JOHNSON'S TRAVELS AND LOVE OF TRAVELLING.
(Page 352).
On the passage in the text Macaulay in his Review of Croker's Edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson partly founds the following criticism:—
'Johnson's visit to the Hebrides introduced him to a state of society completely new to him; and a salutary suspicion of his own deficiencies seems on that occasion to have crossed his mind for the first time. He confessed, in the last paragraph of his Journey, that his thoughts on national manners were the thoughts of one who had seen but little, of one who had passed his time almost wholly in cities. This feeling, however, soon passed away. It is remarkable that to the last he entertained a fixed contempt for all those modes of life and those studies which tend to emancipate the mind from the prejudices of a particular age or a particular nation. Of foreign travel and of history he spoke with the fierce and boisterous contempt of ignorance. "What does a man learn by travelling? Is Beauclerk the better for travelling? What did Lord Charlemont learn in his travels, except that there was a snake in one of the pyramids of Egypt?"' Macaulay's Essays, ed. 1843, i. 403.
In another passage (p. 400) Macaulay says:—
'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.
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…. Dr. Johnson told me that his father put Martin's account into his hands when he was very young, and that he was much pleased with it.' Post, v. 13.
From the Hebrides Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—
'I have a desire to instruct myself in the whole system of pastoral life; but I know not whether I shall be able to perfect the idea. However, I have many pictures in my mind, which I could not have had without this journey; and should have passed it with great pleasure had you, and Master, and Queeney been in the party. We should have excited the attention and enlarged the observation of each other, and obtained many pleasing topicks of future conversation.' Piozzi Letters, i. 159. 'We travelled with very little light in a storm of wind and rain; we passed about fifty-five streams that crossed our way, and fell into a river that, for a very great part of our road, foamed and roared beside us; all the rougher powers of nature except thunder were in motion, but there was no danger. I should have been sorry to have missed any of the inconveniencies, to have had more light or less rain, for their co-operation crowded the scene and filled the mind.' Ib. p. 177.
See post, v. 334 for the splendid passage in which, describing the emotions raised in his mind by the sight of Iona, he says:—
'Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings…. That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plains of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.'
Macaulay seems to have had the echo of these lines still in his ear, when he described imagination as 'that noble faculty whereby man is able to live in the past and in the future, in the distant and in the unreal.' Essays, ed. 1853, iii. 167.
1774. When he saw some copper and iron works in Wales he wrote:—
'I have enlarged my notions.' Post, v. 442. See also ante, iii. 164.
His letter to Warren Hastings shows his curiosity about India. Ante, iv. 68.
1775. The Thrales had just received a sum of £14,000. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—
'If I had money enough, what would I do? Perhaps, if you and master did not hold me, I might go to Cairo, and down the Red Sea to Bengal, and take a ramble to India. Would this be better than building and planting? It would surely give more variety to the eye, and more amplitude to the mind. Half fourteen thousand would send me out to see other forms of existence, and bring me back to describe them.' Piozzi Letters, i. 266.
'Regions mountainous and wild, thinly inhabited and little cultivated, make a great part of the earth, and he that has never seen them must live unacquainted with much of the face of nature, and with one of the great scenes of human existence.' Johnson's Works, ix. 36. 'All travel has its advantages. If the traveller visits better countries he may learn to improve his own; and if fortune carries him to worse he may learn to enjoy it.' Ib. p. 136.
To Dr. Taylor he wrote:—
'I came back last Tuesday from France. Is not mine a kind of life turned upside down? Fixed to a spot when I was young, and roving the world when others are contriving to sit still, I am wholly unsettled. I am a kind of ship with a wide sail, and without an anchor.' Ante, ii. 387, note 2.
1776. In the spring of this year everything was settled for his journey to Italy with the Thrales. Hannah More wrote (Memoirs, i. 74):—
'Johnson and Mr. Boswell have this day set out for Oxford, Lichfield, &c., that the Doctor may take leave of all his old friends previous to his great expedition across the Alps. I lament his undertaking such a journey at his time of life, with beginning infirmities. I hope he will not leave his bones on classic grounds.'
Boswell tells how—
'Speaking with a tone of animation Johnson said, "We must, to be sure, see Rome, Naples, Florence, and Venice, and as much more as we can."' Ante, iii. 19.
When the journey was put off by the sudden death of Mr. Thrale's son,
Boswell wrote:—
'I perceived that he had so warmly cherished the hope of enjoying classical scenes, that he could not easily part with the scheme; for he said, "I shall probably contrive to get to Italy some other way."' Ib. p. 28.
A day later Boswell wrote:—
'A journey to Italy was still in his thoughts. He said, "A man who has not been in Italy is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see. The grand object of travelling is to see the shores of the Mediterranean."' Ib. p. 36. 'Johnson's desire to go abroad, particularly to see Italy, was very great; and he had a longing wish, too, to leave some Latin verses at the Grand Chartreux. He loved indeed the very act of travelling…. He was in some respects an admirable companion on the road, as he piqued himself upon feeling no inconvenience, and on despising no accommodations.' Piozzi's Anec. p. 168.
Johnson, this same year, speaking of a friend who had gone to the East
Indies, said:—
'I had some intention of accompanying him. Had I thought then as I do now, I should have gone.' Ante, iii. 20. According to Mr. Tyers he once offered to attend another friend to India. Moreover 'he talked much of travelling into Poland to observe the life of the Palatines, the account of which struck his curiosity very much.' Johnsoniana, ed. 1836, p. 157.
1777. Boswell wrote to Johnson this year (ante, iii. 107):—
'You have, I believe, seen all the cathedrals in England except that of
Carlisle.'
This was not the case, yet most of them he had already seen or lived to see. With Lichfield, Oxford, and London he was familiar. Winchester and Exeter he had seen in 1762 on his tour to Devonshire (ante, i. 377), Peterborough, Ely, Lincoln, York, and Durham he no doubt saw in 1773 on his way to Scotland. The first three he might also have seen in 1764 on his visit to Langton (ante, i. 476). Chester, St. Asaph, Bangor, and Worcester he visited in 1774 in his journey to Wales (post, v. 435, 436, 448, 456). Through Canterbury he almost certainly passed in 1775 on his way to France (ante, ii. 384). Bristol he saw in 1776 (ante, iii. 51). To Chichester he drove from Brighton in 1782 (post, iv. 160). Rochester and Salisbury he visited in the summer of 1783 (post, iv. 233). Wells he might easily have seen when he was at Bath in 1776 (ante, iii. 44), and possibly Gloucester. Through Norwich he perhaps came on his return from Lincolnshire in 1764 (ante, i. 476). Hereford, I think, he could not have visited.
When in the September of this year Johnson and Boswell were driving in Dr. Taylor's chaise to Derby, 'Johnson strongly expressed his love of driving fast in a post-chaise. "If," said he, "I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman; but she should be one who could understand me, and would add something to the conversation"' (ante, iii. 162). He had previously said (ante, ii. 453), as he was driven rapidly along in a post-chaise, 'Life has not many things better than this.'
1778. Boswell wrote to Johnson:—
'My wife is so different from you and me that she dislikes travelling.' Ante, iii. 219.
Later on in the year Boswell records:—
'Dr. Johnson expressed a particular enthusiasm with respect to visiting the wall of China. I catched it for the moment, and said I really believed I should go and see the wall of China had I not children, of whom it was my duty to take care. "Sir, (said he,) by doing so you would do what would be of importance in raising your children to eminence. There would be a lustre reflected upon them from your spirit and curiosity. They would be at all times regarded as the children of a man who had gone to view the wall of China. I am serious, Sir."' Ante, iii. 269.
1780. In August he wrote to Boswell:—
'I know not whether I shall get a ramble this summer…. I hope you and I may yet shew ourselves on some part of Europe, Asia, or Africa.' Ante, iii. 435.
In the same year Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—
'I hope you have no design of stealing away to Italy before the election, nor of leaving me behind you; though I am not only seventy, but seventy-one.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 177.
On Oct. 17 he wrote:—
'The summer has been foolishly lost, like many other of my summers and winters. I hardly saw a green field, but staid in town to work, without working much.' Ante, iii. 441.
1784. Johnson's wish to go to Italy in the last year of his life was caused by the hope that it might be good for his health. 'I do not,' he wrote, 'travel for pleasure or curiosity; yet if I should recover,' he added, 'curiosity would revive.' Post, iv. 348.
Mrs. Piozzi, without however giving the year, records:—
'Dr. Johnson was very angry with a gentleman at our house for not being better company, and urged that he had travelled into Bohemia and seen Prague. "Surely," added he, "the man who has seen Prague might tell us something new and something strange, and not sit silent for want of matter to put his lips in motion."' Piozzi's Journey, ii. 317.
All these passages shew, what indeed is evident enough from the text, that it was not travelling in general but travelling between the ages of nineteen and twenty-four, with a character unformed, a memory unstored, and a judgment untrained, that Johnson attacked. It was a common habit in his day to send young men of fortune to make the tour of Europe, as it was called, at an age when they would now be sent to either Oxford or Cambridge. Lord Charlemont was but eighteen when he left England. Locke, at the end of his work on Education, said in 1692 much the same as Johnson said in 1778.
'The ordinary time of travel,' he wrote, 'is from sixteen to one and twenty.' He would send any one either at a younger age than sixteen under a tutor, or at an older age than twenty-one without a tutor; 'when he is of age to govern himself, and make observations of what he finds in other countries worthy his notice … and when, too, being thoroughly acquainted with the laws and fashions, the natural and moral advantages and defects of his own country, he has something to exchange with those abroad, from whose conversation he hoped to reap any knowledge.'
Goldsmith, in his Present State of Polite Learning, ch. xiii, wrote in 1759:—
'We see more of the world by travel, but more of human nature by remaining at home…. A youth just landed at the Brille resembles a clown at a puppet-show; carries his amazement from one miracle to another; from this cabinet of curiosities to that collection of pictures; but wondering is not the way to grow wise…. The greatest advantages which result to youth from travel are an easy address, the shaking off national prejudices, and the finding nothing ridiculous in national peculiarities. The time spent in these acquisitions could have been more usefully employed at home.' Gibbon (Misc. Works, i. 197) says that 'the previous and indispensable requisites of foreign travel are age, judgment, a competent knowledge of men and books, and a freedom from domestic prejudices.'
When he was only eighteen years old he saw the evils of early travelling:—
'I never liked young travellers; they go too raw to make any great remarks, and they lose a time which is (in my opinion) the most precious part of a man's life.' Ib. p. 98.
Cowper, in his Progress of Error (ed. 1782, i. 60), describes how—
'His stock, a few French phrases got by heart,
With much to learn and nothing to impart,
The youth obedient to his sire's commands,
Sets off a wanderer into foreign lands.
* * * * *
Returning he proclaims by many a grace,
By shrugs and strange contortions of his face,
How much a dunce that has been sent to roam
Excels a dunce that has been kept at home.'