The Club Minutes show the progressive rise in the charges for dinner. From 1743 to 1756 the cost was 1s. 6d. a head. In the latter year it was resolved to give 3s. per head for dinner and wine, the commons for absentees to remain at 1s. 6d., as before. In 1775, the price was increased to 4s. a head, including wine, and 2d. to the waiter; in 1801, to 5s. a head, exclusive of wine, the increased duties upon which made it necessary for the members to contribute an annual sum for the expense of wine, over and above the charge of the tavern bills.
In 1775, the wine was ordered to be laid in at a price not exceeding £45 a pipe, or 1s. 6d. a bottle; to have a particular seal upon the cork, and to be charged by the landlord at 2s. 6d. a bottle. The Club always dined on the Society's meeting-day. Wray, writing of a Club-meeting in 1776, says that, "after a capital dinner of venison, which was absolutely perfect, we went to another sumptuous entertainment, at the Society, where five electrical eels, all alive, from Surinam, were exhibited; most of the company received the electrical stroke; and then we were treated with the sight of a sucking alligator, very lively."
It has been more than once remarked that a public dinner of a large party of philosophers and men of science and letters generally turns out to be rather a dull affair; perhaps, through the embarras of talent at table. Not so, however, the private social Clubs, the offshoots of Public Societies, like the Royal Society Club, and others we could mention. The Royals do not appear to have been at all indifferent to these post-prandial wit-combats. "Here, my jokes I crack with high-born Peers," writes a Philosopher, alluding to the Club dinners; and Admiral Smyth, in his unpublished Rise and Progress, tells us, that to this day "it unites hilarity, and the macrones verborum of smart repartee, with strictures on science, literature, the fine arts—and, indeed, every branch of human knowledge."
The administration of the affairs of the Club was minutely attended to: when, in 1776, it was considered necessary to revise "the commons," a committee was appointed for the purpose, consisting of Messrs. Aubert, Cuthburt, Maskelyne, Russell, and Solander, who decided that "should the number of the company exceed the number provided for, the dinner should be made up with the beefstakes, mutton-chops, lamb-chops, veal-cutlets, or pork-stakes, instead of made dishes, or any dearer provisions." And "that twopence per head be allowed for the waiter" (which seems to have been the regular gratuity for many years). Then, the General Committee had to report that the landlord was to charge for gentlemen's servants, "one shilling each for dinner and a pot of porter;" and "that when toasted cheese was called for, he was to make a charge for it."
In 1784, the celebrated geologist, Faujas de Saint-Fond (Barthélemy,) with four other distinguished foreigners, partook of the hospitality of the Club, of which, in 1797, M. Faujas published an account. "He mentions the short prayer or grace with which Dr. Maskelyne blessed the company and the food—the solid meats and unseasoned vegetables—the quantities of strong beer called porter, drank out of cylindrical pewter pots d'un seul trait—the cheese to provoke the thirst of drinkers—the hob-a-nobbing of healths—and the detestable coffee. On the whole, however, this honest Frenchman seems to have been delighted with the entertainment, or, as he styles it, 'the convivial and unassuming banquet,'" and M. Faujas had to pay 'seven livres four sols' for his commons. Among the lighter incidents is the record of M. Aubert having received a present from the King of Poland, begged to have an opportunity of drinking His Majesty's health, and permission to order a bottle of Hermitage, which being granted, the health was drank by the company present; and upon one of the Club-slips of 1798, after a dinner of twenty-two, is written, "Seven shillings found under the table."
The dinner-charges appear to have gradually progressed from 1s. 6d. to 10s. per head. In 1858-9 the Club-dinners had been 25, and the number of dinners 309, so that the mean was equal to 12·36 for each meeting, the visitors amounting to 49; and it is further computed, that the average wine per head of late, waste included, is a considerable fraction less than a pint, imperial standard measure, in the year's consumption.
Among the distinguished guests of the Club are many celebrities. Here the chivalrous Sir Sidney Smith described the atrocities of Djezza Pasha; and here that cheerful baronet—Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin—by relating the result of his going in a jolly-boat to attack a whale, and in narrating the advantages specified in his proposed patent for fattening fowls, kept "the table in a roar." At this board, also, our famous circumnavigators and oriental voyagers met with countenance and fellowship—as Cook, Furneaux, Clerke, King, Bounty Bligh, Vancouver, Guardian Riou, Flinders, Broughton, Lestock, Wilson, Huddart, Bass, Tuckey, Horsburgh, &c.; while the Polar explorers, from the Hon. Constantine Phipps in 1773, down to Sir Leopold M'Clintock, in 1860, were severally and individually welcomed as guests. But, besides our sterling sea-worthies, we find in ranging through the documents that some rather outlandish visitors were introduced through their means, as Chet Quang and Wanga Tong, Chinese; Ejutak and Tuklivina, Esquimaux; Thayen-danega, the Mohawk chief; while Omai, of Ularetea, the celebrated and popular savage, of Cook's Voyages, was so frequently invited, that he is latterly entered on the Club papers simply as Mr. Omai.
The redoubtable Sir John Hill dined at the Club in company with Lord Baltimore on the 30th of June, 1748. Hill was consecutively an apothecary, actor, playwright, novelist, botanist, journalist, and physician; and he published upon trees and flowers, Betty Canning, gems, naval history, religion, cookery, and what not. Having made an attempt to enter the Royal Society, and finding the door closed against him,—perhaps a pert vivacity at the very dinner in question sealed the rejection,—he revenged himself by publishing an impudent quarto volume, vindictively satirizing the Society.
Ned Ward, in his humorous Account of the Clubs of London, published in 1709, describes "the Virtuoso's Club as first established by some of the principal members of the Royal Society, and held every Thursday, at a certain Tavern in Cornhill, where the Vintner that kept it has, according to his merit, made a fortunate step from his Bar to his Coach. The chief design of the aforementioned Club was to propagate new whims, advance mechanical exercises, and to promote useless as well as useful experiments." There is humour in this, as well as in his ridicule of the Barometer: "by this notable invention," he says, "our gentlemen and ladies of the middle quality are infallibly told when it's a right season to put on their best clothes, and when they ought not to venture an intrigue in the fields without their cloaks and umbrellas." His ridicule of turning salt water into fresh, finding a new star, assigning reasons for a spot in the moon, and a "wry step" in the sun's progress, were Ward's points, laughed at in his time, but afterwards established as facts. There have been greater mistakes made since Ward's time; but this does not cleanse him of filth and foulness.
Ward's record is evidence of the existence of the Royal Society Club, in 1709, before the date of the Minutes. Dr. Hutton, too, records the designation of Halley's Club—undoubted testimony; about 1737, he, Halley, though seized with paralysis, once a week, within a very short time of his death, met his friends in town, on Thursdays, the day of the Royal Society's meeting, at "Dr. Halley's Club." Upon this evidence Admiral Smyth establishes the claim that the Royal Society Club was actually established by a zealous philosopher, "who was at once proudly eminent as an astronomer, a mathematician, a physiologist, a naturalist, a scholar, an antiquary, a poet, a meteorologist, a geographer, a navigator, a nautical surveyor, and a truly social member of the community—in a word, our founder was the illustrious Halley—the Admirable Crichton of science."