Chapter 2

'the impudent falsehood that when I was at Oxford Dr. Johnson left a company on my being introduced to it':--

'In fact we never were at Oxford at the same time, and the only interview I ever had with him was at Mr. Paradise's, where we dined together at his own request. He was particularly civil to me, and promised to call upon me the next time he should go through Birmingham. He behaved with the same civility to Dr. Price, when they supped together at Dr. Adams's at Oxford. Several circumstances show that Dr. Johnson had not so much of bigotry at the decline of life as had distinguished him before, on which account it is well known to all our common acquaintance, that I declined all their pressing solicitations to be introduced to him.'

Priestley expresses himself ill, but his meaning can be made out. Parr answered Boswell in the March number of the _Gent. Mag._ for 1795, p. 179. But the evidence that he brings is rendered needless by Priestley's positive statement. May peace henceforth fall on 'Priestley's injured name.' (Mrs. Barbauld's _Poems_, ii. 243.)

When Boswell asserts that Johnson 'was particularly resolute in not giving countenance to men whose writings he considered as pernicious to society,' he forgets that that very summer of 1783 he had been willing to dine at Wilkes's house (_ante_, p. 224, note 2).

Dr. Franklin (_Memoirs_, ed. 1833, iii. 157) wrote to Dr. Price in 1784:--'It is said that scarce anybody but yourself and Dr. Priestley possesses the art of knowing how to differ decently.' Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, i. 304), describing in 1789 the honestest members of the French Assembly, calls them 'a set of wild visionaries, like our Dr. Price, who gravely debate, and dream about the establishment of a pure and perfect democracy of five and twenty millions, the virtues of the golden age, and the primitive rights and equality of mankind.' Admiration of Price made Samuel Rogers, when a boy, wish to be a preacher. 'I thought there was nothing on earth so _grand_ as to figure in a pulpit. Dr. Price lived much in the society of Lord Lansdowne [Earl of Shelburne] and other people of rank; and his manners were extremely polished. In the pulpit he was great indeed.' Rogers's _Table Talk_, p. 3.

The full title of the tract mentioned by Boswell is, _A small Whole-Length of Dr. Priestley from his Printed Works_. It was published in 1792, and is a very poor piece of writing.

Johnson had refused to meet the Abbé Raynal, the author of the _Histoire Philosophique et Politique du Commerce des Deux Indes_, when he was over in England in 1777. Mrs. Chapone, writing to Mrs. Carter on June 15 of that year, says:--

'I suppose you have heard a great deal of the Abbé Raynal, who is in London. I fancy you would have served him as Dr. Johnson did, to whom when Mrs. Vesey introduced him, he turned from him, and said he had read his book, and would have nothing to say to him.' Mrs. Chapone's _Posthumous Works_, i. 172.

See Walpole's _Letters_, v. 421, and vi. 444. His book was burnt by the common hangman in Paris. Carlyle's _French Revolution_, ed. 1857, i. 45.

APPENDIX C.

(_Page 253_.)

Hawkins gives the two following notes:--

'DEAR SIR,

'As Mr. Ryland was talking with me of old friends and past times, we warmed ourselves into a wish, that all who remained of the club should meet and dine at the house which once was Horseman's, in Ivy-lane. I have undertaken to solicit you, and therefore desire you to tell on what day next week you can conveniently meet your old friends.

'I am, Sir,

'Your most humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

'Bolt-court, Nov. 22, 1783.'

'DEAR SIR,

'In perambulating Ivy-lane, Mr. Ryland found neither our landlord Horseman, nor his successor. The old house is shut up, and he liked not the appearance of any near it; he therefore bespoke our dinner at the Queen's Arms, in St. Paul's Church-yard, where, at half an hour after three, your company will be desired to-day by those who remain of our former society.

'Your humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

'Dec. 3.'

Four met--Johnson, Hawkins, Ryland, and Payne (_ante_, i. 243).

'We dined,' Hawkins continues, 'and in the evening regaled with coffee. At ten we broke up, much to the regret of Johnson, who proposed staying; but finding us inclined to separate, he left us with a sigh that seemed to come from his heart, lamenting that he was retiring to solitude and cheerless meditation.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 562.

Hawkins is mistaken in saying that they had a second meeting at a tavern at the end of a month; for Johnson, on March 10, 1784, wrote:--

'I have been confined from the fourteenth of December, and know not when I shall get out.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 351.

He thus describes these meetings:--

'Dec. 13. I dined about a fortnight ago with three old friends; we had not met together for thirty years, and one of us thought the other grown very old. In the thirty years two of our set have died; our meeting may be supposed to be somewhat tender.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 339.

'Jan. 12, 1784. I had the same old friends to dine with me on Wednesday, and may say that since I lost sight of you I have had one pleasant day.' Ib. p. 346.

'April 15, 1784. Yesterday I had the pleasure of giving another dinner to the remainder of the old club. We used to meet weekly, about the year fifty, and we were as cheerful as in former times; only I could not make quite so much noise, for since the paralytick affliction my voice is sometimes weak.' Ib. p. 361.

'April 19, 1784. The people whom I mentioned in my letter are the remnant of a little club that used to meet in Ivy-lane about three and thirty years ago, out of which we have lost Hawkesworth and Dyer; the rest are yet on this side the grave. Our meetings now are serious, and I think on all parts tender.' Ib. 363.

See _ante_, i. 191, note 5.

APPENDIX D.

(_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_,