i864 THE X CLUB 279 



For some time there was a summer meeting, which con- 

 sisted of a week-end excursion of members and their wives 

 (x's -|- yv's, as the correct formula ran) to some place like 

 Burnham or Maidenhead, Oxford or Windsor ; but this 

 grew increasingly difificult to arrange, and dropped before 

 very long. 



Guests were not excluded from the dinners of the club ; 

 men of science or letters of almost every nationality dined 

 with the X at one time or another ; Darwin, W. K. Clifford, 

 Colenso, Strachey, Tollemache, Helps ; Professors Bain, 

 Masson, Robertson Smith, and Bentham the botanist, Mr. 

 John Morley, Sir D. Galton, Mr. Jodrell, the founder of 

 several scientific lectureships ; Dr. Klein ; the Americans 

 Marsh, Oilman, A. Agassiz, and Youmans, the latter of 

 whom met here several of the contributors to the Interna- 

 tional Science Scries organized by him ; and continental 

 representatives, as Helmholtz, Laugel, and Cornu. 



Small as the club was, the members of it were destined 

 to play a considerable part in the history of English science. 

 Five of them received the Royal Medal ; three the Copley ; 

 one the Rumford ; six were Presidents of the British Asso- 

 ciation ; three Associates of the Institute of France ; and 

 from amongst them the Royal Society chose a Secretary, 

 a Foreign Secretary, a Treasurer, and three successive 

 Presidents. 



I think, originally (writes Huxley, I.e.) there was some 

 vague notion of associating representatives of each branch of 

 science; at any rate, the nine who eventually came together 

 could have managed, among us, to contribute most of the articles 

 to a scientific Encyclopaedia. 



They included leading representatives of half a dozen 

 branches of science: — mathematics, physics, philosophy, 

 chemistry, botany, and biology ; and all were animated by 

 similar ideas of the high function of science, and of the 

 great Society which should be the chief representative of 

 science in this country. However unnecessary, it was per- 

 haps not unnatural that a certain jealousy of the club and 

 its possible influence grew up in some quarters. But what- 

 ever influence fell to it as it were incidentally — and earnest 

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