given to Lowell, at the Revere House, by his friends. At the head of the table on this occasion sat Longfellow, and at the foot Felton. On Longfellow's right were Lowell, Agassiz, George T. Davis, F. H. Underwood, Holmes, T. K. Parsons, Estes Howe, Charles W. Storey, H. Woodman, and B. Rölker. On his left were Emerson, Edmund Quincy, Charles E. Norton, J. S. Dwight, Thomas G. Appleton, William W. White, John Holmes, Robert Carter, Henry Ware and Professor Benjamin Pierce. It is evident that the personal and intellectual associations begun in the Transcendentalist and Town and Country clubs continued even after those clubs had ceased their existence; and that from time to time there came together the men who composed them, with others of the same intellectual and literary interests.

In his biography of Richard Henry Dana, Charles Francis Adams says that when Emerson visited the bookstore of Phillips and Sampson, on the last Saturday of each month, he met there Horatio Woodman; and by degrees they got into the custom of going to the old Albion restaurant or to the Parker House to dine. At this time Dwight was accustomed to dine at the Parker House, and he probably joined Emerson whenever he was there. Then Woodman invited others, including Samuel G. Ward, a banker and one of Emerson's friends. The next person added to the group seems to have been Edwin P. Whipple, the essayist and lecturer, then a rising literary man in Boston. Woodman was a lawyer, a man of attractive social qualities, and one who had a gift for managing such dinners as these. Mr. Sanborn says, "he had no particular sympathy with the Transcendentalists, except as they became famous, but a certain love for literature and literary men; he was also an epicure, knowing how to provide good dinners and at which Boston tavern his friends ought to dine."

It will thus be seen that the Satur

day Club owed its existence to accidental causes or to the demands of intellectual fellowship. In 1854 it had taken a definite form, so far at least as it had become an established custom for a few literary friends to meet once a fortnight or once a month for a dinner and literary conversation. Longfellow recorded in his journal that he dined with the club February 28, 1857, at the invitation of Agassiz, and was asked to join it, which he thought he would do. At the meeting of the club in April, the fiftieth birthday of Agassiz was recognized. Longfellow presided and read the poem beginning:

It was fifty years ago,

In the pleasant month of May.

Clever and humorous poems were also read by Lowell and Holmes. In September Longfellow says that Charles Mackay dined with the club, that the session was a quiet one, and that the heat of the room took away all life and animation. He mentions that in May of the next year he again. dined with the club, and that he felt vexed on finding plover on the table, and proclaimed aloud his disgust at seeing the game-laws thus violated. He added that if any one wanted to break a law, let him break the Fugitive Slave law, as that is all it is fit for.

The fullest and most explicit account of the origin of the Saturday Club was that set down in his journal by Richard Henry Dana, the younger, under date of August 6, 1857. "It has become an important and much valued thing to us," he wrote. "The members are Emerson, Longfellow, Agassiz, Lowell, Pierce, Motley, Whipple, Judge Hoar, Felton, Holmes, S. G. Ward, J. S. Dwight, H. Woodman and myself. We have no written rules, and keep no records. Our only object is to dine together once a month. Our day is the last Saturday in every month, and we dine at Parker's. A unanimous vote is required to elect a member. The expense of the dinner is assessed upon those present, and charged at the of

fice, so we have no money affairs to attend to. Guests are permitted, but each man pays for the guest he invites. The club had an accidental origin, in a habit of Emerson, Dwight, Whipple and one or two more dining at Woodman's room at Parker's occasionally; for Woodman is a bachelor, a literary quidnunc and gossip, or as Gould says, 'a genius broker.' Ward is a friend of Emerson's, and came. From this the club grew, Ward, Dwight, Woodman, Whipple and Emerson being the originals. Agassiz, Pierce and I were early invited to meet with them. This made it more of a regular thing, and we established our verbal rule as to membership, guests and expenses. Lowell came in soon after, and then Motley and Longfellow. The first formal vote we had for members was at this stage, for up to this time unanimous consent was obtained by conversation. The vote brought in Holmes and Felton, which made the number fourteen, as many as we think it best to have.”

The Saturday Club was sometimes known as the Atlantic Club; but the two were quite distinct from each other, though in his biography of Emerson Doctor Holmes seems to confuse them together. Longfellow says that on May 5, 1857, he dined at the Parker House with Phillips, the publisher, to talk about the new magazine the latter was proposing to publish. The other persons present were Emerson, Lowell, Motley, Holmes, Cabot and Underwood. In 1860 James T. Fields, of Ticknor and Fields, then the publishers of the Atlantic Monthly, breakfasted Longfellow, Bryant, Holmes and others. Such gatherings as these, called together by the publishers of the magazine to bring about acquaintance and good fellowship amongst its leading contributors, and that suggestions might be secured as to its management, formed what has properly been called the Atlantic Club. It included many of the members of the Saturday Club; but they were not only not the same, but they

had no connection with each other except as the same persons belonged to both. In his biography of Emerson, Doctor Holmes says that the Atlantic Club never had an existence, and that there had erroneously been. supposed to be some connection between the Saturday Club and the Atlantic Monthly. On the other hand, Francis H. Underwood, who took an active part in bringing the magazine into existence, and who was the assistant or office editor for some years from its very beginning, said in a letter to Doctor Holmes: "You remember that the contributors met for dinner regularly. It was a voluntary, informal association. The invitations and reminders were from my hand, as I conducted the correspondence of the magazine. I have hundreds of letters in reply, and it is my belief that the association was always spoken of either as the Atlantic Club or the Atlantic dinner. Your very decided statement seems to me (in the ordinary use of phrases) erroneous." In his biography of Doctor Holmes, Mr. John T. Morse confounds the Atlantic dinners and breakfasts with the meetings of the Saturday Club, though Dr. Holmes himself did not fall into such an error. He did somewhere speak of the Atlantic Club as "supposititious"; and it is this statement against which Mr. Underwood protested. The fact seems to be that the Atlantic Club consisted only of the gatherings of the contributors to the Atlantic Monthly, on invitation of the publishers, who on such occasions gave them a breakfast or a dinner.

A letter written by Moses Dresser Phillips, the head of the firm of Phillips and Sampson, and given in Doctor Hale's "James Russell Lowell and His Friends," describes the first dinner given by the publisher to his contributors, in the early summer of 1857. Doctor Hale says that this was "the first of a series which the Saturday Club of Boston has held from that day to this day;" but in this statement he is mistaken, as already clearly indi

cated. Mr. Phillips wrote to a relative in these words: "I must tell you about a little dinner party I gave about two weeks ago. It would be proper, perhaps, to state that the origin of it was a desire to confer with my literary friends on a somewhat extensive literary project, the particulars of which I shall reserve till you come. But to the party: My invitations included only R. W. Emerson, H. W. Longfellow, J. R. Lowell, Mr. Motley (the 'Dutch Republic' man), O. W. Holmes, Mr. Cabot, and Mr. Underwood, our literary man. Imagine your uncle at the head of such a table, with such guests. The above named were the only ones invited, and they were all present. We sat down. at 3 P. M., and rose at 8. The time occupied was longer by about four hours and thirty minutes than I am in the habit of consuming in that kind of occupation, but it was the richest time intellectually by all odds that I have ever had. Leaving myself and 'literary man' out of the group, I think you will agree with me that it would be difficult to duplicate that number of such conceded scholarship in the whole country beside. Mr. Emerson took the first post of honor at my right, and Mr. Longfellow the second at my left. The exact arrangement of the table was as follows:

They seemed so well pleased that they adjourned, and invited me to meet them again to-morrow, when I shall again meet the same persons, with one other (Whipple, the essayist) added to that brilliant constellation of Philosophical, Poetical and Historical talent. Each one is known alike on both sides of the Atlantic, and is read beyond the limits of the English language. Though all this is known to you, you will pardon me for intruding it upon you. But still I have the van

ity to believe that you will think them the most natural thoughts in the world to me. Though I say it that should not, it was the proudest day of my life."

It was natural that the Saturday Club should have been given the name of the Atlantic on the part of outsiders, who recognized the fact that many of the members contributed to the magazine. The Saturday Club was also sometimes spoken of as the Literary Club; and it was popularly designated as Emerson's or Agassiz's club. It was also now and again laughed at as "The Mutual Admiration Society," probably by those who would have been rejoiced to have secured entrance to it. Of this designation of the club Dr. Holmes wisely said: "If there was not a certain amount of mutual admiration among some of those I have mentioned [as members,] it was a great pity, and implied a defect in the nature of men who were otherwise largely endowed." In 1859 Richard Henry Dana dedicated his "Cuba and Back" to "the gentlemen of the Saturday Club"; and this fact sufficiently fixes the name made use of by the members from the beginning. About the year 1888, a bequest of money being made to the club, it was incorporated as "The Saturday Club."

In his account of the club Dana says that it was thought best not to have more than fourteen members. His biographer tells us that this limit. was imposed by Dana himself, and in a somewhat arbitrary manner. "In other words, Dana, in this as in other cases, held himself high and believed in exclusiveness; accordingly, though never allowing his position to be misunderstood, he had been liberal with. his blackballs. The result was that, in order to elect any one, it became necessary for the other members to watch for some occasion when Dana was away, and then rush in their candidate before he got back." The club slowly grew in its membership, however, Prescott being added in 1858; Haw