When Beauclerc was labouring under the illness that carried him off, Johnson said to Boswell, in a faltering voice, that he "would walk to the extent of the diameter of the earth to save him." It does not appear what Beauclerc had in his nature to excite this tenderness; but it is observable, that Johnson had a kind of speculative regard for rakes and men of the town, if he thought them not essentially vicious. He seemed willing to regard them as evidences of the natural virtue of all men, bad as well as good, and of the excuse furnished for irregularity by animal spirits. It is not impossible even that he might have thought them rather conventionally than abstractedly vicious. He had a similar regard for Hervey, a great rake, who was very kind to him. "Sir," said he, "if you call a dog 'Hervey,' I shall love him." At the same time it is not to be forgotten, that these rakes were fine gentlemen and men of birth; representatives, in some respect, of the license assumed by authority. Beauclerc, however, like Hervey, had a taste for better things than he practised, and could love scrupulous men. Boswell has given an interesting account of his first intimacy with Johnson. Langton and Beauclerc had become intimate at Oxford. "Their opinions and mode of life," we are told, "were so different, that it seemed utterly impossible they should at all agree;" but Beauclerc "had so ardent a love of literature, so acute an understanding, such elegance of manners, and so well discerned the excellent qualities of Mr. Langton, a gentleman eminent not only for worth and learning, but for an inexhaustible fund of entertaining conversation, that they became intimate friends."
"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--
