The Town: Its Memorable Characters and EventsHunt, Leigh
History
The Town: Its Memorable Characters and Events
Hunt, Leigh
London (England) -- Description and travel; London (England) -- History
"Johnson, soon after this acquaintance began, passed a
considerable time at Oxford. He at first thought it strange
that Langton should associate so much with one who had the
character of being loose, both in his principles and practice,
but by degrees, he himself was fascinated. Mr. Beauclerc's
being of the St. Albans family, and having, in some
particulars, a resemblance to Charles the Second, contributed,
in Johnson's imagination, to throw a lustre upon his other
qualities; and, in a short time, the moral, pious Johnson, and
the gay, dissipated Beauclerc were companions. 'What a
coalition!' said Garrick, when he heard of this: 'I shall have
my old friend to bail out of the round-house.' But I can bear
testimony that it was a very agreeable association. Beauclerc
was too polite, and valued learning and wit too much, to offend
Johnson by sallies of infidelity or licentiousness; and Johnson
delighted in the good qualities of Beauclerc, and hoped to
correct the evil. Innumerable were the scenes in which Johnson
was amused by these young men. Beauclerc could take more
liberty with him than any body with whom I ever saw him; but,
on the other hand, Beauclerc was not spared by his respectable
companion, when reproof was proper. Beauclerc had such a
propensity to satire, that at one time, Johnson said to him,
'You never open your mouth but with intention to give pain, and
you have often given me pain, not from the power of what you
said, but from seeing your intention.' At another time,
applying to him, with a slight alteration, a line of Pope, he
said--
'Thy love of folly, and thy scorn of fools'--
Every thing thou dost shows the one, and every thing thou
say'st the other.' At another time he said to him, 'Thy body is
all vice, and thy mind all virtue.' Beauclerc not seeming to
relish the compliment, Johnson said, 'Nay, sir, Alexander the
Great, marching in triumph into Babylon, could not have desired
to have had more said to him.'"[183]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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