Admiral Smyth, to whose admirable _précis_ of the History of the Club we have to make acknowledgment, remarks that the hospitality of the Royal Society has been "of material utility to the well-working of the whole machine which wisdom called up, at a time when knowledge was quitting scholastic niceties for the truths of experimental philosophy. This is proved by the number of men of note--both in ability and station--who have there congregated previously to repairing to the evening meeting of the body at large; and many a qualified person who went thither a guest has returned a candidate. Besides inviting our own princes, dukes, marquises, earls, ministers of state, and nobles of all grades to the table, numerous foreign grandees, prelates, ambassadors, and persons of distinction--from the King of Poland and Baron Munchausen, down to the smart little abbé and a 'gentleman unknown'--are found upon the Club records. Not that the amenities of the fraternity were confined to these classes, or that, in the Clubbian sense, they form the most important order; for bishops, deans, archdeacons, and clergymen in general--astronomers-- mathematicians--sailors--soldiers--engineers--medical practitioners-- poets--artists--travellers--musicians--opticians--men of repute in every acquirement, were, and ever will be, welcome guests. In a word, the names and callings of the visitors offer a type of the philosophical _discordia concors_; and among those guests possessed of that knowledge without which genius is almost useless, we find in goodly array such choice names as Benjamin Franklin, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Gibbon, Costard, Bryant, Dalton, Watt, Bolton, Tennant, Wedgwood, _Abyssinian_ Bruce, Attwood, Boswell, Brinkley, Rigaud, Brydone, Ivory, Jenner, John Hunter, Brunel, Lysons, Weston, Cramer, Kippis, Westmacott, Corbould, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Turner, De La Beche, _et hoc genus omne_." The President of the Royal Society is elected President of the Club. There were always more candidates for admission than vacancies, a circumstance which had some influence in leading to the formation of a new Club, in 1847, composed of eminent Fellows of the Society. The name of this new Association is "the Philosophical Club," and its object is "to promote, as much as possible, the scientific objects of the Royal Society, to facilitate intercourse between those Fellows who are actively engaged in cultivating the various branches of Natural Science, and who have contributed to its progress; to increase the attendance at the Evening Meetings, and to encourage the contribution and the discussion of papers." Nor are the dinners forgotten; the price of each not to exceed ten shillings.