ABSTRACT

It was largely due to Sydney’s presence in Edinburgh that Scott and a few others started the Friday Club. It was founded on the model of Johnson’s Club and the

FIG. 12. John Playfair (National Portrait Gallery)

members met for dinner (at £2 a head) every Friday in Fortune’s Tavern. Among the original members were Professors Dugald Stewart and John Playfair, Sydney Smith, Walter Scott, John Archibald Murray, Henry Cockburn, Thomas Campbell, Francis Jeffrey, Francis Horner and Henry Brougham. The Club severely discouraged strangers, with the single exception of old James Watt, who was always welcome when visiting Edinburgh. (Pearson, 1948, p. 43)

In the Illustrations, with the arguments of Hutton’s opponents as a guide and a challenge, Playfair re-drew the outlines of his friend’s ideas on a larger scale, made them more readily believable by means of illustrative examples, and combined the whole in a forthright

argument that, in the clearest and most pleasing language, did summary violence upon the contentions of the critics.