Of all historical parallels, there are few more curious than the one between the first club ever established and any similar association of modern times. We must go as far back as the reign of Philip of Macedon (B.C. 320) for that original club. It consisted of Greek gentlemen, who, from their number, called themselves ‘The Sixty.’ They met once a week, not at a tavern, but in a temple--that of Hercules, at Athens. Their secretary was a sprightly young Achaian, named Callimedes--so sprightly, indeed, that the jolly Sixty nicknamed him the _Grasshopper_. They must have had the highest opinion of their own wit, for every good thing that was uttered was entered in a book, and any member who had a repartee on the tip of his tongue was obliged to keep it there till what had provoked it had been written down! This book of wit, wisdom, and joking was in such repute that it was lent out to princes and other potentialities, on depositing a security for its return. Thus Athens furnished not only the first club, but the first idea of a circulating library. One of the most singular features of some of the social gatherings of Roman gentlemen consists in the fact, that if a member did not consider himself ‘clubbable,’ or was not considered so by his colleagues, he might bring with him some one who was. If he possessed an extremely witty slave, and chose to bring him to the meeting, in such case Libanus was as welcome as Demenætus. There are clubs of the present day where dulness so prevails among the associates, where Sir Rayleigh D’Istressin is such a nonentity, and Mr. Hugh Doane Nohoo is so overflowing with nonsense, that it is a pity they cannot be represented by capable substitutes. The latter might be found among the public office clerks. How well many of these persons have discovered what they are especially fitted for is to be seen in the little companies that club together and exhibit themselves with alacrity as Nigger Serenaders! In England here, although the name of _club_ for a society was not known till the seventeenth century, the thing itself was in active practice three hundred years before. The first English club of which we know anything has a French name--_La Cour de Bonne Compagnie_. It was founded in the reign of Henry the Fourth, and we may take it that _bonne compagnie_ was understood to signify, in English, _good fellows_. They met, like ‘The Sixty’ in Athens, once a week. The club was what would now be called a dining club--that is, meeting periodically in order to dine together, and to enjoy the ‘feast of reason and the flow of soul’ which come of good cheer, safe digestion, happy humour, and undying wit.