Club Life of London Volume I Part 24

"What can Tommy Onslow do?

He can drive a coach and two!

Can Tommy Onslow do no more?

He can drive a coach and four."

It is a curious fact, that the fas.h.i.+on of amateur charioteering was first set by the ladies. Dr. Young has strikingly sketched, in his satires, the Delia who was as good a coachman as the man she paid for being so:--

"Graceful as John, she moderates the reins, And whistles sweet her diuretic strains."

The Four-in-Hand combined gastronomy with equestrianism and charioteering. They always drove out of town to dinner, and the ghost of Scrope Davies will pardon our suggesting that the club of drivers and diners might well have taken for their motto, "Quadrigis, petimus bene vivere!"[31]

There is another version of the epigram on Tom Onslow:--

"Say, what can Tommy Onslow do?

Can drive a curricle and two.

Can Tommy Onslow do no more?

Yes,--drive a curricle and four."

This is the version current, we are told, among Onslow's relations in the neighbourhood of Guildford.

Lord Onslow's celebrity as _a whip_ long preceded the existence of the Four-in-Hand Club (the palmy days of which belong to the times of George the Fourth), and it was not a _coach_, but a _phaeton_, that he drove. A correspondent of the _Athenaeum_ writes: "I knew him personally, in my own boyhood, in Surrey, in the first years of the present century; and I remember then hearing the epigram now referred to, not as new, but as well known, in the following form:--

'What can little T. O. do?

Drive a phaeton and two.

Can little T. O. do no more?

Yes,--drive a phaeton and four.'

"Tommy Onslow was a little man, full of life and oddities, one of which was a fondness for driving into odd places; and I remember the surprise of a pic-nic party, which he joined in a secluded spot, driving up in his 'phaeton and four' through ways that were hardly supposed pa.s.sable by anything beyond a flock of sheep. An earlier exploit of his had a less agreeable termination. He was once driving through Thames-street, when the hook of a crane, dangling down in front of one of the warehouses, caught the hood of the phaeton, tilting him out, and the fall broke his collar-bone."

The vehicles of the Club which were formerly used are described as of a hybrid cla.s.s, quite as elegant as private carriages and lighter than even the mails. They were horsed with the finest animals that money could secure. In general, the whole four in each carriage were admirably matched; grey and chestnut were the favourite colours, but occasionally very black horses, or such as were freely flecked with white, were preferred. The master generally drove the team, often a n.o.bleman of high rank, who commonly copied the dress of a mail coachman. The company usually rode outside, but two footmen in rich liveries were indispensable on the back seat, nor was it at all uncommon to see some splendidly attired female on the box. A rule of the Club was that all members should turn out three times a week; and the start was made at mid-day, from the neighbourhood of Piccadilly, through which they pa.s.sed to the Windsor-road,--the attendants of each carriage playing on their silver bugles. From twelve to twenty of these handsome vehicles often left London together.

There remain a few handsome drags, superbly horsed. In a note to Nimrod's life-like sketch, "The Road,"[32] it is stated that "only ten years back, there were from thirty-four to forty four-in-hand equipages to be seen constantly about town."

Nimrod has some anecdotical ill.u.s.trations of the taste for the _whip_, which has undoubtedly declined; and at one time, perhaps, it occupied more attention among the higher cla.s.ses of society than we ever wish to see it do again. Yet, taken in moderation, we can perceive no reason to condemn this branch of sport more than others. "If so great a personage as Sophocles could think it fitting to display his science in public, in the trifling game of ball, why may not an English gentleman exercise his skill on a coach-box? If the Athenians, the most polished nation of all antiquity, deemed it _an honour_ to be considered skilful charioteers, why should Englishmen consider it a disgrace? To be serious, our amateur or _gentlemen-coachmen_ have done much good: the road would never have been what it now is, but for the encouragement they gave, by their notice and support, to all persons connected with it. Would the Holyhead road have been what it is, had there been no such persons as the Hon. Thomas Kenyon, Sir Henry Parnell, and Mr. Maddox? Would the Oxford coachmen have set so good an example as they have done to their brethren of 'the bench,'

had there been no such men on their road as Sir Henry Peyton, Lord Clonmel, the late Sir Thomas Mostyn; that Nestor of coachmen, Mr.

Annesley; and the late Mr. Harrison of Shelswell? Would not the unhappy coachmen of five-and-twenty years back have gone on, wearing out their breeches with the b.u.mping of the old coach-box, and their stomachs with brandy, had not Mr. Warde of Squerries, after many a weary endeavour, persuaded the proprietors to place their boxes upon springs--the plan for accomplis.h.i.+ng which was suggested by Mr.

Roberts, nephew to then proprietor of the White Horse, Fetter Lane, London, but now of the Royal Hotel, Calais? What would the Devons.h.i.+re road have been, but for the late Sir Charles Bamfylde, Sir John Rogers, Colonel Prouse, Sir Lawrence Palk, and others? Have the advice and the practice of such experienced men as Mr. Charles Buxton, Mr.

Henry Villebois, Mr. Okeover, Sir Bellingham Graham, Mr. John Walker, Lord Sefton, Sir Felix Agar,[33] Mr. Ackers, Mr. Maxse, Hon. Fitzroy Stanhope, Colonel Spicer, Colonel Sibthorpe, _c.u.m multis aliis_, been thrown away upon persons who have looked up to them as protectors?

Certainly not: neither would the improvement in carriages--stage-coaches more especially--have arrived at its present height, but for the attention and suggestions of such persons as we have been speaking of."

A commemoration of long service in the coaching department may be related here. In the autumn of 1835, a handsome compliment was paid to Mr. Charles Holmes, the driver and part proprietor of the Blenheim coach (from Woodstock to London) to celebrate the completion of his twentieth year on that well-appointed coach, a period that had elapsed without a single accident to his coach, his pa.s.sengers, or himself; and during which time, with the exception of a very short absence from indisposition, he had driven his sixty-five miles every day, making somewhere about twenty-three thousand miles a year. The numerous patrons of the coach entered into a subscription to present him with a piece of plate; and accordingly a cup, bearing the shape of an antique vase, the cover surmounted by a beautifully modelled horse, with a coach and four horses on one side, and a suitable inscription on the other, was presented to Mr. Holmes by that staunch patron of the road, Sir Henry Peyton, Bart., in August, at a dinner at the Thatched House Tavern, St. James's-street, to which between forty and fifty gentlemen sat down. The list of subscribers amounted to upwards of two hundred and fifty, including among others the Duke of Wellington.

FOOTNOTES:

[30] Athenaeum review of Captain Gronow's Anecdotes.

[31] Athenaeum, No. 1739.

[32] Written, it must be recollected, some thirty years since.

Reprinted in Murray's 'Reading for the Rail.'

[33] Perhaps one of the finest specimens of good coachmans.h.i.+p was performed by Sir Felix Agar. He made a bet, which he won, that he would drive his own four-horses-in-hand, up Grosvenor-place, down the pa.s.sage into Tattersall's Yard, around the pillar which stands in the centre of it, and back again into Grosvenor-place, _without either of his horses going at a slower pace than a trot_.

WHIST CLUBS.

To Hoyle has been ascribed the invention of the game of Whist. This is certainly a mistake, though there can be no doubt that it was indebted to him for being first specially treated of and introduced to the public in a scientific manner. He also wrote on piquet, quadrille, and backgammon, but little is known of him more than he was born in 1672, and died in Cavendish-square on 29th August, 1769, at the advanced age of ninety-seven. He was a barrister by profession, and Registrar of the Prerogative in Ireland, a post worth 600 a year. His treatise on Whist, for which he received from the publisher the sum of 1000, ran through five editions in one year, besides being extensively pirated.

"Whist, Ombre, and Quadrille, at Court were used, And Ba.s.sett's power the City dames amused, Imperial Whist was yet but slight esteemed, And pastime fit for none but rustics deemed.

How slow at first is still the growth of fame!

And what obstructions wait each rising name!

Our stupid fathers thus neglected, long, The glorious boast of Milton's epic song; But Milton's muse at last a critic found, Who spread his praise o'er all the world around; And Hoyle at length, for Whist performed the same, And proved its right to universal fame."

Whist first began to be popular in England about 1730, when it was very closely studied by a party of gentlemen, who formed a sort of Club, at the Crown Coffee-house in Bedford-row. Hoyle is said to have given instructions in the game, for which his charge was a guinea a lesson.

The Laws of Whist have been variously given.[34] More than half a century has elapsed since the supremacy of "long whist" was a.s.sailed by a reformed, or rather revolutionized form of the game. The champions of the ancient rules and methods did not at once submit to the innovation. The conservatives were not without some good arguments on their side; but "short whist" had attractions that proved irresistible, and it has long since fully established itself as the only game to be understood when whist is named. But hence, in the course of time, has arisen an inconvenience. The old school of players had, in the works of Hoyle and Cavendish, manuals and text-books of which the rules, cases, and decisions were generally accepted. For short whist no such "volume paramount" has. .h.i.therto existed. Hoyle could not be safely trusted by a learner, so much contained in that venerable having become obsolete. Thus, doubtful cases arising out of the short game had to be referred to the best living players for decision. But there was some confusion in the "whist world," and the necessity of a code of the modern laws and rules of this "almost perfect" game had become apparent, when a combined effort was made by a committee of some of the most skilful to supply the deficiency.

The movement was commenced by Mr. J. Loraine Baldwin, who obtained the a.s.sistance of a Committee, including members of several of the best London Clubs well known as whist players. They were deputed to draw up a code of rules for the game, which, if approved, was to be adopted by the Arlington Club. They performed their task with the most decided success. The rules they laid down as governing the best modern practice have been accepted, not only by the Arlington, but the Army and Navy, Arthur's, Boodle's, Brookes's, Carlton, Conservative, Garrick, Guards, Junior Carlton, Portland, Oxford and Cambridge, Reform, St. James's, White's, etc. To the great section of the whist world that do not frequent Clubs, it may be satisfactory to know the names of the gentlemen composing the Committee of Codification, whose rules are to become law. They are Admiral Rous, chairman; Mr. G.

Bentinck, M.P.; Mr. J. Bushe; Mr. J. Clay, M.P.; Mr. C. Greville; Mr.

R. Knightley, M.P.; Mr. H. B. Mayne; Mr. G. Payne; and Colonel Pipon.

The _Laws of Short Whist_[35] were in 1865 published in a small volume; and to this strictly legal portion of the book is appended _A Treatise on the Game_, by Mr. J. Clay, M.P. for Hull. It may be read with advantage by the commencing student of whist and the advanced player, and with pleasure even by those who are totally ignorant of it, and have no wish to learn it. There are several incidental ill.u.s.trations and anecdotes, that will interest those not gifted with the faculties good whist requires. Mr. Clay is reported to be one of the best, if not the very best, of modern players. The Dedication is as follows: "To the Members of the Portland Club, admitted among whom, as a boy, I have pa.s.sed many of the pleasantest days of my life, I have learned what little I know of Whist, and have formed many of my oldest friends.h.i.+ps, this Treatise on Short Whist is dedicated with feelings of respect and regard, by their old playfellow, J. C."

Leaving his instructions, like the rules of the committee, to a more severe test than criticism, we extract from his first chapter a description of the incident to which short whist owes its origin. It will probably be quite new to thousands who are familiar with the game.

"Some eighty years back, Lord Peterborough, having one night lost a large sum of money, the friends with whom he was playing proposed to make the game five points instead of ten, in order to give the loser a chance, at a quicker game, of recovering his loss. The new game was found to be so lively, and money changed hands with such increased rapidity, that these gentlemen and their friends, all of them leading members of the Clubs of the day, continued to play it. It became general in the Clubs, thence was introduced to private houses, travelled into the country, went to Paris, and has long since so entirely superseded the whist of Hoyle's day, that of short whist alone I propose to treat. I shall thus spare the reader, the learning much in the old works that it is not necessary for him to know, and not a little which, if learned, should be at once forgotten."

Graham's, in St. James's-street, the greatest of Card Clubs, was dissolved about five-and-twenty years back.

FOOTNOTES:

[34] Abridged from the _Times_ journal.

[35] _The Laws of Short Whist_, edited by J. L. Baldwin, and a Treatise on the Game, by J. C. Harrison, 59, Pall Mall.

PRINCE'S CLUB RACQUET COURTS.

In the early history of the metropolis we find the Londoners warmly attached to outdoor sports and pastimes; although time and the spread of the great city have long obliterated the sites upon which these popular amus.e.m.e.nts were enjoyed. Smithfield, we know, was the town-green for centuries before it became the focus of its fanatic fires; Maypoles stood in various parts of the City and suburbs, as kept in remembrance by name to this day; football was played in the main artery of the town--Fleet-street and the Strand, for instance; _paille malle_ was played in St. James's Park, and the street which is named after the game; and tennis and other games at ball were enjoyed on open grounds long before they were played in covered courts; while the bowling-greens in the environs were neither few nor far between, almost to our time.

Tennis, we need scarcely state here, was originally played with the hand, at first naked, then covered with a thick glove, to which succeeded the bat or racquet, whence the present name of the game. A few of our kings have been tennis-players. In the sixteenth century tennis courts were common in England, being attached to country mansions. Later, playing-courts were opened in the metropolis: for example, to the houses of entertainment which formerly stood at the opposite angles of Windmill-street and the Haymarket were attached tennis-courts, which lasted to our time: one of these courts exists in James-street, Haymarket, to this day. To stroll out from the heated and crowded streets of the town to the village was a fas.h.i.+on of the last century, as we read in the well-remembered line--

"Some dukes at Marybone bowl time away."