gton, Garrick, and the
Club formed his main reliance as regards dinners; and we find Boswell
recording with manifest symptoms of exultation in 1781: "I dined with
him at a bishop's where were Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Berenger, and
some more company. He had dined the day before at another bishop's."
His reverence for the episcopal bench well merited some return on
their part. Mr. Seward saw him presented to the Archbishop of York,
and described his bow to an Archbishop as such a studied elaboration
of homage, such an extension of limb, such a flexion of body, as have
seldom or ever been equalled. The lay nobility were not equally
grateful, although his deference for the peerage was extreme. Except
in Scotland or on his travels, he is seldom found dining with a
nobleman.

[Footnote 1: Canning was blackballed the first time he was proposed.
He was elected in 1798, Mr. Windham being his proposer, and Dr.
Burney his seconder.]

It is therefore hardly an exaggeration to say that he owed more
social enjoyment to the Thrales than to all the rest of his
acquaintance put together. Holland House alone, and in its best days,
would convey to persons living in our time an adequate conception of
the Streatham circle, when it comprised Burke, Reynolds, Garrick,
Goldsmith, Boswell, Murphy, Dr. Burney and his daughter, Mrs.
Montagu, Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Crewe, Lord Loughborough, Dunning
(afterwards Lord Ashburton), Lord Mulgrave, Lord Westcote, Sir Lucas
and Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Pepys, Major Holroyd afterwards Lord
Sheffield, the Bishop of London and Mrs. Porteous, the Bishop of
Peterborough and Mrs. Hinchcliffe, Miss Gregory, Miss Streatfield,
&c. As at Holland House, the chief scene of warm colloquial contest
or quiet interchange of mind was the library, a large and handsome
room, which the pencil of Reynolds gradually enriched with portraits
of all the principal persons who had conversed or studied in it. To
supply any deficiencies on the shelves, a hundred pounds, Madame
D'Arblay states, was placed at Johnson's disposal to expend in books;
and we may take it for granted that any new publication suggested by
him was ordered at once. But a bookish couple, surrounded by a
literary set, were surely not exclusively dependent on him for this
description of help, nor laid under any extraordinary obligation by
reason of it. Whilst the "Lives of the Poets" was in progress, Dr.
Johnson "would frequently produce one of the proof sheet