had the further advantage of reducing the sum paid as rent, as these chambers, which have always been in great request, produce an amount equal to two-thirds of the 9681. payable to the Crown as ground-rent.

When the Reform club-house was half built, its erection was on the point of being suspended. The foreman of the works called upon Mr. Martin Thackeray, a member of the finance committee, and told him that, if additional funds were not immediately put at his disposal, the workmen, numbering sixty, would be discharged. It was then the Long Vacation, and only two other members of the committee were in London: they were Lord Marcus Hill, the Liberal Whip, and Mr Edward Ellice. These three gentlemen resolved to incur a personal liability rather than suffer the erection of the club-house to be retarded for a day; and they went to the club bankers, Messrs. Cocks & Biddulph, giving their personal guarantee for the advances necessary to continue building operations. A part of the building was opened for the reception of members on the 1st of March, 1841. It is a club tradition that the first member who entered on the morning of that day and breakfasted there was Mr. Charles De la Pryme.

Whilst the members occupied Gwydyr House, the Crown passed from King William the Fourth to Queen Victoria. On the afternoon of the 28th of June, 1838, the day of the Queen's coronation, the members gave a grand entertainment at which two thousand persons were present. Shortly after their club-house in Pall Mall was opened, they gave a reception in honour of the Duke of Sussex, the uncle of the Queen, and one of the original members of the club. The loyalty of the reformers has been manifested in other ways. The first piece of statuary placed in the hall of the club-house was a marble bust of the Queen, this bust being placed in so conspicuous a position that it is the first object which meets the visitor's eye on entering the hall. In later days, the portraits of Earl Russell and Viscount Palmerston, two of Her Majesty's greatest Ministers, were placed on either side of her marble bust.

Some time elapsed, however, after the opening of the club-house, before it was completed and furnished. The ground-floor was alone finished when the members were first admitted. Though so much remained to be done, the sum of money expended was very largebeing 83,600l., and being more than double the cost of any club-house up to that time. Much of the outlay was due to the thoroughness with which the architect did his part. Barry designed the furniture as well as the building. This was a far more expensive way of furnishing a club-house than ordering ready-made furniture, but it had the advantage of increasing the beauty and artistic effect of the whole. The prediction of Mr. Ellice was fully verified: the reformers secured for themselves a much finer club-house than the members of Brooks's. The founders of the Reform desired to do more than provide its VOL. XIX.-No. 111.

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members with a club-house such as should surpass any other then built as a piece of architecture; they were equally anxious to provide every possible comfort and luxury for the benefit and gratification of the members. Foremost amongst the advantages which they hoped to offer to the members was a library of which they might be as proud as of the club-bouse itself. In this matter they followed the example of the founders of the Athenæum, who looked forward to bringing together such a collection of books as should make the club renowned

-a project in which they have perfectly succeeded. Though several London clubs have collections of books, the Athenæum and Reform are the only ones which possess really important libraries, such libraries as are indispensable to the scholar, the politician, the statesman, and the man of letters.

Barry had designed two of the largest rooms in the Reform for the reception of books-the one on the ground-floor being the Parliamentary library; another, on the first-floor, being the general library. On the 18th of November, 1841, a sub-committee, which had been appointed to make arrangements about the library, met and passed the following resolution :

That as one of the objects contemplated at the establishment of the club was the formation of an extensive and complete library, especially on all political and Parliamentary subjects; and as the rooms appointed for its reception are now ready, the committee deem it expedient to take immediate measures for attaining an object so important to the ultimate prosperity of the club. That, therefore, a circular be addressed to all the members, earnestly inviting them to aid the committee in this object, by presenting to the club maps, books, pamphlets, and documents—more particularly political and Parliamentary; all such will be of importance and value—the first object being the formation of an extensive and complete library of reference.

This sub-committee recognised that it was not enough to collect a mass of books, it being indispensable that a good plan should be followed in arranging and cataloguing the books. They took the advice of Mr. Vardon, then librarian to the House of Commons, and of a member of the club, Mr. Panizzi, of the British Museum. Panizzi drew up an elaborate plan for classifying the books and forming a catalogue, and this plan, which was gladly adopted by the library committee, has been strictly followed.

The library grew rapidly, the members vieing with each other in making donations of books or of money wherewith to buy them. Ten years after the opening of the club-house it was found that the space provided for housing books was far too limited; and then it was resolved to convert the drawing-room-the largest and handsomest room in the club-house-into the principal library. In 1880, the collection of books numbered 40,000 volumes. It was resolved that the catalogue should be printed for circulation amongst the members. The printed catalogue is a large octavo of 622 pages, and its contents are varied as well as rich, consisting of the best books in English,

French, Italian, and German-in short, of the classics in the ancient and modern languages. Of topographical works the library has a large number, and the collection of pamphlets is very extensive, consisting of upwards of five thousand, many being extremely curious and valuable. In such a library there is little room for those curiosities of literature upon which the book-collector lays great store, yet there are several rare books in this one, the most notable being a first folio Shakespeare, presented by a member of the club.

Whilst the erection of a splendid edifice and the creation of a valuable library had a leading place in the scheme of the founders of the Reform Club, they were also desirous of making it attractive to those who set greater store upon good cooking than upon the most artistic building and the choicest books. The first cook engaged by the club contributed largely to making the club famous. This was Alexis Soyer, who entered the club's service in 1837, and under whose supervision the kitchens of the club-house were constructed.

Soyer's career had many romantic elements in it. He was born in 1809 at Meaux-en-Brie, where the cheese of that name is made. One of his brothers was brought up as a cook, another as a cabinetmaker; at the age of nine he became a chorister in the cathedral, and he was destined to be a priest. He objected to entering the service of the Church, and he succeeded in having his own way by playing so many tricks as to make his parents and relatives conclude that he was unfitted for the clerical vocation. In 1821 he was sent to Paris, where he was induced, by the example and counsel of his eldest brother, to become a cook. He served a regular apprenticeship to the culinary art, and made such rapid progress that, at the early age of seventeen, he was appointed chief cook in a large restaurant, with twelve cooks under his orders. Though his merits as a cook were recognised, he was not satisfied with his avocation. He had a good voice; he sang well; he was an excellent mimic, and he longed to become an actor. However, he yielded to his brother's persuasions against going on the stage. In 1830 he was appointed second cook at the Foreign Office, where he was engaged in preparing a sumptuous banquet to be given by Prince Polignac after the publication of the Ordonnances preceding the Revolution which drove Charles the Tenth into exile and seated Louis Philippe on the throne. The mob attacked the Foreign Office and invaded the kitchen, where the hungry rioters swallowed what they could and destroyed what they could not devour. The cooks fled for their lives. Two were shot dead. Soyer sang the Marseillaise, and his life was spared. He went to London, where his eldest brother was chief cook to the Duke of Cambridge, and served under his brother. He was afterwards in the service of the Duke of Sutherland, the Marquis of Waterford, and the Marquis of Ailsa. In 1837 he was appointed chief cook to

the Reform Club, and he entered upon his duties in the temporary premises at Gwydyr House. His first notable feat was preparing the great entertainment, already referred to, which was given on the day of the Queen's coronation. At that time none of the clubs had cooks of great note, with the exception of Crockford's, where Ude presided over the kitchen. It soon became known that a cook of extraordinary talent was at the Reform, where the kitchens had become one of the sights of London. Lord Melbourne visited them one day, and said to Soyer, How is it you have such a number of pretty female assistants?' His reply was neat and pointed, 'My Lord, we do not want plain cooks here.'

In addition to acting as cook, Soyer became an author, publishing the Gastronomic Regenerator, which had a great success. The critics eulogised, and the public bought the book. Within a year, upwards of 2,000 copies at a guinea each were sold. The book had been composed in the course of ten months. A review of it in the Times contains the following interesting passage:

Talk of the labour of a Prime Minister or Lord Chancellor! Sir Robert Peel is not an idle man. Lord Brougham is a tolerably busy one. Could either, we ask, in the short space of ten months-ten 'little months'-have written the Gastronomic Regenerator, and furnished 25,000 dinners, 38 banquets of importance, comprising above 70,000 dishes, besides providing daily for 60 servants, and receiving the visits of 15,000 strangers, all too eager to inspect the renowned altar of a great Apician temple ?

In 1847, when the distress was severe in Ireland, Soyer was commissioned by the Government to proceed to Dublin and establish a model soup-kitchen there. He succeeded in proving how much nourishing food could be prepared at a small cost. In the course of five months he supplied 2,863,187 pounds weight of well-cooked solid food for the sum of 7,7681.; had the old plan been in operation the cost would have been 15,536l. In the following year he established a model soup-kitchen in Spitalfields, where much distress prevailed among the weavers. Soyer's great merit as a cook was to be able to provide the daintiest or the plainest dishes in the most perfect fashion and at the lowest possible price. Once he was commissioned to furnish ten members of the Reform with the best dinner that he could possibly devise. The cost, exclusive of wine, was four guineas a head. A single dish cost seven guineas. These things were noised abroad, and the skill of Soyer as a cook contributed to enhance the fame of the Reform as a club.

When the Reform Club was first established it was contemplated that members should be allowed to entertain their friends. At the Carlton, hospitality to strangers has never been permitted. But the reformers made a mistake at the outset which they had to remedy before they had been long in the occupation of their club-house. This mistake consisted in framing a rule to the effect that the friends

entertained by members must be reformers also. Yet this rule was not much more restrictive and indefensible than one of the earliest rules of Brooks's, which was to the effect that any member of this society who shall become a candidate for any other club (old White's excepted) shall be ipso facto excluded and his name struck out of the book.'

The determination of the committee of the Reform Club in 1850 to allow members to entertain their friends daily instead of twice a week caused Soyer's resignation that year. He was afraid lest the members would suffer on account of the influx of strangers. His resignation was accepted with regret, as is shown in the following extract from a letter to Soyer written by Lord Marcus Hill, chairman of the committee :

In reply to your letter, the committee have unanimously desired me to assure you of the great reluctance with which they accept that resignation; and to express to you the high sense which they entertain of your very valuable past services, as well as of the zeal, ability, perfect integrity, and uniform respectability of conduct which you have devoted to the well-being of the club during a period of nearly thirteen years' duration.

During Soyer's engagement at the Reform Club, and after its close, he did much to keep his name before the world. Besides writing the Gastronomic Regenerator, he invented a Magic Stove, he concocted a beverage which he styled 'Nectar,' and a sauce to which he gave his own name; he invented a model kitchen, and he tried to found a college for the teaching of 'domestic economy.' He prepared a sectional view of the kitchens of the Reform Club, and he sold 1,400 copies of them at a guinea, coloured, and half a guinea plain. After leaving the club his services were in request to prepare banquets on a large scale, and he did this with entire success in London, Exeter, and York. When the Great Exhibition of 1851 was opened he converted Gore House into a 'Universal Symposium.' In the course of the five months the Symposium was open as many as a thousand persons dined there daily; the receipts amounted to the large sum of 21,000l. and the expenses to the still larger one of 27,000l. Why this should have occurred was a mystery to Soyer. In 1855 he volunteered to go to the Crimea with the view of improving the culinary arrangements there. The Government of the day gladly accepted his offer. He effected great improvements in the manner of feeding the army. He remained till the end of the war, and on his return he received a present of money, in addition to his pay, to mark the appreciation of the authorities of the services he had rendered. He was asked by the Barrack and Hospital Commissioners to revise the dietary of the military hospitals, and he did so, to the great advantage of the patients. He died of an internal malady in 1858, when in his fiftieth year. He was an active and energetic man who was much talked of whilst he lived. If he chiefly.