A celebrated early eighteenth-century literary club was the Royal Society, instituted by a number of literary men who met in Dean’s Court, there to dine on fish and drink porter. One of these gatherings expanded into the Club of Royal Philosophers, or, as it came to be called, the Royal Society Club. They dined together on Thursdays, usually to the number of six, but sometimes more. A favourite dining-place was Pontack’s, the celebrated French eating-house in Abchurch Lane, City; and they also dined at the Devil Tavern, near Temple Bar, and at the Mitre Tavern, in Fleet Street. In 1780 the club, as it had become, went to the Crown and Anchor Tavern, in the Strand; and here they remained for sixty-eight years, only removing to the Freemasons’ Tavern, in Fleet Street, in 1848. Finally, when the Royal Society was installed at Burlington House in 1857, the club held its meetings at the Thatched House, in St. James’s Street, which they frequented until that tavern was demolished. As time went on, the cost of the club dinner gradually rose. It began at 1s. 6d. per head, then went to 4s., including wine and 2d. to the waiter, and was afterwards increased to 10s. The wine was laid in at £45 the pipe, or 1s. 6d. per bottle, and charged by the landlord at 2s. 6d. This club was sometimes known as Dr. Halley’s, for Halley was said to have been its founder. An eccentric member was the Hon. Henry Cavendish, commonly called the “Club Crœsus.” Though wealthy, he seldom had enough money in his pockets to pay for his dinner, and his manners were extraordinary. He picked his teeth with a fork, carried his cane stuck in his right boot, and was very angry when anyone else hung his hat on the peg he preferred in the hall. Yet he was not unsociable; he is said to have left a large legacy to a fellow-member—Lord Bessborough—in gratitude for his pleasant conversation. Cavendish was rather a misogynist. One evening a pretty girl chanced to be at an upper window on the opposite side of the street, watching the philosophers at dinner. She attracted notice, and one by one they got up and mustered round the window to admire the fair one. Cavendish, who thought they were looking at the moon, bustled up to them in his odd way, and, when he saw the real object of their study, turned away with intense disgust, and grunted out “Pshaw!” The President of the Royal Society was always elected president of the club. Princes, Ministers, men of high rank, and Ambassadors were entertained together with men of science, great ecclesiastics, and distinguished soldiers and sailors; Franklin, Jenner, John Hunter, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Gibbon, Wedgwood, Turner, De la Beche, and Brunel were amongst these.