Garrick had no slight tincture of vanity, and was fond of accusing himself, in the Chesterfield phrase, of the cardinal virtues. Having remarked at the Steaks that he had so large a mass of manuscript plays submitted to him, that they were constantly liable to be mislaid, he observed that, unpleasant as it was to reject an author's piece, it was an affront to his feelings if it could not be instantly found; and that for this reason he made a point of ticketing and labelling the play that was to be returned, that it might be forthcoming at a moment. "A fig for your hypocrisy," exclaimed Murphy across the table; "you know, Davy, you mislaid my tragedy two months ago, and I make no doubt you have lost it."—"Yes," replied Garrick; "but you forgot, you ungrateful dog, that I offered you more than its value, for you might have had two manuscript farces in its stead." This is the right paternity of an anecdote often told of other parties.
Jack Richards, a well-known presbyter of the Society, unless when the "fell serjeant," the gout, had arrested him, never absented himself from its board. He was recorder, and there is nothing in comedy equal to his passing sentence on those who had offended against the rules and observances of the Society. Having put on Garrick's hat, he proceeded to inflict a long, wordy harangue upon the culprit, who often endeavoured most unavailingly to stop him. Nor was it possible to see when he meant to stop. But the imperturbable gravity with which Jack performed his office, and the fruitless writhings of the luckless being on whom the shower of his rhetoric was discharged, constituted the amusement of the scene. There was no subject upon which Jack's exuberance of talk failed him; yet, in that stream of talk there was never mingled one drop of malignity, nor of unkind censure upon the erring or unhappy. He would as soon adulterate his glass of port-wine with water, as dash that honest though incessant prattle with one malevolent or ungenerous remark.
William Linley, the brother of Mrs. Sheridan, charmed the Society with his pure, simple English song: in a melody of Arne's, or of Jackson's of Exeter, or a simple air of his father's, he excelled to admiration,—faithful to the characteristic chastity of the style of singing peculiar to the Linley family. Linley had not what is called a fine voice, and port-wine and late nights did not improve his organ; but you forgot the deficiencies of his power, in the spirit and taste of his manner. He wrote a novel in three volumes, which was so schooled by the Steaks that he wrote no more: when the agony of wounded authorship was over, he used to exclaim to his tormentors:—
"This is no flattery; these are the counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am."
His merciless Zoilus brought a volume of the work in his pocket, and read a passage of it aloud. Yet, Linley never betrayed the irritable sulkiness of a roasted author, but took the pleasantries that played around him with imperturbable good-humour: he laughed heartily at his own platitudes, and thus the very martyr of the joke became its auxiliary. Linley is said to have furnished Moore, for his Life of Sheridan, with the common-place books in which his brother-in-law was wont to deposit his dramatic sketches, and to bottle up the jokes he had collected for future use; but many pleasantries of Sheridan were deeply engraved on his recollection because they had been practised upon himself, or upon his brother Hozy (as Sheridan called him), who was an unfailing butt, when he was disposed to amuse himself with a practical jest.
Another excellent brother was Dick Wilson, whose volcanic complexion had for many years been assuming deeper and deeper tints of carnation over the port-wine of the Society. Dick was a wealthy solicitor, and many years Lord Eldon's "port-wine-loving secretary." His fortunes were very singular. He was first steward and solicitor, and afterwards residuary legatee, of Lord Chedworth. He is said to have owed the favour of this eccentric nobleman to the legal acumen he displayed at a Richmond water-party. A pleasant lawn, under a spreading beech-tree in one of Mr. Cambridge's meadows, was selected for the dinner; but on pulling to the shore, behold a board in the tree proclaiming, "All persons landing and dining here will be prosecuted according to law." Dick Wilson contended that the prohibition clearly applied only to the joint act of "landing and dining" at the particular spot. If the party landed a few yards lower down, and then dined under the tree, only one member of the condition would be broken; which would be no legal infringement, as the prohibition—being of two acts, linked by a copulative—was not severable. This astute argument carried the day. The party dined under Mr. Cambridge's beech-tree, and, it is presumed, were not "prosecuted according to law." At all events, Lord Chedworth, who was one of the diners, was so charmed with Dick's ready application of his law to practice, that he committed to him the management of his large and accumulating property.
Dick stood the fire of the Steaks with good humour; but he was sometimes unmercifully roasted. He had just returned from Paris, when Arnold, with great dexterity, drew him into some Parisian details, with great glee; for Dick was entirely innocent of the French language. Thus, in enumerating the dishes at a French table, he thought the boulevards delicious; when Cobbe called out, "Dick, it was well they did not serve you at the Palais Royal for sauce to your boulevards." The riz de veau he called a rendezvous; and he could not bear partridges served up in shoes; and once, intending to ask for a pheasant, he desired the waiter to bring him a paysanne! Yet, Dick was shrewd: calling one day upon Cobbe at the India House, Dick was left to himself for a few minutes, when he was found by Cobbe, on his return, exploring a map of Asia suspended on the wall: he was measuring the scale of it with compasses, and then applying them to a large tiger, which the artist had introduced as one of the animals of the country. "By heavens, Cobbe," exclaimed Dick, "I should never have believed it! Surely, it must be a mistake. Observe now—here," pointing to the tiger, "here is a tiger that measures two-and-twenty leagues. By heavens, it is scarcely credible."
Another of the noteworthy Steaks was "Old Walsh," commonly called "the Gentle Shepherd:" he began life as a servant of the celebrated Lord Chesterfield, and accompanied his natural son, Philip Stanhope, on the grand tour, as valet: after this he was made a Queen's messenger, and subsequently a Commissioner of Customs; he was a good-natured butt for the Society's jokes. Rowland Stephenson, the banker, was another Beef-Steaker, then respected for his clear head and warm heart, years before he became branded as a forger. At the same table was a capitalist of very high character—William Joseph Denison, who sat many years in Parliament for Surrey, and died a millionnaire: he was a man of cultivated tastes, and long enjoyed the circle of the Steaks.
We have seen how the corner-stone of the sublime Society was laid. The gridiron upon which Rich had broiled his solitary steak, being insufficient in a short time for the supernumerary guests, the gridiron was enshrined as one of the tutelary and household emblems of the Club. Fortunately, it escaped the fire which consumed Covent Garden Theatre in 1808, when the valuable stock of wine of the Club shared the fate of the building; but the gridiron was saved. "In that fire, alas!" says the author of The Clubs of London, "perished the original archives of the Society. The lovers of wit and pleasantry have much to deplore in that loss, inasmuch as not only the names of many of the early members are irretrievably gone, but what is more to be regretted, some of their happiest effusions; for it was then customary to register in the weekly records anything of striking excellence that had been hit off in the course of the evening. This, however, is certain, that the Beaf-steaks, from its foundation to the present hour, has been—