Leighton, Lord Salisbury, the Duke of Argyle, Tennyson, and Matthew Arnold.[5] {112} _Some Old Club-men._ [Sidenote: Edmund Burke.] Burke,[6] who was among the original nine members, was very much the junior of Johnson; but known to him as a sometime Irish student at law, who had written only a few years before two brilliant treatises; one on _Natural Society_, and the other on the _Sublime and Beautiful_. Later he had done excellent historic work in connection with _Dodsley's Annual Register_; but he had not yet entered upon that sea of political turmoil over which he was to sweep in so grand a way and with such blaze of triumph. It is possible indeed that he was indebted to the associations of the club for some of the initiative steps toward that wonderful career whose outcome in Parliament, in the courts, and in pamphleteering, has become a component part of the {113} literature of England. Burke, even at that early stage of his progress (his first speech was made in 1766) had all his vast resources at ready command; Johnson did not wish to meet him in debate without warning; true he was afraid of no mere eloquence; he was used to puncturing bloat of that sort; but Burke's most fiery speeches were beaded throughout with globules of thought, which must be grasped and squelched one by one, if mastery were sought. He was impetuous, too, and aggressive, but reverent of the superior age and reputation of the Doctor; and I daresay coyly avoided those American questions which later came to the front, and upon which they held views diametrically opposed. In after years it used to be said that Burke's speeches would empty the benches of the Commons--ye philosophized; and when not heated, spoke with a drawling utterance and a touch of Irish brogue flavoring his voice; indeed he talked so well he was never tired of talking; his sentences so swelled out under the amplitude of his illustrations and allusions that I think he came at last to take a pride in their very longitude, and trailed his gorgeous convolutions of {114} speech with the delighted eagerness with which a fine woman trails her sheen of satins and velvets. [Sidenote: Topham Beauclerk.]