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 titles." This passage 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 assumed 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 circumstantially shown to be. Still, the stubbornness of facts must prevail.
Dick 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 circumstances 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 Bumper "with our people of the Club." The Bumper 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:—