The Mulberries, a Shakspearian Club
At the thirty-fourth Anniversary of the Shakspeare Club, at Stratford-on-Avon, on April 23rd, 1858, the President, Mr. Buckstone, of the Haymarket Theatre, related, with much humour, the following interesting account of the above Shakspearian Club:—
“On emerging from boyhood, and while yet a young actor, I was one of the first members of a Shakspearian club, called The Mulberries. It was not then a very prominent one, as its meetings were held at a certain house of entertainment in Vinegar Yard, Drury Lane. The club assembled there once a week; they dined together on Shakespeare’s birthday; and in the mulberry season there was another dinner and a mulberry feast, at which the chairman sat enthroned under a canopy of mulberry branches, with the fruit on them; Shakspearian songs were sung; members read original papers or poems relating only to Shakspeare; and as many artists belonged to this club, they exhibited sketches of some event connected with our poet’s life; and some had the honour of submitting a paper to be read, called ‘Shakespeare’s Drinking-bout,’ an imaginary story, illustrating the traditionary event, when the chivalry of Stratford went forth to carouse with
“Piping Pebworth, dancing Marston,
Haunted Hilborough, hungry Grafton,
Dudging Exhall, papist Wicksford,
Beggarly Broom, and drunken Bidford.”
All these papers and pictures were collected together in a book, called Mulberry Leaves; and you will believe me, that in spite of our lowly place of meeting, the club was not intellectually insignificant, when amongst its members, then in their youth, were Douglas Jerrold, Laman Blanchard, the Landseers (Charles and Thomas), Frank Stone, Cattermole, Robert Keeley, Kenny Meadows, and subsequently, though at another and more important place of meeting, Macready, Talfourd (the judge), Charles Dickens, John Forster, and many other celebrities. You will very naturally wish to know what became of this club. Death thinned the number of its members; important pursuits in life took some one way and some another; and, after twenty years of much enjoyment, the club ceased to exist, and the Mulberry Leaves disappeared, no one ever knew whither.
From Mr. Blanchard Jerrold’s Life of his Father we learn that William Elton, the Shakspearian actor, was a member of the Mulberries, as were also William Godwin, and Edward Chatfield the artist. The contributions fell into Mr. Elton’s hands, and are now in the possession of his family. The leaves were to have been published; but the club dead, it was nobody’s business to see them through the press, and to this hour they remain in manuscript. Of the club itself it is said: “Respectability killed it. Sumptuous quarters were sought; Shakspeare was to be admired in a most elegant manner—to be edited specially for the club by the author of The Book of Etiquette. But the new atmosphere had not the vigour of the old, and so, after a long struggle, all the Mulberries fell from the old tree, and now it is a green memory only to a few old members. Douglas Jerrold always turned fondly to these Shakspearian days, and he loved to sing the old song he wrote for the Mulberries, in that soft, sweet voice which all his friends remember:
“And thus our moral food
Doth Shakspeare leaven still,
Enriching all the good.
And less’ning all the ill;—
Thus, by his bounty, shed
Like balm from angel’s wing,
Though winter scathe our head,
Our spirits dance with spring.”