OLIYEK GOLDSMITH'S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK m.

1763. or Divider shape in tile fancy, than Bennet Langton's. He was
m. 35. six feet six inches high, very meagre, stooped very much,
pulled out an ohlong gold snuff-box whenever he began to
talk, and had a habit of sitting with one leg twisted round
the other and his hands locked together on his knee, as if
fearing to occupy more space than was equitable.* Beauclerc
said he was like the stork standing on one leg, in Raffaelle's
cartoon ;t but good-naturedly; for the still surviving affection
of their college-days checked even Beauclerc's propensity to
satire, and as freely still, as in those college-days, Johnson
frisked and philosophised with his Lanky and his Beau. The
man of fashion had changed as little as the easy, kindly scholar.
Alternating, as in his Oxford career, pleasure and literature,
the tavern and the court, books and the gaming table, J he had
but widened the scene of his wit and folly, bis reasoning and
merriment, his polished manners and well-bred contempt,
his acuteness and maliciousness. Between the men of letters

* Miss Hawkins's Memoirs, ii. 282.

•j- Mr. Best (Personal and Literary Memorials, 62), gives another authority for
this saying. '' In early youth I knew Bennet Langton . . he was a very tall, meagre,
" long-visaged man, much resembling, according to Eichard Paget, a stork standing
" on one leg near the shore, in Raphael's cartoon of the miraculous draught of
" fishes. His manners were, in the highest degree, polished ; his conversation
' * mild, equable, and always pleasing. He had the uncommon faculty ('tis strange it
" should be an uncommon faculty,) of being a good reader; and read Shakspeare
" with such animation, such just intonation and inflexion of the voice, that they
" who heard him declared themselves more delighted with his recitation than with
'( an exhibition of the same dramatic piece on the stage." It may be worth mention
that Langton succeeded Johnson as professor of ancient literature in the Royal
Academy; and as I cannot always praise Miss Hawkins, I,may as well add that
her sketch of Langton is very agreeable. Not that even her UHng for Mm, how-
ever, is free from uncomfortable touches; '' for," she says, '' we females of the family
'' might get through much occupation of the after-breakfast description, drive out
"for two or three hours, return and dress, and my mother might turn in her
" mind the postponement of dinner, all within the compass of a morning visit from
" Bennet Langton. But I never saw my father weary of his conversation, or
" knew any body complain of him as a visitor." Memoirs, i. 233, 234.

J He wasted a fortune in pleasure and at the gaming-table, yet at his death his
library was sold by auction for upwards of 6000Z. With it was sold, let me add,specimen of that faculty of sudden and familiar illustration which Burke