Title:  The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828

Author:  Various

Release Date:  February 25, 2004 [EBook #11281]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

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THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

Vol XII, no. 334.] Saturday, October 4, 1828. [Price 2d.

[Illustration:  United service club-house.]

UNITED SERVICE CLUB-HOUSE

Modern club-houses are, for the most part, splendid specimens of the style which luxury and good-living have attained in this country.  Such are their internal recommendations; but to the public they are interesting for the architectural embellishment which they add to the streets of the metropolis.  If we reason on Bishop Berkeley’s theory—­that all the mansions, equipages, &c. we see abroad, are intended for our gratification—­we must soon forget the turtle, venison, and claret that are stored in the larders and cellars of club-houses, whilst our admiration is awakened at the taste which is lavished on their exteriors.

The “United Service” Club-House is, as its name implies, intended for the Officers of the Army and Navy, who, in these pacific times, may here enjoy otium cum dignitate, and fill up the intervals of refection, in reading the “history of the war,” from the noble quarto to the last dispatches received at the Foreign Office.

The above Club-House, which occupies an angle of Charles-street and Regent-street, is, however, but a meagre specimen of the abilities of the architect, Mr. Smirke.  It has none of the characteristic decorations of either service, if we except the bas-relief on the entrance-front in Charles street, which represents Britannia distributing laurels to her brave sons by land and sea.  The architecture of the whole is cold and unfeeling, and even the columns supporting the porticoes are of a very rigid order—­when we consider that the clubhouse is not an official establishment, but one intended for luxurious accommodation, and that it would have admitted of much more florid embellishment.  At the same time, although we quarrel with the frigidity of the exterior, we do not question the warmth of its kitchens, or the potency of its cellars; neither do we affect any knowledge of the latter—­nay, not even enough to weave into a “fashionable” novel.