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nicles of our younger, or of our sunnier, hours, which we live over again almost in their first freshness whilst we are telling them! How cruel to cut off from us that second life, brief and momentary as it is! to exact an arithmetical precision on such an occasion; to lie on the watch, crouching for the slip of a date, then to pounce upon us, and break the whole texture to the last thread, in the wanton exercise of a mere matter-offact despotism!

It is the universal complaint, that the occupation of the dramatic writer is gone; and, as we are loath to admit a decline of genius as a cause for any thing in the present day, we accuse the uniformity of modern manners, and the levelling influences of fashion, of making one man merely a counterpart to his neighbour, and of leaving the comic poet classes instead of individuals for his materials. Nothing, it is said, stands out sufficiently in relief. Human society being compared to a gallery of portraits, with one invariable family simper, and as much alike, as if they had all been painted by Kneller,-the humorists, once the staple commodity of the drama, are said to have become extinct. Yet, we will venture to say, that these personages are still to be found at a club truly English, and founded on genuine club-principles. For it is there that every one gives vent to feelings which he suppresses in the artificial intercourses of life. It is there that his qualities stand out undisguised and unrestrained; that affectation and false pretence are immediately detected, and the whole man brought forward in his just and unborrowed proportions.

In that club, the beau-ideal of clubs, "the club” par-excellence, (and can we mean any other than that

of the Spectator?) how admirably, and by what exact and harmonious clock-work, do the humours and eccentricities of each member strike at their appointed seasons! How exquisitely modified, how tempered into a bland assimilation, is each man's especial vanity, —if that be the proper term for any thing so unoffending! Whatever the thing may be, how kindly does it tolerate the little outbreakings of it in others! There is no surly cognizance taken of the little amplifications with which our natural good-will to our own stories occasionally embellishes them; no cold, icy sneer at those half-fictions, which fancy, without our consent, sometimes entangles in the frail web of our reminiscence. The amiable and benignant Sir Roger, with his bundle of good-natured whims and prejudices, diffuses himself over the freaks of his youth, and listens in his turn, with placid respect,-spite of their difference in politics,-to the mercantile sententiousness of Sir Andrew Freeport, the modest narrations of Captain Sentry, and the self-complacent gallantries of that battered beau, Will Honeycombe.

The age of such clubs is, alas! gone by; but Addison's, will always remain the ideal model of a perfect club, though only a shadowing froth of his fancy. In those days, however, there were real clubs, equal in every respect to that ingenious portraiture, but to which nothing now offers a parallel.

There was the Kit-Kat, where heroes and patriots, the pride and glory of the realm, soothed their grave and dignified cares, in easy, tranquil communion, within the "warm precincts" of a tavern-parlour. When that club lost its snugness, as it did when it became a mere political association, it soon expired.→→

Then flourished also the Scriblerus-club, where Swift, Harley, Arbuthnot, Pope, Gay, and Craggs the younger, mingled in nightly converse.

Nearer to our own days, was the club originally held at the Essex-head, where the genius of Samuel Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, Goldsmith, Windham, and Fox, threw out its milder,-its evening radiance, over their easy and unrestrained communications of heart and intellect.-Noctes, cœnæque Deorum! The conversation in this delightful society was always unforced and natural, and ran smoothly and gently along, touching upon every topic that occurred, like Shakspeare's current, "giving a kiss to every stone it overtaketh in its pilgrimage." Even Johnson's growl was softened into something that resembled amenity; and if you examine closely the composition of that club, you will see the felicity of its contexture; and how cunningly its tints were disposed and varied through their several shades and gradations, from the rich and gorgeous glow of such minds as Burke's, to the chastised wit and unambitious pleasantry of Topham Beauclerck, the lettered ease and good sense of Bennet Langton, and then to the excellent individuals, who, though of humbler pretensions, were not stocks or stones, but of shrewd, sterling, understandings; and whose remarks were always listened to with respect and attention. It has been asserted that there was seldom any set discussion amongst them; for, the easy copiousness and discursive range of Burke's conversation brought together so many hints and allusions, as to create a per、 petual variety and alternation of discourse. This, indeed, was Burke's theory of conversation, "the perfection of which," he once remarked, "was, not to

play a regular sonata, but, like the Æolian harp, to await the inspiration of the passing breeze.""

We know not exactly whence it arises.-We meet in every circle, in every drawing-room, in every coffee-house, at every table, more well-informed persons than ever; but every body has remarked, that professed literary men are not pleasant or instructive companions when they meet together. A little sprinkling of them infuses an agreeable variety in a party, but, like some families, they should never visit in a group. -Does this well-founded reproach arise from that professional backwardness which modestly prohibits one star from shining at the expense, or in the presence, of others of equal magnitude? Or is it, that, when a knot of learned personages are drawn together, they are apt to descant, in technical language, on subjects something beyond the comprehension of common mortals? and, when good manners prohibit this exclusive converse, that, an author is generally so little a man of the world, as to be unable, or unwilling, to descend to the small talk of the day?-Or is it not, rather, that, when in such company, a good thought, or new idea arises, the inspired person prefers to reserve it for his next Magazine Essay,-his New Novel,-or his long promised Treatise on Political Economy,-rather than, by proclaiming it on the spot, to give his literary rivals the undue advantage of priority of publication?

Literary men seldom think aloud: they think upon paper, that their thoughts may not be thrown away. They are, moreover, in company, too much on the alert in making observations upon character, and in picking up the best thoughts of other persons, to be

able to afford their share of the general entertainment, When, however, there is only one learned Theban in company, he generally shines; for, he dreads no rivalry nor petty larceny, and he feels himself to be the representative of his fraternity in the General Congress of Society;-the Ambassador of Apollo, at the Court of the Muses, where he is called upon to support the credit of his profession :-the majority of his auditors consequently admire him for the instruction that falls from his lips; and they are grateful to him for remov ing the veil of ignorance from between their eyes and those subjects which he has particularly studied.

The best clubs, therefore, are those where men of letters, men of commerce, and men of the world, commune together: and we find now and then in a cathedral-town what perhaps is no longer to be found in the metropolis,-an association in which all these elements are happily blended. Besides, the natural character there is not effaced and worn down; a club, in a provincial city, being frequently a hortus siccus of all the varieties of civilized society. There may be persons of lettered and studious habits amongst them, but not in sufficient numbers to feel a corporate spirit, or to overlay the native whim and humour of less cultured minds.

Since the time of Dr. Johnson, the Clubs of eminence in London have, for the most part, been assemblages of noblemen and gentlemen connected with the Court and with the Houses of Parliament. In this elevated society, it might be thought that there would be fewer peculiarities of character than in the inferior circles-that the process of classical education, and the usages and forms of fashionable life, would have

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