(_Page 254_.)
It is likely that Sir Joshua Reynolds refused to join the Essex 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
title 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 assigned 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 mass of the people in
any country had to do with the laws but to obey them.' _Parl. Hist_.
xxxii. 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 circumstances
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 Essex-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.'