Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/396

 322 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. x. APRIL 29, 1922. Holborn, Simpson's in Drury Lane, Simp- son's in Cheapside, Simpson's in the Strand, the Half Moon in the Borough, and all other old inns which were available. It claimed as its title " The August Society of the Wanderers " and adopted as its motto Pransuri vagamur (We wander about to dine). Sir Henry L. Anderson, who was one of the Secretaries of the India Office and had brought from India a high reputation as a promoter of education, was the President. The fiction that the members formed a Cabinet was adopted and to each was assigned a high office of State. This sort of innocent masquerade commends itself frequently to the members of similar clubs, but it is a kind of fun that soon loses its freshness. Like the more famous Beefsteak Club, the Wanderers had a poet among them, and a privately printed volume exists which con- tains a selection of his verses, as they were from time to time recited at the dinners. Of these also the humour quickly evaporates, and it is no disparagement to the bright talent of the late Dr. J. S. La vies that I do not find in the volume anything that would be intelligible without a commentary. After some years the tale of old inns was told, and the Club found a permanent home at Simpson's in the Strand. I pass to the dining clubs which are con- nected with learned Societies and which for the most part are held on the days appointed for Council meetings or for the general meetings of the Society. In cases where both meetings are on the same day, they fill up the interval between. In the Statistical Society, which I first joined in 1857, the Club dinner preceded the evening meeting, but when later on the hour for meeting was fixed for the afternoon, the dinner followed it. Their Club is a select one, but the President or Vice -President of the Society takes the chair, and the author of the paper for the evening is the Club's guest. It forms thus a very good type of the club which is part of the Society's machinery for carrying out its work. I had the honour to be elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1860 and found the Clubs formed by its Fellows were of a different type. The older of the two existing at that time was called the Society of Citizens of Novio magus, and was formed by two distinguished Fellows who had different views as to the situation of that mysterious Roman station. They said to each other, " Let us have a Club to discuss this, and let the Club dis- solve when the city is found." This Club was limited to 15 members. When I was first introduced to it Samuel Carter Hall was the President or " Lord High." When I afterwards joined it, Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson held that office. He printed for private circulation a little romance of his own, describing a visit by Caesar to the Club, and sketching its history. He was succeeded by Sir Wyke Bayliss, whose successor was Dr. J. S. Phene Dr. Phene held that he had discovered what was beyond contradiction the real site of Novio- magus, and that it was his duty therefore to dissolve the Club, which he did by an advertisement in The Athenceum. The other club was founded in 1852 by seven members, Mr. John Bruce, Mr. Frederic Ouvry (afterwards President of the Society), Mr. William John Thorns (founder of *N. & Q.'), Mr. Peter Cunningham, Mr. T. W. King (York Herald), Mr. William Durrant Cooper, and Mr. (afterwards Sir) William R. Drake, all of them notable antiquaries. It was called the Cocked Hat Club out of respect to the dignity of the President of the Society, who used to wear a cocked hat on solemn occasions, such as the admission of a Fellow. The Club to this day rejoices in the posses- sion of the actual cocked hat worn by Martin Folkes, the Society's first President under its charter. A history of the Club's first fifty years and a roll of its members was printed for private circulation in 1902. A third club has been formed under the title of the " S.A. Club," of which I am not a member. Before I had joined either of the other clubs, three or four Fellows of the Society used to meet at Giraud's Restaurant on their way to Somerset House. In 1863 I became a student-at-law and joined two of the debating societies open to me as such. They were the " Social " and the " Templars." Shortly after, the Anthro- pological Society was founded, and I became a member. The Club formed to fill up the interval between Council meetings at 4 o'clock and evening meetings at 8 was called the Cannibal Club, out of respect for those savage races which it would be the main business of the Society to study. One of the most interesting of its members was Algernon Charles Swinburne, and his connexion with the Club is the subject of a delightful article by Mr. Edmund Gosse in a volume of Literary Essays recently published by him. I need only add to what