Life of Johnson Volume IV Part 38

APPENDIX C.

(_Page 253_.)

Hawkins gives the two following notes:--

'DEAR SIR,

'As Mr. Ryland was talking with me of old friends and past times, we warmed ourselves into a wish, that all who remained of the club should meet and dine at the house which once was Horseman's, in Ivy-lane. I have undertaken to solicit you, and therefore desire you to tell on what day next week you can conveniently meet your old friends.

'I am, Sir,

'Your most humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

'Bolt-court, Nov. 22, 1783.'

'DEAR SIR,

'In perambulating Ivy-lane, Mr. Ryland found neither our landlord Horseman, nor his successor. The old house is shut up, and he liked not the appearance of any near it; he therefore bespoke our dinner at the Queen's Arms, in St. Paul's Church-yard, where, at half an hour after three, your company will be desired to-day by those who remain of our former society.

'Your humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

'Dec. 3.'

Four met--Johnson, Hawkins, Ryland, and Payne (_ante_, i. 243).

'We dined,' Hawkins continues, 'and in the evening regaled with coffee.

At ten we broke up, much to the regret of Johnson, who proposed staying; but finding us inclined to separate, he left us with a sigh that seemed to come from his heart, lamenting that he was retiring to solitude and cheerless meditation.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 562.

Hawkins is mistaken in saying that they had a second meeting at a tavern at the end of a month; for Johnson, on March 10, 1784, wrote:--

'I have been confined from the fourteenth of December, and know not when I shall get out.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 351.

He thus describes these meetings:--

'Dec. 13. I dined about a fortnight ago with three old friends; we had not met together for thirty years, and one of us thought the other grown very old. In the thirty years two of our set have died; our meeting may be supposed to be somewhat tender.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 339.

'Jan. 12, 1784. I had the same old friends to dine with me on Wednesday, and may say that since I lost sight of you I have had one pleasant day.'

Ib. p. 346.

'April 15, 1784. Yesterday I had the pleasure of giving another dinner to the remainder of the old club. We used to meet weekly, about the year fifty, and we were as cheerful as in former times; only I could not make quite so much noise, for since the paralytick affliction my voice is sometimes weak.' Ib. p. 361.

'April 19, 1784. The people whom I mentioned in my letter are the remnant of a little club that used to meet in Ivy-lane about three and thirty years ago, out of which we have lost Hawkesworth and Dyer; the rest are yet on this side the grave. Our meetings now are serious, and I think on all parts tender.' Ib. 363.

See _ante_, i. 191, note 5.

APPENDIX D.

(_Page 254_.)

It is likely that Sir Joshua Reynolds refused to join the Ess.e.x Head Club because he did not wish to meet Barry. Not long before this time he had censured Barry's delay in entering upon his duties as Professor of painting.

'Barry answered:--"If I had no more to do in the composition of my lectures than to produce such poor flimsy stuff as your discourses, I should soon have done my work, and be prepared to read." It is said this speech was delivered with his fist clenched, in a menacing posture.'

(Northcote's _Life of Reynolds_, ii. 146.)

The Hon. Daines Barrington was the author of an _Essay on the Migration of Birds_ (_ante_, ii. 248) and of _Observations on the Statutes_ (_ante_, iii. 314). Horace Walpole wrote on Nov. 24, 1780 (_Letters_, vii. 464):--

'I am sorry for the Dean of Exeter; if he dies I conclude the leaden mace of the Antiquarian Society will be given to Judge Barrington.' (He was 'second Justice of Chester.')

For Dr. Brocklesby see _ante_, pp. 176, 230, 338, 400.

Of Mr. John Nichols, Murphy says that 'his attachment to Dr. Johnson was unwearied.' _Life of Johnson_, p. 66. He was the printer of _The Lives of the Poets_ (_ante_, p. 36), and the author of _Biographical and Literary Anecdotes of William Bowyer, Printer_, 'the last of the learned printers,' whose apprentice he had been (_ante_, p. 369). Horace Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 259) says:--

'I scarce ever saw a book so correct as Mr. Nichols's _Life of Mr.

Bowyer_. I wish it deserved the pains he has bestowed on it every way, and that he would not dub so many men _great_. I have known several of his _heroes_, who were very _little_ men.'

The _Life of Bowyer_ being recast and enlarged was republished under the t.i.tle of _Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century_. From 1778 till his death in 1826 the _Gentleman's Magazine_ was in great measure in his hands. Southey, writing in 1804, says:--

'I have begun to take in here at Keswick the _Gentleman's Magazine_, _alias_ the _Oldwomania_, to enlighten a Portuguese student among the mountains; it does amuse me by its exquisite inanity, and the glorious and intense stupidity of its correspondents; it is, in truth, a disgrace to the age and the country.' Southey's _Life and Correspondence_, ii. 281.

Mr. William Cooke, 'commonly called Conversation Cooke,' wrote _Lives of Macklin and Foote_. Forster's _Essays_, ii. 312, and _Gent. Mag._ 1824, p. 374. Mr. Richard Paul Joddrel, or Jodrell, was the author of _The Persian Heroine, a Tragedy_, which, in Baker's _Biog. Dram._ i. 400, is wrongly a.s.signed to Sir R.P. Jodrell, M.D. Nichols's _Lit. Anec._ ix. 2.

For Mr. Paradise see _ante_, p. 364, note 2.

Dr. Horsley was the controversialist, later on Bishop of St. David's and next of Rochester. Gibbon makes splendid mention of him (_Misc. Works_, i. 232) when he tells how 'Dr. Priestley's Socinian shield has repeatedly been pierced by the mighty spear of Horsley.' Windham, however, in his _Diary_ in one place (p. 125) speaks of him as having his thoughts 'intent wholly on prospects of Church preferment;' and in another place (p. 275) says that 'he often lays down with great confidence what turns out afterwards to be wrong.' In the House of Lords he once said that 'he did not know what the ma.s.s of the people in any country had to do with the laws but to obey them.' _Parl. Hist_.

x.x.xii. 258. Thurlow rewarded him for his _Letters to Priestley_ by a stall at Gloucester, 'saying that "those who supported the Church should be supported by it."' Campbell's _Chancellors_, ed. 1846, v. 635.

For Mr. Windham, see _ante_, p. 200.

Hawkins (_Life of Johnson_, p. 567) thus writes of the formation of the Club:--

'I was not made privy to this his intention, but all circ.u.mstances considered, it was no matter of surprise to me when I heard that the great Dr. Johnson had, in the month of December 1783, formed a sixpenny club at an ale-house in Ess.e.x-street, and that though some of the persons thereof were persons of note, strangers, under restrictions, for three pence each night might three nights in a week hear him talk and partake of his conversation.'

Miss Hawkins (_Memoirs_, i. 103) says:--

'Boswell was well justified in his resentment of my father's designation of this club as a sixpenny club, meeting at an ale-house. ... Honestly speaking, I dare say my father did not like being pa.s.sed over.'

Sir Joshua Reynolds, writing of the club, says:--

'Any company was better than none; by which Johnson connected himself with many mean persons whose presence he could command. For this purpose he established a club at a little ale-house in Ess.e.x-street, composed of a strange mixture of very learned and very ingenious odd people. Of the former were Dr. Heberden, Mr. Windham, Mr. Boswell, Mr. Steevens, Mr.

Paradise. Those of the latter I do not think proper to enumerate.'

Taylor's _Life of Reynolds_, ii. 455.