The Doctor now, in truth, became so universally in fashion, that he was
even sought, much to his amusement, by those against whose principles,
as far as they were political, he was invariably at war; namely, sundry
celebrated oppositionists.
In his letter to the Hermits he particularizes in this liberty list,
Mr. Mason, Mr. Stonehewer, Sir William Jones, Mr. Hayley, Mr. Godwin,
and the first Lord Lansdowne; ending with Mr. Erskine,[35] whom he had
met at two dinners, and to whose house he had been invited to a third
convivial meeting: and here this renowned orator and new acquaintance
fastened upon the Doctor with all the volubility of his eloquence,
and all the exuberance of his happy good-humour, in singing his own
exploits and praises, without insisting that his hearer should join
in chorus; or rather, perhaps, without discovering, from his own
self-absorption, that that ceremony was omitted.