HENRY V. PELTON. ; 29 
Macaulay says of Johnson’s conversational power, 
‘‘it was nowhere so brilliant and striking as when he 
was surrounded by a few friends, whose abilities and 
knowledge enabled them, as he once expressed it, to 
send him back every ball that he threw.” 
While at work upon his dictionary, Johnson first 
formed a club, called the Ivy Lane Club, meeting at the 
King’s Head in Ivy Lane. It had but nine members and 
lasted until 1756. In his latter years, in 1781, a small 
club was organized which met at the Queen’s Arms in 
St. Paul’s Churchyard, and two years later Sir John 
Hawkins, gives an account of a dinner which resulted 
in the formation of another. At this dinner met the 
four survivors of the Ivy Lane Club formed thirty-six 
years before. ‘‘ At ten,’’? says Hawkins, ‘‘ we broke up, 
much to the regret of Johnson, who proposed staying, 
but finding us inclined to separate, he left us, with a 
sigh that seemed to come from his heart, lamenting that 
he was retiring to solitude and cheerless meditation.” 
This brings vividly before us the loneliness of his old 
age. It was to insure bimself society in the evening 
that at this time he instituted the Essex Club, which 
lasted until his death. 
T have left until the last. that best known and most 
successful of Johnson’s clubs, though it was founded in 
1764, long before those just spoken of. It grew out of 
casual but frequent meetings at the house of Sir Joshua 
Reynolds and met Mondays of each week, for some 
years, at the Turk’s Head in Gerrard Street. For fifteen 
years it existed without a name, but after Garrick’s 
death it became known as the *‘ Literary Club.” It’s 
_ original members besides Reynolds and Johnson, were 
Edmund Burke, Dr. Nugent, Mr. Beauclerc, Mr. Lang- 
ton, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. Chanier and Sir John Hawkins. 
Here, Boswell tells us, Johnson spent his happiest 
hours and never absented himself from the meetings. 
