Tuesday, December 9—This evening at Mrs. Vesey's, Mr. George Cambridge came, and took the chair half beside me. I told him of some new members for Dr. Johnson's club![179]
“I think,” said he, “it sounds more like some club that one reads of in the 'Spectator,' than like a real club in these times; for the forfeits of a whole year will not amount to those of a single night in other clubs. Does Pepys belong to it?”
“Oh no! he is quite of another party! He is head man on the side of the defenders of Lord Lyttelton. Besides, he has had enough of Dr. Johnson; for they had a grand battle upon the 'Life of Lyttelton,' at Streatham.”
“And had they really a serious quarrel? I never imagined it had amounted to that.”
“Yes, serious enough, I assure you. I never saw Dr. Johnson really in a passion but then: and dreadful, indeed, it was to see. I wished myself away a thousand times. It was a frightful scene. He so red, poor Mr. Pepys so pale!”
“But how did it begin? What did he say?”
“Oh, Dr. Johnson came to the point without much ceremony. He called out aloud, before a large company, at dinner, 'What have you to say, sir, to me or of me? Come forth, man! I hear you object to my “Life of Lord Lyttelton. What are your objections? If you have anything to say, let's hear it. Come forth, man, when I call you!'”
“What a call, indeed! Why, then, he fairly bullied him into a quarrel!”
“Yes. And I was the more sorry, because Mr. Pepys had begged of me, before they met, not to let Lord Lyttelton be mentioned. Now I had no more power to prevent it than this macaroon cake in my hand.”
“It was behaving ill to Mrs. Thrale, certainly, to quarrel in her house.”