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 30 Extracts from James Boswell's Letters

��I have also room to state shortly the anecdote of the college cook 1, which I beg you may get for me. I shall be very anxious till I hear from you.

Having harassed you with so much about myself, I have left no room for any thing else. We had a numerous club on Tuesday : Fox in the chair, quoting Homer and Fielding, &c. to the astonishment of Jo. Warton 2 ; who, with Langton and Seward, eat a plain bit with me, in my new house, last Saturday. Sir Joshua has put up Dr. Lawrence, who will be blackballed as sure as he exists 3.

We dined on Wednesday at Sir Joshua's ; thirteen without Miss P. 4 Himself, Blagden, Batt 5, [Lawrence 6 ,] Erskine 7 , Langton, Dr. Warton, Metcalfe 8, Dr. Lawrence, his brother, a clergyman, Sir Charles Bunbury 9, myself.

��I could not any longer allow myself to strut in borrowed feathers.' Ander son's Johnson, ed. 1815, p. 309.

1 This, no doubt, is explained by the following correspondence between Malone and Lord Charlemont. Ma- lone wrote on Nov. 7, 1787 : ' Dr. Johnson very kindly wrote to some man who was employed in the College kitchen [Trinity College, Dublin] who had a mind to breed his son a scholar, and wrote to Johnson for advice. Perhaps Dr. J. Kearney could recover this/ Charlemont replied : ' The letter to an officer in the College kitchen is well remembered, and John Kearney has promised, if pos sible, to find it, though he seems almost to despair.' Two days later he wrote : ' The other letter is, I fear, absolutely irrecoverable, as no trace can be found of any papers be longing to the College steward, who has long since been dead.' Hist. MSS. Com., Thirteenth Report, App. viii. 62, 3, 5.

2 Why Warton should have been astonished is not clear. He had been a member of the Club for nearly fourteen years, and so was likely to

��have met Fox and learnt that he was a scholar.

3 Dr. Lawrence was black-balled, and did not become a member of the Club till December, 1802. CHOKER.

4 Sir Joshua's niece, Miss Palmer. For the dinners which he gave, see Life, Hi. 375 n. ; iv. 312 n.

5 Thomas Batt, who in 1789 was one of the Commissioners for audit ing the Public Accounts. Walpole's Letters, ix. 181 n.

When Miss Burney escaped from her Court servitude she met him at a party. ' " How I rejoice," he cried, " to see you at length out of thral dom!" "Thraldom?" quoth I, " that's rather a strong word ! " ' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, v. 270.

6 Croker inserts this name, appa rently to complete the thirteen, but Dr. Lawrence's brother is included in BoswelFs list.

7 Afterwards Lord Chancellor. Life, ii. 173.

8 Philip Metcalfe, one of Reynolds's executors. Ib. iv. 159, n. 2.

9 The brother of H. W. Bunbury, the caricaturist. Ib. ii. 274. Sir Charles was the only man of heredi-

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