Volume I Part 10 (1/2)
”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: