Merry Men, in the language of those times, is no more than a cheerful word for companions and fellow-soldiers. A passage in the eleventh book of Virgil's Eneid is very much to be admired, where Camilla, in her last agonies, instead of weeping over the wound she had received, as one might have expected from a warrior of her sex, considers only (like the hero of whom we are now speaking) how the battle should be continued after her death.

Tum sic expirans, &c.

A gathering mist o'erclouds her cheerful eyes,
And from her cheeks the rosy colour flies;
Then turns to her, whom, of her female train,
She trusted most, and thus she speaks with pain.
Acca, 'tis past! he swims before my sight,

Inexorable death; and claims his right.

Bear my last words to Turnus: fly with speed,
And bid him timely to my charge succeed:
Repel the Trojans, and the town relieve,
Farewel.-

Turnus did not die in so heroic a manner; though our poet

seems to have had his eye upon Turnus's speech in the last verse,

Lord Piercy sees me fall.

Vicisti, et victum tendere palmas

Ausonii videre

The Latian chiefs have seen me beg my life.

DRYDEN.

Earl Piercy's lamentation over his enemy is generous, beautiful and passionate; I must only caution the reader not to let the simplicity of the style, which one may well pardon in so old a poet, prejudice him against the greatness of the thought.

Then leaving life, Earl Piercy took
The dead man by the hand,

And said, Earl Douglas, for thy life
Would I had lost my land.1

'Here the old poem has a picture, which is entirely lost in the modern;

O Christ! my very heart doth bleed
With sorrow for thy sake;
For sure a more renowned knight
Mischance did never take.

That beautiful line, taking the dead man by the hand, will put the reader in mind of Eneas's behaviour towards Lausus, whom he himself had slain as he came to the rescue of his aged father.

At vero ut vultum vidit morientis, et ora,
Ora modis Anchisiades pallentia miris:

Ingemuit miserans graviter, dextramque tetendit, &c.

The pious prince beheld young Lausus dead;

He grieved, he wept; then grasp'd his hand, and said,
Poor hapless youth! what praises can be paid

To worth so great

!

I shall take another opportunity to consider the other parts of

HAVING already given my reader an account of several extraordinary clubs, both ancient and modern, I did not design to have troubled him with any more narratives of this nature: but I have lately received information of a club which I can call neither an

though the beautiful incident of taking the dead man by the hand has been preserved.

The Persè leanyde on his brande,

And saw the Duglas de;

He tooke the dede man be the hande,

And sayd, Wo ys me for the!--G.

cient nor modern, that I dare say will be no less surprising to my reader than it was to myself; for which reason I shall communicate it to the public as one of the greatest curiosities in its kind.

A friend of mine complaining of a tradesman who is related to him, after having represented him as a very idle, worthless fellow, who neglected his family, and spent most of his time over a bottle, told me, to conclude his character, that he was a member of the Everlasting Club. So very odd a title raised my curiosity to inquire into the nature of a club that had such a sounding name; upon which my friend gave me the following account.

'THE Everlasting Club consists of a hundred members, who divide the whole twenty-four hours among them in such a manner, that the club sits day and night from one end of the year to another; no party presuming to rise till they are relieved by those who are in course to succeed them. By this means a member of the Everlasting Club never wants company; for though he is not upon duty himself, he is sure to find some who are; so that if he be disposed to take a whet, a nooning, an evening's draught, or a bottle after midnight, he goes to the club, and finds a knot of friends to his mind.

'It is a maxim in this club, that the steward never dies; for as they succeed one another by way of rotation, no man is to quit the great elbow-chair which stands at the upper end of the table, till his successor is in a readiness to fill it; insomuch, that there has not been a Sede vacante in the memory of man.

'This club was instituted towards the end (or, as some of them say, about the middle) of the Civil Wars, and continued without interruption till the time of the Great Fire,' which burnt them out, and dispersed them for several weeks. The steward at that time maintained his post till he had like to have been blown up with a neighboring house, (which was demolished in or

11666.

der to stop the fire,) and would not leave the chair at last, till he had emptied all the bottles upon the table, and received repeated directions from the club to withdraw himself. This steward is frequently talked of in the club, and looked upon by every member of it as a greater man than the famous captain mentioned in my Lord Clarendon, who was burnt in his ship because he would not quit it without orders. It is said that towards the close of 1700, being the great year of jubilee, the club had it under consideration whether they should break up, or continus their session; but, after many speeches and debates, it was at length agreed to sit out the other century. This resolution passed in a general club Nemine contradicente.'

Having given this short account of the institution and continuation of the Everlasting Club, I should here endeavour to say something of the manners and characters of its several members, which I shall do according to the best light I have received in this matter.

It appears by their books in general, that since their first institution, they have smoked fifty tun of tobacco, drank thirty thousand butts of ale, one thousand hogsheads of red port, two hundred barrels of brandy, and a kilderkin of small beer: there has been likewise a great consumption of cards. It is also said, that they observe the law in Ben Jonson's club, which orders the fire to be always kept in (focus perennis esto) as well for the convenience of lighting their pipes, as to cure the dampness of the club-room. They have an old woman in the nature of a vestal, whose business it is to cherish and perpetuate the fire, which burns from generation to generation, and has seen the glass-house fires in and out above an hundred times.

The Everlasting Club treats all other clubs with an eye of contempt, and talks even of the Kit-Cat and October as of a couple of upstarts. Their ordinary discourse (as much as I have been

able to learn of it) turns altogether upon such adventures as have passed in their own assembly; of members who have taken the glass in their turns for a week together, without stirring out of the club; of others who have smoked an hundred pipes at a sitting; of others who have not missed their morning's draught for twenty years together; sometimes they speak in raptures of a run of ale in King Charles's reign; and sometimes reflect with astonishment upon games at whist, which have been miraculously recovered by members of the society, when in all human probability the case was desperate.

They delight in several old catches, which they sing at all hours to encourage one another to moisten their clay, and grow immortal by drinking; with many other edifying exhortations of the like nature.

There are four general clubs held in a year, at which times they fill up vacancies, appoint waiters, confirm the old fire-maker, or elect a new one, settle contributions for coals, pipes, tobacco, and other necessaries.

The senior member has out-lived the whole club twice over, and has been drunk with the grandfathers of some of the present sitting members.

C.