The great took him by the hand, and old
Marlborough especially patronized him: he wrote a burlesque of the
Italian operas then beginning to be in vogue; and died in 1712-13.
Estcourt was not the only actor belonging to the Beef-steak, nor even
the only one who had concealed his sex under emergency; Peg Woffington,
who had made as good a boy as he had done a girl, was afterwards a
member of this club.
In later years the beef-steak was cooked in a room at the top of Covent
Garden Theatre, and counted many a celebrated wit among those who sat
around its cheery dish. Wilkes the blasphemer, Churchill, and Lord
Sandwich, were all members of it at the same time. Of the last, Walpole
gives us information in 1763 at the time of Wilkes's duel with Martin in
Hyde Park. He tells us that at the Beef-steak Club Lord Sandwich talked
so profusely, 'that he drove harlequins out of the company.' To the
honour of the club be it added, that his lordship was driven out after
the harlequins, and finally expelled: it is sincerely to be hoped that
Wilkes was sent after his lordship. This club is now represented by one
held behind the Lyceum, with the thoroughly British motto, 'Beef and
Liberty:' the name was happily chosen and therefore imitated.
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