Before leaving the subject of “Cheese” clubs one more of the many which have enjoyed on occasion the hospitality of the “Cheese” may be mentioned. Most people in this land, and presumably everybody in America, would consider this club somewhat belated. It has an idea that King Edward is a usurper, and that the rightful sovereign of these isles and of the empire is some foreign potentate whom even his own states disown. The following paragraph from the _Daily Telegraph_ of March 25, 1895, will show that whatever we may think of the views of its members, the excellence of their taste in gastronomy cannot be called in question:— “A few gentlemen are still left in this hasteful, bustling, and forgetful age who have time to remember that James I. ascended the throne of England on March 24, 1603. It is hardly necessary to add that they are members of the Thames Valley Legitimist Club, who spend their leisure in moaning over the extinguished glories of their country since the expulsion of James II. Taking advantage of the fact that yesterday was not only the anniversary of the date just given, but was also Mothering Sunday, when the rigidity of the Lenten fast is temporarily suspended, they dined together last evening in the Old Cheshire Cheese, and after doing justice to the famous Johnsonian puddings and other viands, amused themselves after their wont by inspecting a piece of the scaffold on which some unfortunate followers of the House of Stuart were executed. The health of the Queen was drunk, and it was incidentally mentioned as a fact not generally known that, with two exceptions, every sovereign in Europe was descended from the saintly mother of the monarch whose anniversary they were that day celebrating. The health of Charles VII. of Spain, whoever he may be, was duly honoured.” [Illustration: Dr Johnson’s house in Gough Square (_By permission of_ MESSRS. INGRAM BROTHERS, _Proprietors of “The Sketch.”_)] FOOTNOTES: [4] “The supper was elegant. Johnson had directed that a magnificent hot apple-pie should make part of it, and this he would have stuck with bay leaves, because, forsooth, Mrs. Lennox had written verses, and, further, he had prepared for her a crown of bays with which, but not till he had invoked the Muses by some ceremonies of his own invention, he encircled her brows.” The first literary child whose birth was here celebrated was a dreary novel called _The Female Quixote, or the Adventures of Arabella_. CHAPTER VIII DR. JOHNSON’S HOMES AND HAUNTS Whoe’er has travelled life’s dull round, Where’er his stages may have been, May sigh to think he still has found The warmest welcome at an inn. SHENSTONE.