Carlyle about that
date, praises the dinner-parties of St. Andrews to the skies, but says
nobody gave two courses except Mrs. Prebendary Berkeley, and Mrs.
Prebendary Berkeley was the daughter-in-law of a bishop. The course at
the Anderston dinner, moreover, consisted every week of the same dish;
it was invariably chicken-broth, which Smollett classes with haggis,
singed sheepshead, fish and sauce, and minced collops, as one of the
five national dishes of Scotland. He describes it as "a very simple
preparation enriched with eggs in such a manner as to give the air of
a spoiled fricassee"; but adds that "notwithstanding its appearance,
it is very delicate and nourishing." The chicken-broth was accompanied
with a tankard of sound claret, and then the cloth was removed for
whist and a bowl of punch. At whist Smith was not considered an
eligible partner, for, says Ramsay of Ochtertyre, if an idea struck
him in the middle of the game he "either renounced or neglected to
call,"[73] and he must have in this way given much provocation to the
amiability of Simson, who, though as absent-minded as Smith ever was
at common seasons, was always keenly on the alert at cards, and could
never quite forgive a slip of his partner in the game. After cards the
rest of the evening was spent in cheerful talk or song, in which again
Simson was ever the leading spirit. He used to sing Greek odes set to
modern airs, which the members never tired of hearing again, for he
had a fine voice and threw his soul into the rendering. Professor
Robison of Edinburgh, who was one of his students, twice heard him--no
doubt at this club, for Simson never went anywhere else--sing a Latin
hymn to the Divine Geometer, apparently of his own making, and the
tears stood in the worthy old gentleman's eyes with the emotion he put
into the singing of it. His conversation is said to have been
remarkably animated and various, for he knew most other subjects
nearly as well as he did mathematics. He was always full of hard
problems suggested by his studies of them, and he threw into the
discussion much whimsical humour and many well-told anecdotes. The
only subject debarred was religion. Professor Traill says any attempt
to introduce that peace-breaking subject in the club was checked with
gravity and decision. Simson was invariably chairman, and so much of
the life of the club came from his presence that when he died in 1768
the club died too.

Three at least of the yo