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.