Dr. Burney now was become a member of the Literary Club; in which he found an association so select, yet so various, that there were few things, either of business or pleasure, that he ever permitted to interfere with his attendance. Where, indeed, could taste point out, or genius furnish, a society to meet his wishes, if that could fail which had the decided national superiority of Johnson and Burke at its head? while Banks, Beauclerk, Boswell, Colman, Courtney, Eliot (Earl,) Fox, Gibbon, Hamilton (Sir William,) Hinchcliffe, Jones, Macartney (Earl,) Malone, Percy, Reynolds, Scott (Lord Sewel,) Sheridan, Spencer (Earl,) Windham, and many others of high and acknowledged abilities, successively entering, marked this assemblage as the pride—not of this meeting alone, but of the Classical British Empire of the day.

It had been the original intention of Dr. Johnson, when this club, of which the idea was conceived by Sir Joshua Reynolds, was in contemplation, to elect amongst its members some one of noted reputation in every art, science, and profession; to the end that solid information might elucidate every subject that should be started. This profound suggestion, nevertheless, was either passed over, or overruled.

It is probable that those, so much the larger portion of mankind, who love light and desultory discourse, were persuaded they should find more amusement in wandering about the wilds of fanciful conjecture, than in submitting to be disciplined by the barriers of systemized conviction.

Brightly forward at this club came Mr. Windham, of Felbrig, amongst those whose penetration had long since preceded the public voice in ranking Dr. Burney as a distinguished Man of Letters. And from the date of these meetings, their early esteem was augmented into partial, yet steady regard.

Mr. Windham was a true and first rate gentleman; polite, cultivated, learned, upright, and noble-minded. To an imagination the most ardent for whatever could issue from native genius in others, he joined a charm of manner that gave an interest to whatever he uttered himself; no matter how light, how slight, how unimportant; that invested it with weight and pleasure to his auditor: while in his smile there was a gentleness that singularly qualified an almost fiery animation in his words. To speak, however, of his instantaneous powers of pleasing,—though it be conferring on him one of the least common of Nature’s gifts, as well as one of the fairest,—is insufficient to characterize the peculiar charm of his address; for it was not simply the power of pleasing that he possessed—it was rather that of winning.