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Hastings. He has often introduced Old-English forms, such as Hume did not use; but then he makes no attempt to sweep the board of all the names in ordinary use.

I am asking for no rigid system of spelling, for no absolute fixity, for nothing which has not the sanction of the most eminent scholars and the best writers. When men of the learning of the Bishop of Chester, Sir Henry Maine, Sir James Stephen, and so many more of our contemporaries, to say nothing of Hallam, Milman, and those departed, can write Alfred and Edward, I think little children need not be crammed, in the name of truth,' with whole pages of Elfthryths and Ælfgifus.

FREDERIC HARRISON.

THE

JUBILEE OF THE REFORM CLUB.

WRITERS about the London Club-houses, including the late Peter Cunningham who was usually most accurate and trustworthy, state that the Reform Club was founded between the years 1830 and 1832. They also assert that the club was designed to aid in carrying the measures for the improved representation of the people, which then agitated the country, and were hotly debated in Parliament. It is true that the Carlton Club was founded by the Duke of Wellington and his friends with the special object of opposing Parliamentary reform in all aspects and at all times; but the founders of the Reform Club had no reason to concern themselves about the Bills for the representation of the people which became law on the 7th of June, 1832. This memorable date preceded by four years the formation of the Reform Club. Between the years 1830 and 1832 Parliamentary reform owed nothing to the support of a political club, and lost nothing owing to opposition from one.

It is true that the authors and supporters of the Reform Bills which, after a protracted, an arduous, and embittered struggle, were incribed on the Statute Book, belonged to Brooks's Club, which was then, and still is, regarded as the headquarters of the Whig party. It is equally true, however, that Brooks's was not founded with any political purpose nor conducted to attain any political object. In former days its members were as deeply absorbed in the game of hazard as in the game of politics. Whilst the present members delight in maintaining the traditions of plain Whig principles, the club itself stands aloof now, as it has systematically done heretofore, from the drudgery of organising and marshalling the forces of the Liberal party.

The Westminster Reform Club was the first political club formed on the modern type with the express view of upholding the Liberal banner, and furthering the Liberal cause. Its members met together for the first time on the 7th of March, 1834, and they occupied the house numbered 24 Great George Street, Westminster, of which Mr. Alderman Wood was the owner. This club took an active part in the political affairs of the day three months after its establishment a deputation of its members went to give good advice to Earl Grey. The members disdained any subordination to the Whigs. They plumed themselves upon being Radicals who saw no finality in the Reform Acts,

and who ardently desired legislation of a character so sweeping as to appear to the Whigs equivalent to revolution. This club ceased to exist two years after it was founded. Whigs could not join it, and the Radical party was not strong enough to maintain it. Among its members were the most conspicuous Radicals of the time-men like Daniel O'Connell and Feargus O'Connor, Colonel Perronet Thompson, and Joseph Hume. Another member, who afterwards became the leader and idol of the Tory party, was the Earl of Beaconsfield.

Two years after the Westminster Reform Club was founded, and when its prolonged existence seemed most improbable, several ardent politicians resolved to form a political club which should not be exclusively Whig like Brooks's, nor exclusively Radical like the Westminster, but which should offer a place of meeting and action for all shades and sections of the Liberal party. The Right Honourable Edward Ellice was the originator of the new club. Though a staunch Whig, he clearly read the signs of the times which indicated that, if the Whigs would retain their influence, they must not be too fastidious and exclusive in their demeanour towards other and equally sincere Liberals. He had been Secretary to the Treasury, Secretary at War, and for a short time a member of the Cabinet in Earl Grey's first Administration. As a party man he did good service. His advice was highly valued, being sought for and followed on critical occasions. He was unpopular as well as able--his temper was so trying that he was commonly known among his contemporaries by the nickname of 'Bear Ellice.'

Mr. Ellice was both a thoroughly practical man and a keen politician, and, having made up his mind to establish a new club, he set about the task with great energy. In the first place, however, he made an appeal to his fellow-members at Brooks's, to the effect that they should enlarge their club-house and elect six hundred new members. He probably contemplated that the club should leave St. James's Street and return to Pall Mall, where it was originally situated, and occupy a finer house than the one in St. James's Street. A large majority of the members rejected Mr. Ellice's proposition, whereupon he said, 'Well, gentlemen, we mean to start a club which will beat yours.' He summoned those who agreed with him to meet at his own house and discuss the establishment of a new club. At the meeting held in Mr. Ellice's drawing-room the Reform Club was constituted; rules were drawn up and agreed to, those present becoming the original members, and a committee being appointed to elect others. Mr. Coppock took minutes of the proceedings. The name of the club was the subject of much discussion and some difference of opinion. The names of Fox, Hampden, Grey, and Milton were proposed and rejected in succession. It was eventually found that the name Reform' divided the meeting the least, and most completely expressed the views of the founders of the club.

The club was commonly known for a time as the New Reform, to distinguish it from the Westminster Reform. The reason for this

soon ceased. During the two years of the Westminster's existence, the number of members did not exceed two hundred ; debts were incurred which had afterwards to be paid by the few members who adhered to the club to the last. Nineteen-twentieths of them became members of the Reform Club.

The basis upon which, in the spring of 1836, the Reform Club was established, was broad and truly Liberal. It was then recognised that the work of reformers, so far from being ended when the royal assent was given to the Reform Bills, was, on the contrary, only beginning, and that these bills cleared the way for the work remaining to be accomplished. Though the way had been cleared, it might again be blocked. The danger of reaction was serious. Indeed, two years after the passing of the Reform Bills, a Tory Administration had been formed and held office. Thus, then, the necessity for reformers being united, in order that they should preserve as well as continue their work, was clear and imperative. A reformer was a politician who was ready to further all such constitutional changes as might be for the national benefit. As these changes could not well be limited in time or character, the members of the Reform Club could never be justified in saying that their work had been completed, and that, like the Lotus-eaters in Lord Tennyson's exquisite poem, they might declare, 'we have had enough of action and of motion,' and announce their intention of reclining in the hollow Lotus-land like gods' careless of mankind.'

In accordance with these principles, and in order that those holding them might have a place of meeting where concerted action might take place in the pleasantest way, the preamble to the rules set forth that "The Reform Club is instituted for the purpose of promoting the social intercourse of reformers of the United Kingdom.' Moreover, the rules distinctly provided that each candidate for admission should be a 'reformer,' and should be vouched for as such by his proposer and seconder. No one professing to be a reformer was rejected on the ground that his views were too extreme. Two years before the foundation of the club, Daniel O'Connell had spoken in the House of Commons for six hours in support of a motion designed to bring about the repeal of the union between Great Britain and Ireland, yet Daniel O'Connell was not only elected a member of the club, but he was elected a member of the committee which managed its affairs. His friends and supporters in Parliament, commonly known as his tail,' became members also. O'Connell's successors have deliberately separated themselves from the reformers of the United Kingdom. When the Home Rule party was formally constituted in Dublin, Mr. Butt distinctly stated that the members of that party should scrupulously refrain from joining any of the existing London political clubs.

The house of Mr. Angerstein in Pall Mall was the first club-house of the reformers. In 1824 the Government purchased Mr. Angerstein's collection of thirty-eight pictures for 57,000l. with a view to form

the nucleus of a National Gallery, and, whilst the Gallery was building, the public were admitted to see the pictures stored in Mr. Angerstein's house. On the reformers taking possession of the house, the joke of the day was that the National Gallery had been converted into a Reform Club. The house itself was a red brick structure bearing a resemblance to the College of Arms in Queen Victoria Street. On the one side was a private dwelling; on the other a grocer's shop. Pall Mall was then a street in which buildings of the meanest sort were in striking contrast to recently built clubhouses like the University, the Senior United Service, the Athenæum, and the Travellers' Clubs. The first Carlton club-house was built in Pall Mall the year in which the Reform was founded, this being the first of three club-houses which have been erected on the same site, and the third house in which the members of the Carlton found shelter, the first being a house in Charles Street and the second Lord Kensington's house in Carlton Gardens.

Many of the original members of the Reform were opposed to the erection of a club-house in Pall Mall, preferring a site nearer the Houses of Parliament, and such a site they thought Gwydyr House to be. But the majority preferred Pall Mall, on the ground that it was the more fashionable quarter; hence it was resolved to buy Mr. Angerstein's house and the two houses adjoining it, to pull them down, and to erect on the spot they covered the most palatial clubhouse that had then been seen. A narrow street separated this site from that of the Carlton club-house. Whilst the Reform club-house was building the reformers occupied Gwydyr House.

Several architects submitted designs for the new club-house, and the two designs which pleased the members the best were those of Cockerell and Barry. The latter had the advantage of being the architect of the Travellers' Club, a building which was then, as it is still, greatly admired. The former had studied the comfort of members in the internal arrangements and had produced a more imposing elevation than Barry. However, Barry's design was the more artistic and, in several respects, the more novel of the two. When designing the Travellers' club-house, Barry sought inspiration from an Italian model; he did so, too, when designing the Reform, basing his design for it upon the Farnese Palace at Rome, of which Sangallo and Michael Angelo were the architects. It may be noted that the Carlton club-house, as we now see it, is the reproduction of an Italian building, the original being Sansovino's Old Library in St. Mark's Place, at Venice, a building which Mr. Ruskin styles 'a graceful one of the Central Renaissance.' The greatest novelty in Barry's design for the Reform club-house was providing several sets of chambers on the upper floor, these chambers having a separate entrance and staircase at the east end of the club-house. The idea, which was a new one then, has often been acted upon since. Owing to its adoption, a member can live in as well as use his club. In the case of the Reform, the plan

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