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“... imagine, as you pass through the London of 1740-70, that this was also a place where Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke and Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Malone, William Pitt and David Garrick could meet in the upstairs room of a pub to exchange genial perceptions on the course of the moral universe. I am pleased for ...”

“... some other.’ This will seem a mild complaint to Richard Baxter after his fierce clashes with Oliver Cromwell, and his denunciation by Judge Jeffreys: Oy! Oy! What ailed the old stock-cole, unthankful villain that he could not conform? Richard, Richard, dost thou think we’ll hear thee poison the court? Richard, thou art an old fellow, an old ...”

“... best. Johnson was soon the star attraction of a circle that included Edmund Burke, David Garrick, Oliver Goldsmith, Frances Burney and Joshua Reynolds, whose portraits of the group adorned the walls of the library in Streatham. Hester presided with remarkable wit, vivacity and in Burney’s neologism, ‘agreeability’; in ...”

“... him, but sometimes nothing more when we need more. In June 1781, for instance, Johnson writes to Reynolds: ‘It was not before yesterday that I received your splendid benefaction.’ There is a long note quoting Boswell’s description in the Life of Johnson of how he came upon this letter, but there is no account of what the ‘benefaction’ was or might ...”

“... noisy advertising. In front of them some violent encounters of the sort familiar to Mr Jingle and Oliver Twist are being enacted. The print implies that cultural institutions, especially the new National Gallery, are detached from the sordid realities of urban life. The Royal Academy moved into the east wing of Wilkins’s building in 1837 while the National ...”