[794] See Appendix D.
[795] Ben Jonson wrote Leges Convivales that were 'engraven in marble over the chimney in the Apollo of the Old Devil Tavern, Temple Bar; that being his Club Room.' Jonson's Works, ed. 1756, vii. 291.
[796] RULES.
'To-day deep thoughts with me resolve to drench In mirth, which after no repenting draws.'--MILTON.
['To-day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench In mirth that, &c.' Sonnets, xxi.]
'The Club shall consist of four-and-twenty.
'The meetings shall be on the Monday, Thursday, and Saturday of every week; but in the week before Easter there shall be no meeting.
'Every member is at liberty to introduce a friend once a week, but not oftener.
'Two members shall oblige themselves to attend in their turn every night from eight to ten, or to procure two to attend in their room.
'Every member present at the Club shall spend at least sixpence; and every member who stays away shall forfeit three-pence.
'The master of the house shall keep an account of the absent members; and deliver to the President of the night a list of the forfeits incurred.
'When any member returns after absence, he shall immediately lay down his forfeits; which if he omits to do, the President shall require.
'There shall be no general reckoning, but every man shall adjust his own expences.
'The night of indispensable attendance will come to every member once a month. Whoever shall for three months together omit to attend himself, or by substitution, nor shall make any apology in the fourth month, shall be considered as having abdicated the Club.
'When a vacancy is to be filled, the name of the candidate, and of the member recommending him, shall stand in the Club-room three nights. On the fourth he may be chosen by ballot; six members at least being present, and two-thirds of the ballot being in his favour; or the majority, should the numbers not be divisible by three.
'The master of the house shall give notice, six days before, to each of those members whose turn of necessary attendance is come.
'The notice may be in these words:--"Sir, On ---- the ---- of ---- -- will be your turn of presiding at the Essex-Head. Your company is therefore earnestly requested."
'One penny shall be left by each member for the waiter.'
Johnson's definition of a Club in this sense, in his Dictionary, is, 'An assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions.' BOSWELL.
[797] She had left him in the summer (ante, p. 233), but perhaps she had returned.
[798] He received many acts of kindness from outside friends. On Dec. 31 he wrote:--'I have now in the house pheasant, venison, turkey, and ham, all unbought. Attention and respect give pleasure, however late or however useless. But they are not useless when they are late; it is reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been spent with the approbation of mankind.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 343.
[799] 'Dec. 16, 1783. I spent the afternoon with Dr. Johnson, who indeed is very ill, and whom I could hardly tell how to leave. He was very, very kind. Oh! what a cruel, heavy loss will he be! Dec. 30. I went to Dr. Johnson, and spent the evening with him. He was very indifferent indeed. There were some very disagreeable people with him; and he once affected me very much by turning suddenly to me, and grasping my hand and saying:--"The blister I have tried for my breath has betrayed some very bad tokens; but I will not terrify myself by talking of them. Ah! priez Dieu pour moi."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 293, 5. 'I snatch,' he wrote a few weeks later, 'every lucid interval, and animate myself with such amusements as the time offers.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 349.
[800] He had written to her on Nov. 10. See Croker's Boswell, p. 742.
[801] Hawkins (Life, 562) says that this November Johnson said to him:--'What a man am I, who have got the better of three diseases, the palsy, the gout, and the asthma, and can now enjoy the conversation of my friends, without the interruptions of weakness or pain.'
[802] 'The street [on London Bridge], which, before the houses fell to decay, consisted of handsome lofty edifices, pretty regularly built, was 20 feet broad, and the houses on each side generally 26-1/2 feet deep.' After 1746 no more leases were granted, and the houses were allowed to run to ruin. In 1756-7 they were all taken down. Dodsley's London and its Environs, ed. 1761, iv. 136-143.
[803] In Lowndes's Bibl. Man. i. 328 is given a list of nearly fifty of these books. Some of them were reprinted by Stace in 1810-13 in 6 vols. quarto. Dr. Franklin, writing of the books that he bought in his boyhood says:--'My first acquisition was Bunyan's works in separate little volumes. I afterwards sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton's Historical Collections; they were small chapmen's books, and cheap. Forty volumes in all.' Franklin's Memoirs, i. 17.
[804] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale this same day:--'Alas, I had no sleep last night, and sit now panting over my paper.