rning the Johnson Club to which
Brother Hill was so devoted. She had asked me for letters, but I felt
that all in my possession were unsuited for publication, dealing rather
freely with living persons. Brother Hill was impatient of the mere
bookmaker--the literary charlatan who wrote without reading sufficiently.
There are two pleasant glimpses of our Club in the volume; I quote one.
It was of the night that we discussed _Dr. Johnson as a Radical_:--

I wish that you and Lucy could have been present last night and
witnessed my scene of triumph. I was indeed most nobly welcomed. The
scribe told me with sympathetic pride that the correspondent of the
_New York Herald_ had asked leave to attend, as he wished to telegraph
my paper out to America!!! as well as the discussion. There were some
very good speeches made in the discussion that followed, especially by
a Mr. Whale, a solicitor, who spoke remarkably well and with great
knowledge of his _Boswell_. He said that he preferred to call it, not
Johnson's radical side, but his humanitarian side. Mr. Birrell, the
_Obiter Dicta_ man, also spoke very well. He is a clever fellow. He
was equally complimentary. He maintained in opposition to Mr. Whale
that radical was the right term, and in fact that radicalism and
humanitarianism were the same. Many of them said what a light the
paper had thrown on Johnson's character. One gentleman came up and
congratulated me on the very delicate way in which I had handled so
difficult a subject, and had not given offence to the Liberal
Unionists and Tories present. Edmund Gosse, by whom I sat, was most
friendly, and called the paper a wonderful _tour de force_, referring
to the way in which I had linked Johnson's sayings. He asked me to
visit him some day at Trinity College, Cambridge, and assured me of a
hearty welcome. It is no wonder that what with the supper and the
smoke I did not get to sleep till after two. Among the guests was the
great Bonner, the Australian cricketer, whose health had been drunk
with that of the other visitors, and his praise sounded at having hit
some balls over the pavilion at Lord's. With great simplicity he said
that after seeing the way in which Johnson's memory was revered, he
would much rather have been such a man than have gained his own
greatest triumphs at cricket. He did not say it jocularly at all.

Anoth