On the
Continent clubs were not called for, because society itself was the
arena of conversation. In this country, on the other hand, a man could
only chat when at his ease; could only be at his ease among those who
agreed with him on the main points of religion and politics, and even
then wanted the aid of a bottle to make him comfortable. Our want of
sociability was the cause of our clubbing, and therefore the word 'club'
is purely English.
This was never so much the case as after the Restoration. Religion and
politics never ran higher than when a monarch, who is said to have died
a papist because he had no religion at all during his life, was brought
back to supplant a furious puritanical Protectorate. Then, indeed, it
was difficult for men of opposite parties to meet without bickering; and
society demanded separate meeting-places for those who differed. The
origin of clubs in this country is to be traced to two causes--the
vehemence of religious and political partisanship, and the establishment
of coffee-houses. These certainly gave the first idea of clubbery. The
taverns which preceded them had given the English a zest for public life
in a small way. 'The Mermaid' was, virtually, a club of wits long before
the first real club was opened, and, like the clubs of the eighteenth
century, it had its presiding geniuses in Shakespeare and Rare Ben.
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