Sexagenarian
(vol. ii. chaps, xx.-xxv.), describes among the members of the Symposium, as he calls it, Sir James Mackintosh, George Ellis, William Gifford, John Reeves, Sir W. Drummond, and himself. Byron, in his
Detached Thoughts
, says,
"I was a member of the Alfred. It was pleasant; a little too sober and literary, and bored with Sotheby and Sir Francis d'Ivernois; but one met Peel, and Ward, and Valentia, and many other pleasant or known people; and it was, upon the whole, a decent resource in a rainy day, in a dearth of parties, or parliament, or in an empty season."
It was, says Mr. Wheatley (
London Past and Present
), known as the
Half-read
.