properly recommended, and even wished to see numbers at his _levee_[729],
as his morning circle of company might, with strict propriety, be
called. Mr. Langton was exceedingly surprised when the sage first
appeared. He had not received the smallest intimation of his figure,
dress, or manner. From perusing his writings, he fancied he should see a
decent, well-drest, in short, a remarkably decorous philosopher. Instead
of which, down from his bedchamber, about noon, came, as newly risen, a
huge uncouth figure, with a little dark wig which scarcely covered his
head, and his clothes hanging loose about him. But his conversation was
so rich, so animated, and so forcible, and his religious and political
notions so congenial with those in which Langton had been educated, that
he conceived for him that veneration and attachment which he ever
preserved. Johnson was not the less ready to love Mr. Langton, for his
being of a very ancient family; for I have heard him say, with pleasure,
'Langton, Sir, has a grant of free warren from Henry the Second; and
Cardinal Stephen Langton, in King John's reign, was of this family[730].'

[Page 248: Topham Beauclerk. A.D. 1752.]

Mr. Langton afterwards went to pursue his studies at Trinity College,
Oxford, where he formed an acquaintance with his fellow student, Mr.
Topham Beauclerk[731]; 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[732], that they
became intimate friends.

[Page 249: Topham Beauclerk. AEtat 43.]