fashionable ones. ‘Upon this the Club agreed to increase their number to twelve; every new member was to be elected by ballot, and one black ball was sufficient for exclusion. Mr. Beauclerk then desired to be restored to the Society, and the following new members were introduced on Monday, Feb. 15, 1768; Sir R. Chambers, Dr. Percy and Mr. Colman.’ Goldsmith’s Misc. Works, i. 72. In the list in Croker’s Boswell, ed. 1844, ii. 326, the election of Percy and Chambers is placed in 1765.
[1401] Boswell wrote on April 4, 1775:—‘I dine, Friday, at the Turk’s Head, Gerrard-street, with our Club, Sir Joshua Reynolds, etc., who now dine once a month, and sup every Friday.’ Letters of Boswell, p. 186. In 1766, Monday was the night of meeting. Post, May 10, 1766. In Dec. 1772 the night was changed to Friday. Goldsmith’s Misc. Works, i. 72. Hawkins says (Life, pp. 424, 5):—‘We seldom got together till nine; preparing supper took up till ten; and by the time that the table was cleared, it was near eleven. Our evening toast was the motto of Padre Paolo, Esto perpetua! Esto perpetua was being soon not Padre Paolo’s motto, but his dying prayer. ‘As his end evidently approached, the brethren of the convent came to pronounce the last prayers, with which he could only join in his thoughts, being able to pronounce no more than these words, “Esto perpetua” mayst thou last for ever; which was understood to be a prayer for the prosperity of his country.’ Johnson’s Works, vi. 269.
[1402] See post, March 14, 1777.
[1403] ‘After 1783 it removed to Prince’s in Sackville-street, and on his house being soon afterwards shut up, it removed to Baxter’s, which subsequently became Thomas’s, in Dover-street. In January 1792 it removed to Parsloe’s, in St. James’s-street; and on February 26, 1799, to the Thatched-house in the same street.’ Forster’s Goldsmith i. 311.
[1404] The second edition is here spoken of. MALONE.
[1405] Life of Johnson, p. 425. BOSWELL.
[1406] From Sir Joshua Reynolds. BOSWELL. The Knight having refused to pay his portion of the reckoning for supper, because he usually eat no supper at home, Johnson observed, ‘Sir John, Sir, is a very unclubable man.’ BURNEY. Hawkins (Life, p. 231) says that ‘Mr. Dyer had contracted a fatal intimacy with some persons of desperate fortunes, who were dealers in India stock, at a time when the affairs of the company were in a state of fluctuation.’ Malone, commenting on this passage, says that ‘under these words Mr. Burke is darkly alluded to, together with his cousin.’ He adds that the character given of Dyer by Hawkins ‘is discoloured by the malignant prejudices of that shallow writer, who, having quarrelled with Mr. Burke, carried his enmity even to Mr. Burke’s friends.’ Prior’s Malone, p. 419. See also ante, p. 27. Hawkins (Life, p. 420) said of Goldsmith:—‘As he wrote for the booksellers, we at the Club looked on him as a mere literary drudge, equal to the task of compiling and translating, but little capable of original, and still less of poetical composition.’
[1407] Life of Johnson, p. 425. BOSWELL. Hawkins is ‘equally inaccurate’ in saying’ that Johnson was so constant at our meetings as never to absent himself.’ (Ib. p. 424.) See post, Johnson’s letter to Langton of March 9, 1766, where he says:—‘Dyer is constant at the Club; Hawkins is remiss; I am not over diligent.’
[1408] Letters to and from Dr. Johnson. Vol. ii. p. 278 [387]. BOSWELL. The passage is as follows:—‘“If he does apply,” says our Doctor to Mr. Thrale, “I’ll black-ball him.” “Who, Sir? Mr. Garrick, your friend, your companion,—black-ball him!” “Why, Sir, I love my little David dearly, better than all or any of his flatterers do, but surely one ought, &c.”’
[1409] Pope’s Moral Essays, iii. 242.
[1410] Malone says that it was from him that Boswell had his account of Garrick’s election, and that he had it from Reynolds. He adds that ‘Johnson warmly supported Garrick, being in reality a very tender affectionate man. He was merely offended at the actors conceit.’ He continues:—‘On the former part of this story it probably was that Hawkins grounded his account that Garrick never was of the Club, and that Johnson said he never ought to be of it. And thus it is that this stupid biographer, and the more flippant and malicious Mrs. Piozzi have miscoloured and misrepresented almost every anecdote that they have pretented to tell of Dr. Johnson.’ Prior’s Malone, p. 392. Whatever was the slight cast upon Garrick, he was nevertheless the sixth new member elected. Four, as I have shown, were added by 1768. The next elections were in 1773 (Croker’s Boswell, ed. 1844. ii. 326), when five were added, of whom Garrick was the second, and Boswell the fifth. In 1774 five more were elected, among whom were Fox and Gibbon. Hannah More (Memoirs, i. 249) says that ‘upon Garrick’s death, when numberless applications were made to succeed him [in the Club], Johnson was deaf to them all. He said, “No, there never could be found any successor worthy of such a man;” and he insisted upon it there should be a year’s widowhood in the club, before they thought of a new election.’
[1411] Grainger wrote to Percy on April 6, 1764:—‘Sam. Johnson says he will review it in The Critical‘ In August, 1765, he wrote:—‘I am perfectly satisfied with the reception the Sugar Cane has met with, and am greatly obliged to you and Mr. Johnson for the generous care you took of it in my absence.’ Prior’s Goldsmith, i. 238. He was absent in the West Indies. He died on Dec. 16, 1766. Ib. p. 241. The review of the Sugar Cane in the Critical Review (p. 270) is certainly by Johnson. The following passage is curious:—‘The last book begins with a striking invocation to the genius of Africa, and goes on to give proper instructions for the buying and choice of negroes…. The poet talks of this ungenerous commerce without the least appearance of detestation; but proceeds to direct these purchasers of their fellow-creatures with the same indifference that a groom would give instructions for choosing a horse.
‘Clear roll their ample eye; their tongue be red;
Broad swell their chest; their shoulders wide expand;
Not prominent their belly; clean and strong
Their thighs and legs in just proportion rise.’
See also post, March 21, 1776.
[1412] Johnson thus ends his brief review:—‘Such in the poem on which we now congratulate the public as on a production to which, since the death of Pope, it not be easy to find anything equal.’ Critical Review, p. 462.
[1413] Pr. and Med. p. 50. BOSWELL. He adds:—
‘I hope
To put my rooms in order.
Disorder I have found one great cause of idleness.’
[1414] Ib. p. 51. BOSWELL.
[1415] It was on his birth-day that he said this. He wrote on the same day:—‘I have outlived many friends. I have felt many sorrows. I have made few improvements.’
[1416] Prayers and Meditations, p. 58. BOSWELL. In his Vision of Theodore (Works, ix. 174) he describes the state of mind which he has recorded in his Meditations:—‘There were others whose crime it was rather to neglect Reason than to disobey her; and who retreated from the heat and tumult of the way, not to the bowers of Intemperance, but to the maze of Indolence. They had this peculiarity in their condition, that they were always in sight of the road of Reason, always wishing for her presence, and always resolving to return to-morrow.’
[1417] See Appendix F.
[1418] It used to be imagined at Mr. Thrale’s, when Johnson retired to a window or corner of the room, by perceiving his lips in motion, and hearing a murmur without audible articulation, that he was praying: but this was not always the case, for I was once, perhaps unperceived by him, writing at a table, so near the place of his retreat, that I heard him repeating some lines in an ode of Horace, over and over again, as if by iteration, to exercise the organs of speech, and fix the ode in his memory:
Audiet cives acuisse ferrum
Quo graves Persas melius perirent,