Sheer Lane,February 10,1710.
After having applied my mind with more than ordinary attention to my studies,it is my usual custom to relax and unbend it in the conversation of such as are rather easy than shining companions.
This I find particularly necessary for me before I retire,to rest,in order to draw my slumbers upon me by degrees,and fall asleep insensibly.This is the particular use I make of a set of heavy honest men,with whom I have passed many hours with much indolence,though not with great pleasure.Their conversation is a kind of preparative for sleep;it takes the mind down from its abstractions,leads it into the familiar traces of thought,and lulls it into that state of tranquillity,which is the condition of a thinking man,when he is but half-awake.After this,my reader will not be surprised to hear the account which I am about to give of a club of my own contemporaries,among whom I pass two or three hours every evening.This I look upon as taking my first nap before I go to bed.The truth of it is,I should think myself unjust to posterity,as well as to the society at "The Trumpet,"of which I am a member,did not I in some part of my writings give an account of the persons among whom I have passed almost a sixth part of my time for these last forty years.Our club consisted originally of fifteen;but,partly by the severity of the law in arbitrary times,and partly by the natural effects of old age,we are at present reduced to a third part of that number:in which,however,we have this consolation that the best company is said to consist of five persons.I must confess,besides the aforementioned benefit which I meet with in the conversation of this select society,I am not the less pleased with the company,in that I find myself the greatest wit among them,and am heard as their oracle in all points of learning and difficulty.
Sir Jeoffery Notch,who is the oldest of the club,has been in possession of the right-hand chair time out of mind,and is the only man among us that has the liberty of stirring the fire.This our foreman is a gentleman of an ancient family,that came to a great estate some years before he had discretion,and run it out in hounds,horses,and cock-fighting;for which reason he looks upon himself as an honest,worthy gentleman,who has had misfortunes in the world,and calls every thriving man a pitiful upstart.
Major Matchlock is the next senior,who served in the last civil wars,and has all the battles by heart.He does not think any action in Europe worth talking of,since the fight of Marston Moor;and every night tells us of his having been knocked off his horse at the rising of the London apprentices;for which he is in great esteem among us.
Honest old Dick Reptile is the third of our society.He is a good-natured indolent man,who speaks little himself,but laughs at our jokes;and brings his young nephew along with him,a youth of eighteen years old,to show him good company,and give him a taste of the world.This young fellow sits generally silent;but whenever he opens his mouth,or laughs at anything that passes,he is constantly told by his uncle,after a jocular manner,"Ay,ay,Jack,you young men think us fools;but we old men know you are."The greatest wit of our company,next to myself,is a Bencher,of the neighbouring Inn,who in his youth frequented the ordinaries about Charing Cross,and pretends to have been intimate with Jack Ogle.He has about ten distichs of Hudibras without book,and never leaves the club till he has applied them all.If any modern wit be mentioned,or any town-frolic spoken of,he shakes his head at the dulness of the present age,and tells us a story of Jack Ogle.