bad Architect.--'Well-natured Garth.'--The Poets of the
Kit-kat.--Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax.--Chancellor
Somers.--Charles Sackville, Lord Dorset.--Less celebrated Wits.


I suppose that, long before the building of Babel, man discovered that
he was an associative animal, with the universal motto, '_L'union c'est
la force_;' and that association, to be of any use, requires talk. A
history of celebrated associations, from the building society just
mentioned down to the thousands which are represented by an office, a
secretary, and a brass-plate, in the present day, would give a curious
scheme of the natural tendencies of man; while the story of their
failures--and how many have not failed, sooner or later!--would be a
pretty moral lesson to your anthropolaters who Babelize now-a-days, and
believe there is nothing which a company with capital cannot achieve. I
wonder what object there is, that two men can possibly agree in
desiring, and which it takes more than one to attain, for which an
association of some kind has not been formed at some time or other,
since first the swarthy savage learned that it was necessary to unite to
kill the lion which infested the neighbourhood! Alack for human nature!
I fear by far the larger proportion of the objects of associations would
be found rather evil than good, and, certes, nearly all of them might be
ranged under two heads, according as the passions of hate or desire
found a common object in several hearts. Gain on the one
hand--destruction on the other--have been the chief motives of clubbing
in all time.

A delightful exception is to be found, though--to wit, in associations
for the purpose of talking. I do not refer to parliaments and
philosophical academies, but to those companies which have been formed