The Doctor now, in truth, became so universally in fashion, that he was even sought, much to his amusement, by those against whose principles, as far as they were political, he was invariably at war; namely, sundry celebrated oppositionists.

In his letter to the Hermits he particularizes in this liberty list, Mr. Mason, Mr. Stonehewer, Sir William Jones, Mr. Hayley, Mr. Godwin, and the first Lord Lansdowne; ending with Mr. Erskine,[35] whom he had met at two dinners, and to whose house he had been invited to a third convivial meeting: and here this renowned orator and new acquaintance fastened upon the Doctor with all the volubility of his eloquence, and all the exuberance of his happy good-humour, in singing his own exploits and praises, without insisting that his hearer should join in chorus; or rather, perhaps, without discovering, from his own self-absorption, that that ceremony was omitted.