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

Why was London such a cauldron of sexual scandal and political tumult in the 18th century? What licentious escapades did the infamous Scottish nobleman, James Boswell, get up to there? And, how did his legendary first meeting with the renowned wit Samuel Johnson, unfold? Join Tom and Dominic, as they delve into the tumultuous, salacious life of James Boswell - the ultimate celebrity hunter - his extraordinary adventures in 18th century London, and his encounters with three of the greatest men of the age. This episode is sponsored by Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Try Claude for free today at Claude.ai/restishistory. Advertise with us: ⁠[email protected]⁠ _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Video Editors: Jack Meek + Harry Swan Social Producer: Harry Balden Producers: Tabby Syrett & Aaliyah Akude Executive Producer: Dom Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Tom Holland?

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• 0:16Dominic Sandbrook?

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• 0:42Tom Holland?

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• 0:49Dominic Sandbrook?

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• 1:38Dominic Sandbrook?

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• 1:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  This episode is brought to you by the Gates Foundation. We have touched on the fall of the Roman Empire a few times on this show, haven't we? But what our listeners may not know is that among the causes that historians talk about, it's not just barbarian invasions. There's also talk of a disease which people call Roman fever, which I believe we know now as malaria.

• 2:15Tom Holland?

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• 2:30Dominic Sandbrook?

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• 3:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  Sunday, 28th of November. I breakfasted with Mr Douglas. I went to St James's Church and heard service and a good sermon on 'By what means shall a young man learn to order his ways?', in which the advantages of early piety were well displayed. 'What a curious inconsistent thing is the mind of man.' In the midst of divine service, I was laying plans for having women, and yet I had the most sincere feelings of religion. So that was James Boswell, writing in his journal six months before his fateful meeting with Samuel Johnson, the hero of this story, in Thomas Davis's bookshop.

• 3:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  So Boswell had begun this great journal, one of the most glittering, scintillating records of life in the 18th century ever written, arguably the most complete record of what it's like to live in the 18th century. He'd begun this enormous project two weeks earlier. But who was this young man who was sitting in church, having all these fantasies about having women during the sermon of all moments?

• 4:15Tom Holland?

  Shocking.

• 4:16Dominic Sandbrook?

  Tom, tell all.

• 4:17Tom Holland?

  Well, as people will be able to tell from your accent, James Boswell is a young Scot. He's 22 years old at this point. He's stocky and built and there's a hint of fleshiness, I think, in his face, perhaps a precursor of how he will look in middle age. But he's very kind of mobile in expression. People always comment on this and he has a face that many years later, a judge who had known him would describe as impossible to look upon without being moved by the comicality, which always reigned upon it.

• 4:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  He looks fun.

• 4:49Tom Holland?

  Not only does he look fun, but he is fun. People like him very, very instinctively. And he's just arrived in London when he put it down, that journal entry that you read from Edinburgh. And honestly, he couldn't be more thrilled about it. So the journey from Edinburgh down to London had taken him three days. It had been quite brutal. They'd kind of lost a wheel outside Berwick and so on. And so when they arrive, Boswell, well, he writes in his journal, "When we came upon Highgate Hill and had a view of London, I was all life and joy and he had given three hazars."

• 5:25Dominic Sandbrook?

  Oh, lovely.

• 5:26Tom Holland?

  We love a man who gives three hazars when he's happy, I think.

• 5:28Dominic Sandbrook?

  So just to remind people what this story is, it's the story of Samuel Johnson and James Boswell. It's a brilliant window into friendship, into 18th century London, into 18th century Britain, this country that at this point is teeming with life and energy and excitement. It is becoming the most modern and the most powerful country in the world. And we're using their story as a way into telling that story. So actually London, he's giving the three hazars, isn't he? Because London to Boswell represents the promised land. It's everything he's ever hoped for.

• 6:03Tom Holland?

  Yeah, so it offers him glamour and Boswell loves glamour. So he takes rooms in the very centre of things in Downing Street, where the Prime Minister lives now. But he's using it as a base for all kinds of things. So he's using it as a base for shopping. He goes out and buys what he describes as a genteel violet coloured frock suit. So he loves clothes. He meets lots of celebrities. We said in the previous episode how Boswell is a great celebrity hunter. So he's hanging out with actors and poets and politicians and lords and all kinds of people like that. And he goes to lots of exclusive clubs. And of course, the 18th century loves a club. And he goes to one, the Beefsteak Club.

• 6:42Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 6:42Tom Holland?

  We had nothing to eat but beef steaks and had wine and punch in plenty and freedom. We had a number of songs.

• 6:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  So it's very like the Rest is History Club, which people, if they're interested, they can head to therestishistory.com to sign up. And they will get similar quantities of beef steaks and songs, especially at the Rest is History Festival, which is this July at Hampton Court Palace.

• 7:01Tom Holland?

  That is so expertly done. But Dominic, just to go back to the history, you did an episode on beefsteak, didn't you?

• 7:06Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, Beef and Liberty.

• 7:08Tom Holland?

  So this is the, the kind of the dimension of London that Boswell, although a Scot, is very enthusiastically entering this notion of, of England as a home of liberty. London also represents to Boswell a sense of escape and opportunity. So he's just up in Edinburgh. His father is a law lord, very determined that Boswell is going to become a lawyer. Boswell has scraped through his law examinations, but he's come to London basically because he's hoping for a much more glamorous career. Namely, he wants to enter the Guards and kind of taz around London in a, you know, a bright red coat and all of that. That's also a crucial part of what has brought him to the capital.

• 7:46Tom Holland?

  But there is another aspect as well, which was hinted at, well, more than hinted at, I mean, he's absolutely drawing attention to it in that sermon. And this is what Boswell elsewhere in his journal describes as the wars of the Paphian queen, by which he essentially means having lots of sex.

• 8:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  Hmm.

• 8:03Tom Holland?

  So the Paphian queen is Venus. And Boswell in particular has a kind of, one could describe it perhaps as a bent for prostitutes. London, of course, at this point has multitudes of prostitutes. Many of them are disease ridden.

• 8:17Dominic Sandbrook?

  Hmm.

• 8:18Tom Holland?

  And Boswell himself has already, as a result of this, caught the clap.

• 8:22Dominic Sandbrook?

  At Gonorrhea.

• 8:23Tom Holland?

  And so he's nervous about getting it again. And in the early weeks of his arrival in London, he's actually incredibly impressed with what he describes as his own wonderful continence. On the fourteenth of December, just a month or so after his arrival in London, "It is very curious to think that I have now been in London several weeks without ever enjoying the delightful sex, although I am surrounded with numbers of free-hearted ladies of all kinds, from the splendid madam at fifty guineas a night down to the civil nymph with white-thread stockings who tramps along the strand and will resign her engaging person to your honour for a pint of wine at a shilling."

• 9:04Dominic Sandbrook?

  I feel that the pint of wine element would be off-putting for me. I feel like somebody who's who's advertising their wares for a pint of wine is, I think it's boring all but all sides.

• 9:12Tom Holland?

  I mean, I think the point is that Boswell is willing to to go with whatever class of prostitute he can pick up. So this makes Boswell sound a very bad man. However, he is simultaneously desperate for moral guidance. I mean, he's fantasizing about women in church, but he is in church. And what he really wants, I think, is someone to put him on the straight and narrow.

• 9:33Dominic Sandbrook?

  Oh, he just wants to be loved.

• 9:35Tom Holland?

  So he is, as his journal makes clear, a compound of contradictions and incompatibilities. And he traces these incompatibilities right the way through his journal. So he's a very open, gregarious, friendly man, but at the same time, he's very prone to deep melancholy.

• 9:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  Okay.

• 9:54Tom Holland?

  He's very bumptious and self-regarding, so he's always making comments in his journal like, "I am one of the most engaging men that ever lived," and clearly means it.

• 10:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  Hmm.

• 10:03Tom Holland?

  But he's also very lacking in self-confidence. And as we've said, he's a prodigious womanizer, but he is looking to reform himself. And this, I think, is a crucial part of his fascination with great men, which will be a theme of this episode. It's not just that he's a celebrity hunter. It's more than that. He is looking for someone who can serve him as a mentor, as a kind of moral sheet anchor, if you like.

• 10:28Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 10:28Tom Holland?

  Stopping him from drifting and straying all over the place.

• 10:31Dominic Sandbrook?

  And the person that has long cast in that role is Samuel Johnson, who we talked about in the last episode, the great polymath man of letters from Lichfield in the West Midlands. And Boswell has looked up to him since he was a child.

• 10:46Tom Holland?

  Yeah, so his father, who we will find that doesn't really approve of Johnson, nevertheless had copies of his moral essays in his library. And Boswell had had read them and they had given him this kind of idea of London as the home of this tremendous sage. And so I think that is also part of why Boswell has come to London. He has this fantasy that, in a sense, Johnson can provide him with the kind of father figure that his own father doesn't.

• 11:14Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right.

• 11:15Tom Holland?

  Because his father, Lord Affleck, this Scottish law lord, is a very intimidating man. And he's actually the opposite to Johnson. He doesn't really have much time for kind of literary men, which Johnson is. Lord Affleck is a Whig and Johnson is a Tory. Lord Affleck is a Presbyterian and Johnson is an Anglican. And so there's a sense, I think, that Boswell coming to London, it's an overt act of rebellion against his father, really.

• 11:41Dominic Sandbrook?

  I mean, he's proud of his, you know, his father, his lineage, all that kind of thing, isn't he, Boswell? He's not completely rebelling against the Boswells.

• 11:48Tom Holland?

  No, I mean, just the opposite. And this is another way in which Boswell is such a complicated man. Even as he's coming to London looking for a father figure, he remains incredibly proud of his father and inordinately proud of the entire Boswell name, as you suggest. So the Boswells are an ancient noble family. Boswell has a forefather who had died for the Scottish king at Fodden. And he has a mother who, in a very tangential sense that Boswell is always harping upon, has a kind of relationship, a distant relationship to the Scottish monarchy. And he is particularly sentimental about the ancestral seat of the Boswells, which is this place, Affleck, which I'd always thought it was pronounced as it's spelt Orkinleck, but apparently it is Affleck.

• 12:31Tom Holland?

  And this is set south of Glasgow, the rolling green hills of Ayrshire, north of Dumfries. And it has this tremendously romantic keep on a kind of gorge above the meeting place of two rivers. And even though Lord Affleck has just completed a very kind of fancy classical mansion, which is still standing there to this day, Boswell's heart is always going to be lying with the ruins. I felt a classic enthusiasm in the romantic shades of our family's seat. So Boswell is kind of, he's a snob, but he's a romantic snob.

• 13:05Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, so he's born in seventeen forty. So. You know, he's one of the first generations, I guess, to be really infused with the spirit of romanticism in some ways, that kind of nostalgic kind of sentimentality when you're looking at old ruins and all of that stuff.

• 13:18Tom Holland?

  Which his father absolutely is not. His father does not approve of people who have, you know, lively imaginations and romantic leanings, or indeed Toryism. And Lord Affleck is just unbelievably impatient with what he sees as his son's frivolity. So Boswell, we've said he's gregarious, Lord Affleck thinks he's much too gregarious, that he talks too much, that he laughs too loudly, that he's a show-off. Lord Affleck, I'm afraid to say, is not a fan of impersonations and impressions.

• 13:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  No, no, the lowest and meanest kind of wit.

• 13:51Tom Holland?

  Yeah, terrible. And obviously, Lord Affleck is not amused by the fact that Boswell is already in debt, that he's having all these affairs, that he's having these periodic doses of the clap. This is not going down at all well with the Presbyterian law lord. And so you can see, I think, why Boswell, even if he loves his father and admires him, might be looking around for someone slightly, slightly less challenging perhaps, although actually the man he ends up with is also going to prove quite challenging.

• 14:18Dominic Sandbrook?

  Pretty challenging if he's going to twitch at you. So the person he's got his heart set on is Samuel Johnson, who is obviously the opposite of his father in every way. He's kind of warm and, well, he's warm in his own way, I suppose, but he's, he's a character, shall we say. But for the time being, Boswell puts his energies into, what does he call it? The wars of the papillion queen.

• 14:39Tom Holland?

  He does.

• 14:39Dominic Sandbrook?

  Because he's been abstemious for the first few weeks, but eventually his resistance collapses and he becomes particularly interested in an actress at the Covent Garden Theatre, and he gives her the pseudonym of Louisa.

• 14:51Tom Holland?

  Yes. And the point about Louisa is that she's the daughter of quite well-born parents. And so Boswell assumes that not, you know, I mean, her beauty is obviously very important to him, but so also is the very strong probability that she won't have gonorrhea.

• 15:06Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right.

• 15:07Tom Holland?

  He thinks, I'm going to play it safe. I'm not going to go, you know, roaming around the streets. I'm going to stick with this beautiful actress.

• 15:12Dominic Sandbrook?

  Sensible from him, I think.

• 15:13Tom Holland?

  It's the first great tour de force in his journal, his account of this relationship with Louisa. It reads like a kind of mad novel and it's kind of variously erotic, but also full of completely mortifying behaviour on the part of Boswell, all of which he details.

• 15:30Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right.

• 15:30Tom Holland?

  Without any sense of kind of inhibition at all. And I think it's worth looking at in some detail because it gives you a real sense, not just of Boswell's character, but of his, his kind of genius as a writer of journals. So he's met up with Louisa and in due course he is admitted into her rooms and he finds her, as he describes it, in a pleasing undress. At this point, both of them are kind of pretending to be shy, but both commit to future meetings. And so Boswell duly comes back, they sit down and they have a very titillating discussion about the different ways in which English and French men pursue amorous escapades. And of course, now it's starting to get a bit more titillating.

• 16:13Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, a bit spicy.

• 16:14Tom Holland?

  But it's still a kind of protracted courtship, you know, there are more meetings. But Boswell makes certain at their next meeting, as he puts it, to inform her by my looks of my passion for her. And I don't quite know what that would be.

• 16:28Dominic Sandbrook?

  He looks at her in a smouldering way. If you know how to do it, you know how to do it, Tom, what can I say?

• 16:32Tom Holland?

  Yeah. So the visits continue and on one of them Boswell suddenly feels what he describes as the fine delirium of love. So he is, he's now absolutely committed.

• 16:43Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right.

• 16:43Tom Holland?

  And on his next meeting, Louisa says, look, I'm a bit skint, would you lend me two guineas?

• 16:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  Okay, that's a red flag for me.

• 16:50Tom 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. Louisa doesn't want to seem like, you know, she's selling herself and Boswell doesn't want to look like that's what he thinks she's doing.

• 17:15Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 17:16Tom Holland?

  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. He can't perform.

• 17:32Dominic Sandbrook?

  Oh, no way.

• 17:33Tom Holland?

  So he sits down beside her in despair. I would have given a good deal to be out of the room.

• 17:40Tom Holland?

  And he gets up to go and he's about to leave, then suddenly saluting her with warmth. My powers were excited. I felt myself vigorous.

• 17:49Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right. He's become more Scottish as he's become more excited, which is interesting.

• 17:52Tom Holland?

  She's smart. She plays him along, you know, she's, 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.

• 18:11Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 18:12Tom Holland?

  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.

• 18:22Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 18:22Tom Holland?

  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 the second's time. 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.

• 18:53Dominic Sandbrook?

  Slightly disappointingly for Boswell, despite the five moments of rapture. Almost immediately, he decides that actually he's a bit sick of Louisa. I observed an affectation about her, which disgusted me. That's strong. After all that, jeez.

• 19:09Tom Holland?

  I mean, again, you get the kind of the classic sense that the chase was all and now he's, he's caught his quarry. He's not as interested, but the fair 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 is diagnosed with that distemper with which Venus, when cross, takes it into her head to plague her votaries. He's got the clap.

• 19:36Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah. Louisa's let herself down.

• 19:38Tom Holland?

  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. Curious, 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.

• 20:02Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, that's good from him, but the next thing that happens, however, slightly undermines that, right?

• 20:07Tom 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.

• 20:27Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 20:27Tom Holland?

  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, 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.

• 20:55Dominic Sandbrook?

  I mean, to be fair to Louisa, she did give him the money back.

• 20:58Tom Holland?

  Exactly.

• 20:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  I don't think she comes out badly from this story particularly.

• 21:01Tom 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.

• 21:14Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 21:15Tom Holland?

  Could exactly track the appalling way, which, an incredibly human way in which he's responded to the whole shenanigans.

• 21:23Dominic Sandbrook?

  So this was in January, all this, and the months 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, he's actually just got sick of London, hasn't he? He thought London was brilliant and now he's changed his mind.

• 21:37Tom Holland?

  Yep, and what always happens with Boswell when he's depressed is that he, he basically goes on a kind of spree.

• 21:44Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right.

• 21:44Tom Holland?

  He surrenders to what he calls the foul fiend of the genitals.

• 21:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  That is a foul fiend, yeah.

• 21:49Tom 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 armour, i.e. a kind of primitive condom.

• 22:01Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 22:01Tom Holland?

  And he's roaming St. James's Park, where all the most glamorous prostitutes are to be picked up on 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.

• 22:24Dominic Sandbrook?

  Easily pleased.

• 22:25Tom Holland?

  Well, I think a man who likes to spice up his pleasures in all kinds of strange ways. 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, 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 tazzing 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.

• 23:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right. And this is 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. Poor from Boswell.

• 23:23Tom Holland?

  But it doesn't stop him. So, you know, he's playing riskily.

• 23:27Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 23:27Tom Holland?

  But it's clear, I think, that despite this, or maybe because of this, he's still very keen to have Johnson's advice, um, 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.

• 23:46Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 23:47Tom Holland?

  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, of how Johnson received him. He received me very courteously, 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 and powdered 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

• 24:28Tom Holland?

  particularities were forgotten the moment that he began to talk.

• 24:34Dominic Sandbrook?

  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.

• 25:02Tom Holland?

  I mean, the barbs continue. I think what Boswell does feel that Johnson likes him, and India 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's, you know, 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? I can't write a tragedy. And Johnson's very contemptuous of this. Why,

• 25:45Tom Holland?

  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.

• 25:56Dominic Sandbrook?

  He's not wrong.

• 25:56Tom Holland?

  That's the critic flattened. And then there's another Scot, not Boswell, who is talking to Johnson, but Boswell is listening. And this Scot 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. Boswell writes, this unexpected and pointed Sally produced a roar of applause.

• 26:21Dominic Sandbrook?

  This is tremendous banter.

• 26:22Tom Holland?

  Massive banter. But this makes the fa- 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, you know, 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.

• 26:51Dominic Sandbrook?

  It's good advice.

• 26:52Tom Holland?

  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's, he starts to worry. Isn't Utrecht 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 recognizes it. And because he knows that the two of them again have to part, he suggests a trip to Greenwich, so down river from London. And they take a boat and they talk and they talk and they talk.

• 27:36Tom Holland?

  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. And he then turns to the boy who is rowing them in the boat. And he says, this boy rows us as well without learning as if he could sing the song of Orpheus to the Argonauts who were the first sailors. So he, he doesn't need to know about Jason and the Argonauts to row the boat. 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.

• 28:17Tom Holland?

  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 under, you know, the, the taxi boats of, of London.

• 28:32Dominic Sandbrook?

  And what do they make of Greenwich? They're actually slightly underwhelmed, no?

• 28:36Tom Holland?

  Well, no, they, they kind of walk in the park and they both agree that it's very beautiful. When Johnson asks 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, 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, scolded 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.

• 29:17Tom Holland?

  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 recognised a signal mark of honour. This is not the kind of thing Johnson would normally have done. And Boswell writes, it filled me with gratitude. And then so Boswell, and vanity.

• 29:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  No, that's fair though. I mean.

• 29:59Tom Holland?

  I mean, it's so true though, isn't it?

• 30:00Dominic Sandbrook?

  No one would go to Harwich voluntarily. I mean, it is a proper honour from Johnson. But Boswell is still a bit gloomy, isn't he, about going? And then it's nice because Johnson, who suffers himself from depression and melancholy, can see this and sort of is sympathetic.

• 30:14Tom Holland?

  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 when a bit depressed?

• 30:23Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 30:24Tom Holland?

  And they head off in the coach from London towards Harwich and the whole way Johnson is, you know, very effectively rallying his spirits. And they stop the night at Colchester, you know, 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, that creature was its own tormentor and I believe its name was Boswell.

• 30:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, what did Boswell make of this? He liked it.

• 31:01Tom 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.

• 31:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  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."

• 31:26Tom Holland?

  "No, 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 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."

• 31:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  Oh, 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.

• 32:18Tom Holland?

  This episode is brought to you by Claude by Anthropic. Now, history lives in the contradictions.

• 32:25Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, I've always been fascinated by the great mysteries of history, like what happened to the Maya civilization of Central America? Why were all those great cities deserted? But Tom, there's one mystery that's always fascinated you, isn't there?

• 32:37Tom Holland?

  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.

• 32:55Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, do you know, one of the things that makes history so fascinating is the kind of back and forth between sources to try and explain these great mysteries. And you know what's built for that kind of thinking? Claude is built for that way of thinking. It doesn't smooth things over. It helps you dig into the disagreement, to reveal something new. And Anthropic just committed to not running adverts in Claude. So your thinking stays yours.

• 33:19Tom Holland?

  Try Claude for free at claude.ai/RestIsHistory.

• 33:31Dominic Sandbrook?

  This episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile. Right now, all of Mint's plans are $15 per month, even unlimited. So go to mintmobile.com/history. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 months, plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Greater than 50GB may slow when network is busy. Includes up to 20GB of hotspot. Capable device required. Availability, speed and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com.

• 34:07Speaker 02

  To some, he is the revolutionary hero who restored China to its rightful place on the global stage.

• 34:14Speaker 03

  To others, he's a brutal despot, accused of presiding over more civilian deaths than either Stalin or Hitler.

• 34:21Speaker 02

  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.

• 34:29Speaker 03

  A rebel son who hated his father, survived a 6,000 mile walk across China and rose to become a figure of Titanic proportions.

• 34:39Speaker 02

  From Empire, the Goalhanger World History Show, I'm Anita Arnon.

• 34:43Speaker 03

  And I'm William Durham.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  In this six-part series, we're joined by world-renowned expert Rana Mitta to explore the life of the father of Communist China, Mao Zedong.

• 34:56Speaker 03

  We'll track his rise from a bookstore owner to a guerrilla commander and will witness his ruthless elimination to secure total power.

• 35:06Speaker 02

  We'll explore the greatest famine in human history, a catastrophe where Mao himself predicted that half of China may well have to die.

• 35:16Speaker 03

  And we'll descend into the dark experiment of the Cultural Revolution, a time when ancient temples were burnt, children deloused their parents and a nation worshipped a mango as a sacred relic.

• 35:28Speaker 02

  And we'll play a clip from the series at the end of this episode for you to listen to.

• 35:37Dominic 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 living all winter and 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.

• 36:11Tom Holland?

  Yeah, I mean, he hates it. He absolutely hates it. Incredibly dull. There's nothing else to do except study law.

• 36:18Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 36:19Tom Holland?

  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."

• 36:50Dominic Sandbrook?

  Oh, well, that's inspiring.

• 36:51Tom Holland?

  No, but it isn't because it's terrible. You know, he's, he, we've 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, you know, 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, you know, 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, you know, doesn't need to be told a second time. He's straight off. He loves travelling.

• 37:35Tom Holland?

  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. The only disappointment in Germany is he doesn't get to meet Frederick the Great. He hangs around in Berlin for a month.

• 38:20Dominic Sandbrook?

  Hmm.

• 38:20Tom Holland?

  And he ends up so desperate that he takes out his Erscher 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 notice it, but doesn't like it.

• 38:37Dominic Sandbrook?

  Surely not tall enough for Frederick the Great and not sufficiently interested in military parades.

• 38:41Tom Holland?

  I think that we've said that Boswell's face is not that of a man who's interested in military parades.

• 38:47Dominic Sandbrook?

  No, definitely not.

• 38:48Tom Holland?

  Which is also another reason why it's very lucky for him. I think he didn't get into the Guards.

• 38:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, definitely.

• 38:53Tom Holland?

  Hopelessly ill-suited to it.

• 38:55Dominic 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.

• 39:13Tom Holland?

  Yeah, it's Jean Jacques Rousseau. 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.

• 39:24Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 39:24Tom Holland?

  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.

• 39:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 39:41Tom Holland?

  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 through the village where Rousseau is living and he writes to him begging for a meeting. Rousseau replies, I am ill, in pain, really in no state to receive visits.

• 39:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, you'd expect that from him.

• 40:00Tom Holland?

  And this would probably put most people off, but it doesn't put Boswell off.

• 40:04Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 40:04Tom Holland?

  You know, he, 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, she's a Frenchwoman called Theresa Le Vasseur. 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, you know, go on.

• 40:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  Crack on, yeah, don't worry about me.

• 40:42Tom Holland?

  But basically Boswell is, is not remotely put off by Rousseau needing to use his chamber pot at all. Hangs around and Rousseau ends up being completely charmed by him. And they do end up having a series of, of really quite lengthy chats over the course of five days. And this, for Biographers of Rousseau, is 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.

• 41:13Dominic Sandbrook?

  Wow.

• 41:13Tom Holland?

  Boswell, I mean, if he'd had a smartphone, he would so have recorded it all and put it on social media. And that's effectively what he's doing with, you know, he, he talks to Rousseau, he rushes back to his, 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.

• 41:34Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 41:34Tom Holland?

  And Boswell is deliriously happy about this. And again, there's this sense when he writes it up in his journal of kind of watching himself as the hero of his journal.

• 41:47Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 41:47Tom Holland?

  So he, he writes, gods, am I now then really the friend of Rousseau? I suppose the parcel of young fellow saying, come Boswell, you'll dine with us today. No, gentlemen, excuse me, I'm engaged. I dine today with Rousseau. The sense of pride is so. Comical, but I think so engaging.

• 42:08Dominic 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, and sort of scholars and thinkers and whatnot. And that is Voltaire.

• 42:23Tom Holland?

  Yeah.

• 42:23Dominic Sandbrook?

  And 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?

• 42:32Tom Holland?

  Yeah. So Voltaire is just down the road from Rousseau. 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, Boswell writes it up in such a kind of entertainingly self-regarding way. Monsieur de Voltaire and I remained in the drawing room with the great Bible before us. And if ever two mortal men disputed with vehement sweeded. Yes, upon that occasion, he was one individual and I another for a certain portion of time.

• 43:13Tom Holland?

  There was a fair opposition between Voltaire and Boswell.

• 43:18Dominic Sandbrook?

  It would be interesting to hear Voltaire's version of that conversation to see if it was exactly the same.

• 43:22Tom Holland?

  I mean, the context for this is that Voltaire is the most famous infidel in Europe.

• 43:27Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right.

• 43:28Tom Holland?

  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 recognizes are a much profounder, 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

• 43:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right.

• 43:58Tom Holland?

  Intellectual equals.

• 43:59Dominic 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.

• 44:11Tom 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. So there's, you know, lots of guns

• 44:56Tom Holland?

  going off all over the place. And that's what Corsica's 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.

• 45:04Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 45:05Tom Holland?

  And on the crossing, there are kind of 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.

• 45:19Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's bad news for Boswell.

• 45:20Tom Holland?

  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, you know, 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. 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.

• 45:57Dominic 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 enamored 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?

• 46:15Tom Holland?

  Completely. He is possibly the kind of the most admired political figure in Europe, in this, this stretch of the 18th century. And Boswell plays a key role in promoting him as that. Because Boswell thinks Paoli is amazing. And actually, he hero worships Paoli even more than he hero worships Johnson. Because he associates Pauly again with kind of ancient history. He sees him as someone stepped from the pages of Plutarch or something. And he describes Pauly, he's a tall, strong and well-made, of a fair complexion, a sensible, free and open countenance, and a manly and noble

• 46:54Tom Holland?

  carriage. This is a man who is fighting for freedom, who's laid his life on the line. And Boswell is all over this. Now, Pauly is completely bewildered by Boswell. Boswell is the first hero worshiper that Pauly 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 Pauly tremendously well. And Boswell stays with Pauly for two months. And as they part, after this two-month stay, Pauly takes him by the hand and shakes

• 47:36Tom Holland?

  it, as Pauly 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. 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 it's like

• 48:19Tom Holland?

  Che Guevara. I mean, Boswell would absolutely have, you know, 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, again, this is quite student on a gap year-ish, he returns from the island with a full outfit of Corsican clothes, and Pauly has given him a pair of pistols. So he's got those as well.

• 48:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  He must look absolutely ridiculous walking around London, these Corsican trousers with his pistols.

• 48:45Tom Holland?

  Well, we will see. He does some. Furl his Corsica 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 to whip up interest in Britain on behalf of Corsican independence, to try and pressure the British government to swing behind Pauley, you know, to kind of back him. 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.

• 49:29Dominic 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 Alistair Campbell, Roy Strut, Dr. Johnson, Boswell parallels?

• 49:45Tom Holland?

  Well, perhaps in build.

• 49:46Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 49:47Tom Holland?

  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.

• 49:56Dominic Sandbrook?

  Than Rory.

• 49:56Tom Holland?

  Well, I think than pretty much anyone today, to be honest. Anyway, so Boswell is now returning home because Lord Affleck, you know, I mean, absolutely dispeptic 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.

• 50:15Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 50:15Tom Holland?

  And so Boswell heads back. He's had this brilliant time. He's been hanging out with Rousseau. He's been hanging out 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.

• 50:39Tom Holland?

  And Boswell has not forgotten Johnson while he was on his travels. 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, you know, 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.

• 51:14Dominic Sandbrook?

  He has, has done what Dr. Johnson has done because ever since he left Johnson at Harwich, he has been able to fend off the foul feed of the genitals, no?

• 51:21Tom Holland?

  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, and Rousseau does not, actually. So he's a bit disappointed by that. And then I said, he, you know, 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.

• 52:07Tom Holland?

  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.

• 52:18Dominic 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, or about, about to turn 26.

• 52:26Tom Holland?

  No, he doesn't. And in fact, things take a very dark turn because he's, 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.

• 52:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 52:41Tom Holland?

  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.

• 52:51Dominic Sandbrook?

  Of course he does.

• 52:52Tom Holland?

  Also in Paris, amazingly, is Rousseau's mistress, Theresa Vasseur, who we last met in Switzerland. And she is in Paris because she is heading on to England and specifically to Chiswick.

• 53:06Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right.

• 53:06Tom Holland?

  In West London, where Rousseau has settled. And the reason that he's 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.

• 53:35Dominic Sandbrook?

  Don't tell me that Rousseau, of all people, has been exposed as a hypocrite.

• 53:38Tom Holland?

  Yeah, and so he's been driven out of Switzerland and he's gone to take refuge in England. And Theresa is now travelling there to join him. And so Rousseau has asked Boswell, will you escort Theresa and bring her to me? And Boswell does, and inevitably they have sex.

• 53:56Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 53:56Tom Holland?

  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 Theresa says, listen, I'll give you some lessons. And so they have 12 lessons between.

• 54:09Dominic Sandbrook?

  12 lessons.

• 54:10Tom Holland?

  On the journey, on the journey from Paris to Dover. And Theresa's incredibly pleased with herself. Boswell finds it really dull and he gallantly compares Theresa to a bad rider galloping downhill.

• 54:21Dominic Sandbrook?

  So neither is satisfied. Both of them have let themselves down. Yeah.

• 54:24Tom Holland?

  So it's probably with some relief that Boswell drops Theresa off with Rousseau in Chiswick and then goes rushing off to be reunited with Samuel Johnson.

• 54:33Dominic Sandbrook?

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

• 54:39Tom Holland?

  He has, and also he has this human kindness beneath his bearish exterior.

• 54:45Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 54:45Tom Holland?

  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.

• 55:00Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 55:01Tom Holland?

  Johnson explodes. I mean.

• 55:04Tom Holland?

  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.

• 55:40Dominic Sandbrook?

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

• 55:48Tom Holland?

  He does a wonderful podcast, doesn't he? I think.

• 55:50Dominic Sandbrook?

  But very splenetic podcast.

• 55:51Tom Holland?

  Oh, completely. He'd be robust in his views. I mean, 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.

• 56:13Dominic Sandbrook?

  So he basically thinks that Voltaire's a teenager.

• 56:15Tom 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 our legal listeners will make of that. And Johnson, again, is, you know, he's, he has no time for this now, for any self pity, tells Boswell to man up.

• 56:33Dominic Sandbrook?

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

• 56:38Tom 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 practise 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, pursue other interests, other dreams. And the most public of these remains his activism on behalf of Corsican independence. So he gets back,

• 57:22Tom Holland?

  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, which he absolutely loves. And he writes about it in his journal. It is fine to have such a character as I have. I enjoy it much. Very pleased with himself. And Dominic, you asked about this outfit of Corsican clothes that he's brought back with him. And does he ever wear it? He does.

• 58:02Tom Holland?

  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.

• 58:20Dominic Sandbrook?

  Oh, nice.

• 58:21Tom Holland?

  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. Garrick's jubilee plays a key role in that, despite the fact that actually it's all, I mean, it's 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 Mard, the tarpaulins fall down, all of that, you know, 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 with his guns and his, you know, his sash and all that kind of stuff. I mean, very proto Byron.

• 59:04Tom Holland?

  And he reads out a poem that he has written himself about Corsican liberty. And he wrote about it, "I was as much a favourite as I could desire." In other words, Shakespeare Jubilee is a washout, but Boswell's been brilliant.

• 59:18Dominic Sandbrook?

  Of course, of course.

• 59:19Tom Holland?

  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 Jenner 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. So it's a momentous development. And poor General Pauley, 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 Pauley to Johnson and to all his friends and to as many people as he can.

• 1:00:00Tom Holland?

  And Pauley remains, I think, the kind of the purest hero in Boswell's pantheon. Because Johnson's.

• 1:00:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  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.

• 1:00:22Tom Holland?

  Yeah, too much of Corsica, he also says to Boswell.

• 1:00:26Dominic Sandbrook?

  Shut up about Corsica.

• 1:00:28Tom Holland?

  But Boswell knows that this kind of abrasiveness, you know, it comes with the territory. This is what Johnson's all about.

• 1:00:32Dominic Sandbrook?

  Hmm.

• 1:00:33Tom Holland?

  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 rumbunctuous form. And Boswell writes, "When I called upon Dr. Johnson next morning, I found him highly satisfied with his colloquial prowess the preceding evening. Well, said he, we have good talk." Boswell.

• 1:01:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  Aye, sir. You tossed and gored several persons.

• 1:01:08Tom Holland?

  And that sense that Johnson's conversation often is about tossing and goring people, I think is part of what makes him such a compelling spectacle for Boswell. He kind of enjoys it.

• 1:01:20Dominic 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?

• 1:01:29Tom 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. This continues to make Boswell unbelievably happy.

• 1:02:13Tom Holland?

  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.

• 1:02:36Dominic Sandbrook?

  Oh.

• 1:02:37Tom Holland?

  I think that's such a great, a great phrase. And the following spring, the seal is set on this kind of sense of, of, of joy, of hugging himself in his mind, when Johnson proposes Boswell for membership of the single most exclusive society in the country. 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, 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.

• 1:03:23Tom Holland?

  As Boswell puts it after his election, "It is such a society as can seldom be found."

• 1:03:29Dominic Sandbrook?

  So we talked about that in our very first episode for our Rest is History Club members. We were talking about the inspiration and history's greatest clubs.

• 1:03:36Tom Holland?

  And here we are.

• 1:03:37Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, and here we are.

• 1:03:37Tom Holland?

  With our very own club.

• 1:03:38Dominic Sandbrook?

  We've got more members than they had.

• 1:03:40Tom Holland?

  That's true. Maybe not quite as exclusive.

• 1:03:42Dominic Sandbrook?

  But we're just as exclusive. I was about to say, 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.

• 1:03:56Tom Holland?

  We do.

• 1:03:57Dominic Sandbrook?

  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 in perpetuating 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?

• 1:04:18Tom 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 gore 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."

• 1:04:46Dominic Sandbrook?

  Oh, that's great banter.

• 1:04:48Tom Holland?

  Great banter, but we used the word performative in our previous episode. And I think that's the mojous. Johnson is actually intrigued by Scotland and he's been telling Boswell right from the beginning, "I would actually like to come and see, you know, the castle on your estate." And saying, "I would love to go to the Hebrides in particular," because he'd been reading about them since he was a boy. Now, by 1773, which is the year that Boswell gets elected to the club, the prospects for such a jaunt must have seemed incredibly faint because Johnson is 64, 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.

• 1:05:32Tom Holland?

  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.

• 1:05:47Dominic Sandbrook?

  Crikey.

• 1:05:47Tom Holland?

  Samuel Johnson is coming to Scotland and the most famous literary expedition in British history is about to begin.

• 1:05:56Dominic 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

• 1:06:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  join the club at therestishistory.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.

• 1:07:03Tom Holland?

  Bye bye.

• 1:07:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  Bye bye.

• 1:07:11Dominic Sandbrook?

  Hello, it's William Drumm again from Empire. Here is a clip from our recent six part series on Mao Zedong.

• 1:07:18Speaker 04

  The Great East 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 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 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

• 1:08:01Speaker 04

  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 sort of Soviet-style internal passport system. 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're 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 nineteen fifty-nine, nineteen sixty, sixty-one. It became clear in the countryside,

• 1:08:44Speaker 04

  there simply wasn't enough food to go around. 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.

• 1:09:11Speaker 03

  We hope you enjoyed that clip. To listen to the full series, search Empire World History wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:09:18Speaker 05

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• 1:10:48Speaker 06

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