Boswell was admitted, no other candidate would have a chance.  Boswell, however, was, as his proposer said, a thoroughly “clubable” man, and once a member, his good humour secured his popularity.  On the important evening Boswell dined at Beauclerk’s with his proposer and some other members.  The talk turned upon Goldsmith’s merits; and Johnson not only defended his poetry, but preferred him as a historian to Robertson.  Such a judgment could be explained in Boswell’s opinion by nothing but Johnson’s dislike to the Scotch.  Once before, when Boswell had mentioned Robertson in order to meet Johnson’s condemnation of Scotch literature in general, Johnson had evaded him; “Sir, I love Robertson, and I won’t talk of his book.”  On the present occasion he said that he would give to Robertson the advice offered by an old college tutor to a pupil; “read over your compositions, and whenever you meet with a passage which you think particularly fine, strike it out.”  A good anecdote of Goldsmith followed.  Johnson had said to him once in the Poet’s Corner at Westminster,—­

  Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis.

When they got to Temple Bar Goldsmith pointed to the heads of the Jacobites upon it and slily suggested,—­

  Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis.

Johnson next pronounced a critical judgment which should be set against many sins of that kind.  He praised the Pilgrim’s Progress very warmly, and suggested that Bunyan had probably read Spenser.

After more talk the gentlemen went to the Club; and poor Boswell remained trembling with an anxiety which even the claims of Lady Di Beauclerk’s conversation could not dissipate.  The welcome news of his election was brought; and Boswell went to see Burke for the first time, and to receive a humorous charge from Johnson, pointing out the conduct expected from him as a good member.  Perhaps some hints were given as to betrayal of confidence.  Boswell seems at any rate to have had a certain reserve in repeating Club talk.

This intimacy with Johnson was about to receive a more public and even more impressive stamp.  The antipathy to Scotland and the Scotch already noticed was one of Johnson’s most notorious crotchets.  The origin of the prejudice was forgotten by Johnson himself, though he was willing to accept a theory started by old Sheridan that it was resentment for the betrayal of Charles I. There is, however, nothing surprising in Johnson’s partaking a prejudice common enough from the days of his youth, when each people supposed itself to have been cheated by the Union, and Englishmen resented the advent of swarms of needy adventurers, talking with a strange accent and hanging together with honourable but vexatious persistence.  Johnson was irritated by what was, after all, a natural defence against English prejudice.  He declared that the Scotch were always ready to lie on each other’s behalf.  “The Irish,” he said, “are not in a conspiracy to cheat the