Shakes life's frail glass, 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 Saturday 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; buttons 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 membership when Wilkes joined the Society; though the latter was the man at the Steaks.