Page:Eight Friends of the Great - WP Courtney.djvu/34

 A FRIEND OF. JOHNSON AND SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS name of Philip Metcalfe is associated with the lives of the leading man of letters and the chief artist during the early years of the third George's reign. He gladdened Dr. Johnson's declining days with his society at Brighton and in London. He accompanied sir Joshua Reynolds on his travels abroad and was a welcome guest at his social entertainments in Leicester Square. His name flits across many a memoir of the personages of that period but these were his two especial friends and no man could desire better.

The family was for many generations connected with Yorkshire and remained in obedience to the Church of Rome. Their means enabled them to acquire from Sir Richard Le Scrope about 1416 the estate of Nappa in Wensleydale. The ancient house, a hall facing south between two embattled towers, was built by them about 1459. A view of it "half a century ago" is in Speight's volume on "romantic Richmondshire" (1897).

The more immediate ancestors of Philip Metcalfe settled at the hamlet of Tanton in the large parish of Stokesley-in-Cleveland. His grandfather, Gilbert Metcalfe of that place, had two sons, the younger one, Roger Metcalfe [born 1680, died 5 Jany 1744-5] settling as a surgeon in Brownlow Street, now Betterton Street, Drury Lane, London. He is supposed to have been educated at St. Omer, then and for many years later one of the chief training places of the English members of the Roman Church. He was apprenticed to his uncle a member of the company of Barber surgeons in May 1698 but