Newspaper Offices.—[p. 167.]
It is almost impossible to enumerate all the Strand newspaper offices, present and past. It is, perhaps, sufficient to mention The Spectator (a very able paper,—office in Waterloo Place); The London Journal (a cheap, well-conducted paper with an enormous circulation); The Family Herald (the house formerly of Mr. Leigh, bookseller, a relation of the elder Mathews, and the first introducer of the Guides that Mr. Murray has now rendered so complete); The Illustrated Times, The Morning Post, Notes and Queries, The Queen, Law Times, Athenæum, and Field (in Wellington Street); Bell’s Life, The Globe, Bell’s Messenger, The Observer, and lastly, The Pall Mall Gazette, and The Saturday Review.
The Beef-Steak Club.—[p. 172.]
Bubb Doddington, Aaron Hill, “Leonidas” Glover, Sir Peere Williams (a youth of promise, shot at the siege of Belleisle), Hoadly, and the elder Colman (the author of The Suspicious Husband), were either guests or members of this illustrious club, whose origin dates back to Rich’s days in 1735. Then came the days of Lord Sandwich, Wilkes, Bonnell Thornton, Arthur Murphy, Churchill, and Tickell. In 1785 the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.) became the twenty-fifth member.
Churchill resigned when the club began to receive him coldly after his desertion of his wife. Wilkes never visited the club after the contemptuous rejection of his infamous poem, the Essay on Woman. Garrick was a great ornament of the club; he once dined there dressed in the character of Ranger. Little Serjeant Prime was another club celebrity of that period. An anonymous writer describes a meeting of the club in or about 1799. There were present John Kemble, Cobb of the India House, the Duke of Clarence, Sir John Cox Hippisley, Charles Morris (the writer of our best convivial songs), Ferguson of Aberdeen, Mingay, and the Duke of Norfolk. As the clock struck five, a curtain drew up, discovering the kitchen through a gridiron grating, over which was inscribed this motto—
“If it were done, when ’tis done, then ’twere well
It were done quickly.”
The Duke of Norfolk ate at least three steaks, and then when the cloth was removed, took the chair on a dais, elevated some steps above the table, and above which hung the small cocked-hat in which Garrick played Ranger, and other insignia of the society. He was also invested with an orange ribbon, to which a silver gridiron was appended. The sound motto “Beef and Liberty” is inscribed on the buttons of the members. It is the duty of the junior member at this club to bring up the wine. The writer before quoted describes seeing Lord Brougham and the Duke of Leinster performing this subordinate duty. Sir John Hippisley was the man who Windham used to say was very nearly a clever fellow. Cobb was the author of “First Floor” (a farce) and of three comic operas—“The Haunted Tower,” “The Siege of Belgrade,” and “Ramah Drûg.” To the two former Storace set his finest music.
“Captain” Morris, the author of those delightful songs, “The Town and Country Life” and “When the Fancy-stirring Bowl wakes the Soul to Pleasure,” used to brew punch and “out-watch the Bear” at this club till after his seventy-eighth year. The Duke of Norfolk, at Kemble’s solicitation, gave the veteran bard a pleasant little Sabine retreat near Dorking. Jack Richards, the presbyter of the club, was famous for inflicting long verbal harangues on condemned social culprits.
Another much respected member was old William Linley, Sheridan’s brother-in-law; nor must we forget Richard Wilson, Lord Eldon’s secretary, and Mr. Walsh, who had been in early life valet to Lord Chesterfield. The club secretary, in 1828, was Mr. Henry Stephenson, comptroller to the Duke of Sussex; and about this time also flourished, either as guests or members, Lord Viscount Kirkwall, Rowland Stephenson the banker, and Mr. Denison, then M.P. for Surrey.[774]
A literary friend tells me that the last time he saw Mr. Thackeray was one evening in Exeter Street. The eminent satirist of snobs was peering about for the stage door of the Lyceum Theatre, or some other means of entrance to the Beef-steak Club, with whose members he had been invited to dine.