the head, nor the philosophic Burke, drily correcting the historian with a suggestion of oil of vitriol': not so, with one single submissive exception, any one of the constant victims to that forcible spirit and impetuosity of manner, which, as the submissive victim admits, spared neither sex nor age.

But Boswell was not content that the scene should have passed as it did. Two days after, he called to take leave of Goldsmith before returning to Scotland; seems to have chafed, with his meddling loquacity, what remained of a natural soreness of feeling; and dwells with great unction, in his book, on the 'jealousy and envy' which broke out at the interview. Enlarging on his having secured Johnson for a visit to the Hebrides in the autumn (an achievement which elsewhere he compared to that of a dog who had got hold of a large piece of meat, and run away with it to a corner where he might devour it in peace, without any fear of others taking it from him), Goldsmith interrupted him with the impatient remark that he would be a dead 'weight for me to carry, and that I should never be able

to lug him along through the Highlands and Hebrides.' Nor, Boswell continues, was he patiently allowed to enlarge upon Johnson's wonderful abilities; for here Goldsmith broke in with that exclamation Is he like Burke, who 'winds into a subject like a serpent,' which drew forth the triumphant answer' But Johnson is the Hercules who 'strangled serpents in his cradle,' seldom equalled for its ludicrous inaptness by even Bozzy himself. All which

The day fixed for Boswell's ballot was Friday the 30th of April, when Beauclerc invited him to dinner, at his new house in the Adelphi; and among the members of the Club

of conversation. They did not sit long, however; but went off in a body to the Club, leaving Boswell at Beauclerc's till the fate of his election should be announced to him. He sat in a state of anxiety, he tells us, which even the charming conversation of Lady Di Beauclerc could not entirely dissipate; but in a short time received the welcome tidings of his election, hastened to Gerrard Street, 'and was introduced 'to such a society as can seldom be found.' He now for the first time saw Burke: and at the same supper-table, sat Johnson, Garrick, and Goldsmith; Mr. Jones and Doctor Nugent; Reynolds, Lord Charlemont, Langton, Chamier, Vesey, and Beauclerc. As he entered, Johnson rose with gravity to acquit himself of a pledge to his fellow members; and leaning on his chair as on a desk or pulpit, gave Bozzy a charge with humorous formality, pointing out the conduct expected from him as a good member of the Club. A warning not to blab or tattle doubtless formed part of it, and the injunction was on the whole not unfaithfully obeyed. We owe to Langton, not to Boswell, the report of a capital bit of Johnson's criticism on this particular evening; when, Goldsmith having produced a printed Ode which he had been hearing read by its author in a public room (at the rate of five shillings each for admission!), Johnson thus disposed of it: 'Bolder words and more timorous meaning, 'I think, never were brought together.' Only once, does any of the Club conversation appear to have been carried away, in detail, by Boswell; and a portion of that report conveys so agreeably the unaffected social character of the Gerrard

Street meetings, that it may here fitly close such attempts as I have made to convey a picture of this celebrated Club. After ranging through every variety of subject; art, politics, place hunting, debating, languages, literature, publie and private virtue (it was the night when Burke announced his famous judgment, that from all the large experience he had had, he had learnt to think better of mankind', the conversation concluded thus. I understand,' said Burke, the hogshead of claret, which this society was 'favoured with by our friend the dean' (Barnard), 'is 'nearly out; I think he should be written to, to send ' another of the same kind. Let the request be made with

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a happy ambiguity of expression, so that we may have the chance of his sending it also as a present.' 'I am 'willing,' observed Johnson, 'to offer my services as secreItary on this occasion.' 'As many as are for Doctor Johnson being secretary,' cried another member, 'hold up your hands. Carried unanimously.' 'He will be our 'dictator,' said Boswell. No,' returned Johnson, the company is to dictate to me. I am only to write for wine; and I am quite disinterested, as I drink none: I shall 'not be suspected of having forged the application. I am ' no more than humble scribe.' 'Then,' interposed Burke, an inveterate punster, 'you shall prescribe.' 'Very well,' cried Boswell; 'the first play of words to-day.' 'No, no,' interrupted Reynolds, recalling a previous bad pun of Burke's, the bulls in Ireland.' 'Were I your dictator,' resumed Johnson, you should have no wine. It would

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be my business cavere ne quid detrimenti Respublica 'caperet, and wine is dangerous. Rome,' he added smiling, 'was ruined by luxury.' Then,' protested Burke, 'if you 'allow no wine as dictator, you shall not have me for your 'master of the horse.' The Club lives again very pleasantly, in this good-humoured friendly talk.

Six days after Boswell's election, he was with Johnson, Goldsmith, and Langton, among the guests at the dinner table of booksellers Dilly in the Poultry. They were dissenters; and had asked two ministers of their own persuasion, Doctor Mayo and Mr. Toplady, to meet their distinguished guests. The conversation first turned upon natural history, and Goldsmith contributed to it some curious facts about swallows' partial migrations, and the nidification of birds, which last he characterised as one of the most curious and least known things in natural history. But this easy flow of instructive gossip did not satisfy Boswell. He saw a great opportunity, with two dissenting parsons present, of making Johnson 'rear'; and so straightway 'introduced the subject of toleration.' Johnson and the dissenters disagreed of course; and when they put to him, as a consequence of his argument, that the persecution of the first Christians must be held to have been perfectly right, he frankly declared himself ignorant of any better way of ascertaining the truth, than by persecution on the one hand and endurance on the other. 'But how is a man to act,

'sir,' asked Goldsmith at this point. Though firmly

'convinced of the truth of his doctrine, may he not