Miss Hawkins, in her _Memoirs_, names him as the person with whom Johnson was certainly seen to the fairest advantage. His deferent suave manner was the best foil possible to the Doctor’s extraordinary explosions. He had supreme self-command; no one ever saw him angry; and in most matters of life, as a genuine contrast to his beloved friend Beauclerk, he was apt to take things a shade too seriously. We learn from Mr. Henry Best, author of some good _Personal and Literary Memorials_, that the advance rumors of the French Revolution found Langton, in the fullest sense, an aristocrat; but it was not long before he became, from conviction, a thorough Liberal, and so remained, although he suffered a great unpopularity, owing to this change, in his native county. He wrote, in 1760, a little book of essays entitled _Rustics_, which never got beyond the passivity of manuscript. The year before, under the date of July 28th, Langton contributed to the pages of _The Idler_ the paper numbered 67 and entitled _A Scholar’s Journal_. It is a pleasant study of procrastination and of shifting plans, a gentle bit of humor to be ranked as autobiographic. There is an indorsement of Montrose in its heroic advice to “risk the certainty of little for the chance of much.” But Langton’s graceful academic pen was not destined to a public career. Perseverance of any sort was not native to him. He fulfilled beautifully, adds the vivacious Miss Hawkins, “the pious injunction of Sir Thomas Browne, ‘to sit quietly in the soft showers of Providence,’ and might, without injustice, be characterized as utterly unfit for every species of activity.” Yet at the call of duty, so well was the natural man dominated by his unclouded will, he girded himself to any exertion. Wine-drinking was habitual with him, and he felt its need to sharpen and rouse his intellect; “but the idea of Bennet Langton being what is called ‘overtaken,’” wrote the same associate whom we have been quoting, “is too preposterous to be dwelt on.” She furnishes one illustration of Langton’s Greek serenity. Talking to a company, of a chilly forenoon, in his own house, he paused to remark that if the fire lacked attention it might go out: a brief, casual, murmurous interruption. He resumed his discourse, breaking off presently, and pleading abstractedly with eye in air: “Pray ring for coals!” All sat looking at the fire, and so little solicitous about the impending catastrophe that presently Langton was off again on the stream of his softened eloquence. In a few minutes came another lull. “Did anybody answer that bell?” A general negative. “Did anybody ring that bell?” A sly shaking of heads. And once more the inspired monody soared among the clouds, at last dropping meditatively to the hearthstone: “Dear, dear, the fire is out!”