Williams,) in 1756, composed a piece of heraldic satire--a
coat-of-arms for the two gaming-clubs at White's,--which was "actually
engraving from a very pretty painting of Edgecumbe, whom Mr. Chute, as
Strawberry King at arms," appointed their chief herald-painter. The
blazon is vert (for a card-table); three parolis proper on a chevron
sable (for a hazard-table); two rouleaux in saltire between two dice
proper, on a canton sable; a white ball (for election) argent. The
supporters are an old and young knave of clubs; the crest, an arm out
of an earl's coronet shaking a dice-box; and the motto, "Cogit amor
nummi." Round the arms is a claret-bottle ticket by way of order. The
painting above mentioned by Walpole of "the Old and Young Club at
Arthur's" was bought at the sale of Strawberry Hill by Arthur's
Club-house for twenty-two shillings.
At White's, the least difference of opinion invariably ended in a bet,
and a book for entering the particulars of all bets was always laid
upon the table; one of these, with entries of a date as early as 1744,
Mr. Cunningham tells us, had been preserved. A book for entering bets
is still laid on the table.
In these betting books are to be found bets on births, deaths, and
marriages; the length of a life, or the duration of a ministry; a
placeman's prospect of a coronet; on the shock of an earthquake; or
the last scandal at Ranelagh, or Madame Cornelys's. A man dropped down
at the door of White's; he was carried into the house. Was he dead or
not? The odds were immediately given and taken for and against. It was
proposed to bleed him. Those who had taken the odds the man was dead,
protested that the use of a lancet would affect the fairness of the
bet.
Walpole gives some of these narratives as good stories "made on
White's." A parson coming into the Club on the morning of the
earthquake of 1750, and hearing bets laid whether the shock was caused
by an earthquake or the blowing-up of powder-mills, went away in
horror, protesting they were such an impious set, that he believed if
the last trump were to sound, they would bet "puppet-show against
Judgment." Gilly Williams writes to Selwyn, 1764, "Lord Digby is very
soon to be married to Miss Fielding." Thousands might have been won in
this house (White's), on his Lordship not knowing that such a being
existed.
Mr. Cunningham tells us that "the marriage of a young lady of rank
would occasion a bet of a hundred guineas, that she would give birth
to a live child before the Countess of ----, who had been married
three or even more months before her. Heavy bets were pending, that
Arthur, who was then a widower, would be married before a member of
the Club of about the same age, and also a widower; and that Sarah,
Duchess of Marlborough, would outlive the old Duchess of Cleveland."
"One of the youth at White's," writes Walpole to Mann, July 10, 1744,
"has committed a murder, and intends to repeat it. He betted £1500
that a man could live twelve hours under water; hired a desperate
fellow, sunk him in a ship, by way of experiment, and both ship and
man have not appeared since. Another man and ship are to be tried for
their lives, instead of Mr. Blake, the assassin."
Walpole found at White's, a very remarkable entry in their very--very
remarkable wager-book, which is still preserved. "Lord Mountford bets
Sir John Bland twenty guineas that Nash outlives Cibber." "How odd,"
says Walpole, "that these two old creatures, selected for their
antiquities, should live to see both their wagerers put an end to
their own lives! Cibber is within a few days of eighty-four, still
hearty, and clear, and well. I told him I was glad to see him look so
well. 'Faith,' said he, 'it is very well that I look at all.'" Lord
Mountford would have been the winner: Cibber died in 1757; Nash in
1761.
Here is a nice piece of Selwyn's ready wit. He and Charles Townshend
had a kind of wit combat together. Selwyn, it is said, prevailed; and
Charles Townshend took the wit home in his carriage, and dropped him
at White's. "Remember," said Selwyn, as they parted, "this is the
first set-down you have given me to-day."
"St. Leger," says Walpole, "was at the head of these luxurious
heroes--he is the hero of all fashion. I never saw more dashing
vivacity and absurdity with some flashes of parts. He had a cause the
other day for ducking a sharper, and was going to swear; the judge
said to him, 'I see, Sir, you are very ready to take an oath.' 'Yes,
my Lord,' replied St. Leger, 'my father was a judge,'" St. Leger was a
lively club member. "Rigby," writes the Duke of Bedford, July 2, 1751,
"the town is grown extremely thin within this week, though White's
continues numerous enough, with young people only, for Mr. St. Leger's
vivacity, and the idea the old ones have of it, prevent the great
chairs at the Old Club from being filled with their proper drowsy
proprietors."
In Hogarth's gambling scene at White's, we see the highwayman, with
the pistols peeping out of his pocket, waiting by the fireside till
the heaviest winner takes his departure, in order to "recoup" himself
of his losings. And in the _Beaux' Stratagem_, Aimwell asks of Gibbet,
"Ha'n't I seen your face at White's?"--"Ay, and at Will's too," is the
highwayman's answer.
M'Clean, the fashionable highwayman, had a lodging in St.
James's-street, over-against White's; and he was as well known about
St. James's as any gentleman who lived in that quarter, and who,
perhaps, went upon the road too. When M'Clean was taken, in 1750,
Walpole tells us that Lord Mountford, at the head of half White's,
went the first day; his aunt was crying over him; as soon as they were
withdrawn, she said to him, knowing they were of White's, "My dear,
what did the Lords say to you? Have you ever been concerned with any
of them? Was it not admirable? What a favourable idea people must have
of White's!--and what if White's should not deserve a much better?"
A waitership at a club sometimes led to fortune. Thomas Rumbold,
originally a waiter at White's, got an appointment in India, and
suddenly rose to be Sir Thomas, and Governor of Madras. On his return,
with immense wealth, a bill of pains and penalties was brought into
the House by Dundas, with the view of stripping Sir Robert of his
ill-gotten gains. This bill was briskly pushed through the earlier
stages; suddenly the proceedings were arrested by adjournment, and the
measure fell to the ground. The rumour of the day attributed Rumbold's
escape to the corrupt assistance of Rigby; who, in 1782, found
himself, by Lord North's retirement, deprived of his place in the Pay
Office, and called upon to refund a large amount of public moneys
unaccounted for. In this strait, Rigby was believed to have had
recourse to Rumbold. Their acquaintance had commenced in earlier days,
when Rigby was one of the boldest "punters" at White's, and Rumbold
bowed to him for half-crowns. Rumbold is said to have given Rigby a
large sum of money, on condition of the former being released from the
impending pains and penalties. The truth of this report has been
vehemently denied; but the circumstances are suspicious. The bill was
dropped: Dundas, its introducer, was Rigby's intimate associate.
Rigby's nephew and heir soon after married Rumbold's daughter. Sir
Thomas himself had married a daughter of Dr. Law, Bishop of Carlisle.
The worthy Bishop stood godfather to one of Rumbold's children; the
other godfather was the Nabob of Arcot, and the child was christened
"Mahomet." So, at least, Walpole informs Mann.[10]
Rigby was a man of pleasure at White's. Wilkes, in the _North
Briton_, describes Rigby as "an excellent _bon-vivant_, amiable and
engaging; having all the gibes and gambols, and flashes of merriment,
which set the table in a roar." In a letter to Selwyn, Rigby writes:
"I am just got home from a cock-match, where I have won forty pounds
in ready money; and not having dined, am waiting till I hear the
rattle of the coaches from the House of Commons, in order to dine at
White's.... The next morning I heard there had been extreme deep play,
and that Harry Furnese went drunk from White's at six o'clock, and
with the ever memorable sum of 1000 guineas. He won the chief part of
Doneraile and Bob Bertie."
The Club has had freaks of epicurism. In 1751, seven young men of
fashion, headed by St. Leger, gave a dinner at White's: one dish was a
tart of choice cherries from a hot-house; only one glass was tasted
out of each bottle of champagne. "The bill of fare is got into print,"
writes Walpole, to Mann; "and with good people has produced the
apprehension of another earthquake."
From Mackreth the property passed in 1784, to John Martindale, and in
1812, to Mr. Raggett, the father of the present proprietor. The
original form of the house was designed by James Wyatt. From time to
time, White's underwent various alterations and additions. In the
autumn of 1850, certain improvements being thought necessary, it came
to be considered that the front was of too plain a character, when
contrasted with the many elegant buildings which had risen up around
it. Mr. Lockyer was consulted by Mr. Raggett as to the possibility of
improving the façade; and under his direction, four bas-reliefs,
representing the four seasons, which occupy the place of four sashes,
were designed by Mr. George Scharf, jun. The interior was redecorated
by Mr. Morant. The Club, which is at this time limited to 500 members,
was formerly composed of the high Tory party, but though Conservative
principles may probably prevail, it has now ceased to be a political
club, and may rather be termed "Aristocratic." Several of the present
members have belonged to the Club upwards of half a century, and the
ancestors of most of the noblemen and men of fashion of the present
day who belong to the club were formerly members of it.
The Club has given magnificent entertainments in our time. On June 20,
1814, they gave a ball at Burlington House to the Emperor of Russia,
the King of Prussia, and the allied sovereigns then in England; the
cost was 9849_l._ 2_s._ 6_d._ Three weeks after this, the Club gave to
the Duke of Wellington a dinner, which cost 2480_l._ 10_s._ 9_d._
FOOTNOTES:
[10] National Review, No. 8.
BOODLE'S CLUB.
This Club, originally the "Savoir vivre," which with Brookes's and
White's, forms a trio of nearly coeval date, and each of which takes
the present name of its founder, is No. 28, St. James's-street. In its
early records it was noted for its costly gaieties, and the _Heroic
Epistle to Sir William Chambers_, 1773, commemorates its epicurism:
"For what is Nature? Ring her changes round,
Her three flat notes are water, plants, and ground;
Prolong the peal, yet, spite of all your clatter,
The tedious chime is still ground, plants, and water;
So, when some John his dull invention racks,
To rival Boodle's dinners or Almack's,
Three uncouth legs of mutton shock our eyes,
Three roasted geese, three buttered apple-pies."
In the following year, when the Clubs vied with each other in giving
the town the most expensive masquerades and ridottos, Gibbon speaks of
one given by the members of Boodle's, that cost 2000 guineas. Gibbon
was early of the Club; and, "it must be remembered, waddled as well as
warbled here when he exhibited that extraordinary person which is said
to have convulsed Lady Sheffield with laughter; and poured forth
accents mellifluous like Plato's from that still more extraordinary
mouth which has been described as 'a round hole' in the centre of his
face."[11]
Boodle's Club-house, designed by Holland, has long been eclipsed by
the more pretentious architecture of the Club edifices of our time;
but the interior arrangements are well planned. Boodle's is chiefly
frequented by country gentlemen, whose status has been thus
satirically insinuated by a contemporary: "Every Sir John belongs to
Boodle's--as you may see, for, when a waiter comes into the room and
says to some aged student of the _Morning Herald_, 'Sir John, your
servant is come,' every head is mechanically thrown up in answer to
the address.'"
Among the Club pictures are portraits of C. J. Fox, and the Duke of
Devonshire. Next door, at No. 29, resided Gillray, the caricaturist,
who, in 1815, threw himself from an upstairs window into the street,
and died in consequence.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] London Clubs, 1853, p. 51.
THE BEEF-STEAK SOCIETY.
In the _Spectator_, No. 9, March 10, 1710-11, we read: "The Beef-steak
and October Clubs are neither of them averse to eating or drinking, if
we may form a judgment of them from their respective titles." This
passage refers to the Beef-steak Club, founded in the reign of Queen
Anne; and, it is believed, the earliest Club with that name. Dr. King,
in his _Art of Cookery_, humbly _inscribed to the Beef-steak Club_,
1709, has these lines:
"He that of honour, wit, and mirth partakes,
May be a fit companion o'er Beef-steaks:
His name may be to future times enrolled
In Estcourt's book, whose gridiron's framed with gold."
Estcourt, the actor, was made Providore of the Club; and for a mark of
distinction wore their badge, which was a small gridiron of gold, hung
about his neck with a green silk ribbon. Such is the account given by
Chetwood, in his _History of the Stage_, 1749; to which he adds: "this
Club was composed of the chief wits and great men of the nation." The
gridiron, it will be seen hereafter, was assumed as its badge, by the
"Society of Beef-steaks, established a few years later: they call
themselves 'the Steaks,' and abhor the notion of being thought a
Club." Though the _National Review_, heretical as it may appear,
cannot consent to dissever the Society from the earlier Beef-steak
Club; which, however, would imply that Rich and Lambert were not the
founders of the Society, although so circumstantially shown to be.
Still, the stubbornness of facts must prevail.
Dick Estcourt was beloved by Steele, who thus introduces him in the
_Spectator_, No. 358: "The best man that I know of for heightening
the real gaiety of a company is Estcourt, whose jovial humour diffuses
itself from the highest person at an entertainment to the meanest
waiter. Merry tales, accompanied with apt gestures and lively
representations of circumstances and persons, beguile the gravest mind
into a consent to be as humorous as himself. Add to this, that when a
man is in his good graces, he has a mimicry that does not debase the
person he represents, but which, taken from the gravity of the
character, adds to the agreeableness of it."
Then, in the _Spectator_, No. 264, we find a letter from Sir Roger de
Coverley, from Coverley, "To Mr. Estcourt, at his House in Covent
Garden," addressing him as "Old Comical One," and acknowledging "the
hogsheads of neat port came safe," and hoping next term to help fill
Estcourt's Bumper "with our people of the Club." The Bumper was the
tavern in Covent Garden, which Estcourt opened about a year before his
death. In this quality Parnell speaks of him in the beginning of one
of his poems:--
"Gay Bacchus liking Estcourt's wine
A noble meal bespoke us,
And for the guests that were to dine
Brought Comus, Love, and Jocus."
The _Spectator_ delivers this merited eulogy of the player, just prior
to his benefit at the theatre: "This pleasant fellow gives one some
idea of the ancient Pantomime, who is said to have given the audience
in dumb-show, an exact idea of any character or passion, or an
intelligible relation of any public occurrence, with no other
expression than that of his looks and gestures. If all who have been
obliged to these talents in Estcourt will be at _Love for Love_
to-morrow night, they will but pay him what they owe him, at so easy
a rate as being present at a play which nobody would omit seeing, that
had, or had not, ever seen it before."
Then, in the _Spectator_, No. 468, August 27, 1712, with what touching
pathos does Steele record the last exit of this choice spirit: "I am
very sorry that I have at present a circumstance before me which is of
very great importance to all who have a relish for gaiety, wit, mirth,
or humour: I mean the death of poor Dick Estcourt. I have been obliged
to him for so many hours of jollity, that it is but a small
recompense, though all I can give him, to pass a moment or two in
sadness for the loss of so agreeable a man.... Poor Estcourt! Let the
vain and proud be at rest, thou wilt no more disturb their admiration
of their dear selves; and thou art no longer to drudge in raising the
mirth of stupids, who know nothing of thy merit, for thy maintenance."
Having spoken of him "as a companion and a man qualified for
conversation,"--his fortune exposing him to an obsequiousness towards
the worst sort of company, but his excellent qualities rendering him
capable of making the best figure in the most refined, and then having
told of his maintaining "his good humour with a countenance or a
language so delightful, without offence to any person or thing upon
earth, still preserving the distance his circumstances obliged him
to,"--Steele concludes with, "I say, I have seen him do all this in
such a charming manner, that I am sure none of those I hint at will
read this, without giving him some sorrow for their abundant mirth,
and one gush of tears for so many bursts of laughter. I wish it were
any honour to the pleasant creature's memory, that my eyes are too
much suffused to let me go on----" We agree with Leigh Hunt that
Steele's "overfineness of nature was never more beautifully evinced in
any part of his writings than in this testimony to the merits of poor
Dick Estcourt."
Ned Ward, in his _Secret History of Clubs_, first edition, 1709,
describes the Beef-steaks, which he coarsely contrasts with "the
refined wits of the Kit-Cat." This new Society griliado'd beef eaters
first settled their meeting at the sign of the Imperial Phiz, just
opposite to a famous conventicle in the Old Jury, a publick-house that
has been long eminent for the true British quintessence of malt and
hops, and a broiled sliver off the juicy rump of a fat, well-fed
bullock.... This noted boozing ken, above all others in the City, was
chosen out by the Rump-steak admirers, as the fittest mansion to
entertain the Society, and to gratify their appetites with that
particular dainty they desired to be distinguished by. [The Club met
at the place appointed, and chose for a Prolocutor, an Irish
comedian.] No sooner had they confirmed their Hibernian mimic in his
honourable post, but to distinguish him from the rest, they made him a
Knight of St. Lawrence, and hung a silver (?) gridiron about his neck,
as a badge of the dignity they had conferred upon him, that when he
sung _Pretty Parrot_, he might thrum upon the bars of his new
instrument, and mimic a haughty Spaniard serenading his Donna with
guitar and madrigal. The Zany, as proud of his new fangle as a German
mountebank of a prince's medal, when he was thus dignified and
distinguished with his culinary symbol hanging before his breast, took
the highest post of honour, as his place at the board, where, as soon
as seated, there was not a bar in the silver kitchen-stuff that the
Society had presented him with, but was presently handled with a
theatrical pun, or an Irish witticism.... Orders were dispatched to
the superintendent of the kitchen to provide several nice specimens of
their Beef-steak cookery, some with the flavour of a shalot or onion;
some broil'd, some fry'd, some stew'd, some toasted, and others
roasted, that every judicious member of the new erected Club might
appeal to his palate, and from thence determine whether the house they
had chosen for their rendezvous truly deserved that public fame for
their inimitable management of a bovinary sliver, which the world had
given them.... When they had moderately supplied their beef stomachs,
they were all highly satisfy'd with the choice they had made, and from
that time resolved to repeat their meeting once a week in the same
place." At the next meeting the constitution and bye-laws of the new
little commonwealth were settled; and for the further encouragement of
wit and pleasantry throughout the whole Society, there was provided a
very voluminous paper book, "about as thick as a bale of Dutch linen,
into which were to be entered every witty saying that should be spoke
in the Society:" this nearly proved a failure; but Ward gives a taste
of the performances by reciting some that had been stolen out of their
Journal by a false Brother; here is one:--
ON AN OX.
"Most noble creature of the horned race,
Who labours at the plough to earn thy grass,
And yielding to the yoke, shows man the way
To bear his servile chains, and to obey
More haughty tyrants, who usurp the sway.
Thy sturdy sinews till the farmer's grounds,
To thee the grazier owes his hoarded pounds:
'Tis by thy labour, we abound in malt,
Whose powerful juice the meaner slaves exalt;
And when grown fat, and fit to be devour'd,
The pole-ax frees thee from the teazing goard:
Thus cruel man, to recompense thy pains,
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
In its own gravy, till divinely good,
Turned all to powerful wit, as soon as chew'd.
* * * * *
To grind thy gravy out their jaws employ,
O'er heaps of reeking steaks express their joy,
And sing of Beef as Homer did of Troy."
We shall now more closely examine the origin and history of the
Sublime Society of the Steaks, which has its pedigree, its ancestry,
and its title-deeds. The gridiron of 1735 is the real gridiron on
which its first steak was broiled. Henry Rich (Lun, the first
Harlequin) was the founder, to whom Garrick thus alludes in a prologue
to the Irish experiment of a speaking pantomime:
"When Lun appeared, with matchless art and whim,
He gave the power of speech to every limb.