OLIVER GOLDSMITH S LIFE AND TIMES, [BOOK ni.

1765. hope to succeed in setting up a rival to that, he was using
jt 37 every anxious means to secure Ms own immediate election.
Johnson resolutely opposed it. Reynolds first conveyed to
him G-arrick's wish, to the effect that he liked the idea of the
club excessively, and thought he should be of them. ce He'll
" be of us! " exclaimed Johnson; " how does he know we will
" permit him ? The first duke in England has no right to
" hold such language." * To Thrale, the next intercessor,
he threw out even threats of a blackball; but this moved the
worthy brewer to remonstrate warmly, and Johnson, thus
hard pressed, picked up somewhat recklessly a line of Pope's,
as in self-defence one might pick up a stone by the way-
side, without regard to its form or fitness. " Why, sir,
" I love my little David dearly, better than all or any of
" his flatterers do; but surely one ought to sit in a society
" like ours

" Unelbow'd by a gamester, pimp or player." t

Still the subject was not suffered to let drop, and the next
who undertook it was Hawkins. " He will disturb us, sir,
"by his buffoonery," was the only and obdurate answer.!
Garrick saw that for the present it was hopeless (though not
long after, as will be seen, Percy, Chambers, and Colman
obtained their election); and, with his happier tact and
really handsome spirit, § visited Johnson as usual, and seemed

* Hoswett, ii. 274-5. Boswell relates this by way of contradicting Hawkins,
whose account, however, it plainly confirms.

t Piozzi letters, ii. 387. J Life of Johnson, 426.

§ In the midst of (Jarrick's uneasy little vanities, let nie show him in his better
character (also from an incident of the present year) as the benefactor and friend
of worth and virtue. It will enable me too, as I have already illustrated Gold-
smith's Doctor Marrowfat by comparison with a living dignitary of the church
(ante, 278-9), to offer a not unworthy companion picture to Goldsmith's Doctor
Primrose, in the person of an actual living vicar. Garrick is writing to one of his
great friends on behalf of the Rev. Mr. Beighton, and "the worthy parson" is
thus most happily sketched by him. " The honest vicar of Egham might be made right to commend London