had given of the word pension, in his dictionary, that in England it was
generally understood to mean pay, given to a state hireling, for treason
to his country, raised some further scruples whether he ought himself to
become a pensioner; but they were removed by the arguments, or the
persuasion of Mr. Reynolds, to whom he had recourse for advice in this
dilemma. What advice Reynolds would give him he must have known pretty
well before-hand; but this was one of the many instances in which men,
having first determined how to act, are willing to imagine that they are
going for clearer information, where they in truth expect nothing but a
confirmation of their own resolve. The liberality of the nation could
not have been extended to one who had better deserved it. But he had a
calamity yet more dreadful than poverty to encounter. The depression of
his spirits was now become almost intolerable. "I would have a limb
amputated," said he to Dr. Adams, "to recover my spirits." He was
constantly tormented by harassing reflections on his inability to keep
the many resolutions he had formed of leading a better life; and
complained that a kind of strange oblivion had overspread him, so that
he did not know what was become of the past year, and that incidents and
intelligence passed over him without leaving any impression.

Neither change of place nor the society of friends availed to prevent or
to dissipate this melancholy. In 1762, he made an excursion into
Devonshire, with Sir Joshua Reynolds; the next year he went to Harwich,
with Boswell; in the following, when his malady was most troublesome,
the meeting which acquired the name of the Literary Club was instituted,
and he passed a considerable time in Lincolnshire, with the father of
Langton; and, in the year after, visited Cambridge, in the company of
Beauclerk. Of the Literary Club, first proposed by Reynolds, the other
members at its first establishment were Burke, Dr. Nugent, Beauclerk,
Langton, Goldsmith, Chamier, and Sir John Hawkins. They met at the