In the decline of life and fortune Morris was handsomely provided for by his fellow-steak, the Duke of Norfolk, who conferred upon him a charming retreat at Brockham in Surrey, which he lived to enjoy until the year 1838, surviving his benefactor by twenty-three years, whilst hundreds of men of real merit were left to fight the battle of life unaided and unrewarded. But those who amuse the idle hours of fools with foolish nonsense are always more highly thought of than those who instruct and impart useful knowledge. There is more money spent at a State or Municipal banquet in one evening than would suffice for maintaining a scientific institution for a whole year. What did the Queen’s Jubilee cost the nation, and what lasting benefit has this extravagant expenditure conferred on the nation? Of all this firework, what remains but the sticks and the burnt-out cartridge tubes? Carlyle, with whom we agree in few things, was right in what he said about the aggregate of fools. But return we to the ’sublime’ Beefsteakers. The epithet they assumed reminds us that there is indeed but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous. When a society, formed for the mere purpose of gorging and swilling, and howling drinking songs, the most stupid of all songs, calls itself ’sublime,’ may we not ask, Where are the ’Lofty Taters-all-’ot’ and the ’Exalted Tripe and Onioners?’ There were some queer members in the society. A wealthy solicitor, named Richard Wilson, popularly called Dick, having been to Paris, and not knowing a word of French, praised French cookery, and said that its utmost perfection was seen in the way in which they dished up a ’rendezvous’; he meant a _ris de veau_. Being asked if he ate partridge in France, Dick said ’Yes,’ but he could not bear them served up in ’shoes’; he meant _perdrix aux choux_. William Taylor, another member, believed firmly that Stonehenge was formed by an extraordinary shower of immense hailstones which fell two thousand years ago. The society, we know, claimed to be a literary society, and had actually offered a prize of £400 for the best comedy. It had many dramatic authors among its members. One of them was Cobb, who, among other plays, wrote ’Ramah Drug’—drug or droog meaning in India, where the scene was laid, a hill-fort;[#] he was complimented by his fellow-members on the happy titles he always chose for his pieces. ’What could be better for your last attempt to ram a drug down the public throat than "Ramah Drug"?’ said one of the Beefsteakers. But Arnold, a rival dramatist, disputed Cobb’s claim to admiration on this account. ’What worse title,’ said he, ’could he have chosen for his "Haunted Tower"? Why, there is no spirit in it from beginning to end!’ [#] The tower known as Severndroog on Shooter’s Hill commemorates the taking of the fort of that name on the coast of Malabar.