Page:Eight Friends of the Great - WP Courtney.djvu/39



Rh will. Mr. Walter C. Metcalfe, his great grand-nephew possessed a copy of an old edition of South's sermons with the following note on the fly-leaf:

"The gift of Dr. Samuel Johnson as a kind token of affection and remembrance eight and forty hours before he died, Sat. 11th Xber, 1784, when we tog. executed the deed making me his trustee for an annuity to his servt. Fran. Barber of 70 l. per annum. ."

The annuity was secured by a deed of that date, between Bennet Langton and Philip Metcalfe of Savile Row, with George Stubbs of Suffolk Street Charing Cross, solicitor. Langton received £757 10 o as the consideration money and payment of the annuity was secured, by a deed of even date on certain profits arising from the navigation of the river Wey, in Surrey.

Metcalfe was one of the company which met at dinner at the house of Sir Joshua Reynolds on the evening of Johnson's funeral. Burke and Windham were among the guests and it was no doubt at this entertainment that the proposal for a statue to the memory of their departed friend was first mooted. A committee of six, Metcalfe being a member of it, was appointed to collect subscriptions and to make the necessary arrangements for the statue. Four days later Windham met him at dinner in the hallowed rooms of the Mitre, when some distinguished men of science, such as bishop Horsley and Maskelyne, were present. Nearly five years passed away and Windham records in his diary that most of Johnson's chief friends and Metcalfe among them met at dinner at Malone's (29 Nov. 1789) to discuss the proposed monument. In the same month Boswell describes a dinner at sir Joshua's house, with Metcalfe among the guests, to "settle as to effectual measures" about it. A whole-length statue by Bacon would cost £600. Sir Joshua and sir Wm. Scott the executors of their departed friend