[15] See page 113.
_His Clubs_
In spite of his oddities, Johnson was, before everything, a social man.
The great business of his life, he said, was to escape from himself,
and he would never trust himself alone, "but when employed in writing
or reading." He would beg a friend to go home with him simply to avoid
being alone in the coach.
"It was a very remarkable circumstance about Johnson, whom shallow
observers have supposed to have been ignorant of the world, that very
few men had seen greater variety of characters.... The suddenness with
which his accounts of some of them started out in conversation, was not
less pleasing than surprising. I remember he once observed to me, 'It
is wonderful, Sir, what is to be found in London. The most literary
conversation that I ever enjoyed, was at the table of Jack Ellis, a
money-scrivener behind the Royal Exchange, with whom I at one period
used to dine generally once a week.'
Volumes would be required to contain a list of his numerous and
various acquaintance, none of whom he ever forgot.... He associated
with persons the most widely different in manners, abilities, rank and
accomplishments. He was at once the companion of the brilliant Colonel
Forrester of the Guards ... and of the aukward and uncouth Robert
Levet; of Lord Thurlow[16], and Mr Sastres, the Italian master; and has
dined one day with the beautiful, gay, and fascinating Lady Craven, and
the next with good Mrs Gardiner, the tallow-chandler, on Snow-hill."
In the company of "social friends" Johnson found his greatest pleasure.
His own definition of a club was: "An assembly of good fellows, meeting
under certain conditions," and it is characteristic of him that he was
the inventor of the word _clubable_.
For, in Johnson's day, clubs were not luxurious halls where
conversation was carried on in undertones; vigorous talking (with some
eating and drinking) was the chief object of the company that gathered
round the tavern table.
Of Johnson's talk we need not say much here. It was, and is, his chief
title to fame. In his lifetime a roomful of people would wait in
expectant silence for him to begin; to-day his conversation remains the
chief attraction of Boswell's _Life_ and of the many other books, great
and small, that have been written about him.
Johnson looked upon conversation as a serious art and said that a
good talker should have knowledge, command of words, imagination and
a resolution not to be overcome by failures. This last he considered
essential; and he certainly was not often overcome himself, for he
could not bear to be worsted in argument, "even when he had taken the
wrong side." Hence his habit of "talking for victory."
But Johnson could not talk his best if the dinner had not been
good. "For my part," he said in his blunt way "I mind my belly very
studiously, and very carefully."
"I never knew any man" says Boswell "who relished good eating more
than he did. When at table, he was totally absorbed in the business
of the moment; his looks seemed rivetted to his plate; nor would
he, unless when in very high company, say one word, or even pay the
least attention to what was said by others, till he had satisfied his
appetite, which was so fierce, and indulged with such intenseness, that
while in the act of eating, the veins of his forehead swelled, and
generally a strong perspiration was visible. To those whose sensations
were delicate, this could not but be disgusting.... It must be owned
that Johnson, though he could be rigidly _abstemious_, was not a
_temperate_ man either in eating or drinking. He could refrain, but he
could not use moderately."
Johnson realised this well enough. So from 1736 to 1757 and for the
last twenty years of his life he drank no wine at all[17], except on
special occasions. Once or twice he persuaded Boswell also to be "a
water-drinker, upon trial"; but it is to be feared that Boswell found
it as hard to refrain as to use moderately--he had many a morning
headache.
Wine or no wine, Johnson saw no reason why he should be abstemious over
the tea-cups. In a famous review of an _Essay on Tea_ he described
himself as "a hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who has for twenty
years diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating
plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses
the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and with tea welcomes the
morning."
After pouring out his sixteenth cup, a hostess once asked him if a
small basin would not save him trouble. "'I wonder, Madam,' answered
he roughly, 'why all the ladies ask me such questions. It is to save
yourselves trouble, Madam, and not me.' The lady was silent and resumed
her task."
Johnson founded his first club, as we have seen, as a relief from his
monotonous work on the Dictionary. It was a small society which met
once a week at the King's Head, "a famous beef-steak house" in Ivy Lane.
"Thither" wrote a member of the club "he constantly resorted with a
disposition to please and be pleased. Our conversations seldom began
till after a supper so very solid and substantial as led us to think
that with him it was a dinner ... his habitual melancholy and lassitude
of spirit gave way; his countenance brightened."
The Ivy Lane club broke up after about eight years, but some months
before his death Johnson "had the pleasure of giving another dinner to
the remainder of the old club." "We were as cheerful," he wrote, "as in
former times; only I could not make quite so much noise."
Towards the end of his life, too, he formed the Essex Head Club,
of which "the terms were lax and the expenses light." It had some
distinguished members and Boswell has preserved an interesting set of
rules as drafted by Johnson; but by far the most famous of Johnson's
clubs was the society known as The Literary Club, founded in 1764.
"Sir Joshua Reynolds had the merit of being the first proposer of it,
to which Johnson acceded, and the original members were, Sir Joshua
Reynolds, Dr Johnson, Mr Edmund Burke, Dr Nugent, Mr Beauclerk, Mr
Langton, Dr Goldsmith, Mr Chamier, and Sir John Hawkins. They met at
the Turk's Head, in Gerrard-street, Soho, one evening in every week, at
seven, and generally continued their conversation till a pretty late
hour. This club has been gradually increased to its present number,
thirty-five."
Johnson did not at first encourage an increase in the number of members:
"Dr Goldsmith said once to Dr Johnson, that he wished for some
additional members to the LITERARY CLUB, to give it an agreeable
variety; for (said he) there can now be nothing new among us: we have
travelled over one another's minds. Johnson seemed a little angry, and
said, 'Sir, you have not travelled over _my_ mind, I promise you.'"
Boswell gives us a list of members in a later year. In it we find the
names of Adam Smith, the political economist, Gibbon the historian, Fox
the politician, Sir Joseph Banks the explorer, Sheridan the dramatist,
Garrick the actor, and a number of bishops, statesmen, doctors and
lawyers--all men of distinction; and over them all towered the figure,
and afterwards the memory, of Samuel Johnson.
Boswell does not record many accounts of conversations at the Club.
Probably the rules did not allow him to repeat much of what was said
there. But here are one or two extracts:
"JOHNSON. 'I have been reading Thicknesse's _Travels_, which I think
are entertaining.' BOSWELL. 'What, Sir, a good book?' JOHNSON. 'Yes,
Sir, to read once; I do not say you are to make a study of it, and
digest it; and I believe it to be a true book in his intention. All
travellers generally mean to tell truth....'
"E.[18] 'From the experience which I have had,--and I have had a great
deal,--I have learnt to think _better_ of mankind.' JOHNSON. 'From
my experience I have found them worse in commercial dealings, more
disposed to cheat, than I had any notion of; but more disposed to do
one another good than I had conceived ... and really it is wonderful,
considering how much attention is necessary for men to take care of
themselves, and ward off immediate evils which press upon them, it is
wonderful how much they do for others. As it is said of the greatest
liar, that he tells more truth than falsehood; so it may be said of the
worst man, that he does more good than evil.' BOSWELL. 'Perhaps from
experience men may be found _happier_ than we suppose.' JOHNSON. 'No,
Sir; the more we enquire, we shall find men the less happy....'
"BOSWELL. 'I have known a man resolved to put friendship to the test,
by asking a friend to lend him money merely with that view, when he did
not want it.' JOHNSON. 'That is very wrong, Sir. Your friend may be a
narrow man, and yet have many good qualities: narrowness may be his
only fault. Now you are trying his general character as a friend, by
one particular singly, in which he happens to be defective, when, in
truth, his character is composed of many particulars.'"
"E. 'I understand the hogshead of claret, which this society was
favoured with by our friend the Dean, is nearly out; I think he should
be written to, to send another of the same kind....' JOHNSON. 'I am
willing to offer my services as secretary on this occasion.' P. 'As
many as are for Dr Johnson being secretary hold up your hands.--Carried
unanimously.' BOSWELL. 'He will be our Dictator.' JOHNSON. 'No, the
company is to dictate to me....'"
Boswell seldom had the last word. At another meeting of the Club:
"One of the company[19] attempted, with too much forwardness, to rally
him on his late appearance at the theatre; but had reason to repent of
his temerity. 'Why, Sir, did you go to Mrs Abington's[20] benefit? Did
you see?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir.' 'Did you hear?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir.' 'Why
then, Sir, did you go?' JOHNSON. 'Because, Sir, she is a favourite of
the publick; and when the publick cares the thousandth part for you
that it does for her, I will go to your benefit too.'"
It was on the day after this meeting that Boswell tried, in vain, to
solve the mystery of one of Johnson's oddities:
"Next morning I won a small bet from Lady Diana Beauclerk, by asking
him as to one of his particularities, which her Ladyship laid I durst
not do. It seems he had been frequently observed at the Club to put
into his pocket the Seville oranges, after he had squeezed the juice
of them into the drink which he made for himself. Beauclerk and
Garrick talked of it to me, and seemed to think that he had a strange
unwillingness to be discovered. We could not divine what he did with
them; and this was the bold question to be put. I saw on his table the
spoils of the preceding night, some fresh peels nicely scraped and cut
into pieces. 'O, Sir, (said I) I now partly see what you do with the
squeezed oranges which you put into your pocket at the Club.' JOHNSON.
'I have a great love for them.' BOSWELL. 'And pray, Sir, what do you
do with them? You scrape them, it seems, very neatly, and what next?'
JOHNSON. 'Let them dry, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'And what next?' JOHNSON. 'Nay,
Sir, you shall know their fate no further.' BOSWELL. 'Then the world
must be left in the dark. It must be said (assuming a mock solemnity,)
he scraped them, and let them dry, but what he did with them next, he
never could be prevailed upon to tell.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, you should
say it more emphatically:--he could not be prevailed upon, even by his
dearest friends, to tell[21].'"