Club Life of London, Vol. 1 (of 2): With Anecdotes of the Clubs, Coffee-Houses and Taverns of the Metropolis During the 17th, 18th, and 19th CenturiesTimbs, John
History
Club Life of London, Vol. 1 (of 2): With Anecdotes of the Clubs, Coffee-Houses and Taverns of the Metropolis During the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries
Timbs, John
Clubs -- England -- London; Literary landmarks -- England -- London; London (England) -- Social life and customs
This was one of the creations of Dr. Johnson's _clubbable_ nature,
which served as recreation for this laborious worker. He was now
"tugging at the oar," in Gough-square, Fleet-street. Boswell describes
him as "engaged in a steady, continued course of occupation." "But his
enlarged and lively mind could not be satisfied without more diversity
of employment, and the pleasure of animated relaxation. He therefore
not only exerted his talents in occasional composition, very
different from lexicography, but formed a Club in Ivy-lane,
Paternoster-row, with a view to enjoy literary discussion, and amuse
his evening hours. The members associated with him in this little
Society were his beloved friend Dr. Richard Bathurst; Mr. Hawkesworth,
afterwards well known by his writings; Mr. John Hawkins, an attorney;
and a few others of different professions." The Club met every Tuesday
evening at the King's Head, a beef-steak house in Ivy-lane. One of the
members, Hawkins, then Sir John, has given a very lively picture of a
celebration by this Club, at the Devil Tavern, in Fleet-street, which
forms one of the pleasantest pages in the Author's Life of Johnson.
Sir John tells us:
"One evening, at the [Ivy-lane] Club, Dr. Johnson proposed to us
celebrating the birth of Mrs. Lennox's first literary child, as he
called her book, by a whole night spent in festivity. The place
appointed was the Devil Tavern; and there, about the hour of eight,
Mrs. Lennox, and her husband, and a lady of her acquaintance now
living [1785], as also the Club and friends, to the number of near
twenty, assembled. Our supper was elegant, and Johnson had directed
that a magnificent hot apple-pye should make a part of it, and this he
would have stuck with bay-leaves, because, forsooth, Mrs. Lennox was
an authoress, and had written verses; and further, he had prepared for
her a crown of laurel, with which, but not until he had invoked the
Muses by some ceremonies of his own invention, he encircled her brows.
The night passed, as must be imagined, in pleasant conversation and
harmless mirth, intermingled, at different periods, with the
refreshments of coffee and tea. About five, Johnson's face shone with
meridian splendour, though his drink had been only lemonade; but the
far greater part of us had deserted the colours of Bacchus, and were
with difficulty rallied to partake of a second refreshment of coffee,
which was scarcely ended when the day began to dawn. This phenomenon
began to put us in mind of our reckoning; but the waiters were all so
overcome with sleep, that it was two hours before we could get a bill,
and it was not till near eight that the creaking of the street-door
gave the signal for our departure."
When Johnson, the year before his death, endeavoured to re-assemble as
many of the Club as were left, he found, to his regret, he wrote to
Hawkins, that Horseman, the landlord, was dead, and the house shut up.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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