Club Life of London : Volume I (Illustrated)

“Pictures of the Social Life of the Metropolis during the last two centuries are by no means rare. We possess them in Diaries, Memoirs, and Correspondence, in almost countless volumes, that sparkle with humour and gaiety, alternating with more serious phases,—political or otherwise,—according to the colour and complexion, and body of the time. Of such pictures the most attractive are Clubs. Few attempts have, however, been made to focus the Club-life of periods, or to assemble with reasonable limits, the histories of the leading Associations of clubbable Men,—of Statesmen and Politicians, Wits and Poets, Authors, Artists, and Actors, and "men of wit and pleasure," which the town has presented since the days of the Restoration; or in more direct succession, from the reign of Queen Anne, and the days of the Tatler and Spectator, and other Essayists in their wake.”