Mr. W. Keddie on the Early History and Proceedings of the Society. 119 



paid three guineas of entry-money and ten and sixpence annually. The 

 business seems to have been carried on in an unconstrained, conversa- 

 tional manner, as it was not till 1821 that a proposal was made that 

 members, on addressing the President, should rise from their seats. 

 The motion was brought on at a thin meeting, and defeated by ten to 

 four. The Society was more punctilious in other respects, having at an 

 early period blackballed a candidate for admission on the ground of his 

 holding a subordinate social position. The members occasionally dined 

 together. A Society dinner is recorded in November, 1817, when the 

 minute mentions that Mr. Burn of the Black Bull " agreed to provide 

 a decent dinner at three shillings a-head." Sundry legends, descending 

 to us from this period, hint that, in accordance with the social habits of 

 the time, the members not unfrequently adjourned to one or other of 

 the snuggeries described by Dr. Strang in the Clubs of Glasgow, 

 and continued their discussions, under the presidency of Mr. Robert 

 (familiarly and lovingly known as Bob) M'Call, who had fought a duel 

 in the West Indies, was a leader of the Glasgow fashions, and whose 

 acknowledged superiority as a compounder of rum-punch entitled him 

 to the honours of the chair at a symposium of the Philosophers. 



Mr. Andrew Henderson, artist, the editor of a cui'ious collection of 

 Scottish Pj-overbs, and one of the humorists of the Laird o/Zo^ara, joined 

 the Society in 1821. A portrait of himself, from his own palette, is 

 preserved in the Library of the Andersonian Institution. Mr. Hender- 

 son signalized his entry into the Society by reading an essay on the 

 Fine Arts, tracing the history of "the great Masters," from Noah and 

 Tubal-Cain down to Reynolds and Opie. In a similarly comprehensive 

 spirit, Mr. James "Watt, architect, afterwards produced an essay on the 

 rise and progress of architecture, from the time of Adam to the building 

 of the Pyramids of Egypt ; followed up by essays on the architecture of 

 Greece and Syria. The Society was so much pleased with Mr. Watt's 

 essays, that it had the peroration of one of them published in the news- 

 papers, expressing a hope that the time was not far distant when the 

 labour of the man of science and the artist would be appreciated, not, as 

 at present, " by the square foot," but according to their respective 

 merits ; and the recent purchase of the Elgin Marbles was referred to as 

 a proof that government was at length disposed to encourage art in this 

 country. 



On the same evening that Mr. John Ure was proposed as a member, 

 in 1821, there was exhibited to the Society Mr. Cameron's machine for 

 making soda water, and which was afterwards sold to Dr. M'Gavin, who 

 employed the apparatus for several years in his shop in Nelson Street. 

 The machine was constructed on the same principle as the portable 



