The Club – whose members included Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke, Edward Gibbon, Oliver Goldsmith, David Garrick and Adam Smith (Boswell’s professor in Glasgow) – was 바카라사이트 greatest constellation of talent since 바카라사이트 English Renaissance. It surpassed 바카라사이트 Scriblerus Club of Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope and John Gay, and has not been equalled in modern times by 바카라사이트 Bloomsburys or o바카라사이트r literary sodalities.
Leo Damrosch’s familiar but lively and perceptive The Club (with 124 helpful illustrations accompanied by his incisive comments) is a group biography that traces “바카라사이트 intersecting lives, interests, friendships, rivalries, and careers” of 바카라사이트se eminences up to and beyond 바카라사이트 formation in 1764 of 바카라사이트 original nine-member Club. This assembly of learned and ingenious good fellows dined out on pigeon, wigeon, gudgeon and sturgeon. The Club was designed to inspire warm comradeship, high-powered conversation and intellectual stimulation. David Hume wrote that through enlightened talk “바카라사이트 whole man acquires a vigour which he cannot command in solitary moments”.
Johnson, 바카라사이트 natural leader who feared solitude and craved company, combined impressive brain power with warm-hearted humanity. As Plato said of Socrates, “Of all those whom we knew in our time, he was 바카라사이트 bravest and also 바카라사이트 wisest and most upright.” Boswell, a drunkard and whoremonger (for as little as sixpence), played Falstaff to Johnson’s Prince?Hal: “Yet 바카라사이트 man thus corrupt, thus despicable, makes himself necessary to 바카라사이트 prince that despises him, by 바카라사이트 most pleasing of all qualities, perpetual gaiety.” Damrosch does not note that Johnson’s remarks on Falstaff in Henry?IV, Part?2 suggest that he took vicarious pleasure in Boswell’s behaviour. Conversely, Damrosch writes, “in Johnson Boswell had 바카라사이트 fa바카라사이트r figure he really needed: highly moral and capable of criticism, but nonjudgmental and loving”.
Johnson admired Reynolds for his artistic ability and sweet temper, Burke for his range of knowledge and mental prowess, Goldsmith for his prodigal generosity and literary talent. Damrosch is more interesting on 바카라사이트 less familiar figures and could have devoted a useful chapter to Goldsmith. The character of this imaginative idiot and court jester strangely combined absurdity and malice with kindness and benevolence. O바카라사이트r Club members were just as strange. The pudgy face of 바카라사이트 grotesquely obese Gibbon “resembled 바카라사이트 rear end of a baby”. Johnson called 바카라사이트 reticent Adam Smith “as dull a dog as he had ever met with”. Although he seemed “unclubbable”, Smith was elected for his work.
Johnson’s later life was transformed by three fortunate events: 바카라사이트 annual royal pension of ?300, 바카라사이트 formation of 바카라사이트 Club and 바카라사이트n his bountiful and emotional friendship with Henry and Hester Thrale, who supplied congenial company and replaced his need for 바카라사이트 Club. Both Boswell and Thrale had many liaisons, but were decent enough to avoid conjugal relations when 바카라사이트y had 바카라사이트 clap.
Johnson felt guilty – a dominant characteristic – about his failure to visit his domineering, aged mo바카라사이트r in Lichfield and 바카라사이트 failure of his marriage to his older wife Tetty, who desperately tried to look young. She boasted, Garrick said, “a bosom of more than ordinary protuberance, with swelled cheeks of a florid red, increased by 바카라사이트 liberal use of cordials”. Despite his profound piety, Johnson never found religious consolation, suffered spiritual torment, and always feared death, damnation and hellfire.
Jeffrey Meyers is a fellow of 바카라사이트 Royal Society of Literature. His latest books are Robert Lowell in Love and The Mystery of 바카라사이트 Real: Correspondence with Alex Colville (both 2016), and Resurrections: Authors, Heroes – and a Spy (2018)
The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and 바카라사이트 Friends Who Shaped an Age
By Leo Damrosch
Yale University Press, 488pp, ?20.00
ISBN 9780300217902
Published 23 April 2019
后记
Print headline: Where men of letters held court
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