In spite of his oddities, Johnson was, before everything, a social man. The great business of his life, he said, was to escape from himself, and he would never trust himself alone, "but when employed in writing or reading." He would beg a friend to go home with him simply to avoid being alone in the coach.

"It was a very remarkable circumstance about Johnson, whom shallow observers have supposed to have been ignorant of the world, that very few men had seen greater variety of characters.... The suddenness with which his accounts of some of them started out in conversation, was not less pleasing than surprising. I remember he once observed to me, 'It is wonderful, Sir, what is to be found in London. The most literary conversation that I ever enjoyed, was at the table of Jack Ellis, a money-scrivener behind the Royal Exchange, with whom I at one period used to dine generally once a week.'

Volumes would be required to contain a list of his numerous and various acquaintance, none of whom he ever forgot.... He associated with persons the most widely different in manners, abilities, rank and accomplishments. He was at once the companion of the brilliant Colonel Forrester of the Guards ... and of the aukward and uncouth Robert Levet; of Lord Thurlow[16], and Mr Sastres, the Italian master; and has dined one day with the beautiful, gay, and fascinating Lady Craven, and the next with good Mrs Gardiner, the tallow-chandler, on Snow-hill."

In the company of "social friends" Johnson found his greatest pleasure. His own definition of a club was: "An assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions," and it is characteristic of him that he was the inventor of the word clubable.

For, in Johnson's day, clubs were not luxurious halls where conversation was carried on in undertones; vigorous talking (with some eating and drinking) was the chief object of the company that gathered round the tavern table.

Of Johnson's talk we need not say much here. It was, and is, his chief title to fame. In his lifetime a roomful of people would wait in expectant silence for him to begin; to-day his conversation remains the chief attraction of Boswell's Life and of the many other books, great and small, that have been written about him.

Johnson looked upon conversation as a serious art and said that a good talker should have knowledge, command of words, imagination and a resolution not to be overcome by failures. This last he considered essential; and he certainly was not often overcome himself, for he could not bear to be worsted in argument, "even when he had taken the wrong side." Hence his habit of "talking for victory."

But Johnson could not talk his best if the dinner had not been good. "For my part," he said in his blunt way "I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully."

"I never knew any man" says Boswell "who relished good eating more than he did. When at table, he was totally absorbed in the business of the moment; his looks seemed rivetted to his plate; nor would he, unless when in very high company, say one word, or even pay the least attention to what was said by others, till he had satisfied his appetite, which was so fierce, and indulged with such intenseness, that while in the act of eating, the veins of his forehead swelled, and generally a strong perspiration was visible. To those whose sensations were delicate, this could not but be disgusting.... It must be owned that Johnson, though he could be rigidly abstemious, was not a temperate man either in eating or drinking. He could refrain, but he could not use moderately."

Johnson realised this well enough. So from 1736 to 1757 and for the last twenty years of his life he drank no wine at all[17], except on special occasions. Once or twice he persuaded Boswell also to be "a water-drinker, upon trial"; but it is to be feared that Boswell found it as hard to refrain as to use moderately—he had many a morning headache.

Wine or no wine, Johnson saw no reason why he should be abstemious over the tea-cups. In a famous review of an Essay on Tea he described himself as "a hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who has for twenty years diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and with tea welcomes the morning."

After pouring out his sixteenth cup, a hostess once asked him if a small basin would not save him trouble. "'I wonder, Madam,' answered he roughly, 'why all the ladies ask me such questions. It is to save yourselves trouble, Madam, and not me.' The lady was silent and resumed her task."

Johnson founded his first club, as we have seen, as a relief from his monotonous work on the Dictionary. It was a small society which met once a week at the King's Head, "a famous beef-steak house" in Ivy Lane.

"Thither" wrote a member of the club "he constantly resorted with a disposition to please and be pleased. Our conversations seldom began till after a supper so very solid and substantial as led us to think that with him it was a dinner ... his habitual melancholy and lassitude of spirit gave way; his countenance brightened."

The Ivy Lane club broke up after about eight years, but some months before his death Johnson "had the pleasure of giving another dinner to the remainder of the old club." "We were as cheerful," he wrote, "as in former times; only I could not make quite so much noise."

Towards the end of his life, too, he formed the Essex Head Club, of which "the terms were lax and the expenses light." It had some distinguished members and Boswell has preserved an interesting set of rules as drafted by Johnson; but by far the most famous of Johnson's clubs was the society known as The Literary Club, founded in 1764.

"Sir Joshua Reynolds had the merit of being the first proposer of it, to which Johnson acceded, and the original members were, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr Johnson, Mr Edmund Burke, Dr Nugent, Mr Beauclerk, Mr Langton, Dr Goldsmith, Mr Chamier, and Sir John Hawkins. They met at the Turk's Head, in Gerrard-street, Soho, one evening in every week, at seven, and generally continued their conversation till a pretty late hour. This club has been gradually increased to its present number, thirty-five."

Johnson did not at first encourage an increase in the number of members:

"Dr Goldsmith said once to Dr Johnson, that he wished for some additional members to the Literary Club, to give it an agreeable variety; for (said he) there can now be nothing new among us: we have travelled over one another's minds. Johnson seemed a little angry, and said, 'Sir, you have not travelled over my mind, I promise you.'"

Boswell gives us a list of members in a later year. In it we find the names of Adam Smith, the political economist, Gibbon the historian, Fox the politician, Sir Joseph Banks the explorer, Sheridan the dramatist, Garrick the actor, and a number of bishops, statesmen, doctors and lawyers—all men of distinction; and over them all towered the figure, and afterwards the memory, of Samuel Johnson.

Boswell does not record many accounts of conversations at the Club. Probably the rules did not allow him to repeat much of what was said there. But here are one or two extracts:

"Johnson. 'I have been reading Thicknesse's Travels, which I think are entertaining.' Boswell. 'What, Sir, a good book?' Johnson. 'Yes, Sir, to read once; I do not say you are to make a study of it, and digest it; and I believe it to be a true book in his intention. All travellers generally mean to tell truth....'

"E.[18] 'From the experience which I have had,—and I have had a great deal,—I have learnt to think better of mankind.' Johnson. 'From my experience I have found them worse in commercial dealings, more disposed to cheat, than I had any notion of; but more disposed to do one another good than I had conceived ... and really it is wonderful, considering how much attention is necessary for men to take care of themselves, and ward off immediate evils which press upon them, it is wonderful how much they do for others. As it is said of the greatest liar, that he tells more truth than falsehood; so it may be said of the worst man, that he does more good than evil.' Boswell. 'Perhaps from experience men may be found happier than we suppose.' Johnson. 'No, Sir; the more we enquire, we shall find men the less happy....'

"Boswell. 'I have known a man resolved to put friendship to the test, by asking a friend to lend him money merely with that view, when he did not want it.' Johnson. 'That is very wrong, Sir. Your friend may be a narrow man, and yet have many good qualities: narrowness may be his only fault. Now you are trying his general character as a friend, by one particular singly, in which he happens to be defective, when, in truth, his character is composed of many particulars.'"

"E. 'I understand the hogshead of claret, which this society was favoured with by our friend the Dean, is nearly out; I think he should be written to, to send another of the same kind....' Johnson. 'I am willing to offer my services as secretary on this occasion.' P. 'As many as are for Dr Johnson being secretary hold up your hands.—Carried unanimously.' Boswell. 'He will be our Dictator.' Johnson. 'No, the company is to dictate to me....'"

Boswell seldom had the last word. At another meeting of the Club:

"One of the company[19] attempted, with too much forwardness, to rally him on his late appearance at the theatre; but had reason to repent of his temerity. 'Why, Sir, did you go to Mrs Abington's[20] benefit? Did you see?' Johnson. 'No, Sir.' 'Did you hear?' Johnson. 'No, Sir.' 'Why then, Sir, did you go?' Johnson. 'Because, Sir, she is a favourite of the publick; and when the publick cares the thousandth part for you that it does for her, I will go to your benefit too.'"

It was on the day after this meeting that Boswell tried, in vain, to solve the mystery of one of Johnson's oddities:

"Next morning I won a small bet from Lady Diana Beauclerk, by asking him as to one of his particularities, which her Ladyship laid I durst not do. It seems he had been frequently observed at the Club to put into his pocket the Seville oranges, after he had squeezed the juice of them into the drink which he made for himself. Beauclerk and Garrick talked of it to me, and seemed to think that he had a strange unwillingness to be discovered. We could not divine what he did with them; and this was the bold question to be put. I saw on his table the spoils of the preceding night, some fresh peels nicely scraped and cut into pieces. 'O, Sir, (said I) I now partly see what you do with the squeezed oranges which you put into your pocket at the Club.' Johnson. 'I have a great love for them.' Boswell. 'And pray, Sir, what do you do with them? You scrape them, it seems, very neatly, and what next?' Johnson. 'Let them dry, Sir.' Boswell. 'And what next?' Johnson. 'Nay, Sir, you shall know their fate no further.' Boswell. 'Then the world must be left in the dark. It must be said (assuming a mock solemnity,) he scraped them, and let them dry, but what he did with them next, he never could be prevailed upon to tell.' Johnson. 'Nay, Sir, you should say it more emphatically:—he could not be prevailed upon, even by his dearest friends, to tell [21].'"