| Popis: |
This chapter is concerned with Samuel Johnson’s later years. During the last twenty-two years of his life, from July 1762 to December 1764, he received a Civil List pension of £300 per annum. No longer compelled to write for money, he undertook a series of travels: to Devon with Joshua Reynolds in 1762; to the Hebrides with his future biographer James Boswell in 1773; to North Wales with Henry and Hester Thrale in 1774; and to Paris, again with the Thrales, in 1775. He met Boswell for the first time in May 1763, and the Thrales with whom he soon developed a close friendship, in January 1765; Streatham Park, the country estate of this wealthy brewer and his brilliant wife, became Johnson’s second home. In winter 1764, Johnson and Reynolds founded the Club, initially with nine distinguished members. Johnson’s edition of Shakespeare was published in 1765; his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland in 1775; and his final major publication, Lives of the Poets, in 1779–81. |
