Beauclerk

“ As we close it, the club-room is before us, and the table on which stands the omelet for Nugent, and the lemons for Johnson. There are assembled those heads which live for ever on the canvass of 20 Reynolds. There are the spectacles of Burke and the tall thin form of Langton, the courtly sneer of Beauclerk, and the beaming smile of Garrick, Gibbon tapping his snuff-box, and Sir Joshua with his trumpet in his ear. ”

“ Johnson, Reynolds, Burke, Beauclerk, Langton, Goldsmith, Garrick, Major Mills, Cumberland, Whitefoord, Fitzherbert and the portly Adam Drummond—famed for his laughter, infectious and far-resounding—are about the board. Johnson is all vivacity, poor Goldsmith all gloom and unable to eat a morsel. ”

“ His residence at Thanet House lasted until 1778.
In the following year the Bloomsbury Rentals show that the Hon. Topham Beauclerk was in occupation. Topham Beauclerk, born in 1739, was the only son of Lord Sydney Beauclerk. A man of wide reading and sprightly conversation, he owes his fame principally to his great friendship with Dr. Johnson, and the space which he occupies in the latter’s great biography. He married Lady Diana Spencer, eldest daughter of the second Duke of Marlborough, formerly wife of Lord Bolingbroke. ”

“ Among his friends, Beauclerk seems most to have engaged his love, Langton his respect, and Burke his admiration. The first was conspicuous for wit, liveliness of feelings, and gaiety; the next for rectitude of conduct, piety, and learning; the last for knowledge, sagacity, and eloquence. His praise of Reynolds, that he was the most invulnerable of men, one of whom, if he had a quarrel with him, he should find it the most difficult to say any ill, was praise rather of the negative kind. The younger Warton, he contrived to alienate from him, as is related in the life of that poet. ”

“ 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 [734] ; 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 [735] .' 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 ”

“ Johnson then said, 'It was his business to command his temper, as my friend, Mr. Beauclerk, should have done some time ago.' BEAUCLERK. 'I should learn of you, Sir.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you have given me opportunities enough of learning, when I have been in your company. No man loves to be treated with contempt.' BEAUCLERK. (with a polite inclination towards Johnson) 'Sir, you have known me twenty years, and however I may have treated others, you may be sure I could never treat you with contempt' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you have said more than was necessary.' Thus it ended ”

“ A laudable and good example, worthy the learning of this King, who deservedly had the name of Beauclerk, or the fine scholar; for Fuller says, "he was one that crossed the common proverb, the greatest clerks are not the wisest men, being one of the most profound scholars, and most politick princes in his generation." ”

“ As Johnson and I accompanied Sir Joshua Reynolds in his coach, Johnson said, 'There is in Beauclerk a predominance over his company, that one does not like. But he is a man who has lived so much in the world, that he has a short story on every occasion ”

“ Mr. Johnson and I were always lucky before he went abroad.' She spoke with a provoking smile at Colonel Montague, and then shot a quick glance at Lord Sidney Beauclerk, who was now risen from the table, and stood in a window watching her.
The glance said plain as writing, 'You understand. I have to face out the ballad. I can trust you.' Wogan's blood boiled as he noticed and read the look, for it was just that tender appeal to her lover's faith which always brought about the lover's undoing. ”

“ To be sure it may be done so much, that a man may deserve to be kicked.' BEAUCLERK. 'He is very malignant.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; he is not malignant. He is mischievous, if you will. He would do no man an essential injury; he may, indeed, love to make sport of people by vexing their vanity. I, however, once knew an old gentleman who was absolutely malignant. He really wished evil to others, and rejoiced at it.' BOSWELL. 'The gentleman, Mr. Beauclerk, against whom you are so violent, is, I know, a man of good principles.' BEAUCLERK. 'Then he does not wear them out in practice [821] .'
Dr. ”

“ This day [1167] a violent altercation arose between Johnson and Beauclerk, [1168] which having made much noise at the time, I think it proper, in order to prevent any future misrepresentation, to give a minute account of it.
In talking of Hackman, Johnson argued, as Judge Blackstone had done, that his being furnished with two pistols was a proof that he meant to shoot two persons. Mr. Beauclerk said, 'No; for that every wise man who intended to shoot himself, took two pistols, that he might be sure of doing it at once. ”

“ Beauclerk is the only one of his friends who was not a man of high character. His feeling for Boswell was not a love of vice or folly. He saw Boswell at his best, no doubt: but that best must have had very real and positive good qualities in it to win from Johnson such a remark as he {56} makes in one of his letters: "Never, my dear sir, do you take it into your head to think that I do not love you; you may settle yourself in full confidence both of my love and my esteem; I love you as a kind man, I value you as a worthy man, and hope in time to reverence you as a man of exemplary piety. ”

“ The Conqueror took special care of the education of his children. Henry Beauclerk was educated at Abingdon Abbey, under the care of Faricius, an Italian monk of Malmsbury. The proficiency of the young prince as displayed by his version of Æsop’s fables, is commonly said to have earned him his learned sobriquet ”

“ I saw Lord Frederick Beauclerk, when very old, bowl a few balls, and his extreme accuracy of pitch must have made him an excellent bowler. He was very slow with a quick rise. Old Chad, our bowler at Harrow, could bowl very good balls at times, and if in his younger days he could have repeated them, as he used to declare he could, he certainly must have been a good man. I once saw Browne of Brighton bowl in a single-wicket match, but I do not think he would have been superior to Kirwan. ”

“ Every specimen preserved of his talk is perfect of its kind, and makes us long for a full index. Pointed his speech was, always, and reminds one indeed of a foil, but without the button; a dangerous little weapon, somewhat unfair, but carried with such consummate flourish that those whom it pricks could almost cheer it. “O Lord! how I did hate that horrid Beauclerk!” Mrs. Piozzi scribbled once on the margin of Wraxall’s Memoirs, in an exquisite [196] feminine vindication of poor Beau’s accomplished tongue. ”

“ When Eustace Budgel was walking down to the Thames, determined to drown himself, he might, if he pleased, without any apprehension of danger, have turned aside, and first set fire to St. James's palace.'
On Tuesday, April 27, Mr. Beauclerk and I called on him in the morning. As we walked up Johnson's-court, I said, 'I have a veneration for this court;' and was glad to find that Beauclerk had the same reverential enthusiasm. We found him alone. We talked of Mr. Andrew Stuart's elegant and plausible Letters to Lord Mansfield: a copy of which had been sent by the authour to Dr. ”

“ Lady Oxford flirted her fan before her face.
A murmur almost of applause ran from group to group of the company.
Mr. Wogan, who loved the game of tennis, marked 'Fifteen—all.'
At that moment a clock upon the mantelshelf chimed the half-hour. In fifteen minutes the Parson would arrive, and Mr. Wogan had not played his hand. He moved a few yards from the table at which Lord Sidney Beauclerk, with his eyes upon Lady Oxford, was dealing the cards, and stood apart by the empty table, wondering how he should do. ”

“ Readers may recall a passage in Miss Burney’s Diary which gives countenance to an accusation not borne out by any other testimony, that Beauclerk and his wife had not lived happily together. Dining [208] at Sir Joshua’s at Richmond, in 1782, Edmund Burke, sitting next the author of Evelina, took occasion, on catching sight of Lady Di’s “pretty white house” through the trees, to rejoice in the fact that she was well-housed, moneyed, and a widow. He added that he had never enjoyed the good-fortune of another so keenly as in this blessed instance. ”

“ It shows something of his spirit that whereas no member of the Club save himself was a frequenter of White’s and Betty’s, [50] or a chosen guest at Strawberry Hill, yet there was no person of fashion whom he was not proud to make known to Doctor Johnson whenever he judged [194] the candidate for so genuine an honor worthy of it. Some of these encounters must have been queer and memorable!
Beauclerk’s unresting sarcasm often flattened out Boswell and irritated the Doctor, though Bennet Langton, in his abandonments of enthusiastic optimism, was never more than grazed. ”

“ That man who now takes the bat, has not, perhaps, nor ever will have, a superior. Stand up, Tom Walker! show thy scraggy frame, thy apple-John face, thy spiderlegs, thick at the ankles as at the hips, thy knuckles like the bark of the Hainault oak! Tom had neither flesh, nor blood, nor skin. He was all muscle, tendon, gristle, covered with the hide of the rhinoceros. You might as well attempt to get Wellington from a field of battle, or Bentley from a Greek poet, as to get Tom from his wicket. Once Lord Frederick Beauclerk was bowling to him ”

“ Johnson was willing in this case to be reconciled, and Reynolds observes that, after he had given offence by his rudeness, he was always the first to seek for reconciliation (Taylor, Reynolds, ii. 457) .
Beauclerk hoped that Johnson would now ‘purge and live cleanly like a gentleman,’ and for the rest of his life Johnson was free from pecuniary troubles. He paid off old debts and made loans to friends. He was enabled to indulge his constitutional indolence and to write comparatively little. ‘No man but a blockhead,’ he said, ‘ever wrote except for money’ (ib. iii. 19) . ”

“ Beauclerk's death, when it became Mr. Langton's property, he made the inscription be defaced. Johnson said complacently, 'It was kind in you to take it off;' and then after a short pause, added, 'and not unkind in him to put it on.'
He said, 'How few of his friends' houses would a man choose to be at when he is sick.' He mentioned one or two. I recollect only Thrale's [568] .
He observed, 'There is a wicked inclination in most people to suppose an old man decayed in his intellects. If a young or middle-aged man, when leaving a company, does not recollect where he laid his hat, it is nothing ”

“ Vesey's [1311] , where Lord Althorpe [1312] , who was one of a numerous company there, addressed Dr. Johnson on the subject of Mr. Beauclerk's death, saying, "Our CLUB has had a great loss since we met last." He replied, "A loss, that perhaps the whole nation could not repair!" The Doctor then went on to speak of his endowments, and particularly extolled the wonderful ease with which he uttered what was highly excellent. He said, that "no man ever was so free when he was going to say a good thing, from a look that expressed that it was coming ”

“ How little does travelling supply to the conversation of any man who has travelled; how little to Beauclerk!' BOSWELL. 'What say you to Lord ———?' JOHNSON. 'I never but once heard him talk of what he had seen, and that was of a large serpent in one of the Pyramids of Egypt.' BOSWELL. 'Well, I happened to hear him tell the same thing, which made me mention him.'
I talked of a country life. JOHNSON. 'Were I to live in the country, I would not devote myself to the acquisition of popularity; I would live in a much better way, much more happily ”

“ Browne, tersely.
There is another rather long silence, and Dicky is beginning to think he has gone a trifle too far, and that Miss Kavanagh will cut him to-morrow, when she speaks again. Her tone is composed, but icy enough to freeze him.
"It is a mistake," says she, "to discuss people towards whom one feels a natural antagonism. It leads, one, perhaps, to say more than one actually means. One is apt to grow unjust. I would never discuss Mr. Beauclerk if I were you. You don't like him." ”

“ In 1779 Boswell was careless, though twice in London, and in 1780, he did not pay his annual visit. Boswell has partly filled up the gap by a collection of sayings made by Langton, some passages from which have been quoted, and his correspondence gives various details. Garrick died in January of 1779, and Beauclerk in March, 1780. Johnson himself seems to have shown few symptoms of increasing age ”

“ Bennet Langton, distinguished by his skill in Greek literature, by the orthodoxy of his opinions, and by the sanctity of his life; and Topham Beauclerk, renowned for his amours, his knowledge of the gay world, his fastidious taste, and his sarcastic wit. To predominate over such a society was not easy. Yet even over such a society Johnson predominated. Burke might indeed have disputed the supremacy to which others were under the necessity of submitting. But Burke, though not generally a very patient listener, was content to take the second part when Johnson was present ”