He had canvassed the members. Johnson wrote, on April 23rd, to Goldsmith, who was in the chair that evening, to consider Boswell as proposed by himself in his absence. On the night of the ballot, April 30th, Boswell dined at Beauclerk's, where, after the company had gone to the club, he was left till the fate of his election should be announced. After Johnson had taken the thing in hand there was not much danger, yet poor Bozzy 'sat in a state of anxiety which even the charming conversation of Lady Di Beauclerk could not entirely dissipate.' There he received the tidings of his election, and he hastened to the place of meeting. Burke he met that night for the first time, and on his entrance, Johnson, 'with humorous formality, gave me a _charge_, pointing out the conduct expected from me as a good member of the club.' That charge we can believe Forster to be right in suspecting to be a caution against publishing abroad the proceedings and the talk of the members. In the autumn of the year, as they drew near to Monboddo, Johnson, we should think with excessive rudeness, told him 'several of the members wished to keep you out. Burke told me, he doubted if you were fit for it: but, now you are in, none of them are sorry. Burke says, that you have so much good humour naturally, it is scarce a virtue.' The faithful Bozzy replied, 'They were afraid of you, sir, as it was you who proposed me;' and the doctor was prone to admit that if the one blackball necessary to exclude had been given, they knew they never would have got in another member. Yet even from this rebuff he managed to deftly extract a compliment. Beauclerk, the doctor said, had been very earnest for the admission, and Beauclerk, replied Boswell, 'has a keenness of mind which is very uncommon.' The witty Topham, along with Reynolds, Garrick, and others, is immortalized in the pages of the man who was not thought by the wits of Gerrard Street fit for their club. [A] By the Town Clerk Depute of Glasgow, R. Renwick, Esq., we are informed that no notice of this enrolment of General Paoli was entered at the time, pursuant to the custom of the Register over honorary burgesships. CHAPTER V TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES. 1773 'Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides.'--WORDSWORTH.