��Essay on
��a beautiful and instructive piece of biography. The two Imita tions of Juvenal were thought to rival even the excellence of Pope ; and the tragedy of Irene, though uninteresting on the stage, was universally admired in the closet, for the propriety of the sentiments, the richness of the language, and the general harmony of the whole composition. His fame was widely diffused ; and he had made his agreement with the booksellers for his English Dictionary at the sum of fifteen hundred guineas ; part of which was to be, from time to time, advanced in proportion to the progress of the work x . This was a certain fund for his support, without being obliged to write fugitive pieces for the petty supplies of the day. Accordingly we find that, in 1749, he established a club, consisting of ten in number, at Horseman's, in Ivy-lane, on every Tuesday evening 2 . This is the first scene of social life to which Johnson can be traced out of his own house. The members of this little society were, Samuel John son ; Dr. Salter 3 (father of the late Master of the Charter-house) ; Dr. Hawkesworth 4 ; Mr. Ryland 5 . a merchant; Mr. Payne 6 ,
��1 Post, p. 406 ; Life, i. 183, 304 ; Letters, i. 25, 27.
2 Life, i. 190 ; Letters, ii. 359, 363-4; 388, 390; Hawkins, pp. 219-235, 250-259. 'Thither,' says Hawkins (p. 219), ' he constantly resorted, and with a disposition to please and be pleased would pass those hours in a free and unrestrained interchange of sentiments which otherwise had been spent at home in painful reflection.' * It required,' Hawkins adds (p. 250), ' on the part of us who considered ourselves as his disciples some degree of compliance with his political pre judices ; the greater part of our company were Whigs, and I was not a Tory, and we all saw the prudence of avoiding to call the then late adventurer in Scotland, or his ad herents, by those names which others hesitated not to give them, or to bring to remembrance what had passed a few years before on Tower Hill.'
��Bathurst, who was ' a very good hater,' and who ' hated a Whig,' must have had here to veil his hate.
3 ' Dr. Samuel Salter was a Cam bridge divine. He could carry his recollection back to the time when Dr. Samuel Clarke was yet a mem ber of that University, and would frequently entertain us with parti culars respecting him.' Hawkins,
p. 220.
4 Life, i. 190, n. 3 ; Letters, i. 412 ; ii. 7; Hawkins, pp. 220, 252, 310. Ante, p. 1 66.
5 John Ryland was Hawkesworth's brother-in-law, and one of John son's correspondents. Letters, i. 56, n. 3.
6 John Payne, afterwards chief accountant of the Bank of England. Hawkins, p. 220; Letters, ii. 363, n. i. Johnson, when he himself was rapidly sinking, wrote to Ryland : ' To hear that dear Payne is better gives me great delight.' Ib. ii. 428.
a bookseller,
�� �
