to retire into some cottage and enjoy each other's society for life-à la mode de Llangollen. Here is also one of Mrs. Maltby's sisters who was always a great favourite of mine. She is now, alas! married to a man of large fortune, but who is well worthy of her. The ladies here are in general above par, but the men as much below it. The Ellises are here,' but live very privately. I am their only guest. Here are also the Miss Thrales, Mrs. Piozzi's daughters. From some accident I have never been acquainted with them, though they accuse me of having shunned them. They are very elegant, sensible women, and are a great addition to the society here. Mrs. Pigou, the Thrales, the Tankervilles, and two or three others meet at each other's houses every day-I should say every evening-and the harp and piano generally mingle their voices with ours in the conversation, and make it very pleasant. I should not omit General Forbes, the General of this district, a very amiable

George Ellis, F.R.S., F.S.A.; died 10 April, 1815, aged seventy; wrote in The Rolliad the invective against Pitt :

'Pert without fire, without experience sage.'

In 1790 published Specimens of Early English Poetry. Wrote on the formation and progress of the English language. Went to Lille with Lord Malmesbury in 1797; changed his politics and joined the AntiJacobin. He was much beloved by his friends, Scott addresses him in the introduction to the fifth canto of Marmion:

Thou who canst give to lightest lay

An unpedantic moral gay,

Nor less the dullest theme bid flit
On wings of unexpected wit;
In letters as in life approved,
Example honoured and beloved,
Dear Ellis to the bard impart
A lesson of thy magic art.'

pleasant old man who has seen a great deal of service in both hemispheres. He goes up to town this week to kiss hands on his promotion, and I believe I shall accompany him on Wednesday. Adieu! my dear Sarah. Give my love to all, and believe me,

"Ever yours,

'S. R.

1

Among the persons of the drama I must not omit my old friend Nicholls (the M.P.), who is here with his family. They have retired into the country, and two months here are given them in lieu of a journey to London!!! With regard to the christening, I do believe I should have been present if it had come to me in time. You will shake your head and say I am much obliged to the Post Office for saving me from a dilemma. I wrote to Mr. Gilpin last week, and mentioned you particularly in it. Indeed, I could not do otherwise in answer to your enquiries. Pray tell Maria that I deserved more than an intention to write a postscript from her. I am glad Mr. Raper has dismissed his doctors. With regard to the tragedy I can only tell you it rests on newspaper authority. I must have written it in my sleep; and what has become of it I cannot tell. If it should be found under the pillow, you shall have the first sight of it, a perusal I am sure you would not endure. I am sorry to hear such tidings of Quarry Bank. I am sure I should soon die there of a nervous fever.'

Mr. Nicholls was member for Tregony.

CHAPTER XIII.

The King of Clubs 'The Bachelor '-Rogers building-Paris in 1802-Letters to Henry Rogers, Maria Sharpe, Mrs. Greg-Fox and Rogers in Paris -Fox and Mackintosh-Rogers's new house---His final settlement in St. James's Place.

THE King of Clubs' referred to in the letter to Richard Sharp was not actually established till the first year of the nineteenth century. It was founded by a group of friends who were in the habit of meeting at Mackintosh's house: Rogers, Richard Sharp, Scarlett, Robert Smith, and John Allen. Scarlett, afterwards Lord Abinger, tells us that the chief figures in its social intercourse were, in addition to those already mentioned, Romilly, Dumont, Tennant, and the Rev. Sydney Smith. To these were added Lord Lansdowne, Lord Holland, Brougham, Lord Cowper, Lord King, Porson, Payne Knight, Horner, Bryan Edwards, Jeffrey, Smithson, Whishaw, Alexander Baring, Luttrell, Blake, Hallam, Ricardo, and Hoppner. Francis Horner speaking of visits made to the club in the spring of 1802 mentions that he met there Abercromby, Tom Wedgwood, and Maltby, and that the conversation consisted of literary reminiscences, anecdotes of authors, and criticisms of books. The Club met monthly at dinner at the old Crown and Anchor' in the Strand, where the Whig Club met for some years on

'THE KING OF CLUBS'

423

Tuesday evenings. The King of Clubs was one of those conversation clubs which had superseded the coffeehouses and the taverns in which Addison and Johnson had spent so much of every day in pleasant talk. In those times men prepared their observations beforehand, and so led the talk as to bring them in. There is a story of Richard Sharp having one day seen on the desk the notes of the conversation in which his partner Boddington was to join in the evening. Sharp was to be of the party, and he committed to memory the prepared impromptus of his friend, assisted him to lead the conversation in the right direction, and then forestalled him with his stories and clever things. There was nothing unusual in Boddington's preparations. Men read books, recorded good stories, and reserved criticisms on men and things for the evening talk. The two most brilliant talkers in the King of Clubs were Mackintosh and Sydney Smith. Sydney Smith said of Mackintosh that his conversation was more brilliant and instructive than that of any human being he ever had the good fortune to be acquainted with. But Rogers, a still more intimate friend of Mackintosh, said that he sacrificed himself to conversation, read for it, thought for it, and gave up future fame for it; and Mackintosh is not the only man in this brilliant group of whom the observation may be made.

1

There was at one time a prospect that much of the wit and learning poured into these conversations would take permanent form. Rogers and his friends proposed to establish a literary paper, to be called The Bachelor,

1 Moore's Diary, vol. vi. p. 292.

and published twice a week. Mackintosh tells us that this paper would probably have imitated the aim, even if it had not equalled the execution of the essayists of the reign of Queen Anne. The men to be associated in the enterprise were: Rogers, Mackintosh, Robert Smith, Scarlett, and Richard Sharp. The execution of the project was frustrated at the moment, and never resumed. Rogers has left in his Commonplace Book' an outline of the kind of contributions the paper was intended to contain. This sketch is amusing. It is clearly Rogers's own, particularly the motto from Gray, and the outline of the History of a Voice.'

Periodical Paper-The Bachelor.

Poor Moralist, and what art thou?-Gray.

First-His history: his attachments and adventures.
Last His marriage concludes the paper.

1. On War. 2. On Courtship. 3. History of an old house. 4. History of a voice, a musical cry in his cradle, cries wild lavender and matches, frightens the birds from the corn; a ballad-singer, sings with the miners in Castleton Cave, with the singers at the parish church, catches cold, a deputy crier, a chorister in a cathedral, sings at concerts, marries a rich deaf dowager, and sells his voice in Parliament.

5. Letters. Cairo flea. An antiquarian's conjecture in the next century, 1895, on a board lately dug up inscribed 'Man Traps.' Lord Stanhope's Reasoning Machine. A Christmas in the country. A husband's threat to a wife I'll wear a wig.' History of a Talker and Listener. Eloge upon Snuff.

Rogers, however, had at this period another occupation for his leisure. He was designing the dwelling