Club Life of London Volume I Part 10

"For what is Nature? Ring her changes round, Her three flat notes are water, plants, and ground; Prolong the peal, yet, spite of all your clatter, The tedious chime is still ground, plants, and water; So, when some John his dull invention racks, To rival Boodle's dinners or Almack's, Three uncouth legs of mutton shock our eyes, Three roasted geese, three b.u.t.tered apple-pies."

In the following year, when the Clubs vied with each other in giving the town the most expensive masquerades and ridottos, Gibbon speaks of one given by the members of Boodle's, that cost 2000 guineas. Gibbon was early of the Club; and, "it must be remembered, waddled as well as warbled here when he exhibited that extraordinary person which is said to have convulsed Lady Sheffield with laughter; and poured forth accents mellifluous like Plato's from that still more extraordinary mouth which has been described as 'a round hole' in the centre of his face."[11]

Boodle's Club-house, designed by Holland, has long been eclipsed by the more pretentious architecture of the Club edifices of our time; but the interior arrangements are well planned. Boodle's is chiefly frequented by country gentlemen, whose status has been thus satirically insinuated by a contemporary: "Every Sir John belongs to Boodle's--as you may see, for, when a waiter comes into the room and says to some aged student of the _Morning Herald_, 'Sir John, your servant is come,' every head is mechanically thrown up in answer to the address.'"

Among the Club pictures are portraits of C. J. Fox, and the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re. Next door, at No. 29, resided Gillray, the caricaturist, who, in 1815, threw himself from an upstairs window into the street, and died in consequence.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] London Clubs, 1853, p. 51.

THE BEEF-STEAK SOCIETY.

In the _Spectator_, No. 9, March 10, 1710-11, we read: "The Beef-steak and October Clubs are neither of them averse to eating or drinking, if we may form a judgment of them from their respective t.i.tles." This pa.s.sage refers to the Beef-steak Club, founded in the reign of Queen Anne; and, it is believed, the earliest Club with that name. Dr. King, in his _Art of Cookery_, humbly _inscribed to the Beef-steak Club_, 1709, has these lines:

"He that of honour, wit, and mirth partakes, May be a fit companion o'er Beef-steaks: His name may be to future times enrolled In Estcourt's book, whose gridiron's framed with gold."

Estcourt, the actor, was made Providore of the Club; and for a mark of distinction wore their badge, which was a small gridiron of gold, hung about his neck with a green silk ribbon. Such is the account given by Chetwood, in his _History of the Stage_, 1749; to which he adds: "this Club was composed of the chief wits and great men of the nation." The gridiron, it will be seen hereafter, was a.s.sumed as its badge, by the "Society of Beef-steaks, established a few years later: they call themselves 'the Steaks,' and abhor the notion of being thought a Club." Though the _National Review_, heretical as it may appear, cannot consent to dissever the Society from the earlier Beef-steak Club; which, however, would imply that Rich and Lambert were not the founders of the Society, although so circ.u.mstantially shown to be.

Still, the stubbornness of facts must prevail.

d.i.c.k Estcourt was beloved by Steele, who thus introduces him in the _Spectator_, No. 358: "The best man that I know of for heightening the real gaiety of a company is Estcourt, whose jovial humour diffuses itself from the highest person at an entertainment to the meanest waiter. Merry tales, accompanied with apt gestures and lively representations of circ.u.mstances and persons, beguile the gravest mind into a consent to be as humorous as himself. Add to this, that when a man is in his good graces, he has a mimicry that does not debase the person he represents, but which, taken from the gravity of the character, adds to the agreeableness of it."

Then, in the _Spectator_, No. 264, we find a letter from Sir Roger de Coverley, from Coverley, "To Mr. Estcourt, at his House in Covent Garden," addressing him as "Old Comical One," and acknowledging "the hogsheads of neat port came safe," and hoping next term to help fill Estcourt's b.u.mper "with our people of the Club." The b.u.mper was the tavern in Covent Garden, which Estcourt opened about a year before his death. In this quality Parnell speaks of him in the beginning of one of his poems:--

"Gay Bacchus liking Estcourt's wine A n.o.ble meal bespoke us, And for the guests that were to dine Brought Comus, Love, and Jocus."

The _Spectator_ delivers this merited eulogy of the player, just prior to his benefit at the theatre: "This pleasant fellow gives one some idea of the ancient Pantomime, who is said to have given the audience in dumb-show, an exact idea of any character or pa.s.sion, or an intelligible relation of any public occurrence, with no other expression than that of his looks and gestures. If all who have been obliged to these talents in Estcourt will be at _Love for Love_ to-morrow night, they will but pay him what they owe him, at so easy a rate as being present at a play which n.o.body would omit seeing, that had, or had not, ever seen it before."

Then, in the _Spectator_, No. 468, August 27, 1712, with what touching pathos does Steele record the last exit of this choice spirit: "I am very sorry that I have at present a circ.u.mstance before me which is of very great importance to all who have a relish for gaiety, wit, mirth, or humour: I mean the death of poor d.i.c.k Estcourt. I have been obliged to him for so many hours of jollity, that it is but a small recompense, though all I can give him, to pa.s.s a moment or two in sadness for the loss of so agreeable a man.... Poor Estcourt! Let the vain and proud be at rest, thou wilt no more disturb their admiration of their dear selves; and thou art no longer to drudge in raising the mirth of stupids, who know nothing of thy merit, for thy maintenance."

Having spoken of him "as a companion and a man qualified for conversation,"--his fortune exposing him to an obsequiousness towards the worst sort of company, but his excellent qualities rendering him capable of making the best figure in the most refined, and then having told of his maintaining "his good humour with a countenance or a language so delightful, without offence to any person or thing upon earth, still preserving the distance his circ.u.mstances obliged him to,"--Steele concludes with, "I say, I have seen him do all this in such a charming manner, that I am sure none of those I hint at will read this, without giving him some sorrow for their abundant mirth, and one gush of tears for so many bursts of laughter. I wish it were any honour to the pleasant creature's memory, that my eyes are too much suffused to let me go on----" We agree with Leigh Hunt that Steele's "overfineness of nature was never more beautifully evinced in any part of his writings than in this testimony to the merits of poor d.i.c.k Estcourt."

Ned Ward, in his _Secret History of Clubs_, first edition, 1709, describes the Beef-steaks, which he coa.r.s.ely contrasts with "the refined wits of the Kit-Cat." This new Society griliado'd beef eaters first settled their meeting at the sign of the Imperial Phiz, just opposite to a famous conventicle in the Old Jury, a publick-house that has been long eminent for the true British quintessence of malt and hops, and a broiled sliver off the juicy rump of a fat, well-fed bullock.... This noted boozing ken, above all others in the City, was chosen out by the Rump-steak admirers, as the fittest mansion to entertain the Society, and to gratify their appet.i.tes with that particular dainty they desired to be distinguished by. [The Club met at the place appointed, and chose for a Prolocutor, an Irish comedian.] No sooner had they confirmed their Hibernian mimic in his honourable post, but to distinguish him from the rest, they made him a Knight of St. Lawrence, and hung a silver (?) gridiron about his neck, as a badge of the dignity they had conferred upon him, that when he sung _Pretty Parrot_, he might thrum upon the bars of his new instrument, and mimic a haughty Spaniard serenading his Donna with guitar and madrigal. The Zany, as proud of his new fangle as a German mountebank of a prince's medal, when he was thus dignified and distinguished with his culinary symbol hanging before his breast, took the highest post of honour, as his place at the board, where, as soon as seated, there was not a bar in the silver kitchen-stuff that the Society had presented him with, but was presently handled with a theatrical pun, or an Irish witticism.... Orders were dispatched to the superintendent of the kitchen to provide several nice specimens of their Beef-steak cookery, some with the flavour of a shalot or onion; some broil'd, some fry'd, some stew'd, some toasted, and others roasted, that every judicious member of the new erected Club might appeal to his palate, and from thence determine whether the house they had chosen for their rendezvous truly deserved that public fame for their inimitable management of a bovinary sliver, which the world had given them.... When they had moderately supplied their beef stomachs, they were all highly satisfy'd with the choice they had made, and from that time resolved to repeat their meeting once a week in the same place." At the next meeting the const.i.tution and bye-laws of the new little commonwealth were settled; and for the further encouragement of wit and pleasantry throughout the whole Society, there was provided a very voluminous paper book, "about as thick as a bale of Dutch linen, into which were to be entered every witty saying that should be spoke in the Society:" this nearly proved a failure; but Ward gives a taste of the performances by reciting some that had been stolen out of their Journal by a false Brother; here is one:--

ON AN OX.

"Most n.o.ble creature of the horned race, Who labours at the plough to earn thy gra.s.s, And yielding to the yoke, shows man the way To bear his servile chains, and to obey More haughty tyrants, who usurp the sway.

Thy st.u.r.dy sinews till the farmer's grounds, To thee the grazier owes his h.o.a.rded pounds: 'Tis by thy labour, we abound in malt, Whose powerful juice the meaner slaves exalt; And when grown fat, and fit to be devour'd, The pole-ax frees thee from the teazing goard: Thus cruel man, to recompense thy pains, First works thee hard, and then beats out thy brains."

Ward is very hard upon the Kit-Cat community, and tells us that the Beef-steaks, "like true Britons, to show their resentment in contempt of Kit-Cat pies, very justly gave the preference to a rump-steak, most wisely agreeing that the venerable word, beef, gave a more masculine grace, and sounded better in the t.i.tle of a true English Club, than either Pies or Kit-Cat; and that a gridiron, which has the honour to be made the badge of a Saint's martyrdom, was a n.o.bler symbol of their Christian integrity, than two or three stars or garters; who learnedly recollecting how great an affinity the word bull has to beef, they thought it very consistent with the const.i.tution of their Society, instead of a Welsh to have a Hibernian secretary. Being thus fixed to the great honour of a little alehouse, next door to the Church, and opposite to the Meeting, they continued to meet for some time; till their fame spreading over all the town, and reaching the ears of the great boys and little boys, as they came in the evening from Merchant Taylors' School, they could not forbear hollowing as they pa.s.sed the door; and being acquainted with their nights of meeting, they seldom failed, when the divan was sitting, of complimenting their ears with 'Huzza! Beef-steak!'--that they might know from thence, how much they were reverenced for men of learning by the very school-boys."

"But the modest Club," says Ward, "not affecting popularity, and choosing rather to be deaf to all public flatteries, thought it an act of prudence to adjourn from thence into a place of obscurity, where they might feast knuckle-deep in luscious gravy, and enjoy themselves free from the noisy addresses of the young scholastic rabble; so that now, whether they have healed the breach, and are again returned into the Kit-Cat community, from whence it is believed, upon some disgust, they at first separated, or whether, like the Calves' Head Club they remove from place to place, to prevent discovery, I sha'n't presume to determine; but at the present, like Oates's army of pilgrims, in the time of the plot, though they are much talk'd of they are difficult to be found." The "Secret history" concludes with an address to the Club, from which these are specimen lines:

"Such strenuous lines, so cheering, soft, and sweet, That daily flow from your conjunctive wit, Proclaim the power of Beef, that n.o.ble meat.

Your tuneful songs such deep impression make, And of such awful, beauteous strength partake, Each stanza seems an ox, each line a steak.

As if the rump in slices, broil'd or stew'd In its own gravy, till divinely good, Turned all to powerful wit, as soon as chew'd.

To grind thy gravy out their jaws employ, O'er heaps of reeking steaks express their joy, And sing of Beef as Homer did of Troy."

We shall now more closely examine the origin and history of the Sublime Society of the Steaks, which has its pedigree, its ancestry, and its t.i.tle-deeds. The gridiron of 1735 is the real gridiron on which its first steak was broiled. Henry Rich (Lun, the first Harlequin) was the founder, to whom Garrick thus alludes in a prologue to the Irish experiment of a speaking pantomime:

"When Lun appeared, with matchless art and whim, He gave the power of speech to every limb.

Though masked and mute conveyed his true intent, And told in frolic gestures what he meant; But now the motley coat and sword of wood, Require a tongue to make them understood."

There is a letter extant, written by Nixon, the treasurer, probably to some artist, granting permission by the Beef-steak Society "to copy the original gridiron, and I have wrote on the other side of this sheet a note to Mr. White, at the Bedford, to introduce you to our room for the purpose making your drawing. The first spare moment I can take from my business shall be employed in making a short statement of the rise and establishment of the Beef-steak Society."

Rich, in 1732, left the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre for Covent Garden, the success of the _Beggars' Opera_ having "made Gay rich and Rich gay." He was accustomed to arrange the comic business and construct the models of tricks for his pantomimes in his private room at Covent Garden. Here resorted men of rank and wit, for Rich's colloquial oddities were much relished. Thither came Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, the friend of Pope, and thus commemorated by Swift:

"Mordanto fills the trump of fame; The Christian world his death proclaim; And prints are crowded with his name.

In journeys he outrides the post; Sits up till midnight with his host; Talks politics, and gives the toast, A skeleton in outward figure; His meagre corpse, though full of vigour, Would halt behind him, were it bigger, So wonderful his expedition; When you have not the least suspicion, He's with you, like an apparition: s.h.i.+nes in all climates like a star; In senates bold, and fierce in war; A land-commandant, and a tar."

He was then advanced in years, and one afternoon stayed, talking with Rich about his tricks and transformations, and listening to his agreeable talk, until Rich's dinner-hour, two o'clock, had arrived. In all these colloquies with his visitors, whatever their rank, Rich never neglected his art. Upon one occasion, accident having detained the Earl's coach later than usual, he found Rich's chat so agreeable, that he was quite unconscious it was two o'clock in the afternoon; when he observed Rich spreading a cloth, then coaxing his fire into a clear cooking flame, and proceeding, with great gravity, to cook his own beef-steak on his own gridiron. The steak sent up a most inviting incense, and my Lord could not resist Rich's invitation to partake of it. A further supply was sent for; and a bottle or two of good wine from a neighbouring tavern prolonged their enjoyment to a late hour.

But so delighted was the old Peer with the entertainment, that, on going away, he proposed renewing it at the same place and hour, on the Sat.u.r.day following. He was punctual to his engagement, and brought with him three or four friends, "men of wit and pleasure about town,"

as M. Bouges would call them; and so truly festive was the meeting that it was proposed a Sat.u.r.day's club should be held there, whilst the town remained full. A sumptuary law, even at this early period of the Society, restricted the bill of fare to beef-steaks, and the beverage to port-wine and punch.

However, the origin of the Society is related _with a difference_.

Edwards, in his _Anecdotes of Painting_, relates that Lambert, many years princ.i.p.al scene-painter at Covent Garden Theatre, received, in his painting-room, persons of rank and talent; where, as he could not leave for dinner, he frequently was content with a steak, which he himself broiled upon the fire in his room. Sometimes the visitors partook of the hasty meal, and out of this practice grew the Beef-steak Society, and the a.s.sembling in the painting-room. The members were afterwards accommodated with a room in the playhouse; and when the Theatre was rebuilt, the place of meeting was changed to the Shakespeare Tavern, where was the portrait of Lambert, painted by Hudson, Sir Joshua Reynolds's master.

In the _Connoisseur_, June 6th, 1754, we read of the Society, "composed of the most ingenious artists in the Kingdom," meeting "every Sat.u.r.day in a n.o.ble room at the top of Covent Garden Theatre,"

and never suffering "any diet except Beef-steaks to appear. These, indeed, are most glorious examples: but what, alas! are the weak endeavours of a few to oppose the daily inroads of frica.s.sees and soup-maigres?"

However, the apartments in the theatre appropriated to the Society varied. Thus, we read of a painting-room even with the stage over the kitchen, which was under part of the stage nearest Bow-street. At one period, the Society dined in a small room over the pa.s.sage of the theatre. The steaks were dressed in the same room, and when they found it too hot, a curtain was drawn between the company and the fire.

We shall now glance at the celebrities who came to the painting-room in the Lincoln's Inn Fields theatre, and the later locations of the Club, in Covent Garden. To the former came Hogarth and his father-in-law, Sir James Thornhill, stimulated by their love of the painter's art, and the equally potent charm of conviviality.

Churchill was introduced to the Steaks by his friend Wilkes; but his irregularities were too much for the Society, which was by no means particular; his desertion of his wife brought a hornets' swarm about him, so that he soon resigned, to avoid the disgrace of expulsion.

Churchill attributed this flinging of the first stone to Lord Sandwich; he never forgave the peccant Peer, but put him into the pillory of his fierce satire, which has outlived most of his other writings, and here it is:

"From his youth upwards to the present day, When vices more than years have made him grey; When riotous excess with wasteful hand Shakes life's frail gla.s.s, and hastes each ebbing sand; Unmindful from what stock he drew his birth, Untainted with one deed of real worth-- Lothario, holding honour at no price, Folly to folly, added vice to vice, Wrought sin with greediness, and courted shame With greater zeal than good men seek for fame."

Churchill, in a letter to Wilkes, says, "Your friends at the Beef-steak inquired after you last Sat.u.r.day with the greatest zeal, and it gave me no small pleasure that I was the person of whom the inquiry was made." Charles Price was allowed to be one of the most witty of the Society, and it is related that he and Churchill kept the table in a roar.

Formerly, the members wore a blue coat, with red cape and cuffs; b.u.t.tons with the initials B. S.; and behind the President's chair was placed the Society's halbert, which, with the gridiron, was found among the rubbish after the Covent Garden fire.

Mr. Justice Welsh was frequently chairman at the Beef-steak dinner.

Mrs. Nollekens, his daughter, acknowledges that she often dressed a hat for the purpose, with ribbons similar to those worn by the yeomen of the guard. The Justice was a loyal man, but discontinued his members.h.i.+p when Wilkes joined the Society; though the latter was _the_ man at the Steaks.

To the Steaks Wilkes sent a copy of his infamous _Essay on Women_, first printed for private circulation; for which Lord Sandwich--Jemmy Twitcher--himself, as we have seen, a member of the Society--moved in the House of the Lords that Wilkes should be taken into custody; a piece of treason as the act of one brother of the Steaks against another, fouler than even the trick of "dirty Kidgell," the parson, who, as a friend of the author, got a copy of the Essay from the printer, and then felt it his duty to denounce the publication; he had been encouraged to inform against Wilkes's Essay by the Earl of March, afterwards Duke of Queensberry. However, Jemmy Twitcher himself was expelled by the Steaks the same year he a.s.sailed Wilkes for the Essay; the grossness and blasphemy of the poem disgusted the Society; and Wilkes never dined there after 1763; yet, when he went to France, they hypocritically made him an honorary member.

Garrick was an honoured member of the Steaks; though he did not affect Clubs. The Society possess a hat and sword which David wore, probably on the night when he stayed so long with the Steaks, and had to play Ranger, at Drury-lane. The pit grew restless, the gallery bawled "Manager, manager!" Garrick had been sent for to Covent Garden, where the Steaks then dined. Carriages blocked up Russell-street, and he had to thread his way between them; as he came panting into the theatre, "I think, David," said Ford, one of the anxious patentees, "considering the stake you and I have in this house, you might pay more attention to the business."--"True, my good friend," returned Garrick, "but I was thinking of my steak in the other house."

Many a reconciliation of parted friends has taken place at this Club.

Peake, in his _Memoirs of the Colman Family_, thus refers to a reconciliation between Garrick and Colman the elder, through the Sublime Society:--