Johnson of London

Boswell: ‘Who can we look to, now that Johnson’s gone? Go to the next man. There is none. No one can be said to put you in mind of Johnson.’

Johnson takes time to look back through the books he has written.

Johnson’s tour of friends is over for this year, and he is now back in London. This morning he went to the funeral of Robert Levet. Losing old friends is beginning to take its toll.

Johnson goes to Uttoxeter, where he has a job to do.

Johnson: ‘It is strange how geography, a place, can fool us. Standing on these stones I feel just as I felt when I was here at 19.’

The Thrales give a dinner for Johnson and his friends.

Johnson finally visits Scotland.

Johnson: ‘It doesn’t matter where you were born. But where you were a child, that’s what’s important. That’s the place where you opened your eyes to the world.’

Johnson: “I can laugh and drink and be brilliant with the best of them, but then sooner or later I have to face myself.”

The Mitre Tavern in Fleet Street was one of Johnson’s favourite inns. For him it was an escape from himself. ‘A tavern chair is the throne of human felicity.’