Quintin, and Calais), from Sept. 15 to Nov. 12. Ante, ii. 384, 401.
1776. Oxford, Lichfield, Ashbourn, March 19-29. (The trip was cut short by young Thrale's death.) Ante, ii. 438, and iii. 4.
Bath, from the middle of April to the beginning of May. Ante, iii. 44, 51.
Brighton, part of September and October; full seven weeks. Ante, iii. 92.
1777. Oxford, Lichfield, and Ashbourn, from about July 28 to about Nov. 6. Ante, iii. 129, 210, and Piozzi Letters, i. 348-396 and ii. 1-16 (the letter of Oct. 3, i. 396, is wrongly dated, as is shown by the mention of Foote's death).
Brighton, November; a visit of three days. Ante, iii. 210.
1778. Warley Camp, in Essex, September; about a week. Ante, iii. 360.
1779. Lichfield, Ashbourn, from May 20 to end of June. Ante, iii. 395, and Piozzi Letters, ii. 44-55.
Epsom, September; a few days. Pr. and Med. pp. 181, 225.
1780. Brighton. October. MS. letter dated Oct. 26, 1780 to Mr. Nichols in the British Museum.
1781. Oxford, Birmingham, Lichfield, Ashbourn, from Oct. 15 to Dec. 11. Post, iv. 135, and Croker's Boswell, p. 699, note 5.
1782. Oxford, June; about ten days. Post, iv. 151, and Piozzi Letters, ii. 243-249.
Brighton, part of October and November. Post, iv. 159.
1783. Rochester, July; about a fortnight. Post, iv. 233.
Heale near Salisbury, part of August and September; three weeks. Post, iv. 233, 239.
1784. Oxford, June; a fortnight. Post, iv. 283, 311.
Lichfield, Ashbourn, Oxford, from July 13 to Nov. 16. Post, iv. 353, 377.
That he was always eager to see the world is shown by many a passage in his writings and by the testimony of his biographers. How Macaulay, who knew his Boswell so well, could have accused him of 'speaking of foreign travel with the fierce and boisterous contempt of ignorance' would be a puzzle indeed, did we not know how often this great rhetorician was by the stream of his own mighty rhetoric swept far away from the unadorned strand of naked truth. To his unjust and insulting attack I shall content myself with opposing the following extracts which with some trouble I have collected:--
1728 or 1729. Johnson in his undergraduate days was one day overheard saying:--
'I have a mind to see what is done in other places of learning. I'll go and visit the Universities abroad. I'll go to France and Italy. I'll go to Padua.' Ante, i. 73.
1734. 'A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity, nor is that curiosity ever more agreeably or usefully employed than in examining the laws and customs of foreign nations.' Ante, i. 89.
1751. 'Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristicks of a vigorous intellect.' Rambler, No. 103. 'Curiosity is in great and generous minds the first passion and the last; and perhaps always predominates in proportion to the strength of the contemplative faculties.' Ib. No. 150.
1752. Francis Barber, describing Johnson's friends in 1752, says:--
'There was a talk of his going to Iceland with Mr. Diamond, which would probably have happened had he lived.' Ante, i. 242. Johnson, in a letter to the wife of the poet Smart, says, 'we have often talked of a voyage to Iceland.' Post, iv. 359 note. Mrs. Thrale wrote to him when he was in the Hebrides in 1773:--'Well! 'tis better talk of Iceland. Gregory challenges you for an Iceland expedition; but I trust there is no need; I suppose good eyes might reach it from some of the places you have been in.' Piozzi Letters, i. 188.
1761. Johnson wrote to Baretti:--
'I wish you had staid longer in Spain, for no country is less known to the rest of Europe.' Ante, i. 365. He twice recommended Boswell to perambulate Spain. Ante, i. 410, 455.
1763. 'Dr. Johnson flattered me (Boswell) with some hopes that he would, in the course of the following summer, come over to Holland, and accompany me in a tour through the Netherlands.' Ante, i. 470.
1772. He said that he had had some desire, though he soon laid it aside, to go on an expedition round the world with Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander. Ante, ii. 147.
1773. 'Dr. Johnson and I talked of going to Sweden.' Boswell's Hebrides, post, v. 215.
On Sept. 9, 1777, Boswell wrote to Johnson:--
'I shrink a little from our scheme of going up the Baltick: I am sorry you have already been in Wales; for I wish to see it.' Ante, iii. 134. Four days later Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'Boswell shrinks from the Baltick expedition, which, I think, is the best scheme in our power: what we shall substitute I know not. He wants to see Wales; but except the woods of Bachycraigh (post, v. 436), what is there in Wales, that can fill the hunger of ignorance, or quench the thirst of curiosity? We may, perhaps, form some scheme or other; but in the phrase of Hockley in the Hole, it is a pity he has not a better bottom.' Ib. note 1.
Boswell writes:--
'Martin's account of the Hebrides had impressed us with a notion that we might there contemplate a system of life almost totally different from what we had been accustomed to see....