to our guest of this evening, Mr. William Dutt, for keeping
alive the folk-lore, the literary history, the historical tradition of
that portion of the British Isles to which we feel the most profound
attachment by ties of residence or of kinship.

VI. DR. JOHNSON'S ANCESTRY

A paper read before the members of the Johnson Club of London at
Simpson's Restaurant in the Strand.

There is, I believe, a definite understanding among our members that we,
the Brethren of the Johnson Club, have each and all of us read every line
about Dr. Johnson that is in print, to say nothing of his works. It is
particularly accepted that the thirteen volumes in which our late
brother, Dr. Birkbeck Hill, enshrined his own appreciation of our Great
Man, are as familiar to us all as are the Bible and the Book of Common
Prayer. For my part, with a deep sense of the responsibility that must
belong to any one who has rashly undertaken to read a paper before the
Club, I admit to having supplemented these thirteen volumes by a
reperusal of the little book entitled _Johnson Club Papers_, by Various
Hands, issued in 1899 by Brother Fisher Unwin. I feel as I reread these
addresses that there were indeed giants in those days, although my
admiration was moderated a little when I came across the statement of one
Brother that Johnson's proposal for an edition of Shakspere "came to
nothing"; and the statement of another that "Goldsmith's failings were
almost as great and as ridiculous as Boswell's;" while my bibliographical
ire was awakened by the extraordinary declaration in an article on "Dr.
Johnson's Library," that a first folio edition of Shakspere might have
realized 250 pounds in the year 1785. Still, I recognize the talent that
illuminated the Club in those closing years of the last century. Happily
for us, who love good comradeship, most of the giants of those days are
still in evidence with their polished armour and formidable spears.

What can I possibly say that has not already been said by one or other of
the Brethren? Well, I have put together these few remarks in the hopes
that no one of you has seen two books that are in my hands, the first,
_The Reades of Blackwood Hill_, _with Some Account of Dr. Johnson's
Ancestry_, by Aleyn Lyell Reade; the other, _The Life and Letters of Dr.
Birkbeck Hill_, by his daughter Mrs. Crump. The first of these is
privately printed, although it may be bought by any one of the Brethren
for a c