shown a special interest in the department of
literature to which the institution was to be devoted. Hence
it came to pass that, through a perfectly natural process,
the Association for the purpose of reprinting the works of
certain old divines was to be ushered into the world by the
style and title of the JOLLY CLUB. There happened to be
amongst those concerned, however, certain persons so
corrupted with the wisdom of this world, as to apprehend
that the miscellaneous public might fail to trace this
designation to its true origin, and might indeed totally
mistake the nature and object of the institution,
attributing to it aims neither consistent with the ascetic
life of the departed prelate, nor with the pious and
intellectual object of its founders. The counsels of these
worldly-minded persons prevailed. The Jolly Club was never
instituted,--at least as an association for the reprinting
of old books of divinity,--though I am not prepared to say
that institutions, more than one so designed may not exist
for other purposes. The object, however, was not entirely
abandoned. A body of gentlemen united themselves together
under the name of another Scottish prelate, whose fate had
been more distinguished, if not more fortunate, and the
Spottiswoode Society was established. Here, it will be
observed, there was a passing to the opposite extreme, and
so intense seems to have been the anxiety to escape from all
excuse for indecorous jokes or taint of joviality, that the
word Club, wisely adopted by other bodies of the same kind,
was abandoned, and this one called itself a Society." The
publications were discontinued about 1851.

_The Calvin Translation Society_ was established at
Edinburgh in 1843, and its work was completed in 1855, by
the publication of twenty-two Commentaries, etc., of the
great reformer in fifty-two volumes.

_The Ray Society_ was founded in 1844 for the publication of
works on Natural History (Zoology and Botany), and a large
number of valuable books, fully illustrated, have been
produced, many of them translations from foreign works. Many
of the later publications are more elaborately coloured than
the earlier ones.

_The Wernerian Club_ was instituted in 1844 for the
republication of standard works of S