[73] Of the seventy-five years that Johnson lived, he and Boswell did not spend two years and two months in the same neighbourhood. Excluding the time they were together on their tour to the Hebrides, they were dwelling within reach of each other a few weeks less than two years. Moreover, when they were apart, there were great gaps in their correspondence. Between Dec. 8, 1763, and Jan. 14, 1766, and again between Nov. 10, 1769 and June 20, 1771, during which periods they did not meet, Boswell did not receive a single letter from Johnson. The following table shows the times they were in the same neighbourhood.
1763, May 16 to Aug. 6, London. 1766, a few days in February " 1768, " " March, Oxford. 1768, a few days in May, London. 1769, end of Sept. to Nov. 10, " 1772, March 21 to about May 10, " 1773, April 3 to May 10, " " Aug. 14 to Nov. 22, Scotland. 1775, March 21 to April 18, London. May 2 to May 23, " 1776, March 15 to May 16, London, Oxford, Birmingham, with an interval of Lichfield, about a fortnight, Ashbourne, when Johnson was at and Bath and Boswell at Bath. London, 1777, Sept. 14 to Sept. 24, Ashbourne. 1778, March 18 to May 19, London. 1779, March 15 to May 3, " " Oct. 4 to Oct. 18, " 1781, March 19 to June 5, London and Southill. 1783, March 21 to May 30, London. 1784, May 5 to June 30, London and Oxford.
[74]
'To shew what wisdom and what sense can do,
The poet sets Ulysses in our view.'
Francis. Horace, Ep. i. 2. 17.
[75] In his _Letter to the People of Scotland, p. 92, he wrote:—'Allow me, my friends and countrymen, while I with honest zeal maintain your cause—allow me to indulge a little more my own egotism and vanity. They are the indigenous plants of my mind; they distinguish it. I may prune their luxuriancy; but I must not entirely clear it of them; for then I should be no longer "as I am;" and perhaps there might be something not so good.'
[76] See post, April 17, 1778, note.
[77] Lord Macartney was the first English ambassador to the Court of Pekin. He left England in 1792 and returned in 1794.
[78] Boswell writing to Temple ten days earlier had said:—'Behold my hand! the robbery is only of a few shillings; but the cut on my head and bruises on my arms were sad things, and confined me to bed, in pain, and fever, and helplessness, as a child, many days…. This shall be a crisis in my life: I trust I shall henceforth be a sober regular man. Indeed, my indulgence in wine has, of late years especially, been excessive.' Letters of Boswell, p. 346.
[79] On this day his brother wrote to Mr. Temple: 'I have now the painful task of informing you that my dear brother expired this morning at two o'clock; we have both lost a kind, affectionate friend, and I shall never have such another.' Letters of Boswell, p. 357. What was probably Boswell's last letter is as follows:—