BEEF, 89 
board ship have relished this “ biltong” when no other delicacy 
would tempt them to eat. It is quite as readily assimilated 
as fresh meat, being generally taken uncooked. 
Prime Beef, when freshly roasted, or broiled, may be almost 
compared to alcohol in its stimulating effects at first; indeed, 
De Quincey has told of a “‘ medical student in London, for whose 
knowledge in his profession he (Quincey) had reason to feel 
great respect, who assured him that a patient in recovering from 
an illness had got drunk on a Beef-steak.” And quite recently 
the Lancet, borrowing this idea so as to apply it further, has 
declared : “‘ One can truly state that there are hundreds, and 
hundreds of men and women in our midst who are daily stupefying 
themselves with Beef, heavv, and in excess, thereby deadening 
their brains, paralysing their bodies, and ruining their health ; 
young people need more of such food than those who are fully 
grown, but it is the adults who do all the gormandizing!” 
None the less, though, are we justified in boasting triumphantly 
of the ‘‘ Roast Beef of Old England ” as pre-eminently our great 
national dish; and in repeating right loyally the spirited 
invocation of Charles Morris (Laureate, in 1785), to the “ Old 
Beef-steak Club” .— 
** May beef long bless our favoured coast, 
Where no despotic ruffian 
Has dared a brazen bull to roast, 
With men inside for stuffing ! 
Where never Jove, a tyrant god, 
Who loves fair maids to purloin, 
As a white bull the billows rode 
With madam on his sirloin. 
Like Britain’s Island lies our steak, 
ae sea of gravy round it.— 
ots, in fragrance scattered, ma. 
The rock-work which surrounds it: 
Our Isle’s best emblem here behold, 
Remember ancient story ; 
Be, like your grandsires, just and bold ; 
So live and die in glory.” 
The first Beef-steak Club was re-organised in the winter of 1749, 
at the instance of Dr. Samuel Johnson, and met weekly at a 
famous Beef-steak house in Ivy Lane. This Club had been first 
formed in 1735 by Rich, the famous Harlequin; it continued to 
held its meetings in rooms behind the stage of the Lyceum Theatre, 
in London, up to 1867, when, as the roll of members had become 
reduced to eighteen, its doors were closed for ever. In 1869 its 
