Garrick's vanity was another topic started at this dinner; and Johnson, while he accounted for it, and justified it, by the many bellows that had blown the fire, was interrupted by the "and such "bellows too!" of Boswell, who proceeded to count up the notes of famous people (enough to turn his head) that he had persuaded Garrick to show him-" Lord Mansfield with his cheeks like to "burst, Lord Chatham like an Æolus "all which praises Johnson quietly explained with a ready adaptation of a line in Congreve, "True. When he whom everybody else flatters, flatters 66 me, then I am truly happy." Whereupon quick little Mrs. Thrale reminded him that he was here only adapting Congreve. "Yes, madam," he replied, "in the Way of the World. If there's delight in love, 'tis when I see That heart which others bleed for, bleed for me!" But he was not so tolerant of his old friend eight days later, when the same party, with Reynolds, Langton, and Thrale, dined at General Oglethorpe's. Goldsmith here had said he thought it 66 mean and gross flattery" in Garrick to have foisted into the dialogue of Beaumont and Fletcher's play of the Chances, which he revived that year, a compliment to the Queen; when Johnson, with somewhat needless warmth, remarked, "As "to meanness, sir, how is it mean in a player, a showman, a fellow "who exhibits himself for a shilling, to flatter his queen?" In admirable taste followed the calm and just rebuke of the kindly Reynolds. "I do not perceive why the profession of a player "should be despised; for the great and ultimate end of all the "employments of mankind is to produce amusement. Garrick "produces more amusement than anybody." This emboldened Boswell to hazard the analogy of a lawyer with a player, the one exhibiting for his fee as the other for his shilling; whereon Johnson roughly seized him, turned the laugh against him, and covered his own retreat. "Why, sir, what does this prove? only "that a lawyer is worse. Boswell is now like Jack in the Tale of "a Tub, who, when he is puzzled by an argument" (it was Arbuthnot's, not Swift's Jack, and it was for no such reason, but it served Johnson's laugh to say so), "hangs himself. He thinks "I shall cut him down," and here he laughed vociferously, "but "I'll let him hang." Boswell's comfort in annoyances of this sort was to diffuse the annoyance by describing the whole scene next day to some one whom it equally affected. Garrick would in this case, of course, be the first to hear all that had passed. But Garrick's revenges on Johnson were harmless enough. At his angriest, he would only pay him off by exhibiting his fondness for his old wife, Tetty, in their earlier London or Lichfield days; or he might show him using the most uncouth gesticulations to squeeze a lemon into a punch-bowl, looking round the company and calling out with a broad Lichfield twang, "who's for poonsh ;” or perhaps he would imitate his delivery of the celebrated lines of Ovid, Os homini sublime dedit,-cœlumque tueri which he gave with pauses and half-whistlings interjected, looking downwards all the time, and absolutely touching the ground with a kind of contorted movement of his arms while he pronounced the four last words, till all the listeners, exhausted with laughter, implored the mimic to desist. Another subject started at Oglethorpe's table was the custom of eating dogs at Otaheite, which Goldsmith named as also existing in China, adding that a dog butcher was as common there as any other butcher, and that when he walked abroad (he quite believed this, and stated it in his Animated Nature) all the dogs fell on him. Johnson did not contradict it, but explained it by the "smell of 66 carnage." "Yes," repeated Goldsmith, "there is a general "abhorrence in animals at the signs of massacre. If you put a "tub full of blood into a stable, the horses are like to go mad." "I doubt that," said Johnson. "Nay, sir," Goldsmith gravely assured him, "it is a fact well authenticated." "You had better "prove it," Thrale quietly interposed, "before you put it into your "book on natural history. You may do it in my stable if you "will." But Johnson would have him do no such thing; for the very sensible reason that he had better, taking his information from others as he must, leave others responsible for such errors as he might make in so comprehensive a book as his Animated Nature, than assume responsibility of his own by the arduous task of experiment, and so expose himself to blame for not making experiments as to every particular. From this the conversation passed to literary subjects, and Goldsmith spoke slightingly of the character of Mallet. "Why, sir," remarked Johnson, "Mallet "had talents enough to keep his literary reputation alive as long (6 as he himself lived; and that, let me tell you, is a good deal." "But," persisted Goldsmith, "I cannot agree that it was so. "His literary reputation was dead long before his natural death. "I consider an author's literary reputation to be alive only while "his name will insure a good price for his copy from the book"sellers. I will get you" (and if the spirit of controversy was here rising in Johnson, he at once disarmed it) "a hundred "guineas for anything whatever that you shall write, if you will "put your name to it." Johnson did not reply, but began to praise She Stoops to Conquer. CHAPTER XVI. THE CLUB. 1773. 1773. Æt. 45. MEASURED by the test we have seen Goldsmith apply to Johnson's reputation with the booksellers, his own, though still alive, must be held as now sadly in arrear. He had at this time several disputes with booksellers pending, and his circumstances were verging to positive distress. The necessity of completing his Animated Nature, for which all the money had been received and spent, hung like a mill-stone upon him; his advances had been considerable upon other works, as yet not even begun ; the money from his comedy was still coming in, but it could not, with the debts it had to satisfy, float his stranded fortunes; and he was now, in what leisure he could get from his larger book, working at a Grecian History, in the hope of procuring means to meet his daily liabilities. The future was thus gradually and gloomily darkening; but, while he could, he was happy and content not to look beyond the present, cheerful or careless as it might be. sought relief in society, and went more than ever to the club. He The change he had himself very strongly advocated was now made in this celebrated society; the circle of its members was enlarged to twenty; and he took renewed interest in its meetings. A sort of understanding was at the same time entered into, that the limit of attendances to secure continued membership, should be at least twice in five weeks; and that more frequent attendance would be expected from all, The election of Garrick was proposed to fill the first vacancy. This had been zealously seconded by Goldsmith; and three nights before She Stoops to Conquer came out, Garrick made his first appearance in Gerrard-street. On Beauclerc's proposition, the same night, they elected his friend and fellow-traveller Lord Charlemont, the Irish peer whose subsequent patriotism made the title so illustrious. Burke then proposed a friend of Lord Charlemont's and his own, Mr. Agmondesham Vesey, the husband of Mrs. Montagu's blue-stocking friend; introducing his name with the remark that he was a man of gentle manners. "Sir," interrupted Johnson, "you need say no more. "have said a man of gentle manners, you have said enough." Nevertheless, when Vesey, with school-boy gentleness of talk, introduced one day at the club the subject of Catiline's conspiracy, Johnson withdrew his attention and thought about Tom Thumb. When you Not many days after Vesey's election, Mr. William Jones, a young lawyer and accomplished scholar of the Temple, who had distinguished himself at University-college with Chambers and Scott, and had this year made pleasing additions to the select store of Eastern literature, was proposed by Chambers and elected. A fifth candidate was now in agitation; proposed on the 23rd of April (when Goldsmith occupied the chair) by Johnson, and strenuously seconded by Beauclerc. This was no other than Boswell; and not a little surprised were the majority of the members to hear the name. They did not think that Johnson's love of flattery, or Beauclerc's love of a joke, would have carried either so far. But Johnson was resolute, and had but one answer to all who objected. "If they "had refused, sir," he said afterwards to Boswell, "they knew "they'd never have got in another. I'd have kept them all out.” Burke had not yet seen the busy, consequential, officious young Scotchman, who had so effectually tacked himself on to their old friend; but what he had heard, induced him to express a doubt if he was "fit" for Gerrard-street, and the doubt was not likely to be removed by Boswell's own efforts to secure his election. He recommended himself to the various members, he tells us, as in a canvass for an election into parliament. Well was that seat deserved, nevertheless, by James Boswell. Johnson invented the right word to express his merit, when he called him a "clubable" man. Burke afterwards admitted that though he and several of the members had wished to keep him out, none of them were sorry when he had got in; and he told Johnson, at the same time, that their new member had so much good humour naturally, it was scarce to be held a virtue in him. Boswell was indeed eminently social, for society was his very idol, to which he made sacrifice of everything. He had all kinds of brisk and lively ways, good humour, and perpetual cheerfulness. He was to Reynolds, says Farington the academician, the harbinger of festivity. He was Lord Stowell's realisation of a good-natured jolly fellow. Everybody admits that the frosts of our English nature melted at his approach, and that the reserve which too often damps the pleasure of English society he had the happy faculty of dissipating. Malone knew his weaknesses (he always "made battle" against his account of Goldsmith, for instance, as a folly and a mistake, which, in quite as positive terms, Reynolds, Burke, Lord Charlemont, Percy, and even George Steevens also did) but he knew his strength not less. His eyes glistened, says that unimpassioned observer, and his countenance brightened up, "when he saw the human face "divine." The drawback from it all, in social life, was his incontinence of tongue; which had made his name a bye-word for eavesdropper, talebearer, and babbling spy. He had in this respect but one fault, as Goldsmith said of Hickey, but that one was a thumper. Even this fault, however, served for protection against his failings in other respects. He blabbed them all, as he blabbed everything else; and his friends had ample notice to act on the defensive. He told Johnson one day that he was occasionally troubled with fits of stinginess. "Why, sir, so am I," returned Johnson, “but I do not tell it ;" and, mindful of the warning, he took care, the next time he borrowed sixpence, to guard himself against being dunned for it. "Boswell," he said, "lend me "sixpence not to be repaid." The day fixed for Boswell's ballot was Friday the 30th of April, when Beauclerc invited him to dinner, at his new house in the Adelphi ; and among the members of the club assembled at Beauclerc's as though to secure his election, were Johnson, Reynolds, Lord Charlemont, Vesey, and Langton. Goldsmith was not present; but he was the after-dinner subject of conversation. They did not sit long, however; but went off in a body to the club, leaving Bos. well at Beauclerc's till the fate of his election should be announced to him. He sat in a state of anxiety, he tells us, which even the charming conversation of Lady Di Beauclerc could not entirely dissipate; but in a short time he received the welcome tidings of his election, hastened to Gerrard-street,, " and was introduced to 66 such a society as can seldom be found." He now for the first time saw Burke and, at the same supper-table, sat Johnson, Garrick, and Goldsmith; Mr. Jones and Doctor Nugent; Reynolds, Lord Charlemont, Langton, Chamier, Vesey, and Beauclerc. As he entered, Johnson rose with gravity to acquit himself of a pledge to his fellow-members; and, leaning on his chair as on a desk or pulpit, gave Bozzy a charge with humorous formality, pointing out the conduct expected from him as a good member of the club. A warning not to blab, or tattle, doubtless formed part of it; and the injunction was on the whole not unfaithfully obeyed. We owe to Langton, not to Boswell, the report of a capital bit of Johnson's criticism on this particular evening; when, Goldsmith having produced a printed Ode which he had been hearing read by its author in a public room (at the rate of five shillings each for admission !), Johnson thus disposed of it: "Bolder words and more timorous "meaning, I think, never were brought together." Only once, does any of the club-conversation appear to have been carried away, in detail, by Boswell; and a portion of that report conveys so agreeably the unaffected social character of the Gerrard-street meetings, that it may fitly close such attempts as I have made to convey a picture of this remarkable society. After ranging through every variety of subject, art, politics, place-hunting, debating, languages, literature, public and private |