'Johnson was no master of the great science of human nature. He had
studied, not the genus man, but the species Londoner. Nobody was ever so
thoroughly conversant with all the forms of life and all the shades of
moral and intellectual character which were to be seen from Islington to
the Thames, and from Hyde-Park corner to Mile-end green. But his
philosophy stopped at the first turnpike-gate. Of the rural life of
England he knew nothing, and he took it for granted that everybody who
lived in the country was either stupid or miserable.'
Of the two assertions that Macaulay makes in these two passages, while
one is for the most part true, the other is utterly and grossly false.
Johnson had no contempt for foreign travel. That curiosity which
animated his eager mind in so many parts of learning did not fail him,
when his thoughts turned to the great world outside our narrow seas. It
was his poverty that confined him so long to the neighbourhood of Temple
Bar. He must in these early days have sometimes felt with Arviragus when
he says:--
'What should we speak of
When we are old as you? when we shall hear
The rain and wind beat dark December, how
In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse
The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing.'
With his pension his wanderings at once began. His friendship with the
Thrales gave them a still wider range. His curiosity, which in itself
was always eager, was checked in his more prosperous circumstances by
his years, his natural unwillingness at any one moment to make an
effort, and by the want of travelling companions who were animated by a
spirit of inquiry and of enterprise equal to his own. He did indeed
travel much more than is commonly thought, and was far less frequently
to be seen rolling along Fleet-street or stemming the full tide of human
existence at Charing Cross than his biographers would have us believe.
The following table, imperfect though it must necessarily be, shows how
large a part of his life he passed outside 'the first turnpike-gate,'
and beyond the smoke of London:--
1709-1736. The first twenty-seven years of his life he spent in small
country towns or villages--Lichfield, Stourbridge, Oxford,
Market-Bosworth, Birmingham. So late as 1781 Lichfield did not contain
4,000 inhabitants (Harwood's _History of Lichfield_, p. 380); eight
years later it was reckoned that a little over 8,000 people dwelt in
Oxford (Parker's _Early History of Oxford_, ed. 1885, p. 229). In 1732
or 1733 Birmingham, when Johnson first went to live there, had not, I
suppose, a population of 10,000. Its growth was wonderfully rapid.
Between 1770 and 1797 its inhabitants increased from 30,000 to nearly
80,000 (_Birmingham Directory for_ 1780, p. xx, and _A Brief History of
Birmingham_, p. 8).
1736-7. The first eighteen months of his married life he lived quite in
the country at Edial, two miles from Lichfield. _Ante_, i. 97.
1737. He was twenty-eight years old when he removed to London. _Ante_,
i. 110.
1739. He paid a visit to Appleby in Leicestershire and to Ashbourn.
_Ante_, i. 82, 133 note 1.
1754. Oxford. July and August, about five weeks. _Ante_, i. 270, note 5.
1759. Oxford. July, length of visit not mentioned. _Ante_, i. 347.
1761-2. Lichfield. Winter, a visit of five days. _Ante_, i. 370.
1762. In the summer of this year his pension was granted, and he
henceforth had the means of travelling. _Ante_, i. 372.
A trip to Devonshire, from Aug. 16 to Sept. 26; six weeks. _Ante_, i.
377.
Oxford. December. 'I am going for a few days or weeks to Oxford.' Letter
of Dec. 21, 1762. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 129.
1763. Harwich. August, a few days. _Ante_, i. 464.
Oxford. October, length of visit not mentioned. A letter dated Oxford,
Oct. 27 [1763]. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 161.
1764. Langton in Lincolnshire, part of January and February. _Ante_, i.
476.
Easton Maudit in Northamptonshire, part of June, July, and August.
Croker's _Boswell_, p. 166, note, and _ante_, i. 486.
Oxford, October. Letter to Mr. Strahan dated Oxford, Oct. 24, 1764.
_Post, Addenda_ to vol. v.
Either this year or the next Johnson made the acquaintance of the
Thrales. For the next seventeen years he had 'an apartment appropriated
to him in the Thrales' villa at Streatham' (_ante_, i. 493), a handsome
house that stood in a small park. Streatham was a quiet country-village,
separated by wide commons from London, on one of which a highwayman had
been hanged who had there robbed Mr. Thrale (_ante_, iii. 239, note 2).
According to Mrs. Piozzi Johnson commonly spent the middle of the week
at their house, coming on the Monday night and returning to his own home
on the Saturday (_post_, iv. 169, note 3). Miss Burney, in 1778,
describes him 'as living almost wholly at Streatham' (_ante_, i. 493,
note 3). No doubt she was speaking chiefly of the summer half of the
year, for in the winter time the Thrales would be often in their town
house, where he also had his apartment. Mr. Strahan complained of his
being at Streatham 'in a great measure absorbed from the society of his
old friends' (_ante_, iii. 225). He used to call it 'my _home_' (_ante_,
i. 493, note 3).
1765. Cambridge, early in the year; a short visit. _Ante_, i. 487.
Brighton, autumn; a short visit. Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 126, and _Piozzi
Letters_, i. 1.
1766. Streatham, summer and autumn; more than three months. Ante, ii.
25, and _Pr. and Med_. p. 71.
Oxford, autumn; a month. _Ante_, ii. 25.
1767. Lichfield, summer and autumn; 'near six months.' _Ante_, ii. 30,
and _Piozzi Letters_, i. 4, 5.
1768. Oxford, spring; several weeks. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 6-15.
Townmalling in Kent, September; apparently a short visit. _Pr. and Med_.
p. 81.
1769. Oxford, from at least May 18 to July 7. _Piozzi Letters_, i.
19-23, and _ante_, ii. 67.
Lichfield and Ashbourn, August; a short visit. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 24,
and _ante_, ii. 67.
Brighton, part of August and September; some weeks. _Ante_, ii. 68, 70,
and Croker's _Boswell_, p. 198, letter dated 'Brighthelmstone. August
26, 1769.'
1770. Lichfield and Ashbourn, apparently whole of July. _Piozzi
Letters_, i. 26-32.
1771. Lichfield and Ashbourn, from June 20 to after Aug. 5. _Ante_, ii.
141, 142, and _Piozzi Letters_, i. 36-54.
1772. Lichfield and Ashbourn, from about Oct. 15 to early in December.
_Piozzi Letters_, i. 55-69.
1773. Oxford, April; a hurried visit. _Ante_, ii. 235, note 2.
Tour to Scotland from Aug. 6 to Nov. 26. _Ante_, ii. 265, 268.
Oxford, part of November and December. _Ante_, ii. 268.
1774. Tour to North Wales (Derbyshire, Chester, Conway, Anglesey,
Snowdon, Shrewsbury, Worcester, Birmingham, Oxford, Beaconsfield) from
July 5 to Sept. 30. _Ante_, ii. 285, and _post_, v. 427.
1775. Oxford, March; a short visit. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 212.
Oxford, Lichfield, Ashbourn, from end of May till some time in August.
_Ante_, ii. 381, and _Piozzi Letters_, i. 223-301.
Brighton; apparently a brief visit in September. Croker's _Boswell_, p.
459.
A tour to Paris (going by Calais and Rouen and returning by Compiegne,
St. 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.