CHAP. VIII.] THE CLUB AND ITS PIEST MEMBERS.
three years. His own account is that he withdrew because ire
its late hours were inconsistent with his domestic arrange- m~8
nients :* but the fact was, says Boswell, that he one evening
attacked Mr. Burke in so rude a manner, t that all the
company testified their displeasure ; and at their next
meeting his reception was such that he never came again.
Letitia Matilda Hawkins herself, proposing to defend her
father, corroborates this statement. " The Burkes," she says,
describing the impressions of her childhood, " as the men of
" that family were called, were not then what they were
" afterwards considered, nor what the head of them deserved
" to be considered for his splendid talents: they were, as my
" father termed them, Irish Adventurers; and came into this
" country with no good auguries, nor any very decided prin-
" ciples of action. They had to talk their way in the world
" that was to furnish their means of living." I
An Irish adventurer who had to talk his way in the world,
is much what Burke was considered by the great as well
as little vulgar, for several more years to come. He was
now thirty-three, yet had not achieved his great want,
" ground to stand upon." § Until the present year he had
* "We seldom got together till nine ; the enquiry into the contents of the
'' larder, and preparing supper, took up till ten; and by the time that the table
'' was cleared, it was near eleven, at which hour my servants were ordered to
" come for me ; and, as I could not enjoy the pleasure of these meetings without
'' disturbing the economy of my family, I chose to forego it." Life of Johnson,
425. Their evening toast, he tells us in the same passage, was the motto of Padre
Paolo, " Esto perpetua."
f Life, ii. 273. See also the Percy Memoir, 72. Burke was attacked in good
company, let me subjoin ; for on the same authority Lord Chatham was "a per-
tinacious yelper," and (for a comparison quite original) Lord Chesterfield "a bear."
J Memoirs, i. 98-101.
§ Doctor Markham thus introduces him to the famous Duchess of Queensberry,
as a candidate for office : " It is time I should say who my friend is. His name is
'' Edrnond Burke. As a literary man he may possibly be not quite unknown to you.
'' He is the author of a piece which imposed on the world as Lord Bolingbroke's,
" called the Advantages of Natural Society, and of a very ingenious book published
z 2