the way, was also a member--of course he was, or how should we have had
the great man's conversations handed down to us?--was sure to keep them
up to the proper mark of adulation if they ever flagged in it, and was
as servile in his admiration in the Doctor's absence as when he was there
to call him a fool for his pains.

Thus, on one occasion while 'King Johnson' tarried, the courtiers were
discussing his journey to the Hebrides and his coming away 'willing to
believe the second sight.' Some of them smiled at this, but Bozzy was
down on them with more than usual servility. 'He is only _willing_ to
believe,' he exclaimed. '_I do_ believe. The evidence is enough for me,
though not for his great mind. What will not fill a quart bottle will
fill a pint bottle. I am filled with belief.'--'Are you?' said Colman,
slily; 'then cork it up.'

As a specimen of Johnson's pride in his own club, which always remained
extremely exclusive, we have what he said of Garrick, who, before he was
elected, carelessly told Reynolds he liked the club, and thought 'he
would be of them.'

'_He'll be of us!_' roared the Doctor indignantly, on hearing of this.
'How does he know we will _permit_ him? The first duke in England has no
right to hold such language!'

It can easily be imagined that when 'His Majesty' expressed his approval
of Richard Brinsley, then a young man of eight-and-twenty, there was no
one who ventured to blackball him, and so Sheridan was duly elected.

The fame of 'The School for Scandal' was a substantial one for Richard
Brinsley, and in the following year he extended his speculation by