Characteristics of Josiab Colebrooke 23 



attended. He was likewise careful himself to invite suitable 

 guests to the Club. It will be recounted in later pages how 

 he was often the means of introducing some distinguished 

 stranger from abroad or some rising philosopher who had 

 not yet been elected into the Royal Society. On occasions 

 when he could not attend, he would depute one of the mem- 

 bers to take the required particulars for his register, and 

 his request usually appears to have been- attended to, for 

 the narrative of the dinner is given in his own handwriting, 

 with the omission of his name from the list of those present. 

 When, as sometimes happened, the record was not taken 

 or was lost, he noted the fact on the page where the missing 

 information should have come, leaving it otherwise blank 

 in case the information should be recovered, or, if not, as a 

 memorial of the delinquency. 



As a further indication of his conservative tendencies, it 

 may be mentioned that the worthy Treasurer had certain 

 views as to the spelling of English words which he main- 

 tained with unbroken persistence throughout his life. If 

 there were two ways of writing a word he preferred the more 

 ancient and now obsolete form. Orthography of course had 

 not then become so fixed as it is now. Lord Chesterfield, 

 indeed, who was a contemporary of Colebrooke, writing to 

 his son on igth November 1750, was somewhat in advance 

 of his time when he laid much stress on correct spelling. 

 " Orthography," he said, " in the true sense of the word, 

 is so absolutely necessary for a man of letters, or a gentleman, 

 that one false spelling may fix a ridicule upon him for the 

 rest of his life, and I know a man of quality, who never 

 recovered the ridicule of having spelled wholesome without 

 the w." " Reading with care will secure everybody from 

 false spelling, for books are always well spelled, according 

 to the orthography of the times. Some words are indeed 

 doubtful, being spelled differently by different authors of 

 equal authority ; but these are few." x Josiah Colebrooke 

 would probably have contested this assertion. It was from 

 no slip of the pen, but from deliberate choice that he 



1 Chesterfield's Letters, Lord Mahon's Edition (1845), ii. 64. 



