Johnson of London

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Part 21. The Light in the Window

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.’

Part 19. Levet Gone

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.

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Part 17. At Oxford Again

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.’

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Part 14. In Lichfield

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.’

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Part 13. An Excursion

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

Part 12. The Mitre Tavern

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.’