The  October  Club  was  one  of  the  earliest,  being  composed
of  some  hundred  and  fifty  rank  Tories,  chiefly  country  members
of  Parliament  They  met  at  the  *Bell,'  in  King  Street,  West-
minster, that  street  in  which  Spenser  starved,  and  Dryden's  bro-
ther kept  a  grocer's  shop.  A  portrait  of  Queen  Anne,  by  Dahl,
hung  in  the  dub-room.  This  and  the  Kit-kat,  the  great  Whig
club,  were  chiefly  reserved  for  politics;  but  the  fashion  of
clubbing  having  once  come  in,  it  was  soon  followed  by  people
of  all  fancies.  No  reader  of  the  '  Spectator*  can  fail  to  remem-
ber the  ridicule  to  which  this  was  turned  by  descriptions  of
imaginary  clubs  for  which  the  qualifications  were  absurd,  and  of
which  the  business,  on  meeting,  was  preposterous  nonsense  of
some  kind.  The  idea  of  such  fraternities,  as  the  Club  of  Fat
Men,  the  Ugly  Club,  the  Sheromp  Club,  the  Everlasting  Club,
the  Sighing  Club,  the  Amorous  Club,  and  others,  could  only
have  been  suggested  by  real  clubs  almost  as  ridiculous.  The
names,  too,  were  almost  as  fantastical  as  those  of  the  taverns
in  the  previous  century,  which  counted  *The  Devil,'  and  'The
Heaven  and  Hell,'  among  their  numbers.  Many  derived  their
titles  firom  the  standing  dishes  preferred  at  supper,  the  Beef-
steak and  the  Kit-kat  (a  sort  of  mutton-pie),  for  instance.
