Some of these portraits are in the costume familiar to us through Hogarth; others are in Turkish or Roman dresses. There is a mixture of the convivial in all these pictures: many are using wine-glasses of no small size: Lord Sandwich, for instance, in a Turkish costume, casts a most unorthodox glance upon a brimming goblet in his left hand, while his right holds a flask of great capacity. Sir Bouchier Wray is seated in the cabin of a ship, mixing punch, and eagerly embracing the bowl, of which a lurch of the sea would seem about to deprive him: the inscription is _Dulce est desipere in loco_. Here is a curious old portrait of the Earl of Holdernesse, in a red cap, as a gondolier, with the Rialto and Venice in the background; there is Charles Sackville, Duke of Dorset, as a Roman senator, dated 1738; Lord Galloway, in the dress of a cardinal; and a very singular likeness of one of the earliest of the Dilettanti, Lord Le Despencer, as a monk at his devotions: his Lordship is clasping a brimming goblet for his rosary, and his eyes are not very piously fixed on a statue of the Venus de' Medici. It must be conceded that some of these pictures remind one of the Medmenham orgies, with which some of the Dilettanti were not unfamiliar. The ceiling of the large room was painted to represent sky, and crossed by gold cords interlacing each other, and from their knots were hung three large glass chandeliers. The Thatched House has disappeared, but the pictures have been well cared for. The Dilettanti have removed to another tavern, and dine together on the first Sunday in every month, from February to July. The late Lord Aberdeen, the Marquises of Northampton and Lansdowne, and Colonel Leake, and Mr. Broderip, were members; as was also the late Lord Northwick, whose large collection of pictures at Thirlestane, Cheltenham, was dispersed by sale in 1859. FOOTNOTES: [20] Edinburgh Review, No. 214, p. 500. THE ROYAL NAVAL CLUB. About the year 1674, according to a document in the possession of Mr. Fitch of Norwich, a Naval Club was started "for the improvement of a mutuall Society, and an encrease of Love and Kindness amongst them;" and that consummate seaman, Admiral Sir John Kempthorne, was declared Steward of the institution. This was the precursor of the Royal Naval Club of 1765, which, whether considered for its amenities or its extensive charities, may be justly cited as a model establishment. (_Admiral Smyth's Rise and Progress of the Royal Society Club_, p. 9.) The members of this Club annually distribute a considerable sum among the distressed widows and orphans of those who have spent their days in the naval service of their country. The Club was accustomed to dine together at the Thatched House Tavern, on the anniversary of the Battle of the Nile.