156 Presidentship of Sir Joseph Banks i7 82 



indefatigable in seeking out and inviting to the dinners 

 any scientific foreigners who came to London. His own 

 reputation among Scandinavian naturalists could not fail 

 to draw to him all the northern men of note who came to 

 England. And he invited many of them to the Club. 



It was perhaps owing to Solander's influence that the 

 solidity of the Club's diet, which his predecessor had estab- 

 lished and kept up for so many years, became somewhat 

 relaxed. The bill of fare grew shorter and simpler. Soup 

 was more often seen on the table. In Solander's last 

 complete year about a third of the dinners began with soup, 

 sometimes of two sorts. Two kinds of fish generally 

 appeared, as before, but the number of joints was curtailed, 

 though beef and mutton still usually accompanied each 

 other. Made-dishes took a more conspicuous place, and 

 vegetables were seen in increasing variety. The " plumb- 

 pudding " which used to be so rampant in Colebrooke's 

 days, was gradually diminished to such a degree that in 

 Solander's last year it made its appearance only at one 

 dinner. These changes were hastened by the transference 

 of the Club to a new habitat, where the use and wont of 

 the Philosophers was not known, and where the accustomed 

 cuisine was probably of a more modern type than it had 

 been at "The Mitre." 



The most eminent foreign guest this year was Alessandro 

 Volta, the great Italian physicist, whose reputation had now 

 spread far and wide, attracting students from all parts of 

 Europe to listen to his expositions in the University of 

 Pavia. He was at this time in his thirty-seventh year and 

 had undertaken a tour among the countries of central and 

 western Europe for the chief purpose of coming into per- 

 sonal relations with the men of the day by whom the study 

 of physics was most successfully pursued. He was brought 

 to the Club on May gth by Joseph Plant a ; Banks presided, 

 and there were present Henry Cavendish, Lord Palmerston, 

 John Smeaton, Charles Blagden, Alexander Aubert, Sir 

 Robert Barker, Sir George Shuckburgh and others. The great 

 electrical discoveries of Volta's career were still to be made. 



