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CHAPTER VIII.

THE CLUB AND ITS FIEST MEMBERS.

1763.
THE association of celebrated men of this period univer- ,„„„

^x 1763,

sally known as the Literary Club, did not receive that
name till many years after it was formed and founded; but
that Reynolds was its Romulus (so Mrs. Thrale said Johnson
called him),* and this year of 1763 the year of its foundation,
is unquestionable : though the meetings did not begin till
winter. Johnson caught at the notion eagerly; suggested as
its model a club he had himself founded-in Ivy-lane some
fourteen years before, and which the deaths or dispersion of
its members had now interrupted for nearly seven years;
and on this suggestion being adopted, the members, as in
the earlier club, were limited to nine, and Mr. Hawkins,, as
an original member of the Ivy-lane, was invited to join.
Topham Beauclerc and Bennet Langton were also asked, and
welcomed earnestly; and, of course, Mr. Edmund Burke. He
had lately left Dublin and politics for a time, and returned to
literature in Queen-Anne-street; where a solid mark of liis
patron Hamilton's satisfaction had accompanied him, in
shape of a pension on the Irish Establishment of £300 a year.

* Anecdotes, 122. "Or said somebody else of the company called him so,
"' which was more likely."



	CHAPTER VIII. THE CLUB AND ITS FIEST MEMBERS. 1763. THE association of celebrated men of this period univer- ,„„„ ^x 1763, sally known as the Literary Club, did not receive that name till many years after it was formed and founded; but that Reynolds was its Romulus (so Mrs. Thrale said Johnson called him),* and this year of 1763 the year of its foundation, is unquestionable : though the meetings did not begin till winter. Johnson caught at the notion eagerly; suggested as its model a club he had himself founded-in Ivy-lane some fourteen years before, and which the deaths or dispersion of its members had now interrupted for nearly seven years; and on this suggestion being adopted, the members, as in the earlier club, were limited to nine, and Mr. Hawkins,, as an original member of the Ivy-lane, was invited to join. Topham Beauclerc and Bennet Langton were also asked, and welcomed earnestly; and, of course, Mr. Edmund Burke. He had lately left Dublin and politics for a time, and returned to literature in Queen-Anne-street; where a solid mark of liis patron Hamilton's satisfaction had accompanied him, in shape of a pension on the Irish Establishment of £300 a year. * Anecdotes, 122. "Or said somebody else of the company called him so, "' which was more likely."