374 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. XVIII 



they do?" "Well, they govern scientific affairs, and 

 really, on the whole, they don't do it badly." If my good 

 friends could only have been present at a few of our 

 meetings, they would have formed a much less exalted 

 idea of us, and would, I fear, have been much shocked 

 at the sadly frivolous tone of our ordinary conversa- 

 tion. 



The x Club is probably unique in the smallness of 

 its numbers, the intellectual eminence of its members, 

 and the length of its unchanged existence. The 

 nearest parallel is to be found in " The Club." l Like 

 the x, " The Club " began with eight members at its 

 first meeting, and of the original members Johnson 

 lived twenty years, Reynolds twenty-eight, Burke 

 thirty-three, and Bennet Langton thirty-seven. But 

 the ranks were earlier broken. Within ten years 

 Goldsmith died, and he was followed in a twelvemonth 

 by Nugent, and five years later by Beauclerk and 

 Chamier. Moreover, the eight were soon increased 

 to twelve ; then to twenty and finally to forty, while 

 the gaps were filled up as they occurred. 



In the x, on the contrary, nearly nineteen years 

 passed before the original circle was broken by the 

 death of Spottiswoode. From 1864 to Spottiswoode's 

 death in 1883 the original circle remained unbroken ; 

 the meetings "were steadily continued for some 

 twenty years, before our ranks began to thin; and 

 one by one, geistige Naturen such as those for which 



1 Of which Huxley was elected a member in 1884. Tyndall 

 and Hooker were also members. 



