But when return’d from India’s land,
And grown too proud to brook command,
He sternly answered, ‘Nay, Bob.’”[13]
An institution of a somewhat different class was the Beefsteak Society, which flourished so long ago as the early years of the eighteenth century. The Prince of Wales became a member in 1785, when the number of the Steaks was increased from twenty-four to twenty-five in order to admit him; and subsequently the Dukes of Clarence and Sussex were elected. The bill of fare was restricted to beefsteaks, and the beverages to port wine and punch; but the cuisine on at least one occasion left something to be desired, for when, in 1830, the English Opera House was burnt down, Greville remarked in his diary: “I trust the paraphernalia of the Beefsteak Club perished with the rest, for the enmity I bear that society for the dinner they gave me last year.” Charles Morris was the bard of the Beefsteak Society, and he has come down to posterity on the strength of four lines:
“In town let me live then, in town let me die,
For in truth I can’t relish the country, not I.
If one must have a villa in summer to dwell,
Oh, give me the sweet, shady side of Pall Mall!”
In spite of his prayer, he spent the last years of his life in the rural retreat of Brockham, in Surrey, in a little place presented to him by his fellow-Steak, the Duke of Norfolk. He lived to the great age of ninety-two, and was so hale and hearty and cheerful that, not long before his death, Curran said to him, “Die when you will, Charles, you will die in your youth.”
