Johnson was a frequent visitor to Adelphi Terrace, for not only was he on intimate terms with Mr and Mrs Garrick, but another of his friends, Topham Beauclerk, lived there at one time. From 1757 to 1780, there are frequent and most kindly allusions to him in the pages of Boswell. In the former year, he matriculated at Oxford. Here he met another of Johnson's friends—"High, shy, and dry" Bennet Langton, the eminent Greek scholar. Beauclerk was a man of culture and of great knowledge of the world. And he had the good fortune to win the affectionate regard of Dr Johnson. On March 10, 1768, Lady Diana Spencer, eldest daughter of the second Duke of Marlborough, was divorced from her husband, Lord St John and Bolingbroke, and, two days later, she was married to Beauclerk, to whom "she made an excellent wife." Beauclerk died, in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, on March 11, 1780. His extensive library, which was particularly rich in English plays, history, travel, and science, was dispersed by auction in 1781.
On Friday, April 20, 1781, there was a memorable dinner party in Adelphi Terrace, the first of the kind given by Mrs Garrick since the death of her husband. "We begin now," records Hannah More, who was staying with Mrs Garrick at the time, "to be a little cheerful at home, and to have our small parties. One such we have just had, and the day and evening turned out very pleasant. Johnson was in full song, and I quarrelled with him sadly. I accused him of not having done justice to the Allegro and Penseroso. He spoke disparagingly of both. I praised Lycidas, which he absolutely abused, adding, 'If Milton had not written the Paradise Lost, he would have only ranked among the minor poets: he was a Phidias that could cut a Colossus out of a rock, but could not cut heads out of cherry-stones.
"Boswell brought to my mind the whole of a very mirthful conversation at dear Mrs Garrick's, and my being made by Sir William Forbes the umpire in a trial of skill between Garrick and Boswell, which could most nearly imitate Dr Johnson's manner. I remember I gave it for Boswell in familiar conversation, and for Garrick in reciting poetry. Mrs Boscawen shone with her usual mild lustre."
Boswell, in recording this auspicious event in the history of the Adelphi, says that it was "one of the happiest days that I remember to have enjoyed in the whole course of my life. Mrs Garrick, whose grief for the loss of her husband was, I believe, as sincere as wounded affection and admiration could produce, had this day, for the first time since his death, a select party of his friends to dine with her. The company was, Miss Hannah More, who lived with her, and whom she called her chaplain; Mrs Boscawen, Mrs Elizabeth Carter, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr Burney, Dr Johnson, and myself. We found ourselves very elegantly entertained at her house in the Adelphi, where I have passed many a pleasing hour with him who gladdened life. She looked well, talked of her husband with complacency, and while she cast her eyes on his portrait, which hung over the chimney-piece, said, that 'death was now the most agreeable object to her.' The very semblance of David Garrick was cheering. Mr Beauclerk, with happy propriety, inscribed under that fine portrait of him, which by Lady Diana's kindness is now the property of my friend, Mr Langton, the following passage from his beloved Shakespeare:—
'A merrier man,
Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal.
His eye begets occasion for his wit;
For every object that the one doth catch,
The other turns to a mirth-moving jest;
Which his fair tongue (Conceit's expositor)
Delivers in such apt and gracious words,
That aged ears play truant at his tales,
And younger hearings are quite ravished;
So sweet and voluble is his discourse.'
"We were all in fine spirits; and I whispered to Mrs Boscawen, 'I believe this is as much as can be made of life.' In addition to a splendid entertainment, we were regaled with Lichfield ale, which had a peculiar appropriate value. Sir Joshua, and Dr Burney, and I, drank cordially of it to Dr Johnson's health; and though he would not join us, he as cordially answered, 'Gentlemen, I wish you all as well as you do me.'
"The general effect of this day dwells upon my mind in fond remembrance: but I do not find much conversation recorded. What I have preserved shall be faithfully given.
"One of the company mentioned Mr Thomas Hollis, the strenuous Whig, who used to send over Europe, presents of democratical books, with their boards stamped with daggers and caps of liberty. Mrs Carter said, 'he was a bad man: he used to talk uncharitably.' Johnson: 'Poh! poh! Madam; who is the worse for being talked of uncharitably? Besides, he was a dull poor creature as ever lived: and I believe he would not have done harm to a man whom he knew to be of very opposite principles to his own. I remember once at the Society of Arts, when an advertisement was to be drawn up, he pointed me out as the man who could do it best. This, you will observe, was kindness to me. I, however, slipped away, and escaped it.'
"Mrs Carter having said of the same person, 'I doubt he was an atheist.' Johnson: 'I don't know that. He might perhaps have become one, if he had time to ripen (smiling). He might have exuberated into an atheist.'
"Sir Joshua Reynolds praised Mudge's Sermons. Johnson: 'Mudge's Sermons are good but not practical. He grasps more corn than he can make into meal; he opens a wide prospect, but it is so distant, it is indistinct. I love Blair's Sermons. Though the dog is a Scotchman, and a Presbyterian, and everything he should not be, I was the first to praise them. Such was my candour' (smiling). Mrs Boscawen: 'Such his great merit, to get the better of all your prejudices.' Johnson: 'Why, Madam, let us compound the matter; let us ascribe it to my candour and his merit.'