88 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh, 



he thought it only right he should pay, as he 

 had never enjoyed an entertainment more in 

 his life ! It is to be feared that the Boniface of 

 this noble liberality and appreciative spirit is 

 very nearly extinct. 



The " Red Lion " dinners were among the 

 esoteric mysteries of the British Association 

 which did not commonly find their way to the 

 public ear. In a paper of December 1893, 

 there is a passage stating that " the late Professor 

 Tyndall, like Huxley, used to like to relieve his 

 dry scientific studies by indulging in a little 

 unconventional conviviality. They were both 

 members of the Red Lion Club, which was in- 

 stituted as a protest against dons and donish- 

 ness in science. With this object the ' Red 

 Lions ' made a point of holding a feast of Spartan 

 simplicity and anarchic constitution, with rites 

 of Pantagruelistic aspect, intermingled with ex- 

 tremely unconventional orations and queer songs 

 by way of counterblast to the official banquets 

 of the British Association." 



Mr. Leonard Huxley, in the Life and Letters 

 of Thomas Henry Huxley (vol. i. p. 87), writes : 



Several letters from 1851 to 1853 help to fill up the out- 

 lines of Huxley's life during these three years of struggle. 

 There is a description of the British Association meeting 

 at Ipswich in 1851, with the traditional touch of gaiety 

 to enliven the gravity of its proceedings, and the un- 

 conventional jollity of the Red Lion Club (a dining-club 

 of members of the Association), whose palmy days were 

 those under the inspiration of the genial and gifted 

 Forbes. This was the meeting at which Huxley first 

 began his alliance with Tyndall, with whom he travelled 

 down from town, although he does not mention his name 

 in this letter. 



