36 Presidentship of Martin Folkes 1749 



romantic a story that Johnson might well press the old 

 soldier to write his autobiography, and might affirm that if 

 he had the materials he would be glad to write the life himself. 

 Pope has immortalised his philanthropy in the lines : 



One driven by strong benevolence of soul 

 Shall fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole. 1 



And Bos well has preserved for us a sample of the anecdotes 

 with which he could amuse and delight a dinner table. " The 

 General told us that when he was a very young man, I think 

 only fifteen, serving under Prince Eugene of Savoy, he was 

 sitting in a company at table with a Prince of Wirtemberg. 

 The Prince took up a glass of wine and, by a fillip, made 

 some of it fly in Oglethorpe's face. Here was a nice dilemma. 

 To have challenged him instantly, might have fixed a quar- 

 relsome character upon the young soldier : to have taken 

 no notice of it might have been considered as cowardice. 

 Oglethorpe, therefore, fixing his eye upon the Prince, and 

 smiling all the time, as if he took what his Highness had 

 done in jest, said 'Mon Prince,' (I forget the French words 

 he used, the purport however was,) ' That's a good joke ; 

 but we do it much better in England/ and threw a whole 

 glass of wine in the Prince's face. An old General who sat 

 by, said ' 77 a bien fait, Mon Prince, vous I'avez commence' 

 and thus all ended in good humour/' 2 



Another of the guests in the same year, Admiral Isaac 

 Townsend, had a few weeks before he dined with the Club 

 been elected into the Royal Society. He had seen varied 

 service in the Navy for more than half a century, both in 

 European and American waters. The year before he was 

 invited to dine he had been promoted to be Admiral of the 

 Blue. In 1754 he was appointed Governor of Greenwich 

 Hospital, and he held the post as long as he lived. On the 

 death of Lord Anson in 1762 he became senior admiral on 

 the list. 



1 Imitations of Horace, II. 2. 276. 



z Boswell's Life of Johnson (Birkbeck Hill's Edit.), vol. ii. p. 180. General 

 Oglethorpe was elected into the Royal Society on 9th November 1749, 



