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Victorian London - Entertainment and Recreation - Societies - Dilettanti Society
DILETTANTI SOCIETY, THATCHED HOUSE TAVERN, ST. JAMES'S STREET.
"There is a new subscription formed for an Opera next year,
to be carried on by the Dilettanti, a club, for which the nominal qualification
is having been in Italy, and the real one being drunk; the two chiefs are Lord
Middlesex and Sir Francis Dashwood, who were seldom sober the whole time they
were in Italy." - Walpole to Mann, April 14th, 1743, i.273.
The character of the Club at the present day is materialy altered, and it
is now composed of persons devoted to art and antiquarian studies. The members,
about fifty in number, dine together on the first Sunday in every month from
February to July.
Peter Cunningham, Hand-Book of London, 1850
