The Robin Hood became famous as the scene of Burke's earliest eloquence. To discipline themselves in public speaking at its meetings was then the custom among law-students, and others intended for public life; and it is said that at the Robin Hood, Burke had commonly to encounter an opponent whom nobody else could overcome, or at least silence: this person was the president. Oliver Goldsmith was introduced to the Club by Samuel Derrick, his acquaintance and countryman. Struck by the eloquence and imposing aspect of the president, who sat in a large gilt chair, Goldsmith thought Nature had meant him for a lord chancellor: "No, no," whispered Derrick, who knew him to be a wealthy baker from the City, "only for a master of the rolls." Goldsmith was little of an orator; but, till Derrick went away to succeed Beau Nash at Bath, seems to have continued his visits, and even spoke occasionally; for he figures in an account of the members published at about this time, as "a candid disputant, with a clear head and an honest heart, though coming but seldom to the Society." One of the members of this Robin Hood was Peter Annet, a man who, though ingenious and deserving in other respects, became unhappily notorious by a kind of fanatic crusade against the Bible, for which (published weekly papers against the Book of Genesis,) he stood twice in one year in the pillory, and then underwent imprisonment in the King's Bench. To Annet's room in that prison went Goldsmith, taking with him Newbery, the publisher, to conclude the purchase of a Child's Grammar from the prisoner, hoping so to relieve his distress; but on the prudent publisher suggesting that no name should appear on the title-page, and Goldsmith agreeing that circumstances made this advisable, Annet accused them both of cowardice, and rejected their assistance with contempt.[17] THE BLUE-STOCKING CLUB. The earliest mention of a Blue-Stocking, or _Bas-Bleu_, occurs in the Greek comedy, entitled the _Banquet of Plutarch_. The term, as applied to a lady of high literary taste, has been traced by Mills, in his _History of Chivalry_, to the Society de la Calza, formed at Venice, in 1400, "when, consistently with the singular custom of the Italians, of marking academies and other intellectual associations by some external sign of folly, the members, when they met in literary discussion, were distinguished by the colour of their stockings. The colours were sometimes fantastically blended; and at other times one colour, particularly _blue_, prevailed." The Society de la Calza lasted till 1590, when the foppery of Italian literature took some other symbol. The rejected title then crossed the Alps, and found a congenial soil in Parisian society, and particularly branded female pedantry. It then diverted from France to England, and for awhile marked the vanity of the small advances in literature in female coteries.