"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. Beauclerc's being of the St. Albans 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 Beauclerc 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. Beauclerc 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 Beauclerc, and hoped to correct the evil. Innumerable were the scenes in which Johnson was amused by these young men. Beauclerc could take more liberty with him than any body with whom I ever saw him; but, on the other hand, Beauclerc was not spared by his respectable companion, when reproof was proper. Beauclerc 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 shows 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.' Beauclerc 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.'"[183]
The streets in the Adelphi—John, Robert, Adam, &c.—are named from the builders. In this instance, the names are well bestowed; but the "fond attempt," on the part of bricklayers and builders in general to give a "deathless lot" to their names in the same way, is very idle. Wherever we go now-a-days, among the new buildings, especially in the suburbs, we meet with names that nobody knows anything about, nor ever will know. Probably, as knowledge increases, this custom will go out. With this exception, streets in the British metropolis have hitherto been named after royalty or nobility, or from local circumstances, or from saints. Saints went out with popery. The reader of the Spectator will recollect the dilemma which Sir Roger de Coverley underwent in his youth, from not knowing whether to ask for Marylebone or Saint Marylebone. In Paris they have streets named after men of letters. There is the Quai de Voltaire; and one of the most frequented thoroughfares in that metropolis, for it contains the Post-Office, is Jean Jacques Rousseau Street. It is not unlikely that a similar custom will take place in England before long. A nobleman, eminent for his zeal in behalf of the advancement of society, has called a road in his neighbourhood, Addison Road.[184]
In John Street, Adelphi, are the rooms of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. This society originated in 1753, at the suggestion of Mr. Shipley, an artist, and, as the title implies, is very miscellaneous in its object; perhaps too much so to make sufficient impression. It gives rewards for discoveries of all sorts, and for performances of youth in the fine arts. It is, however, one of those combinations of zealous and intelligent men, which have marked the progress of latter times, and which will have an incalculable effect on posterity. Its great room is adorned with the celebrated pictures of Mr. Barry, which he painted in order to refute the opinion that Englishmen had no genius for the higher department of art, no love of music, &c., nor a proper relish of anything, "even life itself." The statement of these positions was not so discreet as the paintings were clever. Mr. Barry was one of those impatient, self-willed men who, with a portion of genuine power, think it greater than it is, and will not take the pains to make themselves masters of their own weapons. His pictures in the Adelphi, which are illustrations of the progress of society, are striking, ingenious, with great elegance here and there, and now and then an evidence of the highest feeling; as in the awful pity of the retributive angel who presides over the downfall of the wicked and tyrannical. But the colouring is bad and "foxy;" his Elysium is deformed with the heterogeneous dresses of all ages, William Penn talking in a wig and hat with Lycurgus, &c. (which, however philosophically such things might be regarded in another world, are not fitly presented to the eye in this); and by way of disproving the bad taste of the English in music, he has put Dr. Burney in a coat and toupee, floating among the water nymphs! The consequence is, that although these pictures are, perhaps, the best ever exhibited together in England by one artist, they fall short of what he intended to establish by them, as far as England is concerned.
Between Adam Street and George Street, on the other side of the Strand, is Bedford Street, the site of an old mansion of the Earls and Dukes of Bedford.
With George Street commence the precincts of an ancient "Inn," or palace, originally belonging to the Bishops of Norwich; then to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk; then to the Archbishops of York, from whom it was called York House; then to the Crown, who let it to Lord Chancellor Egerton and to Bacon; then to the Duke of Buckingham, the favourite, who rebuilt it with great magnificence, and at whose death it was let to the Earl of Northumberland; and finally to the second Duke of Buckingham, who pulled it down and converted it into the present streets and alleys, the names of which contain his designation at full length, even to the sign of the genitive case, for there is an "Of Alley:" so that we have George, Villiers, Duke, Of, Buckingham.
Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, was the man who, on his marriage with Henry VIII.'s sister, appeared at a tournament on a horse that had a cloth half frieze and half gold, with that touching motto—
Cloth of gold, do not thou despise,
Though thou be matched with cloth of frize: