Note 287 — A BOOK FOR A RAINY DAY (continued 2)

The Right Honourable James Caulfield, first Earl of Charlemont (1728-99), distinguished himself in Ireland politically; in London he mixed with the Reynolds and Johnson set and was a member of the Dilettanti Club. In the college at St. Andrews, which Johnson and Boswell playfully imagined might be staffed by members of the Literary Club, Lord Charlemont was assigned the chair of modern history, and it was on Lord Charlemont that Boswell, Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and others laid the task of bringing Dr. Johnson’s conversational powers into play by asking him whether a ludicrous statement in the newspapers that he was taking dancing lessons from Vestris was true.