34 o SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Royal Society, are welcome ; for we know really less of Cavendish and of his 

 ways and habits than of any man of similar position. He came to the Club first 

 as the guest of his father, and later became himself a member : he attended 

 occasionally at first, but gradually became more and more regular in his attendance, 

 until in 1784 he attended fifty-three dinners in the year. The meetings were then 

 held every week during the year, irrespective of the vacations of the Royal Society. 

 The Royal Society Club saw much more of him than did any of his contem- 

 poraries, and it is a great pity that there is not more in the way of definite record 

 of his personality in their archives. This shy and silent genius seemed to have 

 found at the Club what he was seeking for, namely, an accoucheur for his 

 thoughts ; there he was sure to find some one or other waiting and seeking to 

 give him assistance, and thus birth was given to a good conversation. As he 

 became at home at the Club he invited guests, among them such men as 

 D. Solander, Benjamin Franklin, Capt. Phipps, W. H. Wollaston, Dr. C. Hutton, 

 Mr. Wedgwood, Matthew Boulton, Capt. Riou, Geissler and others, and the 

 varied interests of such guests shows us that Cavendish must have had far wider 

 and more human sympathies than those of the laboratory alone, with which he 

 is generally credited. He dined at the Club up to about a fortnight before 

 his death. 



Another vivid sketch, this time of a strange guest, is that of Rudolf Eric 

 Raspe. He was a man of remarkable originality, who gave Scott the idea of the 

 character of Dousterswivel in the Antiquary, and who, amongst other things, was 

 the author of Baron Munchausen's Travels, which thrilled us in our school- 

 days ; he was also a linguist, a versatile scholar, and a man of science. He was 

 made a foreign Fellow of the Royal Society in 1769 for work which still holds 

 good, but he was ejected from the Society in 1775 ' n consequence of its becoming 

 known to the Council that he had stolen a number of valuable objects from the 

 Cassel Museum, and that he had escaped from custody in Germany. Curiously, 

 his name has never been removed from the list of Fellows, and it is to be found 

 in the last revised edition of 1912. He wrote, and wrote well, on gems, volcanoes, 

 oil-painting, and mineralogy, and died in Ireland in 1794. 



Other slighter sketches such as those of Josiah Colebrooke, the Club's first 

 Treasurer, of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Young for instance, will arrest the 

 reader's attention ; and there are naturally copious notes on the geologists who 

 attended the Club, either as members or guests. At the dinner of April 3, 1760, 

 " Mr. Sterne, author of Tristram Shandy? was a guest : we should like to have 

 Yorick's account of his dinner with the Royal Philosophers ! 



One curious fact, which is revolting to our sense of the sacredness of the word 

 hospitality, must be mentioned : the visitors, apparently from the beginning, were 

 allowed to pay for their own dinners ! In 183 1 a rule was made that " foreigners " 

 should not be required to pay for their dinners, but in 1841 this rule was rescinded, 

 and there is no indication in the records as to when the right rule, that guests 

 should be paid for by the members who invited them, was introduced. This is 

 all the more curious as in later years, as the present writer knows from personal 

 experience, the hospitality of the Club has become a characteristic and is perfect : 

 but so it ought to be, in order to atone for the sins of the past, which make the 

 only blot on the history of this interesting body. 



Another point of interest is that contemporary historical events are scarcely 

 ever alluded to in the Club records. During the greater part of the earlier 

 history of the Club, England was almost constantly at war in one or other part of 

 the globe, and during its whole history some of the members and guests must 



