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 ferent principles of government as because he held that ‘whiggism was a negation of all principle’ (ib. i. 431). The attack upon the Americans is arrogant and offensive. Although Mr. Hill truly points out (vol. ii. App. B) that Johnson's dislike to America was associated with his righteous hatred of slavery and consequent prejudice against the planters, it is equally true that he states the English claims in the most illiberal and irritating fashion.

The pension unfortunately led to a quarrel with Thomas Sheridan, who had helped to procure it. Sheridan also received a pension of 200l. a year, and a petulant remark of Johnson's (‘that it is time for me to give up mine’) was repeated to Sheridan and caused a lasting alienation, the only case recorded of the loss of a friend of Johnson's by his rough remarks. Johnson was willing in this case to be reconciled, and Reynolds observes that, after he had given offence by his rudeness, he was always the first to seek for reconciliation (, Reynolds, ii. 457).

Beauclerk hoped that Johnson would now ‘purge and live cleanly like a gentleman,’ and for the rest of his life Johnson was free from pecuniary troubles. He paid off old debts and made loans to friends. He was enabled to indulge his constitutional indolence and to write comparatively little. ‘No man but a blockhead,’ he said, ‘ever wrote except for money’ (ib. iii. 19). His spreading reputation at the same time increased his opportunities for social relaxation. According to Dr. Maxwell, who knew him from 1754, he was often in bed till twelve o'clock or ‘declaiming over his tea.’ Literary people looked in about that time, and, after talking all the morning, he dined at a tavern, stayed late, and afterwards loitered long at some friend's house, though he seldom took supper. He never refused an invitation to a tavern, often amused himself at Ranelagh, and, according to Maxwell, must have read and written at night (ib. ii. 119). It was on 16 May 1763 that he made the acquaintance of Boswell [see under ], and thus became visible to posterity. One famous field for conversational display was opened by the foundation of the Club, probably in the winter of 1763–4. Sir Joshua Reynolds suggested it to Johnson, and the other original members were Burke, Dr. Nugent (Burke's father-in-law), Beauclerk, Langton, Goldsmith, Anthony Chamier [q. v.], and Hawkins. It began by a weekly supper in the Turk's Head, Gerrard Street, Soho, where it was held till 1783. In 1772 the supper was changed to a fortnightly dinner during the meeting of parliament. Boswell was elected, owing chiefly to Johnson's influence, on 30 April 1773, and the numbers were gradually increased till in 1780 there were thirty-five members. Among the chief members elected in Johnson's lifetime were Bishop Percy, G. Colman, Garrick, Sir W. Jones, C. J. Fox, Gibbon, Adam Smith, R. B. Sheridan, Dunning, Lord Stowell, Bishop Shipley, Thomas and Joseph Warton, and Charles Burney (see list of Club in, Boswell, ii. App. 1). Johnson was annoyed by Garrick's assumption in saying ‘I'll be of you,’ but welcomed his election in 1773, and upon his death declared that the Club should keep a year's widowhood. Johnson did not attend very regularly after the first years; but the Club no doubt extended the conversational empire of the man whom Smollett had called in 1759 the ‘great Cham of literature.’

The connection with the Thrales, formed about this time, was of more importance to Johnson's happiness. Henry Thrale was a prosperous brewer, who was member for Southwark (1768–80). He had a house at Streatham, called Streatham Park, a large white house in a park of about a hundred acres on the south side of the lower common. It was pulled down in May 1863 (, Environs of London, p. 590). His wife, Hesther Lynch Salisbury, afterwards Mrs. Piozzi [q. v.], was a very bright little woman of literary tastes. Murphy, who was intimate with the Thrales, introduced them to Johnson in 1764 (, Anecd. p. 125). He dined with them frequently and followed them to Brighton in the autumn of 1765. Johnson appears to have had a serious illness about this time, and in February 1766 Boswell found that he had been obliged to give up the use of wine. His constitutional melancholy seems to have been developed, although he was now free from money troubles and had settled in a comfortable house in Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, with Miss Williams and Levett. The Thrales tried to soothe him, and on one occasion found him in such despair, apparently fearing that his melancholy would lead to insanity, that they prevailed upon him to leave the close London court for Streatham. He stayed there from midsummer to October 1766 (, ii. 25; see Mr. Hill's Appendix F to vol. ii. for a discussion of dates).

He soon became almost a member of the family. He had a room at Streatham, where he generally spent some months in the summer, coming up to town from Saturday to Monday to see that his dependents got three good dinners in the week (, Anecd. p. 85). He had also a room in their town houses,