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��By the death of Mrs. Williams he was left in a state of desti tution, with nobody but Frank, his black servant, to sooth his anxious moments 1. In November 1783, he was swelled from head to foot with a dropsy 2. Dr. Brocklesby, with that benevo lence with which he always assists his friends, paid his visits with assiduity. The medicines prescribed were so efficacious, that in a few days, Johnson, while he was offering up his prayers, was suddenly obliged to rise, and, in the course of the day, dis charged twenty pints of water 3.

Johnson, being eased of his dropsy, began to entertain hopes that the vigour of his constitution was not entirely broken. For the sake of conversing with his friends, he established a conversa tion club, to meet on every Wednesday evening ; and, to serve a man whom he had known in Mr. Thrale's household for many years, the place was fixed at his house in Essex street near the Temple 4. To answer the malignant remarks of Sir John Hawkins on this subject, were a wretched waste of time. Pro fessing to be Johnson's friend, that biographer has raised more objections to his character, than all the enemies of that excellent man s. Sir John had a root of bitterness that put rancours in the

��1 ' Last month died Mrs. Williams, who had been to me for thirty years in the place of a sister ; her know ledge was great and her conversa tion pleasing. I now live in cheer less solitude.' Letters, ii. 348.

2 Life, iv. 255.

3 It was not till February 19 that Johnson had this relief. Letters, ii. 384 ; Life, iv. 261, 271 ; Hawkins, p. 565.

4 Murphy was a member of the Essex Head Club ; yet his account is inaccurate. 'We meet thrice a week,' wrote Johnson. Life, iv. 254. In the Rules it is laid down that ' the meetings shall be on the Mon day, Thursday, and Saturday of every week ; but in the week before Easter there shall be no meeting.' Ib. n. 5.

��5 Hawkins (p. 567) thus writes of the formation of the Club : ' I was not made privy to this his intention, but all circumstances con sidered, it was no matter of surprise to me when I heard that the great Dr. Johnson had, in the month of December 1783, formed a sixpenny club at an ale-house in Essex-street, and that though some of the persons thereof were persons of note, strangers, under restrictions, for three pence each night might three nights in a week hear him talk and partake of his conversation.'

Miss Hawkins (Memoirs, i. 103) says : ' Boswell was well justified in his resentment of my father's desig nation of this club as a sixpenny club, meeting at an ale-house. . . . Honestly speaking, I daresay my vessel

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