' _Parl. Hist_.
xxxii. 258. Thurlow rewarded him for his _Letters to Priestley_ by a
stall at Gloucester, 'saying that "those who supported the Church should
be supported by it."' Campbell's _Chancellors_, ed. 1846, v. 635.
For Mr. Windham, see _ante_, p. 200.
Hawkins (_Life of Johnson_, p. 567) thus writes of the formation of the
Club:--
'I was not made privy to this his intention, but all circumstances
considered, 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 designation
of this club as a sixpenny club, meeting at an ale-house. ... Honestly
speaking, I dare say my father did not like being passed over.'
Sir Joshua Reynolds, writing of the club, says:--
'Any company was better than none; by which Johnson connected himself
with many mean persons whose presence he could command.
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