ij6 Presidentship of Sir Joseph Banks 1786 



George, Earl of Morton, grandson of the former President 

 of the Royal Society, succeeded to the title on the death 

 of his father in 1774. He was a representative peer of 

 Scotland. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society on 

 February 24th 1785. 



An abrupt, and in some respects regrettable, change took 

 place in the Dinner-registers of the Club at the end of the 

 year 1785. The Treasurer, William Russell, had evidently 

 aged a good deal during the year. With his own hands, 

 however, he continued the chronicle of the dinners up to 

 the last meeting in December, and had received the sanction 

 of the Club to have a fresh book prepared for preserving 

 the weekly record of the dinners, and likewise to procure 

 a box to hold the volumes containing the annals of the Club 

 from the commencement in 1743. He completed volume 

 VII., but his writing at the last is plainly that of a failing 

 hand. He did not himself begin volume VIII. , but he 

 was able to attend the weekly meetings during the greater 

 part of 1786 and probably made his memoranda at the 

 table which were transferred by an amanuensis to the new 

 book. The chronicling of the bill of fare at each dinner 

 seems however to have been too much for the increasingly 

 feeble fingers of the devoted Treasurer. These menus now 

 disappear and were never resumed. It was not yet the 

 fashion to put the bill of fare into type, and to place a print 

 of it before each member of the dining party. As a piece 

 of historical evidence, therefore, in the progress of gastro- 

 nomy and change of taste, it is well to have in these crimson- 

 bound volumes a complete record of the fare provided for 

 a company of cultivated men every week during forty years 

 of the eighteenth century. 



A considerable number of foreign visitors dined with the 

 Club this year, and as usual they were for the most part 

 introduced by the President. In the spring he invited 

 President Virly, M. Le Breton, Dr. Vigaroux, and Dr. 

 Brussinet. Next month he brought Captain D'Auvergne, 

 in August Mr. Krantzenstein and Professor Thorkelin. 

 He was thereafter absent from the dinners for some weeks, 



