Club-life, mentions the Rota as represented
now by "those compromises between public
houses and debating societies known by the
name of Discussion Halls OF Forums,
OF which certain establishment
yclept ''Cogers' Hall" in Shoe
Lane, Fleet street. may be mentioned as a
Specimen. Alas, the COgefS HILL Is no
more! The "Sealed Knot was the opposi-
tion club to the Rota. All its members were
Royalists, and organized in favor of the ex-
lied Charles a general insurrection which
never took place.
From this time the decav of the old tavern
clubs set in. Gradually clubs began to con-
ceive the idea of having buildings of their
own, and the old inns were deserted. A
clubhouse was founded in Pall-N1all in the
reign of George Ill, and became the fore
runner of that great series of club palaces
which lends to not a few of the streets
OF London whatever magnifcence they can
boast Some of the clubs still existing
link the new era of club-lite with the old.
The Cocoa-tree Club-of which Defoe
wrote, ga Whig will no more go to the
Cocoa-tree than Tory will be seen,at the
coffee house of St. James has its house in
James street; and Whites Club, founded
nearly two centeries ago, is still popular.
One can we'll imagine how great would be
the astonishment of the original members
of one of these old institutions if they could
see the changes which have been wrought
in the places in which they must have
passed many happy hours, and for which
they could hardly fail to feel some affection.