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

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. So Boswell had begun this great journal, one of the most glittering, scintillating records of life in the eighteenth century ever written, arguably the most complete record of what it's like to live in the eighteenth century.

He had 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. Shocking. Tom, tell all.

We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript (67 minutes, 12,345 words), segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.

No account needed, we create one from your checkout email. With credits it is 1 credit; packs start at 10 episodes for $5, and monthly plans are cheaper still.