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 title 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 nobler 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 constitution 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 passed 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 noble 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