’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.’

Miss Hawkins (Memoirs, i. 103) says:—­

’Boswell was well justified in his resentment of my father’s designation of this club as a sixpenny club, meeting at an ale-house. ...  Honestly speaking, I dare say my father did not like being passed over.’

Sir Joshua Reynolds, writing of the club, says:—­

’Any company was better than none; by which Johnson connected himself with many mean persons whose presence he could command.  For this purpose he established a club at a little ale-house in Essex-street, composed of a strange mixture of very learned and very ingenious odd people.  Of the former were Dr. Heberden, Mr. Windham, Mr. Boswell, Mr. Steevens, Mr. Paradise.  Those of the latter I do not think proper to enumerate.’  Taylor’s Life of Reynolds, ii. 455.

It is possible that Reynolds had never seen the Essex Head, and that the term ‘little ale-house’ he had borrowed from Hawkins’s account.  Possibly too his disgust at Barry here found vent.  Murphy (Life of Johnson, p. 124) says:—­

’The members of the club were respectable for their rank, their talents, and their literature.’

The ‘little ale-house’ club saw one of its members, Alderman Clarke (ante, p. 258), Lord Mayor within a year; another, Horsley, a Bishop within five years; and a third, Windham, Secretary at War within ten years.  Nichols (Literary Anecdotes, ii. 553) gives a list of the ‘constant members’ at the time of Johnson’s death.

APPENDIX E.

(Page 399.)

Miss Burney’s account of Johnson’s last days is interesting, but her dates are confused more even than is common with her.  I have corrected them as well as I can.

’Dec. 9.  He will not, it seems, be talked to—­at least very rarely.  At times indeed he re-animates; but it is soon over and he says of himself:—­“I am now like Macbeth—­question enrages me."’

’Dec. 10.  At night my father brought us the most dismal tidings of dear Dr. Johnson.  He had thanked and taken leave of all his physicians.  Alas!  I shall lose him, and he will take no leave of me.  My father was deeply depressed.  I hear from everyone he is now perfectly resigned to his approaching fate, and no longer in terror of death.’