The Literary Club
Originally published in Leigh Hunt's Journal (Edward Moxon) vol.1 #1 (07 Dec 1850).
The most remarkable club of modern times was the one commonly called The Literary Club. This world-renowned association of authors, artists, wits, and statesmen, rose out of the frequent meeting of Dr. Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, and other eminent men of that age, at the hospitable board of Sir Joshua Reynolds. The first meeting of the club was held at the Turk's Head, in Gerard-street, Soho, in February 1764, at which time the great literary autocrat was in his fifty-fifth year. To Sir Joshua Reynolds belongs the honour of having first proposed that they should hold a regular weekly meeting, and the proposal was warmly seconded by Dr. Johnson. He was now moving among a much higher circle of acquaintances than those who composed the club at the King's Head, in Ivy Lane, where he had been aceustomed to go every Tuesday evening, from 1749 to 1756; and he, no doubt, looked back with regret to the many pleasant evenings he had spent there, talking his best, as he always made a point of doing, but not forgetting, at the same time, to lay up materials for many a future paper in the Rambler.
The original members of the club were, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Johnson, Dr. Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, Dr. Nugent, Mr. Beauclere, Mr. Bennett Langton, Mr. Anthony Chamier, and Sir John Hawkins. Dr. Nugent, the father-in-law of Burke, was a physician of talent; he continued a member of the club till his death in 1775, the year after poor Goldsmith had taken a last farewell of all that pleasant company, who had so often made themselves merry at his expense.
Bennett Langton was of an old Lincolnshire family, which gave him great consequence in Dr. Johnson's estimation. He was pursuing his studies at Oxford when Johnson visited the university, and thus became acquainted with him. He is described as an enthusiastic scholar, steeped to the lips in Greek, with fine conversational powers, and an invaluable talent for listening. Miss Hawkins, daughter of Sir John, gives a very clear outline of him, "with his mild countenance, his elegant features, and his sweet smile; sitting with one leg trussed round the other, as if fearing to occupy more space than was equitable, his person inclining forward, as if wanting strength to support his weight, and his arms crossed over his bosom, or his hands locked together over his knee." He died in 1801, the last of the original members. Topham Beauclere, only son of Lord Sidney Beauclerc, and grandson of the Duke of St. Alban's, was more of "a man upon town" than Langton, or, indeed, any other member of the club. He was a lounger in St. James's-street, and on intimate terms with Horace Walpole, George Selwyn, and other wits of that day. Beauclere seems to have been the most unlike Dr. Johnson in almost every respect, end yet with no one was he a greater favourite than with the stern moralist. "Beauclere," the latter would say, "has a love of folly, but a scorn of fools; everything he does shows the one, and everything he says the other."
Of Anthony Chamier little more need be said than that he was a stock-broker, who, by his transactions in the funds, and the aid of exclusive political intelligence, was enabled to retire from business with a fortune, while a young man. He had had a liberal education, and subsequently was appointed under-secretary in the war-office. He was a friend of Beauclere, and it was through the influence of that gentleman that he was introduced. Sir John Hawkins was a pompous, self-conceited, ill-natured, parsimonious individual, who wrote a history of music in five lumbering volumes. His admission into the club at the Turk's Head was a mistake, which arose simply from his having been a member of Johnson's former club at the King's Head in Ivy Lane. But he did not continue long among his new associates. Having made a rude and unprovoked attack upon Mr. Burke one evening, the whole company testified their displeasure in a very decided manner, and at their next meeting he was received in so cold a manner that he never came back. Sir John, in his Life of Dr. Johnson, a very splenetic production, gives a different reason for his withdrawal. "We seldom got together till nine," he says; "the inquiry into the contents of the larder, and preparing supper, took up till ten, and by the time the table was cleared it was near eleven, at which hour my servants were ordered to come for me; and as I could not enjoy the pleasure of these meetings without disturbing the economy of my family, I chose to forego it." This plausible story is, however, positively denied by Boswell, who expressly affirms that the knight ceased to attend, in consequence of having been sent to Coventry for his rude behaviour to Burke. The truth is, Sir John ought never to have been admitted; he was not in his element among wits and scholars. He was "a very unclubable man," as Dr. Johnson remarked when the knight refused to pay his portion of the reckoning for supper, "because he usually ate no supper at home."
The first member admitted to the club, in addition to the original nine, was Mr. Samuel Dyer, a man of great talent and multifarious information. He had been a member of the celebrated Ivy-lane Club, where he was looked up to as an authority, even by Dr. Johnson, in all questions of science. His admission took place in 1764, the year in which the club was founded. In the following year two new members were added—Dr. Percy, whose republication of old English ballads was the first movement in that great literary revival, which has been going on ever since; and Sir Robert Chambers, afterwards Attorney-General in Jamaica, and subsequently an Indian Judge. During the next eight years only six members were admitted—George Colman, the Earl of Charlemont, David Garrick, who had been incessantly striving for admission, from the beginning, Sir William Jones, Agmondesham Vesey, and James Boswell. It was on the 30th of April 1773, that the biographer of Johnson was proposed as a member of the club. On that occasion he dined at Beanclere's, with the Doctor, Lord Charlemont, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and several other members. After dinner, they went off to the club, leaving Boswell in a state of great anxiety respecting the result of the ballot, "which even the charming conversation of Lady Di Beauclere could not entirely dissipate." In a short time he received the agreeable intimation that he had been elected. He instantly hurried off to the place of meeting, and on his entrance, Johnson, who was full of humour, "placed himself behind a chair," says his biographer, "on which he leaned as on a desk or pulpit, and with humorous formality gave me a charge, pointing out the conduct expected from a good member of the club."
"The year after Boswell was admitted, no less than five members were introduced in as many weeks. This was not agreeable to Johnson. The sight of new faces lessened his confidence in the company. He began to care less for the club, which now dined once-a fortnight, instead of supping together once a week, as they had done for the first eight or nine years. It had become a mere dinner club, he said, and he did not care much who was admitted. Three years later, however, he took so much interest in it that he proposed Sheridan as a member, recommending him on the ground that "he who has written the two best comedies of his age is surely a considerable man."
But the club had now lost much of that high literary character to which it owed its name, and when the members resolved, in 1780, to increase their number to thirty-five, with the proviso that it should never exceed forty, the consequent influx of nobodies tended still more to swamp what was left of its original character for wit and humour. A few notable names may certainly be found in the list of members during the last sixty years, but they form a very small proportion of the whole. In addition to those already mentioned, the following are worthy of being recorded. Charles James Fox, Edward Gibbon, Adam Smith, Sir Joseph Banks, Lord Ashburton (John Dunning), George Canning, Lord Holland, Sir Humphrey Davy, Sir James Mackintosh, Sir Walter Scott, Henry Hallam, and Lord Brougham. Nearly all these names belong to the last age or the one preceding it. When we come to the present day, we do not find one of its literary representatives.
The club met originally at the Turk's Head, in Gerrard-street, Soho, as we have orignally stated, and continued to hold its meetings there till the death of the landlord in 1783, when the tavern was transformed into a private house, and the club removed to Prince's, in Sackville-street. On his house being shut up soon afterwards, they again removed to Baxter's, which afterwards became Thomas's, in Dover-street. Another migration took place in the beginning of 1792, from which time they held their meeting's for about seven years at Parsloe's in St. James's-street, and from there they removed, on February 26, 1799, to the Thatched House Tavern in the same street.
The following is a complete list of the members of The Literary Club, as it was on the 10th of March 1835:—
The Earl of Aberdeen, P.S.A.; Lord Brougham and Vaux; Rev. Dr. Buckland; Rev. Dr. Charles Parr Burney; the Earl of Carnarvon; Francis Chantrey, Esq., R.A.; the Hon. Mount Stuart Elphinstone; J.N. Fazakerley, Esq.; the Right Hon. John Hookham Frere; Sir William Gell; Davies Gilbert, Esq., P.R.S.; Right Hon. Thomas Grenville; Hudson Gurney, Esq.; Sir Henry Halford, Bart.; Henry Hallam, Esq.; Charles Hatchett, Esq. (Treasurer); Lord Holland; Henry Gally Knight, Esq.; the Bishop of Llandaff (Dr. Edward Copleston); the Marquis of Lansdowne; Lieut. Colonel Leake; William Lock, Esq.; the Bishop of London (Dr. C.J. Blomfield); Lord Lyttelton; Viscount Mahon; William Marsden, Esq.; Thomas Phillips, Esq., R.A.; Lord Plunket; Sir Martin Archer Shee, P.R.A.; Sir George Thomas Staunton, Bart.; Lord Stowell (Senior Member of the Club); the Right Hon. Sir Charles Vaughan; Sir Charles Wilkins.