rior associations of this description. The suavity of Burke, Reynolds, Nugent and Percy, curbed the sourness or coarseness of inferior men, such as Hawkins; while the reproofs of Johnson kept in check the wildness of wit in Beauclerc and Colman. Conversation and argument ran freely—not always perhaps unruffled—but like pebbles in the brook, just sufficient to impart animation to the scene.
Before publication of the supplementary plays, he had hinted the wish for admission to Lord Charlemont, who in reply wrote: “For my own sake I wish you every success in your endeavours to get into the Turk’s Head Club. Why am I not in London to vote for you?” It is rather remarkable that this celebrated social assemblage of talent might almost date its origin from the Irish Peer. Some words had dropped from him on the subject to Reynolds. The latter mentioned it to Johnson, proposing his lordship as one of the first members. “No,” was the reply; “we shall be called Charlemonts Club; let him come in afterwards.”
Just about this time a letter came from that nobleman to Queen Anne Street, complaining of incessant duties, civil and military—the latter as general of Irish Volunteers. Such were the claims upon his time that he had scarcely a moment even to open one of the last packets of books received from his critical friend—for it appears that whatever else was in hand, the acquisition and examination of old authors was not intermitted.
“Gascoigne,” he says, “notwithstanding his ominous setting out, arrived safe and sound, in excellent plight,
