t was found necessary to make to interdict it
_in the eating-room_, but to which was added the truly British
exception, which allowed two members of Parliament in those days, or two
'gentlemen' of any kind, to toss up for what they had ordered.

This charming resort of the dissipated was originally established in
Pall Mall in 1764, and the manager was that same Almack who afterwards
opened a lady's club in the rooms now called Willis's, in King Street,
St. James's; who also owned the famous Thatched House, and whom Gilly
Williams described as having a 'Scotch face, in a bag-wig,' waiting on
the ladies at supper. In 1778 Brookes--a wine-merchant and money-lender,
whom Tickell, in his famous 'Epistle from the Hon. Charles Fox,
partridge-shooting, to the Hon. John Townsend, cruising,' describes in
these lines;--

'And know I've bought the best champagne from Brookes,
From liberal Brookes, whose speculative skill
Is hasty credit, and a distant bill:
Who, nurs'd in clubs, disdains a vulgar trade:
Exults to trust, and blushes to be paid--'

built and opened the present club-house in St. James's Street, and
thither the members of Almack's migrated. Brookes' speculative skill,
however, did not make him a rich man, and the 'gentlemen' he dealt with
were perhaps too gentlemanly to pay him. He died poor in 1782. Almack's
at first consisted of twenty-seven members, one of whom was C.J. Fox.
Gibbon, the historian, was actually a member of it, and says that in
spite of the rage for play, he found the society there rational and
entertaining. Sir Joshua Reynolds wanted to be a member of it too. 'You
see,' says Topham Beauclerk thereupon, 'what noble ambition will make a
man attempt. That den is not yet opened,' &c.

Brookes', however, was far more celebrated, and besides Fox, Reynolds,
and Gibbon, there were here to be found Horace Walpole, David Hume,
Burke, Selwyn, and Garrick. It would be curious to discover how much
religion, how much morality, and how much vanity there were among the
set. The first two would require a microscope to examine, the last an
ocean to contain it. But let Tickell describe its inmates:--

'Soon as to Brookes's thence thy footsteps bend
What gratulations thy approach attend!
See Gibbon rap his box--auspicious sign,
That classic compliment and wit combine;
See Beauclerk's cheek a tinge of red surprise,
And friendship give what cruel health denies;

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