London (England) -- Antiquities; London (England) -- History
Intermediate is the host of clubs meeting occasionally, as the
Breakfast Club, and the numerous dining clubs, one of which, the Royal
Naval Club, established in 1765, is said to be a renewal of an earlier
one dating from 1674. "The Club," which comes down from the time of
Johnson and Reynolds, and still uses a notification to a new member
drawn up by Gibbon; the Royal Society Club; the X Club, which consisted
of ten members of the Athenæum; the Society of Noviomagus, and the
Cocked Hat Club, consisting of members of the Society of Antiquaries;
the Cosmos Club of the Royal Geographical Society; the Colquhoun Club
of the Royal Society of Literature; and a host of others in connection
with learned societies, most of which are content to add the word
"club" to the name of the society. Of another, but cognate, kind is
the famous "Sublime Society of Beef Steaks," which was founded in
1735, and died (of inanition) in 1867. The members were not to exceed
twenty-four in number. Beef steaks were to be the only meat for dinner.
The broiling began at 2.0, and the tablecloth was removed at 3.30. In
1785 the Prince of Wales, in 1790 the Duke of York, in 1808 the Duke of
Sussex, became members. It had a laureate bard in the person of Charles
Morris, elected a member in 1785, who died in 1838 at the age of 93
years. In early times the members appeared in the uniform of a blue
coat and buff waistcoat, with brass buttons bearing a gridiron and the
motto "Beef and Liberty." The hour of meeting became later gradually,
till in 1866 it was fixed at 8 o'clock; then the club quickly died out.
Founded by John Rich, harlequin and machinist at Covent Garden, it had
counted among its members William Hogarth, David Garrick, John Wilkes,
John Kemble, William Linley, Henry Brougham (Lord Chancellor), and many
other distinguished men. The Ettrick Shepherd gave an account, in 1833,
of a visit he paid to this club:--
"They dine solely on beefsteaks--but what glorious beefsteaks!
They do not come up all at once--no, nor half-a-dozen times;
but up they come at long intervals, thick, tender, and as hot
as fire. And during these intervals the members sit drinking
their port, and breaking their wicked wit on each other, so
that every time a new service of steaks came up, we fell to
them with much the same zest as at the beginning. The dinner
was a perfect treat--a feast without alloy."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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