651. London’s Golden Age: Sex and Scandal in Georgian Britain (Part 2)

15:11Tom Holland:So the visits continue. And on one of them, Boswell suddenly feels what he describes as the fine delirium of love. So he's now absolutely committed. Right. And on his next meeting, Louisa says, look, I'm a bit skint. Would you lend me two guineas?

15:26Dominic Sandbrook:Okay, that's a red flag for me.

15:28Tom Holland:And Boswell, feeling very gallant, does so. And then the next time he kisses her with great warmth. She received this very genteely. I had a delicacy in presuming too far, lest it should look like demanding goods for my money. I resumed the subject of love. So there's a certain caginess there. Luisa doesn't want to seem like she's selling herself, and Boswell doesn't want to look like that's what he thinks she's doing. But at this point, they agree to meet in two days' time where the affair will be consummated. And so Boswell arrives full of excitement. But then, disaster. I felt the tormenting anxiety of serious love.

16:09Tom Holland:He can't perform. Oh, no way. So he sits down beside her in despair. I would have given a good deal to be out of the room. And he gets up to go. Yeah. And he's about to leave. And suddenly, saluting her with warmth, my powers were excited. I felt myself vigorous.

16:27Dominic Sandbrook:Right. He's become more Scottish as he's become more excited, which is interesting.

16:30Tom Holland:She's smart. She plays him along. You know, she's still not surrendering to him. And she tells him such a thing requires time to consider of. And Boswell, of course, you know, she knows exactly what she's doing. Boswell is now, he finds himself really violently in love with Louisa. And the climax of this affair arrives at last on the 12th of January. Boswell's had a three-week courtship. And it's a long and very voluptuous night. Five times was I fairly lost in supreme rapture. And there's a lot more of that kind of thing. And then the next morning, I love this. I patrolled up and down Fleet Street, thinking on London, the seat of Parliament and the seat of pleasure, and seeming to myself as one of the wits in King Charles II's time.

17:13Tom Holland:So he's imagining himself as a restoration rake. And it's so Boswell that he's always kind of watching himself playing out roles. There's a sense in which the journal is operating on two levels. There's what Boswell is doing, and then there's Boswell watching himself, often in a state of kind of wonder at how brilliant he is. It's slightly disappointingly for Boswell, despite the five moments of rapture, almost immediately he decides that actually he's a bit sick of Louisa.

17:39Dominic Sandbrook:I observed an affectation about her, which disgusted me. That's strong. After all that, geez, he's changed.

17:46Tom Holland:I mean, again, you get the kind of the classic sense that the chase was all and now he's caught his quarry. He's not as interested. But the fact goes on until then. On the 20th of January, there is a disaster because he's been feeling a kind of pain in his nether regions. And he goes to the doctor and he's diagnosed with that distemper with which Venus, when cross, takes it into her head to plague her votaries. He's got the clap.

18:14Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah. Louise has let herself down.

18:16Tom Holland:Yeah. Yeah. And so he goes to Louisa and she says, oh, no, no, no, no, I'm not infected. I promise. And then she finally says, well, I did have it three years ago, but I'm completely cured. And Boswell is furious, but he then tells her, look, I'm not going to blacken your name by this. And he feels so pleased with himself for doing this. During all this conversation, I really behaved with a manly composure and polite dignity that could not fail to inspire an awe.

18:40Dominic Sandbrook:Well, that's good from him. But the next thing that happens, however, slightly undermines that, right?

18:44Tom Holland:So yeah, so he's incredibly pleased with his kind of moral forbearance when he's with Louisa. But he then goes away and he starts to fulminate about it and get more and more irate. And then he starts thinking, I lent her two guineas. She's got the guineas. I want my guineas back. And so he writes her this incredibly priggish letter. Send the money sealed up. I have nothing more to say to you. And Louisa then returns it. She had genuinely borrowed it. And so all Boswell's darkest thoughts are shown to be false. And he is briefly mortified. I felt a strange kind of mixed confusion. My tender heart relented.

19:16Tom Holland:I thought I had acted too harshly with her. And so he's feeling ashamed. But then the next day he mentions the whole story to a friend. He said it was just a piece of deep artifice in her. I resolved to think no more on the matter and was glad that I had come off two guineas better than I expected. I mean, to be fair to Louisa, she did give him the money back.

19:36Dominic Sandbrook:Exactly. I don't think she comes out badly from this story, particularly.

19:39Tom Holland:No, but I mean, her gesture had made Boswell feel bad about himself. and so he's now looking for reasons not to feel bad about himself and he finds one and what's incredible about this is that he writes it all down in incredible detail so that we two and a half centuries on yeah can exactly track the appalling way which an incredibly human way in which he's responded to the whole shenanigans so this was in january all this and the months

20:04Dominic Sandbrook:have passed or the weeks have passed and he's been feeling increasingly miserable no doubt because of the after effects of the gonorrhea as much as anything so he's got he's actually just got sick of London, hasn't he? He thought London was brilliant and now he's changed his mind.

20:15Tom Holland:Yep. And what always happens with Boswell when he's depressed is that he basically goes on a kind of spree. He surrenders to what he calls the foul fiend of the genitals.

20:26Dominic Sandbrook:That is a foul fiend, yeah.

20:27Tom Holland:And he's been walled up in his room, you know, getting over his gonorrhea. Now he's come out and he's determined not to get it again. So when he goes out on the town, he wears what he calls armor, i.e. a kind of primitive condom. And he's roaming St. James's Park, where all the most glamorous prostitutes are to be picked up, and the Haymarket. And on one occasion, he actually takes a girl from the Haymarket down to Westminster Bridge, simply for the excitement of having sex with her, with the Thames ruling below us. He says, it amused me much. So he's - Easily pleased. Well, I think a man who likes to spice up his pleasures in all kinds of strange ways.

21:06Tom Holland:But this is a kind of index of his unhappiness. And he's depressed as well, not just that he's sinking into kind of dissipation, as he puts it. I mean, he doesn't feel great about what he's doing. He's still doing it, but he doesn't feel great about it. But he's depressed as well that he has failed to secure a commission in the guards. You know, he's not going to be tassing around in a red coat. and this means essentially that he is going to have to pursue a career in the law which is what his father had always intended for him and so he's highly suspicious that it is lord affleck his father who has pulled strings and denied him his chance to be in the guards right and this is

21:42Dominic Sandbrook:what sets the scene for the meeting with samuel johnson that we described at the beginning of the last episode and you know this is the moment to which he's looked forward for so long but actually that foul fiend is still on his shoulder, right? Because just after he meets Johnson, he's back out on the streets and he's forgotten his armour.

22:00Tom Holland:Poor from Boswell. It doesn't stop him. So, you know, he's playing riskily. But it's clear, I think, that despite this, or maybe because of this, he's still very keen to have Johnson's advice, his friendship, and above all, I think, his moral guidance. And although Johnson had been quite bearish with him, You know, he'd been very rude about him being Scottish and so on. Boswell plucks up courage. And one week after his first meeting with Johnson, he goes to meet the great man in his chambers in a temple lane. And Boswell has a brilliant description of how Johnson received him. He received me very courteously.

22:40Tom Holland:But it must be confessed that his apartment and furniture and morning dress were sufficiently uncouth. His brown suit of clothes looked very rusty. he had on a little old shriveled unpowdered wig which was too small for his head his shirt neck and knees of his breeches were loose his black worsted stockings ill drawn up and he had a pair of unbuckled shoes by way of slippers but all these slovenly particularities were forgotten

23:08Dominic Sandbrook:the moment that he began to talk so he dresses like boris johnson actually sort of slovenly almost ostentatiously slovenly. But actually, the more that Boswell goes to see him, the slovenliness is overlooked. He really falls in love with Johnson, doesn't he? Don't you think? I mean, he was primed for it before he went. But he becomes, you know, he starts to think, actually, Johnson really does like me. He's giving him maybe a bit less, maybe some of the barbs about Scotland have a little less poison than they did beforehand. I mean, the barbs continue.

23:41Tom Holland:I think what Boswell does feel that Johnson likes him and Indy calls Johnson will say this specifically. But I think there's the kind of the magic of Johnson's conversation. And Boswell finds in Johnson a kind of a great champion of conversation. It's like watching a tremendous sports star taking on all comers. And that, I think, is a crucial part of the thrill of it for Boswell. So he gives a couple of instances of Johnson's conversation, kind of the early meetings, which illustrates this. So on one occasion, there's a critic who's written a bad review of a tragedy. And the critic is saying, ah, well, actually, maybe I shouldn't have given the bad review because who am I?

24:20Tom Holland:I can't write a tragedy. And Johnson's very contemptuous of this. Why no, sir, this is not just reasoning. You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables. It's not wrong. That's the critic flattened. And then there's another Scott, not Boswell, who is talking to Johnson, but Boswell is listening. And this Scott insists that his country had many noble prospects. And Johnson comes back, sir, let me tell you the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England.

24:54Tom Holland:Boswell writes, this unexpected and pointed Sally produced a roar of applause. This is tremendous banter. Massive banter. But this makes the fact that Johnson seems to like Boswell all the more kind of glorious for Boswell. And Johnson starts to give him exactly the kind of comfort and moral guidance that Boswell had been looking for. So Boswell gets evicted from his rooms in Downing Street because he's been having a late night party. And Johnson, unlike Lord Affleck, would have torn his head off at this. Johnson doesn't. He says, consider, sir, how insignificant this will appear a 12 month hence.

25:29Tom Holland:It's good advice. I mean, it's such good advice. It's such good advice. And then when, in due course, Lord Affleck says, you are going to become a lawyer to his son. And Boswell says, okay, but maybe I could I go and study law in Utrecht in the low countries. And Lord Affleck says, yes, okay, I'll pay you to do that. And Boswell's kind of initially happy about this, but then he starts to worry. Isn't Trek going to be very boring? He's going to have to leave London. He's going to have to leave Dr. Johnson. And he really becomes quite depressed about this. And Johnson recognises it. And because he knows that the two of them are going to have to part, he suggests a trip to Greenwich.

26:07Tom Holland:So downriver from London. And they take a boat and they talk and they talk and they talk. Boswell's entire description of this day is wonderful. but just to give some some highlights from it so they're talking about whether learning matters boswell says of course everybody should learn and johnson says well you know there are lots of people who don't need learning for their job i don't think that it matters to them at all um and he then turns to the boy who is rowing them in the boat and he says this boy rose us as well without learning as if he could sing the song of orpheus to the argonauts who were the first sailors so he doesn't need to know about Jason and the Argonauts to row the boat.

26:47Tom Holland:He then called to the boy, what would you give my lad to know about the Argonauts? Sir, said the boy, I would give what I have. Now that's contradicting what Johnson had argued, but Boswell says Johnson was much pleased with his answer and we gave him a double fare. So Johnson loves the fact that there is an appetite for learning about Greek mythology, even on the taxi boats of London.

27:10Dominic Sandbrook:And what do they make of Greenwich? they're actually slightly underwhelmed no well no they they kind of walk in the park and they

27:16Tom Holland:both agree that it's very beautiful when johnson asked boswell you know is it not very fine boswell answers yes sir but not equal of fleet street and johnson says you are right sir johnson much prefers a bustling thoroughfare to a kind of you know a load of trees and they return so late in the evening they've been having such a great time um that boswell shivers the whole way because you know it's quite cold johnson whose robust frame was not in the least affected by the cold scalded me as if my shivering had been a paltry effeminacy they arrive back in london they head to the strand and they end up at the turks head coffee house they're still talking and by now boswell is feeling that he's ready to share all kinds of intimacies and confidences with johnson and so he tells him about the castle at affleck and johnson says one day that he will see it and they then talk more and more about you know the looming departure boswell is clearly very very unhappy to be leaving he's nervous and johnson says i must see thee out of england i will accompany you to harwich and harwich is where he'll be sailing to the low countries and this was as boswell absolutely recognized a signal mark of honor this is not the kind of thing johnson would normally have done and boswell writes it filled me with gratitude and there's boswell and vanity no that's fair though i mean i mean it's so true though no one would go to harwich voluntarily i mean it is a proper honor from johnson um but boswell is still a bit gloomy isn't he about

28:45Dominic Sandbrook:going and then it's nice because johnson who suffers himself from depression and melancholy

28:49Tom Holland:can see this and sort of is sympathetic yes he roused me by manly and spirited conversation which i think is great i mean who wouldn't respond to some manly and spirited conversation and went a bit depressed. And they head off in the coach from London towards Harwich. And the whole way, Johnson is very effectively rallying his spirits. And they stop the night at Colchester, having a meal, and they've got candles flickering in front of them on their table. And there's a moth, and the moth flutters around the candle and burns itself. And Boswell writes about this, Johnson laid hold of this little incident to admonish me, saying with a sly look and in a solemn but a quiet tone.

29:31Tom Holland:That creature was its own tormentor and I believe its name was Boswell.

29:37Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, what did Boswell make of this? He liked it.

29:39Tom Holland:He did like it. I mean, that's why he recorded it. And the next day they arrive at Harwich and they load Boswell's luggage onto the packet boat and then they go to the church and Johnson admonishes him to pray. Now that you are going to leave your native country, recommend yourself to the protection of your creator and redeemer. And then that done, they head to the beach, they embrace and they part. I hope, sir, Boswell said, you will not forget me in my absence. Nay, sir, Johnson replied. It is more likely that you should forget me than that I should forget you. And Boswell boards the ship and it pulls out of the harbour and it sets sails for the Low Countries.

30:16Tom Holland:And Johnson is still there watching. And Boswell writes, as the vessel put out to sea, I kept my eyes upon him for a considerable time while he remained rolling his majestic frame in his usual manner. And at last, I perceived him walk back into the town, and he disappeared.

30:36Dominic Sandbrook:Oh, that's very sweet. So, will they ever see each other again? That's the question on everybody's minds, because we're ending on a tremendous cliffhanger. Boswell has gone off to Holland. Is he going to turn into a Dutchman, or will he return and rekindle his relationship with Samuel Johnson? We'll find out after the break.

30:56Tom Holland:this episode is brought to you by claude by anthropic now history lives in the contradictions

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31:13Tom Holland:mystery that's always fascinated you isn't there yes dominic i've always been fascinated by the question of how humans came to make and use fire how did that originate and a tremendous discovery was announced just last year that the place where it seems fire was invented was suffolk well you

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31:57Tom Holland:Try Claude for free at claude.ai slash rest is history.

32:05James Boswell:When you want your spring break to feel like and your kid's pool day to feel like and your hotel bed to feel like and room service to feel like because at Hilton, hospitality feels like Your cabana's ready. Would you like fresh towels? It matters where you stay. Book now at Hilton.com. Hilton for this day. To some, he is the revolutionary hero who restored China to its rightful place on the global stage. To others, he's a brutal despot, accused of presiding over more civilian deaths than either Stalin or Hitler. Mao Zedong has one of the most recognisable faces in the world, yet he started life as a rural boy in a muddy provincial village.

32:58James Boswell:A rebel son who hated his father survived a 6 ,000-mile walk across China and rose to become a figure of titanic proportions. From Empire, the goal-hanger world history show, I'm Anita Arnon. And I'm William Durampo. In this six-part series, we're joined by world-renowned expert Rana Mitter to explore the life of the father of communist China, Mao Zedong. We'll track his rise from a bookstore owner to a guerrilla commander and we'll witness his ruthless elimination to secure total power. We'll explore the greatest famine in human history, a catastrophe where Mao himself predicted that half of China may well have to die.

33:45James Boswell:And we'll descend into the dark experiment of the Cultural Revolution, a time when ancient temples were burnt, children denounced their parents and a nation worshipped a mango as a sacred relic. And we'll play a clip from the series at the end of this episode for you to listen to.

34:05Dominic Sandbrook:At every hour, the bells of the great tower played a dreary psalm tune. A deep melancholy seized upon me. I groaned at the idea of living all winter in so shocking a place. I thought myself old and wretched and forlorn. So that could be any number of travellers who've spent time in the Netherlands. It's actually James Boswell, and he's writing to Samuel Johnson on the 23rd of September, 1763. And Boswell basically finds Utrecht, just as he had feared, unbelievably dreary and boring.

34:39Tom Holland:Yeah, he hates it. He absolutely hates it. Incredibly dull. There's nothing else to do except study law. Yeah. And he can't even go out and haunt the streets because he has made a solemn vow that he's going to behave as well as possible in emulation of his new hero, Samuel Johnson, and to stop being, as he puts it, a frivolous and ludicrous fellow. And so he's written up an inviolable plan to be read over frequently, in which he writes, For some years past, you have been idle, dissipated, absurd and unhappy. Let those years be thought of no more. You are now determined to form yourself into a man.

35:18Dominic Sandbrook:Oh, well, that's inspiring.

35:20Tom Holland:No, but it isn't because it's terrible. You know, we said he's bored, he's lonely. It just, you know, he's oppressed by religious doubts and fear of death. And Johnson isn't on hand. In fact, there are no great men on hand. And he just has a terrible time. But then by the summer of 1764, his year of legal studies is over and things begin to perk up. And because he's completed his law degree, and Lord Affleck is very pleased by this, maybe a little bit surprised. Lord Affleck says, look, before you come back, go on a tour of the various courts of Germany and I will pay for it. And Boswell doesn't need to be told second time.

36:01Tom Holland:He's straight off. He loves traveling. So he sets off to Germany. This is a time, you know, Germany isn't a unified country. It's full of mad little courts all over the place. And Boswell is a great hit. We've said, you know, he's great fun. People like him. And hanging out in courts, kind of meeting princes in opulent surroundings. This is exactly the kind of thing Boswell loves. And the princes and their courtiers all think he's great as well. You know, he's fun. He dresses well. He's amusing. He's got just the right degree of interest in philosophy. So just enough to show the Germans that he's a serious person, but not so much that he becomes a bit boring.

36:40Tom Holland:The only disappointment in Germany is he doesn't get to meet Frederick the Great. He hangs around in Berlin for a month and he ends up so desperate that he takes out his Ersche bonnet, which he's brought with him. and he puts it on his head and kind of stands in a prominent place when Frederick the Great is on parade hoping that Frederick the Great will see it and take an interest in it and Frederick does

37:04Dominic Sandbrook:notice it but doesn't like it surely not tall enough for Frederick the Great and not sufficiently

37:08Tom Holland:interested in military parades I think that we've said that Boswell's face is not that of a man who's interested in military parades no definitely not which is also another reason why it's very lucky for him I think he didn't get into the guards yeah I've been hopelessly ill-suited to it

37:23Dominic Sandbrook:once he's finished faffing around in Germany you might think well it's time to go back to Scotland or indeed to London to see Dr Johnson again but no he goes on doesn't he to Switzerland because now he's in his celeb hunting vein and there's well there's a couple of celebrities in particular and one of these people is one of the worst men who's ever lived yeah it's Jean-Jacques Rousseau

37:44Tom Holland:Jean-Jacques Rousseau is the first of these two celebrities that Boswell's going to meet like Johnson, he's more than a celebrity. He's a great moralist, or at least so it seems at this point. He's also a philosopher. He's a novelist. He has very novel views on sex, on religion, on society, particularly on education. He's very, very keen on the notion that parents should take good care of their children and bring them up responsibly. And for all of these reasons, I think Boswell, as he had done when he arrived in London, is looking for someone who can provide him with moral guidance. And so he goes to the village where Rousseau is living and he writes to him begging for a meeting.

38:23Tom Holland:And Rousseau replies, I am ill, in pain, really in no state to receive visits.

38:28Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, you'd expect that from him.

38:29Tom Holland:And this would probably put most people off, but it doesn't put Boswell off. Yeah. You know, he turns up at the door. Rousseau's housekeeper, who inevitably is also his mistress, in fact, has given him five children, comes down the stairs. There's she's a French woman called Therese Levasseur. Boswell absolutely charms her. Sweet talks her into allowing her in. He goes upstairs and there is Rousseau sitting in the kitchen. And Rousseau is famously grouchy. And he periodically tries to get rid of Boswell by saying that he needs to use his chamber pot. But Boswell, oh, don't stand on ceremony with me.

39:08Tom Holland:Go on. Back on. Yeah, don't worry about me. But basically, Boswell is not remotely put off by Rousseau needing to use his tomb pot at all, hangs around, and Rousseau ends up being completely charmed by him. And they do end up having a series of really quite lengthy chats over the course of five days. And this for biographers of Rousseau is an incredible resource. So Peter Martin, who's written the definitive biography of Boswell, says that Boswell's account of Rousseau's speech is accepted as the most vivid known to exist. Wow. Boswell, I mean, if he'd had a smartphone, he would so have recorded it all and put it on social media.

39:48Tom Holland:And that's effectively what he's doing with, you know, he talks to Rousseau, he rushes back to his inn, he writes it all up. And so there you have what is the closest we will ever have to a recording of Rousseau's conversation. And Boswell is deliriously happy about this. And again, there's a sense when he writes it up in his journal of kind of watching himself as the hero of his journal. So he writes, God, am I now then really the friend of Rousseau? I suppose the parcel of young fellows saying, come, Boswell, you'll dine with us today. hey, no, gentlemen, excuse me, I'm engaged. I dine today with Rousseau.

40:31Tom Holland:The sense of pride is so comical, but I think so engaging.

40:36Dominic Sandbrook:And if there's one person, I mean, there's probably only one person who's even more famous than Rousseau among Francophone philosophers and wits and sort of scholars and thinkers and whatnot, and that is Voltaire. yeah and uh once again boswell i mean we don't have the chamber pot trick but boswell basically talks himself into voltaire's company doesn't he yeah so voltaire's just down the road from russo

41:02Tom Holland:he's in switzerland as well and again boswell turns up he's told no monsieur voltaire doesn't want to see you boswell hangs around eventually voltaire comes down in his dressing gown boswell pounces on him and again voltaire is kind of seduced by boswell's charm and again Then Boswell writes it up in such a kind of entertainingly self-regarding way. Monsieur de Voltaire and I remained in the drawing room with a great Bible before us. And if ever two mortal men disputed with vehemence, we did. Yes, upon that occasion, he was one individual and I another for a certain portion of time. There was a fair opposition between Voltaire and Boswell.

41:46Dominic Sandbrook:It would be interesting to hear Voltaire's version of that conversation. if it was exactly the same.

41:51Tom Holland:I mean, the context for this is that Voltaire is the most famous infidel in Europe. And Boswell is turning up and casting himself as, you know, the person who's going to convert Rousseau back to orthodoxy and so on. And again, I think it's so revealing about exactly why Boswell loves meeting these great men. It's not just about celebrity. It's about getting moral guidance of people who he recognises are much profound and much more brilliant thinkers than he is actually in his heart of hearts. So I think there is an element of self-mockery in that description of Voltaire and Boswell being intellectual equals.

42:28Dominic Sandbrook:And while this has been going on, his father, Lord Affleck, has been pestering him saying, what on earth are you doing? You were meant to come home after you finished your studies and you trekked and you're going further and further away from Scotland, not towards it.

42:40Tom Holland:And Voltaire and Rousseau, I mean, these are not the kind of people that a Scottish Presbyterian Whig would in any way approve of. And so he is absolutely saying to Boswell, come home now. And Boswell predictably completely ignores it because there is one further celebrity he's going to meet. And this is going to be the most incredible drama of all. So from Switzerland, Boswell goes to Italy, where he, as we will see, misbehaves himself very badly. And then from Italy, he sets sail for Corsica. And almost everybody tells him, you are mad to be going there. So the Corsicans are in the throes of an independent struggle against Genoa, who is the imperial mistress.

43:23Tom Holland:So there's lots of guns going off all over the place. And that's what Corsica is like anyway. People are always firing guns in Corsica, even if they're not in a war. It's just a very, very violent place. And on the crossing, there are Corsican sailors, and they tell Boswell any attempt to debauch a Corsican woman will result in instant death. So this is something that Boswell, to give him credit. That's bad news for Boswell. He does take on board. So he lands. He knows that if he even so much as looks as a woman, he's going to get killed. So that's alarming. And then he has to make a very perilous journey across wild mountainous rocky country to join the freedom fighters.

44:03Tom Holland:But Boswell absolutely loves it. He admires the primitive character of the Corsicans, which he identifies with the virtue of the ancient Greeks and Romans. And the chief object of this kind of hero worship of the Corsicans is the general who is leading the Corsican fight for independence. And this is Pasquale Paoli.

44:25Dominic Sandbrook:So we talked about him in our episode about the young Napoleon. So back in the days when Napoleon had a Corsican sort of Genoese style accent, he was greatly enamoured of this guy, Paoli, who left a massive shadow, not just over Corsica, but actually over Europe. He was the kind of Che Guevara, the romantic folk hero of the late 18th century, wasn't he?

44:44Tom Holland:Completely. He is possibly the kind of the most admired political figure in Europe in this stretch of the 18th century. And Boswell plays a key role in promoting him as that, because Boswell thinks Pauli is amazing. And actually, he hero-worships Pauli even more than he hero-worships Johnson, because he associates Pauli again with kind of ancient history. He sees him as someone stepped from the pages of Plutarch or something. And he describes Pauli, he's a tall, strong, and well-made, of a fair complexion, a sensible, free, and open countenance, and a manly and noble carriage. This is a man who is fighting for freedom, who's laid his life on the line, and Boswell is all over this.

45:31Tom Holland:Now, Pauli is completely bewildered by Boswell. Boswell is the first hero worshipper that Pauli has met, and he can't fathom why Boswell has turned up. But as with Rousseau, as with Voltaire, his suspicions are gradually melted by Boswell's charm. And before long, as ever, Boswell is getting on with Pauli tremendously well. And Boswell stays with Pauli for two months. And as they part, after this two-month stay, Paoli takes him by the hand and shakes it, as Paoli says, as a friend. Oh, Boswell couldn't be more delighted at this. I dare not transcribe from my private notes the feelings which I had at this interview.

46:17Tom Holland:I should perhaps appear too enthusiastic. So if Boswell is nervous about seeming too enthusiastic, I mean, he must be about to explode. And so he returns to Italy absolutely aglow with zeal for the Corsican cause. And I would say that Boswell is probably the first in a long line of Europeans who travel to the scene of a freedom fight and come back absolutely enamored with it. You said he's like Che Guevara. I mean, Boswell would absolutely have put up a Che Guevara poster. That's what he's all about. But actually, I mean, he goes much further than that. So he's, while he, again, this is quite student on a gap year-ish, he returns from the island with a full outfit of Corsican clothes and Pauli has given him a pair of pistols.

47:08Tom Holland:So he's got those as well. He must look absolutely ridiculous walking around London, these Corsican trousers weighed with his pistols. Well, we will see. He does unfurl his Corsican costume when he's back in England in due course. When he's returned from Corsica, he's on the continent, he starts writing unsigned letters to English newspapers, talking about Boswell in the third person, hinting that he's been to Corsica on a kind of secret mission on behalf of the British government. And his aim in doing this is to whip up interest in Britain on behalf of Corsican independence, to try and pressure the British government to swing behind Pauli, you know, to kind of back him.

47:43Tom Holland:It's a bit like, I suppose, you know, people in America trying to get Trump to back Zelensky. It's that kind of thing. But also, of course, it's always to a degree about Boswell himself. He's trying to present himself in these letters as a kind of a man of mystery.

47:57Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah. He's the kind of man who would, I can picture him walking across Afghanistan and then writing a book about it. Can you picture that? This has been hanging over the story from the beginning, hasn't it? The Alastair Campbell, Roy Stewart, Dr. Johnson, Boswell parallels?

48:13Tom Holland:Well, perhaps in build. Yeah. I mean, what I will say about Boswell is that he is much, much readier to confess in every lurid detail everything that he's thinking and doing. Than Rory. Well, I think than pretty much anyone today, to be honest. Anyway, so Boswell is now returning home because Lord Affleck, I mean, absolutely dyspeptic by this point, has sent him a letter saying, come back, don't bother seeing anything in France. There is nothing to be learned by travelling in France. He knows he's been there yeah and so boswell heads back he's had this brilliant time he's been hanging out with rousseau he's been hanging with voltaire he's been a freedom fighter in corsica and now he has you know he faces the prospect of returning home and becoming an edinburgh lawyer however on the bright side going back to britain does have one positive and that positive of course is samuel johnson And Boswell has not forgotten Johnson while he was on his travels.

49:11Tom Holland:He's thrilled to have met Rousseau. He's thrilled to have met Voltaire. But the whole way through, Johnson remains Boswell's moral touchstone. And throughout his journals, whenever he feels that he's slumping into depression or he's tempted to go out on the streets spending money on prostitutes, he kind of reins himself in by saying, resemble Johnson, your mind will strengthen. and this is kind of you know he's always telling himself be like johnson do what johnson would do he's kind of pumping these kind of staccato imperatives he has has done what dr johnson

49:44Dominic Sandbrook:has done because ever since he left johnson at harwich he has been able to fend off the foul

49:48Tom Holland:feed of the genitals no well he had in holland which is one of the reasons why he was so depressed and in germany and in switzerland when he talks to rousseau it's obvious that he has been trying to think of a way to square the circle. How can you have lots of sex with multiple women while remaining a Christian? And so he points out to Rousseau that in Genesis, the biblical patriarchs seem to have had lots of concubines. And so he says to Rousseau, well, wouldn't this be a possibility? I mean, couldn't I just keep a harem like Abraham did? And he's obviously hoping that Rousseau will back him on this.

50:23Tom Holland:And Rousseau does not, actually. So he's a bit disappointed by that. And then I said, he arrives in Italy and misbehaves. I mean, he cracks very, very badly. So in Naples, he'd written, I was truly libertine. I ran after girls without restraint. And in Rome, he writes to Rousseau, I sallied forth of an evening like an imperious lion. He says, the sun is hot. It's inflamed my blood. I can't help myself.

50:46Dominic Sandbrook:Right. What about Paris? So he gets to Paris. Does he behave himself in Paris? So this is 1766. He's 26 years old, all right? He's about to turn 26.

50:54Tom Holland:No, he doesn't. And in fact, things take a very dark turn because he's been in Paris a week or so. And he picks up a Scottish newspaper that he finds there. And he reads to his horror that his mother is dead. And he'd loved his mother. Yeah. So he's devastated by this. And so he vents this feeling of despair in a classic Boswell way by going to a brothel. That's how he copes with it. Of course he does. Also in Paris, amazingly, is Rousseau's mistress, Thérèse Le Vasseur, who we last met in Switzerland. And she is in Paris because she is heading on to England and specifically to Chiswick in West London, where Rousseau has settled.

51:38Tom Holland:And the reason that he settled there is that he's been driven out of Switzerland by outraged locals. and the principal reason for their outrage is the fact that rousseau a man who as we mentioned is very keen and insistent on good parenting has recently been outed as having had these five children by his mistress and dumping them all in an orphanage don't tell me that rousseau of all people has been exposed as a hypocrite yeah uh and so he's been driven out of switzerland and He's gone to take refuge in England and Therese is now traveling there to join him. And so Rousseau has asked Boswell, will you escort Therese and bring her to me?

52:21Tom Holland:And Boswell does. And inevitably they have sex. Initially, Boswell can't perform because he's so nervous about having sex with Rousseau's mistress. But then he manages it, goes in hard. So Therese says, listen, I'll give you some lessons. And so they have 12 lessons on the journey. on the journey from Paris to Dover. And Therese is incredibly pleased with herself. Boswell finds it really dull and he gallantly compares Therese to a bad rider galloping downhill.

52:49Dominic Sandbrook:So neither is satisfied. Both of them have let themselves down.

52:52Tom Holland:Yeah. So it's probably with some relief that Boswell drops Therese off with Rousseau in Chiswick and then goes rushing off to be reunited with Samuel Johnson.

53:01Dominic Sandbrook:Well, you could never accuse Dr. Johnson of being either too flaccid or lacking art, could you? He's got all the arts.

53:08Tom Holland:He has. And also he has this human kindness beneath his bearish exterior. And he's delighted to see Boswell and greets him with much kindness, Boswell says. But at the same time, Johnson is bearish. He gives Boswell the occasional mauling. Boswell is talking all about his holidays and going on about how he's met Rousseau. Johnson explodes. I mean, Rousseau is so not Samuel Johnson. so he says rousseau sir is a very bad man i would sooner sign a sentence for his transportation than that of any felon who has gone from the old bailey these many years yes i should like to have him work in the plantations to which boswell who who's become very good at basically kind of coaxing johnson along so that he'll come out with ever more outrageous statements says sir do you think rousseau was bad a man as voltaire to which johnson replies why sir it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them.

54:08Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah. Dr. Johnson, I think I said this in the last episode, he would have made a tremendous columnist for the Daily Express.

54:16Tom Holland:He does a wonderful podcast, wouldn't he, I think?

54:18Dominic Sandbrook:A very splenetic podcast. Oh, completely.

54:21Tom Holland:He'd be robust in his views, having no question. Well, and so, I mean, as an example of this, Boswell, after Johnson has dismissed Voltaire, then tries one of Voltaire's infidel sallies on Johnson, to which Johnson responds, this now is such stuff as I used to talk to my mother when I first began to think myself a clever fellow and she ought to have whipped me for it.

54:41Dominic Sandbrook:So he basically thinks that Volta is a teenager.

54:44Tom Holland:Yeah. And then Boswell starts moaning on about how he's got to become a lawyer. He defines being a lawyer as being excelled by plodding blockheads. So I don't know what our legal listeners will make of that. And Johnson again is, you know, he has no time for this now, for any self-pity. Right. tells Boswell to man up.

55:02Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, but I mean, Boswell does have to man up now because the legal hell is opening up before him.

55:07Tom Holland:Yes. I mean, basically, from this point on, Boswell is going to be locked into a legal career. There's going to be no more tazzing around Corsica or meeting infidel philosophers. So he heads back to Scotland. He's been away for three and a half years. But from now on, you know, his job is going to be to practice as an advocate. And he does it regularly. he does it reliably he's actually quite good at it so i think it helps that actually in scotland the court of sessions before which boswell is appearing as an advocate it only sits for six months a year so that gives boswell quite a lot of time to do other things yeah see other interests other dreams and the most public of these remains his activism on behalf of corsican independence so he gets back he hasn't forgotten Corsica and to give him credit he makes representations to various British ministers including William Pitt the elder who's a very significant player and Pitt says yeah I'll see what I can do and of course does nothing Boswell also he writes up his travels in Corsica as a book and it's published and it's a great success and it wins him the nickname of Corsica Boswell yeah which he absolutely loves and he writes about it in his journal it is fine to have such a character as I have.

56:19Tom Holland:I enjoy it much. He's very pleased with himself. And Dominic, you asked about this outfit, of course, and clothes that he's brought back with him. And does he ever wear it? He does. And the opportunity comes in September 1769. Johnson's old friend, David Garrick, the greatest actor of his day, the greatest Shakespearean actor of his day stages a Shakespeare jubilee in Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare's birthplace. Oh, nice. And it's going to be a great celebration of the Bard, and it's scheduled to last for three days. And in fact, it has an enormous impact in kind of what becomes Bardolatry, this notion of Shakespeare as the supreme genius.

57:02Tom Holland:Garrick's jubilee plays a key role in that, despite the fact that actually it's literally literally a washout because on the second day, so much rain falls that the third day simply has to be cancelled. And everyone's kind of tramping around in mud, the tarpaulins fall down, all of that. The live shows have to be cancelled. But Boswell, who has gone there, has a lovely time because he has turned up in his Corsican costume and there he is with his guns and his sash and all that kind of stuff. I mean, very proto-Byron. And he reads out a poem that he has written himself about Corsican liberty and he wrote about it I was as much a favorite as I could desire in other words Shakespeare Jubilee's a washout but Boswell's been brilliant of course so there are only two shadows on this kind of Corsica Boswell heaven the first is that actually the dream of Corsican liberty is conclusively over now because Jenna is no longer the mistress of Corsica because the French have now invaded and of course this is now you know this is crucial because this explains why in the long run Napoleon a Corsican will end up emperor of the French.

58:08Tom Holland:So it's a momentous development. And poor General Pauli, he has to flee. He goes into exile and he turns up in London a few days after the Jubilee to claim political asylum. Boswell, again, to give him credit, he's really good. He introduces Pauli to Johnson and to all his friends and to as many people as he can. And Pauli remains, I think, the kind of the purest hero in Boswell's pantheon.

58:36Dominic Sandbrook:Because Johnson's sick of this Corsican business, isn't he? I mean, you get a sense of actually what other people made of Boswell and his Corsican trousers. What does Johnson say? Empty your head of Corsica, which I think has filled it rather too long. See, I'm giving him the proper Midlands accent that he would have had.

58:51Tom Holland:Yeah, too much of Corsica, he also says to Boswell. Shut up about Corsica. But Boswell knows that this kind of abrasiveness, you know, it comes with the territory. This is what Johnson's all about. And there's this kind of wonderful account that Boswell writes up a year before the Shakespeare Jubilee. Boswell had dined with Johnson and various others in this pub on the Strand, the Crown and Anchor. And Johnson, the whole evening, had been in particularly rambunctious form. And Boswell writes, when I called upon Dr. Johnson next morning, I found him highly satisfied with his colloquial prowess the preceding evening.

59:27Tom Holland:Well, said he, we had good talk. Boswell, I, sir, you tossed and gored several persons. And that sense that Johnson's conversation often is about tossing and goering people, I think is part of what makes him such a compelling spectacle for Boswell. He kind of enjoys it.

59:49Dominic Sandbrook:But Johnson doesn't really toss and gore Boswell too much, does he? Because they remain tremendous friends. And there's an underlying kind of affection there, isn't there?

59:58Tom Holland:I think the two aren't mutually exclusive. Johnson does toss and gore Boswell if he feels that he deserves it. But he's always ready to show Boswell that he loves him. Johnson can tell that Boswell not only loves him, but reveres him. And Johnson is human and he likes this. Even after Boswell gets married in 1769, he can't bear to kind of abandon Johnson, to abandon London. And so he makes these regular trips down to the capital. He feels a bit guilty about it, but not guilty enough to stop doing it. And Boswell's friendship with Johnson means that even though he's now a Scottish lawyer, he does kind of remain at the heart of London literary life.

1:00:38Tom Holland:This continues to make Boswell unbelievably happy. So there's a kind of wonderful moment in 1772. He's sitting with Johnson and with Johnson's friend, Oliver Goldsmith, who's a very celebrated Irish poet, novelist, playwright. She stoops to conquer. And as he had done with Rousseau, as he'd done with Voltaire, Boswell hugs himself. I mean, he says, he writes, he felt a completion of happiness. I just sat and hugged myself in my own mind. I think that's such a great, great phrase. And the following spring, the seal is set on this kind of sense of joy, of hugging himself in his mind, when Johnson proposes Boswell for membership of the single most exclusive society in the country.

1:01:23Tom Holland:And it's known simply as The Club. And this had been founded in 1764 by Johnson, by Joshua Reynolds, the great painter, by Edmund Burke, the politician. And by the time that Boswell gets elected in 1773, Oliver Goldsmith, who we just mentioned, he's a member. David Garrick, the actor, is a member. Subsequent members will include Edward Gibbon, the historian, Sir Joseph Banks, who went with Captain Cook and was the first Englishman to go surfing. As Boswell puts it, after his election, it is such a society as can seldom be found.

1:01:57Dominic Sandbrook:So we talked about that in our very first episode for our Rest is History Club members. the inspiration and history's greatest clubs

1:02:04Tom Holland:and here we are yeah and here we are with our very own club we've got more members than they had that's true maybe not quite as exclusive but we're just as exclusive I was about to say

1:02:13Dominic Sandbrook:we've got more members and I think we've got a higher quotient of red trousers than they had but as Tabby rightly says we always want more members because we haven't got the best people we want even better people we do right so let's finish with get back away from the club to Johnson and Boswell A striking thing is that this is an unbalanced friendship. So it's always Boswell who is sort of importuning Johnson, not vice versa, right? It's Boswell who is paying court to the great man. It's never the great man who is paying court to Boswell. Or is it?

1:02:47Tom Holland:It's true. Johnson has never been to Scotland. And of course, his quips about Scotland are notorious. So in his dictionary, he had notoriously defined oats as a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people. You know, you said, does Johnson ever toss and go Boswell? Well, he does. So on one occasion, Boswell had commented, sometimes I have been in the humour of wishing to retire to a desert, to which Johnson had retorted, sir, you have desert enough in Scotland. Oh, that's great banter.

1:03:45Tom Holland:he's got an inflamed eye he's enormously fat he's sunk in a kind of melancholy but it seems that it's precisely this melancholy which resolved him that summer of 1773 that actually yeah i am going to give in to boswell's kind of urgings i will go to scotland and so on the 3rd of august he wrote to boswell in edinburgh sir i shall set out from london on friday the 6th of this month and propose not to loiter much by the way. So the adventure is on. Samuel Johnson is coming to Scotland and the most famous literary expedition in British history is about to begin.

1:04:24Dominic Sandbrook:God, what excitement. What a cliffhanger. Unbelievable. So next week, we will be exploring the story of this tremendous expedition which dwarfs anything accomplished by the great explorers of history, the conquistadors and so on. We'll be doing that next week and in our final episode, we'll be telling the story of how the friendship came to an end and what happened to Boswell and Johnson. Now, we've mentioned our club a few times, I think not inappropriately, and I think very, very subtly and judiciously. I'm just going to mention it one more time, because if you would like to join our equivalent of the club, the club that was formed by Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, and Edmund Burke, if you would like to join luminaries of a very, very similar nature, then you can join the club at the rest is history.com and you can hear next week's episodes right now you don't have to wait you don't have to bite your nails and gnash your teeth over the weekend waiting for the next episodes you can join that club you can feel part of a like-minded community of polymaths scholars and libertines and everything will be tremendous and you'll be much happier for it so tom thank you very much and we'll see you in scotland bye-bye bye bye

1:05:40James Boswell:hello it's William Drimple again from Empire here is a clip from our recent six part series

1:05:45Samuel Johnson:on Mao Zedong the Greatly Forward was supposed to be on its face a kind of highly rationalised bureaucratic system of working out what China could produce and then you know working upwards so that you would produce you know enough food for everyone to eat and crops that could then be exported to increase China's GDP, and everything would be great. But basically, because all the figures are being fiddled by officials who are too terrified to give the real information in case they get arrested or, you know, kind of fired from their jobs, they pass on statistics upwards saying, yes, it's all going great, and we're kind of producing huge amounts of grain and products.

1:06:18Samuel Johnson:And up, you know, in the cities, and then, you know, beyond that to Beijing, the guys at the top are saying, oh, well, this is great. Well, in that case, we can export lots to the Soviet Union. So you have the kind of obscenity of out in the countryside, there isn't enough food for people to eat, while the grain is being seized and exported from the country to bring in money for the state. This is very much a rural phenomenon. And that's significant because, of course, shortly before this, the system which still exists today was started up in China. It was a sort of Soviet-style internal passport system.

1:06:46Samuel Johnson:It's called the hukou, or household registration scheme. And it basically means that you can't just simply wander around wherever you want in China. You have to sort of have internal permission. So people in the cities were no longer really kind of interacting that much with the countryside. They were kind of almost separated off. And while people in the cities, you know, found there was a certain amount of deprivation, the devastation was really out in the countryside, where essentially it turned into mass starvation. About 1959, 1960, 61, it became clear in the countryside there simply wasn't enough food to go around.

1:07:15Samuel Johnson:But when the news came through to the top leadership, including Mao, he basically chose to ignore it. He didn't exactly deny it, but he basically said, well, you know, we need to keep going. and he said something like, if things are not going so well, then let's just not say anything about it and keep going. And that led to one of the great confrontations of that period, which is the conference, Communist Party top-level conference held at Lushan. We hope you enjoyed that clip. To listen to the full series,

1:07:42James Boswell:search Empire World History wherever you get your podcasts.

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