Life of Johnson Volume IV Part 63

Cambridge was thinking of the Two-penny Club. _Spectator_, No. ix.

[793] I was in Scotland when this Club was founded, and during all the winter. Johnson, however, declared I should be a member, and invented a word upon the occasion: 'Boswell (said he) is a very _clubable_ man.'

When I came to town I was proposed by Mr. Barrington, and chosen. I believe there are few societies where there is better conversation or more decorum. Several of us resolved to continue it after our great founder was removed by death. Other members were added; and now, above eight years since that loss, we go on happily. BOSWELL. Mr. Croker says 'Johnson had already invented _unclubable_ for Sir J. Hawkins,' and refers to a note by Dr. Burney (_ante_, i. 480, note I), in which Johnson is represented as saying of Hawkins, while he was still a member of the Literary Club:--'Sir John, Sir, is a very unclubable man.' But, as Mr. Croker points out (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 164), 'Hawkins was not knighted till long after he had left the club.' The anecdote, being proved to be inaccurate in one point, may be inaccurate in another, and may therefore belong to a much later date.

[794] See Appendix D.

[795] Ben Jonson wrote _Leges Convivales_ that were 'engraven in marble over the chimney in the Apollo of the Old Devil Tavern, Temple Bar; that being his Club Room.' Jonson's _Works_, ed. 1756, vii. 291.

[796] RULES.

'To-day deep thoughts with me resolve to drench In mirth, which after no repenting draws.'--MILTON.

['To-day deep thoughts _resolve with me_ to drench In mirth _that_, &c.' _Sonnets_, xxi.]

'The Club shall consist of four-and-twenty.

'The meetings shall be on the Monday, Thursday, and Sat.u.r.day of every week; but in the week before Easter there shall be no meeting.

'Every member is at liberty to introduce a friend once a week, but not oftener.

'Two members shall oblige themselves to attend in their turn every night from eight to ten, or to procure two to attend in their room.

'Every member present at the Club shall spend at least sixpence; and every member who stays away shall forfeit three-pence.

'The master of the house shall keep an account of the absent members; and deliver to the President of the night a list of the forfeits incurred.

'When any member returns after absence, he shall immediately lay down his forfeits; which if he omits to do, the President shall require.

'There shall be no general reckoning, but every man shall adjust his own expences.

'The night of indispensable attendance will come to every member once a month. Whoever shall for three months together omit to attend himself, or by subst.i.tution, nor shall make any apology in the fourth month, shall be considered as having abdicated the Club.

'When a vacancy is to be filled, the name of the candidate, and of the member recommending him, shall stand in the Club-room three nights. On the fourth he may be chosen by ballot; six members at least being present, and two-thirds of the ballot being in his favour; or the majority, should the numbers not be divisible by three.

'The master of the house shall give notice, six days before, to each of those members whose turn of necessary attendance is come.

'The notice may be in these words:--"Sir, On ---- the ---- of ---- -- will be your turn of presiding at the Ess.e.x-Head. Your company is therefore earnestly requested."

'One penny shall be left by each member for the waiter.'

Johnson's definition of a Club in this sense, in his _Dictionary_, is, 'An a.s.sembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions.' BOSWELL.

[797] She had left him in the summer (_ante_, p. 233), but perhaps she had returned.

[798] He received many acts of kindness from outside friends. On Dec. 31 he wrote:--'I have now in the house pheasant, venison, turkey, and ham, all unbought. Attention and respect give pleasure, however late or however useless. But they are not useless when they are late; it is reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been spent with the approbation of mankind.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 343.

[799] 'Dec. 16, 1783. I spent the afternoon with Dr. Johnson, who indeed is very ill, and whom I could hardly tell how to leave. He was very, very kind. Oh! what a cruel, heavy loss will he be! Dec. 30. I went to Dr. Johnson, and spent the evening with him. He was very indifferent indeed. There were some very disagreeable people with him; and he once affected me very much by turning suddenly to me, and grasping my hand and saying:--"The blister I have tried for my breath has betrayed some very bad tokens; but I will not terrify myself by talking of them. Ah!

_priez Dieu pour moi_."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 293, 5. 'I s.n.a.t.c.h,' he wrote a few weeks later, 'every lucid interval, and animate myself with such amus.e.m.e.nts as the time offers.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 349.

[800] He had written to her on Nov. 10. See Croker's _Boswell_, p. 742.

[801] Hawkins (_Life_, 562) says that this November Johnson said to him:--'What a man am I, who have got the better of three diseases, the palsy, the gout, and the asthma, and can now enjoy the conversation of my friends, without the interruptions of weakness or pain.'

[802] 'The street [on London Bridge], which, before the houses fell to decay, consisted of handsome lofty edifices, pretty regularly built, was 20 feet broad, and the houses on each side generally 26-1/2 feet deep.'

After 1746 no more leases were granted, and the houses were allowed to run to ruin. In 1756-7 they were all taken down. Dodsley's _London and its Environs_, ed. 1761, iv. 136-143.

[803] In Lowndes's _Bibl. Man_. i. 328 is given a list of nearly fifty of these books. Some of them were reprinted by Stace in 1810-13 in 6 vols. quarto. Dr. Franklin, writing of the books that he bought in his boyhood says:--'My first acquisition was Bunyan's works in separate little volumes. I afterwards sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton's _Historical Collections_; they were small chapmen's books, and cheap.

Forty volumes in all.' Franklin's _Memoirs_, i. 17.

[804] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale this same day:--'Alas, I had no sleep last night, and sit now panting over my paper. _Dabit Deus his quoque finem.'

['This too the G.o.ds shall end.' MORRIS, Virgil, _Aeneids_, 1.199.]

_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 347.

[805] Boswell's purpose in this _Letter_ was to recommend the Scotch to address the King to express their satisfaction that the East India Company Bill had been rejected by the House of Lords. _Ib_. p. 39. 'Let us,' he writes, 'upon this awful occasion think only of _property_ and _const.i.tution_;' p. 42. 'Let me add,' he says in concluding, 'that a dismission of the Portland Administration will probably disappoint an object which I have most ardently at heart;' p. 42. He was thinking no doubt of his 'expectations from the interest of an eminent person then in power' (ante, p. 223.)

[806] On p. 4 Boswell condemns the claim of Parliament to tax the American colonies as 'unjust and inexpedient.' 'This claim,' he says, 'was almost universally approved of in Scotland, where due consideration was had of the advantage of raising regiments.' He continues:--'When pleading at the bar of the House of Commons in a question concerning taxation, I avowed that opinion, declaring that the man in the world for whom I have the highest respect (Dr. Johnson) had not been able to convince me that _Taxation was no Tyranny_.'

[807] Boswell wrote to Reynolds on Feb. 6:--'I intend to be in London next month, chiefly to attend upon Dr. Johnson with respectful affection.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 748.

[808] 'I have really hope from spring,' he wrote on Jan. 21, 'and am ready, like Almanzor, to bid the sun _fly swiftly_, and _leave weeks and months behind him_. The sun has looked for six thousand years upon the world to little purpose, if he does not know that a sick man is almost as impatient as a lover.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 347. Almanzor's speech is at the end of Dryden's _Conquest of Granada_:--

'Move swiftly, Sun, and fly a lover's pace; Leave weeks and months behind thee in thy race.'

See _ante_, i. 332, where Johnson said, 'This distinction of seasons is produced only by imagination operating on luxury. To temperance every day is bright,' and _post_, Aug. 2, 1784.

[809] He died in the following August at Dover, on his way home.

Walpole's _Letters_, viii. 494. See _ante_, iii. 250, 336, and _post_, Aug. 19, 1784.

[810] On the last day of the old year he wrote:--'To any man who extends his thoughts to national consideration, the times are dismal and gloomy.

But to a sick man, what is the publick?' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 344.

The original of the following note is in the admirable collection of autographs belonging to my friend, Mr. M. M. Holloway:--

'TO THE REV. DR. TAYLOR,

'in Ashbourne,

'Derbys.h.i.+re.

'DEAR SIR,

'I am still confined to the house, and one of my amus.e.m.e.nts is to write letters to my friends, though they, being busy in the common scenes of life, are not equally diligent in writing to me. Dr. Heberden was with me two or three days ago, and told me that nothing ailed me, which I was glad to hear, though I knew it not to be true. My nights are restless, my breath is difficult, and my lower parts continue tumid.

'The struggle, you see, still continues between the two sets of ministers: those that are _out_ and _in_ one can scarce call them, for who is _out_ or _in_ is perhaps four times a day a new question. The tumult in government is, I believe, excessive, and the efforts of each party outrageously violent, with very little thought on any national interest, at a time when we have all the world for our enemies, when the King and parliament have lost even the t.i.tular dominion of America, and the real power of Government every where else. Thus Empires are broken down when the profits of administration are so great, that ambition is satisfied with obtaining them, and he that aspires to greatness needs do nothing more than talk himself into importance. He has then all the power which danger and conquest used formerly to give; he can raise a family and reward his followers.

'Mr. Burke has just sent me his Speech upon the affairs of India, a volume of above a hundred pages closely printed. I will look into it; but my thoughts seldom now travel to great distances.

'I would gladly know when you think to come hither, and whether this year you will come or no. If my life be continued, I know not well how I shall bestow myself.