Mr. Langton afterwards went to pursue his studies at Trinity College, Oxford, where he formed an acquaintance with his fellow student, Mr. Topham Beauclerk; who, though their opinions and modes of life were so different, that it seemed utterly improbable that they should at all agree, 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. Beauclerk’s being of the St. Alban’s 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 Beauclerk, 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.  Beauclerk 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 Beauclerk, and hoped to correct the evil.  Innumerable were the scenes in which Johnson was amused by these young men.  Beauclerk could take more liberty with him, than any body with whom I ever saw him; but, on the other hand, Beauclerk was not spared by his respectable companion, when reproof was proper.  Beauclerk 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 shews 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.’  Beauclerk 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.’

Johnson was some time with Beauclerk at his house at Windsor, where he was entertained with experiments in natural philosophy.  One Sunday, when the weather was very fine, Beauclerk enticed him, insensibly, to saunter about all the morning.  They went into a church-yard, in the time of divine service, and Johnson laid himself down at his ease upon one of the tomb-stones.  ’Now, Sir, (said Beauclerk) you are like Hogarth’s Idle Apprentice.’  When Johnson got his pension, Beauclerk said to him, in the humorous phrase of Falstaff, ’I hope you’ll now purge and live cleanly like a gentleman.’