When Lepsius did not prefer to play chess,--often four-handed chess, or, still better, with three players and a dummy,--he devoted many evenings, as of old, to the “Herrenkränzchen,” or social club of learned friends, in which he bore his part with pleasure, both giving and receiving. Lepsius belonged to the old or little “Griechheit” during the first years of his marriage and before he built his own house. Its members were: Lepsius, E. Curtius, Gerhard, Abeken, Brandis, Wiese, and other intimate friends. They read Greek classics, and so kept up their familiarity with them and with the world of ancient Hellas, but this was not the sole object of the “Griechheit,” which was rather intended to enable friends of similar tastes and education to pass pleasant and inspiring evenings together, where they might be happy, unconstrained, and free from every sort of pedantry. After the reading and the discussion which followed it, two chosen friends, the diplomat v. Schlözer and the zoologist Peters, were admitted as so-called “commensals,” and they all went to supper. The wife of the member at whose house the society met presided at table, and often the friends remained till a late hour over the merry meal, amidst the clinking of glasses, and pleasant conversation. With Abeken’s late marriage in 1866, the little “Griechheit,” so dear to all its members, came to an end, though its resurrection was celebrated some years afterwards. But in its new form the more critical and sharper spirit of the present learned society of Berlin prevailed, instead of the inoffensive cheerful tone, and the ideal humanistic thought of its predecessor. Members of the various Faculties, Mommsen, the philosopher Zeller, the mathematician Kronecker, H. Grimm, Wattenbach, the lawyer Bruns, the archæologist Schöne, v. Sybel, and Waitz took part in it, and among them, as representatives of the older “Griechheit” were E. Curtius and Lepsius. The English ambassador, Lord Russel, the Greek ambassador, Rangabé, and George v. Bunsen were also members. The Wednesday or Literary Club had been founded by Bethmann-Hollweg and Dorner, who was also a friend of the Lepsiuses. The Berlin literati lived at wide distances apart, and this club was begun with the intention of enabling them to meet, and thus giving an opportunity to those who were conducting researches in the various domains of science to enrich each other intellectually, through conversation, and mutual communication of knowledge. Each member was bound in turn to deliver a discourse upon some subject within his special department of science. Another member had to provide the entertainment, and thus the society met first at one house and then at another. Of the old members many are now dead; those who survive will recollect with satisfaction the delightful evenings in which Lepsius participated with such pleasure.