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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/29615-8.txt b/29615-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..379e7a7 --- /dev/null +++ b/29615-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4796 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of James Boswell, by William Keith Leask + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: James Boswell + Famous Scots Series + +Author: William Keith Leask + +Release Date: August 5, 2009 [EBook #29615] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JAMES BOSWELL *** + + + + +Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +JAMES +BOSWELL + + + + +FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES + + +_The following Volumes are now ready:_-- + +THOMAS CARLYLE. By Hector C. Macpherson. +ALLAN RAMSAY. By Oliphant Smeaton. +HUGH MILLER. By W. Keith Leask. +JOHN KNOX. By A. Taylor Innes. +ROBERT BURNS. By Gabriel Setoun. +THE BALLADISTS. By John Geddie. +RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor Herkless. +SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By Eve Blantyre Simpson. +THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor W. Garden Blaikie. +JAMES BOSWELL. By W. Keith Leask. + + + + +[Illustration: + +JAMES +BOSWELL + +BY +W KEITH +LEASK + +FAMOUS +·SCOTS· +·SERIES· + +PUBLISHED BY +OLIPHANT ANDERSON +& FERRIER. EDINBURGH +AND LONDON + +] + + * * * * * + +The designs and ornaments of this volume are by Mr Joseph Brown, and the +printing from the press of Messrs Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh. + + * * * * * + +~To~ + +GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL, +D.C.L.; +M.A. Pembroke (Johnson's) College, Oxford; + +CHIEF OF JOHNSON SCHOLARS AND EDITORS; +AND HIMSELF MOST "CLUBABLE" OF MEN. + + * * * * * + + + + +PREFACE + + +The literature of the Johnsonian period has assumed, in spite of the +lexicographer's own dislike of that adjective, prodigious dimensions. +After the critical labours of Malone, Murphy, Croker, J. B. Nichols, +Macaulay, Carlyle, Rogers, Fitzgerald, Dr Hill and others, it may appear +hazardous to venture upon such a well-ploughed field where the pitfalls +are so numerous and the materials so scattered. I cannot, however, +refrain from the expression of the belief that in this biography of +Boswell will be found something that is new to professed students of the +period, and much to the class of general readers that may lead them to +reconsider the verdict at which they may have arrived from the brilliant +but totally misleading essay by Lord Macaulay. At least, the writer +cherishes the hope that it will materially add to the correct +understanding and the enjoyment of Boswell's great work, _the Life of +Johnson_. + +My best thanks are due to J. Pearson & Co., 5 Pall Mall Place, London, +for the use of unpublished letters by Boswell and of his boyish +common-place book. And if "our Boswell" could indulge an honest pride in +availing himself of a dedication to Sir Joshua Reynolds, as to a person +of the first eminence in his department, so may I entertain the same +feeling in inscribing this sketch to Dr Hill who, amid the pressure of +other Johnson labours, has yet found time to revise the proof sheets of +my book. + +W. K. L. + +_ABERDEEN, December 1896._ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +CHAPTER I + +EARLY DAYS--MEETS JOHNSON--1740-63 9 + + +CHAPTER II + +THE CONTINENT--CORSICA--1763-66 35 + + +CHAPTER III + +EDINBURGH BAR--STRATFORD JUBILEE--1766-69 54 + + +CHAPTER IV + +LOVE AFFAIRS--LITERARY CLUB--1766-73 76 + + +CHAPTER V + +TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES--1773 88 + + +CHAPTER VI + +EDINBURGH LIFE--DEATH OF JOHNSON--1773-84 113 + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE ENGLISH BAR--DEATH--1784-95 122 + + +CHAPTER VIII + +IN LITERATURE 143 + + + + +JAMES BOSWELL + + + + +CHAPTER I + +EARLY DAYS--MEETS JOHNSON. 1740-1763 + + 'Behind yon hills, where Lugar flows.'--BURNS. + + +'Every Scotchman,' says Sir Walter Scott, 'has a pedigree. It is a +national prerogative, as inalienable as his pride and his poverty. My +birth was neither distinguished nor sordid.' What, however, was but a +foible with Scott was a passion in James Boswell, who has on numerous +occasions obtruded his genealogical tree in such a manner as to render +necessary some acquaintance with his family and lineage. The family of +Boswell, or Bosville, dates from the Normans who came with William the +Conqueror to Hastings. Entering Scotland in the days of the sore saint, +David I., they had spread over Berwickshire and established themselves, +at least in one branch, at Balmuto in Fife. A descendant of the family, +Thomas Boswell, occupies in the genealogy of the biographer the position +of prominence which Wat of Harden holds in the line of the novelist. He +obtained a grant of the lands in Ayrshire belonging to the ancient house +of Affleck of that ilk, when they had passed by forfeiture into the +hands of the king. Pitcairn, in his _Collection of Criminal Trials_ is +inclined to regard this ancestor as the chief minstrel in the royal +train of James IV.; but, as he fell at Flodden, this may be taken as +being at least not proven, nor would the position of this first literary +man in the family have been quite pleasing to the pride of race so often +shewn by his descendant. A Yorkshire branch of the family, with the +spelling of their name as Bosville, was settled at Gunthwait in the West +Riding, and its head was hailed as 'his chief' by Bozzy, whose +gregarious instincts led him to trace and claim relationship in a way +even more than is national. By marriage and other ties the family in +Scotland was connected with the most ancient and distinguished houses in +the land. + +The great grandfather of the biographer was the Earl of Kincardine who +is mentioned by Gilbert Burnet in his _History of His Own Time_. He had +married a Dutch lady, of the noble house of Sommelsdyck who had once +held princely rank in Surinam. With that branch also of the name did +Boswell, in later years, establish a relationship at the time of his +continental tour, when at the Hague he found the head holding 'an +important charge in the Republick, and is as worthy a man as lives, and +has honoured me with his correspondence these twenty years.' From the +Earl Boswell boasted 'the blood of Bruce in my veins,' a descent which +he seizes every opportunity of making known to his readers, and to which +we find him alluding in a letter of 10th May, 1786, now before us, to +Mickle, the translator of the _Lusiad_, with a promise to 'tell you what +I know about our common ancestor, Robert the Bruce.' When Johnson, in +the autumn of 1773, visited the ancestral seat of his friend, Boswell, +'in the glow of what, I am sensible, will in a commercial age be +considered as a genealogical enthusiasm,' did not forget to remind his +illustrious Mentor of his relationship to the Royal Personage, George +the Third, 'whose pension had given Johnson comfort and independence.' +It would have required a much greater antiquarian than Johnson, who +could scarcely tell the name of his own grandfather, to have traced the +well-nigh twenty generations of connecting links between Bruce and the +third of the Guelph dynasty on the throne. + +From Veronica Sommelsdyck, the wife of this royal ancestor (whose title +is now merged in the earldom of Elgin), was 'introduced into our family +the saint's name,' born by Boswell's own eldest daughter, and other +consequences of a much graver nature were destined to ensue. 'For this +marriage,' says Ramsay of Ochtertyre, 'their posterity paid dear,' for +to it was due, increased no doubt as it was through the inter-marriages +in close degrees between various scions of the house, the insanity which +is now recognised by all students of his writings in Boswell himself, +and which made its appearance in the clearest way in the case of his +second daughter. His grandfather James adopted the profession of law in +which he obtained some distinction, and left three children--Alexander, +the father of the subject of this sketch, John, who followed the +practice of medicine, and a daughter Veronica, married to Montgomerie of +Lainshaw, whose daughter became the wife of her cousin Bozzy. + +Alexander Boswell, Lord Auchinleck, married his cousin Euphemia Erskine. +In the writings of the son the father makes a considerable figure, while +his mother, 'of the family of Buchan, a woman of almost unexampled piety +and goodness,' as he styles her, is but a dim name in the background, as +with John Stuart Mill who has written a copious autobiography, and left +it to the logical instincts of his readers to infer that he had a +mother. The profession of law was adopted by the father, who, after a +residence abroad at Leyden where he graduated, passed as advocate at the +Scottish bar in 1729, from which, after a distinguished career, he was +appointed to the sheriffdom of Wigton, and ultimately raised to the +bench in 1754, with the title of Lord Auchinleck. He possessed, says his +son, 'all the dignified courtesy of an old baron,' of the school of +Cosmo Bradwardine as we may say, and not only was he an excellent +scholar, but, from the intimacy he had cultivated with the Gronovii and +other _literati_ of Leyden, he was a collector of classical manuscripts +and a collator of the texts and editions of Anacreon. His library was +rich in curious editions of the classics, and was in some respects not +excelled by any private collection in Great Britain, and the reputation +of the Auchinleck library was greatly increased by the black-letter +tastes and publications of his grandson. A strong Whig and active +Presbyterian, he was much esteemed in public and in private life. The +son had on his northern tour the pleasure to note, both at Aberdeen and +at Inverness, the high regard in which the old judge was held, and to +find his name and connection a very serviceable means of introduction to +the travellers in their 'transit over the Caledonian hemisphere.' Like +the father of Scott, who kept the whole bead-roll of cousins and +relations and loved a funeral, Lord Auchinleck bequeathed to his eldest +son at least one characteristic, the attention to relatives in the +remotest degree of kin. On the bench, like the judges in _Redgauntlet_, +Hume, Kames, and others, he affected the racy Doric; and his 'Scots +strength of sarcasm, which is peculiar to a North Briton,' was on many +an occasion lamented by his son who felt it, and acknowledged by Johnson +on at least one famous occasion. In the _Boswelliana_ are preserved many +of old Auchinleck's stories which Lord Monboddo says he could tell well +with wit and gravity--stories of the circuit and bar type of Braxfield +and Eskgrove, such as Scott used to tell to the wits round the fire of +the Parliament House. In his younger days he had been a beau, and his +affectation of red heels to his shoes and of red stockings, when brought +under the notice of his son by a friend, so affected Bozzy that he could +hardly sit on his chair for laughing. A great gardener and planter like +others of the race of old Scottish judges he had extended, in the +classic style of architecture then in fashion, the family mansion, and +had, as Johnson found, 'advanced the value of his lands with great +tenderness to his tenants.' Past the older residence flowed the river +Lugar, here of considerable depth, and then bordered with rocks and +shaded with wood--the old castle whose 'sullen dignity' was the nurse of +Boswell's devotion to the feudal principles and 'the grand scheme of +subordination,' of which he lets us hear so much when he touches on 'the +romantick groves of my ancestors.' + +James Boswell, the immortal biographer of Johnson, was born in Edinburgh +on October 29, 1740. The earliest fact which is known about him is one +which he himself would have described as 'a whimsical or +characteristical' anecdote, and which he had told to Johnson:--'Boswell +in the year 1745 was a fine boy, wore a white cockade, and prayed for +King James, till one of his uncles, General Cochrane, gave him a +shilling on condition that he would pray for King George, which he +accordingly did. So you see that Whigs of all ages are made the same +way.' It may have been these early signs of perversity that led his +father to be strict in dealing with him, for we cannot doubt that +Boswell in the _London Magazine_ for 1781, is giving us a picture of +domestic life when he writes as follows:--'I knew a father who was a +violent Whig, and used to upbraid his son with being deficient in "noble +sentiments of liberty," while at the same time he made this son live +under his roof in such bondage, that he was not only afraid to stir from +home without leave, but durst scarcely open his mouth in his father's +presence.' For some time he was privately educated under the tuition of +the Rev. John Dun, who was presented in 1752 to the living of Auchinleck +by the judge, and finally at the High School and the University of +Edinburgh. There he met with two friends with whom, to the close of his +life, he was destined to have varied and close relations. One was Henry +Dundas, first Lord Melville, and by "Harry the Ninth" Bozzy, in his +ceaseless attempts to secure place and promotion, constantly attempted +to steer, while that Pharos of Scotland, as Lord Cockburn calls him, was +as constantly inclined to be diffident of the abilities, or at least the +vagaries, of his suitor. + +The other friend was William Johnson Temple, son of a Northumberland +gentleman of good family, and grandfather of the present Archbishop of +Canterbury. Temple was a little older than Boswell, who for upwards of +thirty-seven years maintained an uninterrupted correspondence with him. +As he is the Atticus of Boswell, we insert here a detailed account of +him in order to avoid isolated references and allusions in the course of +the narrative. On leaving Edinburgh he entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge; +after taking the usual degrees, he was presented by Lord Lisburne to the +living of Mamhead in Devon, which was followed by that of St Gluvias in +Cornwall. Strangely enough for one who was an intimate friend of +Boswell, he was no admirer of Johnson (whose name, by a curious +coincidence, was a part of his own), and a strong Whig and +water-drinker, 'a bill which,' says Bozzy humorously, 'was ever one +which meets with a determined resistance and opposition in my lower +house.' As the friend of Gray and of Mason, he must have been possessed +of some share of ability, yet over his moral character the admirers and +critics of Boswell are divided. To some he appears as the true and +faithful Atticus to the Cicero of his friend, the Mentor and honest +adviser in all times of danger and trial. To others he seems but to have +possessed, in a minor degree, all the failings of Boswell himself, and +it would appear the most natural inference to believe that, had Temple +been endowed with greater force of mental or moral character, the +results would have been seen in many ways upon the actions of his +friend. In his wife he was unfortunate, and, at one time at least, he +attempted to secure a colonial chaplaincy in order to effect a +separation. He was the writer of an _Essay on the Clergy; their Studies +and Recreations_, 1774; _Historical and Political Memoirs_, 1777; _Abuse +of Unrestrained Power_, 1778; all of which have completely passed from +the memory of man. But he lives with a fair claim to fame, as the +correspondent of Boswell, who calls him 'best of friends' to 'a weak +distemper'd soul that swells in sudden gusts, and sinks again in calms.' +A chance memorandum by Temple, on the death of Gray, displaying +considerable felicity of phrase and insight, was sent by Boswell to the +_London Magazine_ of March 1772, from which it was copied by Mason in +his _Life of Gray_, and in an adapted form it was used by Johnson +himself in his sketch of the poet's work, in his _Lives of the Poets_. +The discovery of the _Letters to Temple_ is one of the happiest +accidents in literature, and without them the true life of Boswell could +not be written. To neither Macaulay nor Carlyle were they known for use +in their famous reviews. On the death of Temple in 1796, one year after +the decease of his friend, his papers passed into the possession of his +son-in-law, who retired to France, where he died. Some fifty years ago, +a gentleman making purchases in a shop at Boulogne, observed that the +wrapper was a scrap of a letter, which formed part of a bundle bought +shortly before from a travelling hawker. On investigation, the letters +were found to be the correspondence of Boswell with Temple, and all +doubts as to their genuineness were conclusively set at rest by their +bearing the London and Devon post marks, and the franks of well known +names. But the internal evidence alone, as we shall see, would be +sufficient to establish their authenticity. Published in 1857 by +Bentley, under the careful editorship of Mr Francis, they constitute, +along with the no less happy discovery in 1854, behind an old press in +Sydney, of Campbell's _Diary of a Visit to England_--though Professor +Jowett was inclined to doubt the authenticity of the latter--the most +valuable accession of evidence to the Johnsonian circle of interest, and +they shed on Boswell and his method a light which otherwise would leave +much in darkness, or, at least, but ensure a general acceptance of the +harsher features in the criticism by Macaulay. From the remark by +Boswell to Temple--'remember and put my letters into a book neatly; see +which of us does it first,' it has been inferred that he meditated, in +some sort of altered appearance, their republication. That Temple +entertained the same idea on his part we know from his own words, and +from the title under which Boswell suggested their issue--_Remarks on +Various Authors, in a Series of Letters to James Boswell, Esq._ But that +Boswell himself ever did intend the publication of his own must be +pronounced, by all that know what lies behind their printed form, a +moral impossibility. + +The first preserved letter is dated from Edinburgh, July 29, 1758. It +reveals at once the historic Boswell, such as he remained to the close, +the cheerful self-confidence, the gregarious instincts, the pleasing air +of moralizing, and the easy flow of style. 'Some days ago I was +introduced to your friend Mr Hume; he is a most discreet affable man as +ever I met with, and has really a great deal of learning, a choice +collection of books ... we talk a good deal of genius, fine learning, +improving our style, etc., but I am afraid solid learning is much worn +out. Mr Hume is, I think, a very proper person for a young man to +cultivate an acquaintance with.' Then he digresses to 'my passion for +Miss W----t,' of whom, he assures his friend, he is 'excessively fond, +so don't be surprised if your grave, sedate, philosophic friend who used +to carry it so high, and talk with such a composed indifference of the +beauteous sex, should all at once commence Don Quixote for his adorable +Dulcinea.' We catch sight of him, at eighteen, going on the northern +circuit with his father and Lord Hailes. There, by the advice of an +Edinburgh acquaintance, Love, an old actor at Drury Lane, but then a +teacher of elocution in the town, he began 'an exact journal,' and on +that journey it was that Hailes made Boswell aware of the fact that was +to henceforward colour the entire tide of his life, the existence of Dr +Johnson as a great writer in London, 'which grew up in my fancy into a +kind of mysterious veneration, by figuring to myself a state of solemn +elevated abstraction, in which I supposed him to live in the immense +metropolis of London.' Such were the links, the advice of this obscure +player to keep a journal, and the report given to the youth by the +judge in their postchaise. As early as December 1758 we hear of his +having 'published now and then the production of a leisure hour in the +magazines,' and of his life in Edinburgh he writes, 'from nine to ten I +attend the law class; from ten to eleven study at home, and from one to +two attend a class on Roman Antiquities; the afternoon and evening I +always spend in study. I never walk except on Saturdays.' A full +allowance, surely, all this for one who regrets his sad impotence in +study, and writes the letters to Lord Hailes which we shall quote later. + +Even at this period he betrays the fatal defect which remains with him +through life, the indulgence in 'the luxury of noble sentiments,' and +the easy and irritating Micawber-like genteel roll with which he turns +off a moral platitude or finely vague sentiment, in the belief that good +principles constitute good character. 'As our minds improve in +knowledge,' he writes, 'may the sacred flame still increase until at +last we reach the glorious world above when we shall never be separated, +but enjoy an everlasting society of bliss.... I hope by Divine +assistance, you shall still preserve your amiable character amidst all +the deceitful blandishments of vice and folly.' While still at Edinburgh +he produced _The Coquettes, or the Gallant in the Closet_, by Lady +Houston, but it was ruined on the third night, and found to be merely a +translation of one of the feeblest plays of Thomas Corneille. This play +was long believed to be by Boswell, but his part was merely the +providing the translator with a prologue, nor was the fact revealed till +long after by the lady herself. + +In November 1759 he entered the class of moral philosophy under Adam +Smith at Glasgow. Perhaps his father had thought that in the more sedate +capital of the West, and in close propinquity to Auchinleck, there +would be less scope for the long career of eccentricities upon which he +was now to enter. If such, however, had been the intention, it was +destined to a rude awakening. All his life Bozzy affected the company of +players, among whom he professed to find 'an animation and a relish of +existence,' and at this period he tells us he was flattered by being +held forth as a patron of literature. In the course of his assiduous +visits to the local theatre he met with an old stage-struck army officer +from Ireland, Francis Gentleman, who had sold his commission to risk his +chances on the boards. By this worthy an edition of Southern's +_Oroonoko_ was dedicated to Boswell, and in the epistle are found some +of his qualities:-- + + 'But when with honest pleasure she can find + Sense, taste, religion, and good nature join'd, + There gladly will she raise her feeble Voice + Nor fear to tell that Boswell is her Choice.' + +Thus early had the youthful patron of the drama blossomed into +notoriety, and having also commenced attendance at the Roman Catholic +Chapel he had now resolved to become a priest, though curiously enough +he began this career by eloping, as we are assured by Ramsay of +Ochtertyre, with a Roman Catholic actress. His father followed the pair +to London, and there, it would seem, prevailed on the erratic neophyte +to abandon his fair partner, whose existence would certainly have been a +fatal barrier to the proposed priesthood. At least, like his friend +Gibbon of later days, if he sighed as a lover, he obeyed as a son, and a +compromise by which he was to enter on the profession of arms was +effected. His father called on Archibald, Duke of Argyll, an old +campaigner with Marlborough. 'My Lord,' said the Duke, 'I like your son; +this boy must not be shot at for three shillings and sixpence a day.' +This scene reads like a pre-arranged affair calculated to flatter the +erratic Bozzy out of his warlike schemes, for which it is clear he was +never fitted. Indeed, the true aim was really, as he confesses to +Temple, a wish to be 'about court, enjoying the happiness of the _beau +monde_ and the company of men of genius.' Temple had come forward with +an offer of a thousand pounds to obtain a commission for him in the +Guards, and Boswell assures us repeatedly, 'I had from earliest years a +love for the military life.' Yet we can with equal difficulty figure +'our Bozzy' as priest or soldier. Like Hogg who hankered after the post +of militia ensign with 'nerves not,' as Lockhart says, 'heroically +strung,' Boswell in his own _Letter to the People of Scotland_ confesses +himself 'not blest with high heroic blood, but rather I think troubled +with a natural timidity of personal danger, which it costs me some +philosophy to overcome.' Nor was his devotion to charmer or chapel +likely to weather the dissipated life he led in London. In later life he +may have had thoughts of his own feelings when he proposed to publish, +from the manuscript in his possession, the life of Sir Robert Sibbald. +That antiquary had been pressed by the Duke of Perth to come over to the +Papists, and for some time embraced the ancient religion, until the +rigid fasting led him to reconsider the controversy and he returned to +Protestantism. Bozzy thought the remark of his friend, that as ladies +love to see themselves in a glass, so a man likes to see and review +himself in his journal, 'a very pretty allusion,' and we may be sure, in +spite of his reticence, that his own case was present at the time to his +mind. His distressed father enlisted the interest of Lord Hailes, who +requested Dr Jortin, Prebendary of St Paul's, to take in hand the +flighty youth, and to persuade him to renounce the errors of the Church +of Rome for those of the Church of England, for it was plain that +Boswell had broken loose from his old moorings, and some middle course +might, it was hoped, prove to be possible. 'Your young gentleman,' +writes Jortin to Hailes, 'called at my house. I was gone out for the +day; he then left your letter and a note with it for me, promising to be +with me on Saturday morning. But from that time to this I have heard +nothing of him. He began, I suppose, to suspect some design upon him, +and his new friends may have represented me to him as a heretic and an +infidel, whom he ought to avoid as he would the plague.' More likely the +Catholic fit had passed away. But what a light does this phase, erratic +even among his countless vagaries, shed on his relation to Johnson! +Never, we may rest assured, did he tell the sage of this hidden passage +in his life; yet how often do we find him putting leading questions to +his friend and Mentor on all points of Catholic doctrine and casuistry, +purgatory, and the invocation of the saints, confession, and the mass! +There can be no doubt that this wrench left a deep impress on the +confused religious views of Boswell, and this is the clue which explains +the opening conversation with Johnson at the beginning of their +intimacy. 'I acknowledged,' he writes, 'that though educated strictly in +the principles of religion, I had for some time been misled into a +certain degree of infidelity; but I was now come to a better way of +thinking, and was fully satisfied of the truth of the Christian +revelation, though I was not clear as to every point considered to be +orthodox.' Never in any way does he refer to this episode of his life, +but the _Life of Johnson_ is, as we shall have occasion to show, the +life in many ways also of its author, who says of himself that, 'from a +certain peculiarly frank, open, and ostentatious disposition which he +avows, his history, like that of the old Seigneur Michael de Montaigne, +is to be traced in his writings.' + +Left to himself and the guidance of the writer Derrick, 'my first tutor +in the ways of London, who shewed me the town in all its variety of +departments, both literary and sportive,' he was now busily spelling +through the pages of the Gull's Hornbook. From this course of idle +dissipation he was saved by the interposition of an Ayrshire neighbour +of the family, the Earl of Eglintoun, though were we to credit the +account of the waif himself the Earl 'insisted that young Boswell should +have an apartment in his house.' Certain it is that by his lordship he +was taken to Newmarket and introduced to the members of the Jockey Club. +He would appear to have fancied himself a regularly elected member, for +here his eccentricity broke forth into a yet more violent form. Calling +for pen and paper, while the sporting fraternity gathered round, he +produced the _Cub at Newmarket_, which he printed and dedicated to the +Duke of York in a characteristically Boswellian strain. In doggerel +which defies rhyme or reason he tells how his patron + + 'By chance a curious cub has got + On Scotia's mountains newly caught;' + +and then--the first of his many portraits drawn by himself, and +prophetic of the lover of hospitable boards and good cheer as we know +him in his works--he describes the writer as + + 'Not of the iron race + Which sometimes Caledonia grace; + Though he to combat should advance, + Plumpness shone in his countenance; + And belly prominent declared + That he for beef and pudding cared; + He had a large and ponderous head, + That seemed to be composed of lead; + From which hung down such stiff, lank hair, + As might the crows in autumn scare.' + +At this time it is likely took place the escapade with which he must +have convulsed the gravity of the Edinburgh _literati_ invited to meet +Johnson on their return from the Hebrides. 'I told, when Dr Hugh Blair +was sitting with me in the pit of Drury Lane, in a wild freak of +youthful extravagance I entertained the audience _prodigiously_ by +imitating the lowing of a cow. I was so successful in this boyish frolic +that the universal cry of the galleries was "_encore the cow_." In the +pride of my heart I attempted imitations of other animals, but with very +inferior effect.' Blair's advice was, says Scott, 'Stick to the coo, +man,' in his peculiar burr, but we can imagine how this unforeseen +reminiscence must have confused the divine. After an ineffectual effort +to enter himself at the Inner Temple, the 'cub' had to return in April +1761 to Edinburgh. + +Old Edinburgh was nothing if not convivial. Writing to Temple and +confessing that his London life had 'not been entirely as it ought to +be,' he appeals to him for pity in his present surroundings. Imagine 'a +young fellow,' he cries, 'whose happiness was always centred in London, +hauled away to the town of Edinburgh, obliged to conform to every +Scottish custom, or be laughed at--"Will ye hae some jeel? Oh fie, oh +fie!"--his flighty imagination quite cramped, and be obliged to study +_Corpus Juris Civilis_ and live in his father's strict family; is there +any wonder, sir, that the unlucky dog should be somewhat fretful? Yoke a +Newmarket courser to a dung cart, and I'll lay my life on't he'll either +caper or kick most confoundedly, or be as stupid and restive as an old +battered post-horse.' Among the many clubs of the time Boswell +instituted a jovial society called the _Soaping Club_ which met weekly +in a tavern. The motto of the members was 'Every man soap his own +beard,' a rather recondite witticism which their founder declares +equivalent to the reigning phrase of 'Every man in his humour.' It may +be suggested here that in this company of feeble Bacchanalians Boswell +had copied the Rabelaisian _fay ce que vous voudras_ of the Franciscans +of Medmenham Abbey with Sandwich, Wilkes, and others. At any rate, as +their self-constituted laureate, he produced the following extraordinary +song, which can be paralleled for inanity only by the stave he sang +before Pitt in the Guildhall of London, as a means of attracting the +notice of the Premier with a view to Parliament. The song is +characteristically Boswellian. + + 'Boswell of Soapers the King + On Tuesdays at Tom's does appear, + And when he does talk or does sing, + To him ne'er a one can come near. + For he talks with such ease and such grace, + That all charm'd to attention we sit, + And he sings with so comic a face + That our sides are just ready to split. + + Boswell is modest enough, + Himself not quite Phoebus he thinks, + He never does flourish with snuff, + And hock is the liquor he drinks. + And he owns that Ned Colquet the priest + May to something of honour pretend, + And he swears that he is not in jest, + When he calls this same Colquet his friend. + + Boswell is pleasant and gay, + For frolic by nature design'd; + He heedlessly rattles away + When the company is to his mind. + "This maxim," he says, "you may see, + We never can have corn without chaff;" + So not a bent sixpence cares he, + Whether _with_ him or _at_ him you laugh. + + Boswell does women adore, + And never once means to deceive, + He's in love with at least half a score; + If they're serious he smiles in his sleeve. + He has all the bright fancy of youth, + With the judgment of forty and five; + In short, to declare the plain truth, + There is no better fellow alive.' + +This, it must be confessed, is sad stuff even for a laureate of twenty, +and is jesting with difficulty. Every man, says Johnson, has at one time +or other of his life an ambition to set up for a wag, but that a man who +had completed the _Life of Johnson_ should in after years complacently +refer to this character of himself and 'traits in it which time has not +yet altered, that egotism and self-applause which he is still +displaying, yet it would seem with a conscious smile,' is scarcely +credible were it not out-distanced by graver weaknesses. + +For about this date he published _An Elegy upon the Death of an Amiable +Young Lady_, flanked by three puffing epistles from himself and his +friends, Erskine and Dempster. In the same year appeared his _Ode to +Tragedy_--by a Gentleman of Scotland, with a dedication to--James +Boswell, Esq.!--'for your particular kindness to me, and chiefly for the +profound respect with which you have always treated me.' We hear of his +'old hock' humour, a favourite phrase with him for his Bacchanalian +tastes, and we find the author limning himself as possessing + + 'A soul by nature formed to feel + Grief sharper than the tyrant's steel, + And bosom big with swelling thought + From ancient lore's remembrance brought.' + +In 1760 had appeared a _Collection of Original Poems_, published by +Donaldson in Edinburgh on the model of Dodsley's _Miscellanies_. It +comprised poems by Blacklock, Beattie, and others, and a second volume +was issued by Erskine as editor in 1762. To it Boswell contributed +nearly thirty pieces along with Home, the author of _Douglas_, +Macpherson of _Ossian_ fame or notoriety, John Maclaurin and others. The +merits of the volume are beneath notice, and Boswell's contributions of +Odes, Epigrams, Letters, Epistles, are of the traditional character; but +_An Epistle from a London Buck to his Friend_ must have been read by his +father with regret, and by his mother of 'almost unexampled piety and +goodness' with shame. There is only one poem that calls for attention, +the _Evening Walk in the Abbey Church of Holyrood House_, the original, +perhaps, of Fergusson's lament on the state of neglect of the then +deserted mansion of royalty, where + + 'the thistle springs + In domicile of ancient Kings, + Without a patriot to regret + Our palace and our ancient state.' + +A third volume was announced for publication 'about eighteen months +hence,' but the public had enough of this coagulated jargon as Carlyle +would have styled it, and critics and readers are spared the task of its +consideration. + +Yet all this time he was in the enjoyment of the best company that +Edinburgh could afford; he was admitted a member of the Select Society, +and his circle embraced such men as Lord Somerville, Lord Hailes, Dr +Blair, Kames, Robertson, Hume, Home, Jupiter Carlyle and others. 'Lord +Auchinleck,' he quaintly adds, 'took the trouble himself to give him a +regular course of instruction in law, a circumstance of singular +benefit, and of which Mr Boswell has ever expressed a strong and +grateful sense.' But his sense was not such as to restrain him from a +mock-heroic correspondence with Andrew Erskine, brother of the Earl of +Kellie. Erskine must have been possessed of some parts, for he was the +correspondent of Burns and was intimate with George Thomson the +composer, yet we can fancy the consternation of the old judge when this +farrago of the new humour was published in London in 1763. Writing from +his father's house, he thus begins:--'Dear Erskine, no ceremony I +beseech you! Give me your hand. How is my honest Captain Andrew? How +goes it with the elegant Lady A----? the lovely, sighing Lady J----? and +how, oh how, does that glorious luminary Lady B---- do? you see I retain +my usual volatility. The Boswells, you know, came over from Normandy +with William the Conqueror; and some of us possess the spirit of our +ancestors, the French. I do, for one. A pleasant spirit it is. _Vive la +bagatelle_ is the maxim. A light heart may bid defiance to fortune.' +Again the old man would find 'Allow me a few more words. I live here in +a remote corner of an old ruinous house, where my ancestors have been +very jovial. What a solemn idea rushes on my mind! They are all gone: I +must follow. Well, and what then? Let me shift about to another subject. +The best I can think of is a sound sleep; so good-night.' In fact, like +Sir Fretful Plagiary in the _Critic_, Bozzy was so covetous of +popularity that he would rather be abused than be not mentioned at all. +Little augury, too, of success at the bar could his father find in the +following portrait of his son: 'the author of the _Ode to Tragedy_ is a +most excellent man; he is of an ancient family in the west of Scotland, +upon which he values himself not a little. At his nativity there +appeared omens of his future greatness; his parts are bright, and his +education has been good; he has travelled in post-chaises miles without +number; he is fond of seeing much of the world; he eats of every good +dish, especially apple pie; he drinks old hock; he has a very fine +temper; he is somewhat of a humourist, and a little tinctured with +pride; he has a good, manly countenance, and he owns himself to be +amorous; he has infinite vivacity; yet is at times observed to have a +melancholy cast.' + +Nothing but the most obtuse vanity could ever have induced Bozzy to +publish all this. 'Curiosity,' he declares in the preface, 'is the most +prevalent of all our passions, and the curiosity for reading letters is +the most prevalent of all kinds of curiosity. Had any man in the three +kingdoms found the following letters directed, sealed, and addressed, +with post-marks--provided he could have done so honestly--he would have +read every one of them.' There is the true Boswell in this +characteristic confession, the Boswell that read in the private diaries +of Johnson, and, with an eye to biographical materials, had admitted an +impulse to carry them off, and never see him more. 'Why, sir,' said the +doctor, 'I do not think you could have helped it.' + +After this it was no wonder that his father was induced to allow his +return to London, 'Where a man may soap his own beard, and enjoy +whatever is to be had in this transitory state of things, and every +agreeable whim may be indulged without censure.' The Duke of Queensbery, +the patron of Gay, was one of those to whom he was recommended now that +he inclined to 'persist in his fondness for the Guards, or rather, in +truth, for the metropolis,' but he suspected some arrangement between +his father and the Duke by which the commission was delayed. For some +months he spent a random life as the occupier of Temple's chambers in +the vicinity of Johnson. Little could be expected of the friend of +Churchill and Wilkes, yet Boswell now was at the turning point of his +career. + +'This is to me,' he writes in his great work, 'a memorable year; for in +it I had the happiness to obtain the acquaintance of that extraordinary +man whose memoirs I am now writing; an acquaintance which I shall ever +esteem as one of the most fortunate circumstances of my life.' We have +seen how Lord Hailes, had on the 1758 circuit, mentioned to him the name +of Johnson; how in Glasgow Gentleman had given him a representation of +'dictionary Johnson;' how Derrick in 1760, during his first visit to +London, had promised to introduce this youth of twenty to the great +dictator of literature; and Sheridan, the father of the dramatist, when +in Edinburgh in 1761, giving public lectures on elocution, had made a +similar promise. But on his return to London at the end of 1762, Boswell +had found that Sheridan had quarrelled with Johnson, and Derrick had +retired to Bath as master of the ceremonies in succession to Beau Nash. +Luckily Derrick had before introduced his friend to Davies, the +bookseller in Covent Garden, who as 'one of the best imitators of +Johnson's voice and manner' only increased the ardour of Boswell for the +meeting. Now the hour was come and the man. Yet surely never could there +have been a more apparently unpropitious time chosen. Number 45 of the +_North Briton_ denouncing Bute and his Scotch favourites had appeared on +April 23rd. The minister had bowed to the storm and resigned, while the +writer of the libel had been arrested under a general warrant and +discharged on the 30th of the month under appeal, either to be hanged, +thought Adam Smith, or to get Bute impeached in six months. Alexander +Cruden, of _Concordance_ fame, was rambling over London in his lucid +interval like an inverted Old Mortality, busy with a sponge obliterating +every hated '45' scrawled over the walls and every conceivable spot in +the city against his country. Yet at such an hour it was that the famous +meeting of Johnson and his biographer took place. + +'At last, on Monday the 16th of May, when I was sitting in Mr Davies' +back-parlour, after having drunk tea with him and Mrs Davies, Johnson +unexpectedly came into the shop; and Mr Davies having perceived him +through the glass door in the room in which we were sitting, advancing +towards us,--he announced his awful approach to me, somewhat in the +manner of an actor in the part of Horatio, when he addresses Hamlet on +the appearance of his father's ghost, "Look, my lord, it comes." I found +that I had a very perfect idea of Johnson's figure, from the portrait of +him painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds.... Mr Davies mentioned my name, and +respectfully introduced me to him. I was much agitated; and recollecting +his prejudice against the Scotch, of which I had heard much, I said to +Davies, "Don't tell where I come from."--"From Scotland," cried Davies +roguishly. "Mr Johnson," said I, "I do indeed come from Scotland, but I +cannot help it." ... "That, sir, I find is what a very great many of +your countrymen cannot help." This stroke stunned me a good deal; and +when we had sat down, I felt myself not a little embarrassed, and +apprehensive of what might come next.... Eager to take any opening to +get into conversation with him, I ventured to say, "Oh, sir, I cannot +think Mr Garrick would grudge such a trifle to you." "Sir," said he, +with a stern look, "I have known David Garrick longer than you have +done, and I know no right you have to talk to me on the subject." +Perhaps I deserved this check,' etc., etc. + +Next day Boswell called on Davies, who assured him that the doctor would +not take it amiss if he were to visit him; and so, a week later, 'after +being entertained by the witty sallies of Messieurs Thornton, Wilkes, +Churchill and Lloyd,' from whom he would hear plenty of vigorous abuse +of his country, and whose names we may take it as certain were not +mentioned to his new friend, Boswell boldly repaired to Johnson. Nothing +is more striking than the contrast between the hitherto reckless Bozzy +and the easy assurance and composure with which he faces Johnson, sits +up with the sage, sups at the Mitre, leads the conversation, and +apparently holds his own in the discussions. Doubtless, the 'facility of +manners' which Adam Smith has said was a feature of the man, was here of +service to him, and no less so would have been the flattering way in +which he managed to inform Johnson of his reputation over the Border. +Boswell was not slow to write to Lord Hailes, knowing full well how the +report of such an acquaintance and friendship would be welcome at +Auchinleck as the signs of an approaching reformation. Goldsmith, whom +he met shortly after, he entertained at the Mitre with a party of +friends, among whom was the Rev. Dr John Ogilvie, the author of some +portentous and completely forgotten epics, but who is not yet quite lost +to sight as the writer of the sixty-second paraphrase of Scripture, 'Lo! +in the last of days behold.' A subsequent 'evening by ourselves' he +describes to Lord Hailes in the wariest manner, so as to secure his +father's consent to a plan of travel. The old judge had wished his son +to follow the profession of law which had now in their family become +quite hereditary, and had coupled this with a scheme of study at +Utrecht, after the plan he had himself followed at Leyden. A compromise +had, in fact, been arranged by which this was to be pursued, and the +career of arms dropped. Nothing can be more adroit than the way in which +the young hopeful about to embark on the grand tour manages in his +despatch to his lordship, with an eye to the Home Office, to suggest the +furtherance of his own ideas under the supposed guise of Johnson's +approval. 'He advises me to combat idleness as a distemper, to read five +hours every day, but to let inclination direct me what to read. He is a +great enemy to a stated plan of study. He advises me when abroad to go +to places where there is most to be seen and learned. He is not very +fond of the notion of spending a whole winter in a Dutch town. He thinks +I may do much more by private study than by attending lectures. He would +have me to perambulate (a word in his own style) Spain, also to visit +the northern kingdoms, where more that is new is to be seen than in +France or Italy, but he is not against me seeing these warmer regions.' + +Here, in fact, is the germ of the tour to the Baltic they had hoped when +at Dunvegan one day to carry out, for which Johnson, when in his +sixty-eighth year was still ready, and which Boswell thought would have +made them acquainted with the King of Sweden, and the Empress of Russia. +On a later day of the month he asked his friend to the Mitre to meet his +uncle Dr John, 'an elegant scholar and a physician bred in the School of +Boerhaave,' and George Dempster, M.P. for the Forfar Burghs. As the +latter was infected with the sceptical views of Hume, there would seem +to have been a scene, for in the _Life_ Johnson is made to say, 'I have +not met with any man for a long time who has given me such general +displeasure,' but Boswell, ever with an eye for copy, writes to Temple, +'it was a very fertile evening, and my journal is stored with its +fruits.' Then to Lord Hailes he writes: '_Entre nous_ of +Dempster,--Johnson had seen a pupil of Hume and Rousseau totally +unsettled as to principles. I had infinite satisfaction in hearing solid +truth confuting vain subtilty. I thank God that I have got acquainted +with Mr Johnson. He has done me infinite service. He has assisted me to +obtain peace of mind; he has assisted me to become a rational Christian; +I hope I shall ever remain so.' Pleasantly all this would sound at home. +There would be less now heard of his father's threat in May to +disinherit him, and of the son's appeal to Lord Hailes to intercede with +him--'to have patience with me for a year or two, and I may be what he +pleases.' On July 15th he has had a long letter from his father, full of +affection and good counsel. 'Honest man,' he writes to Temple, 'he is +now happy. He insists on having my solemn promise. The only question is, +how much I am to promise.' Then on the 25th he has his letters of credit +and his introductions to people in Holland. 'They have been sent open +for me to seal, so I have been amused to see the different modes of +treating that favourite subject _myself_.' He is to be allowed Ł240 a +year, but he is determined not to be straitened, nor to encourage the +least narrowness, but to draw on his father when necessary. Wilkes had +gone to France, but had let him have some franks 'to astonish a few +North Britons.' Parting for a time with Temple, whose family was now in +straitened circumstances, he assures him that their friendship should be +'an exalted comfort' to him in his distress, and concludes +characteristically enough with advice to Temple's younger brother in the +army for his establishment in 'solid notions of religion and morality.' + +Before he bids his native land good-night, there is a final letter to +Hailes with his father, Jortin, and the actress all well in his mind's +eye. 'My scepticism,' he says, 'was not owing to thinking wrong, but to +not thinking at all. It is a matter of great moment to keep a sense of +religion constantly impressed upon our minds. If that divine guest does +not occupy part of the space, vain intruders will,'--the fine old roll +of Micawber to the close. Johnson on the 5th August started with him for +Harwich in the stage coach, half in hopes of visiting Holland in the +summer, and accompanying Bozzy in a tour through the Netherlands. 'I +must see thee out of England,' said the old man kindly. On the beach +they parted, and '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.' Boswell's attendance upon his new friend had not +escaped the notice of the doctor's circle. 'Who,' asked one, 'is this +Scotch cur at Johnson's heels?' 'Not a cur, but a bur,' was Goldsmith's +reply, 'and he has the faculty of sticking.' With what effect the world +was to know. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE CONTINENT--CORSICA. 1763-66 + + 'That's from Paoli of Corsica.'--GOLDSMITH, '_The Good Natured + Man_.' + + +'Utrecht,' writes Boswell, 'seeming at first very dull to me after the +animated scenes of London, my spirits were grievously affected.' But the +depression was not destined to last, and soon we hear of his having +wearied of the proposed two years' course of study. The custom of legal +training in some of the universities of the Continent was about this +time coming to a close, though for long it had remained usual, at least +with the landed classes of Scotland, to secure such an extended field of +study for the bar by an attendance at some of the more developed schools +of jurisprudence in Holland. Cunningham, the celebrated critic of +Bentley, had given prelections in Leyden, and no reader of the _Heart of +Midlothian_ will forget the laments of the inimitable Bartoline +Saddletree over his not being sent to Leyden or Utrecht to study the +Institutes and the Pandects. Since the days of Gilbert Jack at Leyden, +the connection between Holland and the Scottish universities had been +close, and the garrets of Amsterdam had been crowded before the +Revolution by refugees from both Scotland and England who maintained, +upon their return, the ties they had contracted in their exile. Even +Fielding had been sent to Leyden for law, and just before the visit of +Boswell, to which his father had consented rather as a compromise than +from any practical benefit that might ensue, the law of Scotland, +largely based on Roman and feudal precedents, had received fresh +extensions of conveyancing and other branches of jurisprudence, through +the mass of forfeited estates brought into the market after the +suppression of the Jacobite Rebellions. What country, then, could so +rapidly afford such a course of legal study as the Protestant and +commercial Holland? The reputation of Boerhaave had drawn medical +students from all quarters, and Boswell's uncle John, and the celebrated +Monro _primus_ of the Edinburgh Medical School had been among the +number. Goldsmith in 1755 met Irish medical students there, and some +twenty years before the time we have reached Carlyle of Inveresk had +found in Leyden 'an established lodging-house' where his countrymen, +Gregory and Dickson, were domiciled, and numerous others, among whom he +expressly mentions Charles Townshend, Askew the Greek scholar, Johnston +of Westerhall, Doddeswell, afterwards Chancellor of the Exchequer, and +John Wilkes then entering, at eighteen, on the career of profligacy that +was to render him notorious. Carlyle describes their meetings at each +other's rooms twice or thrice a week, when they drank coffee, supped on +Dutch red herrings, eggs and salad, and never sat beyond the decent hour +of twelve. For such a style of living Boswell's annual allowance of Ł240 +was certainly handsome in a place where the fuel, chiefly peat, was the +only expensive item. + +But such a quiet style of life was not congenial to the lively tastes of +our traveller. He soon tired of the civil law lectures of Professor +Trotz, and longed for fresh woods and pastures new. He sighed to be +upon his travels again. Of his life abroad some isolated notes may be +gathered from the _Boswelliana_, and, as has been mentioned, he sought +out his relatives at the Hague 'of the first fashion,' the Sommelsdycks, +and with his facility of manners, and his father's credentials to the +_literati_ and scholars of the place, his circle of acquaintance was +large and influential. We hear of an intimacy with the Rev. William +Brown, minister of the Scottish congregation at Utrecht, the father of +Principal Laurence Brown of Marischal College, Aberdeen; and with Sir +Joseph Yorke, whom he met later in Ireland, then the Ambassador at the +Hague, he would appear to have been acquainted. But Sir Joseph does not +seem to have welcomed the easy manners of his young friend, and the dull +life of the burgomasters was little suited to Boswell who ridicules +their portly figures and their clothes which they wore as if they had +been 'luggage.' + +The two years' course of study was abruptly reduced to one. At its close +we trace him at Berlin in July 1764, and in close relations with the +British Envoy at the Prussian Court. Fortunately for Boswell this was +both a countryman and a friend of his father's, Sir Andrew Mitchell, the +late M.P. for the Banff Burghs. By the Ambassador he was introduced to +the best society in the capital, and from Berlin he wrote to his father +representing the urgent necessity of extending his travels, and, till +the letter in reply should arrive, he proceeded into Hanover and +Brunswick. On his return to Berlin towards the end of August he found a +letter waiting him from Lord Auchinleck, who was naturally chagrined at +the breakdown of his scheme of compromise. A visit to Paris he was +prepared to allow, but the return of the wanderer to Utrecht was +peremptorily commanded. The family of the Envoy was now at Spa, but +next day Boswell wrote him a letter urging him to intercede with his +father for the proposed extension. The letter is a very long one, and +its abridgement even is impossible here, but few more Boswellian +productions can be found. He has, he tells Sir Andrew, a melancholy +disposition, and to escape from the gloom of dark speculation he has +made excursions into the fields of folly, and in this tone of the +Preacher in _Ecclesiastes_ he rambles on. The words of St Paul, 'I must +see Rome,' he finds are borne in upon him, and such a journey would +afford him the talk for a lifetime, the more so that he was no libertine +and disclaimed all intentions of travelling as _Milord Anglois_, but +simply as the scholar and the man of elegant curiosity. Did not Sir +Andrew as the loved and respected friend of his father think that the +son had a claim to protest before he considered any act regarding +himself as passed, and would not the Envoy remonstrate or persuade the +father as to the justice of his wish? No reply was sent to this, but the +judge, thinking that discretion was the wiser part in circumstances +where it was useless to dictate without the means to enforce compliance, +yielded reluctant consent to the scheme of an Italian tour. Gravely then +does Bozzy rebuke Sir Andrew and for this occasion he forgives him, 'for +I just say the same to young people when I advise. Believe me,' he +somewhat irrelevantly adds, 'I have a soul.' + +Fortune followed him wherever he turned. George, tenth Earl Marischal, +and brother of Frederick the Great's general, Marshal Keith, had joined +the Earl of Mar in the rising of 1715, and had made an ineffectual +descent in 1719 on Glenshiel with the Spaniards. But in the '45 he had +taken no part, and he revealed to the British Government the existence +of the Bourbon Family Compact. In return, his attainder had been +removed by George II., and on his brief visit to Scotland he had lived +with Boswell's father in Ayrshire, perhaps as a friend of the +Commissioners for the forfeited estates, when the occasion had been +seized by Macpherson for an ode, 'attempted after the manner of Pindar,' +in the fustian style of the translator of Ossian. With him or by his +credentials Boswell went the round of the German courts, passing by +Mannheim and Geneva, reaching the latter towards the end of December. +The reader is struck with the airy assurance and self-possession which +the laureate of the Soapers and the Newmarket Cub manifests on the grand +tour, conducting himself at three and twenty with complete success at +the courts of German princes, conversing with plenipotentiaries and +dignitaries of all sorts in French and Italian, for German had not yet +risen into sufficient historical or diplomatic importance to add to the +linguistic burdens of mankind. Lord Marischal as the governor of +Neufchatel had acted as the protector of Rousseau, and so was able to +furnish his companion with a letter of introduction, hinting at his +enthusiastic nature and describing him to the philosopher as a visionary +hypochondriac. Voltaire he interviewed at Ferney, and he managed to +please the great man by repeating--a characteristic trait of Bozzy, who +believed such tale-bearing to be vastly conducive to the practice of +benevolence--Johnson's criticism upon Frederick the Great's writings, +'such as you may suppose Voltaire's foot-boy to do, who has been his +amanuensis.' He broached the subject of the philosophy of the +unconscious, and was eager to know how ideas forgotten at the time were +yet later on recollected. The other replied by a quotation from +Thomson's _Winter_ with the writer's question, as to the winds, + + 'In what far distant region of the sky + Hushed in silence sleep ye when 'tis calm?' + +The attempt to draw out Voltaire upon the tour to the Hebrides, which +Boswell and Johnson had been vaguely talking over, produced only the +rather sarcastic query if he wished him to accompany them, with a look +'as if I had talked of going to the North Pole.' Of his visit to the +wild philosopher, as he styles Rousseau, we have no notice, beyond the +general remark that they had agreed to differ alike in politics and +religion, but that there were points _oů nos âmes sont unies_. The +feudal dogmas of Boswell and his rigid adherence to his pet idea of 'the +grand scheme of subordination' were of course not likely to be pleasing +to the sceptical _aqua fortis_ of the sombre Genevese, with his belief +in the fraternity of mankind and the greatness of the untutored Indian. + +Boswell crossed the Alps, and either then or upon his homeward journey +visited Bologna, Venice, and Mantua. He passed through Rome and, unknown +to either, may have met Gibbon in the Eternal City into whose mind, some +weeks before, 'as I sat musing among the ruins of the Capitol while the +bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter,' had +started the idea of writing the _Decline and Fall_. In the city he met +Andrew Lumsden, the Secretary of Prince Charles Edward, but we are not +informed if the young Jacobite of five, who had prayed for the exiled +family now sought any opportunity of making himself known to the object +of his devotion. Naples brought him into the more congenial society of +Wilkes with whom, he says, he 'enjoyed many classical scenes with +peculiar relish.' When Churchill had died at Boulogne in the arms of +Wilkes, the latter had retired to Naples to inscribe his sorrow 'in the +close style of the ancients' upon an urn of alabaster which had been the +gift of Winckelmann, and in that city now he was, as the literary +executor, preparing annotations on the works of Churchill. Boswell +managed with his curious want of tact in such matters, fitting the man +who could suggest cards to a dying friend with an uneasy conscience, to +hint that the poet had 'bounced into the regions below,' and to render +the _Il Bruto Inglese_, by which the papers of the land referred to +Wilkes and liberty, by a version significant of the notorious ugliness +of his gay acquaintance. Naples, as with Milton, was the limit of his +tour, and from it he returned to Rome. He reached that city in April +1765, and dispatched a letter to Rousseau, then 'living in romantick +retirement' in Switzerland, requesting his promised introduction to the +Corsican general, 'which if he refused, I should certainly go without +it, and probably be hanged as a spy.' The wild philosopher was as good +as his word, and the letter met the traveller at Florence. 'The charms +of sweet Siena detained me no longer than they should have done, I +required the hardy air of Corsica to brace me, after the delights of +Tuscany,' an enigmatical turn of expression upon which light is thrown +later, when we discuss the love affairs of Boswell, by a reference to a +dark-eyed 'signora' on whom the tender traveller had glanced. At Leghorn +he was within one day's sail of Corsica. + +Pascal Paoli was the Garibaldi of his day. When his father in 1738 had +been driven from the island by the French, he had retired with him to +Naples where he entered a military college and followed the profession +of arms. The way was paved for his return by the disturbances in the +island in 1755, and so successful was he in his guerilla warfare as +general against the Genoese, the owners of Corsica, that they were +speedily driven to sue for peace. It was in a sort of lull in the storm +of hostilities that our traveller made his unexpected appearance, and +the adroit way in which he managed to lay his plans of action and to +carry them out with such complete success calls for our admiration. In +his _Tour_ he simply says that 'having resolved to pass some years +abroad (this is excellent, after his letter to Sir Andrew) for my +instruction and entertainment, I conceived a design of visiting the +Island of Corsica. I wished for something more than just the common +course of what is called the tour of Europe, and Corsica occurred to me +as a place where nobody else had been.' It may have been suggested to +him by Rousseau, who had been engaged in some vague scheme of +philandering philanthropy by which the wild philosopher was to play the +Solon and the Lycurgus of the distressed islanders, and establish a +fresh code of laws upon the basis of his new fraternity, but with which +'this steady patriot of the world alone,' as Canning styles him, 'the +friend of every country but his own,' managed to mix in a much more +practical way some not very honourable, if characteristic, intrigues for +the surrender of the island to France. + +Bozzy, at all events, was determined to make a bold bid for fame. +Nothing like this had occurred, as an opening, during all his tour. The +dangers of the plan were fully known to him, and the possibility was +laid before his eyes of capture at the hands of the Barbary corsairs and +a term of imprisonment at Algiers. Our adventurer waited on the +commodore in command of the British squadron in the bay of Leghorn, and +he was provided with a passport, the value of which against the +threatened dangers does not sufficiently appear. Before he left Leghorn, +his proposed visit had come to be regarded in a very serious light by +Italian politicians. They saw in him an envoy from the British intrusted +with powers to negotiate a treaty with Corsica, and all disclaimers of +any such intention were politely treated as an evasion. Bozzy was in +consequence viewed as 'a very close young man,' a trait that at no time +of his life was ever applicable to James Boswell, on whom, indeed, the +advice given by Sir Henry Wotton to Milton would have been thrown away. +Putting out to sea in a Tuscan vessel bound for Capo Corso for wine, he +had two days to spend on board in consequence of a dead calm. 'At +sunset,' he says, 'all the people in the ship sang _Ave Maria_ with +great devotion and some melody.' One recalls the similar circumstances +under which Cardinal Newman found himself becalmed on the orange-boat in +the Straits of Bonifacio. For some hours he had put himself in spirits +by taking a hand at the oar, and at seven in the evening of the second +day they landed in the harbour of Centuri. He delivered his credentials, +and on Sunday heard a Corsican sermon, where the preacher told of +Catharine of Siena who wished to be laid in the mouth of the awful pit, +that she might stop it up, and so prevent the falling in of more souls. +'I confess, my brethren,' cried the friar, 'I have not such zeal, but I +do what I can, I warn you how to avoid it.' + +At Corte, the capital of the island, he waited boldly upon the Supreme +Council. He was gravely received, as befitted a supposed British envoy, +and lodged in the apartment of Paoli in a Franciscan convent. Next day, +the old petitioner for a commission in the Guards found the first and +last military experience of his life. Three French deserters waited on +him in the belief that he came to recruit soldiers for Scotland, and +'begged to have the honour of going along with me.' Nor was the idea so +absurd as he seems to have viewed it, for from the _Scots Magazine_ of a +somewhat later date we learn that British Volunteers and Highlanders +disbanded after the wars had been enlisted in the service of Paoli. But +it is not improbable that the deserters had heard of Boswell's +nationality from the woman of Penrith whom he found in the island, +married to a French soldier in the army of the Pretender, whose fortunes +she had followed when they had passed through Carlisle on the retreat +from Derby. Another feature of Boswell, one whose consideration and +explanation we shall attempt later on, now for the first time meets us, +his inveterate love for interviewing criminals, and accordingly, 'as I +wished to see all things in Corsica,' he had a meeting with the hangman +who seemed sensible of his situation. The inhabitants crowded round him +at a village as he advanced, and questioned the traveller, as Coleridge +at Valetta found himself similarly interrogated, as to his professing +himself a Christian when he did not believe in the Pope--_e perche_, and +why? The old candidate for the priesthood managed to deftly evade this +query by an assurance that in Britain the people were too far off and in +a theological climate of their own. He was in the highest humour, and in +this unusual flow of spirits he harangued the men of Bastelica with +great fluency, getting, however, at Sollacaro somewhat nervous as the +interview with the Corsican leader drew nigh. Paoli lived in constant +dread of assassination, and the sudden arrival of this mysterious +stranger was strongly calculated to arouse suspicions. For ten minutes, +in silence, he looked at Boswell, who broke in with the remark that he +was a gentleman from Scotland upon his travels and had lately visited +Rome from which, having seen the ruins of one brave people, he was now +come to view the rise of another. The general was not quite set at ease +by this sententiously balanced sentence, and years after he told Miss +Burney about his impressions at the time of the mysterious stranger. It +shews the ruling passion strong in life, and that Boswell, as 'the +chiel' amang them takin' notes,' forgot the rules of ordinary courtesy +and prudence in the gratification of his darling method. 'He came to my +country sudden,' said Paoli in his broken English, 'and he fetched me +some letters of recommending him. And I supposed, in my _mente_ he was +in the privacy one espy; for I look away from him to my other companies, +and when I look back to him I behold it in his hands his tablet, and one +pencil. O, he was at the work, I give it you my honour, of writing down +all what I say to some persons whatsoever in the room. I was angry +enough, pretty much so. But soon I found out I was myself the monster he +came to observe. O, he is a very good man Mr Boswell at the bottom, so +witty, cheerful, so talkable. But at the first, Oh I was indeed _fache_ +of the sufficient.' This first glimpse of Bozzy at work is delightful. +He was in fact "making himself," all unknown the while, as Shortreed +said of Scott over the Liddesdale raids. + +He dined with the general and suite. In spite of, perhaps by very reason +of, his protestations of having no diplomatic mission, the highest +attention was shewn him as an accredited envoy from St James'. In the +morning chocolate was served up to him on a silver salver with the +national arms; he rode out on the general's horse, with guards marching +before him. Paoli knew sufficient English to maintain the dialogue, +having picked up some slight knowledge of the tongue from Irish refugee +officers in the Neapolitan service. His library was turned over by his +inquisitive guest, who found among the books some odd volumes of _The +Spectator_ and _The Tatler_, Pope's _Essay on Man_, _Gulliver's +Travels_, and Barclay's _Apology for the Quakers_. His good humour, as +it had won on the general, endeared the supposed _ambasciadore Inglese_ +to the peasants, and he had a Corsican dress made for him. Of that +dress--'in which I walked about with an air of true satisfaction'--every +one who has heard of James Boswell has read, and it is inseparable +somehow from our conceptions of the man and writer. + +We select from this Corsican Tour--the least known to the general reader +of Boswell's three great works--what seems to us the gem of the +book:--'One day they must needs hear me play upon my German flute. To +have told my honest natural visitants, 'Really, gentlemen, I play very +ill,' and put on such airs as we do in our genteel companies, would have +been highly ridiculous. I therefore immediately complied with their +request. I gave them one or two Italian airs, and then some of our +beautiful old Scots tunes, _Gilderoy_, _The Lass o' Patie's Mill_, _Corn +Riggs are Bonny_.' The pathetick simplicity and pastoral gaiety of the +Scots musick will always please those who have the genuine feelings of +nature. The Corsicans were charmed with the specimens I gave them, +though I may now say that they were very indifferently performed. My +good friends insisted also to have an English song from me. I +endeavoured to please them in this, too. I sung them 'Hearts of Oak are +our Ships, Hearts of Oak are our Men.' I translated it into Italian for +them, and never did I see men so delighted as the Corsicans were. +'_Cuore di querco_,' cried they, '_bravo Inglese!_' It was quite a +joyous riot. I fancied myself to be a recruiting sea officer. I fancied +all my chorus of Corsicans aboard the British fleet.' + +How admirable is the style of all this, equal quite to Goldsmith's best +and lightest touch! Exquisite, too, is that picture of Bozzy, as the +rollicking British stage-tar of tradition, in his rendering of Garrick's +song, the gems from the Opera and the national melodies. Allan Ramsay's +song in Corsica is to be equalled only by Goldsmith on _his_ tour when +he played, but not for amusement, _Barbara Allan_ and _Johnny +Armstrong's Good Night_ before the doors of Italian convents and Flemish +homesteads. + +But the highstrung Bozzy had to experience a revulsion of low feelings +to which he was ever prone. He is soon in a sort of Byronic fit, and he +continues in a strain with which we should have not credited the 'gay +classic friend of Jack Wilkes' and of that Sienese _signora_, unless he +had turned evidence against himself. He declared his feelings to Paoli, +as he had done to Johnson, whose curt advice had been not to confuse or +resolve the common consequences of irregularity into an unalterable +decree of destiny. To the general he now attributed his feeling of the +vanity of life, the exhaustion in the very heat of youth of all the +sweets of being, and the incapacity for taking part in active life to +his 'metaphysical researches,' his reasoning beyond his depth on such +subjects as it is not given to man to know. These hesitances the other +wisely pushed aside with the soldierly advice to strengthen his mind by +the perusal of Livy and Plutarch. In return Bozzy gave an imitation of +'my revered friend Mr Samuel Johnson,' little dreaming that all three +would one day be intimate in London, and the general's house in Portman +Square be always at the traveller's disposal. From the palace, as he +styles it, of Paoli, Nov. 1765 he wrote to Johnson, as he had done +before, 'from a kind of superstition agreeable to him as to myself,' +from what he calls _loca solennia_--places of solemn interest. 'I dare +to call this a spirited tour. I dare to challenge your approbation;' +and, reading it twenty years later in the original which the old man +had preserved, he found it full of 'generous enthusiasm.' No account of +the continental travels of Boswell would be complete without the +reproduction of his letter to the doctor from Wittenberg. It is one of +the most important for the more subtle shades of psychology in the +writer's character. + + '_Sunday, Sept. 30, 1764._ + + MY EVER DEAR AND MUCH RESPECTED SIR,--You know my solemn + enthusiasm of mind. You love me for it, and I respect myself + for it, because in so far I resemble Mr Johnson. You will be + agreeably surprized when you learn the reason of my writing + this letter. I am at Wittenberg in Saxony. I am in the old + church where the Reformation was first preached, and where some + of the Reformers lie interred. I cannot resist the serious + pleasure of writing to Mr Johnson from the tomb of Melancthon. + My paper rests upon the gravestone of that great and good man + who was undoubtedly the best of all the Reformers.... At this + tomb, then, my ever dear and respected friend! I vow to thee an + eternal attachment. It shall be my study to do what I can to + render your life happy: and if you die before me, I shall + endeavour to do honour to your memory and, elevated by the + remembrance of you, persist in noble piety. May God, the father + of all beings, ever bless you! and may you continue to love + your most affectionate friend, and devoted servant,--JAMES BOSWELL.' + +So early had Boswell made his resolve to be the biographer of Johnson. +On the very day of his introduction to him, he had taken notes of all +that had passed in Davies' back-parlour. He was none of the men that do +things by halves, and blunder into a kind of success, as some of his +depreciators have thought. + +Six weeks he had been in Corsica. The first day of December saw him land +at Genoa on his return, Lyons was reached on the third day of the new +year, Paris one week later. Here Rousseau who had preceded him to London +had provided him with a curious commission, the bringing over into +England of his mistress Therese Levasseur. The easy-going Hume thus +announces the fact to his friend the Countess de Boufflers. +'Mademoiselle sets out with a friend of mine, a young gentleman, very +good humoured, very agreeable, and very mad. He has such a rage for +literature that I dread some event fatal to my friend's honour. For +remember the story of Terentia who was first married to Cicero, then to +Sallust, and at last in her old age married a young nobleman, who +imagined that she must possess some secret which would convey to him +eloquence and genius.' A letter he found waiting from Johnson, together +with one announcing the death of his mother. No more was heard about a +second year at Utrecht. He crossed to London, and was again with his old +friend, who had moved from the Temple to a good house in Johnson's +Court, in Fleet Street. Goldsmith was no longer the obscure writer whom +he had left behind, but the author of the _Vicar of Wakefield_ and the +_Traveller_. The club had been founded. He was encouraged by the sage to +publish his account of his travels in Corsica--'you cannot go to the +bottom, but all that you tell us will be new.' + +He dined at the Mitre as of old, and presented Temple to Johnson. No +word about his companion across the Channel, naturally enough, reached +the old man's ears, but he mentioned Rousseau; though he recognised he +was now in a new moral atmosphere where every attempt was resented to +'unhinge or weaken good principles.' On a modified defence of the +philosopher, whose works he professed had afforded him edification, he +did venture, but thinking it enough to defend one at a time Boswell said +nothing 'of my gay friend Wilkes.' In the Paris _salons_ of that winter +Wilkes, Sterne, Foote, Hume, and Rousseau, had been the received lions. +Hume had taken up the wild philosopher whose melodramatic Armenian dress +had been the attraction at the houses of the leaders of society, the +ladies who (says Horace Walpole who was there this year) 'violated all +the duties of life and gave very pretty suppers.' It was the day of +Anglomania on the Continent, when the name of Chatham was a name to +conjure with, and Hume was expounding deism to the great ladies,--'when +the footmen were in the room,' adds the shocked Horace,--lionizing Hume +'who is the only thing they believe in implicitly; which they must do, +for I defy them to understand any language that he speaks,' in allusion +to the broad Scottish accent of the philosopher. + +The fantastic attire of Rousseau may have suggested to Bozzy the +Corsican dress in his valise, or he may have construed into a command, +willingly enough, the hint Paoli had dropped to let them know at home +how affairs were going. He waited on Chatham with it, and was received +pompously but graciously, says the Earl of Buchan who was present, for a +touch of melodrama was not uncongenial to the great minister, the +'Pericles of Great Britain,' as the general had styled him. Bozzy +thanked him 'for the very genteel manner in which you are pleased to +treat me.' In return, Chatham eulogized Paoli as one of Plutarch's men, +as Cardinal de Retz had said of Montrose. + +He saw Auchinleck in somewhat altered circumstances from those in which, +four years before, he had left his father's house, riding through +Glasgow 'in a cocked hat, a brown wig, brown coat made in the court +fashion, red vest, corduroy small clothes, and long military-looking +boots, with his servant riding a most aristocratic distance behind.' He +had left it likely to vex the soul of his father, the laureate of +doggerel, threatening to be the disgrace of the family; he returned as +the acquaintance, in varying degrees of intimacy, of Johnson, Wilkes, +Churchill, Goldsmith, the Earl Marischal, Voltaire, Rousseau, Paoli, +Chatham, and plenipotentiaries of all kinds. A wonderful list for the +raw youth they had known at home; yet nowhere in all his intercourse +does he show the least want of self-possession or easy bearing. The +'facility of manners' and his good humour had carried him all through +his curious experiences with German courts and Italian peasants. A +'spirited tour,' truly, if perhaps the moral results had been greater. +The nobility and gentry of this country were welcomed abroad with but +too great avidity. Italy, the garden of Europe, Bozzy declared to be the +Covent Garden, and isolated passages in his book shew that he could not +claim, like Milton, to have borne himself truly 'in all these places +where so many things are considered lawful.' Fox, we know, did not +escape the contagion of the grand tour, and Boswell had been 'caught +young.' + +Nor will the reader find much fault in what the adverse critics have +unduly emphasized--his interviewing or forcing himself upon men. A man, +as Johnson said to him when seeking an interlocutor on this point, +always makes himself greater as he increases his knowledge. When he was +at Dunvegan on his northern tour, and Colonel Macleod seemed to hint at +this, Bozzy offers as his defence of what 'has procured me much +happiness' the eagerness he ever felt to share the society of men +distinguished by their rank or talents. If a man, he adds, is praised +for seeking knowledge, though mountains and seas are in his way, he may +be pardoned in the pursuit of the same object under difficulties as +great though of a different kind. And the defence will not be refused +him for the use he has made of the means. Wisdom and literature alike +are justified of their children, and the masters in either are not so +numerous that we can afford to quarrel with them, or wrangle over their +respective merits. 'Sensation,' said Johnson, '_is_ sensation,' and the +pretty general feeling now is that in his department Boswell is a +master. + +From his first setting out, he had written down every night what he had +noted during the day, 'throwing together that I might afterwards make a +selection at leisure.' He was to try his 'prentice hand on his _Tour in +Corsica_ before shewing his strength in his two greater works. Mrs +Barbauld regarded him as no ordinary traveller, with + + 'Working thoughts which swelled the breast + Of generous Boswell, when with noble aim + And views beyond the narrow beaten track + By trivial fancy trod, he turned his course + From polished Gallia's soft delicious vales.' + +Such thoughts were perhaps really foreign to that traveller, yet Dr Hill +assures us that by every Corsican of education the name of Boswell is +known and honoured. One curious circumstance is given. At Pino, when +Boswell fancying himself 'in a publick house' or inn, had called for +things, the hostess had said _una cosa dopo un altra, signore_, 'one +thing after another, sir.' This has lingered as a memento of Bozzy in +Corsica, and has been found by Dr Hill to be preserved among the +traditions in the Tomasi family. Translations of the book in Italian, +Dutch, French, and German, spread abroad the name of the traveller who, +if like a prophet without honour in his own country, has not been +without it elsewhere. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +EDINBURGH BAR--STRATFORD JUBILEE. 1766-69 + + 'A clerk, foredoomed his father's soul to cross, + Who pens a stanza, when he should engross.'--POPE. + + +The return of the prodigal to Auchinleck would seem at first to have +been attended with some satisfaction to both father and son. The father +might now believe that he was entitled to consideration from the son, as +a reward for his long-continued indulgence to the traveller, who might +in his turn reflect on the advantages which he derived from such a +protracted tour. Accordingly, in his papers of the April of this year, +we find the following entry:--'My father said to me, "I am much pleased +with your conduct in every respect." After all my anxiety while abroad, +here is the most perfect approbation and calm of mind. I never felt such +_sollid_ (_sic_) happiness.' But the philosopher, who with Paoli had +compared his mind to a camera obscura, reappears unfortunately in the +next entry. 'But I find I am not so happy with this approbation and this +calm as I expected to be. But why do I say alas! when I really look upon +this life merely as a transient state?' To this curious expression of +Boswell we shall refer when we discuss at the close his religious and +philosophical views, but it is distressing to find such whimsicalities +colouring his sense of the old man's kindness when he writes but +shortly after, 'I must stay at Auchinleck, I have there just the kind of +complaining proper for me. All must complain, and I more than most of my +fellow-creatures.' + +On the 26th July 1766 he passed advocate at the bar. On putting on his +gown he remarked to his brother-advocates, as he says, that his natural +propensities had led him to a military life, but now that he had been +pressed by his father into the service he did not doubt but that he +should shew as good results as those who had joined as volunteers. His +gay friend Wilkes had declared that he would be out-distanced in the +professional race by dull plodders and blockheads, but at the outset he +appears to have started with a fair amount of zest. He dedicated his +inaugural thesis to the son of the Earl of Bute, Lord Mountstuart, with +whom he had travelled in Italy, and on whom he flattered himself he had +made some impression, the first of Boswell's many ineffectual attempts +to secure place and promotion, for on a seat in Parliament he had four +years before set his heart. A copy of the thesis was sent to Johnson, +who by this time had rather cooled over the proposed publication by his +friend of a book on Corsica. 'You have no materials,' he said, 'which +others have not or may not have. You have warmed your imagination. I +wish there were some cure like the lover's leap for all heads of which +some single idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular possession. +Mind your own affairs and leave the Corsicans to theirs.' Touching on +the faulty Latinity of the essay, 'Ruddiman,' added the old man, 'is +dead.' On entering his new career Bozzy began by vows for his good +conduct. These, a remnant of his old Catholic days, we shall find him +renewing again and again, ludicrously and pathetically enough, however, +as we draw to the close. Sometimes they appear with reference to +matters with which the knowledge of the unpublished parts of the letters +to Temple, now in the possession of an American collector, has to deal +without suggesting unduly to the more fastidious sense of the present +day the vagaries and weaknesses of their writer. Johnson protested +against this attempt to 'enchain his volatility' by vows. But Boswell +replies that they may be useful to one 'of a variable judgment and +irregular inclinations. For my part, without affecting to be a Socrates, +I am sure I have a more than ordinary struggle to maintain with the Evil +Principle, and all the methods I can devise are little enough to keep me +tolerably steady in the paths of rectitude.' Could the doctor have read +even the published correspondence he would have been at no loss for a +detailed commentary on this defence. + +And coming events now cast their shadow before. That curious feature of +Boswell's character, the mixture of religious sentiments and the Sterne +vein of pietistic moralizing united with laxity in practice, appears +strangely enough in the letter to Temple, dated in the February of 1767, +and sent to his friend who had just been ordained to the living of +Mamhead in Devon. 'I view,' he writes, 'the profession of a clergyman in +an amiable and respectable light. Don't be moved by declamations against +ecclesiastical history, as if that could blacken the sacred order.' He +admits that ecclesiastical history is not the best field for the display +of the virtues in that profession, but we are to judge of the thousands +of worthy divines who have been a blessing to their parishes. He exhorts +his friend to labour cheerfully in the vineyard and to leave not a tare +in Mamhead. In Edinburgh it appears there were specimens; for after this +pious homily he confesses quietly his own _liaison_ with 'a dear +infidel' of a married woman. But the love affairs of Boswell, one of the +most curious and 'characteristical' (as he would himself have phrased +it) episodes in his life we shall discuss in a connected form in the +next chapter, in order to secure clearness of treatment and +concentration of detail. + +We turn, then, to his career at the bar. There can be no shadow of a +doubt that with proper industry, backed as he was with very strong +social and family connections, he would have secured a lucrative +professional practice. In February of 1767 he is 'coming into great +employment; I have this winter made sixty-five guineas, which is a +considerable sum for a young man,' and the _Boswelliana_ shew him in +easy intercourse with the best society in the Scottish capital. +Belonging as he did to the hereditary _noblesse de la robe_, as Lockhart +calls it, he was not likely, with but moderate attention, to have stood +like Scott, 'an hour by the Tron, wi' deil ane to speir his price,'--Sir +Walter's fee book shews for the first year a return of Ł24, 3s., and +Ł57, 15s. for the second. As he had years before vowed to Lord Hailes +that he would transcribe Erskine's _Institutes_ several times over till +he had imprinted it on his memory, so now he was hopeful by binding up +the session papers of securing a treasure of law reasoning and a +collection of extraordinary facts. By March he had cleared eighty +guineas, and was 'Surprised at myself, I speak with so much ease and +boldness, and have already the language of the bar so much at command. I +am doing nobly. I can hardly ever answer the letters of my friends.' He +had quarrelled with Rousseau who had likewise broken with Hume, whose +appointment as secretary to Conway had perhaps cured him of his follies +over the wild philosopher. We find Boswell also designing squibs which +were in the London printshops, writing verses for them and ridiculing +'The Savage' of his former idolatry. + +Paoli had sent him a long letter of sixteen pages. Chatham in his +retirement at Bath, mystifying the court and his colleagues, could yet +find time to send him a three-paged communication. In reply, the young +traveller assures him that the character of the great minister had +'filled many of my best hours with the noble admiration which a +disinterested soul can enjoy in the bower of philosophy.' He informs his +lordship that he is preparing for publication his Tour in Corsica, that +he has entered at the bar, and 'I begin to like it. I labour hard; and +feel myself coming forward, and I hope to be useful to my country. Could +your Lordship _find time to honour me now and then with a letter_? I +have been told how favourably your Lordship has spoken of me. To +correspond with a Paoli and a Chatham is enough to keep a young man ever +ardent in the pursuit of a virtuous fame.' In June he expected to be +busier than ever, during the week when his father sat as Judge of the +Outer House, 'for you must know that the absurdity of mankind makes +nineteen out of twenty employ the son of the judge before whom their +case is heard,' an admission which only increases our regret at the want +of professional industry on the part of the son. His addiction to the +society of players only increased the more as his practice at the bar +would have been thought to engross his attention. For the opening of the +Canongate Theatre, on 9th December 1767, he had been induced to write a +prologue to the play of _The Earl of Essex_ with which the newly +licensed house started its career. Part of the opening verses, as spoken +by Ross, 'a very good copy, very conciliatory' as the Earl of Mansfield +styled them, runs as follows:-- + + 'This night, lov'd _George's_ free enlightened age + Bids _Royal favour_ shield the Scottish stage; + His Royal favour every bosom cheers; + The drama now with dignity appears! + Hard is my fate if murmurings there be + Because that favour is announced by me. + Anxious, alarm'd, and aw'd by every frown, + May I entreat the candour of the Town? + You see me here by no unworthy art; + My _all_ I venture where I've fix'd my heart. + Fondly ambitious of an honest fame, + My humble labours your indulgence claim. + I wish to hold no _Right_ but by your choice, + I'll trust my patent to the Publick Voice.' + +The effect of this, aided by friends properly planted in different parts +of the theatre, Boswell assures us was instantaneous and effectual. But +the plaudits given would have been better in a strictly professional +court, and it led, we can see, to the association of Boswell with but +questionable society. 'The joyous crew of thunderers in the galleries,' +as Robert Fergusson describes them, the vulgar cits applying to their +parched lips 'thirst quenching porter,' and the notoriously irregular +lives of the players, all these were ties and associations ill +calculated to appease the just indignation of his father or to add to +forensic reputation in Edinburgh. The Scottish Themis, says Scott, +speaking from his own early experience of much higher literary pursuits, +is peculiarly jealous of any flirtation with the muses on the part of +those who have ranged themselves under her banners, and to them the +least lingering look behind is fatal. Little wonder, then, that the +paternal anger was again roused, when 'the look behind' on his part was +coupled with the bitter remembrances of the laureate of the Soapers, of +the Erskine Correspondence, and his own long indulgence destined at last +to bear such sorry fruits. + +'How unaccountable it is,' he cries impatiently to Temple, 'that my +father and I should be so ill together! He is a man of sense and a man +of worth; but from some unhappy turn in his disposition he is much +dissatisfied with a son you know.... To give you an instance. I send you +a letter I had a few days ago. I have answered in my own style; I will +be myself! How galling it is to the friend of Paoli to be treated so!' +He confesses his father has 'that Scots strength of sarcasm which is +peculiar to a North Briton,' and that time was when it would have +depressed him. But now he is firm, and, 'as my revered friend Mr Samuel +Johnson used to say,' he feels the privileges of an independent human +being! To add to the confusion of Lord Auchinleck his son had flung +himself with all his enthusiasm into the famous Douglas Trial, the cause +that figures so much to the confusion, it is to be feared, of the +general reader. Of this some full account is necessary in order to +explain that extraordinary trial,--perhaps the most protracted and +famous that ever came before a court,--which, dragging its slow length +along through a longer course than the Peloponnesian War, fills the +shelves of legal libraries with eighteen portly volumes of papers and +reports. In the case Boswell really held no actual brief, though were we +to follow the impression he gives of his services we should infer he had +been leading counsel for the plaintiff, Douglas. 'With a labour of which +few are capable,' says Bozzy, many years after, 'he compressed the +substance of the immense volumes of proofs and arguments into an octavo +pamphlet,' to which its author believed 'we may ascribe a great share +of the popularity on Mr Douglas's side.' Then he adds in a +characteristic sentence, the meaning of which can be fully appreciated +only by those who have followed his contributions to magazines and the +press of the day, 'Mr Boswell took care to keep the newspapers and other +publications incessantly warm with various writings, both in prose and +in verse, all tending to touch the heart and rouse the parental and +sympathetic feelings.' + +Lady Jane Douglas, sister to Archibald, Duke of Douglas, had been +privately married in 1746 to Colonel Steuart, afterwards Sir John +Steuart of Grandtully. She was then in the forty-ninth year of her age, +and the marriage was not divulged till May 1748 to her brother who had +not been reconciled and had in consequence suspended her allowance. At +Paris, in very humble lodgings, she gave birth to male twins in the +house of a Madame le Brun. The parents in 1749 returned to Scotland +where one of the children died; in 1761 the Duke of Douglas had himself +followed. Three claimants took the field, the Duke of Hamilton as heir +male of line, the Earl of Selkirk as heir of provision under former +deeds, and Archibald Steuart or Douglas. Lady Jane died in 1753, and Sir +John in 1764, both on their death-beds testifying to the legitimacy of +their surviving child. The Duke of Douglas, long prejudiced against this +son's claim by the machinations of the Hamiltons, had revoked the deed +in their favour for a settlement executed in behalf of his sister's son +Archibald. But stories had become rife of that son being the child of a +Nicholas Mignon and Marie Guerin from whom he had been purchased, and an +action to reduce service on a plea of _partus suppositio_ was instituted +by the tutors of the Duke of Hamilton who was then a minor. In France +negociations were conducted, investigations made, and witnesses examined +by Burnet of Monboddo, Gardenstone, Hailes, and Eskgrove, and at last in +July 1767 the Court of Session issued its decision. Lord Dundas, the +President, speaking first, and dwelling on the age of Lady Jane, +childless by a former marriage, the secrecy of the birth, and the +intrinsic valuelessness of death-bed depositions when set against +pecuniary interests and family pride, recorded his vote in favour of the +Hamiltons. Six days were subsequently taken up with the speeches of the +other judges, and Monboddo, speaking last, voted for Douglas. The +verdict was seven on each side, and by the President's vote the case in +Scotland was won by the pursuers. Kames, Monboddo, and Lord Auchinleck, +were in favour of the defender, Douglas. + +The case was at once by him appealed to the House of Lords. Douglas was +favoured in Scotland, where for years the state of interest had been +such that people in company used to bargain, for the maintenance of +peace, that no mention of this disturbing plea should be introduced. So +high did the feeling run in Edinburgh that the Hamilton party had been +driven from their apartments in Holyrood Palace and their property +plundered. It was fortunate that this loophole of escape to another +court was opened, for before the Union such a cause would have led +almost to civil broil where the rival interests of the factions, through +the ramifications of marriage and other connections, extended so widely. +In earlier days the strife would have ended by an appeal to the sword on +the causeway. All the court influence of the Hamiltons had been bent, +and bent in vain, to secure the exclusion from the bench of Lord +Monboddo, counsel for Douglas, and a duel had been fought between their +agent Andrew Stuart and Thurlow the opposing advocate. The excitement +over the verdict of the Lords on Monday, February 27, 1769, was +unprecedented. In the _Autobiography of_ Jupiter Carlyle is fortunately +preserved the account of the scene, witnessed by the doctor himself, who +had been successful in gaining admission to the court, where from nine +in the morning till ten at night he remained, hemmed in by the crowd and +overcome with the oppressive heat. Mansfield spoke over one hour, and, +on his appearing to faint, the Chancellor rushed out for a bottle and +glasses, the current of fresh air being felt by the crowd as a relief. +Finally the verdict of the Scottish courts was reversed without a +division, and a verdict found in favour of Douglas. Hume was not +satisfied of the legitimacy of the pursuer, neither was Lord Shelburne, +and bribery on both sides had been extensively employed, over Ł100,000 +having been calculated to have been spent in this protracted litigation. + +It was on the evening of Thursday, shortly after eight, that the tidings +reached Edinburgh by express. The city was at once illuminated, and next +morning Dundas on his way to the Parliament House was threatened by a +mob such as the town had not seen since the Porteous Riot. Two troops of +dragoons were drafted at once on the same day into the capital. As +usually told, the story, which is vouched for by Ramsay of Ochtertyre, +is that the mob of the night before had been headed by the excited +Boswell, and that the windows of his father's house were smashed. Had +such been the case, it must have been by an oversight on the part of the +mob, or some petulant freak of the son, for on this occasion both +Boswell and his father had for once been unanimous in their belief in +the legitimacy of Douglas. But there is no need for doubting Ramsay's +assertion that Lord Auchinleck had, with tears in his eyes, to implore +President Dundas to commit his son to the Tolbooth! Not only had Bozzy +taken the field in the November of 1767 with his _Essence of the Douglas +Cause_, 'which I regretted that Dr Johnson never took the trouble to +study,' even though 'the question interested nations,' and the pamphlet +had produced, as its writer flattered himself, considerable effect in +deciding the case, but he had ventured on a breach of professional +etiquette in publishing _Dorando, a Spanish Tale_. This brochure was +ordered by the Court of Session to be suppressed as contempt of court, +after it had run through three editions. No copy of this forlorn hope of +the book hunter has ever been found, though doubtless it lurks in some +library where its want of the writer's name upon the title page may have +kept it from making its reappearance. Though it bore no name, yet +Boswell, when writing to Temple over it, speaks of 'My publisher +Wilkie,' and he seems to have been afraid that the copy sent by him +should fall into the hands of strangers. In the _Gentleman's Magazine_ +for July 1767, however, it is reviewed, but the value of the shilling +booklet does not seem to have impressed the critic. 'The Spanish Tale,' +he says, 'supposes the contests to be finally determined in favour of +_Don Ferdinand_ against the family of Ardivoso--but the real question is +still in dispute, having been removed by appeal to the House of Lords. +The pamphlet is zealously but feebly written: the author in some places +affects the sublime, and in some the pathetic; but these are the least +tolerable parts of his performance.' Thus airily does the reviewer +dismiss Bozzy's determined effort to rouse, as he imagined, the parental +and sympathetical feelings, and it is clear at least that, however much +its recovery would add to the stock of harmless pleasure among +professed Boswellians and collectors, its loss cannot be said to have +'eclipsed the gaiety of nations.' + +During the course of the trial the _Tour in Corsica_ had been preparing. +Early in 1768 it was issued from the celebrated press of Robert and +Andrew Foulis in Glasgow, and the publishers were the Dillys in the +Poultry, London, who were to act for him in all his literary +undertakings to the end of his life. It was a lull in the storm of the +Douglas crisis, and the old judge, eager enough to see his son +associated with anything rational, was not unpleased with its appearing +as a pledge of better things. 'Jamie,' he admitted, 'had taen a toot on +a new horn.' The account of Corsica which had been made up from various +sources of information ran to two hundred and thirty-nine pages; but the +real interest of the volume attaches to the _Journal_ which occupies a +hundred and twenty. The translations from Seneca were done by Thomas +Day, then very young, the author of _Sandford and Merton_, and the +creator of that constellation of excellence, Mr Barlow, whose connection +in any degree with Boswell is almost provocative of a smile. The +peculiar orthography of the writer is defended in the preface, for he +allows himself not only such divergencies as 'tremenduous,' 'authour,' +'ambassadour,' but also 'authentick' and 'panegyrick.' The dedication of +the first edition to Paoli was dated on his own birthday, and the book +ran to a third edition before the October of the same year. As purchased +by the Dillys for a hundred guineas it would appear to have been a +profitable speculation, and the wide circulation to which it attained we +shall see was not merely due to accident but to more solid qualities. +'Pray read,' says Horace Walpole to his friend Gray, 'the new account of +Corsica. The author is a strange being, and has a rage of knowing +everybody that ever was talked of. He forced himself upon me at Paris in +spite of my teeth and my doors.' 'Mr B.'s book,' replies Gray--with a +curious anticipation of the Carlylean canon of criticism--'has pleased +and moved me strangely; all I mean that relates to Paoli. The pamphlet +proves, what I have always maintained, that any fool may write a most +valuable book by chance, if he will only tell us what he heard and saw +_with veracity_. Of Mr B.'s book I have not the least suspicion, because +I am sure he could invent nothing of the kind. The title of this part of +his work is a dialogue between a Green Goose and a Hero.' But Gray was +fastidious, in this case blindly so. The merits of Goldsmith he could +when dying perceive, but the rollicking humour of Bozzy in this his +first book was sealed to the recluse critic who 'never spoke out,' a +thing that never could be safely asserted of the author of the _Tour in +Corsica_. + +That 'authour,' however, was now bent on extracting the sanction of +approval from his idol. He hastened to London, heralding his arrival, as +was his wont, by a deftly contributed paragraph to the papers. The +society journals of to-day have not improved on Boswell in their method +of obtaining first hand information; he was a most assiduous chronicler +of his own actions, and there can be no doubt that there is much Boswell +'copy' buried in the pages of the papers of the time. From the _Public +Advertizer_ of February 28th we learn 'James Boswell, Esq., is expected +in town,' and, on March 24th, 'yesterday James Boswell, Esq., arrived +from Scotland at his lodgings in Half Moon Street, Piccadilly.' He had +received no letter from Johnson since the one in which the Latinity of +his thesis had been criticised, and Boswell had heard that the +publication in his book of a letter from his friend had given offence to +its writer. Johnson was in Oxford at the time, and thither flew Bozzy to +obtain the approval of his labours and, with an eye to all future +contingencies, his sanction for the publication _in his biography_ of +all Johnson's letters to him. 'When I am dead, sir,' was the reply, 'you +may do as you will.' + +'My book,' he writes eagerly to Temple, 'has amazing celebrity. Lord +Lyttelton, Mr Walpole, Mrs Macaulay, and Mr Garrick, have all written me +noble letters about it. There are two Dutch translations going forward.' +General Oglethorpe, an old veteran who had seen service under Prince +Eugene, and the friend of Pope whose verses upon him 'I had read from my +early years,' called upon him and solicited his acquaintance. He became +a sort of literary lion. 'I am really the great man now,' he cries; 'I +have David Hume in the forenoon, Mr Johnson in the afternoon of the same +day. I give admirable dinners and good claret, and the moment I go +abroad again, which will be in a day or two, I set up my chariot. This +is enjoying the fruit of my labours, and appearing like the friend of +Paoli.' Alas for that friend!--he confesses to his correspondent that he +has been 'wild.' The form of this outbreak may be sufficiently seen by +the general reader in the leading questions which at this time Boswell +is found putting to Johnson; for the _Life of Johnson_, as we shall +indicate in its proper place, is no less the life of the biographer, +whose mind was ever seeking to shelter itself under the guidance of a +stronger force, and to effect a moral anchorage or moorings behind the +lee of his great friend. When Bozzy indulges in 'the luxury of noble +sentiments,' he is often known to be courting an indemnity to his +conscience for lax practice. Longfellow makes Miles Standish in his +belligerent mood turn in the Cćsar to where the thumb-marks in the +margin proclaimed that the battle was hottest; Boswell often indicates +the decline and fall of the moralist by an apparently undue vein of +pietistic comments. + +The next year was to witness the friend of Paoli in his most eccentric +display--the Shakesperian Festival inaugurated by Garrick at Stratford. +By this ludicrous gathering it is that Boswell is known to the mass of +readers who have never cared to know more of 'Corsica Boswell' than what +they can gather from the lively picture of Macaulay. There he is known +only as it were in the gross, to which indeed, as Johnson said of +Milton, the undramatic nature of the essayist's mind was rather prone, +careless as it was or incapable of the finer shades of character. Yet, +as we know, he was not the solitary masker or mummer in this +extraordinary carnival, which seems not creditable to the taste of its +promoters, and resembles rather the entry of a travelling circus into a +provincial town than a serious commemoration of a great man. However, +'thither Mr Boswell repaired with all the enthusiasm of a poetical +mind;' as he informs us, 'such an opportunity for the warbling of his +Muse was not neglected.' On Wednesday, Sept. 6th, about five in the +morning, says _The Scots Magazine_ for that month in its leading +article, the performers from Drury Lane paraded the streets of +Stratford, and serenaded the ladies with a ballad by Garrick, beginning + + 'Ye Warwickshire lads and ye lasses + See what at our Jubilee passes; + Come revel away, rejoice and be glad, + For the lad of all lads was a Warwickshire lad, + Warwickshire lad, + All be glad, + For the lad of all lads was a Warwickshire lad.' + +Guns were fired, the magistrates assembled, and there was a public +breakfast in the town-hall. In this number of the magazine there is a +letter extending to seven columns from James Boswell, Esq., on his +return to London, after being 'much agitated' by 'this jubilee of +genius.' He describes it as 'truly an antique idea, a Grecian thought;' +the oratorio at the great Stratford church, with the music by Dr Arne, +was, he admits, grand and admirable, but 'I could have wished that +prayers had been read, and a short sermon preached.' Then the +performance of the dedication ode by Garrick is described as 'noble and +affecting, like an exhibition in Athens or Rome.' Lord Grosvenor, at the +close, went up to Garrick, 'and told him that he had affected his whole +frame, showing him his nerves and veins still quivering with agitation.' +The masquerade our traveller, as the 'travelled thane,' affects to +regard complacently as an 'entertainment not suited to the genius of the +British nation, but to a warmer country, where the people have a great +flow of spirits, and a readiness at repartee.' Bozzy no doubt had seen +the carnival abroad, and his memories of sunnier skies would not find +congenial atmosphere in the unpropitious weather when the Avon rose with +the floods of rain, the lower grounds were laid under water, and a +guinea for a bed was regarded as an imposition, though 'no one,' +declares our hero, 'was understood to come there who had not plenty of +money'--their own or their father's, presumably. The break up seems to +have been effected in confusion, but the good-humoured mummer, taking +one consideration with another, compares it to eating an artichoke, +where 'we have some fine mouthfuls, but also swallow the leaves and the +hair, which are confoundedly difficult of digestion. After all, I am +highly satisfied with my artichoke.' + +He brought 'the warbling of his muse' with him. It is no better or worse +than the staple. In the character of a Corsican, he sings-- + + 'From the rude banks of Golo's rapid flood, + Alas! too deeply tinged with patriot blood; + O'er which, dejected, injur'd Freedom bends, + And sighs indignant o'er all Europe sends, + Behold a Corsican! In better days + Eager I sought my country's fame to raise. + Now when I'm exiled from my native land + I come to join this classic festal band; + To soothe my soul on Avon's sacred stream, + And from your joy to catch a cheering gleam.' + +After an apostrophe to happy Britons, on whose propitious isle +propitious freedom ever deigns to smile, he closes with an appeal-- + + 'But let me plead for liberty distress'd, + And warm for her each sympathetic breast; + Amidst the splendid honours which you bear, + To save a sister island be your care; + With generous ardour make us also free, + And give to Corsica a noble Jubilee.' + +Colman and Foote, of course, as comedians were there, but Goldsmith and +Johnson shewed their sense by their absence. The only trace of Davy's +old master was found in a Coventry ribbon put out by 'a whimsical +haberdasher,' with the motto from Johnson's _Prologue_ at the opening of +Drury Lane in 1747--'Each change of many colour'd life he drew.' + +Boswell had a free hand as a writer for the _London Magazine_, in which +he had a proprietary interest. To it he contributed the following +account, accompanied with a portrait--the source of much of Macaulay's +indictment. 'One of the most remarkable masks upon this occasion was +James Boswell, Esq., in the dress of an armed Corsican chief. He entered +the amphitheatre about twelve o'clock. He wore a short dark-coloured +coat of coarse cloth, scarlet waistcoat and breeches, and black +spatterdashes; his cap or bonnet was of black cloth; on the front of it +was embroidered in gold letters _viva la liberta_, and on one side of it +was a handsome blue feather and cockade, so that it had an elegant as +well as a warlike appearance. On the breast of his coat was sewed a +Moor's head, the crest of Corsica, surrounded with branches of laurel. +He had also a cartridge-pouch, into which was stuck a stiletto, and on +his left side a pistol was hung upon the belt of his cartridge-pouch. He +had a fusee slung across his shoulder, wore no powder in his hair, but +had it plaited at full length with a knot of blue ribbons at the end of +it. He had, by way of a staff, a very curious vine all of one piece, +emblematical of the sweet bard of Avon. He wore no mask, saying it was +not proper for a gallant Corsican. So soon as he came into the room he +drew universal attention. The novelty of the Corsican dress, its +becoming appearance, and the character of the brave nation concurred to +distinguish the armed Corsican chief. He was first accosted by Mrs +Garrick, with whom he had a good deal of conversation. There was an +admirable dialogue between Lord Grosvenor, in the character of a Turk, +and the Corsican on the different constitution of the countries so +opposite to each other,--Despotism and Liberty; and Captain Thomson, of +the navy, in the character of an honest tar, kept it up very well; he +expressed a strong inclination to stand by the brave islanders. Mr +Boswell danced both a minuet and a country dance with a very pretty +lady, Mrs Sheldon, wife to Captain Sheldon, of the 38th Regiment of +Foot, who was dressed in a genteel domino, and before she danced threw +off her mask.' + +He adds a cool puff of his own verses, 'which, it is thought, are well +suited to the occasion, while at the same time they preserve the true +Corsican character.' About a month after this masquerade, Goldsmith +dined at Boswell's lodging with Garrick, Johnson, Davies, and others, +where 'Goldsmith,' says the biographer, 'strutted about, bragging of his +dress, and I believe was seriously vain of it, for his mind was +wonderfully prone to such impressions!' Bozzy could criticise, as on all +occasions, the bloom coloured coat of 'honest Goldsmith,' yet he was +eager for Garrick to fall in with the idea of the tradesmen of Stratford +to make the Jubilee an annual event in the interests of local trade, and +'I flatter myself with the prospect of attending you at several more +Jubilees.' + +Though he had again commenced in London his attendance on Johnson and +note-taking, there was now a divided source of attraction. Things had +gone hard with Paoli since Boswell had been in the island. In spite of +his Irish brigades and his British volunteers, the overwhelming forces +which the French were able to put in the field, on the cession of the +island to them by the Genoese, brought to an end the stubborn resistance +of the inhabitants. In the August of 1768 Boswell had raised in Scotland +a subscription of Ł700 for ordnance furnished by the Carron Iron Work +Company, and in 1769 there had issued from the press a little duodecimo, +'_British Essays in favour of the Brave Corsicans_: collected and +published by James Boswell, Esq.' The papers are twenty in number, some +by himself, others by 'a gentleman whose name would do honour to any +cause (whom we think to have been Trecothick, the successor of Beckford, +as Lord Mayor of London), and the greatest part furnished by persons +unknown to me.' They deal with the dangers to trade from France and the +Bourbon Compact, and point at the value of Corsica as a station superior +to Gibraltar or Minorca. One paper signed 'P. J.' has the undoubted +Boswellian touch in dealing with the sailors thrown idle by the +cessation of the along-shore Mediterranean trade. 'None are less +avaricious than our honest tars, nor have they, in reality, any reason +to be discontented. Every common sailor has at least five and thirty +shillings a month, over and above which _he has his victuals and drink, +and that in great abundance_. There is no such thing as stinting aboard +a ship, unless when reduced to difficulties by stormy weather. The crew +have their three meals a day regularly, and if they should be hungry +between meals, _there is always a biscuit or a luncheon of something +cold to be had_.' + +France had bought Corsica from Genoa in May 1768. Marboeuf, whom +Boswell had found in the island, had been superseded, and a descent of +the French under Count Vaux with 20,000 men ended the war. Paoli escaped +to a ruinous convent on the shore, and, after lying there in +concealment, he embarked on an English vessel bound for Leghorn. On +September 20th he reached London, and the _Public Advertizer_ of October +4th, through its faithful correspondent, informed its readers how 'On +Sunday last General Paoli, accompanied by James Boswell, Esq., took an +airing in Hyde Park in his coach.' On the evening of the 10th he was +presented by the traveller to Johnson, who was highly pleased with the +lofty port of the stranger and the easy 'elegance of manners, the brand +of the soldier, _l'homme d'épée_.' + +An impression is abroad that Boswell's books were not taken seriously. +Nothing could be more remote from the truth. The Whigs were in favour +of his views, and Burke, together with Frederick the Great, believed our +interests would suffer by the increase of French power in the +Mediterranean. Shelburne, for Chatham had resigned before November 1768, +was the advocate of similar views, telling our ambassador at Versailles +to remonstrate with the French court, while Junius, in his letter to the +Duke of Grafton, told the country that Corsica would never have been +invaded by the French, but for the sight of a weak and distracted +ministry. When the hand of Napoleon was heavy on the Genoese, they +remembered that their cession of the island had made their master, by +his birth at Ajaccio on August 15, 1769, a Frenchman. But the nation at +the time of Boswell's books was weary of war, and their influence, +though great, was not visible in any actual political results. + +Boswell had expected to draw the sage on the subject of matrimony, +having promised himself, as he says, a good deal of instructive +conversation on the conduct of the married state. But the oracles were +dumb. On his return to the north he was married, on the 25th November +1769, to his cousin. We find in the _Scots Magazine_ of that month the +following extracts under the list of marriages:-- + + 'At Lainshaw, in the shire of Air, JAMES BOSWELL, Esq., of + Auchinleck, advocate, to MISS PEGGY MONTGOMERY, daughter of the + late DAVID MONTGOMERY of Lainshaw, Esq.' + + 'At Edinburgh, ALEXANDER BOSWELL, Esq., of Auchinleck, one of + the Lords of Session and Justiciary, to Miss BETTY BOSWELL, + second daughter of JOHN BOSWELL, Esq., of Balmuto, deceased.' + +His father, now past sixty, had married again, and married a cousin for +the second time, like his son on the present occasion. That they were +married on the same day and at different places affords a clear +indication that the father and son were no longer on the best of terms. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +LOVE AFFAIRS--LITERARY CLUB. 1766-73 + + 'How happy could I be with either, + Were t'other dear charmer away.'--GAY. + + +'Love,' wrote Madame de Stael, 'is with man a thing apart, 'tis woman's +whole existence.' This is not true at least of Boswell, for his love +affairs fill as large a part in his life as in that of Benjamin +Constant. A most confused chapter withal, and one that luckily was not +known to Macaulay, whose colours would otherwise have been more +brilliant. We find Bozzy paying his addresses at one and the same time +to at least eight ladies, exclusive as this is of sundry minor +divinities of a fleeting and more temporary nature not calling here for +allusion. His first divinity was the grass-widow of Moffat, and here +Temple had been compelled to remonstrate in spite of all the lover's +philandering about her freedom from her husband, who had used her ill. +Were she unfaithful, he declares her worthy to be 'pierced with a +Corsican dagger,' but in March he has found it too much like a 'settled +plan of licentiousness,' discovering her to be an ill-bred rompish girl, +debasing his dignity, without refinement, though handsome and lively. +Then there is the quarrel and the reconciliation, she vowing she loved +him more than ever she had done her husband, but meeting with opposition +from his brother David and others, who furnished the love-sick heart of +her adorer with examples of her faithlessness such as made him recoil. +He vows now his frailties are at an end, and he resolves to turn out an +admirable member of society. He had broken with her as with the +gardener's daughter a year ago--an everlasting lesson to him. + +By March 1767 the reigning favourite was Miss Bosville of Yorkshire. But +his lot being cast in Scotland would be an objection to the beauty; then +we hear of a young lady in the vicinity of whose claims Lord Auchinleck +approved, because their lands lay happily together for family extension. +She was just eighteen, pious, good-tempered and genteel, and for four +days she had been on a visit to 'the romantick groves' of his ancestors, +when suddenly the scene is changed for the Sienese _signora_ of whom we +heard upon his travels. 'My Italian angel,' he cries, 'is constant; I +had a letter from her but a few days ago, which made me cry.' He +conjures his friend Temple to come to him, and 'on that Arthur Seat +where our youthful fancies roved abroad shall we take counsel together.' +The local divinity we learn is Miss Blair of Adamtown; he has been +drinking her health, and aberrations from sobriety and virtue have +ensued, but he thought things would be brought to a climax were Temple +to visit her. A long letter of commission follows, the envoy is +instructed to appear as his old friend, praising him to Miss Blair for +his good qualities. Temple is adjured to dwell upon his odd, inconstant, +impetuous nature, how he is accustomed to women of intrigue, and he is +to ask of the fair one if she does not think there is insanity in the +Boswell family. She is to hear of his travels, his acquaintance with +foreign princes, Voltaire and Rousseau, his desire to have a house of +his own; and then he diverges into practicality when he desires his +friend to 'study the mother,' and take notes of all that passed, as it +might have the effect of fixing the fate of the lover. Temple, it may be +imagined, did not interpret his commission in such a literal spirit, and +inconstancy and insanity could hardly be recommendations in Miss Blair's +eyes. That such should be the case,--outside the confessions of Mr +Rochester in _Jane Eyre_,--would appear to the commissioner an obvious +fact. + +A silence followed on Temple's departure from the divinity. Boswell +dreaded a certain nabob, 'a man of copper,' as his rival. Then he +believed the fair offended by his own Spanish stateliness and gravity; +and again a letter, 'written with all the warmth of Italian affection,' +restores the _signora_ to the first place, from which she is deposed by +a note from Miss Blair, explaining that his letter had been delayed a +week at the Ayr post-office. Then fresh ravings, clouded by the belief +that she is cunning and sees his weakness, for three people at Ayr have +assured him she is a jilt, and he is shocked at the risk he has run, a +warning for the future to him against 'indulging the least fondness for +a Scotch lass.' He has, he feels, a soul of a more Southern frame, and +some Englishwoman ought to be sensible of his merit, though the Dutch +translator of his _Tour_, Mademoiselle de Zuyl, has been writing to him. +Random talking is his dread, he must guard against it, and Miss Blair +revives. 'I must have her learn the harpsichord,' he cries, 'and French; +she shall be one of the finest women in the island.' Later on they have +had a long meeting, of which space only prevents the inimitable +reproduction,--'squeezing and kissing her fine hand, while she looked at +me with those beautiful black eyes.' He meets her at the house of Lord +Kames, he sees her at _Othello_--she was in tears at the affecting +scenes, and 'rather leaned' to him (he thought), and 'the jealous Moor +described my own soul.' But true love did never yet run smooth; he has +been 'as wild as ever. Trust me in time coming; I will give you my word +of honour.' Then--curious psychological trait--'to-morrow I shall be +happy with my devotions.' + +By the beginning of 1768 he fears all is over. A rumour--a false one as +it proved--had reached him that the divinity was to be married to Sir +Alexander Gilmour, M.P. for Midlothian. He gets friendly with the nabob, +warms him with old claret, and bewails with him their hapless devotion. +They agree to propose in turn, and, being in turn rejected, he feels +sure that 'a Howard, or some other of the noblest in the kingdom' is to +be his fate. The Dutch translator again holds the field, to be soon +dismissed for her frivolity and her infidelity. Then Miss Dick of +Prestonfield reigns with solid qualifications--she lacks a fortune, but +is fine, young, healthy, and amiable. A visit to Holland, to finally +decide on the Mademoiselle's claims, was proposed, but his father, +warned in time, would not consent. Temple, too, was against this, and +'Temple thou reasonest well,' he cries, and thinks his abnegation will +be a solace to his worthy father on his circuit. Freed now from Miss +Blair and the Dutch divinity, he is devoted to _la belle Irlandaise_, +'just sixteen, with the sweetest countenance and a Dublin education.' +Never till now had he been so truly in love; every flower is united, and +she is a rose without a thorn. Her name 'Mary Anne' he has carved upon a +tree, and cutting off a lock of her hair she had promised Bozzy not to +marry a lord before March, or forget him. 'Sixteen,' he says; 'innocence +and gaiety make me quite a Sicilian swain.' + +His book had dissipated his professional energies, and he had even taken +to gaming. Incidentally we learn that he had lost more than he could +pay, and that Mr Sheridan had advanced enough to clear him, on a promise +that he should not engage in play for three years. Mary Anne has added +to his complications by her forgetfulness, and the local candidate Miss +Blair reappears. Favoured as she was by his father, it would have been +easy to bring things to a climax, but on her mother's part there was +some not unnatural coldness over his indiscreet talk about his love of +the heiress. Bozzy was a convivial knight-errant in what was called +'Saving the ladies.' At clubs and gatherings any member would toast his +idol in a bumper, and then another champion would enter his peerless +Dulcinea in two bumpers, to be routed by the original toper taking off +four. The deepest drinker 'saved his lady,' as the phrase ran; though, +says George Thomson speaking of the old concerts in St Cecilia's Hall, +at the foot of Niddry's Wynd, which were maintained by noblemen and +gentlemen, the bold champion had often considerable difficulty in +_saving himself_ from the floor, in his efforts to regain his seat! Miss +Burnet of Monboddo, celebrated by Burns, and Miss Betty Home, he +describes as the reigning beauties of the time deeply involved in thus +causing the fall of man. Boswell was not behind, and he ascribes his +aberrations to the 'drinking habit which still prevails in Scotland,' +renewing good intentions, only to be broken in the same letter that +reveals the Moffat lady again, 'like a girl of eighteen, with the finest +black hair,' whom he loves so much that he is in a fever. '_This_,' he +adds truly enough, '_is unworthy of Paoli's friend_.' + +The May of 1769 saw him in Ireland, where his relations in County Down +secured his entry into the best society. A dispatch to the _Public +Advertizer_, of July 7th, informed the public that 'James Boswell, Esq., +dined with His Grace the Duke of Leinster at his seat at Carton. He went +by special invitation to meet the Lord Lieutenant; came next morning +with his Excellency to the Phoenix Park, where he was present at a +review of Sir Joseph Yorke's dragoons; he dined with the Lord Mayor, and +is now set out on his return to Scotland.' The _belle Irlandaise_ had +forgotten him, but it is to this occasion that we may refer some verses +that were published by his son Sir Alexander. Chambers thinks they refer +to his cousin, but the general belief tends in the direction of the +notorious Margaret Caroline Rudd, the associate in later years of the +brothers Perreau, who were executed for forgery. In the _Life of +Johnson_ we find Boswell, in 1776, expressing to his companion a desire +to be introduced to this person, so celebrated for her address and +insinuation, and later on he is shewn, on his own confession, to have +visited her, 'induced by the fame of her talents and irresistible power +of fascination,' and to have sent an account of this interview to his +wife, but to have offered its perusal first, 'as it appeared to me +highly entertaining,' to Temple, who was indignant over it. It would +appear, then, that Boswell did not reveal to Johnson his former +flirtation with this notorious woman, but we think that the obvious +marks of the brogue in the verses shew conclusively that either the +feeling was imitative and based on an earlier Irish song, or that the +verses were judged by Boswell's son, not too devoted, as we shall find, +to his father's memory, to be free from offence. + + 'O Larghan Clanbrassil, how sweet is thy sound, + To my tender remembrance as Love's sacred ground; + For there Marg'ret Caroline first charm'd my sight, + And fill'd my young heart with a flutt'ring delight. + + When I thought her my own, ah! too short seemed the _day_ + For a jaunt to Downpatrick, or a trip on the _sea_; + To express what I felt, then all language was vain, + 'Twas in truth what the poets have studied to feign. + + But, too late, I found even she could _deceive_, + And nothing was left but to sigh, weep, and _rave_; + Distracted, I flew from my dear native shore, + Resolved to see Larghan Clanbrassil no more. + + Yet still in some moments enchanted I find + A ray of her fondness beams soft on my mind; + While thus in bless'd fancy my angel I see, + All the world is a Larghan Clanbrassil to me.' + +On this journey with Boswell there was a Margaret--his own cousin, and +it is curious to find him in this mood of sentimental philandering, were +it no worse, when we have now to see Bozzy at the end of his love +affairs. When his great work was completed in 1791, its author +contributed to the _European Magazine_ for May and June a little sketch +of himself, in order to give a fillip to its circulation. There he +describes jauntily his Irish tour, and after what we know of his erratic +course, it is delightful to come across this sage chronicler of his dead +wife, circulating testimonials to her excellences, to which no doubt he +was oblivious in her lifetime. 'They had,' he writes, 'from their +earliest years lived in the most intimate and unreserved friendship.' +His love of the fair sex has been already mentioned (he had quoted the +song of 'the Soapers' in our first chapter), and she was the constant +yet prudent and delicate _confidante_ of all his '_egarements du coeur +et de l'esprit_.' This we may doubt, and the gracefully allusive French +quotation reminds us of Mr Pepys' use of that language when his wife +was in his mind. This jaunt was the occasion of Mr Boswell's resolving +at last to engage himself in that connection to which he had always +declared himself averse. In short, he determined to become a married +man. He requested her, with her excellent judgment and more sedate +manners, to do him the favour of accepting him with all his faults, and +though he assures his readers he had uniformly protested that a large +fortune had been with him a requisite in the fair, he was yet 'willing +to waive that in consideration of her peculiar merit!' + +Hearts are caught in the rebound, and Bozzy had solaced his loss of the +_belle Irlandaise_ with the sympathy of his fellow-traveller. Having let +his fancies roam so far abroad as Siena and Holland, the lover had now +returned like the bird at evening to the nest from which it flew. She +had no fortune, and 'the penniless lass wi' the lang pedigree,' related +as she was to the Eglintoun branch and other high families, had not in +the eyes of his father the landed qualifications of Miss Blair, whose +property lay so convenient for the extension of the Boswell acres. This +may have been the cause of the paternal anger and the separate marriages +on the same day. The wives of literary men have ever been a fruitful +source of disquisition to the admirers of their heroes, and Terentia, +Gemma Donati, and Anne Hathaway, have divided the biographers of Cicero, +Dante, and Shakespeare. To us it seems that, like his father, she had +much to bear, hampered by their domestic difficulties through her +husband's constant dependence on that father for his income, and eyed +with undeserved suspicion by the judge and his second wife as a Mordecai +in the gate, penniless and yet supposed to be the cause of Boswell's +pecuniary embarrassments and indiscretions. The marriage was deferred +till after the Stratford Jubilee, and the newly married pair took up +their house in Chessel's Buildings in the Canongate. For a year and a +half after his marriage his correspondence with Johnson underwent an +entire cessation, and in the August of 1771 General Paoli made a tour in +Scotland, which, for a time, called forth the best organizing abilities +of his friend. From the _London Magazine_ of the day, in an account +contributed by our hero, we learn how Paoli had paid 'a visit to James +Boswell, Esq., who was the first gentleman of this country who visited +Corsica, and whose writings have made the brave islanders and their +general properly known over Europe.' Boswell waited on the exile and the +Polish Ambassador at Ramsay's Inn, at the foot of St Mary's Wynd, +visiting with them Linlithgow and Carron, 'where the general had a +prodigious pleasure in viewing the forge where were formed the cannon +and war-like stores' sent to Corsica by his Scottish admirers. At +Glasgow they were entertained by the professors, and saw 'the elegant +printing of the Scottish Stephani, the Messrs Foulis,' and no doubt +their guide managed to remind their excellencies of a certain _Tour in +Corsica_ emanating thence. Auchinleck was visited to 'the joy of my +worthy father and me at seeing the Corsican Hero in our romantick +groves,' as he tells Garrick, and on their return to Glasgow the freedom +of the city was conferred on Paoli by Lord Provost Dunlop.[A] At +Edinburgh 'the general slept under the roof of his ever grateful +friend.' The whole forms a favourable specimen of Boswell's organizing +capacities, and viewed in relation to the friendly intercourse he is +found maintaining with prominent and influential persons, our regret is +but increased that in the interests of his wife and children his +abilities were not exercised in a more strictly professional channel. + +London he visited in the March of 1772 over an appeal to the Lords from +the Court of Session. Johnson was now in good health, and was eager 'to +see Beattie's College.' In the _Scots Magazine_ for February 1773 there +is mentioned a masked ball, attended by seventy persons of quality, +given in Edinburgh by Sir Alexander Macdonald and his wife, Miss +Bosville of Yorkshire, one of Boswell's loves. Croker says that the +masquerade for which he was rallied by Johnson was given by the Dowager +Countess of Fife, and that Bozzy went as a dumb conjurer; but from the +expression of the _Magazine_, 'an entertainment little known in this +part of the Kingdom,' coupled with the words employed by Johnson, there +can be no doubt that Croker is wrong, and that the host on this occasion +was the churlish chief, whose inhospitable ways they were to experience +in Skye. He was now near the great honour of his life, admission to that +Literary Club, of which, said Sir William Jones, 'I will only say that +there is no branch of human knowledge on which some of our members are +not capable of giving information.' Never was honour better deserved or +better repaid. Without his record the fame of that club would have +passed away, surviving at best in some sort of hazy companionship with +the Kit-Cat, Button's, Will's, and other clubs and assemblies. Never was +there a club of which each member was better qualified to take care of +his own fame with posterity. None of Johnson's associates would have +hesitated in declaring an extended date of renown for the _Rambler_; and +perhaps he himself would have staked the reputation assured, as Cowper +said, by the tears of bards and heroes in order to immortalize the dead, +on his _Rasselas_ or the _Dictionary_. Yet he and most members of that +club, apart from the record of Boswell, would be but names to the +literary antiquary, and be by the mass of readers entirely forgotten. + +He had canvassed the members. Johnson wrote, on April 23rd, to +Goldsmith, who was in the chair that evening, to consider Boswell as +proposed by himself in his absence. On the night of the ballot, April +30th, Boswell dined at Beauclerk's, where, after the company had gone to +the club, he was left till the fate of his election should be announced. +After Johnson had taken the thing in hand there was not much danger, yet +poor Bozzy 'sat in a state of anxiety which even the charming +conversation of Lady Di Beauclerk could not entirely dissipate.' There +he received the tidings of his election, and he hastened to the place of +meeting. Burke he met that night for the first time, and on his +entrance, Johnson, 'with humorous formality, gave me a _charge_, +pointing out the conduct expected from me as a good member of the club.' +That charge we can believe Forster to be right in suspecting to be a +caution against publishing abroad the proceedings and the talk of the +members. + +In the autumn of the year, as they drew near to Monboddo, Johnson, we +should think with excessive rudeness, told him 'several of the members +wished to keep you out. Burke told me, he doubted if you were fit for +it: but, now you are in, none of them are sorry. Burke says, that you +have so much good humour naturally, it is scarce a virtue.' The faithful +Bozzy replied, 'They were afraid of you, sir, as it was you who proposed +me;' and the doctor was prone to admit that if the one blackball +necessary to exclude had been given, they knew they never would have got +in another member. Yet even from this rebuff he managed to deftly +extract a compliment. Beauclerk, the doctor said, had been very earnest +for the admission, and Beauclerk, replied Boswell, 'has a keenness of +mind which is very uncommon.' The witty Topham, along with Reynolds, +Garrick, and others, is immortalized in the pages of the man who was not +thought by the wits of Gerrard Street fit for their club. + + [A] By the Town Clerk Depute of Glasgow, R. Renwick, + Esq., we are informed that no notice of this enrolment of + General Paoli was entered at the time, pursuant to the custom of + the Register over honorary burgesships. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES. 1773 + + 'Breaking the silence of the seas + Among the farthest Hebrides.'--WORDSWORTH. + + +When Boswell was leaving London in May he called, for the last time, +upon Goldsmith, round whom the clouds of misfortune were fast settling, +and who was planning a _Dictionary of Arts and Sciences_ as a means of +extrication from his embarrassments. In such circumstances, it was not +unnatural for Goldsmith to revert to his own past travels, and to the +reflection that he was unlikely again to set out upon them, unless +sheltered like Johnson behind a pension. He assured Boswell that he +would never be able to lug the dead weight of the Rambler through the +Highlands. The enthusiastic pioneer, however, was loud in the praises of +his companion; Goldsmith thought him not equal to Burke, 'who winds into +a subject like a serpent.' The other, with more than wonted irrelevance, +maintained that Johnson was 'the Hercules who strangled serpents in his +cradle;' and with these characteristic utterances they parted, never +again to meet. Throughout his great work, Boswell shews ever a curious +depreciation of Goldsmith. Rivalry for the good graces of their common +friend Johnson, as Scott thought, and the fear of his older acquaintance +as the possible biographer made him suspicious of the merits of the +poet, who figures in the pages of Boswell as a foil for his gently +patronizing tone,--'honest Goldsmith.' + +The tour to the Hebrides had been a project which had occurred to them +in the first days of their friendship. The _Description of the Western +Isles of Scotland_ (1703) by Martin, had been put into Johnson's hands +at a very early age by his father; and, though for long he had +disappointed the expectations of his friend, he had talked of it in the +spring of this year in such a way as to lead Boswell to write to +Beattie, Robertson, Lord Elibank, and the chiefs of the Macdonalds and +the Macleods, for invitations such as he could shew the doctor. Mrs +Thrale also and others were induced to forward the scheme, and at last +the Rambler set out on the 6th day of August. He was nine days upon the +road, including two at Newcastle, where he picked up his friend Scott +(Lord Stowell), and after passing Berwick, Dunbar and Prestonpans, the +coach late in the evening deposited Johnson at Boyd's inn, _The White +Horse_, in the Canongate,--the rendezvous of the old Hanoverian +faction,--which occupied the site of the present building from which +this volume, one hundred and twenty-three years later, is published. On +the Saturday evening of his arrival a note was dispatched by him to +Boswell, who flew to him, and 'exulted in the thought that I now had him +actually in Caledonia.' + +Arm in arm they walked up the High Street to Boswell's house in James's +Court, to which he had removed from the Canongate. The first impression +of the Scottish capital was not pleasing, for at ten the beat of the +city drums was heard; and, amid cries of _gardy loo_, what Oldham +euphemistically calls 'the perils of the night,' were thrown over the +windows down on the pavement, in the absence of covered sewers. When +Captain Burt before this time had been in Edinburgh, a 'caddie' had +preceded him on a scouting expedition with cries of 'haud your han',' +and among flank and rear discharges he had passed to his quarters. A +zealous Scotsman, as Boswell says, could have wished the doctor to be +less gifted with the sense of smell, however much the sense of the +breadth of the street and the height of the buildings impressed him. His +wife had tea waiting, and they sat till two in the morning. To shew +respect for the sage, Mrs Boswell had given up her own room, which her +husband 'cannot but gratefully mention, as one of a thousand obligations +which I owe her, since the great obligation of her being pleased to +accept of me as her husband.' + +Next morning, on the Sunday, Mr Scott and Sir Wm. Forbes of Pitsligo +breakfasted with them, and the host's heart was delighted by the 'little +infantine noise' which his child Veronica made, with the appearance of +listening to the great man. The fond father with a cheerful +recklessness, not realized we fear, declared she should have for this +five hundred pounds of additional fortune. + +The best society in the capital was invited to meet Johnson at breakfast +and dinner--Robertson, Hailes, Gregory, Blacklock, and others. James's +Court was rather a distinguished part of the city, and an improvement +upon the former quarters in Chessel's Buildings. The inhabitants, says +Robert Chambers, took themselves so seriously as to keep a clerk to +record their proceedings, together with a scavenger of their own, and +held among themselves their social meetings and balls. Hume had occupied +part of the house before Johnson's visit, though three years had passed +since he had moved to the new town into St David Street. Writing from +his old house to Adam Smith, he is glad to 'have come within sight of +you, and to have a view of Kirkcaldy from my windows;' the study of the +historian, to which he turned fondly from the Parisian _salons_, is +represented in _Guy Mannering_ as the library of Pleydell with its fine +view from the windows, 'which commanded that incomparable prospect of +the ground between Edinburgh and the sea, the Firth of Forth with its +islands, and the varied shore of Fife to the northward.' Bozzy may have +been reticent about the former tenant; he was 'not clear that it was +right in me to keep company with him,' though he thought the man greater +or better than his books. No word then was sent to him, nor to Adam +Smith across the Forth to Kirkcaldy. They visited the Parliament House, +where Harry Erskine was presented to Johnson, and, having made his bow, +slipped a shilling into Boswell's hand, 'for the sight of his bear.' +Holyrood and the University were inspected, and as they passed up the +College-Wynd, where Goldsmith in his medical student days in Edinburgh +had lived, Scott, as a child of two years, may have seen the party. On +the 18th they set out from the capital, with the Parthian shot from Lord +Auchinleck to a friend--'there's nae hope for Jamie, man; Jamie is gaen +clean gyte. What do you think, man? He's done wi' Paoli. He's off wi' +the land-louping scoundrel of a Corsican, and whose tail do you think he +has pinned himself to now, man? A dominie, an auld dominie; he keepit a +schule and ca'ad it an acaadamy!' No more bitter taunt could have been +levelled against Johnson, with his memories of Edial, near Lichfield; +readers who may remember the munificent manner in which the heritors of +their day had provided for Ruddiman, Michael Bruce, and others, will +see the contempt that the old judge had felt for the past of the +Rambler. Johnson had left behind him in a drawer a volume of his diary; +and, as this would have been excellent copy for his projected _Life_, we +feel the temptation to which Boswell was exposed. 'I wish,' he says +naďvely, 'that female curiosity had been strong enough to have had it +all transcribed; which might easily have been done; and I think the +theft, being _pro bono publico_, might have been forgiven. But I may be +wrong. My wife told me she never once had looked into it. She did not +seem quite easy when we left her; but away we went!' + +The character-sketch of Johnson, given at the opening of the book is +full of fine shading and touches; but the traveller who now follows them +on the journey will hardly, in comparison with his own tourist attire, +recognise what in 1773 was thought fit and convenient costume. + + 'He wore a full suit of plain brown clothes, with twisted hair + buttons of the same colour, a large bushy greyish wig, a plain + shirt, black worsted stockings, and silver buckles. Upon this + tour, when journeying, he wore boots, and a very wide brown + cloth greatcoat, with pockets which might have almost held the + two volumes of his folio _Dictionary_; and he carried in his + hand a large English oak stick. Let me not be censured for + mentioning such minute particulars. Everything relative to so + great a man is worth observing. I remember Dr Adam Smith, in + his rhetorical lectures at Glasgow, told us he was glad to know + that Milton wore latchets in his shoes, instead of buckles.' + +A companion vignette of himself is added by Boswell. + + 'A gentleman of ancient blood, the pride of which was his + predominant passion. He was then in his thirty-third year, and + had been about four years happily married. His inclination was + to be a soldier; but his father had pressed him into the + profession of the law. He had travelled a good deal, and seen + many varieties of human life. He had thought more than anyone + had supposed, and had a pretty good stock of general learning + and knowledge. He had rather too little, than too much + prudence; and, his imagination being lively, he often said + things of which the effect was very different from the + intention. He resembled sometimes + + 'The best good man, with the worst natur'd muse.' + +The doctor who was thrifty over this tour had not thought it necessary +to bring his own black servant; but Boswell's man, Joseph Ritter, a +Bohemian, a fine stately fellow over six feet, who had been over much of +Europe, was invaluable to them in their journey. For this the valiant +Rambler had provided a pair of pistols, powder, and a quantity of +bullets, but the assurance of their needlessness had induced him to +leave them behind with the precious diary in the keeping of Mrs Boswell. + +Such a tour was then a feat for a man of sixty-four, in a country which, +to the Englishman of his day, was as unknown as St Kilda is now to the +mass of Scotchmen. The London citizen who, says Lockhart, 'makes Loch +Lomond his wash-pot, and throws his shoe over Ben Nevis,' can with +difficulty imagine a journey in the Hebrides with rainy weather, in open +boats, or upon horseback over wild moorland and morasses, a journey that +even to Voltaire sounded like a tour to the North Pole. Smollett, in +_Humphrey Clinker_, says the people at the other end of the island knew +as little of Scotland as they did of Japan, nor was Charing Cross, +witness as it did the greatest height of 'the tide of human existence,' +then bright with the autumnal trips of circular tours and Macbrayne +steamers. The feeling for scenery, besides, was in its infancy, nor was +it scenery but men and manners that were sought by our two travellers, +to whom what would now be styled the Wordsworthian feeling had little +or no interest. Gibbon has none of it, and Johnston laughed at Shenstone +for not caring whether his woods and streams had anything good to eat in +them, 'as if one could fill one's belly with hearing soft murmurs or +looking at rough cascades.' Fleet Street to him was more delicious than +Tempe, and the bare scent of the pastoral draws an angry snort from the +critic. Boswell, in turn, confesses to no relish for nature; he admits +he has no pencil for visible objects, but only for varieties of mind and +_esprit_. The _Critical Review_ congratulated the public on a fortunate +event in the annals of literature for the following account in Johnson's +_Journey_--'I sat down on a bank, such as a writer of romance might have +delighted to feign. I had, indeed, no trees to whisper over my head but +a clear rivulet streamed at my feet. The day was calm, the air soft, and +all was rudeness, silence and solitude. Before me, and on either side, +were high hills, which, if hindering the eye from ranging, forced the +mind to find entertainment for itself.' This, little more than the +reflections of a Cockney on a hayrick, is as far as the eighteenth +century could go, nor need we wonder that the Rambler's moralizing at +Iona struck so much Sir Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal +Society, that he 'clasped his hands together, and remained for some time +in an attitude of silent admiration.' Burns himself, as Prof. Veitch has +rightly indicated, has little of the later feeling and regards barren +nature with the unfavourable eyes of the farmer and the practical +agriculturist, nor has the travelled Goldsmith more to shew. Writing +from Edinburgh, he laments that 'no grove or brook lend their music to +cheer the stranger,' while at Leyden, 'wherever I turned my eye, fine +houses, elegant gardens, statues, grottoes, presented themselves.' Even +Gray found that Mount Cenis carried the permission mountains have of +being frightful rather too far, and Wordsworth and Shelley would have +resented the Johnsonian description of a Highland Ben as 'a considerable +protuberance.' Indeed, Goldsmith's bare mention of that object, so dear +to Pope and his century,--'grottoes'--reminds us we are not yet in the +modern world. Yet the boldness of the sage, and the cheerfulness of +Boswell, carried them through it all. 'I should,' wrote the doctor to +Mrs Thrale, 'have been very sorry to have missed any of the +inconveniences, to have had more light or less rain, for their +co-operation crowded the scene and filled the mind.' + +Crossing the Firth, after landing on Inchkeith, they arrived at St +Andrews which had long been an object of interest to Johnson. They +passed Leuchars, Dundee, and Aberbrothick. The ruins of ecclesiastical +magnificence would seem to have touched a hidden chord in Boswell's +past, for we find him on the road talking of the 'Roman Catholick +faith,' and leading his companion on transubstantiation; but this, being +'an awful subject, I did not then press Dr Johnson upon it.' Montrose +was reached, and at the inn the waiter was called 'rascal' by the +Rambler for putting sugar into the lemonade with his fingers, to the +delight of Bozzy who rallied him into quietness by the assurance that +the landlord was an Englishman. Monboddo was then passed, where 'the +magnetism of his conversation drew us out of our way,' though the prompt +action of Boswell as agent in advance really was the source of their +invitation. Burnet was one of the best scholars in Scotland, and +'Johnson and my lord spoke highly of Homer.' All his paradoxes about the +superiority of the ancients, the existence of men with tails, slavery +and other institutions were vented, but all went well. The decrease of +learning in England, which Johnson lamented, was met by Monboddo's +belief in its extinction in Scotland, but Bozzy, as the old High School +of Edinburgh boy, put in a word for that place of education and brought +him to confess that it did well. + +The New Inn at Aberdeen was full. But the waiter knew Boswell by his +likeness to his father who put up here on circuit--the only portrait, we +believe, there is of Lord Auchinleck--and accommodation was provided. +They visited King's College, where Boswell 'stepped into the chapel and +looked at the tomb of its founder, Bishop Elphinstone, of whom I shall +have occasion to write in my history of James IV., the patron of my +family.' The freedom of the city was conferred on Johnson. Was this an +honour, or an excuse for a social glass among the civic Solons of an +unreformed corporation? The latter may be the case, when we reflect that +none of the four universities thought of giving him an honorary degree, +though Beattie at this time had received the doctorate in laws from +Oxford, and Gray some years before this had declined the offer from +Aberdeen. Nor can we forget the taunt of George Colman the younger about +Pangloss in his _Heir at Law_, and his own recollection how, when a lad +at King's College, he had been 'scarcely a week in Old Aberdeen when the +Lord Provost of the New Town invited me to drink wine with him, one +evening in the Town Hall;' and presented him on October 8th, 1781, with +the freedom of the city. No negative inference can be established from +the contemporary notices in the _Aberdeen Journal_ over the visit. Every +paragraph is contemptuous in its tone; and till October 4th no notice is +taken of the honour, when 'a correspondent says he is glad to find that +the city of Aberdeen has presented Dr Johnson with the freedom of that +place, for he has sold his freedom on this side of the Tweed for a +pension.' The definition of _oats_ in the Dictionary is brought up +against its author, and Bozzy is also attacked in a doggerel epigram on +his Corsican Tour and his system of spelling. But the doctor easily +maintained his conversational supremacy over his academic hosts, who +'started not a single mawkin for us to pursue.' + +Ellon, Slains Castle, and Elgin were visited. They passed Gordon Castle +at Fochabers, drove over the heath where Macbeth met the witches, +'classic ground to an Englishman,' as the old editor of Shakespeare +felt, and reached Nairn, where now they heard for the first time the +Gćlic tongue,--'one of the songs of Ossian,' quoth the justly +incredulous doctor,--and saw peat fires. At Fort George they were +welcomed by Sir Eyre Coote. The old military aspirations of Bozzy flared +up and were soothed: 'for a little while I fancied myself a military +man, and it pleased me.' As they left, the commander reminded them of +the hardships by the way, in return as Boswell interposed for the rough +things Johnson had said of Scotland. 'You must change your name, sir,' +said Sir Eyre. 'Ay, to Dr M'Gregor,' replied Bozzy. The notion of the +lexicographer's assuming the forbidden name of the bold outlaw, with +'his foot upon his native heath,' is rather comic, though later on we +find him striding about with a target and broad sword, and a bonnet +drawn over his wig! Though both professed profuse addiction to Jacobite +sentiments, it is curious no mention is made of Culloden. It may be that +Boswell, who some days later weeps over the battle, may have +diplomatically avoided it, or it may have been dark as their chaise +passed it, though it is not impossible that Boswell, who at St Andrews +had not known where to look for John Knox's grave, and has no mention of +Airsmoss where Cameron fell in his own parish of Auchinleck, was +ignorant of the site. From their inn at Inverness he wrote to Garrick +gleefully over his tour with Davy's old preceptor, and then begged +permission to leave Johnson for a time, 'that I might run about and pay +some visits to several good people,' finding much satisfaction in +hearing every one speak well of his father. + +On Monday, August 30, they began their _equitation_; 'I would needs make +a word too.' They took horses now, a third carried his man Ritter, and a +fourth their portmanteaus. The scene by Loch Ness was new to the sage, +and he rises in his narrative a little to it and the 'limpid waters +beating their bank, and waving their surface by a gentle agitation.' +Through Glenshiel, Glenmorison, Auchnasheal, they passed on to the inn +at Glenelg. They made beds for themselves with fresh hay, and, like +Wolfe at Quebec, they had their 'choice of difficulties;' but the +philosophic Rambler maintained they might have been worse on the +hillside, and buttoning himself up in his greatcoat he lay down, while +Boswell had his sheets spread on the hay, and his clothes and greatcoat +laid over him by way of blankets. + +Next day they got into a boat for Skye, reaching Armidale before one. +Here occurred one of the dramatic episodes of the book. Sir Alexander +Macdonald, husband of Boswell's Yorkshire cousin Miss Bosville, and the +host at the masquerade in February, was on his way to Edinburgh, and met +them at the house of a tenant, 'as we believe,' wrote Johnson to Mrs +Thrale, 'that he might with less reproach entertain us meanly. Boswell +was very angry, and reproached him with his improper parsimony. Boswell +has some thoughts of collecting the stories and making a novel of his +life.' In the first edition of his book something strong had clearly +been written, but it was wisely suppressed at the last moment when the +book was bound, for the new pages are but clumsily pasted on the guard +between leaves 166 and 169. The first edition had accordingly this +account, which was even toned down in the next. + +'Instead of finding the head of the Macdonalds surrounded with his clan, +and a festive entertainment, we had a small company and cannot boast of +our cheer. The particulars are minuted in my journal, but I shall not +trouble the publick with them. I shall mention but one characteristick +circumstance. My shrewd and hearty friend, Sir Thomas Blackett, Lady +Macdonald's uncle, who had preceded us in a visit to this chief, upon +being asked by him if the punchbowl then upon the table was not a very +handsome one, replied, "Yes, if it were full." Sir Alexander, having +been an Eton scholar, Dr Johnson had formed an opinion of him which was +much diminished when he beheld him in the Isle of Sky, where we heard +heavy complaints of rents racked, and the people driven to emigration. +Dr Johnson said, "it grieves me to see the chief of a great clan appear +to such disadvantage. The gentleman has talents, nay, some learning; but +he is totally unfit for his situation. Sir, the Highland chiefs should +not be allowed to go further south than Aberdeen." I meditated an escape +from this the very next day, but Dr Johnson resolved that we should +weather it out till Monday.' + +Next day being Sunday Bozzy's spirits were cheered by the climate and +the weather, but 'had I not had Dr Johnson to contemplate, I should have +been sunk into dejection, but his firmness supported me. I looked at +him as a man whose head is turning giddy at sea looks at a rock.' +Everywhere they met signs of the parting of the ways in the Highlands. +The old days of feudal power were merging in the industrial, the chiefs +were now landlords and exacting ones. Emigration was rife, and the pages +of the _Scots Magazine_ of the time dwell much on this. A month before, +four hundred men had left Strathglass and Glengarry; in June eight +hundred had sailed from Stornoway; Lochaber sent four hundred, 'the +finest set of fellows in the Highlands, carrying Ł6000 in ready cash +with them. The extravagant rents exacted by the landlords is the sole +cause given for this emigration which seems to be only in its infancy.' +The high price of provisions and the decrease of the linen trade in the +north of Ireland sent eight hundred this year from Stromness, when we +find the linen dealers thanking Boswell's old rival, as he supposed, +with Miss Blair, Sir Alexander Gilmour, M.P. for Midlothian, for his +efforts at providing better legislation. + +Rasay is one of the happiest descriptions in the tour. 'This,' said +Johnson, 'is truly the patriarchal life; this is what we came to find.' +They heard from home and had letters. At Kingsburgh they were welcomed +by the lady of the house, 'the celebrated Miss Flora Macdonald, a little +woman of genteel appearance; and uncommonly mild and well-bred.' 'I was +in a cordial humour, and promoted a cheerful glass. Honest Mr M'Queen +observed that I was in high glee, "my governor being gone to bed." ... +The room where we lay was a celebrated one. Dr Johnson's bed was the +very bed in which the grandson of the unfortunate King James the Second +lay, on one of the nights after the failure of his rash attempt in +1745-6. To see Dr Samuel Johnson lying in that bed, in the Isle of Sky, +in the house of Miss Flora Macdonald, struck me with such a group of +ideas as it is not easy for words to describe, as they passed through +the mind. The room was decorated with a great variety of maps and +prints. Among others, was Hogarth's print of Wilkes grinning, with a cap +of liberty on a pole by him.' Certainly Bozzy had never thought of +finding a remembrance of his 'classic friend' in such circumstances. + +Dunvegan and the castle of the Macleods received them in hospitable +style. 'Boswell,' said Johnson, in allusion to Sir Alexander's stinted +ways, 'we came in at the wrong end of the island;' the memories of their +visit had not been forgotten when Scott was there on his Lighthouse Tour +in 1814. The Rambler 'had tasted lotus, and was in danger of forgetting +he was ever to depart.' + +Landing at Strolimus, they proceeded to Corrichatachin, 'with but a +single star to light us on our way.' There took place the scene that, +though familiar, must be given in the writer's own words. A man who, for +artistic setting and colour, could write it deliberately down even to +his own disadvantage, and who could appeal to serious critics and +readers of discernment and taste against the objections which he saw +himself would be raised from the misinterpretation of others, is a +figure not to be met with every day in literature. + + 'Dr Johnson went to bed soon. When one bowl of punch was + finished, I rose, and was near the door, on my way upstairs to + bed; but Corrichatachin said, it was the first time Col had + been in his house, and he should have his bowl; and would not I + join in drinking it? The heartiness of my honest landlord, and + the desire of doing social honour to our very obliging + conductor, induced me to sit down again. Col's bowl was + finished; and by that time we were well warmed. A third bowl + was soon made, and that too was finished. We were cordial, and + merry to a high degree; but of what passed I have no + recollection, with any accuracy. I remember calling + _Corrichatachin_ by the familiar appellation of _Corri_ which + his friends do. A fourth bowl was made, by which time Col, and + young M'Kinnon, Corrichatachin's son, slipped away to bed. I + continued a little time with Corri and Knockow; but at last I + left them. It was near five in the morning when I got to bed. + _Sunday, September 26._ I awaked at noon with a severe + head-ach. I was much vexed that I should have been guilty of + such a riot, and afraid of a reproof from Dr Johnson, I thought + it very inconsistent with that conduct which I ought to + maintain, while the companion of the Rambler. About one he came + into my room, and accosted me, "What, drunk yet?" His tone of + voice was not that of severe upbraiding; so I was relieved a + little. "Sir," (said I), "they kept me up." He answered, "No, + you kept them up, you drunken dog:"--this he said with + good-humoured _English_ pleasantry. Soon afterwards, + Corrichatachin, Col, and other friends assembled round my bed. + Corri had a brandy bottle and glass with him, and insisted I + should take a dram. "Ay," said Dr Johnson, "fill him drunk + again. Do it in the morning, that we may laugh at him all day. + It is a poor thing for a fellow to get drunk at night, and + skulk to bed, and let his friends have no sport." Finding him + thus jocular, I became quite easy; and when I offered to get + up, he very good naturedly said, "You need be in no such hurry + now." I took my host's advice, and drank some brandy, which I + found an effectual cure for my head-ach. When I rose, I went + into Dr Johnson's room, and taking up Mrs M'Kinnon's + Prayer-Book, I opened it at the twentieth Sunday after Trinity, + in the epistle for which I read, "And be not drunk with wine, + wherein there is excess." Some would have taken this as a + divine interposition.' + +Such is the extraordinary confession. St Augustine, Rousseau, De +Quincey, have not quite equalled this. He found it had been made the +subject of serious criticism and ludicrous banter. But his one object, +as he tells 'serious criticks,' has been to delineate Johnson's +character, and for this purpose he appeals from Philip drunk to Philip +sober, and to the approbation of the discerning reader. Later on, he has +laid the flattering unction to his heart, and has extracted comfort +from the soul of things evil. He felt comfortable, and 'I then thought +that my last night's riot was no more than such a social excess as may +happen without much moral blame; and recollected that some physicians +maintained, that a fever produced by it was, upon the whole, good for +health: so different are our reflections on the same subject, at +different periods; and such the excuses with which we palliate what we +know to be wrong.' + +Leaving Skye, they ran before the wind to Col. + + 'It was very dark, and there was a heavy and incessant rain. + The sparks of the burning peat flew so much about, that I + dreaded the vessel might take fire. Then as _Col_ was a + sportsman, and had powder on board, I figured that we might be + blown up. Our vessel often lay so much on one side, that I + trembled lest she should be overset, and indeed they told me + afterwards that they had run her sometimes to within an inch of + the water, so anxious were they to make what haste they could + before the night should be worse. I now saw what I never saw + before, a prodigious sea, with immense billows coming upon a + vessel, so that it seemed hardly possible to escape. I am glad + I have seen it once. I endeavoured to compose my mind; when I + thought of those who were dearest to me, and would suffer + severely, should I be lost, I upbraided myself. Piety afforded + me comfort; yet I was disturbed by the objections that have + been made against a particular providence, and by the arguments + of those who maintain that it is in vain to hope that the + petitions of an individual, or even of congregations, can have + any influence with the Deity. I asked _Col_ with much + earnestness what I could do. He with a happy readiness put into + my hand a rope, which was fixed to the top of one of the masts, + and told me to hold it till he bade me pull. If I had + considered the matter, I might have seen that this could not be + of the slightest service; but his object was to keep me out of + the way.... Thus did I stand firm to my post, while the wind + and rain beat upon me, always expecting a call to pull my + rope.... They spied the harbour of Lochiern, and _Col_ cried, + "Thank God, we are safe!" Dr Johnson had all this time been + quiet and unconcerned. He had lain down on one of the beds, and + having got free from sickness, was satisfied. The truth is, he + knew nothing of the danger we were in. Once he asked whither we + were going; upon being told that it was not certain whether to + Mull or Col, he cried, "Col for my money!" I now went down to + visit him. He was lying in philosophick tranquillity, with a + greyhound of _Col's_ at his back keeping him warm.' + +Mull, Tobermory, Ulva's Isle, and Inch Kenneth followed. Then +Iona,--'the sacred place which as long as I can remember, I had thought +on with veneration.' The two friends, as they landed on the island, +'cordially embraced,' as they had done in the _White Horse_ at +Edinburgh, and the mark of feeling is a note that we are yet with them +in the eighteenth century. They lay in a barn with a portmanteau for a +pillow, and 'when I awaked in the morning and looked round me, I could +not help smiling at the idea of the chief of the Macleans, the great +English moralist, and myself lying thus extended in such a situation.' +The old Boswell of the Roman Catholic days appears at this time. +'Boswell,' writes Johnson to Mrs Thrale, 'who is very pious went into +the chapel at night to perform his devotions, but came back in haste for +fear of spectres.' Second sight was often in their thoughts and +conversation on their tour; at the club Colman had jocularly to bid +Boswell 'cork it up' when he was too full of his belief on the point. +His fear of ghosts reminds one of Pepys in the year of the great plague, +as he went through the graveyard of the church, with the bodies buried +thick and high, 'frighted and much troubled.' + +'I left him,' says Boswell himself, 'and Sir Allan at breakfast in our +barn, and stole back again to the cathedral, to indulge in solitude and +devout meditation. When contemplating the venerable ruins, _I reflected +with much satisfaction_, that the solemn scenes of piety _never lose +their sanctity and influence_, though the cares and follies of life may +prevent us from visiting them.... I hoped that, ever after having been +in this holy place, I should maintain an exemplary conduct. One has a +strange propensity to fix upon some point of time from whence a better +course of life may begin.' This is a revelation of the inner Boswell. On +the eve of the appearance of the _Tour in Corsica_, he had written to +Temple, about 'fixing some period for my perfection as far as possible. +Let it be when my account of Corsica is finished. I shall then have a +character to support.' On landing at Rasay, he noticed the remains of a +cross on the rock, 'which had to me a pleasing vestige of religion,' and +he 'could not but value the family seat more for having even the ruins +of a chapel close to it. There was something comforting in the thought +of being so near a piece of consecrated ground.' + +Oban received them with a tolerable inn. They were again on the +mainland, and found papers with conjectures as to their motions in the +islands. Next day they spent at Inverary. The castle of the Duke of +Argyll was near, and now, for the first time on the tour, the +indefatigable agent in advance was completely nonplussed. The spectre of +the great Douglas Trial loomed large in the eyes of the pamphleteer and +the hero of the riot. He had reason, he says, to fear hostile reprisals +on the part of the Duchess, who had been Duchess of Hamilton and mother +of the rival claimant, before she had become the wife of John, fifth +Duke of Argyll. It is from this scene and from the Stratford Jubilee +fiasco that the general reader draws his picture of poor Bozzy, and the +belief remains that James Boswell was a pushing and forward interloper, +half mountebank and half showman. Read in the original, as a revelation +of the writer's character, the very reverse is the impression; he is +there presented not in any ludicrous light but rather in a good-humoured +and fussy way. He met his friend the Rev. John Macaulay, one of the +ministers of Inverary, who accompanied them to the castle, where Boswell +presented the doctor to the Duke. 'I shall never forget,' quaintly adds +the chronicler, 'the impression made upon my fancy by some of the +ladies' maids tripping about in neat morning dresses. After seeing for a +long time little but rusticity, their lively manner, and gay inviting +appearance, pleased me so much, that I thought, for a moment, I could +have been a knight-errant for them.' This grandfather of the historian +and essayist, the man who has dealt the heaviest blow to the reputation +of poor Bozzy, was to encounter some warm retorts from the Rambler like +his brother, Macaulay's grand-uncle, the minister at Calder. Mr +Trevelyan is eager for the good name of his family, and finds it +impossible to suppress a wish that the great talker had been there to +avenge them. It may not be quite impossible that, mingling with the +brilliant essayist's ill-will to the politics of the travellers, there +was an unconscious strain of resentment at the contemptuous way in which +his relations had been tossed by the doctor, and that Bozzy's own +subsequent denunciations of the abolitionists and the slave trade had +edged the memories in the mind of the son of Zachary Macaulay. Be this +as it may, for this scene Macaulay has a keen eye, and as much of his +colour is derived from it, it is but right that in some abridged form +the incident be set down here in Boswell's own words-- + + 'I went to the castle just about the time when I supposed the + ladies would be retired from dinner. I sent in my name; and, + being shewn in, found the amiable Duke sitting at the head of + his table with several gentlemen. I was most politely received, + and gave his grace some particulars of the curious journey + which I had been making with Dr Johnson.... As I was going + away, the Duke said, "Mr Boswell, won't you have some tea?" I + thought it best to get over the meeting with the Duchess this + night; so respectfully agreed. I was conducted to the + drawing-room by the Duke, who announced my name; but the + duchess, who was sitting with her daughter, Lady Betty + Hamilton, and some other ladies, took not the least notice of + me. I should have been mortified at being thus coldly received, + had I not been consoled by the obliging attention of the Duke. + + '_Monday, October 25._ I presented Dr Johnson to the Duke of + Argyll ... the duke placed Dr Johnson next himself at table. I + was in fine spirits; and though sensible of not being in favour + with the duchess, I was not in the least disconcerted, and + offered her grace some of the dish that was before me. It must + be owned that I was in the right to be quite unconcerned, if I + could. I was the Duke of Argyll's guest; and I had no reason to + suppose that he adopted the prejudices and resentments of the + Duchess of Hamilton. + + 'I knew it was the rule of modern high life not to drink to + anybody; but, that I might have the satisfaction for once to + look the duchess in the face, with a glass in my hand, I with a + respectful air addressed her,--"My Lady Duchess, I have the + honour to drink your grace's good health." I repeated the words + audibly, and with a steady countenance. This was, perhaps, + rather too much; but some allowance must be made for human + feelings. I made some remark that seemed to imply a belief in + _second sight_. The duchess said, "I fancy you will be _a + methodist_." This was the only sentence her grace deigned to + utter to me; and I take it for granted, she thought it a good + hit on _my credulity_ in the Douglas Cause. + + 'We went to tea. The duke and I walked up and down the + drawing-room, conversing. The duchess still continued to shew + the same marked coldness for me; for which, though I suffered + from it, I made every allowance, considering the very warm part + that I had taken for Douglas, in the cause in which she thought + her son deeply interested. Had not her grace discovered some + displeasure towards me, I should have suspected her of + insensibility or dissimulation. Her grace made Dr Johnson come + and sit by her, and asked him why he made his journey so late + in the year. "Why, madam (said he), you know Mr Boswell must + attend the Court of Session, and it does not rise till the + 12th of August." She said, with some sharpness, "I _know + nothing_ of Mr Boswell." Poor Lady Lucy Douglas, to whom I + mentioned this, observed, "She knew _too much_ of Mr Boswell." + I shall make no remark on her grace's speech, etc., etc.' + +In all this scene it will be confessed there is nothing but rudeness on +the part of the duchess, one of the beautiful Gunnings, intentional or +otherwise, while the kindly touches on Boswell's part, his allowance for +her supposed feelings over the trial, and his determination, for once, +to look a duchess in the face, are admirable. Bozzy was by birth a +gentleman, and there is not the slightest indication here of any want of +breeding or taste on his side. + +At Dumbarton, steep as is the incline, Johnson ascended it. The +_Saracen's Head_, which had welcomed Paoli before now, received the +travellers. There was now no more sullen fuel or peat. 'Here am I,' +soliloquized the Rambler, with a leg upon each side of the grate, 'an +_Englishman_, sitting by a coal fire.' + +'Jamie's aff the hooks noo;' said the old laird, as they drew near +Auchinleck, 'he's bringing doon an auld dominie.' Boswell begged of his +companion to avoid three topics of discourse on which he knew his father +had fixed opinions--Whiggism, Presbyterianism, and Sir John Pringle. For +a time all went well. They walked about 'the romantick groves of my +ancestors,' and Bozzy discoursed on the antiquity and honourable +alliances of the family, and on the merits of its founder, Thomas, who +fell with King James at Flodden. But the storm broke, over the judge's +collection of medals, where that of Oliver Cromwell brought up Charles +the First and Episcopacy. All must regret that the writer's filial +feelings withheld the 'interesting scene in this dramatick sketch.' It +is the one _lacuna_ in the book. Sir John Pringle, as the middle term +in the debate, came off without a bruise, but the honours lay with Lord +Auchinleck. The man whose 'Scots strength of sarcasm' could retort on +Johnson, that Cromwell was a man that let kings know they 'had a _lith_ +in their neck,' was likely to open new ideas to the doctor, whose +political opinions could not rank higher than prejudices. 'Thus they +parted,' says the son, after his father had, with his dignified +courtesy, seen Johnson into the postchaise; 'they are now in a happier +state of existence, in a place where there is no room for _Whiggism_.' +'I have always said,' the doctor maintained, 'the first Whig was the +Devil!' + +Edinburgh was reached on November 9th. Eighty-three days had passed +since they left it, and for five weeks no news of them had been heard. +Writing from London, on his arrival, Johnson said, 'I came home last +night, without any incommodity, danger, or weariness, and am ready to +begin a new journey. I know Mrs Boswell wished me well to go.' The +irregular hours of her guest, and his habit of turning the candles +downward when they did not burn brightly, letting the wax run upon the +carpet, had not been quite to the taste of the hostess, who resented, +'what was very natural to a female mind,' the influence he possessed +over the actions of her husband. + +We may well call this tour a spirited one, as Boswell had styled his own +Corsican expedition. No better book of travels in Scotland has ever been +written than Boswell's _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_. The accuracy +of his description, his eye for scenes and dramatic effects, have all +been fully borne witness to by those who have followed in their track, +and the fact of the book being day by day read by Johnson, during its +preparation, gives it an additional value from the perfect veracity of +its contents--'as I have resolved that the very journal which Dr Johnson +read shall be presented to the publick, I will not expand the text in +any considerable degree.' If the way in which the Rambler roughed it, +'laughing to think of myself roving among the Hebrides at sixty, and +wondering where I shall rove at four score,' is admirable, none the less +so is Bozzy's imperturbable good humour. 'It is very convenient to +travel with him,' writes his companion from Auchinleck to Mrs Thrale, +'for there is no house where he is not received with kindness and +respect. He has better faculties than I had imagined; more justness of +discernment and more fecundity of images.' They had hoped to go sailing +from island to island, and had not reckoned with what Scott, who wonders +they were not drowned, calls the proverbial carelessness of Hebridean +boatmen. They really had come two months too late. But Boswell's +attention to the old man smoothed all difficulties,--'looking on the +tour as a co-partnership between Dr Johnson and myself,' he did his part +faithfully, dancing reels, singing songs, and airing the scraps of +Gaelic he picked up, thinking all this better than 'to play the abstract +scholar.' + +Johnson's account of the journey is an able performance, and is written +with a lighter touch and grace than is to be found in his early works. +One passage from it has become famous,--his description of Iona. 'The +man whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or +whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona,' rivals +Macaulay's New Zealander as a stock quotation, and the whole book is not +without incisive touches. But it is completely eclipsed by the _Journal_ +of Boswell. From start to finish there is not a dull page, and the +literary polish is, we venture to think, of a higher kind than is seen +in the _Life_. The artistic opening, and the grouping of the characters, +together with the wealth of archćological and historical information, +the tripping style and sustained interest, all render this book of +Boswell's a masterpiece. Johnson's account, published in 1775, took ten +years to reach a second edition. Boswell's appeared in September, 1785; +and by December 20 the issue was exhausted, a third followed on August +15, 1786, and the next year saw a German translation issued at Lubeck. +There had been grave indiscretions, lack of reticence, and other faults +in the book. Caricatures were rife. _Revising for the Second Edition_ +shewed Sir Alexander Macdonald seizing the author by the throat, and +pointing with his stick to the open book, where two leaves are marked as +torn out. But Boswell, in _The Gentleman's Magazine_ for March 1786, +asserts that no such applications or threats had been made. The results, +however, may have added to the writer's unpopularity, as Lord Houghton +suggests, at the Edinburgh bar, through the answers, replies, and other +rejoinders to the strictures of Johnson, for which Boswell, as the +pioneer and the introducer of the stranger, 'the chiel among them takin' +notes,' may in Edinburgh society have been held as mainly responsible. + +To Johnson, the memories of the tour--the lone shieling and the misty +island--were a source of pleasing recollection. Taken earlier, it would +have removed many of his insular prejudices by wider survey and more +varied conversation. 'The expedition to the Hebrides,' he wrote to +Boswell some years after, 'was the most pleasant journey I ever made;' +and two years later, after restless and tedious nights, he is found +reverting to it and recalling the best night he had had these twenty +years back, at Fort Augustus. Yet all through September they had not +more than a day and a half of really good weather, and but the same +during October. Out of such slight materials and uncomfortable +surroundings has Boswell produced a masterpiece of descriptive writing. +The memory of Johnson has lingered where that of the Jacobite Pretender +has well-nigh completely passed away. Mr Gladstone, proposing a +Parliamentary vote of thanks to Lord Napier for 'having planted the +Standard of St George upon the mountains of Rasselas;' Sir Robert Peel, +quoting, in his address to Glasgow University as Lord Rector, Johnson's +description of Iona; Sir Walter Scott finding in Skye that he and his +friends had in their memories, as the one typical association of the +island, the ode to Mrs Thrale, all combine to shew the abiding interest +attaching to the Rambler even in Abyssinia and to his foot-steps in +Scotland. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +EDINBURGH LIFE--DEATH OF JOHNSON. 1773-1784 + + 'My father used to protest I was born to be a strolling + pedlar.'--SIR WALTER SCOTT--_Autobiography._ + + +'You have done Auchinleck much honour and have, I hope, overcome my +father who has never forgiven your warmth for monarchy and episcopacy. I +am anxious to see how your pages will operate on him.' Boswell had good +grounds for thus expressing himself to Johnson over the publication of +the latter's book. He had not long, it would seem, to wait for the +breaking of the storm, as we find him writing to Temple in ominous +language. 'My father,' he says, 'is most unhappily dissatisfied with me. +He harps on my going over Scotland with a brute (think how shockingly +erroneous!) and wandering, or some such phrase, to London. I always +dread his making some bad settlement.' Then the old judge would grimly +relate how Lord Crichton, son of the Earl of Dumfries, would go to +Edinburgh, and how, when he was carried back to the family vault, the +Earl, as he saw the hearse from the window, had said, 'Ay, ay, Charles, +thou went without an errand: I think thou hast got one to bring thee +back again.' + +But had the son chosen to be quite candid here, we should see how just a +cause the father had for his displeasure. In the spring of 1774, he had +written to Johnson suggesting a run up to London, expressing the +peculiar satisfaction which he felt in celebrating Easter at St Paul's, +which to his fancy was like going up to Jerusalem at the feast of the +Passover. The doctor was wisely deaf to this subtle appeal. 'Edinburgh,' +said he, 'is not yet exhausted,' and reminded him that his wife, having +permitted him last year to ramble, had now a claim upon him at home, +while to come to Iona or to Jerusalem could not be necessary, though +useful. Next year, however, Boswell was in London, 'quite in my old +humour,' as he tells Temple, arguing with him for concubinage and the +plurality of the patriarchs, from all which we may see that the plea +urged to Johnson for the visit was to be taken in a lax sense by +Boswell, who made his chief excuse out of some business at the bar of +the House over an election petition in Clackmannan. He waited on Temple +in Devon and shocked his host by his inebriety, but 'under a solemn yew +tree' he had vowed reformation. But his return to town, if it 'exalted +him in piety' at St Paul's, seems to have led but to fresh dissipation. +He hints at 'Asiatic multiplicity,' but this is only when he has taken +too much claret. The good resolutions at Iona and the influence of the +ruins had passed away, the trip is extended to two months, and he frets +irritably over his old friend Henry Dundas's election as King's +Advocate,--'to be sure he has strong parts, but he is a coarse +unlettered dog.' Harry Dundas at least was never found philandering as +we find Bozzy on this occasion, where the mixture of religion and +flirtation is so confusing. 'After breakfasting with Paoli,' he writes +before leaving for the north, 'and worshipping at St Paul's, I dined +_tęte-ŕ-tęte_ with my charming Mrs Stuart, of whom you have read in my +Journal. We dined in all the elegance of two courses and a dessert, with +dumb waiters, except when the second course and the dessert were +served. We talked with unreserved freedom, as we had nothing to fear. We +were _philosophical_, upon honour--not deep, but feeling, we were pious; +we drank tea and bid each other adieu as finely as romance paints. She +is my wife's dearest friend, so you see how beautiful our intimacy is.' +But from Johnson's letter to Mrs Thrale we see looming ahead a crisis. +'He got two and forty guineas in fees while he was here. He has by _his +wife's persuasion and mine_ taken down a present for his +mother-in-law,'--an error, doubtless, for 'stepmother.' He had entered +himself this time at the Temple, and Johnson was his bond. He left to be +in time for practice before the General Assembly, finding 'something low +and coarse in such employment, but guineas must be had'--a feeling quite +different from that of Lord Cockburn who thought the aisle of St Giles +had seen the best work of the best men in the kingdom since 1640. +Perhaps his feelings on this point were soothed by the traveller in the +coach, a Miss Silverton, an 'amiable creature who has been in France. I +can unite little fondnesses with perfect conjugal love.' Alas for poor +Peggie Montgomerie, 'of the ancient house of Eglintoun,' blamed by his +father for not bridling the follies of his son, waiting, doubtless, +anxiously for the present to the second wife of his father as a means of +peace-offering! + +Then the secret leaks out that the father had refused Boswell's plan of +being allowed Ł400 a year and the trial of fortune at the London bar. +His debts of Ł1000 had been paid, and his allowance of Ł300 threatened +with the reduction of a third. The promise under the old yew had not +been kept; the one bottle of hock as a statutory limit had been +exceeded, he had been 'not drunk, but was intoxicated,'--a subtle point +for bacchanalian casuists, and very ill next day. He lays it on the +drunken habits of the country which, he says, are very bad, and with the +recollection of Burns' temptations in Dumfries we may admit that they +were. His father, too, was now about to entail his estate, and Bozzy's +predilection for feudal principles and heirs male brought things to a +deadlock. He appealed to Lord Hailes, who admitted conscience and self +formed a strong plea when found on different sides. Finally, after the +judge had inserted in the deed his precautions against 'a weak, foolish +and extravagant person,' the estate was entailed on Boswell. 'My +father,' he tells Temple, 'is so different from me. We _divaricate_ so +much, as Dr Johnson said. He has a method of treating me which makes me +feel like a timid boy, which to _Boswell_ (comprehending all that my +character does in my own imagination and in that of a wonderful number +of mankind) is intolerable. It requires the utmost exertion of practical +philosophy to keep myself quiet; but it has cost me drinking a +considerable quantity of strong beer to dull my faculties.' The picture +of the son drinking himself down to the level of the father is truly +inimitable! + +He feared the final settlement. He might be disgraced by his father, and +not a shilling secured to his wife and children. Then he is comforted by +the thought that his father is visibly failing, and he consults his +brother David with a view to a settlement, should the succession pass to +him. The birth of a son, who was diplomatically called Alexander, was +taken by the old man as a compliment, and we find Boswell visiting at +Auchinleck, 'not long at one time, but frequent renewals of attention +are agreeable,' he finds, to his father. He proposed to Johnson a tour +round the English cathedrals, but a brief trip with him to Derbyshire +was all that resulted. We now find for the first time in the _Life_ +indications of what would ensue when the strong hand of Johnson was +removed from the guidance of his weaker companion. 'As we drove back to +Ashbourne,' he writes with curious frankness, 'Dr Johnson recommended to +me, _as he had often done_, to drink water only,' and we meet with as +curious a defence of drinking--the great difficulty of resisting it when +a good man asks you to drink the wine he has had twenty years in his +cellar! Benevolence calls for compliance, for, 'curst be the _spring_,' +he adds with a change of Pope's verse, 'how well soe'er it flow, that +tends to make one worthy man my foe!' 'I do,' he wrote in the _London +Magazine_ for March 1780, 'fairly acknowledge that I love drinking; that +I have a constitutional inclination to indulge in fermented liquors, and +that if it were not for the restraints of reason and religion, I am +afraid that I should be as constant a votary of Bacchus as any man. +Drinking is in reality an occupation which employs a considerable +portion of the time of many people; and to conduct it in the most +rational and agreeable manner is one of the great arts of living. Were +we so framed that it were possible by perpetual supplies of wine to keep +ourselves for ever gay and happy, there could be no doubt that drinking +would be the _summum bonum_, the chief good to find out which +philosophers have been so variously busied.' It looks as if poor Bozzy, +when he wrote this, had heard of the Brunonian system of medicine, and +of the unfortunate exemplication of it in practice and in precept by its +founder in Edinburgh. No wonder such excesses produced violent reaction +to low spirits and the 'black dog' of hypochondria. He finds it, after +going to prayers in Carlisle Cathedral, 'divinely cheering to have a +cathedral so near Auchinleck,' one hundred and fifty miles off, as +Johnson sarcastically replied. Bozzy had been writing a series of +articles, 'The Hypochondriack,' in the _London Magazine_, for about two +years, but he was advised not to mention his own mental diseases, or to +expect for them either the praise for which there was no room, or the +pity which would do him no good. The active old man was now in better +health than he had been upon the Hebridean tour, and was in hopes of yet +shewing himself with Boswell in some part of Europe, Asia, or Africa. +'What have you to do with liberty and necessity?' cries the doctor to +his friend, who had been worrying himself and his correspondent with +philosophical questions, on which some six years before he had got some +light from the _Lettres Persanes_ of Montesquieu. 'Come to me, my dear +Bozzy, and let us be as happy as we can. We will go again to the Mitre, +and talk old times over.' Thrice during the 1781 visit to London do we +see his unfortunate habits breaking out; and, when we find him saying he +has unfortunately preserved none of the conversations, Miss Hannah More, +who met him that day at the Bishop of St Asaph's, explains it--'I was +heartily disgusted with Mr Boswell, who came upstairs after dinner much +disordered with wine.' + +Let us hear his own confession over his conduct at the house of Lady +Galway. + +'Another evening Johnson's kind indulgence towards me had a pretty +difficult trial. I had dined at the Duke of Montrose's with a very +agreeable party, and his Grace, according to his usual custom, had +circulated the bottle very freely. Lord Graham and I went together to +Miss Monckton's where I certainly was in extraordinary spirits, and +above all fear or awe. In the midst of a great number of persons of the +first rank, amongst whom I recollect with confusion a noble lady of the +most stately decorum, I placed myself next to Johnson, and thinking +myself now fully his match, talked to him in a loud and boisterous +manner, desirous to let the company know how I could contend with Ajax. +I particularly remember pressing him upon the value of the pleasures of +the imagination, and, as an illustration of my argument, asking him, +"What, sir, suppose I were to fancy that the--(naming the most charming +Duchess in his Majesty's dominions) were in love with me, should I not +be very happy?" My friend with much address evaded my interrogatories, +and kept me as quiet as possible, but it may be easily conceived how he +must have felt.' + +His father was now dying, and a London trip, which had been planned by +Boswell for 1782, found the son at the very limit of his credit. 'If you +anticipate your inheritance,' he was reminded, 'you can at last inherit +nothing. Poverty (added the old _impransus_ Johnson, out of the depths +of his own experience), my friend, is so great an evil that I cannot but +earnestly enjoin you to avoid it. Live on what you have; live, if you +can, on less.' Lord Auchinleck died suddenly at Edinburgh, on August +30th, 1782; and it was unfortunate for Bozzy that neither at the death +of his father nor of his mother, nor, as we shall see of Johnson, was he +present. The evening of the old man's days had been, we are assured by +Ramsay of Ochtertyre, clouded by the follies and eccentricities of his +son. For thirty years he had been sorely tried; twice he had paid his +debts, he had indulged him with a foreign tour, had provided him with +every means of securing professional success at the bar, only to see +that son do everything to miss it and become everything his father hated +in life--a Tory, an Anglican, and a Jacobite. The new laird was anxious +to display himself on a wider sphere. Johnson was now visibly failing, +and was glad of someone to lean upon for little attentions. 'Boswell,' +he said, 'I think I am easier with you than with almost anybody. Get as +much force of mind as you can. Let your imports be more than your +exports, and you'll never go far wrong.' He reverted to the old days of +the tour in a hopeful strain: 'I should like to come and have a cottage +in your park, toddle about, live mostly on milk, and be taken care of by +Mrs Boswell. She and I are good friends now, are we not?' + +In 1783 Boswell appeared before the public with a _Letter to the People +of Scotland_. It was on Fox's proposed bill to regulate the affairs of +the East India Company. Against it he stands forth, 'as an ancient and +faithful Briton, holding an estate transmitted to him by charters from a +series of kings.' Guardedly Johnson admitted that 'your paper contains +very considerable knowledge of history and of the constitution: it will +certainly raise your character, though perhaps it may not make you a +minister of state.' A copy to Pitt elicited the formal acceptance of +thanks, but the exclusion of the bill Boswell took as proof of his own +advocacy. He stood for Ayrshire, turning back from York when the +dissolution was announced. 'Our Boswell,' wrote the doctor to Langton, +'is now said to stand for some place. Whether to wish him success his +best friends hesitate.' + +May found him with the Rambler for the last time. 'I intend,' he writes +to Dr Percy, 'to be in London about the end of this month, chiefly to +attend upon Dr Johnson with respectful affection. He has for some time +been very ill with dropsical asthmatical complaints, which at his age +are very alarming. I wish to publish as a regale to him a neat little +volume--_The Praises of Doctor Samuel Johnson, by co-temporary writers_. +Will your lordship take the trouble to send me a note of the writers who +have praised our much respected friend?' The attentive Bozzy had written +to all the leading men in the Edinburgh School of Medicine--Cullen, +Hope, Monro, and others. With the expectation that an increase of +Johnson's pension would enable him to visit Italy, he consulted Sir +Joshua Reynolds, and, with his approval, wrote to Thurlow the +Chancellor. At the house of the painter they dined for the last time. + + 'I accompanied him in Sir Joshua Reynolds's coach, to the entry + of Bolt Court. He asked me whether I would not go with him to + his house; I declined it, from an apprehension that my spirits + would sink. We bade adieu to each other affectionately in the + carriage. When he had got down upon the foot-pavement he called + out, "Fare you well;" and, without looking back, sprung away + with a kind of pathetick briskness, if I may use that + expression, which seemed to indicate a struggle to conceal + uneasiness, and impressed me with a foreboding of our long, + long separation.' + +We think of the dying Cervantes, and the student-admirer of the All +Famous and the Joy of the Muses--'parting at the Toledo bridge, he +turning aside to take the road to Segovia.' + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE ENGLISH BAR--DEATH. 1784-1795 + + 'Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.'--JULIUS CĆSAR, iii. 2. + + +There is something unsatisfactory in the fact that Boswell was not with +Johnson as he died. It gives to his book an air of something distinctly +lacking, which is not with us as we close Lockhart's _Life of Scott_. +His own account is that he was indisposed during a considerable part of +the year, which may, or may not, be a euphemism for irregular habits; +yet, when we consider how easily he might have been with his old friend, +we must own to a feeling that Boswell's mere satisfaction at learning he +was spoken of with affection by Johnson at the close does not satisfy +the nature of things or the artistic sense of fitness. No literary +executor had been appointed, and the materials for a biography had been +mostly destroyed by Johnson's orders. This, we may be sure, had not been +expected by Boswell, who set himself, however, to prepare for the press +his own _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, which his friend when alive +had not been willing to see appear as a pendant to the _Journey_. +'Between ourselves,' he tells Temple, 'he is not apt to encourage one to +share reputation with him.' Yet he felt, as he wrote to Percy on 20th +March 1785, that it was a great consolation to him now that he had, as +it was, collected so much of the wit and the wisdom of that wonderful +man. 'I do not expect,' he adds, 'to recover from it. I gaze after him +with an eager eye; and I hope again to be with him.' + +Now that the strong hand of Johnson was removed, 'and the light of his +life as if gone out,' the rest of Boswell's life was but a downward +course. He struggles with himself, and feels instinctively the lack of +the curb which the powerful intellect of the Rambler had held on the +weaker character of the other. We find him repeating often to himself +the lines from the _Vanity of Human Wishes_:-- + + 'Shall helpless man, in ignorance sedate, + Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate?' + +The Lord Advocate had brought into the Commons a bill for the +reconstruction of the Court of Session, proposing to reduce the number +of judges from fifteen to ten, with a corresponding increase of salary. +The occasion was wildly seized by Boswell in May 1785 to issue a +half-crown pamphlet, with the title, '_A letter to the People of +Scotland_, on the alarming attempt to infringe the Articles of the +Union, and introduce a most pernicious innovation, by diminishing the +number of the Lords of Session.' This extraordinary production, intended +doubtless as a means of recommendation of the author for parliamentary +honours, can hardly now be read in the light of events by any +sympathetic Boswellian but with feelings of sorrow and confusion. Its +publication we may be sure would never have been sanctioned by Johnson. + +After stating the foundation of the Court of Session, by James V. in +1532, on the model of the Parliament of Paris, he attacks Dundas for +having in himself the whole power of a grand jury. 'Mr Edward Bright of +Malden, the fat man whose print is in all our inns, could button seven +men in his waistcoat; but the learned lord comprehends hundreds.' He +calls on the Scottish people not to be cowed: 'let Lowther come forth +(we cannot emulate Boswell in the plenitude and the magnitude of his +capital letters and other typographical devices), he upon whom the +thousands of Whitehaven depend for three of the elements.' His own +opposition he proclaims is honest, because he has no wish for an office +in the Court of Session; he will try his abilities in a wider sphere. +Rumours of a coalition in the county of Ayr between Sir Adam Ferguson +and the Earl of Eglintoun he hopes are unfounded, 'both as an enthusiast +for ancient feudal attachments, and as having the honour and happiness +to be married to his lordship's relation, a true Montgomerie, whom I +esteem, whom I love, after fifteen years, as on the day when she gave me +her hand.' He assures the people they will have their objections to the +bill supported by 'my old classical companion Wilkes, with whom I pray +you to excuse my keeping company, he is so pleasant;' by Mr Burke, the +Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, and by 'that brave Irishman, +Captain Macbride, the cousin of my wife.' In grandiose capitals he +appeals to Fox and to Pitt. 'Great sir,' he cries, 'forgive my thus +presumptuously, thus rashly, attempting for a moment to forge your +thunder! But I conjure you--in the name of God and the King, I conjure +you--to announce in your own lofty language, that there shall be a stop +put to this conspiracy, which I fear might have the effect of springing +a mine that would blow up your administration.' This letter 'hastily +written upon the spur of the occasion is already too long,' yet he calls +upon his countrymen to allow him to 'indulge a little more my own +egotism and vanity, the indigenous plants of my own mind.' His whole +genealogy, Flodden and all, we hear over again. 'If,' he pertinently +adds, 'it should be asked what this note has to do here, I answer to +illustrate the authour of the text. And to pour out all myself as old +Montaigne, I wish all this to be known.' After a eulogy of himself as no +time-server, and his profession of readiness 'to discuss topicks with +mitred St Asaph, and others; to drink, to laugh, to converse with +Quakers, Republicans, Jews and Moravians,' he exhorts his friends and +countrymen, in the words of his departed Goldsmith, who gave him many +Attic nights and that jewel of the finest water, the acquaintance of Sir +Joshua Reynolds, 'to fly from petty tyrants to the throne.' He declares +himself a Tory, but no slave. He is in possession of an essay, dictated +to him by Dr Johnson, on the distinction between Whig and Tory, and +concludes with _eclat_, 'with one of the finest passages in John Home's +noble and elegant tragedy of _Douglas_.' + +No condensation of this, the most 'characteristical' of all his +writings, can give the reader any idea of this extraordinary production. +Once only does it deviate into sense when, on the last page, we find the +advertisement of the _Tour to the Hebrides_, 'which was read and liked +by Dr Johnson, and will faithfully and minutely exhibit what he said was +the pleasantest part of his life.' + +In the Hilary Term of 1786, he was called to the English bar, feeling +it, as he said, 'a pity to dig in a lead mine, when he could dig in a +gold one.' Johnson had always thrown cold water on the idea, though as +early as February 1775, as we find from a letter of Boswell's to Strahan +the printer, the idea had been proposed to him. In the May of 1786 he +writes to Mickle, the translator of the _Lusiad_, that he is in a +wavering state; he has the house of his friend Hoole, and he still +retains the use of General Paoli's residence in Portman Square. When he +did finally take up his own quarters in Cavendish Square, the result was +not what he had expected. He was discouraged by the want of practice, +and the prospect of any. In fact, he was to feel what, as Malone says, +Lord Auchinleck had all along told his son, that it would cost him much +more trouble to hide his ignorance of Scotch and English law than to +shew his knowledge. He feared his own deficiencies in 'the forms, quirks +and quiddities,' which he saw could be learned only by early habit. He +even doubted whether he should not be satisfied with being simply baron +of Auchinleck with a good income in Scotland; but he felt that such a +course could not 'deaden the ambition which has raged in my veins like a +fever.' The Horatian motto inscribed on the front of Auchinleck House, +telling of the peace of mind dearer than all to be found everywhere, if +the mind itself is in its own place, was never appreciated, however, by +the new laird. + +His ignorance of law was soon shewn at the Lancaster assizes. Mr Leslie +Stephen is inclined to view the story as being not very credible. Yet we +fear the authority is indisputable. 'We found Jemmy Boswell,' writes +Lord Eldon, 'lying upon the pavement--inebriated. We subscribed at +supper a guinea for him and half a guinea for his clerk, and sent him +next morning a brief with instructions to move for the writ of _Quare +adhćsit pavimento_, with observations calculated to induce him to think +that it required great learning to explain the necessity of granting it. +He sent all round the town to attorneys for books, but in vain. He +moved, however, for the writ, making the best use he could of the +observations in the brief. The judge was astonished, and the audience +amazed. The judge said, 'I never heard of such a writ--what can it be +that adheres _pavimento_? Are any of you gentlemen at the bar able to +explain this?' The Bar laughed. At last one of them said, 'My Lord, Mr +Boswell last night _adhćsit pavimento_. There was no moving him for some +time. At last he was carried to bed, and he has been dreaming about +himself and the pavement.' Lord Jeffrey once assisted Bozzy to bed in +similar circumstances. 'You are a promising lad,' he told him next +morning, 'and if you go on as you have begun, you may be a Bozzy +yourself yet.' No wonder that we find him hesitating about going on the +spring northern circuit, which would cost him, he says, fifty pounds, +and oblige him to be in rough company for four weeks. + +His only piece of promotion came from Lord Lonsdale. Pitt had been +brought in by this nobleman for the pocket-borough of Appleby, and Bozzy +had hopes of a Parliamentary introduction that way. Carlyle of Inveresk +found this worthless patron of the unfortunate office seeker 'more +detested than any man alive, as a shameless political sharper, a +domestic bashaw, and an intolerable tyrant over his tenants.' Penrith +and Whitehaven were in fear when he walked their streets; he defied his +creditors; and the father of the poet Wordsworth died without being able +to enforce his claims. The author of the _Rolliad_ describes his power +as + + 'Even by the elements confessed, + Of mines and boroughs Lonsdale stands possessed; + And one sad servitude alike denotes + The slave that labours and the slave that votes.' + +It was on this political boroughmonger and jobber that Boswell was now +pinning his faith. The complete dependence of him on Lonsdale in return +for the Recordership of Carlisle did not escape the notice of the wits, +who now found that the writer who had been declaring over the India Bill +of Fox his devotion to the throne, the Tory, but no slave, had +transferred his entire loyalty and abjectest protestations to 'his king +in Westmoreland.' To add to his distress, his wife was dying. A short +trial of London had led her to return to Ayrshire, and her husband was +lost in doubt whether to revisit her or cling to 'the great sphere of +England,' the whirl of the metropolis, in hopes that the great prize +would at last be drawn. In the north he found her still lingering on, +but in his eagerness to obtain political influence 'I drank so freely +that riding home in the dark I fell from my horse and bruised my +shoulder.' From London he was again summoned, but with his curious +infelicity at such times of trouble, he was not in time to witness her +death: 'not till my second daughter came running out from the house and +announced to us the dismal event in a burst of tears.' Remorse found +vent in an agony of grief. 'She never would have left me,' he cries to +Temple; 'this reflection will pursue me to my grave.' In July, the +widower of a month hastened north to contest the county, only to find +Sir Adam Fergusson chosen. 'Let me never impiously repine,' is his cry +of distress. 'Yet as "Jesus wept" for the death of Lazarus, I hope my +tears at this time are excused. The woeful circumstance of such a state +of mind is that it rejects consolation; it feels an indulgence in its +own wretchedness.' His hustings appearances would appear to have been at +least marked by fluency, for Burns, his junior by eighteen years, +declares his own inability to fight like Montgomerie or 'gab like +Boswell.' + +As he draws to a close, the letters of Boswell improve both in form and +matter. It is painful to see him on every hand seeking the Parliamentary +interest out of which he was all the while doing his best to write +himself. No party could or would take him seriously. His rent-roll was +over Ł1600, a large sum in these days, and it was yearly rising. +Earnestly did his brother David press upon him a return to Auchinleck +and the retrenchment of his expenses. But the spell of the lights of +London was on him, and 'I could not endure Edinburgh,' he tells us, +'unless I were to have a judge's place to bear me up,' and that was a +thing not to be dreamed of after the publication of the _Letter_. He +dispersed his family to various schools, finding the eldest of the boys +beginning to oppose him, 'and no wonder,' as he bitterly adds. Then the +cry is forced from him in allusion to the famous passage in Shakespeare +on Wolsey's hopes and fall--a passage which, curiously enough, we have +come upon in the common-place book which Boswell had kept as a boy--'O +Temple, Temple, is this realizing any of the towering hopes which have +so often been the subject of our letters. Yet I live much with a great +man, who, upon any day that his fancy shall be inclined, may obtain for +me an office.' Everywhere he casts about, trying the Lord Chancellor, +not seeing the smallest opening in Westminster Hall, but buoyed up by +'the delusion that practice may come at any time.' + +'We must do something for you,' Burke had said in a kindly way, 'for our +own sakes.' He recommended him to General Conway, but though the place +was not obtained the letter was valued by Boswell more. Writing to Mr +Abercrombie in America, even as late as the July of 1793, he is found +expressing 'a great wish to see that country; and I once flattered +myself that I should be sent thither in a station of some importance;' +and from a letter to Burke we learn that this expected post had been a +commissionership in the treaty between America and Britain. Dundas was +another of his hopes. 'The excellent Langton says it is disgraceful, it +is utter folly in Pitt not to attach to his administration a man of my +popular and pleasant talents.' Dundas, however, after having been given +a margin of two months for a reply, has made no sign; 'how can I delude +myself? I will tell you,' he informs Temple, 'Lord Lonsdale shews me +more and more regard. Three of his members assure me that he will give +me a seat at the General Election.' Then that last reed was to break. At +Lowther Castle, his wig was removed from his room, as a practical joke +of a coarse order on the unoffending Boswell, and all the day he was +obliged to go in his nightcap, which he felt was very ill-timed to one +in his situation. The loss of the wig the unsuspecting victim declares +will remain as great a secret as the writer of the letters of Junius, +but ere long the tyrant whom he had invoked as the man of Macedonia to +help Scotland has undeceived him. 'I suppose you thought,' he roughly +said, 'I was to bring you into Parliament? I never had any such +intention.' It is impossible not to feel for Boswell at this crisis. 'I +am down at an inn,' he writes to Temple, 'and ashamed and sunk on +account of the disappointment of hopes which led me to endure such +grievances. I deserve all that I suffer. I am at the same time +distracted what to do in my own county. I am quite in a fever. O my old +and most intimate friend, I intreat you to afford me some consolation, +and pray do not divulge my mortification. I now resign my Recordership, +and shall get rid of all connection with this brutal fellow.' His last +Parliamentary venture was cut short by the reflection how small was his +following. How curiously after all this reads his own little +autobiographical sketch in the _European Magazine_! 'It was generally +supposed that Mr Boswell would have had a seat in Parliament; and indeed +his not being amongst the Representatives of the Commons is one of those +strange things which occasionally happen in the complex operations of +our mixed Government. That he has not been _brought into Parliament_ by +some great man is not to be wondered at when we peruse his publick +declaration.' Not to be wondered at, truly, though the writer chose to +refer the wonder to his independence. Then the reader is informed how he +had been a candidate at the general election for his own county of Ayr, +'where he has a very extensive property and a very fine place of which +there is a view and description in Grose's _Antiquities of Scotland_.' +The conclusion of the sketch relates how, at the last Lord Mayor's day, +he sang with great applause a state-ballad of his own composition, +entitled _The Grocer of London_. This was the last shot in the political +locker. At a Guildhall dinner, given to Pitt by the worshipful company +of grocers, Boswell contrived to get himself called upon for a song. He +rose, and delivered himself of a catch on the model of Dibdin's 'Little +cherub that sits up aloft,' prefaced and interlarded by an address to +the guest of the evening. Honoured as he had been on his continental +tour at the courts of Europe, yet never till to-night had he felt +himself so flattered as now he was, in the presence of the minister he +admired, and to whose home and foreign policy he gave a hearty, if +discriminating support. Boswell for his song was encored six times, till +the cold features of the minister were seen to relax in a smile, amid +the general roar of plaudits and laughter! After this 'state ballad,' a +copy of which was last seen at Lord Houghton's sale, Bozzy and a +friend, in a state of high glee, returned to their lodgings, shouting +all the way _The Grocer of London_! 'He has declared,' adds the +complacent autobiographer, 'his resolution to persevere on the next +vacancy.' + +All this time his great work was slowly advancing. At the end of the +_Journal_ had appeared a notice: 'preparing for the Press, in one volume +quarto, the _Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D._, by James Boswell, Esq.' The +note proceeds to sketch the plan; the collecting of materials for more +than twenty years, his desire to erect to him a literary monument, the +interweaving of 'the most authentick accounts' that can be obtained from +those who knew him, etc. To his chagrin, Mrs Thrale's volume of +anecdotes had been out before him, and Sir John Hawkins had been +commissioned by the London booksellers to produce a _Life_, which had +duly appeared. Not even the unequivocal success and merits of the +_Journal_ could induce 'the trade' to take Boswell seriously. No one had +thought of him, any more than Gay would have been thought of as the +biographer of the circle to which he had been admitted. Percy, even Sir +William Scott, had been successively approached, but none had given a +consideration to 'Johnson's Bozzy.' Such neglect, however, must have +spurred him to exertion. The lively lady's anecdotage, dateless and +confused, he could afford to despise as 'too void of method even for +such a farrago,' as Horace Walpole said of it. But the solemn Hawkins, +as an old friend and executor of Johnson's will, was a more dangerous +rival. 'Observe how he talks of me,' cries Boswell querulously, 'as +quite unknown.' No doubt Sir John was 'unclubable,' and by Reynolds, +Dyer, Percy, and Malone he was detested. Yet his book, though eclipsed +by Boswell's, is not unmeritorious; but for his allusion to 'Mr Boswell, +a native of Scotland,' he has been made to pay severely by systematic +castigation from his rival, who now doggedly, as Johnson would have +said, set himself to the work before him. Wherever first-hand +information could be had, he was constantly on the track. Miss Burney +has told how she met him at the gate of the choir of St George's chapel +at Windsor--'his comic-serious face having lost none of its wonted +singularity, nor yet his mind and language.' She had letters from +Johnson, and he must have some of the doctor's choice little notes: 'We +have seen him long enough upon stilts, I want to shew him in a new +light. He proposed a thousand curious expedients to get them, but I was +invincible.' The approach of the king and queen broke off the interview, +but next morning he was again on the watch. We must regret that they +were not given, however much his indiscretions had made people chary of +their confidences. 'Jemmy Boswell,' writes Lord Eldon, 'called upon me, +desiring to know my definition of taste. I told him I must decline +defining it, because I knew he would publish it.' To secure first-hand, +sifted, and 'authentick' material this man, so long decried by sciolists +as merely a fool with a note-book, would forego every rebuff or refusal. +'Boswell,' says Horace Walpole, 'that quintessence of busy-bodies called +on me last week, and was let in when he should not have been. After +tapping many topics, to which I made as dry answers as an unbribed +oracle, he vented his errand; 'had I seen Dr Johnson's _Lives of the +Poets_?' + +During the progress of the _Life_ he turned aside to his last literary +vagary--_No Abolition of Slavery; or the Universal Empire of Love_, +1791. This long-lost brochure has this year been rediscovered, but it +will add little interest to his life, as its main tenets had long been +known. A writer in the _Athenćum_ for May 9th describes it as quarto in +form, and dedicated to Miss B----, whom he identifies with Miss Bagnal +to be shortly mentioned. On the three topics of slavery, the Middlesex +election, and America, Bozzy differed respectfully but firmly from the +doctor, who drank at Oxford to the next insurrection of the negroes in +the West Indies. Accordingly he stands stoutly by the planters and the +feudal scheme of subordination, whose annihilation he maintains would +'shut the gates of mercy on mankind.' For his apparent inconsistency +Burke is attacked:-- + + 'Burke, art thou here, too? thou whose pen + Can blast the fancied rights of men. + Pray by what logic are those rights + Allow'd to Blacks,--denied to Whites?' + +Others may fail their king and country, but he as a throne and altar +Tory calls all to know that + + 'An ancient baron of the land + I by my king shall ever stand.' + +He was now at last near the haven. The mass of his papers and materials +had been arranged, after a labour which, as he tells Reynolds, was +really enormous. The capacity for sustained effort, when set to it, of +which he had boasted over his condensation of the evidence in the great +Douglas case, stood him now in good service amid all his vexations, +dissipations and follies. + +In February 1788 we hear of his having yet seven years of the life to +write. By January 1789 he had finished the introduction and the +dedication to Sir Joshua Reynolds, both of which had appeared difficult, +but he was confident they had been well done. To excite the interest in +his coming book, or as Mr Leslie Stephen thinks, to secure copyright, he +published in 1790 two quarto parts at half a guinea each--the letter to +Chesterfield and the conversation of Johnson with the king. By December +he has had additional matter sent him from Warren Hastings, and he hoped +to be out on 8th March, but the January of the new year found him with +still two hundred pages of copy, and the death not yet written. Yet many +a time, as he writes Temple, had he thought of giving it up. To add to +his troubles, he had indulged in landed speculations, paying Ł2500 for +the estate of a younger branch; he had been lending money to a cousin, +and if he could but raise a thousand pounds on the strength of his book, +he should be inclined to hold on, or 'game with it,' as Sir Joshua said. +Neither Reynolds nor Malone, however, took the hint; and at the latter's +door he cast longing looks as he passed. He tells him he had been in the +chair at the club, with Fox 'quoting Homer and Fielding to the +astonishment of Jo. Warton.' He had bought a lottery ticket with the +hopes of the prize of Ł5000, but--blank! The advance he needed was got +elsewhere, and the property in his book saved. April finds him +correcting the last sheet. He feared the result: 'I may get no profit, +the public may be disappointed, I may make enemies, even have quarrels. +But the very reverse of all this may happen.' Then on the 19th he writes +to Dempster: 'my _magnum opus_, in two volumes quarto, is to be +published on Monday, 16th May'--by a lucky chance it was the anniversary +of the red day in Boswell's calendar, his meeting with Johnson eight and +twenty years before! 'When it is fairly launched, I mean to stick close +to Westminster Hall, and it will be truly kind if you recommend me +appeals or causes of any sort.' + +The rest of his life is soon told. Paoli was now again in Corsica. When +Mirabeau had recalled the exiles, the general had been made by Louis +XVI. military commandant of the island. Johnson, also, was gone, and the +two strongest checks upon the excesses of Boswell were removed. Piteous +it is to find him writing to Malone: 'that most friendly fellow +Courtenay, begging the pardon of an M.P. for so free an epithet,' had +taken him in hand, and had taken his word that for some months his daily +allowance of wine should not exceed four good glasses at dinner, and a +pint after it. The qualifying adjective 'good' is dangerous, and before +the time for the bill was half expired, Bozzy has closured it and the +amendment. The state of his affairs, the loss of his wife bore heavily +on him, together with 'the disadvantage to my children in having so +wretched a father--nay, the want of absolute certainty of being happy +after death, the _sure_ prospect of which is frightful.' Then a fitful +gleam of the old Adam breaks out. He has heard of a Miss Bagnal, 'about +seven and twenty, lively and gay, a Ranelagh girl, but of excellent +principles insomuch that she reads prayers to the servants in her +father's family every Sunday evening.' Another matrimonial scheme was +the daughter of the late Dean of Exeter, 'a most agreeable woman _d'un +certain âge_,' as he engagingly adds, 'and with a fortune of Ł10,000.' +The preparation of a second edition of the _Life_ for July 1793 raised +his spirits, but after a while he had run into excess, been knocked down +and robbed. This he vows shall be a crisis in his life, and Temple's +apprehension of his friend being carried off in a state of intoxication +he finds awful to contemplate. Early in 1795 the end is announced by +Temple's son writing to his father--'a few nights ago Mr Boswell +returned from the Literary Club, quite weak and languid;' and the last +letter to Temple from his correspondent of thirty-seven years is dated +8th April: 'I would fain write to you in my own hand, but really +cannot.' His son James finishes the letter, to tell that the patient +'feels himself a good deal stronger to-day.' He was attended by Dr +Warren, who had been with Johnson as he died. Some slight hopes of a +recovery had been held out; and, with the ruling passion strong in death +to interview a celebrity, he rallied in a letter to Warren Hastings. +With the spirit on him of the days when he had told Chatham that his +disinterested soul had enjoyed the contemplation of the great minister +in the bower of philosophy, he tells him, 'the moment I am able to go +abroad, I will fly to Mr Hastings and expand my soul in the purest +satisfaction.' On May 19th 1795, at two in the morning, after an illness +of five weeks, he died. He was in his fifty-fifth year. + +A life which cannot challenge the world's attention--like that of John +Sterling--which perhaps does not even modestly solicit it, yet one which +no less certainly will be found to reward the critic of literary history +and pathology. A complex, weak, unsteady life enough, and no one did +more than Boswell himself to bring into glaring prominence the faults +that lie on the surface, by that frank, open, and ostentatious +peculiarity which he avowed, and which he compared to the +characteristics of the old seigneur, Michael de Montaigne. Never was +there a franker critic of James Boswell, Esq., than himself; 'the most +unscottified of mortals,' as Johnson called him, has little or none of +the reserve and reticence that are generally supposed to be marks of the +national character. A rare and curious _Epistle in Verse_, by the Rev. +Samuel Martin of Monimail, 1795, touches on the main points of his life, +and the author, who was apparently a friend of Boswell, had learned +'with affectionate concern and respect that at the end prayer was his +stay.' He criticises, in rather halting and prosaic lines, + + 'The prison scenes, his prying into death, + How felons and how saints resign their breath; + How varying and conflicting passions roll, + How scaffold exhibitions shew the soul.' + +He laments his 'injurious hilarity,' his degrading himself as 'the +little bark, attendant on the huge all-bearing ark,' his political and +ecclesiastical aberrations from the surer and better standpoints of his +family and country. The feeling of this friend of Boswell would +represent, we cannot doubt, the verdict at the time of his own circle. + +The 'prison scenes' are an integral part in Boswell's psychology. Never +did George Selwyn attend them with greater regularity, or Wyndham run +after prize fights more assiduously. In the _Public Advertizer_, April +25, 1768, we find him writing: 'I myself am never absent from a publick +execution. When I first attended them, I was shocked to the greatest +degree ... convulsed with pity and terror. I feel an irresistible +impulse to be present at every execution, as there I behold the various +effects of the near approach of death.' The parallels of Charles V., +Philip II., Philip IV., Charles II. of Spain, will not escape the +reader, and strangely, or rather naturally enough, Boswell is found +disagreeing with the censure pronounced by Johnson on the celebration of +his own obsequies in his lifetime by Charles V. In the _St James' +Gazette_ of April 20, 1779, he is found actually riding in the cart to +Tyburn with Hackman, the murderer of Miss Ray, and writing to the papers +over the feeling of 'unusual Depression of Spirits, joined with that +Pause, which so solemn a warning of the dreadful effects that the +Passion of Love may produce must give all of us who have lively +Sensations and warm Tempers.' But he suddenly deviates into business +when he adds that 'it is very philosophically explained and illustrated +in the _Hypochondriack_, a periodical Paper, peculiarly adapted to the +people of England, and which comes out monthly in the _London Magazine_, +etc.' In his Corsican tour we had seen him interviewing the executioner +in the island, and some days before his final parting with Johnson he +had witnessed the execution of fifteen men before Newgate and been +clouded in his mind by doubts as to whether human life was or was not +mere machinery and a chain of planned fatality. These cravings are +clearly the marks of a mind morbidly affected and diseased, the result +of the Dutch marriage as Ramsay believed. All through his life Boswell +is conscious of his 'distempered imagination,' and the letters to Temple +are scattered with irrelevances and repetitions, fatuities and +inconsistencies that can be explained only on the score of mental +disease. Were any doubts possible on this point, the expressions of his +opinions on religion would dispel them. His 'Popish imagination,' +quickened as it may have been by the escapade with the actress, was but +the natural outcome of an ill-balanced mind. His feelings about +consecrated places, _loca solennia_ such as Iona, and Wittenberg, Rasay +and Carlisle, we have seen. He delighted, says Malone, in what he called +the _mysterious_, leading Johnson on ghosts, and kindred subjects. He +was a believer in second sight: 'it pleases my superstition,' he tells +Temple, 'which you know is not small, and being not of the gloomy but +the grand species is an enjoyment.' When his uncle John died, we learn +he was 'a good scholar and affectionate relative, but had no conduct. +And, do you know, he was not confined to one woman; he had a strange +kind of religion, but I flatter myself he will be ere long, if he is not +already, in heaven!' He comforts himself constantly over life being a +mere state of purification, and looks forward to a condition of events +in which 'a man can soap his own beard and enjoy whatever is to be had +in this transitory state of things.' He is for ever questioning Johnson +upon purgatory, 'having much curiosity to know his notions on that +point.' One of the last authentic glimpses of Boswell is his being found +in the company of Wilberforce, going west, with a nightcap in his +pocket, on some visit to a friend such as Miss Hawkins says he was but +too fond of doing,--'away to the west as the sun went down'--doubtful of +future punishment, but resolute in maintaining the depravity of man. It +would almost appear as if Bozzy had read himself into Butler's doctrine +that our present life is a state of probation for a future one, but had +forgotten the qualification 'that our future interest is now depending +on ourselves.' + +The very influence of Johnson himself may have affected the weaker mind +of Boswell injuriously. Both suffered from hypochondria, though that of +the latter was far distant from the affliction of Johnson whom Dr Adams +found 'in a deplorable state, sighing, groaning, talking to himself, and +restlessly walking from room to room.' Temple maintained that the effect +of Johnson's company had been of a depressing nature to his friend, and +Sir Wm. Forbes believed that some slight tincture of superstition had +been contracted from his companionship with the sage. The 'cloudy +darkness,' as he himself calls it, of his mind, the weakness and the +confusion of moral principles manifest enough in the Temple +correspondence, are better revealed in the conversation with Johnson at +Squire Dilly's, 'where there is always abundance of excellent fare and +hearty welcome.' 'Being in a frame of mind which, I hope for the +felicity of human nature, many experience,--in fine weather,--at the +country-house of a friend,--consoled and elevated by pious exercises, I +expressed myself with an unrestrained fervour to my "guide, philosopher, +and friend;" My dear Sir, I would fain be a good man; and I am very good +now. I fear God, and honour the King; I wish to do no ill, and to be +benevolent to all mankind.' He looked at me with a benignant indulgence; +but took occasion to give me wise and salutary caution. 'Do not, sir, +accustom yourself to trust to _impressions_.' Boswell had surely +forgotten all this when he cries bitterly to Temple that he was inclined +to agree with him in thinking 'my great oracle did allow too much credit +to good principles, without good practice.' Perhaps he remembered +Johnson's appreciation of Campbell, the good pious man that never passed +a church without pulling off his hat, all which shewed 'he has good +principles.' Boswell had, unfortunately, been 'caught young' by the +sceptical talk of Dempster, Hume, and Wilkes, and his extended +Continental ramble had impaired the earlier views under which he had +been reared. + +But James Boswell deserves at the hands of his readers and of critics +better treatment than has been measured out to him in the contemptuous +estimate of Macaulay, and, still worse, in the shrill attack of the +smaller brood 'whose sails were never to the tempest given,' but who +have, by the easy repetition of a few phrases and an imperfect +acquaintance with the writings and character of the man they decry, come +to the complacent depreciation which, as Niebuhr said, is ever so dear +to the soul of mediocrity. If James Boswell was not like Goldsmith, a +great man, as Johnson finely pronounced, whose frailties should not be +remembered, nor was, perhaps, in any final sense a great writer, yet for +twenty years he had been the tried friend of the man who at the Mitre +had called out to him, 'Give me your hand, I have taken a liking to +you.' A plant that, like Goldsmith also, 'flowered late,' he has created +in literature and biography a revolution, and produced a work whose +surpassing merits and value are known the more that it is studied. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +IN LITERATURE + + 'Eclipse is first, the rest nowhere.'--MACAULAY. + + +'How delicate, decent is English Biography,' says Carlyle, 'bless its +mealy mouth! A Damocles sword of Respectability hangs for ever over the +poor English Life-writer (as it does over poor English Life in general), +and reduces him to the verge of paralysis. Thus it has been said there +are no English lives worth reading, except those of Players, who by the +nature of the case have bidden Respectability good-day. The English +biographer has long felt that, if in writing his man's biography he +wrote down anything that could by possibility offend any man, he had +written wrong.' The biographer, as Mr Froude found out for a commentary +on all this, is placed between a Scylla and Charybdis, between what is +due to the subject, and what is expected by the public. If something is +left out of the portrait, the likeness will be imperfect; if the anxiety +or the inquisitiveness of readers to know private details is left +ungratified, the writer will be met by the current cant that the public +has a right to know. The line is not easily drawn, and few subjects for +the biographer can ever desire to be as candidly dealt with by him as +Cromwell acted with Sir Peter Lely, in the request to be painted as he +was, warts and all. Thus, too often the result will be but biography +written _in vacuo_, 'the tragedy of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet +omitted--by particular desire.' + +Biography, like History, has suffered from considerations of dignity and +propriety. The writers of the Hume and Robertson school of history, in +their stately minuet with the historical muse, have been careful to +exclude everything that seemed beneath the dignity of the sceptred pall; +biographers have as consciously studied the proprieties. 'The Muse of +history,' says Thackeray, 'wears the mask and speaks to measure; she too +in our age busies herself with the affairs only of kings. I wonder shall +history ever pull off her periwig and cease to be Court-ridden? I would +have History familiar rather than heroic, and think that Mr Hogarth and +Mr Fielding will give our children a much better idea of the manners of +the present age in England, than the _Court Gazette_ and the newspapers +which we get thence.' As the historian has striven to obscure the real +nature of the Grand Monarque, by confining his action to courts and +battlefields, so the biographer, in his desire of never stepping beyond +the proper, has enveloped his hero in a circle of correct ideas, after +the manner of George the Fourth and his multiplicity of waistcoats. +Dignity and respectability have ruined alike the historian and the +biographer. + +Lockhart foresaw that some readers would accuse him of trenching upon +delicacy and propriety over his sixth and seventh chapters in the _Life +of Scott_, and the circumstances were after all such as, had choice been +permitted him, he might easily have omitted, considering it his duty to +tell what he had to say truly and intelligibly. Of all men Macaulay had +nothing to fear from any rational biography that should ever be written +of him, yet has not Mr Trevelyan assured his readers that the reviewers +had told him, that he would much better have consulted his uncle's +reputation by the omission of passages in his letters and diaries? Such +criticism, as he justly says, is to seriously misconceive the province +and the duty of the biographer, and his justification is that the +reading world has long extended to the man the just approbation which it +so heartily extended to his books. The Latin critics assigned +history,--and accordingly history in miniature, biography,--to the +department of oratory. The feeling, in consequence, has long prevailed +of regarding biography as the field for the display of every other +feeling then veracity. It has been emotional, or it has been decorously +dull. To all such writers the style adopted by Boswell would appear, and +justly appear, revolutionary. The cry is raised of there being nothing +sacred, of the violation of domestic privacy, of the sanctities of life +being endangered, of indiscretions, and violations of confidences, by +the biographer. Accordingly, just as Macaulay decided that, in general, +tragedy was corrupted by eloquence, and comedy by wit, so biography and +history have suffered from the dignity of Clio. Boswell was perfectly +aware what he was doing, nor did he awake to find himself famous for a +method into which the sciolists pretend he only unconsciously blundered. +In the preface to the third edition of the _Journal_ he +writes:--'Remarks have been industriously circulated in the publick +prints by shallow or envious cavillers, who have endeavoured to persuade +the world that Dr Johnson's character has been _lessened_ by recording +such various instances of his lively wit and acute judgment, on every +topick that was presented to his mind. In the opinion of every person of +taste and knowledge that I have conversed with, it has been greatly +_heightened_; and I will venture to predict, that this specimen of his +colloquial talents will become still more valuable, when, by the lapse +of time, he shall have become an _ancient_; and no other memorial of +this great and good man shall remain but the following Journal.' This is +not the writing of one who has been without a clear idea of what he was +undertaking, and of his own qualifications for the task. 'You, my dear +sir,' he tells Sir Joshua Reynolds in the dedication, 'perceived all the +shades which mingled in the grand composition; all the peculiarities and +slight blemishes which marked the literary Colossus.' The inclusion of +the letters and of private details was an integral part of his scheme. +When he introduced the subject of biography at Dr Taylor's, no doubt +with his own book in his eye, he said that in writing a man's life the +man's peculiarities should be mentioned because they mark his character. +When he resolved on their publication, he thought it right to ask +Johnson explicitly on this point, and the reply was what in 1773 the +doctor had given to Macleod in Skye, when he had asked if Orrery had +done wrong, to expose the defects of Swift with whom he had lived in +terms of intimacy. 'Why, no, sir,' Johnson had decided, 'after the man +is dead, for then it is done historically.' A biographer that would omit +or disguise the relations of Nelson to Lady Hamilton, would be justly +suspected of disingenuousness, and Lockhart, especially in his treatment +of the political side of his subject,--for example in the notorious +_Beacon_ incident--is but too open to this charge. But disingenuousness +is a charge that never could have occurred to Boswell, whose veracity is +the prime quality that has made him immortal. When the _Journal_ was in +the press, Hannah More, studious of the name of the moralist and the +sage, 'besought him to mitigate his asperities.' 'I will not,' said +Boswell roughly, but wisely for posterity, 'cut off his claws, nor make +a tiger a cat to please anyone.' + +Boswell's books are veritable books. Few books have had such a severe +test applied to them. His first was dedicated to Paoli, whose sanction +must be taken to guarantee every line of it. "In every narrative," he +writes in the dedication to Malone of the _Journal_, "whether historical +or biographical, authenticity is of the utmost consequence. Of this I +have ever been so firmly persuaded that I inscribed a former work to +that person who was the best judge of its truth. Of this work the +manuscript was daily read by Johnson, and you have perused the original +and can vouch for the strict fidelity of the present publication." His +_Life of Johnson_ was as fearlessly dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds, +one whose intimacy with Johnson could stamp, with assured knowledge of +the subject, the credit and success of the work. Among the 'some dozen, +or baker's dozen, and those chiefly of very ancient date,' of reliable +biographies whose paucity Carlyle laments, the works of Boswell may be +safely included. Their accuracy is confessed by workers in all fields. +His _Tour_ created a type; no better volume of travels has ever been +written than the _Journal_; and the critic who has dealt at the +reputation of Boswell its heaviest blow has yet to confess, that Homer +is no more the first of poets, Shakespeare the first of dramatists, +Demosthenes the first of orators, than Boswell is the first of +biographers, with no second. + +How is this? Written in 1831, before Lockhart Southey and Carlyle by +their biographies of Scott, Nelson, and Frederick had appeared as +rivals, why is it no less true now? What singular gift or quality can +account for this singular aloofness from the ordinary or extraordinary +class of writers? Why does Boswell yet wear the crown of indivisible +supremacy in biography? His own words will not explain it, the +possession of Johnson's intimacy, the twenty years' view of his subject, +his faculty for recollecting, and his assiduity in recording +communications. This and more than this Lockhart possessed, the nearest +rival to the biographical throne. He was the son-in-law of his subject, +for whom he had as true an admiration as Boswell had for Johnson. But +Boswell was only in the company of his idol some 180 days, or 276 if we +include the time on the tour in Scotland, in all the twenty years of his +acquaintance. Lockhart had the journals of Sir Walter, and the +communications of nearly a hundred persons. A comparison in any sense, +literary, social, or moral, would have been felt by Lockhart as an +insult, for he clearly regards Sir Alexander Boswell as a greater man +than his father. But if, like the grandsire of Hubert at Hastings, +Lockhart has drawn a good bow, Boswell, like the Locksley of the +novelist, has notched his shaft, and comparisons have long ceased to be +instituted. Gray has attempted the explanation--a fool with a note-book. +He has invented nothing, he has only reported. But every year sees that +person at work, with his _First Impressions of Brittany_, _Three Weeks +in Greece_, and the everlasting _Tour in Tartanland_. These are the +creations of the note-book, but it has given them no permanence. The +tourist puts in everything he sees, truly enough, or thinks he sees. But +it is the art of Boswell to select 'the characteristical,' and the +typical, to group and to dramatize. Ninety-four days he spent on the +northern tour, and the result is a masterpiece. Pepys is garrulous, +often vulgar, always lower-middle-class; but Boswell writes like a +gentleman. + +Macaulay has explained it by a paradox. Goldsmith was great in spite of +his weaknesses, Boswell by reason of his; if he had not been a great +fool, he would never have been a great writer. He was a dunce, a +parasite, a coxcomb, a Paul Pry, had a quick observation, a retentive +memory, and accordingly--he has become immortal! Alas for the paucity of +such immortals under so common circumstances; their number should be +legion! That a fool may occasionally write interesting matter we know; +but that a man should write a literary classic, graced by arrangement, +selection, expression, is not even paradox but hyperbole run mad. The +truth is, Macaulay had no eye for such a complex character as Boswell. +Too correct himself, too prone to the cardinal virtues and consistency, +to follow one who, by instinct, seemed to anticipate Wendell Holmes' +advice--'Don't be consistent, but be simply _true_'--and too sound +politically in the field where Boswell and the doctor abased themselves +in absurd party spirit, Macaulay can no more understand sympathetically +the vagaries of Boswell than Mommsen or Drumann can follow the political +inconsistency of Cicero. He had no Boswellian 'delight in that +intellectual chemistry which can separate good qualities from evil in +the same person;' and in his essay on _Milton_ he has disclaimed +explicitly all such hero-worship of the living or the dead and denounced +Boswellism as the most certain mark of an ill-regulated intellect. Nor +had he, or Carlyle either, before him the evidence of the letters to +Temple. + +Carlyle, in the theory of hero-worship, has made capital use of Boswell. +He sees the strong mind of Johnson leading 'the poor flimsy little soul' +of James Boswell; he feels 'the devout Discipleship, the gyrating +observantly round the great constellation.' He has Boswell's reiterated +declarations to support him. On one side Carlyle's vindication of the +biographer is successful; he errs in emphasizing the discovery by +Boswell of the Rambler. In such a discovery Langton and Beauclerk had +long preceded him, and the Johnson that Boswell met in Davies' parlour +was the pensioned writer who had out-lived his dark days, and was the +literary dictator of the day, and the associate of Burke and of +Reynolds. But Carlyle comes nearer the truth when he touches on the +Boswellian recipe for being graphic--the possession of an open, loving +heart, and what follows from the possession of such. Like White of +Selborne, with his sparrows and cockchafers, Boswell, too, has copied +some true sentences from the inspired book of nature. + +But however this may account for his insight--the heart seeing farther +than the head--it will not account for his literary qualities. Of all +his contemporaries, Goldsmith and Burke excepted, no one is a greater +master of a pure prose style than Boswell, and for ease of narrative, +felicity of phrase, and rounded diction he is incomparable. Macaulay +believed a London apprentice could detect Scotticisms in Robertson; +Hume's style is often vicious by Gallicisms and Scots law phrases which +nothing but his expository gifts have obscured from the critics. Beattie +confesses learning English as a dead language and taking several years +over the task. But Boswell, 'scarce by North Britons now esteemed a +Scot,' writes with an ease that renders his style his own. 'The fact +is,' says Mr Cotter Morison, 'that no dramatist or novelist of the whole +century surpassed or even equalled Boswell in rounded and clear and +picturesque presentation, or in real dramatic faculty.' + +Let us take one portrait from the Boswell gallery--the meeting of the +two old Pembroke men, Johnson and Oliver Edwards. + + 'It was in Butcher Row that this meeting happened. Mr Edwards, + who was a decent-looking elderly man in gray clothes and a wig + of many curls, accosted Johnson with familiar confidence, + knowing who he was, while Johnson returned his salutation with + a courteous formality, as to a stranger. But as soon as Edwards + had brought to his recollection their having been at Pembroke + College together nine-and-forty years ago, he seemed much + pleased, asked where he lived, and said he should be glad to + see him in Bolt Court. EDWARDS: "Ah, sir! we are old men now." + JOHNSON (who never liked to think of being old): "Don't let us + discourage one another." EDWARDS: "Why, Doctor, you look stout + and hearty. I am happy to see you so; for the newspapers told + us you were very ill." JOHNSON: "Ay, sir, they are always + telling lies of _us old fellows_." + + Wishing to be present at more of so singular a conversation as + that between two fellow collegians, who had lived forty years + in London without ever having chanced to meet, I whispered to + Mr Edwards that Dr Johnson was going home, and that he had + better accompany him now. So Edwards walked along with us, I + eagerly assisting to keep up the conversation. Mr Edwards + informed Dr Johnson that he had practised long as a solicitor + in Chancery.... When we got to Dr Johnson's house and were + seated in his library, the dialogue went on admirably. EDWARDS: + "Sir, I remember you would not let us say _prodigious_ at + College. For even then, sir (turning to me), he was delicate in + language, and we all feared him." JOHNSON (to Edwards): "From + your having practised the law long, sir, I presume you must be + rich." EDWARDS: "No, sir; I had a good deal of money; but I had + a number of poor relations to whom I gave great part of it." + JOHNSON: "Sir, you have been rich in the most valuable sense of + the word." EDWARDS: "But I shall not die rich." JOHNSON: "Nay, + sure, sir, it is better to _live_ rich, than to _die_ rich." + EDWARDS: "I wish I had continued at College." Johnson: "Why do + you wish that, sir?" EDWARDS: "Because I think I should have + had a much easier life than mine has been. I should have been a + parson, and had a good living, like Bloxam and several others, + and lived comfortably." JOHNSON: "Sir, the life of a parson, + of a conscientious clergyman, is not easy. I have always + considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he + is able to maintain. I would rather have Chancery suits upon my + hands than the cure of souls." Here, taking himself up all of a + sudden, he exclaimed, "O! Mr Edwards! I'll convince you that I + recollect you. Do you remember our drinking together at an + ale-house near Pembroke Gate?" ... EDWARDS: "You are a + philosopher, Dr Johnson. I have tried too in my time to be a + philosopher; but, I don't know how, cheerfulness was always + breaking in."--Mr Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr Courtenay, Mr + Malone, and, indeed, all the eminent men to whom I have + mentioned this, have thought it an exquisite trait of + character. The truth is, that philosophy, like religion, is too + generally supposed to be hard and severe, at least so grave as + to exclude all gaiety. EDWARDS: "I have been twice married, + Doctor. You, I suppose, have never known what it was to have a + wife." JOHNSON: "Sir, I have known what it was to have a wife, + and (in a solemn, tender, faltering tone) I have known what it + was to _lose a wife_. It had almost broke my heart." + + EDWARDS: "How do you live, sir? For my part, I must have my + regular meals, and a glass of good wine. I find I require it." + JOHNSON: "I now drink no wine, sir. Early in life I drank wine: + for many years I drank none, I then for some years drank a + great deal." EDWARDS: "Some hogsheads, I warrant you." JOHNSON: + "I then had a severe illness, and left it off. I am a + straggler. I may leave this town and go to Grand Cairo, without + being missed here or observed there." EDWARDS: "Don't you eat + supper, sir?" JOHNSON: "No, sir." EDWARDS: "For my part, now, I + consider supper as a turnpike through which one must pass, in + order to get to bed." JOHNSON: "You are a lawyer, Mr Edwards. + Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have + them to converse with. They have what he wants." EDWARDS: "I am + grown old, I am sixty-five." JOHNSON: "I shall be sixty-eight + next birthday. Come, sir, drink water, and put in for a + hundred." ... Mr Edwards, when going away, again recurred to + his consciousness of senility, and looking full in Johnson's + face, said to him, "You'll find in Dr Young, + + 'O my coevals! remnants of yourselves.'" + + Johnson did not relish this at all; but shook his head with + impatience. Edwards walked off seemingly highly pleased with + the honour of having been thus noticed by Dr Johnson. When he + was gone, I said to Johnson I thought him but a weak man. + JOHNSON: "Why, yes, sir. Here is a man who has passed through + life without experience: yet I would rather have him with me + than a more sensible man who will not talk readily. This man is + always willing to say what he has to say."' + +How admirable is the art in this scene, how numerous and fine are the +strokes of character, and the easy turn of the dialogue! No fool with a +note-book, no tippling reporter, as the shallow critics say, could have +written this. To them there would have appeared in a chance meeting of +two old men nothing worthy of notice, yet how dramatically does Boswell +touch off the Philistine side of Edwards, and insert the fine shading +and the inimitable remarks about the setting up for the philosopher, and +supper being a turnpike to bed! This art of the biographer is what gives +a memorableness to slight incidents, by the object being real and really +seen; it is the 'infinitude of delineation, the intensity of conception +which informs the Finite with a certain Infinitude of significance, +ennobling the Actual into Idealness.' + +Openness of mind will do much, but there must be the seeing eye behind +it. For the mental development of Boswell, there is no doubt that, as +with Goldsmith, his foreign travels had done much. As Addison in the +_Freeholder_ had recommended foreign travel to the fox-hunting Tory +squires of his day as a purge for their provincial ideas, Boswell shares +with the author of the _Traveller_ and the _Deserted Village_ +cosmopolitan instincts and feelings. 'I have always stood up for the +Irish,' he writes, 'in whose fine country I have been hospitably and +jovially entertained, and with whom I feel myself to be congenial. In +my _Tour in Corsica_ I do generous justice to the Irish, in opposition +to the English and Scots.' Again, 'I am, I flatter myself, completely a +citizen of the world. In my travels through Holland, Germany, +Switzerland, Italy, Corsica, France, I never felt myself from home; and +I sincerely love every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.' +This is the very antithesis to Johnson, whose frank confession was, 'for +anything that I can see, foreigners are fools.' + +Yet Boswell's stock of learning was small. 'I have promised,' he writes +in 1775, 'to Dr Johnson to read when I get to Scotland; and to keep an +account of what I read. He is to buy for me a chest of books, of his +choosing, off stalls, and I am to read more, and drink less--that was +his counsel.' The death of his wife forces the confession, 'how much do +I regret that I have not applied myself more to learning,' and he +acknowledges to their common friend Langton that, if Johnson had said +that Boswell and himself did not talk from books, this was because he +had not read books enough to talk from them. In his manuscripts there +are many misspellings. He assigns to Terence a Horatian line and, in a +letter to Garrick, quotes as Horatian the standard _mens sana in corpore +sano_ of Juvenal. More strange is his quoting in a note an illustration +of the phrase 'Vexing thoughts,' without his being apparently aware that +the words are by Rous of Pembroke, the Provost of Eton, whose portrait +in the college hall he must often have seen, the writer of the Scottish +Metrical Version of the Psalms. Yet his intellectual interests were +keen. Late in life he has 'done a little at Greek; Lord Monboddo's +_Ancient Metaphysics_ which I am reading carefully helps me to recover +the language.' He has his little scraps of irritating Latinity which he +loves to parade, and when he dined at Eton, at the fellows' table, he +'made a considerable figure, having certainly the art of making the most +of what I know. I had my classical quotations very ready.' Besides, the +easy allusiveness of Boswell to books and to matters beyond the scope of +general readers, his interest in all things going forward in the +Johnsonian circle, his shewing himself in some metaphysical +points--predestination, for example--fully a match for Johnson, and his +own words in the _Journal_--'he had thought more than anybody supposed, +and had a pretty good stock of general learning and knowledge'--all +conspire to shew that, if he had no more learning than what he could not +help, James Boswell was altogether, as Dominie Sampson said of +Mannering, 'a man of considerable erudition despite of his imperfect +opportunities.' + +Nor were his entire interests Johnsonian. Scattered through his writings +we find allusions to other books, in a more or less forward stage of +completeness, and of which some must have been destroyed by his +faithless executors. We hear of a _Life of Lord Kames_; an _Essay on the +Profession of an Advocate_; _Memoirs_ of Hume when dying, 'which I may +some time or other communicate to the world;' a quarto with plates on +_The Beggar's Opera_; a _History of James IV._, 'the patron of my +family;' a _Collection of Feudal Tenures and Charters_, 'a valuable +collection made by my father, with some additions and illustrations of +my own;' an _Account of my Travels_, 'for which I had a variety of +materials collected;' a _Life of Sir Robert Sibbald_, 'in the original +manuscript in his own writing;' a _History of the Rebellion of 1745_; an +edition of _Walton's Lives_; a _Life of Thomas Ruddiman_, the Latin +grammarian; a _History of Sweden_, where three of his ancestors had +settled, who took service under Gustavus Adolphus; an edition of +_Johnson's Poems_, 'a complete edition, in which I shall with the utmost +care ascertain their authenticity, and illustrate them with notes and +various readings;' a work on _Addison's Poems_, in which 'I shall +probably maintain the merit of Addison's poetry, which has been very +unjustly depreciated.' His _Journal_, which is unfortunately lost, he +designed as the material for his own _Autobiography_. A goodly list, and +a varied one, involving interest, knowledge, and research, fit to form +the equipment of a professed scholar. + +Boswell foresaw the danger, and he justified his method of reporting +conversations. 'It may be objected by some persons, as it has been by +one of my friends, that he who has the power of thus exhibiting an exact +transcript of conversations is not a desirable member of society. I +repeat the answer which I made to that friend:--'Few, very few, need be +afraid that their sayings will be recorded. Can it be imagined that I +would take the trouble to gather what grows on every hedge, because I +have collected such fruits as the _Nonpareil_ and the _Bon Chretien_? On +the other hand, how useful is such a faculty, if well exercised! To it +we owe all those interesting apophthegms and _memorabilia_ of the +ancients, which Plutarch, Xenophon, and Valerius Maximus, have +transmitted to us. To it we owe all those instructive and entertaining +collections which the French have made under the title of _Ana_, affixed +to some celebrated name. To it we owe the Table-Talk of Selden, the +_Conversation_ between Ben Jonson and Drummond of Hawthornden, Spence's +_Anecdotes_ of Pope, and other valuable remains in our own language. How +delighted should we have been, if thus introduced into the company of +Shakespeare and of Dryden, of whom we know scarcely anything but their +admirable writings! What pleasure would it have given us, to have known +their petty habits, their characteristick manners, their modes of +composition, and their genuine opinion of preceding writers and of their +contemporaries!' + +The world in consideration of what it has gained, and the recollection +of what we should have acquired had such a reporter been found for the +talk of other great men, has long since forgiven Boswell, and forgotten +also his baiting the doctor with questions on all points, his rebuffs +and his puttings down--'there is your _want_, sir; I will not be put to +the question;' his watching 'every dawning of communication from that +illuminated mind;' his eyes goggling with eagerness, the mouth dropt +open to catch every syllable, his ear almost on the shoulder of the +doctor, and the final burst of 'what do you do there, sir,--go to the +table, sir,--come back to your place, sir.' + +And these conversations which he reported in his short-hand, yet 'so as +to keep the substance and language of discourse?' How far did he +Johnsonize the form or matter? The remark by Burke to Mackintosh, that +Johnson was greater in Boswell's books than in his own, the absence of +the terse and artistic touch to the sayings of the Rambler in the pages +of Hawkins, Thrale, Murphy and others, suggest inevitably that they have +been touched up by their reporter. The _Boswelliana_ supplies here some +slight confirmation of this, for there have been preserved in that +collection stories that reappear in the _Life_, and the final form in +which they appear in the later book is always that of a pointed and +improved nature. It would, therefore, seem that Boswell, whose +imitations of Johnson Mrs Thrale declared in some respects superior to +Garrick's, in his long devotion to the style and manner of his friend, +'inflated with the Johnsonian ether,' did consciously or otherwise add +much to the originals, and so has denied himself a share of what would +otherwise be justly, if known, set down to his credit. + +'I own,' he writes in 1789 to Temple, 'I am desirous that my life should +tell.' He counted doubtless on the _Autobiography_ for this purpose. 'It +is a maxim with me,' said the great Bentley, 'that no man was ever +written out of reputation but by himself.' At first sight it would +appear that Boswell had inflicted upon his own fame an indelible blot. +From whom but himself should we ever have learned those failings, of +which Macaulay has deftly made so much in his unsympathetic writing down +of the man, after the manner of the Johnsonian attack on Milton and +Gray? In whom but himself should we detect the excrescences in his +works--the permutations and combinations in shaving, the wish for a +pulley in bed to raise him, his puzzle over the disproportionate wages +of footmen and maidservants, his boastings, his family pride, his +hastily writing in the sage's presence Johnson's parody of Hervey in the +_Meditations on a Pudding_, his superstitions, and his weaknesses? It is +this that has cost him so dear with the critics, and the superior +people, 'empty wearisome cuckoos, and doleful monotonous owls, +innumerable jays also and twittering sparrows of the housetops.' He +compares his own ideas to his handwriting, irregular and sprawling; his +nature to Corinthian brass, made up of an infinite variety of +ingredients, and his head to a tavern which might have been full of +lords drinking Burgundy, but has been invaded by low punch-drinkers whom +the landlord cannot expel. Blots and inequalities there are in the great +book. Cooper off the prairie, Galt out of Ayrshire, are not more untrue +to themselves than is Boswell at such moments. But 'within the focus of +the Lichfield lamps' he regains his strength like a Samson. + +Boswell, with all his experience, never attained the mellow Sadduceeism +of the diner-out. As a reward, he never lost the literary conscience, +the capacity for labour, the assiduity and veracity that have set his +work upon a pedestal of its own. The dedication to Reynolds, a masterly +piece of writing, will shew the trouble that he took over his method, +'obliged to run half over London in order to fix a date correctly.' And +he knew the value of his work, which the man with the note-book never +does. In his moments of self-complacency he could compare his +_Johnsoniad_ with the _Odyssey_; and he will not repress his +'satisfaction in the consciousness of having largely provided for the +instruction and entertainment of mankind.' Literary models before him he +had none. Scott suggests the life of the philosopher Demophon in Lucian, +but Boswell was not likely to have known it. He modestly himself says he +has enlarged on the plan of Mason's _Life of Gray_; but his merits are +his own. For the history of the period it is, as Cardinal Duperron said +of Rabelais, _le livre_--_the_ book--'in worth as a book,' decides +Carlyle, 'beyond any other production of the eighteenth century.' + +Time has dealt gently with both Johnson and Boswell. 'The chief glory of +every people,' said the former in the preface to his _Dictionary_ +'arises from its authors: whether I shall add anything to the reputation +of English literature must be left to time.' In the constituency of the +present no dead writer addresses such an audience as Johnson does. Of +Johnson Boswell might have said, as Cervantes did of his great creation +Don Quixote, he and his subject were born for each other. There is no +greater figure, no more familiar face in our literature than 'the old +man eloquent'; and as the inseparable companion 'held in my heart of +hearts, whose fidelity and tenderness I consider as a great part of the +comforts which are yet left to me,' rises the figure of his biographer, +the Bozzy no more of countless follies and fatuities, but Boswell, the +prince of biographers, the inheritor of unfulfilled renown, now become, +like his hero himself, an ancient. And they are still in the heyday of +their great fame. Along the stream of time the little bark, as he hoped, +sails attendant, pursues the triumph and partakes the gale. + +With James Boswell it has happened, as Mark Pattison says of Milton, to +have passed beyond the critics into a region of his own. That 'mighty +civil gentlewoman,' the mistress of the _Green Man_ at Ashbourne, M. +Killingley, who waited on him with the note of introduction to his +extensive acquaintance--'a singular favour conferr'd on one who has it +not in her power to make any other return but her most grateful thanks, +&c.,'--is but a symbol of the feelings of the readers who ever wish well +to the name and the fame of James Boswell. + + +THE END. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of James Boswell, by William Keith Leask + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JAMES BOSWELL *** + +***** This file should be named 29615-8.txt or 29615-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/6/1/29615/ + +Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Keith Leask. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; +} /* page numbers */ + + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps; font-style: normal;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + + .fnanchor {vertical-align:baseline; + position: relative; + bottom: 0.33em; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + .poem span.i12 {display: block; margin-left: 12em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i14 {display: block; margin-left: 14em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i8 {display: block; margin-left: 8em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i9 {display: block; margin-left: 9em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of James Boswell, by William Keith Leask + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: James Boswell + Famous Scots Series + +Author: William Keith Leask + +Release Date: August 5, 2009 [EBook #29615] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JAMES BOSWELL *** + + + + +Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<div class="figleft" style="width: 72px;"> +<img src="images/spine.jpg" width="72" height="600" alt="Spine" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 380px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="380" height="600" alt="Cover" title="" /> +</div> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1 style="margin-bottom: 10em;">JAMES<br /> +BOSWELL</h1> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES</h2> + + +<p class='center'><i>The following Volumes are now ready:—</i></p> + +<p> +THOMAS CARLYLE. By <span class="smcap">Hector C. Macpherson</span>.<br /> +ALLAN RAMSAY. By <span class="smcap">Oliphant Smeaton</span>.<br /> +HUGH MILLER. By <span class="smcap">W. Keith Leask</span>.<br /> +JOHN KNOX. By <span class="smcap">A. Taylor Innes</span>.<br /> +ROBERT BURNS. By <span class="smcap">Gabriel Setoun</span>.<br /> +THE BALLADISTS. By <span class="smcap">John Geddie</span>.<br /> +RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor <span class="smcap">Herkless</span>.<br /> +SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By <span class="smcap">Eve Blantyre Simpson</span>.<br /> +THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor <span class="smcap">W. Garden Blaikie</span>.<br /> +JAMES BOSWELL. By <span class="smcap">W. Keith Leask</span>.<br /> +</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;"> +<img src="images/title.jpg" width="350" height="600" alt="JAMES +BOSWELL + +BY +W KEITH +LEASK + +FAMOUS +·SCOTS· +·SERIES· + +PUBLISHED BY +OLIPHANT ANDERSON +& FERRIER. EDINBURGH +AND LONDON" title="" /> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class='center' style="font-size: x-large;">JAMES<br /> +BOSWELL</p> + +<p class='center' style="font-size: large;">BY<br /> +W. KEITH<br /> +LEASK</p> + +<p class='center' style="font-size: large;">FAMOUS<br /> +·SCOTS·<br /> +·SERIES·</p> + +<p class='center' style="font-size: large;">PUBLISHED BY<br /> +OLIPHANT ANDERSON<br /> +& FERRIER · EDINBURGH<br /> +AND LONDON</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class='center'>The designs and ornaments of this volume are by Mr Joseph Brown, and the +printing from the press of Messrs Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class='center'> +<i>To</i><br /> +GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL,<br /> +D.C.L.;<br /> +M.A. Pembroke (Johnson's) College, Oxford;<br /> +CHIEF OF JOHNSON SCHOLARS AND EDITORS;<br /> +AND HIMSELF MOST "CLUBABLE" OF MEN.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">{7}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>The literature of the Johnsonian period has assumed, in spite of the +lexicographer's own dislike of that adjective, prodigious dimensions. +After the critical labours of Malone, Murphy, Croker, J. B. Nichols, +Macaulay, Carlyle, Rogers, Fitzgerald, Dr Hill and others, it may appear +hazardous to venture upon such a well-ploughed field where the pitfalls +are so numerous and the materials so scattered. I cannot, however, +refrain from the expression of the belief that in this biography of +Boswell will be found something that is new to professed students of the +period, and much to the class of general readers that may lead them to +reconsider the verdict at which they may have arrived from the brilliant +but totally misleading essay by Lord Macaulay. At least, the writer +cherishes the hope that it will materially add to the correct +understanding and the enjoyment of Boswell's great work, <i>the Life of +Johnson</i>.</p> + +<p>My best thanks are due to J. Pearson & Co., 5 Pall Mall Place, London, +for the use of unpublished letters by Boswell and of his boyish +common-place book. And if "our Boswell" could indulge an honest pride in +availing himself of a dedication to Sir Joshua Reynolds, as to a person +of the first eminence in his department, so may I entertain the same +feeling in inscribing this sketch to Dr Hill who, amid the pressure of +other Johnson labours, has yet found time to revise the proof sheets of +my book.</p> +<p style="text-align: right;">W. K. L.</p> + + +<p><i><span class="smcap">Aberdeen</span>, December 1896.</i><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">{8}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + + + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="2" summary=""> +<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" colspan='2'>PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Early Days—Meets Johnson</span>—1740-63</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The Continent—Corsica</span>—1763-66</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Edinburgh Bar—Stratford Jubilee</span>—1766-69</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Love Affairs—Literary Club</span>—1766-73</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_76">76</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Tour to the Hebrides</span>—1773</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">Edinburgh Life—Death of Johnson</span>—1773-84</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_113">113</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">The English Bar—Death</span>—1784-95</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_122">122</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center" colspan='2'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="smcap">In Literature</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">{9}</a></span></td></tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="JAMES_BOSWELL" id="JAMES_BOSWELL"></a>JAMES BOSWELL</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">EARLY DAYS—MEETS JOHNSON. 1740-1763</span></h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Behind yon hills, where Lugar flows.'—<span class="smcap">Burns.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>'Every Scotchman,' says Sir Walter Scott, 'has a pedigree. It is a +national prerogative, as inalienable as his pride and his poverty. My +birth was neither distinguished nor sordid.' What, however, was but a +foible with Scott was a passion in James Boswell, who has on numerous +occasions obtruded his genealogical tree in such a manner as to render +necessary some acquaintance with his family and lineage. The family of +Boswell, or Bosville, dates from the Normans who came with William the +Conqueror to Hastings. Entering Scotland in the days of the sore saint, +David I., they had spread over Berwickshire and established themselves, +at least in one branch, at Balmuto in Fife. A descendant of the family, +Thomas Boswell, occupies in the genealogy of the biographer the position +of prominence which Wat of Harden holds in the line of the novelist. He +obtained a grant of the lands in Ayrshire belonging to the ancient house +of Affleck of that ilk, when they had passed by forfeiture into the +hands of the king. Pitcairn, in his <i>Collection of Criminal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">{10}</a></span> Trials</i> is +inclined to regard this ancestor as the chief minstrel in the royal +train of James IV.; but, as he fell at Flodden, this may be taken as +being at least not proven, nor would the position of this first literary +man in the family have been quite pleasing to the pride of race so often +shewn by his descendant. A Yorkshire branch of the family, with the +spelling of their name as Bosville, was settled at Gunthwait in the West +Riding, and its head was hailed as 'his chief' by Bozzy, whose +gregarious instincts led him to trace and claim relationship in a way +even more than is national. By marriage and other ties the family in +Scotland was connected with the most ancient and distinguished houses in +the land.</p> + +<p>The great grandfather of the biographer was the Earl of Kincardine who +is mentioned by Gilbert Burnet in his <i>History of His Own Time</i>. He had +married a Dutch lady, of the noble house of Sommelsdyck who had once +held princely rank in Surinam. With that branch also of the name did +Boswell, in later years, establish a relationship at the time of his +continental tour, when at the Hague he found the head holding 'an +important charge in the Republick, and is as worthy a man as lives, and +has honoured me with his correspondence these twenty years.' From the +Earl Boswell boasted 'the blood of Bruce in my veins,' a descent which +he seizes every opportunity of making known to his readers, and to which +we find him alluding in a letter of 10th May, 1786, now before us, to +Mickle, the translator of the <i>Lusiad</i>, with a promise to 'tell you what +I know about our common ancestor, Robert the Bruce.' When Johnson, in +the autumn of 1773, visited the ancestral seat of his friend, Boswell, +'in the glow of what, I am sensible, will in a commercial age be +considered as a genealogical enthusiasm,' did not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">{11}</a></span> forget to remind his +illustrious Mentor of his relationship to the Royal Personage, George +the Third, 'whose pension had given Johnson comfort and independence.' +It would have required a much greater antiquarian than Johnson, who +could scarcely tell the name of his own grandfather, to have traced the +well-nigh twenty generations of connecting links between Bruce and the +third of the Guelph dynasty on the throne.</p> + +<p>From Veronica Sommelsdyck, the wife of this royal ancestor (whose title +is now merged in the earldom of Elgin), was 'introduced into our family +the saint's name,' born by Boswell's own eldest daughter, and other +consequences of a much graver nature were destined to ensue. 'For this +marriage,' says Ramsay of Ochtertyre, 'their posterity paid dear,' for +to it was due, increased no doubt as it was through the inter-marriages +in close degrees between various scions of the house, the insanity which +is now recognised by all students of his writings in Boswell himself, +and which made its appearance in the clearest way in the case of his +second daughter. His grandfather James adopted the profession of law in +which he obtained some distinction, and left three children—Alexander, +the father of the subject of this sketch, John, who followed the +practice of medicine, and a daughter Veronica, married to Montgomerie of +Lainshaw, whose daughter became the wife of her cousin Bozzy.</p> + +<p>Alexander Boswell, Lord Auchinleck, married his cousin Euphemia Erskine. +In the writings of the son the father makes a considerable figure, while +his mother, 'of the family of Buchan, a woman of almost unexampled piety +and goodness,' as he styles her, is but a dim name in the background, as +with John Stuart Mill who has written a copious autobiography, and left +it to the logical instincts of his readers to infer that he had a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">{12}</a></span> +mother. The profession of law was adopted by the father, who, after a +residence abroad at Leyden where he graduated, passed as advocate at the +Scottish bar in 1729, from which, after a distinguished career, he was +appointed to the sheriffdom of Wigton, and ultimately raised to the +bench in 1754, with the title of Lord Auchinleck. He possessed, says his +son, 'all the dignified courtesy of an old baron,' of the school of +Cosmo Bradwardine as we may say, and not only was he an excellent +scholar, but, from the intimacy he had cultivated with the Gronovii and +other <i>literati</i> of Leyden, he was a collector of classical manuscripts +and a collator of the texts and editions of Anacreon. His library was +rich in curious editions of the classics, and was in some respects not +excelled by any private collection in Great Britain, and the reputation +of the Auchinleck library was greatly increased by the black-letter +tastes and publications of his grandson. A strong Whig and active +Presbyterian, he was much esteemed in public and in private life. The +son had on his northern tour the pleasure to note, both at Aberdeen and +at Inverness, the high regard in which the old judge was held, and to +find his name and connection a very serviceable means of introduction to +the travellers in their 'transit over the Caledonian hemisphere.' Like +the father of Scott, who kept the whole bead-roll of cousins and +relations and loved a funeral, Lord Auchinleck bequeathed to his eldest +son at least one characteristic, the attention to relatives in the +remotest degree of kin. On the bench, like the judges in <i>Redgauntlet</i>, +Hume, Kames, and others, he affected the racy Doric; and his 'Scots +strength of sarcasm, which is peculiar to a North Briton,' was on many +an occasion lamented by his son who felt it, and acknowledged by Johnson +on at least one famous occasion. In the <i>Boswelliana</i> are preserved many +of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">{13}</a></span> old Auchinleck's stories which Lord Monboddo says he could tell well +with wit and gravity—stories of the circuit and bar type of Braxfield +and Eskgrove, such as Scott used to tell to the wits round the fire of +the Parliament House. In his younger days he had been a beau, and his +affectation of red heels to his shoes and of red stockings, when brought +under the notice of his son by a friend, so affected Bozzy that he could +hardly sit on his chair for laughing. A great gardener and planter like +others of the race of old Scottish judges he had extended, in the +classic style of architecture then in fashion, the family mansion, and +had, as Johnson found, 'advanced the value of his lands with great +tenderness to his tenants.' Past the older residence flowed the river +Lugar, here of considerable depth, and then bordered with rocks and +shaded with wood—the old castle whose 'sullen dignity' was the nurse of +Boswell's devotion to the feudal principles and 'the grand scheme of +subordination,' of which he lets us hear so much when he touches on 'the +romantick groves of my ancestors.'</p> + +<p>James Boswell, the immortal biographer of Johnson, was born in Edinburgh +on October 29, 1740. The earliest fact which is known about him is one +which he himself would have described as 'a whimsical or +characteristical' anecdote, and which he had told to Johnson:—'Boswell +in the year 1745 was a fine boy, wore a white cockade, and prayed for +King James, till one of his uncles, General Cochrane, gave him a +shilling on condition that he would pray for King George, which he +accordingly did. So you see that Whigs of all ages are made the same +way.' It may have been these early signs of perversity that led his +father to be strict in dealing with him, for we cannot doubt that +Boswell in the <i>London Magazine</i> for 1781, is giving us a picture<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">{14}</a></span> of +domestic life when he writes as follows:—'I knew a father who was a +violent Whig, and used to upbraid his son with being deficient in "noble +sentiments of liberty," while at the same time he made this son live +under his roof in such bondage, that he was not only afraid to stir from +home without leave, but durst scarcely open his mouth in his father's +presence.' For some time he was privately educated under the tuition of +the Rev. John Dun, who was presented in 1752 to the living of Auchinleck +by the judge, and finally at the High School and the University of +Edinburgh. There he met with two friends with whom, to the close of his +life, he was destined to have varied and close relations. One was Henry +Dundas, first Lord Melville, and by "Harry the Ninth" Bozzy, in his +ceaseless attempts to secure place and promotion, constantly attempted +to steer, while that Pharos of Scotland, as Lord Cockburn calls him, was +as constantly inclined to be diffident of the abilities, or at least the +vagaries, of his suitor.</p> + +<p>The other friend was William Johnson Temple, son of a Northumberland +gentleman of good family, and grandfather of the present Archbishop of +Canterbury. Temple was a little older than Boswell, who for upwards of +thirty-seven years maintained an uninterrupted correspondence with him. +As he is the Atticus of Boswell, we insert here a detailed account of +him in order to avoid isolated references and allusions in the course of +the narrative. On leaving Edinburgh he entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge; +after taking the usual degrees, he was presented by Lord Lisburne to the +living of Mamhead in Devon, which was followed by that of St Gluvias in +Cornwall. Strangely enough for one who was an intimate friend of +Boswell, he was no admirer of Johnson (whose name, by a curious +coincidence, was a part of his own), and a strong Whig and +water-drinker,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">{15}</a></span> 'a bill which,' says Bozzy humorously, 'was ever one +which meets with a determined resistance and opposition in my lower +house.' As the friend of Gray and of Mason, he must have been possessed +of some share of ability, yet over his moral character the admirers and +critics of Boswell are divided. To some he appears as the true and +faithful Atticus to the Cicero of his friend, the Mentor and honest +adviser in all times of danger and trial. To others he seems but to have +possessed, in a minor degree, all the failings of Boswell himself, and +it would appear the most natural inference to believe that, had Temple +been endowed with greater force of mental or moral character, the +results would have been seen in many ways upon the actions of his +friend. In his wife he was unfortunate, and, at one time at least, he +attempted to secure a colonial chaplaincy in order to effect a +separation. He was the writer of an <i>Essay on the Clergy; their Studies +and Recreations</i>, 1774; <i>Historical and Political Memoirs</i>, 1777; <i>Abuse +of Unrestrained Power</i>, 1778; all of which have completely passed from +the memory of man. But he lives with a fair claim to fame, as the +correspondent of Boswell, who calls him 'best of friends' to 'a weak +distemper'd soul that swells in sudden gusts, and sinks again in calms.' +A chance memorandum by Temple, on the death of Gray, displaying +considerable felicity of phrase and insight, was sent by Boswell to the +<i>London Magazine</i> of March 1772, from which it was copied by Mason in +his <i>Life of Gray</i>, and in an adapted form it was used by Johnson +himself in his sketch of the poet's work, in his <i>Lives of the Poets</i>. +The discovery of the <i>Letters to Temple</i> is one of the happiest +accidents in literature, and without them the true life of Boswell could +not be written. To neither Macaulay nor Carlyle were they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">{16}</a></span> known for use +in their famous reviews. On the death of Temple in 1796, one year after +the decease of his friend, his papers passed into the possession of his +son-in-law, who retired to France, where he died. Some fifty years ago, +a gentleman making purchases in a shop at Boulogne, observed that the +wrapper was a scrap of a letter, which formed part of a bundle bought +shortly before from a travelling hawker. On investigation, the letters +were found to be the correspondence of Boswell with Temple, and all +doubts as to their genuineness were conclusively set at rest by their +bearing the London and Devon post marks, and the franks of well known +names. But the internal evidence alone, as we shall see, would be +sufficient to establish their authenticity. Published in 1857 by +Bentley, under the careful editorship of Mr Francis, they constitute, +along with the no less happy discovery in 1854, behind an old press in +Sydney, of Campbell's <i>Diary of a Visit to England</i>—though Professor +Jowett was inclined to doubt the authenticity of the latter—the most +valuable accession of evidence to the Johnsonian circle of interest, and +they shed on Boswell and his method a light which otherwise would leave +much in darkness, or, at least, but ensure a general acceptance of the +harsher features in the criticism by Macaulay. From the remark by +Boswell to Temple—'remember and put my letters into a book neatly; see +which of us does it first,' it has been inferred that he meditated, in +some sort of altered appearance, their republication. That Temple +entertained the same idea on his part we know from his own words, and +from the title under which Boswell suggested their issue—<i>Remarks on +Various Authors, in a Series of Letters to James Boswell, Esq.</i> But that +Boswell himself ever did intend the publication of his own must be +pronounced, by all that know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">{17}</a></span> what lies behind their printed form, a +moral impossibility.</p> + +<p>The first preserved letter is dated from Edinburgh, July 29, 1758. It +reveals at once the historic Boswell, such as he remained to the close, +the cheerful self-confidence, the gregarious instincts, the pleasing air +of moralizing, and the easy flow of style. 'Some days ago I was +introduced to your friend Mr Hume; he is a most discreet affable man as +ever I met with, and has really a great deal of learning, a choice +collection of books ... we talk a good deal of genius, fine learning, +improving our style, etc., but I am afraid solid learning is much worn +out. Mr Hume is, I think, a very proper person for a young man to +cultivate an acquaintance with.' Then he digresses to 'my passion for +Miss W——t,' of whom, he assures his friend, he is 'excessively fond, +so don't be surprised if your grave, sedate, philosophic friend who used +to carry it so high, and talk with such a composed indifference of the +beauteous sex, should all at once commence Don Quixote for his adorable +Dulcinea.' We catch sight of him, at eighteen, going on the northern +circuit with his father and Lord Hailes. There, by the advice of an +Edinburgh acquaintance, Love, an old actor at Drury Lane, but then a +teacher of elocution in the town, he began 'an exact journal,' and on +that journey it was that Hailes made Boswell aware of the fact that was +to henceforward colour the entire tide of his life, the existence of Dr +Johnson as a great writer in London, 'which grew up in my fancy into a +kind of mysterious veneration, by figuring to myself a state of solemn +elevated abstraction, in which I supposed him to live in the immense +metropolis of London.' Such were the links, the advice of this obscure +player to keep a journal, and the report given<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">{18}</a></span> to the youth by the +judge in their postchaise. As early as December 1758 we hear of his +having 'published now and then the production of a leisure hour in the +magazines,' and of his life in Edinburgh he writes, 'from nine to ten I +attend the law class; from ten to eleven study at home, and from one to +two attend a class on Roman Antiquities; the afternoon and evening I +always spend in study. I never walk except on Saturdays.' A full +allowance, surely, all this for one who regrets his sad impotence in +study, and writes the letters to Lord Hailes which we shall quote later.</p> + +<p>Even at this period he betrays the fatal defect which remains with him +through life, the indulgence in 'the luxury of noble sentiments,' and +the easy and irritating Micawber-like genteel roll with which he turns +off a moral platitude or finely vague sentiment, in the belief that good +principles constitute good character. 'As our minds improve in +knowledge,' he writes, 'may the sacred flame still increase until at +last we reach the glorious world above when we shall never be separated, +but enjoy an everlasting society of bliss.... I hope by Divine +assistance, you shall still preserve your amiable character amidst all +the deceitful blandishments of vice and folly.' While still at Edinburgh +he produced <i>The Coquettes, or the Gallant in the Closet</i>, by Lady +Houston, but it was ruined on the third night, and found to be merely a +translation of one of the feeblest plays of Thomas Corneille. This play +was long believed to be by Boswell, but his part was merely the +providing the translator with a prologue, nor was the fact revealed till +long after by the lady herself.</p> + +<p>In November 1759 he entered the class of moral philosophy under Adam +Smith at Glasgow. Perhaps his father had thought that in the more sedate +capital<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">{19}</a></span> of the West, and in close propinquity to Auchinleck, there +would be less scope for the long career of eccentricities upon which he +was now to enter. If such, however, had been the intention, it was +destined to a rude awakening. All his life Bozzy affected the company of +players, among whom he professed to find 'an animation and a relish of +existence,' and at this period he tells us he was flattered by being +held forth as a patron of literature. In the course of his assiduous +visits to the local theatre he met with an old stage-struck army officer +from Ireland, Francis Gentleman, who had sold his commission to risk his +chances on the boards. By this worthy an edition of Southern's +<i>Oroonoko</i> was dedicated to Boswell, and in the epistle are found some +of his qualities:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'But when with honest pleasure she can find<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sense, taste, religion, and good nature join'd,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There gladly will she raise her feeble Voice<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor fear to tell that Boswell is her Choice.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Thus early had the youthful patron of the drama blossomed into +notoriety, and having also commenced attendance at the Roman Catholic +Chapel he had now resolved to become a priest, though curiously enough +he began this career by eloping, as we are assured by Ramsay of +Ochtertyre, with a Roman Catholic actress. His father followed the pair +to London, and there, it would seem, prevailed on the erratic neophyte +to abandon his fair partner, whose existence would certainly have been a +fatal barrier to the proposed priesthood. At least, like his friend +Gibbon of later days, if he sighed as a lover, he obeyed as a son, and a +compromise by which he was to enter on the profession of arms was +effected. His father called on Archibald,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">{20}</a></span> Duke of Argyll, an old +campaigner with Marlborough. 'My Lord,' said the Duke, 'I like your son; +this boy must not be shot at for three shillings and sixpence a day.' +This scene reads like a pre-arranged affair calculated to flatter the +erratic Bozzy out of his warlike schemes, for which it is clear he was +never fitted. Indeed, the true aim was really, as he confesses to +Temple, a wish to be 'about court, enjoying the happiness of the <i>beau +monde</i> and the company of men of genius.' Temple had come forward with +an offer of a thousand pounds to obtain a commission for him in the +Guards, and Boswell assures us repeatedly, 'I had from earliest years a +love for the military life.' Yet we can with equal difficulty figure +'our Bozzy' as priest or soldier. Like Hogg who hankered after the post +of militia ensign with 'nerves not,' as Lockhart says, 'heroically +strung,' Boswell in his own <i>Letter to the People of Scotland</i> confesses +himself 'not blest with high heroic blood, but rather I think troubled +with a natural timidity of personal danger, which it costs me some +philosophy to overcome.' Nor was his devotion to charmer or chapel +likely to weather the dissipated life he led in London. In later life he +may have had thoughts of his own feelings when he proposed to publish, +from the manuscript in his possession, the life of Sir Robert Sibbald. +That antiquary had been pressed by the Duke of Perth to come over to the +Papists, and for some time embraced the ancient religion, until the +rigid fasting led him to reconsider the controversy and he returned to +Protestantism. Bozzy thought the remark of his friend, that as ladies +love to see themselves in a glass, so a man likes to see and review +himself in his journal, 'a very pretty allusion,' and we may be sure, in +spite of his reticence, that his own case was present at the time to his +mind. His distressed father enlisted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">{21}</a></span> the interest of Lord Hailes, who +requested Dr Jortin, Prebendary of St Paul's, to take in hand the +flighty youth, and to persuade him to renounce the errors of the Church +of Rome for those of the Church of England, for it was plain that +Boswell had broken loose from his old moorings, and some middle course +might, it was hoped, prove to be possible. 'Your young gentleman,' +writes Jortin to Hailes, 'called at my house. I was gone out for the +day; he then left your letter and a note with it for me, promising to be +with me on Saturday morning. But from that time to this I have heard +nothing of him. He began, I suppose, to suspect some design upon him, +and his new friends may have represented me to him as a heretic and an +infidel, whom he ought to avoid as he would the plague.' More likely the +Catholic fit had passed away. But what a light does this phase, erratic +even among his countless vagaries, shed on his relation to Johnson! +Never, we may rest assured, did he tell the sage of this hidden passage +in his life; yet how often do we find him putting leading questions to +his friend and Mentor on all points of Catholic doctrine and casuistry, +purgatory, and the invocation of the saints, confession, and the mass! +There can be no doubt that this wrench left a deep impress on the +confused religious views of Boswell, and this is the clue which explains +the opening conversation with Johnson at the beginning of their +intimacy. 'I acknowledged,' he writes, 'that though educated strictly in +the principles of religion, I had for some time been misled into a +certain degree of infidelity; but I was now come to a better way of +thinking, and was fully satisfied of the truth of the Christian +revelation, though I was not clear as to every point considered to be +orthodox.' Never in any way does he refer to this episode of his life, +but the <i>Life of Johnson</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">{22}</a></span> is, as we shall have occasion to show, the +life in many ways also of its author, who says of himself that, 'from a +certain peculiarly frank, open, and ostentatious disposition which he +avows, his history, like that of the old Seigneur Michael de Montaigne, +is to be traced in his writings.'</p> + +<p>Left to himself and the guidance of the writer Derrick, 'my first tutor +in the ways of London, who shewed me the town in all its variety of +departments, both literary and sportive,' he was now busily spelling +through the pages of the Gull's Hornbook. From this course of idle +dissipation he was saved by the interposition of an Ayrshire neighbour +of the family, the Earl of Eglintoun, though were we to credit the +account of the waif himself the Earl 'insisted that young Boswell should +have an apartment in his house.' Certain it is that by his lordship he +was taken to Newmarket and introduced to the members of the Jockey Club. +He would appear to have fancied himself a regularly elected member, for +here his eccentricity broke forth into a yet more violent form. Calling +for pen and paper, while the sporting fraternity gathered round, he +produced the <i>Cub at Newmarket</i>, which he printed and dedicated to the +Duke of York in a characteristically Boswellian strain. In doggerel +which defies rhyme or reason he tells how his patron</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'By chance a curious cub has got<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On Scotia's mountains newly caught;'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and then—the first of his many portraits drawn by himself, and +prophetic of the lover of hospitable boards and good cheer as we know +him in his works—he describes the writer as</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i9">'Not of the iron race<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which sometimes Caledonia grace;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">{23}</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though he to combat should advance,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Plumpness shone in his countenance;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And belly prominent declared<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That he for beef and pudding cared;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He had a large and ponderous head,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That seemed to be composed of lead;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From which hung down such stiff, lank hair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As might the crows in autumn scare.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>At this time it is likely took place the escapade with which he must +have convulsed the gravity of the Edinburgh <i>literati</i> invited to meet +Johnson on their return from the Hebrides. 'I told, when Dr Hugh Blair +was sitting with me in the pit of Drury Lane, in a wild freak of +youthful extravagance I entertained the audience <i>prodigiously</i> by +imitating the lowing of a cow. I was so successful in this boyish frolic +that the universal cry of the galleries was "<i>encore the cow</i>." In the +pride of my heart I attempted imitations of other animals, but with very +inferior effect.' Blair's advice was, says Scott, 'Stick to the coo, +man,' in his peculiar burr, but we can imagine how this unforeseen +reminiscence must have confused the divine. After an ineffectual effort +to enter himself at the Inner Temple, the 'cub' had to return in April +1761 to Edinburgh.</p> + +<p>Old Edinburgh was nothing if not convivial. Writing to Temple and +confessing that his London life had 'not been entirely as it ought to +be,' he appeals to him for pity in his present surroundings. Imagine 'a +young fellow,' he cries, 'whose happiness was always centred in London, +hauled away to the town of Edinburgh, obliged to conform to every +Scottish custom, or be laughed at—"Will ye hae some jeel? Oh fie, oh +fie!"—his flighty imagination quite cramped, and be obliged to study +<i>Corpus Juris Civilis</i> and live in his father's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">{24}</a></span> strict family; is there +any wonder, sir, that the unlucky dog should be somewhat fretful? Yoke a +Newmarket courser to a dung cart, and I'll lay my life on't he'll either +caper or kick most confoundedly, or be as stupid and restive as an old +battered post-horse.' Among the many clubs of the time Boswell +instituted a jovial society called the <i>Soaping Club</i> which met weekly +in a tavern. The motto of the members was 'Every man soap his own +beard,' a rather recondite witticism which their founder declares +equivalent to the reigning phrase of 'Every man in his humour.' It may +be suggested here that in this company of feeble Bacchanalians Boswell +had copied the Rabelaisian <i>fay ce que vous voudras</i> of the Franciscans +of Medmenham Abbey with Sandwich, Wilkes, and others. At any rate, as +their self-constituted laureate, he produced the following extraordinary +song, which can be paralleled for inanity only by the stave he sang +before Pitt in the Guildhall of London, as a means of attracting the +notice of the Premier with a view to Parliament. The song is +characteristically Boswellian.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Boswell of Soapers the King<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On Tuesdays at Tom's does appear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And when he does talk or does sing,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To him ne'er a one can come near.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For he talks with such ease and such grace,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That all charm'd to attention we sit,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he sings with so comic a face<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That our sides are just ready to split.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Boswell is modest enough,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Himself not quite Phœbus he thinks,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He never does flourish with snuff,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And hock is the liquor he drinks.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">{25}</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he owns that Ned Colquet the priest<br /></span> +<span class="i2">May to something of honour pretend,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he swears that he is not in jest,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When he calls this same Colquet his friend.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Boswell is pleasant and gay,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For frolic by nature design'd;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He heedlessly rattles away<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When the company is to his mind.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"This maxim," he says, "you may see,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">We never can have corn without chaff;"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So not a bent sixpence cares he,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whether <i>with</i> him or <i>at</i> him you laugh.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Boswell does women adore,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And never once means to deceive,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He's in love with at least half a score;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">If they're serious he smiles in his sleeve.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He has all the bright fancy of youth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With the judgment of forty and five;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In short, to declare the plain truth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">There is no better fellow alive.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This, it must be confessed, is sad stuff even for a laureate of twenty, +and is jesting with difficulty. Every man, says Johnson, has at one time +or other of his life an ambition to set up for a wag, but that a man who +had completed the <i>Life of Johnson</i> should in after years complacently +refer to this character of himself and 'traits in it which time has not +yet altered, that egotism and self-applause which he is still +displaying, yet it would seem with a conscious smile,' is scarcely +credible were it not out-distanced by graver weaknesses.</p> + +<p>For about this date he published <i>An Elegy upon the Death of an Amiable +Young Lady</i>, flanked by three puffing epistles from himself and his +friends, Erskine and Dempster. In the same year appeared his <i>Ode to +Tragedy</i>—by a Gentleman of Scotland, with a dedica<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">{26}</a></span>tion to—James +Boswell, Esq.!—'for your particular kindness to me, and chiefly for the +profound respect with which you have always treated me.' We hear of his +'old hock' humour, a favourite phrase with him for his Bacchanalian +tastes, and we find the author limning himself as possessing</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'A soul by nature formed to feel<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grief sharper than the tyrant's steel,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And bosom big with swelling thought<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From ancient lore's remembrance brought.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In 1760 had appeared a <i>Collection of Original Poems</i>, published by +Donaldson in Edinburgh on the model of Dodsley's <i>Miscellanies</i>. It +comprised poems by Blacklock, Beattie, and others, and a second volume +was issued by Erskine as editor in 1762. To it Boswell contributed +nearly thirty pieces along with Home, the author of <i>Douglas</i>, +Macpherson of <i>Ossian</i> fame or notoriety, John Maclaurin and others. The +merits of the volume are beneath notice, and Boswell's contributions of +Odes, Epigrams, Letters, Epistles, are of the traditional character; but +<i>An Epistle from a London Buck to his Friend</i> must have been read by his +father with regret, and by his mother of 'almost unexampled piety and +goodness' with shame. There is only one poem that calls for attention, +the <i>Evening Walk in the Abbey Church of Holyrood House</i>, the original, +perhaps, of Fergusson's lament on the state of neglect of the then +deserted mansion of royalty, where</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">'the thistle springs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In domicile of ancient Kings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Without a patriot to regret<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our palace and our ancient state.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>A third volume was announced for publication 'about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">{27}</a></span> eighteen months +hence,' but the public had enough of this coagulated jargon as Carlyle +would have styled it, and critics and readers are spared the task of its +consideration.</p> + +<p>Yet all this time he was in the enjoyment of the best company that +Edinburgh could afford; he was admitted a member of the Select Society, +and his circle embraced such men as Lord Somerville, Lord Hailes, Dr +Blair, Kames, Robertson, Hume, Home, Jupiter Carlyle and others. 'Lord +Auchinleck,' he quaintly adds, 'took the trouble himself to give him a +regular course of instruction in law, a circumstance of singular +benefit, and of which Mr Boswell has ever expressed a strong and +grateful sense.' But his sense was not such as to restrain him from a +mock-heroic correspondence with Andrew Erskine, brother of the Earl of +Kellie. Erskine must have been possessed of some parts, for he was the +correspondent of Burns and was intimate with George Thomson the +composer, yet we can fancy the consternation of the old judge when this +farrago of the new humour was published in London in 1763. Writing from +his father's house, he thus begins:—'Dear Erskine, no ceremony I +beseech you! Give me your hand. How is my honest Captain Andrew? How +goes it with the elegant Lady A——? the lovely, sighing Lady J——? and +how, oh how, does that glorious luminary Lady B—— do? you see I retain +my usual volatility. The Boswells, you know, came over from Normandy +with William the Conqueror; and some of us possess the spirit of our +ancestors, the French. I do, for one. A pleasant spirit it is. <i>Vive la +bagatelle</i> is the maxim. A light heart may bid defiance to fortune.' +Again the old man would find 'Allow me a few more words. I live here in +a remote corner of an old ruinous house, where my ancestors have been +very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">{28}</a></span> jovial. What a solemn idea rushes on my mind! They are all gone: I +must follow. Well, and what then? Let me shift about to another subject. +The best I can think of is a sound sleep; so good-night.' In fact, like +Sir Fretful Plagiary in the <i>Critic</i>, Bozzy was so covetous of +popularity that he would rather be abused than be not mentioned at all. +Little augury, too, of success at the bar could his father find in the +following portrait of his son: 'the author of the <i>Ode to Tragedy</i> is a +most excellent man; he is of an ancient family in the west of Scotland, +upon which he values himself not a little. At his nativity there +appeared omens of his future greatness; his parts are bright, and his +education has been good; he has travelled in post-chaises miles without +number; he is fond of seeing much of the world; he eats of every good +dish, especially apple pie; he drinks old hock; he has a very fine +temper; he is somewhat of a humourist, and a little tinctured with +pride; he has a good, manly countenance, and he owns himself to be +amorous; he has infinite vivacity; yet is at times observed to have a +melancholy cast.'</p> + +<p>Nothing but the most obtuse vanity could ever have induced Bozzy to +publish all this. 'Curiosity,' he declares in the preface, 'is the most +prevalent of all our passions, and the curiosity for reading letters is +the most prevalent of all kinds of curiosity. Had any man in the three +kingdoms found the following letters directed, sealed, and addressed, +with post-marks—provided he could have done so honestly—he would have +read every one of them.' There is the true Boswell in this +characteristic confession, the Boswell that read in the private diaries +of Johnson, and, with an eye to biographical materials, had admitted an +impulse to carry them off, and never see him more. 'Why, sir,' said the +doctor, 'I do not think you could have helped it.'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">{29}</a></span></p> + +<p>After this it was no wonder that his father was induced to allow his +return to London, 'Where a man may soap his own beard, and enjoy +whatever is to be had in this transitory state of things, and every +agreeable whim may be indulged without censure.' The Duke of Queensbery, +the patron of Gay, was one of those to whom he was recommended now that +he inclined to 'persist in his fondness for the Guards, or rather, in +truth, for the metropolis,' but he suspected some arrangement between +his father and the Duke by which the commission was delayed. For some +months he spent a random life as the occupier of Temple's chambers in +the vicinity of Johnson. Little could be expected of the friend of +Churchill and Wilkes, yet Boswell now was at the turning point of his +career.</p> + +<p>'This is to me,' he writes in his great work, 'a memorable year; for in +it I had the happiness to obtain the acquaintance of that extraordinary +man whose memoirs I am now writing; an acquaintance which I shall ever +esteem as one of the most fortunate circumstances of my life.' We have +seen how Lord Hailes, had on the 1758 circuit, mentioned to him the name +of Johnson; how in Glasgow Gentleman had given him a representation of +'dictionary Johnson;' how Derrick in 1760, during his first visit to +London, had promised to introduce this youth of twenty to the great +dictator of literature; and Sheridan, the father of the dramatist, when +in Edinburgh in 1761, giving public lectures on elocution, had made a +similar promise. But on his return to London at the end of 1762, Boswell +had found that Sheridan had quarrelled with Johnson, and Derrick had +retired to Bath as master of the ceremonies in succession to Beau Nash. +Luckily Derrick had before introduced his friend to Davies, the +bookseller in Covent Garden, who as 'one of the best imitators of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">{30}</a></span> +Johnson's voice and manner' only increased the ardour of Boswell for the +meeting. Now the hour was come and the man. Yet surely never could there +have been a more apparently unpropitious time chosen. Number 45 of the +<i>North Briton</i> denouncing Bute and his Scotch favourites had appeared on +April 23rd. The minister had bowed to the storm and resigned, while the +writer of the libel had been arrested under a general warrant and +discharged on the 30th of the month under appeal, either to be hanged, +thought Adam Smith, or to get Bute impeached in six months. Alexander +Cruden, of <i>Concordance</i> fame, was rambling over London in his lucid +interval like an inverted Old Mortality, busy with a sponge obliterating +every hated '45' scrawled over the walls and every conceivable spot in +the city against his country. Yet at such an hour it was that the famous +meeting of Johnson and his biographer took place.</p> + +<p>'At last, on Monday the 16th of May, when I was sitting in Mr Davies' +back-parlour, after having drunk tea with him and Mrs Davies, Johnson +unexpectedly came into the shop; and Mr Davies having perceived him +through the glass door in the room in which we were sitting, advancing +towards us,—he announced his awful approach to me, somewhat in the +manner of an actor in the part of Horatio, when he addresses Hamlet on +the appearance of his father's ghost, "Look, my lord, it comes." I found +that I had a very perfect idea of Johnson's figure, from the portrait of +him painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds.... Mr Davies mentioned my name, and +respectfully introduced me to him. I was much agitated; and recollecting +his prejudice against the Scotch, of which I had heard much, I said to +Davies, "Don't tell where I come from."—"From Scotland," cried Davies +roguishly. "Mr Johnson," said I, "I do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">{31}</a></span> indeed come from Scotland, but I +cannot help it." ... "That, sir, I find is what a very great many of +your countrymen cannot help." This stroke stunned me a good deal; and +when we had sat down, I felt myself not a little embarrassed, and +apprehensive of what might come next.... Eager to take any opening to +get into conversation with him, I ventured to say, "Oh, sir, I cannot +think Mr Garrick would grudge such a trifle to you." "Sir," said he, +with a stern look, "I have known David Garrick longer than you have +done, and I know no right you have to talk to me on the subject." +Perhaps I deserved this check,' etc., etc.</p> + +<p>Next day Boswell called on Davies, who assured him that the doctor would +not take it amiss if he were to visit him; and so, a week later, 'after +being entertained by the witty sallies of Messieurs Thornton, Wilkes, +Churchill and Lloyd,' from whom he would hear plenty of vigorous abuse +of his country, and whose names we may take it as certain were not +mentioned to his new friend, Boswell boldly repaired to Johnson. Nothing +is more striking than the contrast between the hitherto reckless Bozzy +and the easy assurance and composure with which he faces Johnson, sits +up with the sage, sups at the Mitre, leads the conversation, and +apparently holds his own in the discussions. Doubtless, the 'facility of +manners' which Adam Smith has said was a feature of the man, was here of +service to him, and no less so would have been the flattering way in +which he managed to inform Johnson of his reputation over the Border. +Boswell was not slow to write to Lord Hailes, knowing full well how the +report of such an acquaintance and friendship would be welcome at +Auchinleck as the signs of an approaching reformation. Goldsmith, whom +he met shortly after, he entertained at the Mitre with a party of +friends,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">{32}</a></span> among whom was the Rev. Dr John Ogilvie, the author of some +portentous and completely forgotten epics, but who is not yet quite lost +to sight as the writer of the sixty-second paraphrase of Scripture, 'Lo! +in the last of days behold.' A subsequent 'evening by ourselves' he +describes to Lord Hailes in the wariest manner, so as to secure his +father's consent to a plan of travel. The old judge had wished his son +to follow the profession of law which had now in their family become +quite hereditary, and had coupled this with a scheme of study at +Utrecht, after the plan he had himself followed at Leyden. A compromise +had, in fact, been arranged by which this was to be pursued, and the +career of arms dropped. Nothing can be more adroit than the way in which +the young hopeful about to embark on the grand tour manages in his +despatch to his lordship, with an eye to the Home Office, to suggest the +furtherance of his own ideas under the supposed guise of Johnson's +approval. 'He advises me to combat idleness as a distemper, to read five +hours every day, but to let inclination direct me what to read. He is a +great enemy to a stated plan of study. He advises me when abroad to go +to places where there is most to be seen and learned. He is not very +fond of the notion of spending a whole winter in a Dutch town. He thinks +I may do much more by private study than by attending lectures. He would +have me to perambulate (a word in his own style) Spain, also to visit +the northern kingdoms, where more that is new is to be seen than in +France or Italy, but he is not against me seeing these warmer regions.'</p> + +<p>Here, in fact, is the germ of the tour to the Baltic they had hoped when +at Dunvegan one day to carry out, for which Johnson, when in his +sixty-eighth year was still ready, and which Boswell thought would have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">{33}</a></span> +made them acquainted with the King of Sweden, and the Empress of Russia. +On a later day of the month he asked his friend to the Mitre to meet his +uncle Dr John, 'an elegant scholar and a physician bred in the School of +Boerhaave,' and George Dempster, M.P. for the Forfar Burghs. As the +latter was infected with the sceptical views of Hume, there would seem +to have been a scene, for in the <i>Life</i> Johnson is made to say, 'I have +not met with any man for a long time who has given me such general +displeasure,' but Boswell, ever with an eye for copy, writes to Temple, +'it was a very fertile evening, and my journal is stored with its +fruits.' Then to Lord Hailes he writes: '<i>Entre nous</i> of +Dempster,—Johnson had seen a pupil of Hume and Rousseau totally +unsettled as to principles. I had infinite satisfaction in hearing solid +truth confuting vain subtilty. I thank God that I have got acquainted +with Mr Johnson. He has done me infinite service. He has assisted me to +obtain peace of mind; he has assisted me to become a rational Christian; +I hope I shall ever remain so.' Pleasantly all this would sound at home. +There would be less now heard of his father's threat in May to +disinherit him, and of the son's appeal to Lord Hailes to intercede with +him—'to have patience with me for a year or two, and I may be what he +pleases.' On July 15th he has had a long letter from his father, full of +affection and good counsel. 'Honest man,' he writes to Temple, 'he is +now happy. He insists on having my solemn promise. The only question is, +how much I am to promise.' Then on the 25th he has his letters of credit +and his introductions to people in Holland. 'They have been sent open +for me to seal, so I have been amused to see the different modes of +treating that favourite subject <i>myself</i>.' He is to be allowed Ł240 a +year, but he is determined not to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">{34}</a></span> straitened, nor to encourage the +least narrowness, but to draw on his father when necessary. Wilkes had +gone to France, but had let him have some franks 'to astonish a few +North Britons.' Parting for a time with Temple, whose family was now in +straitened circumstances, he assures him that their friendship should be +'an exalted comfort' to him in his distress, and concludes +characteristically enough with advice to Temple's younger brother in the +army for his establishment in 'solid notions of religion and morality.'</p> + +<p>Before he bids his native land good-night, there is a final letter to +Hailes with his father, Jortin, and the actress all well in his mind's +eye. 'My scepticism,' he says, 'was not owing to thinking wrong, but to +not thinking at all. It is a matter of great moment to keep a sense of +religion constantly impressed upon our minds. If that divine guest does +not occupy part of the space, vain intruders will,'—the fine old roll +of Micawber to the close. Johnson on the 5th August started with him for +Harwich in the stage coach, half in hopes of visiting Holland in the +summer, and accompanying Bozzy in a tour through the Netherlands. 'I +must see thee out of England,' said the old man kindly. On the beach +they parted, and '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.' Boswell's attendance upon his new friend had not +escaped the notice of the doctor's circle. 'Who,' asked one, 'is this +Scotch cur at Johnson's heels?' 'Not a cur, but a bur,' was Goldsmith's +reply, 'and he has the faculty of sticking.' With what effect the world +was to know.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">{35}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">THE CONTINENT—CORSICA. 1763-66</span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'That's from Paoli of Corsica.'—<span class="smcap">Goldsmith</span>, '<i>The Good Natured +Man</i>.'</p></div> + + +<p>'Utrecht,' writes Boswell, 'seeming at first very dull to me after the +animated scenes of London, my spirits were grievously affected.' But the +depression was not destined to last, and soon we hear of his having +wearied of the proposed two years' course of study. The custom of legal +training in some of the universities of the Continent was about this +time coming to a close, though for long it had remained usual, at least +with the landed classes of Scotland, to secure such an extended field of +study for the bar by an attendance at some of the more developed schools +of jurisprudence in Holland. Cunningham, the celebrated critic of +Bentley, had given prelections in Leyden, and no reader of the <i>Heart of +Midlothian</i> will forget the laments of the inimitable Bartoline +Saddletree over his not being sent to Leyden or Utrecht to study the +Institutes and the Pandects. Since the days of Gilbert Jack at Leyden, +the connection between Holland and the Scottish universities had been +close, and the garrets of Amsterdam had been crowded before the +Revolution by refugees from both Scotland and England who maintained, +upon their return, the ties they had contracted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">{36}</a></span> in their exile. Even +Fielding had been sent to Leyden for law, and just before the visit of +Boswell, to which his father had consented rather as a compromise than +from any practical benefit that might ensue, the law of Scotland, +largely based on Roman and feudal precedents, had received fresh +extensions of conveyancing and other branches of jurisprudence, through +the mass of forfeited estates brought into the market after the +suppression of the Jacobite Rebellions. What country, then, could so +rapidly afford such a course of legal study as the Protestant and +commercial Holland? The reputation of Boerhaave had drawn medical +students from all quarters, and Boswell's uncle John, and the celebrated +Monro <i>primus</i> of the Edinburgh Medical School had been among the +number. Goldsmith in 1755 met Irish medical students there, and some +twenty years before the time we have reached Carlyle of Inveresk had +found in Leyden 'an established lodging-house' where his countrymen, +Gregory and Dickson, were domiciled, and numerous others, among whom he +expressly mentions Charles Townshend, Askew the Greek scholar, Johnston +of Westerhall, Doddeswell, afterwards Chancellor of the Exchequer, and +John Wilkes then entering, at eighteen, on the career of profligacy that +was to render him notorious. Carlyle describes their meetings at each +other's rooms twice or thrice a week, when they drank coffee, supped on +Dutch red herrings, eggs and salad, and never sat beyond the decent hour +of twelve. For such a style of living Boswell's annual allowance of Ł240 +was certainly handsome in a place where the fuel, chiefly peat, was the +only expensive item.</p> + +<p>But such a quiet style of life was not congenial to the lively tastes of +our traveller. He soon tired of the civil law lectures of Professor +Trotz, and longed for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">{37}</a></span> fresh woods and pastures new. He sighed to be +upon his travels again. Of his life abroad some isolated notes may be +gathered from the <i>Boswelliana</i>, and, as has been mentioned, he sought +out his relatives at the Hague 'of the first fashion,' the Sommelsdycks, +and with his facility of manners, and his father's credentials to the +<i>literati</i> and scholars of the place, his circle of acquaintance was +large and influential. We hear of an intimacy with the Rev. William +Brown, minister of the Scottish congregation at Utrecht, the father of +Principal Laurence Brown of Marischal College, Aberdeen; and with Sir +Joseph Yorke, whom he met later in Ireland, then the Ambassador at the +Hague, he would appear to have been acquainted. But Sir Joseph does not +seem to have welcomed the easy manners of his young friend, and the dull +life of the burgomasters was little suited to Boswell who ridicules +their portly figures and their clothes which they wore as if they had +been 'luggage.'</p> + +<p>The two years' course of study was abruptly reduced to one. At its close +we trace him at Berlin in July 1764, and in close relations with the +British Envoy at the Prussian Court. Fortunately for Boswell this was +both a countryman and a friend of his father's, Sir Andrew Mitchell, the +late M.P. for the Banff Burghs. By the Ambassador he was introduced to +the best society in the capital, and from Berlin he wrote to his father +representing the urgent necessity of extending his travels, and, till +the letter in reply should arrive, he proceeded into Hanover and +Brunswick. On his return to Berlin towards the end of August he found a +letter waiting him from Lord Auchinleck, who was naturally chagrined at +the breakdown of his scheme of compromise. A visit to Paris he was +prepared to allow, but the return of the wanderer to Utrecht was +peremptorily commanded. The family of the Envoy was now at Spa,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">{38}</a></span> but +next day Boswell wrote him a letter urging him to intercede with his +father for the proposed extension. The letter is a very long one, and +its abridgement even is impossible here, but few more Boswellian +productions can be found. He has, he tells Sir Andrew, a melancholy +disposition, and to escape from the gloom of dark speculation he has +made excursions into the fields of folly, and in this tone of the +Preacher in <i>Ecclesiastes</i> he rambles on. The words of St Paul, 'I must +see Rome,' he finds are borne in upon him, and such a journey would +afford him the talk for a lifetime, the more so that he was no libertine +and disclaimed all intentions of travelling as <i>Milord Anglois</i>, but +simply as the scholar and the man of elegant curiosity. Did not Sir +Andrew as the loved and respected friend of his father think that the +son had a claim to protest before he considered any act regarding +himself as passed, and would not the Envoy remonstrate or persuade the +father as to the justice of his wish? No reply was sent to this, but the +judge, thinking that discretion was the wiser part in circumstances +where it was useless to dictate without the means to enforce compliance, +yielded reluctant consent to the scheme of an Italian tour. Gravely then +does Bozzy rebuke Sir Andrew and for this occasion he forgives him, 'for +I just say the same to young people when I advise. Believe me,' he +somewhat irrelevantly adds, 'I have a soul.'</p> + +<p>Fortune followed him wherever he turned. George, tenth Earl Marischal, +and brother of Frederick the Great's general, Marshal Keith, had joined +the Earl of Mar in the rising of 1715, and had made an ineffectual +descent in 1719 on Glenshiel with the Spaniards. But in the '45 he had +taken no part, and he revealed to the British Government the existence +of the Bourbon Family Compact. In return, his attainder had been +removed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">{39}</a></span> by George II., and on his brief visit to Scotland he had lived +with Boswell's father in Ayrshire, perhaps as a friend of the +Commissioners for the forfeited estates, when the occasion had been +seized by Macpherson for an ode, 'attempted after the manner of Pindar,' +in the fustian style of the translator of Ossian. With him or by his +credentials Boswell went the round of the German courts, passing by +Mannheim and Geneva, reaching the latter towards the end of December. +The reader is struck with the airy assurance and self-possession which +the laureate of the Soapers and the Newmarket Cub manifests on the grand +tour, conducting himself at three and twenty with complete success at +the courts of German princes, conversing with plenipotentiaries and +dignitaries of all sorts in French and Italian, for German had not yet +risen into sufficient historical or diplomatic importance to add to the +linguistic burdens of mankind. Lord Marischal as the governor of +Neufchatel had acted as the protector of Rousseau, and so was able to +furnish his companion with a letter of introduction, hinting at his +enthusiastic nature and describing him to the philosopher as a visionary +hypochondriac. Voltaire he interviewed at Ferney, and he managed to +please the great man by repeating—a characteristic trait of Bozzy, who +believed such tale-bearing to be vastly conducive to the practice of +benevolence—Johnson's criticism upon Frederick the Great's writings, +'such as you may suppose Voltaire's foot-boy to do, who has been his +amanuensis.' He broached the subject of the philosophy of the +unconscious, and was eager to know how ideas forgotten at the time were +yet later on recollected. The other replied by a quotation from +Thomson's <i>Winter</i> with the writer's question, as to the winds,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'In what far distant region of the sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hushed in silence sleep ye when 'tis calm?'<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">{40}</a></span></div></div> + +<p>The attempt to draw out Voltaire upon the tour to the Hebrides, which +Boswell and Johnson had been vaguely talking over, produced only the +rather sarcastic query if he wished him to accompany them, with a look +'as if I had talked of going to the North Pole.' Of his visit to the +wild philosopher, as he styles Rousseau, we have no notice, beyond the +general remark that they had agreed to differ alike in politics and +religion, but that there were points <i>oů nos âmes sont unies</i>. The +feudal dogmas of Boswell and his rigid adherence to his pet idea of 'the +grand scheme of subordination' were of course not likely to be pleasing +to the sceptical <i>aqua fortis</i> of the sombre Genevese, with his belief +in the fraternity of mankind and the greatness of the untutored Indian.</p> + +<p>Boswell crossed the Alps, and either then or upon his homeward journey +visited Bologna, Venice, and Mantua. He passed through Rome and, unknown +to either, may have met Gibbon in the Eternal City into whose mind, some +weeks before, 'as I sat musing among the ruins of the Capitol while the +bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter,' had +started the idea of writing the <i>Decline and Fall</i>. In the city he met +Andrew Lumsden, the Secretary of Prince Charles Edward, but we are not +informed if the young Jacobite of five, who had prayed for the exiled +family now sought any opportunity of making himself known to the object +of his devotion. Naples brought him into the more congenial society of +Wilkes with whom, he says, he 'enjoyed many classical scenes with +peculiar relish.' When Churchill had died at Boulogne in the arms of +Wilkes, the latter had retired to Naples to inscribe his sorrow 'in the +close style of the ancients' upon an urn of alabaster which had been the +gift of Winckelmann, and in that city now he was, as the literary +executor, preparing annotations on the works of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">{41}</a></span> Churchill. Boswell +managed with his curious want of tact in such matters, fitting the man +who could suggest cards to a dying friend with an uneasy conscience, to +hint that the poet had 'bounced into the regions below,' and to render +the <i>Il Bruto Inglese</i>, by which the papers of the land referred to +Wilkes and liberty, by a version significant of the notorious ugliness +of his gay acquaintance. Naples, as with Milton, was the limit of his +tour, and from it he returned to Rome. He reached that city in April +1765, and dispatched a letter to Rousseau, then 'living in romantick +retirement' in Switzerland, requesting his promised introduction to the +Corsican general, 'which if he refused, I should certainly go without +it, and probably be hanged as a spy.' The wild philosopher was as good +as his word, and the letter met the traveller at Florence. 'The charms +of sweet Siena detained me no longer than they should have done, I +required the hardy air of Corsica to brace me, after the delights of +Tuscany,' an enigmatical turn of expression upon which light is thrown +later, when we discuss the love affairs of Boswell, by a reference to a +dark-eyed 'signora' on whom the tender traveller had glanced. At Leghorn +he was within one day's sail of Corsica.</p> + +<p>Pascal Paoli was the Garibaldi of his day. When his father in 1738 had +been driven from the island by the French, he had retired with him to +Naples where he entered a military college and followed the profession +of arms. The way was paved for his return by the disturbances in the +island in 1755, and so successful was he in his guerilla warfare as +general against the Genoese, the owners of Corsica, that they were +speedily driven to sue for peace. It was in a sort of lull in the storm +of hostilities that our traveller made his unexpected appearance, and +the adroit way in which he managed to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">{42}</a></span> lay his plans of action and to +carry them out with such complete success calls for our admiration. In +his <i>Tour</i> he simply says that 'having resolved to pass some years +abroad (this is excellent, after his letter to Sir Andrew) for my +instruction and entertainment, I conceived a design of visiting the +Island of Corsica. I wished for something more than just the common +course of what is called the tour of Europe, and Corsica occurred to me +as a place where nobody else had been.' It may have been suggested to +him by Rousseau, who had been engaged in some vague scheme of +philandering philanthropy by which the wild philosopher was to play the +Solon and the Lycurgus of the distressed islanders, and establish a +fresh code of laws upon the basis of his new fraternity, but with which +'this steady patriot of the world alone,' as Canning styles him, 'the +friend of every country but his own,' managed to mix in a much more +practical way some not very honourable, if characteristic, intrigues for +the surrender of the island to France.</p> + +<p>Bozzy, at all events, was determined to make a bold bid for fame. +Nothing like this had occurred, as an opening, during all his tour. The +dangers of the plan were fully known to him, and the possibility was +laid before his eyes of capture at the hands of the Barbary corsairs and +a term of imprisonment at Algiers. Our adventurer waited on the +commodore in command of the British squadron in the bay of Leghorn, and +he was provided with a passport, the value of which against the +threatened dangers does not sufficiently appear. Before he left Leghorn, +his proposed visit had come to be regarded in a very serious light by +Italian politicians. They saw in him an envoy from the British intrusted +with powers to negotiate a treaty with Corsica, and all disclaimers of +any such intention<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">{43}</a></span> were politely treated as an evasion. Bozzy was in +consequence viewed as 'a very close young man,' a trait that at no time +of his life was ever applicable to James Boswell, on whom, indeed, the +advice given by Sir Henry Wotton to Milton would have been thrown away. +Putting out to sea in a Tuscan vessel bound for Capo Corso for wine, he +had two days to spend on board in consequence of a dead calm. 'At +sunset,' he says, 'all the people in the ship sang <i>Ave Maria</i> with +great devotion and some melody.' One recalls the similar circumstances +under which Cardinal Newman found himself becalmed on the orange-boat in +the Straits of Bonifacio. For some hours he had put himself in spirits +by taking a hand at the oar, and at seven in the evening of the second +day they landed in the harbour of Centuri. He delivered his credentials, +and on Sunday heard a Corsican sermon, where the preacher told of +Catharine of Siena who wished to be laid in the mouth of the awful pit, +that she might stop it up, and so prevent the falling in of more souls. +'I confess, my brethren,' cried the friar, 'I have not such zeal, but I +do what I can, I warn you how to avoid it.'</p> + +<p>At Corte, the capital of the island, he waited boldly upon the Supreme +Council. He was gravely received, as befitted a supposed British envoy, +and lodged in the apartment of Paoli in a Franciscan convent. Next day, +the old petitioner for a commission in the Guards found the first and +last military experience of his life. Three French deserters waited on +him in the belief that he came to recruit soldiers for Scotland, and +'begged to have the honour of going along with me.' Nor was the idea so +absurd as he seems to have viewed it, for from the <i>Scots Magazine</i> of a +somewhat later date we learn that British Volunteers and Highlanders<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">{44}</a></span> +disbanded after the wars had been enlisted in the service of Paoli. But +it is not improbable that the deserters had heard of Boswell's +nationality from the woman of Penrith whom he found in the island, +married to a French soldier in the army of the Pretender, whose fortunes +she had followed when they had passed through Carlisle on the retreat +from Derby. Another feature of Boswell, one whose consideration and +explanation we shall attempt later on, now for the first time meets us, +his inveterate love for interviewing criminals, and accordingly, 'as I +wished to see all things in Corsica,' he had a meeting with the hangman +who seemed sensible of his situation. The inhabitants crowded round him +at a village as he advanced, and questioned the traveller, as Coleridge +at Valetta found himself similarly interrogated, as to his professing +himself a Christian when he did not believe in the Pope—<i>e perche</i>, and +why? The old candidate for the priesthood managed to deftly evade this +query by an assurance that in Britain the people were too far off and in +a theological climate of their own. He was in the highest humour, and in +this unusual flow of spirits he harangued the men of Bastelica with +great fluency, getting, however, at Sollacaro somewhat nervous as the +interview with the Corsican leader drew nigh. Paoli lived in constant +dread of assassination, and the sudden arrival of this mysterious +stranger was strongly calculated to arouse suspicions. For ten minutes, +in silence, he looked at Boswell, who broke in with the remark that he +was a gentleman from Scotland upon his travels and had lately visited +Rome from which, having seen the ruins of one brave people, he was now +come to view the rise of another. The general was not quite set at ease +by this sententiously balanced sentence, and years after he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">{45}</a></span> told Miss +Burney about his impressions at the time of the mysterious stranger. It +shews the ruling passion strong in life, and that Boswell, as 'the +chiel' amang them takin' notes,' forgot the rules of ordinary courtesy +and prudence in the gratification of his darling method. 'He came to my +country sudden,' said Paoli in his broken English, 'and he fetched me +some letters of recommending him. And I supposed, in my <i>mente</i> he was +in the privacy one espy; for I look away from him to my other companies, +and when I look back to him I behold it in his hands his tablet, and one +pencil. O, he was at the work, I give it you my honour, of writing down +all what I say to some persons whatsoever in the room. I was angry +enough, pretty much so. But soon I found out I was myself the monster he +came to observe. O, he is a very good man Mr Boswell at the bottom, so +witty, cheerful, so talkable. But at the first, Oh I was indeed <i>fache</i> +of the sufficient.' This first glimpse of Bozzy at work is delightful. +He was in fact "making himself," all unknown the while, as Shortreed +said of Scott over the Liddesdale raids.</p> + +<p>He dined with the general and suite. In spite of, perhaps by very reason +of, his protestations of having no diplomatic mission, the highest +attention was shewn him as an accredited envoy from St James'. In the +morning chocolate was served up to him on a silver salver with the +national arms; he rode out on the general's horse, with guards marching +before him. Paoli knew sufficient English to maintain the dialogue, +having picked up some slight knowledge of the tongue from Irish refugee +officers in the Neapolitan service. His library was turned over by his +inquisitive guest, who found among the books some odd volumes of <i>The +Spectator</i> and <i>The Tatler</i>, Pope's <i>Essay on Man</i>, <i>Gulliver's +Travels</i>, and Barclay's <i>Apology for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">{46}</a></span> Quakers</i>. His good humour, as +it had won on the general, endeared the supposed <i>ambasciadore Inglese</i> +to the peasants, and he had a Corsican dress made for him. Of that +dress—'in which I walked about with an air of true satisfaction'—every +one who has heard of James Boswell has read, and it is inseparable +somehow from our conceptions of the man and writer.</p> + +<p>We select from this Corsican Tour—the least known to the general reader +of Boswell's three great works—what seems to us the gem of the +book:—'One day they must needs hear me play upon my German flute. To +have told my honest natural visitants, 'Really, gentlemen, I play very +ill,' and put on such airs as we do in our genteel companies, would have +been highly ridiculous. I therefore immediately complied with their +request. I gave them one or two Italian airs, and then some of our +beautiful old Scots tunes, <i>Gilderoy</i>, <i>The Lass o' Patie's Mill</i>, <i>Corn +Riggs are Bonny</i>.' The pathetick simplicity and pastoral gaiety of the +Scots musick will always please those who have the genuine feelings of +nature. The Corsicans were charmed with the specimens I gave them, +though I may now say that they were very indifferently performed. My +good friends insisted also to have an English song from me. I +endeavoured to please them in this, too. I sung them 'Hearts of Oak are +our Ships, Hearts of Oak are our Men.' I translated it into Italian for +them, and never did I see men so delighted as the Corsicans were. +'<i>Cuore di querco</i>,' cried they, '<i>bravo Inglese!</i>' It was quite a +joyous riot. I fancied myself to be a recruiting sea officer. I fancied +all my chorus of Corsicans aboard the British fleet.'</p> + +<p>How admirable is the style of all this, equal quite to Goldsmith's best +and lightest touch! Exquisite, too, is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">{47}</a></span> that picture of Bozzy, as the +rollicking British stage-tar of tradition, in his rendering of Garrick's +song, the gems from the Opera and the national melodies. Allan Ramsay's +song in Corsica is to be equalled only by Goldsmith on <i>his</i> tour when +he played, but not for amusement, <i>Barbara Allan</i> and <i>Johnny +Armstrong's Good Night</i> before the doors of Italian convents and Flemish +homesteads.</p> + +<p>But the highstrung Bozzy had to experience a revulsion of low feelings +to which he was ever prone. He is soon in a sort of Byronic fit, and he +continues in a strain with which we should have not credited the 'gay +classic friend of Jack Wilkes' and of that Sienese <i>signora</i>, unless he +had turned evidence against himself. He declared his feelings to Paoli, +as he had done to Johnson, whose curt advice had been not to confuse or +resolve the common consequences of irregularity into an unalterable +decree of destiny. To the general he now attributed his feeling of the +vanity of life, the exhaustion in the very heat of youth of all the +sweets of being, and the incapacity for taking part in active life to +his 'metaphysical researches,' his reasoning beyond his depth on such +subjects as it is not given to man to know. These hesitances the other +wisely pushed aside with the soldierly advice to strengthen his mind by +the perusal of Livy and Plutarch. In return Bozzy gave an imitation of +'my revered friend Mr Samuel Johnson,' little dreaming that all three +would one day be intimate in London, and the general's house in Portman +Square be always at the traveller's disposal. From the palace, as he +styles it, of Paoli, Nov. 1765 he wrote to Johnson, as he had done +before, 'from a kind of superstition agreeable to him as to myself,' +from what he calls <i>loca solennia</i>—places of solemn interest. 'I dare +to call this a spirited tour. I dare to challenge your approbation;' +and,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">{48}</a></span> reading it twenty years later in the original which the old man +had preserved, he found it full of 'generous enthusiasm.' No account of +the continental travels of Boswell would be complete without the +reproduction of his letter to the doctor from Wittenberg. It is one of +the most important for the more subtle shades of psychology in the +writer's character.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p style="text-align: right;">'<i>Sunday, Sept. 30, 1764.</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">My ever dear and much respected Sir</span>,—You know my solemn +enthusiasm of mind. You love me for it, and I respect myself +for it, because in so far I resemble Mr Johnson. You will be +agreeably surprized when you learn the reason of my writing +this letter. I am at Wittenberg in Saxony. I am in the old +church where the Reformation was first preached, and where some +of the Reformers lie interred. I cannot resist the serious +pleasure of writing to Mr Johnson from the tomb of Melancthon. +My paper rests upon the gravestone of that great and good man +who was undoubtedly the best of all the Reformers.... At this +tomb, then, my ever dear and respected friend! I vow to thee an +eternal attachment. It shall be my study to do what I can to +render your life happy: and if you die before me, I shall +endeavour to do honour to your memory and, elevated by the +remembrance of you, persist in noble piety. May God, the father +of all beings, ever bless you! and may you continue to love +your most affectionate friend, and devoted servant,—<span class="smcap">James +Boswell.</span>'</p></div> + +<p>So early had Boswell made his resolve to be the biographer of Johnson. +On the very day of his introduction to him, he had taken notes of all +that had passed in Davies' back-parlour. He was none of the men that do +things by halves, and blunder into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">{49}</a></span> a kind of success, as some of his +depreciators have thought.</p> + +<p>Six weeks he had been in Corsica. The first day of December saw him land +at Genoa on his return, Lyons was reached on the third day of the new +year, Paris one week later. Here Rousseau who had preceded him to London +had provided him with a curious commission, the bringing over into +England of his mistress Therese Levasseur. The easy-going Hume thus +announces the fact to his friend the Countess de Boufflers. +'Mademoiselle sets out with a friend of mine, a young gentleman, very +good humoured, very agreeable, and very mad. He has such a rage for +literature that I dread some event fatal to my friend's honour. For +remember the story of Terentia who was first married to Cicero, then to +Sallust, and at last in her old age married a young nobleman, who +imagined that she must possess some secret which would convey to him +eloquence and genius.' A letter he found waiting from Johnson, together +with one announcing the death of his mother. No more was heard about a +second year at Utrecht. He crossed to London, and was again with his old +friend, who had moved from the Temple to a good house in Johnson's +Court, in Fleet Street. Goldsmith was no longer the obscure writer whom +he had left behind, but the author of the <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i> and the +<i>Traveller</i>. The club had been founded. He was encouraged by the sage to +publish his account of his travels in Corsica—'you cannot go to the +bottom, but all that you tell us will be new.'</p> + +<p>He dined at the Mitre as of old, and presented Temple to Johnson. No +word about his companion across the Channel, naturally enough, reached +the old man's ears, but he mentioned Rousseau; though he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">{50}</a></span> recognised he +was now in a new moral atmosphere where every attempt was resented to +'unhinge or weaken good principles.' On a modified defence of the +philosopher, whose works he professed had afforded him edification, he +did venture, but thinking it enough to defend one at a time Boswell said +nothing 'of my gay friend Wilkes.' In the Paris <i>salons</i> of that winter +Wilkes, Sterne, Foote, Hume, and Rousseau, had been the received lions. +Hume had taken up the wild philosopher whose melodramatic Armenian dress +had been the attraction at the houses of the leaders of society, the +ladies who (says Horace Walpole who was there this year) 'violated all +the duties of life and gave very pretty suppers.' It was the day of +Anglomania on the Continent, when the name of Chatham was a name to +conjure with, and Hume was expounding deism to the great ladies,—'when +the footmen were in the room,' adds the shocked Horace,—lionizing Hume +'who is the only thing they believe in implicitly; which they must do, +for I defy them to understand any language that he speaks,' in allusion +to the broad Scottish accent of the philosopher.</p> + +<p>The fantastic attire of Rousseau may have suggested to Bozzy the +Corsican dress in his valise, or he may have construed into a command, +willingly enough, the hint Paoli had dropped to let them know at home +how affairs were going. He waited on Chatham with it, and was received +pompously but graciously, says the Earl of Buchan who was present, for a +touch of melodrama was not uncongenial to the great minister, the +'Pericles of Great Britain,' as the general had styled him. Bozzy +thanked him 'for the very genteel manner in which you are pleased to +treat me.' In return, Chatham eulogized Paoli as one of Plutarch's men, +as Cardinal de Retz had said of Montrose.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">{51}</a></span></p> + +<p>He saw Auchinleck in somewhat altered circumstances from those in which, +four years before, he had left his father's house, riding through +Glasgow 'in a cocked hat, a brown wig, brown coat made in the court +fashion, red vest, corduroy small clothes, and long military-looking +boots, with his servant riding a most aristocratic distance behind.' He +had left it likely to vex the soul of his father, the laureate of +doggerel, threatening to be the disgrace of the family; he returned as +the acquaintance, in varying degrees of intimacy, of Johnson, Wilkes, +Churchill, Goldsmith, the Earl Marischal, Voltaire, Rousseau, Paoli, +Chatham, and plenipotentiaries of all kinds. A wonderful list for the +raw youth they had known at home; yet nowhere in all his intercourse +does he show the least want of self-possession or easy bearing. The +'facility of manners' and his good humour had carried him all through +his curious experiences with German courts and Italian peasants. A +'spirited tour,' truly, if perhaps the moral results had been greater. +The nobility and gentry of this country were welcomed abroad with but +too great avidity. Italy, the garden of Europe, Bozzy declared to be the +Covent Garden, and isolated passages in his book shew that he could not +claim, like Milton, to have borne himself truly 'in all these places +where so many things are considered lawful.' Fox, we know, did not +escape the contagion of the grand tour, and Boswell had been 'caught +young.'</p> + +<p>Nor will the reader find much fault in what the adverse critics have +unduly emphasized—his interviewing or forcing himself upon men. A man, +as Johnson said to him when seeking an interlocutor on this point, +always makes himself greater as he increases his knowledge. When he was +at Dunvegan on his northern tour, and Colonel Macleod seemed to hint at +this, Bozzy offers as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">{52}</a></span> his defence of what 'has procured me much +happiness' the eagerness he ever felt to share the society of men +distinguished by their rank or talents. If a man, he adds, is praised +for seeking knowledge, though mountains and seas are in his way, he may +be pardoned in the pursuit of the same object under difficulties as +great though of a different kind. And the defence will not be refused +him for the use he has made of the means. Wisdom and literature alike +are justified of their children, and the masters in either are not so +numerous that we can afford to quarrel with them, or wrangle over their +respective merits. 'Sensation,' said Johnson, '<i>is</i> sensation,' and the +pretty general feeling now is that in his department Boswell is a +master.</p> + +<p>From his first setting out, he had written down every night what he had +noted during the day, 'throwing together that I might afterwards make a +selection at leisure.' He was to try his 'prentice hand on his <i>Tour in +Corsica</i> before shewing his strength in his two greater works. Mrs +Barbauld regarded him as no ordinary traveller, with</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Working thoughts which swelled the breast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of generous Boswell, when with noble aim<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And views beyond the narrow beaten track<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By trivial fancy trod, he turned his course<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From polished Gallia's soft delicious vales.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Such thoughts were perhaps really foreign to that traveller, yet Dr Hill +assures us that by every Corsican of education the name of Boswell is +known and honoured. One curious circumstance is given. At Pino, when +Boswell fancying himself 'in a publick house' or inn, had called for +things, the hostess had said <i>una cosa dopo un altra, signore</i>, 'one +thing after another, sir.' This has lingered as a memento of Bozzy in +Corsica, and has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">{53}</a></span> been found by Dr Hill to be preserved among the +traditions in the Tomasi family. Translations of the book in Italian, +Dutch, French, and German, spread abroad the name of the traveller who, +if like a prophet without honour in his own country, has not been +without it elsewhere.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">{54}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">EDINBURGH BAR—STRATFORD JUBILEE. 1766-69</span></h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'A clerk, foredoomed his father's soul to cross,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who pens a stanza, when he should engross.'—<span class="smcap">Pope.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>The return of the prodigal to Auchinleck would seem at first to have +been attended with some satisfaction to both father and son. The father +might now believe that he was entitled to consideration from the son, as +a reward for his long-continued indulgence to the traveller, who might +in his turn reflect on the advantages which he derived from such a +protracted tour. Accordingly, in his papers of the April of this year, +we find the following entry:—'My father said to me, "I am much pleased +with your conduct in every respect." After all my anxiety while abroad, +here is the most perfect approbation and calm of mind. I never felt such +<i>sollid</i> (<i>sic</i>) happiness.' But the philosopher, who with Paoli had +compared his mind to a camera obscura, reappears unfortunately in the +next entry. 'But I find I am not so happy with this approbation and this +calm as I expected to be. But why do I say alas! when I really look upon +this life merely as a transient state?' To this curious expression of +Boswell we shall refer when we discuss at the close his religious and +philosophical views, but it is distressing to find such whimsicalities +colouring his sense of the old man's kindness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">{55}</a></span> when he writes but +shortly after, 'I must stay at Auchinleck, I have there just the kind of +complaining proper for me. All must complain, and I more than most of my +fellow-creatures.'</p> + +<p>On the 26th July 1766 he passed advocate at the bar. On putting on his +gown he remarked to his brother-advocates, as he says, that his natural +propensities had led him to a military life, but now that he had been +pressed by his father into the service he did not doubt but that he +should shew as good results as those who had joined as volunteers. His +gay friend Wilkes had declared that he would be out-distanced in the +professional race by dull plodders and blockheads, but at the outset he +appears to have started with a fair amount of zest. He dedicated his +inaugural thesis to the son of the Earl of Bute, Lord Mountstuart, with +whom he had travelled in Italy, and on whom he flattered himself he had +made some impression, the first of Boswell's many ineffectual attempts +to secure place and promotion, for on a seat in Parliament he had four +years before set his heart. A copy of the thesis was sent to Johnson, +who by this time had rather cooled over the proposed publication by his +friend of a book on Corsica. 'You have no materials,' he said, 'which +others have not or may not have. You have warmed your imagination. I +wish there were some cure like the lover's leap for all heads of which +some single idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular possession. +Mind your own affairs and leave the Corsicans to theirs.' Touching on +the faulty Latinity of the essay, 'Ruddiman,' added the old man, 'is +dead.' On entering his new career Bozzy began by vows for his good +conduct. These, a remnant of his old Catholic days, we shall find him +renewing again and again, ludicrously and pathetically enough, however, +as we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">{56}</a></span> draw to the close. Sometimes they appear with reference to +matters with which the knowledge of the unpublished parts of the letters +to Temple, now in the possession of an American collector, has to deal +without suggesting unduly to the more fastidious sense of the present +day the vagaries and weaknesses of their writer. Johnson protested +against this attempt to 'enchain his volatility' by vows. But Boswell +replies that they may be useful to one 'of a variable judgment and +irregular inclinations. For my part, without affecting to be a Socrates, +I am sure I have a more than ordinary struggle to maintain with the Evil +Principle, and all the methods I can devise are little enough to keep me +tolerably steady in the paths of rectitude.' Could the doctor have read +even the published correspondence he would have been at no loss for a +detailed commentary on this defence.</p> + +<p>And coming events now cast their shadow before. That curious feature of +Boswell's character, the mixture of religious sentiments and the Sterne +vein of pietistic moralizing united with laxity in practice, appears +strangely enough in the letter to Temple, dated in the February of 1767, +and sent to his friend who had just been ordained to the living of +Mamhead in Devon. 'I view,' he writes, 'the profession of a clergyman in +an amiable and respectable light. Don't be moved by declamations against +ecclesiastical history, as if that could blacken the sacred order.' He +admits that ecclesiastical history is not the best field for the display +of the virtues in that profession, but we are to judge of the thousands +of worthy divines who have been a blessing to their parishes. He exhorts +his friend to labour cheerfully in the vineyard and to leave not a tare +in Mamhead. In Edinburgh it appears there were specimens; for after this +pious homily he confesses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">{57}</a></span> quietly his own <i>liaison</i> with 'a dear +infidel' of a married woman. But the love affairs of Boswell, one of the +most curious and 'characteristical' (as he would himself have phrased +it) episodes in his life we shall discuss in a connected form in the +next chapter, in order to secure clearness of treatment and +concentration of detail.</p> + +<p>We turn, then, to his career at the bar. There can be no shadow of a +doubt that with proper industry, backed as he was with very strong +social and family connections, he would have secured a lucrative +professional practice. In February of 1767 he is 'coming into great +employment; I have this winter made sixty-five guineas, which is a +considerable sum for a young man,' and the <i>Boswelliana</i> shew him in +easy intercourse with the best society in the Scottish capital. +Belonging as he did to the hereditary <i>noblesse de la robe</i>, as Lockhart +calls it, he was not likely, with but moderate attention, to have stood +like Scott, 'an hour by the Tron, wi' deil ane to speir his price,'—Sir +Walter's fee book shews for the first year a return of Ł24, 3s., and +Ł57, 15s. for the second. As he had years before vowed to Lord Hailes +that he would transcribe Erskine's <i>Institutes</i> several times over till +he had imprinted it on his memory, so now he was hopeful by binding up +the session papers of securing a treasure of law reasoning and a +collection of extraordinary facts. By March he had cleared eighty +guineas, and was 'Surprised at myself, I speak with so much ease and +boldness, and have already the language of the bar so much at command. I +am doing nobly. I can hardly ever answer the letters of my friends.' He +had quarrelled with Rousseau who had likewise broken with Hume, whose +appointment as secretary to Conway had perhaps cured him of his follies +over the wild philosopher. We find Boswell also<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">{58}</a></span> designing squibs which +were in the London printshops, writing verses for them and ridiculing +'The Savage' of his former idolatry.</p> + +<p>Paoli had sent him a long letter of sixteen pages. Chatham in his +retirement at Bath, mystifying the court and his colleagues, could yet +find time to send him a three-paged communication. In reply, the young +traveller assures him that the character of the great minister had +'filled many of my best hours with the noble admiration which a +disinterested soul can enjoy in the bower of philosophy.' He informs his +lordship that he is preparing for publication his Tour in Corsica, that +he has entered at the bar, and 'I begin to like it. I labour hard; and +feel myself coming forward, and I hope to be useful to my country. Could +your Lordship <i>find time to honour me now and then with a letter</i>? I +have been told how favourably your Lordship has spoken of me. To +correspond with a Paoli and a Chatham is enough to keep a young man ever +ardent in the pursuit of a virtuous fame.' In June he expected to be +busier than ever, during the week when his father sat as Judge of the +Outer House, 'for you must know that the absurdity of mankind makes +nineteen out of twenty employ the son of the judge before whom their +case is heard,' an admission which only increases our regret at the want +of professional industry on the part of the son. His addiction to the +society of players only increased the more as his practice at the bar +would have been thought to engross his attention. For the opening of the +Canongate Theatre, on 9th December 1767, he had been induced to write a +prologue to the play of <i>The Earl of Essex</i> with which the newly +licensed house started its career. Part of the opening verses, as spoken +by Ross, 'a very good copy, very concilia<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">{59}</a></span>tory' as the Earl of Mansfield +styled them, runs as follows:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'This night, lov'd <i>George's</i> free enlightened age<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bids <i>Royal favour</i> shield the Scottish stage;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His Royal favour every bosom cheers;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The drama now with dignity appears!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hard is my fate if murmurings there be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because that favour is announced by me.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Anxious, alarm'd, and aw'd by every frown,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May I entreat the candour of the Town?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You see me here by no unworthy art;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My <i>all</i> I venture where I've fix'd my heart.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fondly ambitious of an honest fame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My humble labours your indulgence claim.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I wish to hold no <i>Right</i> but by your choice,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'll trust my patent to the Publick Voice.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The effect of this, aided by friends properly planted in different parts +of the theatre, Boswell assures us was instantaneous and effectual. But +the plaudits given would have been better in a strictly professional +court, and it led, we can see, to the association of Boswell with but +questionable society. 'The joyous crew of thunderers in the galleries,' +as Robert Fergusson describes them, the vulgar cits applying to their +parched lips 'thirst quenching porter,' and the notoriously irregular +lives of the players, all these were ties and associations ill +calculated to appease the just indignation of his father or to add to +forensic reputation in Edinburgh. The Scottish Themis, says Scott, +speaking from his own early experience of much higher literary pursuits, +is peculiarly jealous of any flirtation with the muses on the part of +those who have ranged themselves under her banners, and to them the +least lingering look behind is fatal. Little wonder, then, that the +paternal anger was again roused, when 'the look behind' on his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">{60}</a></span> part was +coupled with the bitter remembrances of the laureate of the Soapers, of +the Erskine Correspondence, and his own long indulgence destined at last +to bear such sorry fruits.</p> + +<p>'How unaccountable it is,' he cries impatiently to Temple, 'that my +father and I should be so ill together! He is a man of sense and a man +of worth; but from some unhappy turn in his disposition he is much +dissatisfied with a son you know.... To give you an instance. I send you +a letter I had a few days ago. I have answered in my own style; I will +be myself! How galling it is to the friend of Paoli to be treated so!' +He confesses his father has 'that Scots strength of sarcasm which is +peculiar to a North Briton,' and that time was when it would have +depressed him. But now he is firm, and, 'as my revered friend Mr Samuel +Johnson used to say,' he feels the privileges of an independent human +being! To add to the confusion of Lord Auchinleck his son had flung +himself with all his enthusiasm into the famous Douglas Trial, the cause +that figures so much to the confusion, it is to be feared, of the +general reader. Of this some full account is necessary in order to +explain that extraordinary trial,—perhaps the most protracted and +famous that ever came before a court,—which, dragging its slow length +along through a longer course than the Peloponnesian War, fills the +shelves of legal libraries with eighteen portly volumes of papers and +reports. In the case Boswell really held no actual brief, though were we +to follow the impression he gives of his services we should infer he had +been leading counsel for the plaintiff, Douglas. 'With a labour of which +few are capable,' says Bozzy, many years after, 'he compressed the +substance of the immense volumes of proofs and arguments into an octavo +pamphlet,' to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">{61}</a></span> which its author believed 'we may ascribe a great share +of the popularity on Mr Douglas's side.' Then he adds in a +characteristic sentence, the meaning of which can be fully appreciated +only by those who have followed his contributions to magazines and the +press of the day, 'Mr Boswell took care to keep the newspapers and other +publications incessantly warm with various writings, both in prose and +in verse, all tending to touch the heart and rouse the parental and +sympathetic feelings.'</p> + +<p>Lady Jane Douglas, sister to Archibald, Duke of Douglas, had been +privately married in 1746 to Colonel Steuart, afterwards Sir John +Steuart of Grandtully. She was then in the forty-ninth year of her age, +and the marriage was not divulged till May 1748 to her brother who had +not been reconciled and had in consequence suspended her allowance. At +Paris, in very humble lodgings, she gave birth to male twins in the +house of a Madame le Brun. The parents in 1749 returned to Scotland +where one of the children died; in 1761 the Duke of Douglas had himself +followed. Three claimants took the field, the Duke of Hamilton as heir +male of line, the Earl of Selkirk as heir of provision under former +deeds, and Archibald Steuart or Douglas. Lady Jane died in 1753, and Sir +John in 1764, both on their death-beds testifying to the legitimacy of +their surviving child. The Duke of Douglas, long prejudiced against this +son's claim by the machinations of the Hamiltons, had revoked the deed +in their favour for a settlement executed in behalf of his sister's son +Archibald. But stories had become rife of that son being the child of a +Nicholas Mignon and Marie Guerin from whom he had been purchased, and an +action to reduce service on a plea of <i>partus suppositio</i> was instituted +by the tutors of the Duke of Hamilton who was then a minor.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">{62}</a></span> In France +negociations were conducted, investigations made, and witnesses examined +by Burnet of Monboddo, Gardenstone, Hailes, and Eskgrove, and at last in +July 1767 the Court of Session issued its decision. Lord Dundas, the +President, speaking first, and dwelling on the age of Lady Jane, +childless by a former marriage, the secrecy of the birth, and the +intrinsic valuelessness of death-bed depositions when set against +pecuniary interests and family pride, recorded his vote in favour of the +Hamiltons. Six days were subsequently taken up with the speeches of the +other judges, and Monboddo, speaking last, voted for Douglas. The +verdict was seven on each side, and by the President's vote the case in +Scotland was won by the pursuers. Kames, Monboddo, and Lord Auchinleck, +were in favour of the defender, Douglas.</p> + +<p>The case was at once by him appealed to the House of Lords. Douglas was +favoured in Scotland, where for years the state of interest had been +such that people in company used to bargain, for the maintenance of +peace, that no mention of this disturbing plea should be introduced. So +high did the feeling run in Edinburgh that the Hamilton party had been +driven from their apartments in Holyrood Palace and their property +plundered. It was fortunate that this loophole of escape to another +court was opened, for before the Union such a cause would have led +almost to civil broil where the rival interests of the factions, through +the ramifications of marriage and other connections, extended so widely. +In earlier days the strife would have ended by an appeal to the sword on +the causeway. All the court influence of the Hamiltons had been bent, +and bent in vain, to secure the exclusion from the bench of Lord +Monboddo, counsel for Douglas, and a duel had been fought between their +agent Andrew<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">{63}</a></span> Stuart and Thurlow the opposing advocate. The excitement +over the verdict of the Lords on Monday, February 27, 1769, was +unprecedented. In the <i>Autobiography of</i> Jupiter Carlyle is fortunately +preserved the account of the scene, witnessed by the doctor himself, who +had been successful in gaining admission to the court, where from nine +in the morning till ten at night he remained, hemmed in by the crowd and +overcome with the oppressive heat. Mansfield spoke over one hour, and, +on his appearing to faint, the Chancellor rushed out for a bottle and +glasses, the current of fresh air being felt by the crowd as a relief. +Finally the verdict of the Scottish courts was reversed without a +division, and a verdict found in favour of Douglas. Hume was not +satisfied of the legitimacy of the pursuer, neither was Lord Shelburne, +and bribery on both sides had been extensively employed, over Ł100,000 +having been calculated to have been spent in this protracted litigation.</p> + +<p>It was on the evening of Thursday, shortly after eight, that the tidings +reached Edinburgh by express. The city was at once illuminated, and next +morning Dundas on his way to the Parliament House was threatened by a +mob such as the town had not seen since the Porteous Riot. Two troops of +dragoons were drafted at once on the same day into the capital. As +usually told, the story, which is vouched for by Ramsay of Ochtertyre, +is that the mob of the night before had been headed by the excited +Boswell, and that the windows of his father's house were smashed. Had +such been the case, it must have been by an oversight on the part of the +mob, or some petulant freak of the son, for on this occasion both +Boswell and his father had for once been unanimous in their belief in +the legitimacy of Douglas. But there is no need for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">{64}</a></span> doubting Ramsay's +assertion that Lord Auchinleck had, with tears in his eyes, to implore +President Dundas to commit his son to the Tolbooth! Not only had Bozzy +taken the field in the November of 1767 with his <i>Essence of the Douglas +Cause</i>, 'which I regretted that Dr Johnson never took the trouble to +study,' even though 'the question interested nations,' and the pamphlet +had produced, as its writer flattered himself, considerable effect in +deciding the case, but he had ventured on a breach of professional +etiquette in publishing <i>Dorando, a Spanish Tale</i>. This brochure was +ordered by the Court of Session to be suppressed as contempt of court, +after it had run through three editions. No copy of this forlorn hope of +the book hunter has ever been found, though doubtless it lurks in some +library where its want of the writer's name upon the title page may have +kept it from making its reappearance. Though it bore no name, yet +Boswell, when writing to Temple over it, speaks of 'My publisher +Wilkie,' and he seems to have been afraid that the copy sent by him +should fall into the hands of strangers. In the <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i> +for July 1767, however, it is reviewed, but the value of the shilling +booklet does not seem to have impressed the critic. 'The Spanish Tale,' +he says, 'supposes the contests to be finally determined in favour of +<i>Don Ferdinand</i> against the family of Ardivoso—but the real question is +still in dispute, having been removed by appeal to the House of Lords. +The pamphlet is zealously but feebly written: the author in some places +affects the sublime, and in some the pathetic; but these are the least +tolerable parts of his performance.' Thus airily does the reviewer +dismiss Bozzy's determined effort to rouse, as he imagined, the parental +and sympathetical feelings, and it is clear at least that, however much +its recovery would add to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">{65}</a></span> stock of harmless pleasure among +professed Boswellians and collectors, its loss cannot be said to have +'eclipsed the gaiety of nations.'</p> + +<p>During the course of the trial the <i>Tour in Corsica</i> had been preparing. +Early in 1768 it was issued from the celebrated press of Robert and +Andrew Foulis in Glasgow, and the publishers were the Dillys in the +Poultry, London, who were to act for him in all his literary +undertakings to the end of his life. It was a lull in the storm of the +Douglas crisis, and the old judge, eager enough to see his son +associated with anything rational, was not unpleased with its appearing +as a pledge of better things. 'Jamie,' he admitted, 'had taen a toot on +a new horn.' The account of Corsica which had been made up from various +sources of information ran to two hundred and thirty-nine pages; but the +real interest of the volume attaches to the <i>Journal</i> which occupies a +hundred and twenty. The translations from Seneca were done by Thomas +Day, then very young, the author of <i>Sandford and Merton</i>, and the +creator of that constellation of excellence, Mr Barlow, whose connection +in any degree with Boswell is almost provocative of a smile. The +peculiar orthography of the writer is defended in the preface, for he +allows himself not only such divergencies as 'tremenduous,' 'authour,' +'ambassadour,' but also 'authentick' and 'panegyrick.' The dedication of +the first edition to Paoli was dated on his own birthday, and the book +ran to a third edition before the October of the same year. As purchased +by the Dillys for a hundred guineas it would appear to have been a +profitable speculation, and the wide circulation to which it attained we +shall see was not merely due to accident but to more solid qualities. +'Pray read,' says Horace Walpole to his friend Gray, 'the new account of +Corsica. The author<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">{66}</a></span> is a strange being, and has a rage of knowing +everybody that ever was talked of. He forced himself upon me at Paris in +spite of my teeth and my doors.' 'Mr B.'s book,' replies Gray—with a +curious anticipation of the Carlylean canon of criticism—'has pleased +and moved me strangely; all I mean that relates to Paoli. The pamphlet +proves, what I have always maintained, that any fool may write a most +valuable book by chance, if he will only tell us what he heard and saw +<i>with veracity</i>. Of Mr B.'s book I have not the least suspicion, because +I am sure he could invent nothing of the kind. The title of this part of +his work is a dialogue between a Green Goose and a Hero.' But Gray was +fastidious, in this case blindly so. The merits of Goldsmith he could +when dying perceive, but the rollicking humour of Bozzy in this his +first book was sealed to the recluse critic who 'never spoke out,' a +thing that never could be safely asserted of the author of the <i>Tour in +Corsica</i>.</p> + +<p>That 'authour,' however, was now bent on extracting the sanction of +approval from his idol. He hastened to London, heralding his arrival, as +was his wont, by a deftly contributed paragraph to the papers. The +society journals of to-day have not improved on Boswell in their method +of obtaining first hand information; he was a most assiduous chronicler +of his own actions, and there can be no doubt that there is much Boswell +'copy' buried in the pages of the papers of the time. From the <i>Public +Advertizer</i> of February 28th we learn 'James Boswell, Esq., is expected +in town,' and, on March 24th, 'yesterday James Boswell, Esq., arrived +from Scotland at his lodgings in Half Moon Street, Piccadilly.' He had +received no letter from Johnson since the one in which the Latinity of +his thesis had been criticised, and Boswell had heard that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">{67}</a></span> the +publication in his book of a letter from his friend had given offence to +its writer. Johnson was in Oxford at the time, and thither flew Bozzy to +obtain the approval of his labours and, with an eye to all future +contingencies, his sanction for the publication <i>in his biography</i> of +all Johnson's letters to him. 'When I am dead, sir,' was the reply, 'you +may do as you will.'</p> + +<p>'My book,' he writes eagerly to Temple, 'has amazing celebrity. Lord +Lyttelton, Mr Walpole, Mrs Macaulay, and Mr Garrick, have all written me +noble letters about it. There are two Dutch translations going forward.' +General Oglethorpe, an old veteran who had seen service under Prince +Eugene, and the friend of Pope whose verses upon him 'I had read from my +early years,' called upon him and solicited his acquaintance. He became +a sort of literary lion. 'I am really the great man now,' he cries; 'I +have David Hume in the forenoon, Mr Johnson in the afternoon of the same +day. I give admirable dinners and good claret, and the moment I go +abroad again, which will be in a day or two, I set up my chariot. This +is enjoying the fruit of my labours, and appearing like the friend of +Paoli.' Alas for that friend!—he confesses to his correspondent that he +has been 'wild.' The form of this outbreak may be sufficiently seen by +the general reader in the leading questions which at this time Boswell +is found putting to Johnson; for the <i>Life of Johnson</i>, as we shall +indicate in its proper place, is no less the life of the biographer, +whose mind was ever seeking to shelter itself under the guidance of a +stronger force, and to effect a moral anchorage or moorings behind the +lee of his great friend. When Bozzy indulges in 'the luxury of noble +sentiments,' he is often known to be courting an indemnity to his +conscience for lax practice. Longfellow makes Miles Standish in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">{68}</a></span> +belligerent mood turn in the Cćsar to where the thumb-marks in the +margin proclaimed that the battle was hottest; Boswell often indicates +the decline and fall of the moralist by an apparently undue vein of +pietistic comments.</p> + +<p>The next year was to witness the friend of Paoli in his most eccentric +display—the Shakesperian Festival inaugurated by Garrick at Stratford. +By this ludicrous gathering it is that Boswell is known to the mass of +readers who have never cared to know more of 'Corsica Boswell' than what +they can gather from the lively picture of Macaulay. There he is known +only as it were in the gross, to which indeed, as Johnson said of +Milton, the undramatic nature of the essayist's mind was rather prone, +careless as it was or incapable of the finer shades of character. Yet, +as we know, he was not the solitary masker or mummer in this +extraordinary carnival, which seems not creditable to the taste of its +promoters, and resembles rather the entry of a travelling circus into a +provincial town than a serious commemoration of a great man. However, +'thither Mr Boswell repaired with all the enthusiasm of a poetical +mind;' as he informs us, 'such an opportunity for the warbling of his +Muse was not neglected.' On Wednesday, Sept. 6th, about five in the +morning, says <i>The Scots Magazine</i> for that month in its leading +article, the performers from Drury Lane paraded the streets of +Stratford, and serenaded the ladies with a ballad by Garrick, beginning</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Ye Warwickshire lads and ye lasses<br /></span> +<span class="i0">See what at our Jubilee passes;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Come revel away, rejoice and be glad,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the lad of all lads was a Warwickshire lad,<br /></span> +<span class="i14">Warwickshire lad,<br /></span> +<span class="i14">All be glad,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the lad of all lads was a Warwickshire lad.'<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">{69}</a></span></div></div> + +<p>Guns were fired, the magistrates assembled, and there was a public +breakfast in the town-hall. In this number of the magazine there is a +letter extending to seven columns from James Boswell, Esq., on his +return to London, after being 'much agitated' by 'this jubilee of +genius.' He describes it as 'truly an antique idea, a Grecian thought;' +the oratorio at the great Stratford church, with the music by Dr Arne, +was, he admits, grand and admirable, but 'I could have wished that +prayers had been read, and a short sermon preached.' Then the +performance of the dedication ode by Garrick is described as 'noble and +affecting, like an exhibition in Athens or Rome.' Lord Grosvenor, at the +close, went up to Garrick, 'and told him that he had affected his whole +frame, showing him his nerves and veins still quivering with agitation.' +The masquerade our traveller, as the 'travelled thane,' affects to +regard complacently as an 'entertainment not suited to the genius of the +British nation, but to a warmer country, where the people have a great +flow of spirits, and a readiness at repartee.' Bozzy no doubt had seen +the carnival abroad, and his memories of sunnier skies would not find +congenial atmosphere in the unpropitious weather when the Avon rose with +the floods of rain, the lower grounds were laid under water, and a +guinea for a bed was regarded as an imposition, though 'no one,' +declares our hero, 'was understood to come there who had not plenty of +money'—their own or their father's, presumably. The break up seems to +have been effected in confusion, but the good-humoured mummer, taking +one consideration with another, compares it to eating an artichoke, +where 'we have some fine mouthfuls, but also swallow the leaves and the +hair, which are confoundedly difficult of digestion. After all, I am +highly satisfied with my artichoke.'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">{70}</a></span></p> + +<p>He brought 'the warbling of his muse' with him. It is no better or worse +than the staple. In the character of a Corsican, he sings—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'From the rude banks of Golo's rapid flood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alas! too deeply tinged with patriot blood;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er which, dejected, injur'd Freedom bends,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sighs indignant o'er all Europe sends,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Behold a Corsican! In better days<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eager I sought my country's fame to raise.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now when I'm exiled from my native land<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I come to join this classic festal band;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To soothe my soul on Avon's sacred stream,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And from your joy to catch a cheering gleam.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>After an apostrophe to happy Britons, on whose propitious isle +propitious freedom ever deigns to smile, he closes with an appeal—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'But let me plead for liberty distress'd,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And warm for her each sympathetic breast;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Amidst the splendid honours which you bear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To save a sister island be your care;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With generous ardour make us also free,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And give to Corsica a noble Jubilee.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Colman and Foote, of course, as comedians were there, but Goldsmith and +Johnson shewed their sense by their absence. The only trace of Davy's +old master was found in a Coventry ribbon put out by 'a whimsical +haberdasher,' with the motto from Johnson's <i>Prologue</i> at the opening of +Drury Lane in 1747—'Each change of many colour'd life he drew.'</p> + +<p>Boswell had a free hand as a writer for the <i>London Magazine</i>, in which +he had a proprietary interest. To it he contributed the following +account, accompanied with a portrait—the source of much of Macaulay's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">{71}</a></span> +indictment. 'One of the most remarkable masks upon this occasion was +James Boswell, Esq., in the dress of an armed Corsican chief. He entered +the amphitheatre about twelve o'clock. He wore a short dark-coloured +coat of coarse cloth, scarlet waistcoat and breeches, and black +spatterdashes; his cap or bonnet was of black cloth; on the front of it +was embroidered in gold letters <i>viva la liberta</i>, and on one side of it +was a handsome blue feather and cockade, so that it had an elegant as +well as a warlike appearance. On the breast of his coat was sewed a +Moor's head, the crest of Corsica, surrounded with branches of laurel. +He had also a cartridge-pouch, into which was stuck a stiletto, and on +his left side a pistol was hung upon the belt of his cartridge-pouch. He +had a fusee slung across his shoulder, wore no powder in his hair, but +had it plaited at full length with a knot of blue ribbons at the end of +it. He had, by way of a staff, a very curious vine all of one piece, +emblematical of the sweet bard of Avon. He wore no mask, saying it was +not proper for a gallant Corsican. So soon as he came into the room he +drew universal attention. The novelty of the Corsican dress, its +becoming appearance, and the character of the brave nation concurred to +distinguish the armed Corsican chief. He was first accosted by Mrs +Garrick, with whom he had a good deal of conversation. There was an +admirable dialogue between Lord Grosvenor, in the character of a Turk, +and the Corsican on the different constitution of the countries so +opposite to each other,—Despotism and Liberty; and Captain Thomson, of +the navy, in the character of an honest tar, kept it up very well; he +expressed a strong inclination to stand by the brave islanders. Mr +Boswell danced both a minuet and a country dance with a very pretty +lady, Mrs Sheldon, wife to Captain Sheldon, of the 38th Regiment of +Foot,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">{72}</a></span> who was dressed in a genteel domino, and before she danced threw +off her mask.'</p> + +<p>He adds a cool puff of his own verses, 'which, it is thought, are well +suited to the occasion, while at the same time they preserve the true +Corsican character.' About a month after this masquerade, Goldsmith +dined at Boswell's lodging with Garrick, Johnson, Davies, and others, +where 'Goldsmith,' says the biographer, 'strutted about, bragging of his +dress, and I believe was seriously vain of it, for his mind was +wonderfully prone to such impressions!' Bozzy could criticise, as on all +occasions, the bloom coloured coat of 'honest Goldsmith,' yet he was +eager for Garrick to fall in with the idea of the tradesmen of Stratford +to make the Jubilee an annual event in the interests of local trade, and +'I flatter myself with the prospect of attending you at several more +Jubilees.'</p> + +<p>Though he had again commenced in London his attendance on Johnson and +note-taking, there was now a divided source of attraction. Things had +gone hard with Paoli since Boswell had been in the island. In spite of +his Irish brigades and his British volunteers, the overwhelming forces +which the French were able to put in the field, on the cession of the +island to them by the Genoese, brought to an end the stubborn resistance +of the inhabitants. In the August of 1768 Boswell had raised in Scotland +a subscription of Ł700 for ordnance furnished by the Carron Iron Work +Company, and in 1769 there had issued from the press a little duodecimo, +'<i>British Essays in favour of the Brave Corsicans</i>: collected and +published by James Boswell, Esq.' The papers are twenty in number, some +by himself, others by 'a gentleman whose name would do honour to any +cause (whom we think to have been Trecothick, the successor of Beckford, +as Lord Mayor of London), and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">{73}</a></span> the greatest part furnished by persons +unknown to me.' They deal with the dangers to trade from France and the +Bourbon Compact, and point at the value of Corsica as a station superior +to Gibraltar or Minorca. One paper signed 'P. J.' has the undoubted +Boswellian touch in dealing with the sailors thrown idle by the +cessation of the along-shore Mediterranean trade. 'None are less +avaricious than our honest tars, nor have they, in reality, any reason +to be discontented. Every common sailor has at least five and thirty +shillings a month, over and above which <i>he has his victuals and drink, +and that in great abundance</i>. There is no such thing as stinting aboard +a ship, unless when reduced to difficulties by stormy weather. The crew +have their three meals a day regularly, and if they should be hungry +between meals, <i>there is always a biscuit or a luncheon of something +cold to be had</i>.'</p> + +<p>France had bought Corsica from Genoa in May 1768. Marbœuf, whom +Boswell had found in the island, had been superseded, and a descent of +the French under Count Vaux with 20,000 men ended the war. Paoli escaped +to a ruinous convent on the shore, and, after lying there in +concealment, he embarked on an English vessel bound for Leghorn. On +September 20th he reached London, and the <i>Public Advertizer</i> of October +4th, through its faithful correspondent, informed its readers how 'On +Sunday last General Paoli, accompanied by James Boswell, Esq., took an +airing in Hyde Park in his coach.' On the evening of the 10th he was +presented by the traveller to Johnson, who was highly pleased with the +lofty port of the stranger and the easy 'elegance of manners, the brand +of the soldier, <i>l'homme d'épée</i>.'</p> + +<p>An impression is abroad that Boswell's books were not taken seriously. +Nothing could be more remote<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">{74}</a></span> from the truth. The Whigs were in favour +of his views, and Burke, together with Frederick the Great, believed our +interests would suffer by the increase of French power in the +Mediterranean. Shelburne, for Chatham had resigned before November 1768, +was the advocate of similar views, telling our ambassador at Versailles +to remonstrate with the French court, while Junius, in his letter to the +Duke of Grafton, told the country that Corsica would never have been +invaded by the French, but for the sight of a weak and distracted +ministry. When the hand of Napoleon was heavy on the Genoese, they +remembered that their cession of the island had made their master, by +his birth at Ajaccio on August 15, 1769, a Frenchman. But the nation at +the time of Boswell's books was weary of war, and their influence, +though great, was not visible in any actual political results.</p> + +<p>Boswell had expected to draw the sage on the subject of matrimony, +having promised himself, as he says, a good deal of instructive +conversation on the conduct of the married state. But the oracles were +dumb. On his return to the north he was married, on the 25th November +1769, to his cousin. We find in the <i>Scots Magazine</i> of that month the +following extracts under the list of marriages:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'At Lainshaw, in the shire of Air, <span class="smcap">James Boswell</span>, Esq., of +Auchinleck, advocate, to <span class="smcap">Miss Peggy Montgomery</span>, daughter of the +late <span class="smcap">David Montgomery</span> of Lainshaw, Esq.'</p> + +<p>'At Edinburgh, <span class="smcap">Alexander Boswell</span>, Esq., of Auchinleck, one of +the Lords of Session and Justiciary, to Miss <span class="smcap">Betty Boswell</span>, +second daughter of <span class="smcap">John Boswell</span>, Esq., of Balmuto, deceased.'</p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">{75}</a></span></p> + +<p>His father, now past sixty, had married again, and married a cousin for +the second time, like his son on the present occasion. That they were +married on the same day and at different places affords a clear +indication that the father and son were no longer on the best of terms.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">{76}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">LOVE AFFAIRS—LITERARY CLUB. 1766-73</span></h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'How happy could I be with either,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were t'other dear charmer away.'—<span class="smcap">Gay.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>'Love,' wrote Madame de Stael, 'is with man a thing apart, 'tis woman's +whole existence.' This is not true at least of Boswell, for his love +affairs fill as large a part in his life as in that of Benjamin +Constant. A most confused chapter withal, and one that luckily was not +known to Macaulay, whose colours would otherwise have been more +brilliant. We find Bozzy paying his addresses at one and the same time +to at least eight ladies, exclusive as this is of sundry minor +divinities of a fleeting and more temporary nature not calling here for +allusion. His first divinity was the grass-widow of Moffat, and here +Temple had been compelled to remonstrate in spite of all the lover's +philandering about her freedom from her husband, who had used her ill. +Were she unfaithful, he declares her worthy to be 'pierced with a +Corsican dagger,' but in March he has found it too much like a 'settled +plan of licentiousness,' discovering her to be an ill-bred rompish girl, +debasing his dignity, without refinement, though handsome and lively. +Then there is the quarrel and the reconciliation, she vowing she loved +him more than ever she had done her husband, but meeting with opposition +from his brother<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">{77}</a></span> David and others, who furnished the love-sick heart of +her adorer with examples of her faithlessness such as made him recoil. +He vows now his frailties are at an end, and he resolves to turn out an +admirable member of society. He had broken with her as with the +gardener's daughter a year ago—an everlasting lesson to him.</p> + +<p>By March 1767 the reigning favourite was Miss Bosville of Yorkshire. But +his lot being cast in Scotland would be an objection to the beauty; then +we hear of a young lady in the vicinity of whose claims Lord Auchinleck +approved, because their lands lay happily together for family extension. +She was just eighteen, pious, good-tempered and genteel, and for four +days she had been on a visit to 'the romantick groves' of his ancestors, +when suddenly the scene is changed for the Sienese <i>signora</i> of whom we +heard upon his travels. 'My Italian angel,' he cries, 'is constant; I +had a letter from her but a few days ago, which made me cry.' He +conjures his friend Temple to come to him, and 'on that Arthur Seat +where our youthful fancies roved abroad shall we take counsel together.' +The local divinity we learn is Miss Blair of Adamtown; he has been +drinking her health, and aberrations from sobriety and virtue have +ensued, but he thought things would be brought to a climax were Temple +to visit her. A long letter of commission follows, the envoy is +instructed to appear as his old friend, praising him to Miss Blair for +his good qualities. Temple is adjured to dwell upon his odd, inconstant, +impetuous nature, how he is accustomed to women of intrigue, and he is +to ask of the fair one if she does not think there is insanity in the +Boswell family. She is to hear of his travels, his acquaintance with +foreign princes, Voltaire and Rousseau, his desire to have a house of +his own; and then he diverges into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">{78}</a></span> practicality when he desires his +friend to 'study the mother,' and take notes of all that passed, as it +might have the effect of fixing the fate of the lover. Temple, it may be +imagined, did not interpret his commission in such a literal spirit, and +inconstancy and insanity could hardly be recommendations in Miss Blair's +eyes. That such should be the case,—outside the confessions of Mr +Rochester in <i>Jane Eyre</i>,—would appear to the commissioner an obvious +fact.</p> + +<p>A silence followed on Temple's departure from the divinity. Boswell +dreaded a certain nabob, 'a man of copper,' as his rival. Then he +believed the fair offended by his own Spanish stateliness and gravity; +and again a letter, 'written with all the warmth of Italian affection,' +restores the <i>signora</i> to the first place, from which she is deposed by +a note from Miss Blair, explaining that his letter had been delayed a +week at the Ayr post-office. Then fresh ravings, clouded by the belief +that she is cunning and sees his weakness, for three people at Ayr have +assured him she is a jilt, and he is shocked at the risk he has run, a +warning for the future to him against 'indulging the least fondness for +a Scotch lass.' He has, he feels, a soul of a more Southern frame, and +some Englishwoman ought to be sensible of his merit, though the Dutch +translator of his <i>Tour</i>, Mademoiselle de Zuyl, has been writing to him. +Random talking is his dread, he must guard against it, and Miss Blair +revives. 'I must have her learn the harpsichord,' he cries, 'and French; +she shall be one of the finest women in the island.' Later on they have +had a long meeting, of which space only prevents the inimitable +reproduction,—'squeezing and kissing her fine hand, while she looked at +me with those beautiful black eyes.' He meets her at the house of Lord +Kames, he sees her at <i>Othello</i>—she was in tears at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">{79}</a></span> the affecting +scenes, and 'rather leaned' to him (he thought), and 'the jealous Moor +described my own soul.' But true love did never yet run smooth; he has +been 'as wild as ever. Trust me in time coming; I will give you my word +of honour.' Then—curious psychological trait—'to-morrow I shall be +happy with my devotions.'</p> + +<p>By the beginning of 1768 he fears all is over. A rumour—a false one as +it proved—had reached him that the divinity was to be married to Sir +Alexander Gilmour, M.P. for Midlothian. He gets friendly with the nabob, +warms him with old claret, and bewails with him their hapless devotion. +They agree to propose in turn, and, being in turn rejected, he feels +sure that 'a Howard, or some other of the noblest in the kingdom' is to +be his fate. The Dutch translator again holds the field, to be soon +dismissed for her frivolity and her infidelity. Then Miss Dick of +Prestonfield reigns with solid qualifications—she lacks a fortune, but +is fine, young, healthy, and amiable. A visit to Holland, to finally +decide on the Mademoiselle's claims, was proposed, but his father, +warned in time, would not consent. Temple, too, was against this, and +'Temple thou reasonest well,' he cries, and thinks his abnegation will +be a solace to his worthy father on his circuit. Freed now from Miss +Blair and the Dutch divinity, he is devoted to <i>la belle Irlandaise</i>, +'just sixteen, with the sweetest countenance and a Dublin education.' +Never till now had he been so truly in love; every flower is united, and +she is a rose without a thorn. Her name 'Mary Anne' he has carved upon a +tree, and cutting off a lock of her hair she had promised Bozzy not to +marry a lord before March, or forget him. 'Sixteen,' he says; 'innocence +and gaiety make me quite a Sicilian swain.'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">{80}</a></span></p> + +<p>His book had dissipated his professional energies, and he had even taken +to gaming. Incidentally we learn that he had lost more than he could +pay, and that Mr Sheridan had advanced enough to clear him, on a promise +that he should not engage in play for three years. Mary Anne has added +to his complications by her forgetfulness, and the local candidate Miss +Blair reappears. Favoured as she was by his father, it would have been +easy to bring things to a climax, but on her mother's part there was +some not unnatural coldness over his indiscreet talk about his love of +the heiress. Bozzy was a convivial knight-errant in what was called +'Saving the ladies.' At clubs and gatherings any member would toast his +idol in a bumper, and then another champion would enter his peerless +Dulcinea in two bumpers, to be routed by the original toper taking off +four. The deepest drinker 'saved his lady,' as the phrase ran; though, +says George Thomson speaking of the old concerts in St Cecilia's Hall, +at the foot of Niddry's Wynd, which were maintained by noblemen and +gentlemen, the bold champion had often considerable difficulty in +<i>saving himself</i> from the floor, in his efforts to regain his seat! Miss +Burnet of Monboddo, celebrated by Burns, and Miss Betty Home, he +describes as the reigning beauties of the time deeply involved in thus +causing the fall of man. Boswell was not behind, and he ascribes his +aberrations to the 'drinking habit which still prevails in Scotland,' +renewing good intentions, only to be broken in the same letter that +reveals the Moffat lady again, 'like a girl of eighteen, with the finest +black hair,' whom he loves so much that he is in a fever. '<i>This</i>,' he +adds truly enough, '<i>is unworthy of Paoli's friend</i>.'</p> + +<p>The May of 1769 saw him in Ireland, where his relations in County Down +secured his entry into the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">{81}</a></span> best society. A dispatch to the <i>Public +Advertizer</i>, of July 7th, informed the public that 'James Boswell, Esq., +dined with His Grace the Duke of Leinster at his seat at Carton. He went +by special invitation to meet the Lord Lieutenant; came next morning +with his Excellency to the Phœnix Park, where he was present at a +review of Sir Joseph Yorke's dragoons; he dined with the Lord Mayor, and +is now set out on his return to Scotland.' The <i>belle Irlandaise</i> had +forgotten him, but it is to this occasion that we may refer some verses +that were published by his son Sir Alexander. Chambers thinks they refer +to his cousin, but the general belief tends in the direction of the +notorious Margaret Caroline Rudd, the associate in later years of the +brothers Perreau, who were executed for forgery. In the <i>Life of +Johnson</i> we find Boswell, in 1776, expressing to his companion a desire +to be introduced to this person, so celebrated for her address and +insinuation, and later on he is shewn, on his own confession, to have +visited her, 'induced by the fame of her talents and irresistible power +of fascination,' and to have sent an account of this interview to his +wife, but to have offered its perusal first, 'as it appeared to me +highly entertaining,' to Temple, who was indignant over it. It would +appear, then, that Boswell did not reveal to Johnson his former +flirtation with this notorious woman, but we think that the obvious +marks of the brogue in the verses shew conclusively that either the +feeling was imitative and based on an earlier Irish song, or that the +verses were judged by Boswell's son, not too devoted, as we shall find, +to his father's memory, to be free from offence.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'O Larghan Clanbrassil, how sweet is thy sound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To my tender remembrance as Love's sacred ground;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">{82}</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">For there Marg'ret Caroline first charm'd my sight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And fill'd my young heart with a flutt'ring delight.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When I thought her my own, ah! too short seemed the <i>day</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">For a jaunt to Downpatrick, or a trip on the <i>sea</i>;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To express what I felt, then all language was vain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Twas in truth what the poets have studied to feign.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But, too late, I found even she could <i>deceive</i>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And nothing was left but to sigh, weep, and <i>rave</i>;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Distracted, I flew from my dear native shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Resolved to see Larghan Clanbrassil no more.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yet still in some moments enchanted I find<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A ray of her fondness beams soft on my mind;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While thus in bless'd fancy my angel I see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All the world is a Larghan Clanbrassil to me.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>On this journey with Boswell there was a Margaret—his own cousin, and +it is curious to find him in this mood of sentimental philandering, were +it no worse, when we have now to see Bozzy at the end of his love +affairs. When his great work was completed in 1791, its author +contributed to the <i>European Magazine</i> for May and June a little sketch +of himself, in order to give a fillip to its circulation. There he +describes jauntily his Irish tour, and after what we know of his erratic +course, it is delightful to come across this sage chronicler of his dead +wife, circulating testimonials to her excellences, to which no doubt he +was oblivious in her lifetime. 'They had,' he writes, 'from their +earliest years lived in the most intimate and unreserved friendship.' +His love of the fair sex has been already mentioned (he had quoted the +song of 'the Soapers' in our first chapter), and she was the constant +yet prudent and delicate <i>confidante</i> of all his '<i>egarements du coeur +et de l'esprit</i>.' This we may doubt, and the gracefully allusive French +quotation reminds us of Mr Pepys' use of that language<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">{83}</a></span> when his wife +was in his mind. This jaunt was the occasion of Mr Boswell's resolving +at last to engage himself in that connection to which he had always +declared himself averse. In short, he determined to become a married +man. He requested her, with her excellent judgment and more sedate +manners, to do him the favour of accepting him with all his faults, and +though he assures his readers he had uniformly protested that a large +fortune had been with him a requisite in the fair, he was yet 'willing +to waive that in consideration of her peculiar merit!'</p> + +<p>Hearts are caught in the rebound, and Bozzy had solaced his loss of the +<i>belle Irlandaise</i> with the sympathy of his fellow-traveller. Having let +his fancies roam so far abroad as Siena and Holland, the lover had now +returned like the bird at evening to the nest from which it flew. She +had no fortune, and 'the penniless lass wi' the lang pedigree,' related +as she was to the Eglintoun branch and other high families, had not in +the eyes of his father the landed qualifications of Miss Blair, whose +property lay so convenient for the extension of the Boswell acres. This +may have been the cause of the paternal anger and the separate marriages +on the same day. The wives of literary men have ever been a fruitful +source of disquisition to the admirers of their heroes, and Terentia, +Gemma Donati, and Anne Hathaway, have divided the biographers of Cicero, +Dante, and Shakespeare. To us it seems that, like his father, she had +much to bear, hampered by their domestic difficulties through her +husband's constant dependence on that father for his income, and eyed +with undeserved suspicion by the judge and his second wife as a Mordecai +in the gate, penniless and yet supposed to be the cause of Boswell's +pecuniary embarrassments and indiscretions. The marriage was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">{84}</a></span> deferred +till after the Stratford Jubilee, and the newly married pair took up +their house in Chessel's Buildings in the Canongate. For a year and a +half after his marriage his correspondence with Johnson underwent an +entire cessation, and in the August of 1771 General Paoli made a tour in +Scotland, which, for a time, called forth the best organizing abilities +of his friend. From the <i>London Magazine</i> of the day, in an account +contributed by our hero, we learn how Paoli had paid 'a visit to James +Boswell, Esq., who was the first gentleman of this country who visited +Corsica, and whose writings have made the brave islanders and their +general properly known over Europe.' Boswell waited on the exile and the +Polish Ambassador at Ramsay's Inn, at the foot of St Mary's Wynd, +visiting with them Linlithgow and Carron, 'where the general had a +prodigious pleasure in viewing the forge where were formed the cannon +and war-like stores' sent to Corsica by his Scottish admirers. At +Glasgow they were entertained by the professors, and saw 'the elegant +printing of the Scottish Stephani, the Messrs Foulis,' and no doubt +their guide managed to remind their excellencies of a certain <i>Tour in +Corsica</i> emanating thence. Auchinleck was visited to 'the joy of my +worthy father and me at seeing the Corsican Hero in our romantick +groves,' as he tells Garrick, and on their return to Glasgow the freedom +of the city was conferred on Paoli by Lord Provost Dunlop.<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> At +Edinburgh 'the general slept under the roof of his ever grateful +friend.' The whole forms a favourable specimen of Boswell's organizing +capacities, and viewed in relation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">{85}</a></span> to the friendly intercourse he is +found maintaining with prominent and influential persons, our regret is +but increased that in the interests of his wife and children his +abilities were not exercised in a more strictly professional channel.</p> + +<p>London he visited in the March of 1772 over an appeal to the Lords from +the Court of Session. Johnson was now in good health, and was eager 'to +see Beattie's College.' In the <i>Scots Magazine</i> for February 1773 there +is mentioned a masked ball, attended by seventy persons of quality, +given in Edinburgh by Sir Alexander Macdonald and his wife, Miss +Bosville of Yorkshire, one of Boswell's loves. Croker says that the +masquerade for which he was rallied by Johnson was given by the Dowager +Countess of Fife, and that Bozzy went as a dumb conjurer; but from the +expression of the <i>Magazine</i>, 'an entertainment little known in this +part of the Kingdom,' coupled with the words employed by Johnson, there +can be no doubt that Croker is wrong, and that the host on this occasion +was the churlish chief, whose inhospitable ways they were to experience +in Skye. He was now near the great honour of his life, admission to that +Literary Club, of which, said Sir William Jones, 'I will only say that +there is no branch of human knowledge on which some of our members are +not capable of giving information.' Never was honour better deserved or +better repaid. Without his record the fame of that club would have +passed away, surviving at best in some sort of hazy companionship with +the Kit-Cat, Button's, Will's, and other clubs and assemblies. Never was +there a club of which each member was better qualified to take care of +his own fame with posterity. None of Johnson's associates would have +hesitated in declaring an extended date of renown for the <i>Rambler</i>; and +perhaps he himself would have staked the reputation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">{86}</a></span> assured, as Cowper +said, by the tears of bards and heroes in order to immortalize the dead, +on his <i>Rasselas</i> or the <i>Dictionary</i>. Yet he and most members of that +club, apart from the record of Boswell, would be but names to the +literary antiquary, and be by the mass of readers entirely forgotten.</p> + +<p>He had canvassed the members. Johnson wrote, on April 23rd, to +Goldsmith, who was in the chair that evening, to consider Boswell as +proposed by himself in his absence. On the night of the ballot, April +30th, Boswell dined at Beauclerk's, where, after the company had gone to +the club, he was left till the fate of his election should be announced. +After Johnson had taken the thing in hand there was not much danger, yet +poor Bozzy 'sat in a state of anxiety which even the charming +conversation of Lady Di Beauclerk could not entirely dissipate.' There +he received the tidings of his election, and he hastened to the place of +meeting. Burke he met that night for the first time, and on his +entrance, Johnson, 'with humorous formality, gave me a <i>charge</i>, +pointing out the conduct expected from me as a good member of the club.' +That charge we can believe Forster to be right in suspecting to be a +caution against publishing abroad the proceedings and the talk of the +members.</p> + +<p>In the autumn of the year, as they drew near to Monboddo, Johnson, we +should think with excessive rudeness, told him 'several of the members +wished to keep you out. Burke told me, he doubted if you were fit for +it: but, now you are in, none of them are sorry. Burke says, that you +have so much good humour naturally, it is scarce a virtue.' The faithful +Bozzy replied, 'They were afraid of you, sir, as it was you who proposed +me;' and the doctor was prone to admit that if the one blackball +necessary to exclude had been given, they knew they never would have got +in another mem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">{87}</a></span>ber. Yet even from this rebuff he managed to deftly +extract a compliment. Beauclerk, the doctor said, had been very earnest +for the admission, and Beauclerk, replied Boswell, 'has a keenness of +mind which is very uncommon.' The witty Topham, along with Reynolds, +Garrick, and others, is immortalized in the pages of the man who was not +thought by the wits of Gerrard Street fit for their club.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">{88}</a></span></p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> By the Town Clerk Depute of Glasgow, R. Renwick, Esq., we +are informed that no notice of this enrolment of General Paoli was +entered at the time, pursuant to the custom of the Register over +honorary burgesships.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES. 1773</span></h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Breaking the silence of the seas<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Among the farthest Hebrides.'—<span class="smcap">Wordsworth.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>When Boswell was leaving London in May he called, for the last time, +upon Goldsmith, round whom the clouds of misfortune were fast settling, +and who was planning a <i>Dictionary of Arts and Sciences</i> as a means of +extrication from his embarrassments. In such circumstances, it was not +unnatural for Goldsmith to revert to his own past travels, and to the +reflection that he was unlikely again to set out upon them, unless +sheltered like Johnson behind a pension. He assured Boswell that he +would never be able to lug the dead weight of the Rambler through the +Highlands. The enthusiastic pioneer, however, was loud in the praises of +his companion; Goldsmith thought him not equal to Burke, 'who winds into +a subject like a serpent.' The other, with more than wonted irrelevance, +maintained that Johnson was 'the Hercules who strangled serpents in his +cradle;' and with these characteristic utterances they parted, never +again to meet. Throughout his great work, Boswell shews ever a curious +depreciation of Goldsmith. Rivalry for the good graces of their common +friend Johnson, as Scott thought, and the fear of his older acquaintance +as the possible biographer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">{89}</a></span> made him suspicious of the merits of the +poet, who figures in the pages of Boswell as a foil for his gently +patronizing tone,—'honest Goldsmith.'</p> + +<p>The tour to the Hebrides had been a project which had occurred to them +in the first days of their friendship. The <i>Description of the Western +Isles of Scotland</i> (1703) by Martin, had been put into Johnson's hands +at a very early age by his father; and, though for long he had +disappointed the expectations of his friend, he had talked of it in the +spring of this year in such a way as to lead Boswell to write to +Beattie, Robertson, Lord Elibank, and the chiefs of the Macdonalds and +the Macleods, for invitations such as he could shew the doctor. Mrs +Thrale also and others were induced to forward the scheme, and at last +the Rambler set out on the 6th day of August. He was nine days upon the +road, including two at Newcastle, where he picked up his friend Scott +(Lord Stowell), and after passing Berwick, Dunbar and Prestonpans, the +coach late in the evening deposited Johnson at Boyd's inn, <i>The White +Horse</i>, in the Canongate,—the rendezvous of the old Hanoverian +faction,—which occupied the site of the present building from which +this volume, one hundred and twenty-three years later, is published. On +the Saturday evening of his arrival a note was dispatched by him to +Boswell, who flew to him, and 'exulted in the thought that I now had him +actually in Caledonia.'</p> + +<p>Arm in arm they walked up the High Street to Boswell's house in James's +Court, to which he had removed from the Canongate. The first impression +of the Scottish capital was not pleasing, for at ten the beat of the +city drums was heard; and, amid cries of <i>gardy loo</i>, what Oldham +euphemistically calls 'the perils of the night,' were thrown over the +windows down on the pavement, in the absence of covered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">{90}</a></span> sewers. When +Captain Burt before this time had been in Edinburgh, a 'caddie' had +preceded him on a scouting expedition with cries of 'haud your han',' +and among flank and rear discharges he had passed to his quarters. A +zealous Scotsman, as Boswell says, could have wished the doctor to be +less gifted with the sense of smell, however much the sense of the +breadth of the street and the height of the buildings impressed him. His +wife had tea waiting, and they sat till two in the morning. To shew +respect for the sage, Mrs Boswell had given up her own room, which her +husband 'cannot but gratefully mention, as one of a thousand obligations +which I owe her, since the great obligation of her being pleased to +accept of me as her husband.'</p> + +<p>Next morning, on the Sunday, Mr Scott and Sir Wm. Forbes of Pitsligo +breakfasted with them, and the host's heart was delighted by the 'little +infantine noise' which his child Veronica made, with the appearance of +listening to the great man. The fond father with a cheerful +recklessness, not realized we fear, declared she should have for this +five hundred pounds of additional fortune.</p> + +<p>The best society in the capital was invited to meet Johnson at breakfast +and dinner—Robertson, Hailes, Gregory, Blacklock, and others. James's +Court was rather a distinguished part of the city, and an improvement +upon the former quarters in Chessel's Buildings. The inhabitants, says +Robert Chambers, took themselves so seriously as to keep a clerk to +record their proceedings, together with a scavenger of their own, and +held among themselves their social meetings and balls. Hume had occupied +part of the house before Johnson's visit, though three years had passed +since he had moved to the new town into St David Street.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">{91}</a></span> Writing from +his old house to Adam Smith, he is glad to 'have come within sight of +you, and to have a view of Kirkcaldy from my windows;' the study of the +historian, to which he turned fondly from the Parisian <i>salons</i>, is +represented in <i>Guy Mannering</i> as the library of Pleydell with its fine +view from the windows, 'which commanded that incomparable prospect of +the ground between Edinburgh and the sea, the Firth of Forth with its +islands, and the varied shore of Fife to the northward.' Bozzy may have +been reticent about the former tenant; he was 'not clear that it was +right in me to keep company with him,' though he thought the man greater +or better than his books. No word then was sent to him, nor to Adam +Smith across the Forth to Kirkcaldy. They visited the Parliament House, +where Harry Erskine was presented to Johnson, and, having made his bow, +slipped a shilling into Boswell's hand, 'for the sight of his bear.' +Holyrood and the University were inspected, and as they passed up the +College-Wynd, where Goldsmith in his medical student days in Edinburgh +had lived, Scott, as a child of two years, may have seen the party. On +the 18th they set out from the capital, with the Parthian shot from Lord +Auchinleck to a friend—'there's nae hope for Jamie, man; Jamie is gaen +clean gyte. What do you think, man? He's done wi' Paoli. He's off wi' +the land-louping scoundrel of a Corsican, and whose tail do you think he +has pinned himself to now, man? A dominie, an auld dominie; he keepit a +schule and ca'ad it an acaadamy!' No more bitter taunt could have been +levelled against Johnson, with his memories of Edial, near Lichfield; +readers who may remember the munificent manner in which the heritors of +their day had provided for Ruddiman, Michael Bruce, and others,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">{92}</a></span> will +see the contempt that the old judge had felt for the past of the +Rambler. Johnson had left behind him in a drawer a volume of his diary; +and, as this would have been excellent copy for his projected <i>Life</i>, we +feel the temptation to which Boswell was exposed. 'I wish,' he says +naďvely, 'that female curiosity had been strong enough to have had it +all transcribed; which might easily have been done; and I think the +theft, being <i>pro bono publico</i>, might have been forgiven. But I may be +wrong. My wife told me she never once had looked into it. She did not +seem quite easy when we left her; but away we went!'</p> + +<p>The character-sketch of Johnson, given at the opening of the book is +full of fine shading and touches; but the traveller who now follows them +on the journey will hardly, in comparison with his own tourist attire, +recognise what in 1773 was thought fit and convenient costume.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'He wore a full suit of plain brown clothes, with twisted hair +buttons of the same colour, a large bushy greyish wig, a plain +shirt, black worsted stockings, and silver buckles. Upon this +tour, when journeying, he wore boots, and a very wide brown +cloth greatcoat, with pockets which might have almost held the +two volumes of his folio <i>Dictionary</i>; and he carried in his +hand a large English oak stick. Let me not be censured for +mentioning such minute particulars. Everything relative to so +great a man is worth observing. I remember Dr Adam Smith, in +his rhetorical lectures at Glasgow, told us he was glad to know +that Milton wore latchets in his shoes, instead of buckles.'</p></div> + +<p>A companion vignette of himself is added by Boswell.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'A gentleman of ancient blood, the pride of which was his +predominant passion. He was then in his thirty-third year, and +had been about four years happily married. His inclination was +to be a soldier; but his father had pressed him into the +profession of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">{93}</a></span> the law. He had travelled a good deal, and seen +many varieties of human life. He had thought more than anyone +had supposed, and had a pretty good stock of general learning +and knowledge. He had rather too little, than too much +prudence; and, his imagination being lively, he often said +things of which the effect was very different from the +intention. He resembled sometimes</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'The best good man, with the worst natur'd muse.'<br /></span> +</div></div></div> + +<p>The doctor who was thrifty over this tour had not thought it necessary +to bring his own black servant; but Boswell's man, Joseph Ritter, a +Bohemian, a fine stately fellow over six feet, who had been over much of +Europe, was invaluable to them in their journey. For this the valiant +Rambler had provided a pair of pistols, powder, and a quantity of +bullets, but the assurance of their needlessness had induced him to +leave them behind with the precious diary in the keeping of Mrs Boswell.</p> + +<p>Such a tour was then a feat for a man of sixty-four, in a country which, +to the Englishman of his day, was as unknown as St Kilda is now to the +mass of Scotchmen. The London citizen who, says Lockhart, 'makes Loch +Lomond his wash-pot, and throws his shoe over Ben Nevis,' can with +difficulty imagine a journey in the Hebrides with rainy weather, in open +boats, or upon horseback over wild moorland and morasses, a journey that +even to Voltaire sounded like a tour to the North Pole. Smollett, in +<i>Humphrey Clinker</i>, says the people at the other end of the island knew +as little of Scotland as they did of Japan, nor was Charing Cross, +witness as it did the greatest height of 'the tide of human existence,' +then bright with the autumnal trips of circular tours and Macbrayne +steamers. The feeling for scenery, besides, was in its infancy, nor was +it scenery but men and manners that were sought by our two travellers, +to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">{94}</a></span> whom what would now be styled the Wordsworthian feeling had little +or no interest. Gibbon has none of it, and Johnston laughed at Shenstone +for not caring whether his woods and streams had anything good to eat in +them, 'as if one could fill one's belly with hearing soft murmurs or +looking at rough cascades.' Fleet Street to him was more delicious than +Tempe, and the bare scent of the pastoral draws an angry snort from the +critic. Boswell, in turn, confesses to no relish for nature; he admits +he has no pencil for visible objects, but only for varieties of mind and +<i>esprit</i>. The <i>Critical Review</i> congratulated the public on a fortunate +event in the annals of literature for the following account in Johnson's +<i>Journey</i>—'I sat down on a bank, such as a writer of romance might have +delighted to feign. I had, indeed, no trees to whisper over my head but +a clear rivulet streamed at my feet. The day was calm, the air soft, and +all was rudeness, silence and solitude. Before me, and on either side, +were high hills, which, if hindering the eye from ranging, forced the +mind to find entertainment for itself.' This, little more than the +reflections of a Cockney on a hayrick, is as far as the eighteenth +century could go, nor need we wonder that the Rambler's moralizing at +Iona struck so much Sir Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal +Society, that he 'clasped his hands together, and remained for some time +in an attitude of silent admiration.' Burns himself, as Prof. Veitch has +rightly indicated, has little of the later feeling and regards barren +nature with the unfavourable eyes of the farmer and the practical +agriculturist, nor has the travelled Goldsmith more to shew. Writing +from Edinburgh, he laments that 'no grove or brook lend their music to +cheer the stranger,' while at Leyden, 'wherever I turned my eye, fine +houses, elegant gardens, statues,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">{95}</a></span> grottoes, presented themselves.' Even +Gray found that Mount Cenis carried the permission mountains have of +being frightful rather too far, and Wordsworth and Shelley would have +resented the Johnsonian description of a Highland Ben as 'a considerable +protuberance.' Indeed, Goldsmith's bare mention of that object, so dear +to Pope and his century,—'grottoes'—reminds us we are not yet in the +modern world. Yet the boldness of the sage, and the cheerfulness of +Boswell, carried them through it all. 'I should,' wrote the doctor to +Mrs Thrale, 'have been very sorry to have missed any of the +inconveniences, to have had more light or less rain, for their +co-operation crowded the scene and filled the mind.'</p> + +<p>Crossing the Firth, after landing on Inchkeith, they arrived at St +Andrews which had long been an object of interest to Johnson. They +passed Leuchars, Dundee, and Aberbrothick. The ruins of ecclesiastical +magnificence would seem to have touched a hidden chord in Boswell's +past, for we find him on the road talking of the 'Roman Catholick +faith,' and leading his companion on transubstantiation; but this, being +'an awful subject, I did not then press Dr Johnson upon it.' Montrose +was reached, and at the inn the waiter was called 'rascal' by the +Rambler for putting sugar into the lemonade with his fingers, to the +delight of Bozzy who rallied him into quietness by the assurance that +the landlord was an Englishman. Monboddo was then passed, where 'the +magnetism of his conversation drew us out of our way,' though the prompt +action of Boswell as agent in advance really was the source of their +invitation. Burnet was one of the best scholars in Scotland, and +'Johnson and my lord spoke highly of Homer.' All his paradoxes about the +superiority of the ancients, the existence of men with tails, slavery +and other institutions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">{96}</a></span> were vented, but all went well. The decrease of +learning in England, which Johnson lamented, was met by Monboddo's +belief in its extinction in Scotland, but Bozzy, as the old High School +of Edinburgh boy, put in a word for that place of education and brought +him to confess that it did well.</p> + +<p>The New Inn at Aberdeen was full. But the waiter knew Boswell by his +likeness to his father who put up here on circuit—the only portrait, we +believe, there is of Lord Auchinleck—and accommodation was provided. +They visited King's College, where Boswell 'stepped into the chapel and +looked at the tomb of its founder, Bishop Elphinstone, of whom I shall +have occasion to write in my history of James IV., the patron of my +family.' The freedom of the city was conferred on Johnson. Was this an +honour, or an excuse for a social glass among the civic Solons of an +unreformed corporation? The latter may be the case, when we reflect that +none of the four universities thought of giving him an honorary degree, +though Beattie at this time had received the doctorate in laws from +Oxford, and Gray some years before this had declined the offer from +Aberdeen. Nor can we forget the taunt of George Colman the younger about +Pangloss in his <i>Heir at Law</i>, and his own recollection how, when a lad +at King's College, he had been 'scarcely a week in Old Aberdeen when the +Lord Provost of the New Town invited me to drink wine with him, one +evening in the Town Hall;' and presented him on October 8th, 1781, with +the freedom of the city. No negative inference can be established from +the contemporary notices in the <i>Aberdeen Journal</i> over the visit. Every +paragraph is contemptuous in its tone; and till October 4th no notice is +taken of the honour, when 'a correspondent says he is glad to find that +the city of Aberdeen has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">{97}</a></span> presented Dr Johnson with the freedom of that +place, for he has sold his freedom on this side of the Tweed for a +pension.' The definition of <i>oats</i> in the Dictionary is brought up +against its author, and Bozzy is also attacked in a doggerel epigram on +his Corsican Tour and his system of spelling. But the doctor easily +maintained his conversational supremacy over his academic hosts, who +'started not a single mawkin for us to pursue.'</p> + +<p>Ellon, Slains Castle, and Elgin were visited. They passed Gordon Castle +at Fochabers, drove over the heath where Macbeth met the witches, +'classic ground to an Englishman,' as the old editor of Shakespeare +felt, and reached Nairn, where now they heard for the first time the +Gćlic tongue,—'one of the songs of Ossian,' quoth the justly +incredulous doctor,—and saw peat fires. At Fort George they were +welcomed by Sir Eyre Coote. The old military aspirations of Bozzy flared +up and were soothed: 'for a little while I fancied myself a military +man, and it pleased me.' As they left, the commander reminded them of +the hardships by the way, in return as Boswell interposed for the rough +things Johnson had said of Scotland. 'You must change your name, sir,' +said Sir Eyre. 'Ay, to Dr M'Gregor,' replied Bozzy. The notion of the +lexicographer's assuming the forbidden name of the bold outlaw, with +'his foot upon his native heath,' is rather comic, though later on we +find him striding about with a target and broad sword, and a bonnet +drawn over his wig! Though both professed profuse addiction to Jacobite +sentiments, it is curious no mention is made of Culloden. It may be that +Boswell, who some days later weeps over the battle, may have +diplomatically avoided it, or it may have been dark as their chaise +passed it, though it is not impossible that Boswell,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">{98}</a></span> who at St Andrews +had not known where to look for John Knox's grave, and has no mention of +Airsmoss where Cameron fell in his own parish of Auchinleck, was +ignorant of the site. From their inn at Inverness he wrote to Garrick +gleefully over his tour with Davy's old preceptor, and then begged +permission to leave Johnson for a time, 'that I might run about and pay +some visits to several good people,' finding much satisfaction in +hearing every one speak well of his father.</p> + +<p>On Monday, August 30, they began their <i>equitation</i>; 'I would needs make +a word too.' They took horses now, a third carried his man Ritter, and a +fourth their portmanteaus. The scene by Loch Ness was new to the sage, +and he rises in his narrative a little to it and the 'limpid waters +beating their bank, and waving their surface by a gentle agitation.' +Through Glenshiel, Glenmorison, Auchnasheal, they passed on to the inn +at Glenelg. They made beds for themselves with fresh hay, and, like +Wolfe at Quebec, they had their 'choice of difficulties;' but the +philosophic Rambler maintained they might have been worse on the +hillside, and buttoning himself up in his greatcoat he lay down, while +Boswell had his sheets spread on the hay, and his clothes and greatcoat +laid over him by way of blankets.</p> + +<p>Next day they got into a boat for Skye, reaching Armidale before one. +Here occurred one of the dramatic episodes of the book. Sir Alexander +Macdonald, husband of Boswell's Yorkshire cousin Miss Bosville, and the +host at the masquerade in February, was on his way to Edinburgh, and met +them at the house of a tenant, 'as we believe,' wrote Johnson to Mrs +Thrale, 'that he might with less reproach entertain us meanly. Boswell +was very angry, and reproached him with his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">{99}</a></span> improper parsimony. Boswell +has some thoughts of collecting the stories and making a novel of his +life.' In the first edition of his book something strong had clearly +been written, but it was wisely suppressed at the last moment when the +book was bound, for the new pages are but clumsily pasted on the guard +between leaves 166 and 169. The first edition had accordingly this +account, which was even toned down in the next.</p> + +<p>'Instead of finding the head of the Macdonalds surrounded with his clan, +and a festive entertainment, we had a small company and cannot boast of +our cheer. The particulars are minuted in my journal, but I shall not +trouble the publick with them. I shall mention but one characteristick +circumstance. My shrewd and hearty friend, Sir Thomas Blackett, Lady +Macdonald's uncle, who had preceded us in a visit to this chief, upon +being asked by him if the punchbowl then upon the table was not a very +handsome one, replied, "Yes, if it were full." Sir Alexander, having +been an Eton scholar, Dr Johnson had formed an opinion of him which was +much diminished when he beheld him in the Isle of Sky, where we heard +heavy complaints of rents racked, and the people driven to emigration. +Dr Johnson said, "it grieves me to see the chief of a great clan appear +to such disadvantage. The gentleman has talents, nay, some learning; but +he is totally unfit for his situation. Sir, the Highland chiefs should +not be allowed to go further south than Aberdeen." I meditated an escape +from this the very next day, but Dr Johnson resolved that we should +weather it out till Monday.'</p> + +<p>Next day being Sunday Bozzy's spirits were cheered by the climate and +the weather, but 'had I not had Dr Johnson to contemplate, I should have +been sunk into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">{100}</a></span> dejection, but his firmness supported me. I looked at +him as a man whose head is turning giddy at sea looks at a rock.' +Everywhere they met signs of the parting of the ways in the Highlands. +The old days of feudal power were merging in the industrial, the chiefs +were now landlords and exacting ones. Emigration was rife, and the pages +of the <i>Scots Magazine</i> of the time dwell much on this. A month before, +four hundred men had left Strathglass and Glengarry; in June eight +hundred had sailed from Stornoway; Lochaber sent four hundred, 'the +finest set of fellows in the Highlands, carrying Ł6000 in ready cash +with them. The extravagant rents exacted by the landlords is the sole +cause given for this emigration which seems to be only in its infancy.' +The high price of provisions and the decrease of the linen trade in the +north of Ireland sent eight hundred this year from Stromness, when we +find the linen dealers thanking Boswell's old rival, as he supposed, +with Miss Blair, Sir Alexander Gilmour, M.P. for Midlothian, for his +efforts at providing better legislation.</p> + +<p>Rasay is one of the happiest descriptions in the tour. 'This,' said +Johnson, 'is truly the patriarchal life; this is what we came to find.' +They heard from home and had letters. At Kingsburgh they were welcomed +by the lady of the house, 'the celebrated Miss Flora Macdonald, a little +woman of genteel appearance; and uncommonly mild and well-bred.' 'I was +in a cordial humour, and promoted a cheerful glass. Honest Mr M'Queen +observed that I was in high glee, "my governor being gone to bed." ... +The room where we lay was a celebrated one. Dr Johnson's bed was the +very bed in which the grandson of the unfortunate King James the Second +lay, on one of the nights after the failure of his rash attempt in +1745-6. To see Dr Samuel Johnson lying in that bed, in the Isle of Sky, +in the house of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">{101}</a></span> Miss Flora Macdonald, struck me with such a group of +ideas as it is not easy for words to describe, as they passed through +the mind. The room was decorated with a great variety of maps and +prints. Among others, was Hogarth's print of Wilkes grinning, with a cap +of liberty on a pole by him.' Certainly Bozzy had never thought of +finding a remembrance of his 'classic friend' in such circumstances.</p> + +<p>Dunvegan and the castle of the Macleods received them in hospitable +style. 'Boswell,' said Johnson, in allusion to Sir Alexander's stinted +ways, 'we came in at the wrong end of the island;' the memories of their +visit had not been forgotten when Scott was there on his Lighthouse Tour +in 1814. The Rambler 'had tasted lotus, and was in danger of forgetting +he was ever to depart.'</p> + +<p>Landing at Strolimus, they proceeded to Corrichatachin, 'with but a +single star to light us on our way.' There took place the scene that, +though familiar, must be given in the writer's own words. A man who, for +artistic setting and colour, could write it deliberately down even to +his own disadvantage, and who could appeal to serious critics and +readers of discernment and taste against the objections which he saw +himself would be raised from the misinterpretation of others, is a +figure not to be met with every day in literature.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'Dr Johnson went to bed soon. When one bowl of punch was +finished, I rose, and was near the door, on my way upstairs to +bed; but Corrichatachin said, it was the first time Col had +been in his house, and he should have his bowl; and would not I +join in drinking it? The heartiness of my honest landlord, and +the desire of doing social honour to our very obliging +conductor, induced me to sit down again. Col's bowl was +finished; and by that time we were well warmed. A third bowl +was soon made, and that too was finished. We were cordial, and +merry to a high degree; but of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">{102}</a></span> what passed I have no +recollection, with any accuracy. I remember calling +<i>Corrichatachin</i> by the familiar appellation of <i>Corri</i> which +his friends do. A fourth bowl was made, by which time Col, and +young M'Kinnon, Corrichatachin's son, slipped away to bed. I +continued a little time with Corri and Knockow; but at last I +left them. It was near five in the morning when I got to bed. +<i>Sunday, September 26.</i> I awaked at noon with a severe +head-ach. I was much vexed that I should have been guilty of +such a riot, and afraid of a reproof from Dr Johnson, I thought +it very inconsistent with that conduct which I ought to +maintain, while the companion of the Rambler. About one he came +into my room, and accosted me, "What, drunk yet?" His tone of +voice was not that of severe upbraiding; so I was relieved a +little. "Sir," (said I), "they kept me up." He answered, "No, +you kept them up, you drunken dog:"—this he said with +good-humoured <i>English</i> pleasantry. Soon afterwards, +Corrichatachin, Col, and other friends assembled round my bed. +Corri had a brandy bottle and glass with him, and insisted I +should take a dram. "Ay," said Dr Johnson, "fill him drunk +again. Do it in the morning, that we may laugh at him all day. +It is a poor thing for a fellow to get drunk at night, and +skulk to bed, and let his friends have no sport." Finding him +thus jocular, I became quite easy; and when I offered to get +up, he very good naturedly said, "You need be in no such hurry +now." I took my host's advice, and drank some brandy, which I +found an effectual cure for my head-ach. When I rose, I went +into Dr Johnson's room, and taking up Mrs M'Kinnon's +Prayer-Book, I opened it at the twentieth Sunday after Trinity, +in the epistle for which I read, "And be not drunk with wine, +wherein there is excess." Some would have taken this as a +divine interposition.'</p></div> + +<p>Such is the extraordinary confession. St Augustine, Rousseau, De +Quincey, have not quite equalled this. He found it had been made the +subject of serious criticism and ludicrous banter. But his one object, +as he tells 'serious criticks,' has been to delineate Johnson's +character, and for this purpose he appeals from Philip drunk to Philip +sober, and to the approbation of the discerning reader. Later on, he has +laid the flattering<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">{103}</a></span> unction to his heart, and has extracted comfort +from the soul of things evil. He felt comfortable, and 'I then thought +that my last night's riot was no more than such a social excess as may +happen without much moral blame; and recollected that some physicians +maintained, that a fever produced by it was, upon the whole, good for +health: so different are our reflections on the same subject, at +different periods; and such the excuses with which we palliate what we +know to be wrong.'</p> + +<p>Leaving Skye, they ran before the wind to Col.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'It was very dark, and there was a heavy and incessant rain. +The sparks of the burning peat flew so much about, that I +dreaded the vessel might take fire. Then as <i>Col</i> was a +sportsman, and had powder on board, I figured that we might be +blown up. Our vessel often lay so much on one side, that I +trembled lest she should be overset, and indeed they told me +afterwards that they had run her sometimes to within an inch of +the water, so anxious were they to make what haste they could +before the night should be worse. I now saw what I never saw +before, a prodigious sea, with immense billows coming upon a +vessel, so that it seemed hardly possible to escape. I am glad +I have seen it once. I endeavoured to compose my mind; when I +thought of those who were dearest to me, and would suffer +severely, should I be lost, I upbraided myself. Piety afforded +me comfort; yet I was disturbed by the objections that have +been made against a particular providence, and by the arguments +of those who maintain that it is in vain to hope that the +petitions of an individual, or even of congregations, can have +any influence with the Deity. I asked <i>Col</i> with much +earnestness what I could do. He with a happy readiness put into +my hand a rope, which was fixed to the top of one of the masts, +and told me to hold it till he bade me pull. If I had +considered the matter, I might have seen that this could not be +of the slightest service; but his object was to keep me out of +the way.... Thus did I stand firm to my post, while the wind +and rain beat upon me, always expecting a call to pull my +rope.... They spied the harbour of Lochiern, and <i>Col</i> cried, +"Thank God, we are safe!" Dr Johnson had all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">{104}</a></span> this time been +quiet and unconcerned. He had lain down on one of the beds, and +having got free from sickness, was satisfied. The truth is, he +knew nothing of the danger we were in. Once he asked whither we +were going; upon being told that it was not certain whether to +Mull or Col, he cried, "Col for my money!" I now went down to +visit him. He was lying in philosophick tranquillity, with a +greyhound of <i>Col's</i> at his back keeping him warm.'</p></div> + +<p>Mull, Tobermory, Ulva's Isle, and Inch Kenneth followed. Then +Iona,—'the sacred place which as long as I can remember, I had thought +on with veneration.' The two friends, as they landed on the island, +'cordially embraced,' as they had done in the <i>White Horse</i> at +Edinburgh, and the mark of feeling is a note that we are yet with them +in the eighteenth century. They lay in a barn with a portmanteau for a +pillow, and 'when I awaked in the morning and looked round me, I could +not help smiling at the idea of the chief of the Macleans, the great +English moralist, and myself lying thus extended in such a situation.' +The old Boswell of the Roman Catholic days appears at this time. +'Boswell,' writes Johnson to Mrs Thrale, 'who is very pious went into +the chapel at night to perform his devotions, but came back in haste for +fear of spectres.' Second sight was often in their thoughts and +conversation on their tour; at the club Colman had jocularly to bid +Boswell 'cork it up' when he was too full of his belief on the point. +His fear of ghosts reminds one of Pepys in the year of the great plague, +as he went through the graveyard of the church, with the bodies buried +thick and high, 'frighted and much troubled.'</p> + +<p>'I left him,' says Boswell himself, 'and Sir Allan at breakfast in our +barn, and stole back again to the cathedral, to indulge in solitude and +devout meditation. When contemplating the venerable ruins, <i>I reflected +with much satisfaction</i>, that the solemn scenes of piety<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">{105}</a></span> <i>never lose +their sanctity and influence</i>, though the cares and follies of life may +prevent us from visiting them.... I hoped that, ever after having been +in this holy place, I should maintain an exemplary conduct. One has a +strange propensity to fix upon some point of time from whence a better +course of life may begin.' This is a revelation of the inner Boswell. On +the eve of the appearance of the <i>Tour in Corsica</i>, he had written to +Temple, about 'fixing some period for my perfection as far as possible. +Let it be when my account of Corsica is finished. I shall then have a +character to support.' On landing at Rasay, he noticed the remains of a +cross on the rock, 'which had to me a pleasing vestige of religion,' and +he 'could not but value the family seat more for having even the ruins +of a chapel close to it. There was something comforting in the thought +of being so near a piece of consecrated ground.'</p> + +<p>Oban received them with a tolerable inn. They were again on the +mainland, and found papers with conjectures as to their motions in the +islands. Next day they spent at Inverary. The castle of the Duke of +Argyll was near, and now, for the first time on the tour, the +indefatigable agent in advance was completely nonplussed. The spectre of +the great Douglas Trial loomed large in the eyes of the pamphleteer and +the hero of the riot. He had reason, he says, to fear hostile reprisals +on the part of the Duchess, who had been Duchess of Hamilton and mother +of the rival claimant, before she had become the wife of John, fifth +Duke of Argyll. It is from this scene and from the Stratford Jubilee +fiasco that the general reader draws his picture of poor Bozzy, and the +belief remains that James Boswell was a pushing and forward interloper, +half mountebank and half showman. Read in the original, as a revelation +of the writer's character, the very reverse is the impression;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">{106}</a></span> he is +there presented not in any ludicrous light but rather in a good-humoured +and fussy way. He met his friend the Rev. John Macaulay, one of the +ministers of Inverary, who accompanied them to the castle, where Boswell +presented the doctor to the Duke. 'I shall never forget,' quaintly adds +the chronicler, 'the impression made upon my fancy by some of the +ladies' maids tripping about in neat morning dresses. After seeing for a +long time little but rusticity, their lively manner, and gay inviting +appearance, pleased me so much, that I thought, for a moment, I could +have been a knight-errant for them.' This grandfather of the historian +and essayist, the man who has dealt the heaviest blow to the reputation +of poor Bozzy, was to encounter some warm retorts from the Rambler like +his brother, Macaulay's grand-uncle, the minister at Calder. Mr +Trevelyan is eager for the good name of his family, and finds it +impossible to suppress a wish that the great talker had been there to +avenge them. It may not be quite impossible that, mingling with the +brilliant essayist's ill-will to the politics of the travellers, there +was an unconscious strain of resentment at the contemptuous way in which +his relations had been tossed by the doctor, and that Bozzy's own +subsequent denunciations of the abolitionists and the slave trade had +edged the memories in the mind of the son of Zachary Macaulay. Be this +as it may, for this scene Macaulay has a keen eye, and as much of his +colour is derived from it, it is but right that in some abridged form +the incident be set down here in Boswell's own words—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'I went to the castle just about the time when I supposed the +ladies would be retired from dinner. I sent in my name; and, +being shewn in, found the amiable Duke sitting at the head of +his table with several gentlemen. I was most politely received, +and gave his grace some particulars of the curious journey +which I had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">{107}</a></span> been making with Dr Johnson.... As I was going +away, the Duke said, "Mr Boswell, won't you have some tea?" I +thought it best to get over the meeting with the Duchess this +night; so respectfully agreed. I was conducted to the +drawing-room by the Duke, who announced my name; but the +duchess, who was sitting with her daughter, Lady Betty +Hamilton, and some other ladies, took not the least notice of +me. I should have been mortified at being thus coldly received, +had I not been consoled by the obliging attention of the Duke.</p> + +<p>'<i>Monday, October 25.</i> I presented Dr Johnson to the Duke of +Argyll ... the duke placed Dr Johnson next himself at table. I +was in fine spirits; and though sensible of not being in favour +with the duchess, I was not in the least disconcerted, and +offered her grace some of the dish that was before me. It must +be owned that I was in the right to be quite unconcerned, if I +could. I was the Duke of Argyll's guest; and I had no reason to +suppose that he adopted the prejudices and resentments of the +Duchess of Hamilton.</p> + +<p>'I knew it was the rule of modern high life not to drink to +anybody; but, that I might have the satisfaction for once to +look the duchess in the face, with a glass in my hand, I with a +respectful air addressed her,—"My Lady Duchess, I have the +honour to drink your grace's good health." I repeated the words +audibly, and with a steady countenance. This was, perhaps, +rather too much; but some allowance must be made for human +feelings. I made some remark that seemed to imply a belief in +<i>second sight</i>. The duchess said, "I fancy you will be <i>a +methodist</i>." This was the only sentence her grace deigned to +utter to me; and I take it for granted, she thought it a good +hit on <i>my credulity</i> in the Douglas Cause.</p> + +<p>'We went to tea. The duke and I walked up and down the +drawing-room, conversing. The duchess still continued to shew +the same marked coldness for me; for which, though I suffered +from it, I made every allowance, considering the very warm part +that I had taken for Douglas, in the cause in which she thought +her son deeply interested. Had not her grace discovered some +displeasure towards me, I should have suspected her of +insensibility or dissimulation. Her grace made Dr Johnson come +and sit by her, and asked him why he made his journey so late +in the year. "Why, madam (said he), you know Mr Boswell must +attend the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">{108}</a></span> Court of Session, and it does not rise till the +12th of August." She said, with some sharpness, "I <i>know +nothing</i> of Mr Boswell." Poor Lady Lucy Douglas, to whom I +mentioned this, observed, "She knew <i>too much</i> of Mr Boswell." +I shall make no remark on her grace's speech, etc., etc.'</p></div> + +<p>In all this scene it will be confessed there is nothing but rudeness on +the part of the duchess, one of the beautiful Gunnings, intentional or +otherwise, while the kindly touches on Boswell's part, his allowance for +her supposed feelings over the trial, and his determination, for once, +to look a duchess in the face, are admirable. Bozzy was by birth a +gentleman, and there is not the slightest indication here of any want of +breeding or taste on his side.</p> + +<p>At Dumbarton, steep as is the incline, Johnson ascended it. The +<i>Saracen's Head</i>, which had welcomed Paoli before now, received the +travellers. There was now no more sullen fuel or peat. 'Here am I,' +soliloquized the Rambler, with a leg upon each side of the grate, 'an +<i>Englishman</i>, sitting by a coal fire.'</p> + +<p>'Jamie's aff the hooks noo;' said the old laird, as they drew near +Auchinleck, 'he's bringing doon an auld dominie.' Boswell begged of his +companion to avoid three topics of discourse on which he knew his father +had fixed opinions—Whiggism, Presbyterianism, and Sir John Pringle. For +a time all went well. They walked about 'the romantick groves of my +ancestors,' and Bozzy discoursed on the antiquity and honourable +alliances of the family, and on the merits of its founder, Thomas, who +fell with King James at Flodden. But the storm broke, over the judge's +collection of medals, where that of Oliver Cromwell brought up Charles +the First and Episcopacy. All must regret that the writer's filial +feelings withheld the 'interesting scene in this dramatick sketch.' It +is the one <i>lacuna</i> in the book.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">{109}</a></span> Sir John Pringle, as the middle term +in the debate, came off without a bruise, but the honours lay with Lord +Auchinleck. The man whose 'Scots strength of sarcasm' could retort on +Johnson, that Cromwell was a man that let kings know they 'had a <i>lith</i> +in their neck,' was likely to open new ideas to the doctor, whose +political opinions could not rank higher than prejudices. 'Thus they +parted,' says the son, after his father had, with his dignified +courtesy, seen Johnson into the postchaise; 'they are now in a happier +state of existence, in a place where there is no room for <i>Whiggism</i>.' +'I have always said,' the doctor maintained, 'the first Whig was the +Devil!'</p> + +<p>Edinburgh was reached on November 9th. Eighty-three days had passed +since they left it, and for five weeks no news of them had been heard. +Writing from London, on his arrival, Johnson said, 'I came home last +night, without any incommodity, danger, or weariness, and am ready to +begin a new journey. I know Mrs Boswell wished me well to go.' The +irregular hours of her guest, and his habit of turning the candles +downward when they did not burn brightly, letting the wax run upon the +carpet, had not been quite to the taste of the hostess, who resented, +'what was very natural to a female mind,' the influence he possessed +over the actions of her husband.</p> + +<p>We may well call this tour a spirited one, as Boswell had styled his own +Corsican expedition. No better book of travels in Scotland has ever been +written than Boswell's <i>Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides</i>. The accuracy +of his description, his eye for scenes and dramatic effects, have all +been fully borne witness to by those who have followed in their track, +and the fact of the book being day by day read by Johnson, during its +preparation, gives it an additional value from the perfect<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">{110}</a></span> veracity of +its contents—'as I have resolved that the very journal which Dr Johnson +read shall be presented to the publick, I will not expand the text in +any considerable degree.' If the way in which the Rambler roughed it, +'laughing to think of myself roving among the Hebrides at sixty, and +wondering where I shall rove at four score,' is admirable, none the less +so is Bozzy's imperturbable good humour. 'It is very convenient to +travel with him,' writes his companion from Auchinleck to Mrs Thrale, +'for there is no house where he is not received with kindness and +respect. He has better faculties than I had imagined; more justness of +discernment and more fecundity of images.' They had hoped to go sailing +from island to island, and had not reckoned with what Scott, who wonders +they were not drowned, calls the proverbial carelessness of Hebridean +boatmen. They really had come two months too late. But Boswell's +attention to the old man smoothed all difficulties,—'looking on the +tour as a co-partnership between Dr Johnson and myself,' he did his part +faithfully, dancing reels, singing songs, and airing the scraps of +Gaelic he picked up, thinking all this better than 'to play the abstract +scholar.'</p> + +<p>Johnson's account of the journey is an able performance, and is written +with a lighter touch and grace than is to be found in his early works. +One passage from it has become famous,—his description of Iona. 'The +man whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or +whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona,' rivals +Macaulay's New Zealander as a stock quotation, and the whole book is not +without incisive touches. But it is completely eclipsed by the <i>Journal</i> +of Boswell. From start to finish there is not a dull page, and the +literary polish is, we venture to think, of a higher kind than is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">{111}</a></span> seen +in the <i>Life</i>. The artistic opening, and the grouping of the characters, +together with the wealth of archćological and historical information, +the tripping style and sustained interest, all render this book of +Boswell's a masterpiece. Johnson's account, published in 1775, took ten +years to reach a second edition. Boswell's appeared in September, 1785; +and by December 20 the issue was exhausted, a third followed on August +15, 1786, and the next year saw a German translation issued at Lubeck. +There had been grave indiscretions, lack of reticence, and other faults +in the book. Caricatures were rife. <i>Revising for the Second Edition</i> +shewed Sir Alexander Macdonald seizing the author by the throat, and +pointing with his stick to the open book, where two leaves are marked as +torn out. But Boswell, in <i>The Gentleman's Magazine</i> for March 1786, +asserts that no such applications or threats had been made. The results, +however, may have added to the writer's unpopularity, as Lord Houghton +suggests, at the Edinburgh bar, through the answers, replies, and other +rejoinders to the strictures of Johnson, for which Boswell, as the +pioneer and the introducer of the stranger, 'the chiel among them takin' +notes,' may in Edinburgh society have been held as mainly responsible.</p> + +<p>To Johnson, the memories of the tour—the lone shieling and the misty +island—were a source of pleasing recollection. Taken earlier, it would +have removed many of his insular prejudices by wider survey and more +varied conversation. 'The expedition to the Hebrides,' he wrote to +Boswell some years after, 'was the most pleasant journey I ever made;' +and two years later, after restless and tedious nights, he is found +reverting to it and recalling the best night he had had these twenty +years back, at Fort Augustus. Yet all through September they had not +more than a day and a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">{112}</a></span> half of really good weather, and but the same +during October. Out of such slight materials and uncomfortable +surroundings has Boswell produced a masterpiece of descriptive writing. +The memory of Johnson has lingered where that of the Jacobite Pretender +has well-nigh completely passed away. Mr Gladstone, proposing a +Parliamentary vote of thanks to Lord Napier for 'having planted the +Standard of St George upon the mountains of Rasselas;' Sir Robert Peel, +quoting, in his address to Glasgow University as Lord Rector, Johnson's +description of Iona; Sir Walter Scott finding in Skye that he and his +friends had in their memories, as the one typical association of the +island, the ode to Mrs Thrale, all combine to shew the abiding interest +attaching to the Rambler even in Abyssinia and to his foot-steps in +Scotland.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">{113}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">EDINBURGH LIFE—DEATH OF JOHNSON. 1773-1784</span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'My father used to protest I was born to be a strolling +pedlar.'—<span class="smcap">Sir Walter Scott</span>—<i>Autobiography.</i></p></div> + + +<p>'You have done Auchinleck much honour and have, I hope, overcome my +father who has never forgiven your warmth for monarchy and episcopacy. I +am anxious to see how your pages will operate on him.' Boswell had good +grounds for thus expressing himself to Johnson over the publication of +the latter's book. He had not long, it would seem, to wait for the +breaking of the storm, as we find him writing to Temple in ominous +language. 'My father,' he says, 'is most unhappily dissatisfied with me. +He harps on my going over Scotland with a brute (think how shockingly +erroneous!) and wandering, or some such phrase, to London. I always +dread his making some bad settlement.' Then the old judge would grimly +relate how Lord Crichton, son of the Earl of Dumfries, would go to +Edinburgh, and how, when he was carried back to the family vault, the +Earl, as he saw the hearse from the window, had said, 'Ay, ay, Charles, +thou went without an errand: I think thou hast got one to bring thee +back again.'</p> + +<p>But had the son chosen to be quite candid here, we should see how just a +cause the father had for his displeasure. In the spring of 1774, he had +written to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">{114}</a></span> Johnson suggesting a run up to London, expressing the +peculiar satisfaction which he felt in celebrating Easter at St Paul's, +which to his fancy was like going up to Jerusalem at the feast of the +Passover. The doctor was wisely deaf to this subtle appeal. 'Edinburgh,' +said he, 'is not yet exhausted,' and reminded him that his wife, having +permitted him last year to ramble, had now a claim upon him at home, +while to come to Iona or to Jerusalem could not be necessary, though +useful. Next year, however, Boswell was in London, 'quite in my old +humour,' as he tells Temple, arguing with him for concubinage and the +plurality of the patriarchs, from all which we may see that the plea +urged to Johnson for the visit was to be taken in a lax sense by +Boswell, who made his chief excuse out of some business at the bar of +the House over an election petition in Clackmannan. He waited on Temple +in Devon and shocked his host by his inebriety, but 'under a solemn yew +tree' he had vowed reformation. But his return to town, if it 'exalted +him in piety' at St Paul's, seems to have led but to fresh dissipation. +He hints at 'Asiatic multiplicity,' but this is only when he has taken +too much claret. The good resolutions at Iona and the influence of the +ruins had passed away, the trip is extended to two months, and he frets +irritably over his old friend Henry Dundas's election as King's +Advocate,—'to be sure he has strong parts, but he is a coarse +unlettered dog.' Harry Dundas at least was never found philandering as +we find Bozzy on this occasion, where the mixture of religion and +flirtation is so confusing. 'After breakfasting with Paoli,' he writes +before leaving for the north, 'and worshipping at St Paul's, I dined +<i>tęte-ŕ-tęte</i> with my charming Mrs Stuart, of whom you have read in my +Journal. We dined in all the elegance of two courses and a dessert, with +dumb waiters, except when the second<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">{115}</a></span> course and the dessert were +served. We talked with unreserved freedom, as we had nothing to fear. We +were <i>philosophical</i>, upon honour—not deep, but feeling, we were pious; +we drank tea and bid each other adieu as finely as romance paints. She +is my wife's dearest friend, so you see how beautiful our intimacy is.' +But from Johnson's letter to Mrs Thrale we see looming ahead a crisis. +'He got two and forty guineas in fees while he was here. He has by <i>his +wife's persuasion and mine</i> taken down a present for his +mother-in-law,'—an error, doubtless, for 'stepmother.' He had entered +himself this time at the Temple, and Johnson was his bond. He left to be +in time for practice before the General Assembly, finding 'something low +and coarse in such employment, but guineas must be had'—a feeling quite +different from that of Lord Cockburn who thought the aisle of St Giles +had seen the best work of the best men in the kingdom since 1640. +Perhaps his feelings on this point were soothed by the traveller in the +coach, a Miss Silverton, an 'amiable creature who has been in France. I +can unite little fondnesses with perfect conjugal love.' Alas for poor +Peggie Montgomerie, 'of the ancient house of Eglintoun,' blamed by his +father for not bridling the follies of his son, waiting, doubtless, +anxiously for the present to the second wife of his father as a means of +peace-offering!</p> + +<p>Then the secret leaks out that the father had refused Boswell's plan of +being allowed Ł400 a year and the trial of fortune at the London bar. +His debts of Ł1000 had been paid, and his allowance of Ł300 threatened +with the reduction of a third. The promise under the old yew had not +been kept; the one bottle of hock as a statutory limit had been +exceeded, he had been 'not drunk, but was intoxicated,'—a subtle point +for bacchanalian casuists, and very ill next day. He lays<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">{116}</a></span> it on the +drunken habits of the country which, he says, are very bad, and with the +recollection of Burns' temptations in Dumfries we may admit that they +were. His father, too, was now about to entail his estate, and Bozzy's +predilection for feudal principles and heirs male brought things to a +deadlock. He appealed to Lord Hailes, who admitted conscience and self +formed a strong plea when found on different sides. Finally, after the +judge had inserted in the deed his precautions against 'a weak, foolish +and extravagant person,' the estate was entailed on Boswell. 'My +father,' he tells Temple, 'is so different from me. We <i>divaricate</i> so +much, as Dr Johnson said. He has a method of treating me which makes me +feel like a timid boy, which to <i>Boswell</i> (comprehending all that my +character does in my own imagination and in that of a wonderful number +of mankind) is intolerable. It requires the utmost exertion of practical +philosophy to keep myself quiet; but it has cost me drinking a +considerable quantity of strong beer to dull my faculties.' The picture +of the son drinking himself down to the level of the father is truly +inimitable!</p> + +<p>He feared the final settlement. He might be disgraced by his father, and +not a shilling secured to his wife and children. Then he is comforted by +the thought that his father is visibly failing, and he consults his +brother David with a view to a settlement, should the succession pass to +him. The birth of a son, who was diplomatically called Alexander, was +taken by the old man as a compliment, and we find Boswell visiting at +Auchinleck, 'not long at one time, but frequent renewals of attention +are agreeable,' he finds, to his father. He proposed to Johnson a tour +round the English cathedrals, but a brief trip with him to Derbyshire +was all that resulted. We now find for the first time in the <i>Life</i> +indications of what would ensue when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">{117}</a></span> the strong hand of Johnson was +removed from the guidance of his weaker companion. 'As we drove back to +Ashbourne,' he writes with curious frankness, 'Dr Johnson recommended to +me, <i>as he had often done</i>, to drink water only,' and we meet with as +curious a defence of drinking—the great difficulty of resisting it when +a good man asks you to drink the wine he has had twenty years in his +cellar! Benevolence calls for compliance, for, 'curst be the <i>spring</i>,' +he adds with a change of Pope's verse, 'how well soe'er it flow, that +tends to make one worthy man my foe!' 'I do,' he wrote in the <i>London +Magazine</i> for March 1780, 'fairly acknowledge that I love drinking; that +I have a constitutional inclination to indulge in fermented liquors, and +that if it were not for the restraints of reason and religion, I am +afraid that I should be as constant a votary of Bacchus as any man. +Drinking is in reality an occupation which employs a considerable +portion of the time of many people; and to conduct it in the most +rational and agreeable manner is one of the great arts of living. Were +we so framed that it were possible by perpetual supplies of wine to keep +ourselves for ever gay and happy, there could be no doubt that drinking +would be the <i>summum bonum</i>, the chief good to find out which +philosophers have been so variously busied.' It looks as if poor Bozzy, +when he wrote this, had heard of the Brunonian system of medicine, and +of the unfortunate exemplication of it in practice and in precept by its +founder in Edinburgh. No wonder such excesses produced violent reaction +to low spirits and the 'black dog' of hypochondria. He finds it, after +going to prayers in Carlisle Cathedral, 'divinely cheering to have a +cathedral so near Auchinleck,' one hundred and fifty miles off, as +Johnson sarcastically replied. Bozzy had been writing a series of +articles,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">{118}</a></span> 'The Hypochondriack,' in the <i>London Magazine</i>, for about two +years, but he was advised not to mention his own mental diseases, or to +expect for them either the praise for which there was no room, or the +pity which would do him no good. The active old man was now in better +health than he had been upon the Hebridean tour, and was in hopes of yet +shewing himself with Boswell in some part of Europe, Asia, or Africa. +'What have you to do with liberty and necessity?' cries the doctor to +his friend, who had been worrying himself and his correspondent with +philosophical questions, on which some six years before he had got some +light from the <i>Lettres Persanes</i> of Montesquieu. 'Come to me, my dear +Bozzy, and let us be as happy as we can. We will go again to the Mitre, +and talk old times over.' Thrice during the 1781 visit to London do we +see his unfortunate habits breaking out; and, when we find him saying he +has unfortunately preserved none of the conversations, Miss Hannah More, +who met him that day at the Bishop of St Asaph's, explains it—'I was +heartily disgusted with Mr Boswell, who came upstairs after dinner much +disordered with wine.'</p> + +<p>Let us hear his own confession over his conduct at the house of Lady +Galway.</p> + +<p>'Another evening Johnson's kind indulgence towards me had a pretty +difficult trial. I had dined at the Duke of Montrose's with a very +agreeable party, and his Grace, according to his usual custom, had +circulated the bottle very freely. Lord Graham and I went together to +Miss Monckton's where I certainly was in extraordinary spirits, and +above all fear or awe. In the midst of a great number of persons of the +first rank, amongst whom I recollect with confusion a noble lady of the +most stately decorum, I placed myself next to Johnson, and thinking +myself now fully his match, talked to him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">{119}</a></span> in a loud and boisterous +manner, desirous to let the company know how I could contend with Ajax. +I particularly remember pressing him upon the value of the pleasures of +the imagination, and, as an illustration of my argument, asking him, +"What, sir, suppose I were to fancy that the—(naming the most charming +Duchess in his Majesty's dominions) were in love with me, should I not +be very happy?" My friend with much address evaded my interrogatories, +and kept me as quiet as possible, but it may be easily conceived how he +must have felt.'</p> + +<p>His father was now dying, and a London trip, which had been planned by +Boswell for 1782, found the son at the very limit of his credit. 'If you +anticipate your inheritance,' he was reminded, 'you can at last inherit +nothing. Poverty (added the old <i>impransus</i> Johnson, out of the depths +of his own experience), my friend, is so great an evil that I cannot but +earnestly enjoin you to avoid it. Live on what you have; live, if you +can, on less.' Lord Auchinleck died suddenly at Edinburgh, on August +30th, 1782; and it was unfortunate for Bozzy that neither at the death +of his father nor of his mother, nor, as we shall see of Johnson, was he +present. The evening of the old man's days had been, we are assured by +Ramsay of Ochtertyre, clouded by the follies and eccentricities of his +son. For thirty years he had been sorely tried; twice he had paid his +debts, he had indulged him with a foreign tour, had provided him with +every means of securing professional success at the bar, only to see +that son do everything to miss it and become everything his father hated +in life—a Tory, an Anglican, and a Jacobite. The new laird was anxious +to display himself on a wider sphere. Johnson was now visibly failing, +and was glad of someone to lean upon for little attentions. 'Boswell,' +he said, 'I think I am easier with you than with almost anybody. Get<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">{120}</a></span> as +much force of mind as you can. Let your imports be more than your +exports, and you'll never go far wrong.' He reverted to the old days of +the tour in a hopeful strain: 'I should like to come and have a cottage +in your park, toddle about, live mostly on milk, and be taken care of by +Mrs Boswell. She and I are good friends now, are we not?'</p> + +<p>In 1783 Boswell appeared before the public with a <i>Letter to the People +of Scotland</i>. It was on Fox's proposed bill to regulate the affairs of +the East India Company. Against it he stands forth, 'as an ancient and +faithful Briton, holding an estate transmitted to him by charters from a +series of kings.' Guardedly Johnson admitted that 'your paper contains +very considerable knowledge of history and of the constitution: it will +certainly raise your character, though perhaps it may not make you a +minister of state.' A copy to Pitt elicited the formal acceptance of +thanks, but the exclusion of the bill Boswell took as proof of his own +advocacy. He stood for Ayrshire, turning back from York when the +dissolution was announced. 'Our Boswell,' wrote the doctor to Langton, +'is now said to stand for some place. Whether to wish him success his +best friends hesitate.'</p> + +<p>May found him with the Rambler for the last time. 'I intend,' he writes +to Dr Percy, 'to be in London about the end of this month, chiefly to +attend upon Dr Johnson with respectful affection. He has for some time +been very ill with dropsical asthmatical complaints, which at his age +are very alarming. I wish to publish as a regale to him a neat little +volume—<i>The Praises of Doctor Samuel Johnson, by co-temporary writers</i>. +Will your lordship take the trouble to send me a note of the writers who +have praised our much respected friend?' The attentive Bozzy had written +to all the leading men in the Edinburgh School of Medicine—Cullen, +Hope,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">{121}</a></span> Monro, and others. With the expectation that an increase of +Johnson's pension would enable him to visit Italy, he consulted Sir +Joshua Reynolds, and, with his approval, wrote to Thurlow the +Chancellor. At the house of the painter they dined for the last time.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'I accompanied him in Sir Joshua Reynolds's coach, to the entry +of Bolt Court. He asked me whether I would not go with him to +his house; I declined it, from an apprehension that my spirits +would sink. We bade adieu to each other affectionately in the +carriage. When he had got down upon the foot-pavement he called +out, "Fare you well;" and, without looking back, sprung away +with a kind of pathetick briskness, if I may use that +expression, which seemed to indicate a struggle to conceal +uneasiness, and impressed me with a foreboding of our long, +long separation.'</p></div> + +<p>We think of the dying Cervantes, and the student-admirer of the All +Famous and the Joy of the Muses—'parting at the Toledo bridge, he +turning aside to take the road to Segovia.'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">{122}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">THE ENGLISH BAR—DEATH. 1784-1795</span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.'—<span class="smcap">Julius Cćsar</span>, iii. +2.</p></div> + + +<p>There is something unsatisfactory in the fact that Boswell was not with +Johnson as he died. It gives to his book an air of something distinctly +lacking, which is not with us as we close Lockhart's <i>Life of Scott</i>. +His own account is that he was indisposed during a considerable part of +the year, which may, or may not, be a euphemism for irregular habits; +yet, when we consider how easily he might have been with his old friend, +we must own to a feeling that Boswell's mere satisfaction at learning he +was spoken of with affection by Johnson at the close does not satisfy +the nature of things or the artistic sense of fitness. No literary +executor had been appointed, and the materials for a biography had been +mostly destroyed by Johnson's orders. This, we may be sure, had not been +expected by Boswell, who set himself, however, to prepare for the press +his own <i>Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides</i>, which his friend when alive +had not been willing to see appear as a pendant to the <i>Journey</i>. +'Between ourselves,' he tells Temple, 'he is not apt to encourage one to +share reputation with him.' Yet he felt, as he wrote to Percy on 20th +March 1785, that it was a great consolation to him now that he had, as +it was, collected so much of the wit and the wisdom of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">{123}</a></span> that wonderful +man. 'I do not expect,' he adds, 'to recover from it. I gaze after him +with an eager eye; and I hope again to be with him.'</p> + +<p>Now that the strong hand of Johnson was removed, 'and the light of his +life as if gone out,' the rest of Boswell's life was but a downward +course. He struggles with himself, and feels instinctively the lack of +the curb which the powerful intellect of the Rambler had held on the +weaker character of the other. We find him repeating often to himself +the lines from the <i>Vanity of Human Wishes</i>:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Shall helpless man, in ignorance sedate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate?'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The Lord Advocate had brought into the Commons a bill for the +reconstruction of the Court of Session, proposing to reduce the number +of judges from fifteen to ten, with a corresponding increase of salary. +The occasion was wildly seized by Boswell in May 1785 to issue a +half-crown pamphlet, with the title, '<i>A letter to the People of +Scotland</i>, on the alarming attempt to infringe the Articles of the +Union, and introduce a most pernicious innovation, by diminishing the +number of the Lords of Session.' This extraordinary production, intended +doubtless as a means of recommendation of the author for parliamentary +honours, can hardly now be read in the light of events by any +sympathetic Boswellian but with feelings of sorrow and confusion. Its +publication we may be sure would never have been sanctioned by Johnson.</p> + +<p>After stating the foundation of the Court of Session, by James V. in +1532, on the model of the Parliament of Paris, he attacks Dundas for +having in himself the whole power of a grand jury. 'Mr Edward Bright of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">{124}</a></span> +Malden, the fat man whose print is in all our inns, could button seven +men in his waistcoat; but the learned lord comprehends hundreds.' He +calls on the Scottish people not to be cowed: 'let Lowther come forth +(we cannot emulate Boswell in the plenitude and the magnitude of his +capital letters and other typographical devices), he upon whom the +thousands of Whitehaven depend for three of the elements.' His own +opposition he proclaims is honest, because he has no wish for an office +in the Court of Session; he will try his abilities in a wider sphere. +Rumours of a coalition in the county of Ayr between Sir Adam Ferguson +and the Earl of Eglintoun he hopes are unfounded, 'both as an enthusiast +for ancient feudal attachments, and as having the honour and happiness +to be married to his lordship's relation, a true Montgomerie, whom I +esteem, whom I love, after fifteen years, as on the day when she gave me +her hand.' He assures the people they will have their objections to the +bill supported by 'my old classical companion Wilkes, with whom I pray +you to excuse my keeping company, he is so pleasant;' by Mr Burke, the +Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, and by 'that brave Irishman, +Captain Macbride, the cousin of my wife.' In grandiose capitals he +appeals to Fox and to Pitt. 'Great sir,' he cries, 'forgive my thus +presumptuously, thus rashly, attempting for a moment to forge your +thunder! But I conjure you—in the name of God and the King, I conjure +you—to announce in your own lofty language, that there shall be a stop +put to this conspiracy, which I fear might have the effect of springing +a mine that would blow up your administration.' This letter 'hastily +written upon the spur of the occasion is already too long,' yet he calls +upon his countrymen to allow him to 'indulge a little more my own +egotism and vanity, the indigenous plants<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">{125}</a></span> of my own mind.' His whole +genealogy, Flodden and all, we hear over again. 'If,' he pertinently +adds, 'it should be asked what this note has to do here, I answer to +illustrate the authour of the text. And to pour out all myself as old +Montaigne, I wish all this to be known.' After a eulogy of himself as no +time-server, and his profession of readiness 'to discuss topicks with +mitred St Asaph, and others; to drink, to laugh, to converse with +Quakers, Republicans, Jews and Moravians,' he exhorts his friends and +countrymen, in the words of his departed Goldsmith, who gave him many +Attic nights and that jewel of the finest water, the acquaintance of Sir +Joshua Reynolds, 'to fly from petty tyrants to the throne.' He declares +himself a Tory, but no slave. He is in possession of an essay, dictated +to him by Dr Johnson, on the distinction between Whig and Tory, and +concludes with <i>eclat</i>, 'with one of the finest passages in John Home's +noble and elegant tragedy of <i>Douglas</i>.'</p> + +<p>No condensation of this, the most 'characteristical' of all his +writings, can give the reader any idea of this extraordinary production. +Once only does it deviate into sense when, on the last page, we find the +advertisement of the <i>Tour to the Hebrides</i>, 'which was read and liked +by Dr Johnson, and will faithfully and minutely exhibit what he said was +the pleasantest part of his life.'</p> + +<p>In the Hilary Term of 1786, he was called to the English bar, feeling +it, as he said, 'a pity to dig in a lead mine, when he could dig in a +gold one.' Johnson had always thrown cold water on the idea, though as +early as February 1775, as we find from a letter of Boswell's to Strahan +the printer, the idea had been proposed to him. In the May of 1786 he +writes to Mickle, the translator of the <i>Lusiad</i>, that he is in a +wavering state; he has the house of his friend Hoole,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">{126}</a></span> and he still +retains the use of General Paoli's residence in Portman Square. When he +did finally take up his own quarters in Cavendish Square, the result was +not what he had expected. He was discouraged by the want of practice, +and the prospect of any. In fact, he was to feel what, as Malone says, +Lord Auchinleck had all along told his son, that it would cost him much +more trouble to hide his ignorance of Scotch and English law than to +shew his knowledge. He feared his own deficiencies in 'the forms, quirks +and quiddities,' which he saw could be learned only by early habit. He +even doubted whether he should not be satisfied with being simply baron +of Auchinleck with a good income in Scotland; but he felt that such a +course could not 'deaden the ambition which has raged in my veins like a +fever.' The Horatian motto inscribed on the front of Auchinleck House, +telling of the peace of mind dearer than all to be found everywhere, if +the mind itself is in its own place, was never appreciated, however, by +the new laird.</p> + +<p>His ignorance of law was soon shewn at the Lancaster assizes. Mr Leslie +Stephen is inclined to view the story as being not very credible. Yet we +fear the authority is indisputable. 'We found Jemmy Boswell,' writes +Lord Eldon, 'lying upon the pavement—inebriated. We subscribed at +supper a guinea for him and half a guinea for his clerk, and sent him +next morning a brief with instructions to move for the writ of <i>Quare +adhćsit pavimento</i>, with observations calculated to induce him to think +that it required great learning to explain the necessity of granting it. +He sent all round the town to attorneys for books, but in vain. He +moved, however, for the writ, making the best use he could of the +observations in the brief. The judge was astonished, and the audience +amazed. The judge said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">{127}</a></span> 'I never heard of such a writ—what can it be +that adheres <i>pavimento</i>? Are any of you gentlemen at the bar able to +explain this?' The Bar laughed. At last one of them said, 'My Lord, Mr +Boswell last night <i>adhćsit pavimento</i>. There was no moving him for some +time. At last he was carried to bed, and he has been dreaming about +himself and the pavement.' Lord Jeffrey once assisted Bozzy to bed in +similar circumstances. 'You are a promising lad,' he told him next +morning, 'and if you go on as you have begun, you may be a Bozzy +yourself yet.' No wonder that we find him hesitating about going on the +spring northern circuit, which would cost him, he says, fifty pounds, +and oblige him to be in rough company for four weeks.</p> + +<p>His only piece of promotion came from Lord Lonsdale. Pitt had been +brought in by this nobleman for the pocket-borough of Appleby, and Bozzy +had hopes of a Parliamentary introduction that way. Carlyle of Inveresk +found this worthless patron of the unfortunate office seeker 'more +detested than any man alive, as a shameless political sharper, a +domestic bashaw, and an intolerable tyrant over his tenants.' Penrith +and Whitehaven were in fear when he walked their streets; he defied his +creditors; and the father of the poet Wordsworth died without being able +to enforce his claims. The author of the <i>Rolliad</i> describes his power +as</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">'Even by the elements confessed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of mines and boroughs Lonsdale stands possessed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And one sad servitude alike denotes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The slave that labours and the slave that votes.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It was on this political boroughmonger and jobber that Boswell was now +pinning his faith. The complete<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">{128}</a></span> dependence of him on Lonsdale in return +for the Recordership of Carlisle did not escape the notice of the wits, +who now found that the writer who had been declaring over the India Bill +of Fox his devotion to the throne, the Tory, but no slave, had +transferred his entire loyalty and abjectest protestations to 'his king +in Westmoreland.' To add to his distress, his wife was dying. A short +trial of London had led her to return to Ayrshire, and her husband was +lost in doubt whether to revisit her or cling to 'the great sphere of +England,' the whirl of the metropolis, in hopes that the great prize +would at last be drawn. In the north he found her still lingering on, +but in his eagerness to obtain political influence 'I drank so freely +that riding home in the dark I fell from my horse and bruised my +shoulder.' From London he was again summoned, but with his curious +infelicity at such times of trouble, he was not in time to witness her +death: 'not till my second daughter came running out from the house and +announced to us the dismal event in a burst of tears.' Remorse found +vent in an agony of grief. 'She never would have left me,' he cries to +Temple; 'this reflection will pursue me to my grave.' In July, the +widower of a month hastened north to contest the county, only to find +Sir Adam Fergusson chosen. 'Let me never impiously repine,' is his cry +of distress. 'Yet as "Jesus wept" for the death of Lazarus, I hope my +tears at this time are excused. The woeful circumstance of such a state +of mind is that it rejects consolation; it feels an indulgence in its +own wretchedness.' His hustings appearances would appear to have been at +least marked by fluency, for Burns, his junior by eighteen years, +declares his own inability to fight like Montgomerie or 'gab like +Boswell.'</p> + +<p>As he draws to a close, the letters of Boswell improve<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">{129}</a></span> both in form and +matter. It is painful to see him on every hand seeking the Parliamentary +interest out of which he was all the while doing his best to write +himself. No party could or would take him seriously. His rent-roll was +over Ł1600, a large sum in these days, and it was yearly rising. +Earnestly did his brother David press upon him a return to Auchinleck +and the retrenchment of his expenses. But the spell of the lights of +London was on him, and 'I could not endure Edinburgh,' he tells us, +'unless I were to have a judge's place to bear me up,' and that was a +thing not to be dreamed of after the publication of the <i>Letter</i>. He +dispersed his family to various schools, finding the eldest of the boys +beginning to oppose him, 'and no wonder,' as he bitterly adds. Then the +cry is forced from him in allusion to the famous passage in Shakespeare +on Wolsey's hopes and fall—a passage which, curiously enough, we have +come upon in the common-place book which Boswell had kept as a boy—'O +Temple, Temple, is this realizing any of the towering hopes which have +so often been the subject of our letters. Yet I live much with a great +man, who, upon any day that his fancy shall be inclined, may obtain for +me an office.' Everywhere he casts about, trying the Lord Chancellor, +not seeing the smallest opening in Westminster Hall, but buoyed up by +'the delusion that practice may come at any time.'</p> + +<p>'We must do something for you,' Burke had said in a kindly way, 'for our +own sakes.' He recommended him to General Conway, but though the place +was not obtained the letter was valued by Boswell more. Writing to Mr +Abercrombie in America, even as late as the July of 1793, he is found +expressing 'a great wish to see that country; and I once flattered +myself that I should be sent thither in a station of some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">{130}</a></span> importance;' +and from a letter to Burke we learn that this expected post had been a +commissionership in the treaty between America and Britain. Dundas was +another of his hopes. 'The excellent Langton says it is disgraceful, it +is utter folly in Pitt not to attach to his administration a man of my +popular and pleasant talents.' Dundas, however, after having been given +a margin of two months for a reply, has made no sign; 'how can I delude +myself? I will tell you,' he informs Temple, 'Lord Lonsdale shews me +more and more regard. Three of his members assure me that he will give +me a seat at the General Election.' Then that last reed was to break. At +Lowther Castle, his wig was removed from his room, as a practical joke +of a coarse order on the unoffending Boswell, and all the day he was +obliged to go in his nightcap, which he felt was very ill-timed to one +in his situation. The loss of the wig the unsuspecting victim declares +will remain as great a secret as the writer of the letters of Junius, +but ere long the tyrant whom he had invoked as the man of Macedonia to +help Scotland has undeceived him. 'I suppose you thought,' he roughly +said, 'I was to bring you into Parliament? I never had any such +intention.' It is impossible not to feel for Boswell at this crisis. 'I +am down at an inn,' he writes to Temple, 'and ashamed and sunk on +account of the disappointment of hopes which led me to endure such +grievances. I deserve all that I suffer. I am at the same time +distracted what to do in my own county. I am quite in a fever. O my old +and most intimate friend, I intreat you to afford me some consolation, +and pray do not divulge my mortification. I now resign my Recordership, +and shall get rid of all connection with this brutal fellow.' His last +Parliamentary venture was cut short by the reflection how small was his +following. How<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">{131}</a></span> curiously after all this reads his own little +autobiographical sketch in the <i>European Magazine</i>! 'It was generally +supposed that Mr Boswell would have had a seat in Parliament; and indeed +his not being amongst the Representatives of the Commons is one of those +strange things which occasionally happen in the complex operations of +our mixed Government. That he has not been <i>brought into Parliament</i> by +some great man is not to be wondered at when we peruse his publick +declaration.' Not to be wondered at, truly, though the writer chose to +refer the wonder to his independence. Then the reader is informed how he +had been a candidate at the general election for his own county of Ayr, +'where he has a very extensive property and a very fine place of which +there is a view and description in Grose's <i>Antiquities of Scotland</i>.' +The conclusion of the sketch relates how, at the last Lord Mayor's day, +he sang with great applause a state-ballad of his own composition, +entitled <i>The Grocer of London</i>. This was the last shot in the political +locker. At a Guildhall dinner, given to Pitt by the worshipful company +of grocers, Boswell contrived to get himself called upon for a song. He +rose, and delivered himself of a catch on the model of Dibdin's 'Little +cherub that sits up aloft,' prefaced and interlarded by an address to +the guest of the evening. Honoured as he had been on his continental +tour at the courts of Europe, yet never till to-night had he felt +himself so flattered as now he was, in the presence of the minister he +admired, and to whose home and foreign policy he gave a hearty, if +discriminating support. Boswell for his song was encored six times, till +the cold features of the minister were seen to relax in a smile, amid +the general roar of plaudits and laughter! After this 'state ballad,' a +copy of which was last seen at Lord Houghton's sale, Bozzy and a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">{132}</a></span> +friend, in a state of high glee, returned to their lodgings, shouting +all the way <i>The Grocer of London</i>! 'He has declared,' adds the +complacent autobiographer, 'his resolution to persevere on the next +vacancy.'</p> + +<p>All this time his great work was slowly advancing. At the end of the +<i>Journal</i> had appeared a notice: 'preparing for the Press, in one volume +quarto, the <i>Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.</i>, by James Boswell, Esq.' The +note proceeds to sketch the plan; the collecting of materials for more +than twenty years, his desire to erect to him a literary monument, the +interweaving of 'the most authentick accounts' that can be obtained from +those who knew him, etc. To his chagrin, Mrs Thrale's volume of +anecdotes had been out before him, and Sir John Hawkins had been +commissioned by the London booksellers to produce a <i>Life</i>, which had +duly appeared. Not even the unequivocal success and merits of the +<i>Journal</i> could induce 'the trade' to take Boswell seriously. No one had +thought of him, any more than Gay would have been thought of as the +biographer of the circle to which he had been admitted. Percy, even Sir +William Scott, had been successively approached, but none had given a +consideration to 'Johnson's Bozzy.' Such neglect, however, must have +spurred him to exertion. The lively lady's anecdotage, dateless and +confused, he could afford to despise as 'too void of method even for +such a farrago,' as Horace Walpole said of it. But the solemn Hawkins, +as an old friend and executor of Johnson's will, was a more dangerous +rival. 'Observe how he talks of me,' cries Boswell querulously, 'as +quite unknown.' No doubt Sir John was 'unclubable,' and by Reynolds, +Dyer, Percy, and Malone he was detested. Yet his book, though eclipsed +by Boswell's, is not unmeritorious; but for his allusion to 'Mr Boswell, +a native of Scotland,' he has been made to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">{133}</a></span> pay severely by systematic +castigation from his rival, who now doggedly, as Johnson would have +said, set himself to the work before him. Wherever first-hand +information could be had, he was constantly on the track. Miss Burney +has told how she met him at the gate of the choir of St George's chapel +at Windsor—'his comic-serious face having lost none of its wonted +singularity, nor yet his mind and language.' She had letters from +Johnson, and he must have some of the doctor's choice little notes: 'We +have seen him long enough upon stilts, I want to shew him in a new +light. He proposed a thousand curious expedients to get them, but I was +invincible.' The approach of the king and queen broke off the interview, +but next morning he was again on the watch. We must regret that they +were not given, however much his indiscretions had made people chary of +their confidences. 'Jemmy Boswell,' writes Lord Eldon, 'called upon me, +desiring to know my definition of taste. I told him I must decline +defining it, because I knew he would publish it.' To secure first-hand, +sifted, and 'authentick' material this man, so long decried by sciolists +as merely a fool with a note-book, would forego every rebuff or refusal. +'Boswell,' says Horace Walpole, 'that quintessence of busy-bodies called +on me last week, and was let in when he should not have been. After +tapping many topics, to which I made as dry answers as an unbribed +oracle, he vented his errand; 'had I seen Dr Johnson's <i>Lives of the +Poets</i>?'</p> + +<p>During the progress of the <i>Life</i> he turned aside to his last literary +vagary—<i>No Abolition of Slavery; or the Universal Empire of Love</i>, +1791. This long-lost brochure has this year been rediscovered, but it +will add little interest to his life, as its main tenets had long been +known. A writer in the <i>Athenćum</i> for May 9th<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">{134}</a></span> describes it as quarto in +form, and dedicated to Miss B——, whom he identifies with Miss Bagnal +to be shortly mentioned. On the three topics of slavery, the Middlesex +election, and America, Bozzy differed respectfully but firmly from the +doctor, who drank at Oxford to the next insurrection of the negroes in +the West Indies. Accordingly he stands stoutly by the planters and the +feudal scheme of subordination, whose annihilation he maintains would +'shut the gates of mercy on mankind.' For his apparent inconsistency +Burke is attacked:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Burke, art thou here, too? thou whose pen<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Can blast the fancied rights of men.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pray by what logic are those rights<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Allow'd to Blacks,—denied to Whites?'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Others may fail their king and country, but he as a throne and altar +Tory calls all to know that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'An ancient baron of the land<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I by my king shall ever stand.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He was now at last near the haven. The mass of his papers and materials +had been arranged, after a labour which, as he tells Reynolds, was +really enormous. The capacity for sustained effort, when set to it, of +which he had boasted over his condensation of the evidence in the great +Douglas case, stood him now in good service amid all his vexations, +dissipations and follies.</p> + +<p>In February 1788 we hear of his having yet seven years of the life to +write. By January 1789 he had finished the introduction and the +dedication to Sir Joshua Reynolds, both of which had appeared difficult, +but he was confident they had been well done. To<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">{135}</a></span> excite the interest in +his coming book, or as Mr Leslie Stephen thinks, to secure copyright, he +published in 1790 two quarto parts at half a guinea each—the letter to +Chesterfield and the conversation of Johnson with the king. By December +he has had additional matter sent him from Warren Hastings, and he hoped +to be out on 8th March, but the January of the new year found him with +still two hundred pages of copy, and the death not yet written. Yet many +a time, as he writes Temple, had he thought of giving it up. To add to +his troubles, he had indulged in landed speculations, paying Ł2500 for +the estate of a younger branch; he had been lending money to a cousin, +and if he could but raise a thousand pounds on the strength of his book, +he should be inclined to hold on, or 'game with it,' as Sir Joshua said. +Neither Reynolds nor Malone, however, took the hint; and at the latter's +door he cast longing looks as he passed. He tells him he had been in the +chair at the club, with Fox 'quoting Homer and Fielding to the +astonishment of Jo. Warton.' He had bought a lottery ticket with the +hopes of the prize of Ł5000, but—blank! The advance he needed was got +elsewhere, and the property in his book saved. April finds him +correcting the last sheet. He feared the result: 'I may get no profit, +the public may be disappointed, I may make enemies, even have quarrels. +But the very reverse of all this may happen.' Then on the 19th he writes +to Dempster: 'my <i>magnum opus</i>, in two volumes quarto, is to be +published on Monday, 16th May'—by a lucky chance it was the anniversary +of the red day in Boswell's calendar, his meeting with Johnson eight and +twenty years before! 'When it is fairly launched, I mean to stick close +to Westminster Hall, and it will be truly kind if you recommend me +appeals or causes of any sort.'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">{136}</a></span></p> + +<p>The rest of his life is soon told. Paoli was now again in Corsica. When +Mirabeau had recalled the exiles, the general had been made by Louis +XVI. military commandant of the island. Johnson, also, was gone, and the +two strongest checks upon the excesses of Boswell were removed. Piteous +it is to find him writing to Malone: 'that most friendly fellow +Courtenay, begging the pardon of an M.P. for so free an epithet,' had +taken him in hand, and had taken his word that for some months his daily +allowance of wine should not exceed four good glasses at dinner, and a +pint after it. The qualifying adjective 'good' is dangerous, and before +the time for the bill was half expired, Bozzy has closured it and the +amendment. The state of his affairs, the loss of his wife bore heavily +on him, together with 'the disadvantage to my children in having so +wretched a father—nay, the want of absolute certainty of being happy +after death, the <i>sure</i> prospect of which is frightful.' Then a fitful +gleam of the old Adam breaks out. He has heard of a Miss Bagnal, 'about +seven and twenty, lively and gay, a Ranelagh girl, but of excellent +principles insomuch that she reads prayers to the servants in her +father's family every Sunday evening.' Another matrimonial scheme was +the daughter of the late Dean of Exeter, 'a most agreeable woman <i>d'un +certain âge</i>,' as he engagingly adds, 'and with a fortune of Ł10,000.' +The preparation of a second edition of the <i>Life</i> for July 1793 raised +his spirits, but after a while he had run into excess, been knocked down +and robbed. This he vows shall be a crisis in his life, and Temple's +apprehension of his friend being carried off in a state of intoxication +he finds awful to contemplate. Early in 1795 the end is announced by +Temple's son writing to his father—'a few nights ago Mr Boswell +returned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">{137}</a></span> from the Literary Club, quite weak and languid;' and the last +letter to Temple from his correspondent of thirty-seven years is dated +8th April: 'I would fain write to you in my own hand, but really +cannot.' His son James finishes the letter, to tell that the patient +'feels himself a good deal stronger to-day.' He was attended by Dr +Warren, who had been with Johnson as he died. Some slight hopes of a +recovery had been held out; and, with the ruling passion strong in death +to interview a celebrity, he rallied in a letter to Warren Hastings. +With the spirit on him of the days when he had told Chatham that his +disinterested soul had enjoyed the contemplation of the great minister +in the bower of philosophy, he tells him, 'the moment I am able to go +abroad, I will fly to Mr Hastings and expand my soul in the purest +satisfaction.' On May 19th 1795, at two in the morning, after an illness +of five weeks, he died. He was in his fifty-fifth year.</p> + +<p>A life which cannot challenge the world's attention—like that of John +Sterling—which perhaps does not even modestly solicit it, yet one which +no less certainly will be found to reward the critic of literary history +and pathology. A complex, weak, unsteady life enough, and no one did +more than Boswell himself to bring into glaring prominence the faults +that lie on the surface, by that frank, open, and ostentatious +peculiarity which he avowed, and which he compared to the +characteristics of the old seigneur, Michael de Montaigne. Never was +there a franker critic of James Boswell, Esq., than himself; 'the most +unscottified of mortals,' as Johnson called him, has little or none of +the reserve and reticence that are generally supposed to be marks of the +national character. A rare and curious <i>Epistle in Verse</i>, by the Rev. +Samuel Martin of Monimail, 1795, touches on the main points of his life, +and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">{138}</a></span> author, who was apparently a friend of Boswell, had learned +'with affectionate concern and respect that at the end prayer was his +stay.' He criticises, in rather halting and prosaic lines,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'The prison scenes, his prying into death,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How felons and how saints resign their breath;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How varying and conflicting passions roll,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How scaffold exhibitions shew the soul.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He laments his 'injurious hilarity,' his degrading himself as 'the +little bark, attendant on the huge all-bearing ark,' his political and +ecclesiastical aberrations from the surer and better standpoints of his +family and country. The feeling of this friend of Boswell would +represent, we cannot doubt, the verdict at the time of his own circle.</p> + +<p>The 'prison scenes' are an integral part in Boswell's psychology. Never +did George Selwyn attend them with greater regularity, or Wyndham run +after prize fights more assiduously. In the <i>Public Advertizer</i>, April +25, 1768, we find him writing: 'I myself am never absent from a publick +execution. When I first attended them, I was shocked to the greatest +degree ... convulsed with pity and terror. I feel an irresistible +impulse to be present at every execution, as there I behold the various +effects of the near approach of death.' The parallels of Charles V., +Philip II., Philip IV., Charles II. of Spain, will not escape the +reader, and strangely, or rather naturally enough, Boswell is found +disagreeing with the censure pronounced by Johnson on the celebration of +his own obsequies in his lifetime by Charles V. In the <i>St James' +Gazette</i> of April 20, 1779, he is found actually riding in the cart to +Tyburn with Hackman, the murderer of Miss Ray, and writing to the papers +over the feeling of 'unusual<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">{139}</a></span> Depression of Spirits, joined with that +Pause, which so solemn a warning of the dreadful effects that the +Passion of Love may produce must give all of us who have lively +Sensations and warm Tempers.' But he suddenly deviates into business +when he adds that 'it is very philosophically explained and illustrated +in the <i>Hypochondriack</i>, a periodical Paper, peculiarly adapted to the +people of England, and which comes out monthly in the <i>London Magazine</i>, +etc.' In his Corsican tour we had seen him interviewing the executioner +in the island, and some days before his final parting with Johnson he +had witnessed the execution of fifteen men before Newgate and been +clouded in his mind by doubts as to whether human life was or was not +mere machinery and a chain of planned fatality. These cravings are +clearly the marks of a mind morbidly affected and diseased, the result +of the Dutch marriage as Ramsay believed. All through his life Boswell +is conscious of his 'distempered imagination,' and the letters to Temple +are scattered with irrelevances and repetitions, fatuities and +inconsistencies that can be explained only on the score of mental +disease. Were any doubts possible on this point, the expressions of his +opinions on religion would dispel them. His 'Popish imagination,' +quickened as it may have been by the escapade with the actress, was but +the natural outcome of an ill-balanced mind. His feelings about +consecrated places, <i>loca solennia</i> such as Iona, and Wittenberg, Rasay +and Carlisle, we have seen. He delighted, says Malone, in what he called +the <i>mysterious</i>, leading Johnson on ghosts, and kindred subjects. He +was a believer in second sight: 'it pleases my superstition,' he tells +Temple, 'which you know is not small, and being not of the gloomy but +the grand species is an enjoyment.' When his uncle John died,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">{140}</a></span> we learn +he was 'a good scholar and affectionate relative, but had no conduct. +And, do you know, he was not confined to one woman; he had a strange +kind of religion, but I flatter myself he will be ere long, if he is not +already, in heaven!' He comforts himself constantly over life being a +mere state of purification, and looks forward to a condition of events +in which 'a man can soap his own beard and enjoy whatever is to be had +in this transitory state of things.' He is for ever questioning Johnson +upon purgatory, 'having much curiosity to know his notions on that +point.' One of the last authentic glimpses of Boswell is his being found +in the company of Wilberforce, going west, with a nightcap in his +pocket, on some visit to a friend such as Miss Hawkins says he was but +too fond of doing,—'away to the west as the sun went down'—doubtful of +future punishment, but resolute in maintaining the depravity of man. It +would almost appear as if Bozzy had read himself into Butler's doctrine +that our present life is a state of probation for a future one, but had +forgotten the qualification 'that our future interest is now depending +on ourselves.'</p> + +<p>The very influence of Johnson himself may have affected the weaker mind +of Boswell injuriously. Both suffered from hypochondria, though that of +the latter was far distant from the affliction of Johnson whom Dr Adams +found 'in a deplorable state, sighing, groaning, talking to himself, and +restlessly walking from room to room.' Temple maintained that the effect +of Johnson's company had been of a depressing nature to his friend, and +Sir Wm. Forbes believed that some slight tincture of superstition had +been contracted from his companionship with the sage. The 'cloudy +darkness,' as he himself calls it, of his mind, the weakness and the +confusion of moral principles manifest enough<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">{141}</a></span> in the Temple +correspondence, are better revealed in the conversation with Johnson at +Squire Dilly's, 'where there is always abundance of excellent fare and +hearty welcome.' 'Being in a frame of mind which, I hope for the +felicity of human nature, many experience,—in fine weather,—at the +country-house of a friend,—consoled and elevated by pious exercises, I +expressed myself with an unrestrained fervour to my "guide, philosopher, +and friend;" My dear Sir, I would fain be a good man; and I am very good +now. I fear God, and honour the King; I wish to do no ill, and to be +benevolent to all mankind.' He looked at me with a benignant indulgence; +but took occasion to give me wise and salutary caution. 'Do not, sir, +accustom yourself to trust to <i>impressions</i>.' Boswell had surely +forgotten all this when he cries bitterly to Temple that he was inclined +to agree with him in thinking 'my great oracle did allow too much credit +to good principles, without good practice.' Perhaps he remembered +Johnson's appreciation of Campbell, the good pious man that never passed +a church without pulling off his hat, all which shewed 'he has good +principles.' Boswell had, unfortunately, been 'caught young' by the +sceptical talk of Dempster, Hume, and Wilkes, and his extended +Continental ramble had impaired the earlier views under which he had +been reared.</p> + +<p>But James Boswell deserves at the hands of his readers and of critics +better treatment than has been measured out to him in the contemptuous +estimate of Macaulay, and, still worse, in the shrill attack of the +smaller brood 'whose sails were never to the tempest given,' but who +have, by the easy repetition of a few phrases and an imperfect +acquaintance with the writings and character of the man they decry, come +to the complacent depreciation which, as Niebuhr<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">{142}</a></span> said, is ever so dear +to the soul of mediocrity. If James Boswell was not like Goldsmith, a +great man, as Johnson finely pronounced, whose frailties should not be +remembered, nor was, perhaps, in any final sense a great writer, yet for +twenty years he had been the tried friend of the man who at the Mitre +had called out to him, 'Give me your hand, I have taken a liking to +you.' A plant that, like Goldsmith also, 'flowered late,' he has created +in literature and biography a revolution, and produced a work whose +surpassing merits and value are known the more that it is studied.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">{143}</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII<br /> +<br /> +<span style="font-size: 75%;">IN LITERATURE</span></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'Eclipse is first, the rest nowhere.'—<span class="smcap">Macaulay.</span></p></div> + + +<p>'How delicate, decent is English Biography,' says Carlyle, 'bless its +mealy mouth! A Damocles sword of Respectability hangs for ever over the +poor English Life-writer (as it does over poor English Life in general), +and reduces him to the verge of paralysis. Thus it has been said there +are no English lives worth reading, except those of Players, who by the +nature of the case have bidden Respectability good-day. The English +biographer has long felt that, if in writing his man's biography he +wrote down anything that could by possibility offend any man, he had +written wrong.' The biographer, as Mr Froude found out for a commentary +on all this, is placed between a Scylla and Charybdis, between what is +due to the subject, and what is expected by the public. If something is +left out of the portrait, the likeness will be imperfect; if the anxiety +or the inquisitiveness of readers to know private details is left +ungratified, the writer will be met by the current cant that the public +has a right to know. The line is not easily drawn, and few subjects for +the biographer can ever desire to be as candidly dealt with by him as +Cromwell acted with Sir Peter Lely, in the request to be painted as he +was, warts and all. Thus,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">{144}</a></span> too often the result will be but biography +written <i>in vacuo</i>, 'the tragedy of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet +omitted—by particular desire.'</p> + +<p>Biography, like History, has suffered from considerations of dignity and +propriety. The writers of the Hume and Robertson school of history, in +their stately minuet with the historical muse, have been careful to +exclude everything that seemed beneath the dignity of the sceptred pall; +biographers have as consciously studied the proprieties. 'The Muse of +history,' says Thackeray, 'wears the mask and speaks to measure; she too +in our age busies herself with the affairs only of kings. I wonder shall +history ever pull off her periwig and cease to be Court-ridden? I would +have History familiar rather than heroic, and think that Mr Hogarth and +Mr Fielding will give our children a much better idea of the manners of +the present age in England, than the <i>Court Gazette</i> and the newspapers +which we get thence.' As the historian has striven to obscure the real +nature of the Grand Monarque, by confining his action to courts and +battlefields, so the biographer, in his desire of never stepping beyond +the proper, has enveloped his hero in a circle of correct ideas, after +the manner of George the Fourth and his multiplicity of waistcoats. +Dignity and respectability have ruined alike the historian and the +biographer.</p> + +<p>Lockhart foresaw that some readers would accuse him of trenching upon +delicacy and propriety over his sixth and seventh chapters in the <i>Life +of Scott</i>, and the circumstances were after all such as, had choice been +permitted him, he might easily have omitted, considering it his duty to +tell what he had to say truly and intelligibly. Of all men Macaulay had +nothing to fear from any rational biography that should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">{145}</a></span> ever be written +of him, yet has not Mr Trevelyan assured his readers that the reviewers +had told him, that he would much better have consulted his uncle's +reputation by the omission of passages in his letters and diaries? Such +criticism, as he justly says, is to seriously misconceive the province +and the duty of the biographer, and his justification is that the +reading world has long extended to the man the just approbation which it +so heartily extended to his books. The Latin critics assigned +history,—and accordingly history in miniature, biography,—to the +department of oratory. The feeling, in consequence, has long prevailed +of regarding biography as the field for the display of every other +feeling then veracity. It has been emotional, or it has been decorously +dull. To all such writers the style adopted by Boswell would appear, and +justly appear, revolutionary. The cry is raised of there being nothing +sacred, of the violation of domestic privacy, of the sanctities of life +being endangered, of indiscretions, and violations of confidences, by +the biographer. Accordingly, just as Macaulay decided that, in general, +tragedy was corrupted by eloquence, and comedy by wit, so biography and +history have suffered from the dignity of Clio. Boswell was perfectly +aware what he was doing, nor did he awake to find himself famous for a +method into which the sciolists pretend he only unconsciously blundered. +In the preface to the third edition of the <i>Journal</i> he +writes:—'Remarks have been industriously circulated in the publick +prints by shallow or envious cavillers, who have endeavoured to persuade +the world that Dr Johnson's character has been <i>lessened</i> by recording +such various instances of his lively wit and acute judgment, on every +topick that was presented to his mind. In the opinion of every person of +taste and knowledge that I have con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">{146}</a></span>versed with, it has been greatly +<i>heightened</i>; and I will venture to predict, that this specimen of his +colloquial talents will become still more valuable, when, by the lapse +of time, he shall have become an <i>ancient</i>; and no other memorial of +this great and good man shall remain but the following Journal.' This is +not the writing of one who has been without a clear idea of what he was +undertaking, and of his own qualifications for the task. 'You, my dear +sir,' he tells Sir Joshua Reynolds in the dedication, 'perceived all the +shades which mingled in the grand composition; all the peculiarities and +slight blemishes which marked the literary Colossus.' The inclusion of +the letters and of private details was an integral part of his scheme. +When he introduced the subject of biography at Dr Taylor's, no doubt +with his own book in his eye, he said that in writing a man's life the +man's peculiarities should be mentioned because they mark his character. +When he resolved on their publication, he thought it right to ask +Johnson explicitly on this point, and the reply was what in 1773 the +doctor had given to Macleod in Skye, when he had asked if Orrery had +done wrong, to expose the defects of Swift with whom he had lived in +terms of intimacy. 'Why, no, sir,' Johnson had decided, 'after the man +is dead, for then it is done historically.' A biographer that would omit +or disguise the relations of Nelson to Lady Hamilton, would be justly +suspected of disingenuousness, and Lockhart, especially in his treatment +of the political side of his subject,—for example in the notorious +<i>Beacon</i> incident—is but too open to this charge. But disingenuousness +is a charge that never could have occurred to Boswell, whose veracity is +the prime quality that has made him immortal. When the <i>Journal</i> was in +the press, Hannah<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">{147}</a></span> More, studious of the name of the moralist and the +sage, 'besought him to mitigate his asperities.' 'I will not,' said +Boswell roughly, but wisely for posterity, 'cut off his claws, nor make +a tiger a cat to please anyone.'</p> + +<p>Boswell's books are veritable books. Few books have had such a severe +test applied to them. His first was dedicated to Paoli, whose sanction +must be taken to guarantee every line of it. "In every narrative," he +writes in the dedication to Malone of the <i>Journal</i>, "whether historical +or biographical, authenticity is of the utmost consequence. Of this I +have ever been so firmly persuaded that I inscribed a former work to +that person who was the best judge of its truth. Of this work the +manuscript was daily read by Johnson, and you have perused the original +and can vouch for the strict fidelity of the present publication." His +<i>Life of Johnson</i> was as fearlessly dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds, +one whose intimacy with Johnson could stamp, with assured knowledge of +the subject, the credit and success of the work. Among the 'some dozen, +or baker's dozen, and those chiefly of very ancient date,' of reliable +biographies whose paucity Carlyle laments, the works of Boswell may be +safely included. Their accuracy is confessed by workers in all fields. +His <i>Tour</i> created a type; no better volume of travels has ever been +written than the <i>Journal</i>; and the critic who has dealt at the +reputation of Boswell its heaviest blow has yet to confess, that Homer +is no more the first of poets, Shakespeare the first of dramatists, +Demosthenes the first of orators, than Boswell is the first of +biographers, with no second.</p> + +<p>How is this? Written in 1831, before Lockhart Southey and Carlyle by +their biographies of Scott, Nelson, and Frederick had appeared as +rivals, why is it no less true now? What singular gift or quality can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">{148}</a></span> +account for this singular aloofness from the ordinary or extraordinary +class of writers? Why does Boswell yet wear the crown of indivisible +supremacy in biography? His own words will not explain it, the +possession of Johnson's intimacy, the twenty years' view of his subject, +his faculty for recollecting, and his assiduity in recording +communications. This and more than this Lockhart possessed, the nearest +rival to the biographical throne. He was the son-in-law of his subject, +for whom he had as true an admiration as Boswell had for Johnson. But +Boswell was only in the company of his idol some 180 days, or 276 if we +include the time on the tour in Scotland, in all the twenty years of his +acquaintance. Lockhart had the journals of Sir Walter, and the +communications of nearly a hundred persons. A comparison in any sense, +literary, social, or moral, would have been felt by Lockhart as an +insult, for he clearly regards Sir Alexander Boswell as a greater man +than his father. But if, like the grandsire of Hubert at Hastings, +Lockhart has drawn a good bow, Boswell, like the Locksley of the +novelist, has notched his shaft, and comparisons have long ceased to be +instituted. Gray has attempted the explanation—a fool with a note-book. +He has invented nothing, he has only reported. But every year sees that +person at work, with his <i>First Impressions of Brittany</i>, <i>Three Weeks +in Greece</i>, and the everlasting <i>Tour in Tartanland</i>. These are the +creations of the note-book, but it has given them no permanence. The +tourist puts in everything he sees, truly enough, or thinks he sees. But +it is the art of Boswell to select 'the characteristical,' and the +typical, to group and to dramatize. Ninety-four days he spent on the +northern tour, and the result is a masterpiece. Pepys is garrulous, +often vulgar, always lower-middle-class; but Boswell writes like a +gentleman.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">{149}</a></span></p> + +<p>Macaulay has explained it by a paradox. Goldsmith was great in spite of +his weaknesses, Boswell by reason of his; if he had not been a great +fool, he would never have been a great writer. He was a dunce, a +parasite, a coxcomb, a Paul Pry, had a quick observation, a retentive +memory, and accordingly—he has become immortal! Alas for the paucity of +such immortals under so common circumstances; their number should be +legion! That a fool may occasionally write interesting matter we know; +but that a man should write a literary classic, graced by arrangement, +selection, expression, is not even paradox but hyperbole run mad. The +truth is, Macaulay had no eye for such a complex character as Boswell. +Too correct himself, too prone to the cardinal virtues and consistency, +to follow one who, by instinct, seemed to anticipate Wendell Holmes' +advice—'Don't be consistent, but be simply <i>true</i>'—and too sound +politically in the field where Boswell and the doctor abased themselves +in absurd party spirit, Macaulay can no more understand sympathetically +the vagaries of Boswell than Mommsen or Drumann can follow the political +inconsistency of Cicero. He had no Boswellian 'delight in that +intellectual chemistry which can separate good qualities from evil in +the same person;' and in his essay on <i>Milton</i> he has disclaimed +explicitly all such hero-worship of the living or the dead and denounced +Boswellism as the most certain mark of an ill-regulated intellect. Nor +had he, or Carlyle either, before him the evidence of the letters to +Temple.</p> + +<p>Carlyle, in the theory of hero-worship, has made capital use of Boswell. +He sees the strong mind of Johnson leading 'the poor flimsy little soul' +of James Boswell; he feels 'the devout Discipleship, the gyrating +observantly round the great constellation.' He has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">{150}</a></span> Boswell's reiterated +declarations to support him. On one side Carlyle's vindication of the +biographer is successful; he errs in emphasizing the discovery by +Boswell of the Rambler. In such a discovery Langton and Beauclerk had +long preceded him, and the Johnson that Boswell met in Davies' parlour +was the pensioned writer who had out-lived his dark days, and was the +literary dictator of the day, and the associate of Burke and of +Reynolds. But Carlyle comes nearer the truth when he touches on the +Boswellian recipe for being graphic—the possession of an open, loving +heart, and what follows from the possession of such. Like White of +Selborne, with his sparrows and cockchafers, Boswell, too, has copied +some true sentences from the inspired book of nature.</p> + +<p>But however this may account for his insight—the heart seeing farther +than the head—it will not account for his literary qualities. Of all +his contemporaries, Goldsmith and Burke excepted, no one is a greater +master of a pure prose style than Boswell, and for ease of narrative, +felicity of phrase, and rounded diction he is incomparable. Macaulay +believed a London apprentice could detect Scotticisms in Robertson; +Hume's style is often vicious by Gallicisms and Scots law phrases which +nothing but his expository gifts have obscured from the critics. Beattie +confesses learning English as a dead language and taking several years +over the task. But Boswell, 'scarce by North Britons now esteemed a +Scot,' writes with an ease that renders his style his own. 'The fact +is,' says Mr Cotter Morison, 'that no dramatist or novelist of the whole +century surpassed or even equalled Boswell in rounded and clear and +picturesque presentation, or in real dramatic faculty.'</p> + +<p>Let us take one portrait from the Boswell gallery<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">{151}</a></span>—the meeting of the +two old Pembroke men, Johnson and Oliver Edwards.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'It was in Butcher Row that this meeting happened. Mr Edwards, +who was a decent-looking elderly man in gray clothes and a wig +of many curls, accosted Johnson with familiar confidence, +knowing who he was, while Johnson returned his salutation with +a courteous formality, as to a stranger. But as soon as Edwards +had brought to his recollection their having been at Pembroke +College together nine-and-forty years ago, he seemed much +pleased, asked where he lived, and said he should be glad to +see him in Bolt Court. <span class="smcap">Edwards</span>: "Ah, sir! we are old men now." +<span class="smcap">Johnson</span> (who never liked to think of being old): "Don't let us +discourage one another." <span class="smcap">Edwards</span>: "Why, Doctor, you look stout +and hearty. I am happy to see you so; for the newspapers told +us you were very ill." <span class="smcap">Johnson</span>: "Ay, sir, they are always +telling lies of <i>us old fellows</i>."</p> + +<p>Wishing to be present at more of so singular a conversation as +that between two fellow collegians, who had lived forty years +in London without ever having chanced to meet, I whispered to +Mr Edwards that Dr Johnson was going home, and that he had +better accompany him now. So Edwards walked along with us, I +eagerly assisting to keep up the conversation. Mr Edwards +informed Dr Johnson that he had practised long as a solicitor +in Chancery.... When we got to Dr Johnson's house and were +seated in his library, the dialogue went on admirably. <span class="smcap">Edwards</span>: +"Sir, I remember you would not let us say <i>prodigious</i> at +College. For even then, sir (turning to me), he was delicate in +language, and we all feared him." <span class="smcap">Johnson</span> (to Edwards): "From +your having practised the law long, sir, I presume you must be +rich." <span class="smcap">Edwards</span>: "No, sir; I had a good deal of money; but I had +a number of poor relations to whom I gave great part of it." +<span class="smcap">Johnson</span>: "Sir, you have been rich in the most valuable sense of +the word." <span class="smcap">Edwards</span>: "But I shall not die rich." <span class="smcap">Johnson</span>: "Nay, +sure, sir, it is better to <i>live</i> rich, than to <i>die</i> rich." +<span class="smcap">Edwards</span>: "I wish I had continued at College." Johnson: "Why do +you wish that, sir?" <span class="smcap">Edwards</span>: "Because I think I should have +had a much easier life than mine has been. I should have been a +parson, and had a good living, like Bloxam and several others, +and lived comfortably."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">{152}</a></span> <span class="smcap">Johnson</span>: "Sir, the life of a parson, +of a conscientious clergyman, is not easy. I have always +considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he +is able to maintain. I would rather have Chancery suits upon my +hands than the cure of souls." Here, taking himself up all of a +sudden, he exclaimed, "O! Mr Edwards! I'll convince you that I +recollect you. Do you remember our drinking together at an +ale-house near Pembroke Gate?" ... <span class="smcap">Edwards</span>: "You are a +philosopher, Dr Johnson. I have tried too in my time to be a +philosopher; but, I don't know how, cheerfulness was always +breaking in."—Mr Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr Courtenay, Mr +Malone, and, indeed, all the eminent men to whom I have +mentioned this, have thought it an exquisite trait of +character. The truth is, that philosophy, like religion, is too +generally supposed to be hard and severe, at least so grave as +to exclude all gaiety. <span class="smcap">Edwards</span>: "I have been twice married, +Doctor. You, I suppose, have never known what it was to have a +wife." <span class="smcap">Johnson</span>: "Sir, I have known what it was to have a wife, +and (in a solemn, tender, faltering tone) I have known what it +was to <i>lose a wife</i>. It had almost broke my heart."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Edwards</span>: "How do you live, sir? For my part, I must have my +regular meals, and a glass of good wine. I find I require it." +<span class="smcap">Johnson</span>: "I now drink no wine, sir. Early in life I drank wine: +for many years I drank none, I then for some years drank a +great deal." <span class="smcap">Edwards</span>: "Some hogsheads, I warrant you." <span class="smcap">Johnson</span>: +"I then had a severe illness, and left it off. I am a +straggler. I may leave this town and go to Grand Cairo, without +being missed here or observed there." <span class="smcap">Edwards</span>: "Don't you eat +supper, sir?" <span class="smcap">Johnson</span>: "No, sir." <span class="smcap">Edwards</span>: "For my part, now, I +consider supper as a turnpike through which one must pass, in +order to get to bed." <span class="smcap">Johnson</span>: "You are a lawyer, Mr Edwards. +Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have +them to converse with. They have what he wants." <span class="smcap">Edwards</span>: "I am +grown old, I am sixty-five." <span class="smcap">Johnson</span>: "I shall be sixty-eight +next birthday. Come, sir, drink water, and put in for a +hundred." ... Mr Edwards, when going away, again recurred to +his consciousness of senility, and looking full in Johnson's +face, said to him, "You'll find in Dr Young,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'O my coevals! remnants of yourselves.'"<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">{153}</a></span></div></div> + +<p>Johnson did not relish this at all; but shook his head with +impatience. Edwards walked off seemingly highly pleased with +the honour of having been thus noticed by Dr Johnson. When he +was gone, I said to Johnson I thought him but a weak man. +<span class="smcap">Johnson</span>: "Why, yes, sir. Here is a man who has passed through +life without experience: yet I would rather have him with me +than a more sensible man who will not talk readily. This man is +always willing to say what he has to say."'</p></div> + +<p>How admirable is the art in this scene, how numerous and fine are the +strokes of character, and the easy turn of the dialogue! No fool with a +note-book, no tippling reporter, as the shallow critics say, could have +written this. To them there would have appeared in a chance meeting of +two old men nothing worthy of notice, yet how dramatically does Boswell +touch off the Philistine side of Edwards, and insert the fine shading +and the inimitable remarks about the setting up for the philosopher, and +supper being a turnpike to bed! This art of the biographer is what gives +a memorableness to slight incidents, by the object being real and really +seen; it is the 'infinitude of delineation, the intensity of conception +which informs the Finite with a certain Infinitude of significance, +ennobling the Actual into Idealness.'</p> + +<p>Openness of mind will do much, but there must be the seeing eye behind +it. For the mental development of Boswell, there is no doubt that, as +with Goldsmith, his foreign travels had done much. As Addison in the +<i>Freeholder</i> had recommended foreign travel to the fox-hunting Tory +squires of his day as a purge for their provincial ideas, Boswell shares +with the author of the <i>Traveller</i> and the <i>Deserted Village</i> +cosmopolitan instincts and feelings. 'I have always stood up for the +Irish,' he writes, 'in whose fine country I have been hospitably and +jovially entertained, and with whom I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">{154}</a></span> feel myself to be congenial. In +my <i>Tour in Corsica</i> I do generous justice to the Irish, in opposition +to the English and Scots.' Again, 'I am, I flatter myself, completely a +citizen of the world. In my travels through Holland, Germany, +Switzerland, Italy, Corsica, France, I never felt myself from home; and +I sincerely love every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.' +This is the very antithesis to Johnson, whose frank confession was, 'for +anything that I can see, foreigners are fools.'</p> + +<p>Yet Boswell's stock of learning was small. 'I have promised,' he writes +in 1775, 'to Dr Johnson to read when I get to Scotland; and to keep an +account of what I read. He is to buy for me a chest of books, of his +choosing, off stalls, and I am to read more, and drink less—that was +his counsel.' The death of his wife forces the confession, 'how much do +I regret that I have not applied myself more to learning,' and he +acknowledges to their common friend Langton that, if Johnson had said +that Boswell and himself did not talk from books, this was because he +had not read books enough to talk from them. In his manuscripts there +are many misspellings. He assigns to Terence a Horatian line and, in a +letter to Garrick, quotes as Horatian the standard <i>mens sana in corpore +sano</i> of Juvenal. More strange is his quoting in a note an illustration +of the phrase 'Vexing thoughts,' without his being apparently aware that +the words are by Rous of Pembroke, the Provost of Eton, whose portrait +in the college hall he must often have seen, the writer of the Scottish +Metrical Version of the Psalms. Yet his intellectual interests were +keen. Late in life he has 'done a little at Greek; Lord Monboddo's +<i>Ancient Metaphysics</i> which I am reading carefully helps me to recover +the language.' He has his little scraps of irritat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">{155}</a></span>ing Latinity which he +loves to parade, and when he dined at Eton, at the fellows' table, he +'made a considerable figure, having certainly the art of making the most +of what I know. I had my classical quotations very ready.' Besides, the +easy allusiveness of Boswell to books and to matters beyond the scope of +general readers, his interest in all things going forward in the +Johnsonian circle, his shewing himself in some metaphysical +points—predestination, for example—fully a match for Johnson, and his +own words in the <i>Journal</i>—'he had thought more than anybody supposed, +and had a pretty good stock of general learning and knowledge'—all +conspire to shew that, if he had no more learning than what he could not +help, James Boswell was altogether, as Dominie Sampson said of +Mannering, 'a man of considerable erudition despite of his imperfect +opportunities.'</p> + +<p>Nor were his entire interests Johnsonian. Scattered through his writings +we find allusions to other books, in a more or less forward stage of +completeness, and of which some must have been destroyed by his +faithless executors. We hear of a <i>Life of Lord Kames</i>; an <i>Essay on the +Profession of an Advocate</i>; <i>Memoirs</i> of Hume when dying, 'which I may +some time or other communicate to the world;' a quarto with plates on +<i>The Beggar's Opera</i>; a <i>History of James IV.</i>, 'the patron of my +family;' a <i>Collection of Feudal Tenures and Charters</i>, 'a valuable +collection made by my father, with some additions and illustrations of +my own;' an <i>Account of my Travels</i>, 'for which I had a variety of +materials collected;' a <i>Life of Sir Robert Sibbald</i>, 'in the original +manuscript in his own writing;' a <i>History of the Rebellion of 1745</i>; an +edition of <i>Walton's Lives</i>; a <i>Life of Thomas Ruddiman</i>, the Latin +grammarian; a <i>History of Sweden</i>, where three of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">{156}</a></span> ancestors had +settled, who took service under Gustavus Adolphus; an edition of +<i>Johnson's Poems</i>, 'a complete edition, in which I shall with the utmost +care ascertain their authenticity, and illustrate them with notes and +various readings;' a work on <i>Addison's Poems</i>, in which 'I shall +probably maintain the merit of Addison's poetry, which has been very +unjustly depreciated.' His <i>Journal</i>, which is unfortunately lost, he +designed as the material for his own <i>Autobiography</i>. A goodly list, and +a varied one, involving interest, knowledge, and research, fit to form +the equipment of a professed scholar.</p> + +<p>Boswell foresaw the danger, and he justified his method of reporting +conversations. 'It may be objected by some persons, as it has been by +one of my friends, that he who has the power of thus exhibiting an exact +transcript of conversations is not a desirable member of society. I +repeat the answer which I made to that friend:—'Few, very few, need be +afraid that their sayings will be recorded. Can it be imagined that I +would take the trouble to gather what grows on every hedge, because I +have collected such fruits as the <i>Nonpareil</i> and the <i>Bon Chretien</i>? On +the other hand, how useful is such a faculty, if well exercised! To it +we owe all those interesting apophthegms and <i>memorabilia</i> of the +ancients, which Plutarch, Xenophon, and Valerius Maximus, have +transmitted to us. To it we owe all those instructive and entertaining +collections which the French have made under the title of <i>Ana</i>, affixed +to some celebrated name. To it we owe the Table-Talk of Selden, the +<i>Conversation</i> between Ben Jonson and Drummond of Hawthornden, Spence's +<i>Anecdotes</i> of Pope, and other valuable remains in our own language. How +delighted should we have been, if thus introduced into the company of +Shakespeare and of Dryden, of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">{157}</a></span> whom we know scarcely anything but their +admirable writings! What pleasure would it have given us, to have known +their petty habits, their characteristick manners, their modes of +composition, and their genuine opinion of preceding writers and of their +contemporaries!'</p> + +<p>The world in consideration of what it has gained, and the recollection +of what we should have acquired had such a reporter been found for the +talk of other great men, has long since forgiven Boswell, and forgotten +also his baiting the doctor with questions on all points, his rebuffs +and his puttings down—'there is your <i>want</i>, sir; I will not be put to +the question;' his watching 'every dawning of communication from that +illuminated mind;' his eyes goggling with eagerness, the mouth dropt +open to catch every syllable, his ear almost on the shoulder of the +doctor, and the final burst of 'what do you do there, sir,—go to the +table, sir,—come back to your place, sir.'</p> + +<p>And these conversations which he reported in his short-hand, yet 'so as +to keep the substance and language of discourse?' How far did he +Johnsonize the form or matter? The remark by Burke to Mackintosh, that +Johnson was greater in Boswell's books than in his own, the absence of +the terse and artistic touch to the sayings of the Rambler in the pages +of Hawkins, Thrale, Murphy and others, suggest inevitably that they have +been touched up by their reporter. The <i>Boswelliana</i> supplies here some +slight confirmation of this, for there have been preserved in that +collection stories that reappear in the <i>Life</i>, and the final form in +which they appear in the later book is always that of a pointed and +improved nature. It would, therefore, seem that Boswell, whose +imitations of Johnson Mrs Thrale declared in some respects superior to +Garrick's, in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">{158}</a></span> long devotion to the style and manner of his friend, +'inflated with the Johnsonian ether,' did consciously or otherwise add +much to the originals, and so has denied himself a share of what would +otherwise be justly, if known, set down to his credit.</p> + +<p>'I own,' he writes in 1789 to Temple, 'I am desirous that my life should +tell.' He counted doubtless on the <i>Autobiography</i> for this purpose. 'It +is a maxim with me,' said the great Bentley, 'that no man was ever +written out of reputation but by himself.' At first sight it would +appear that Boswell had inflicted upon his own fame an indelible blot. +From whom but himself should we ever have learned those failings, of +which Macaulay has deftly made so much in his unsympathetic writing down +of the man, after the manner of the Johnsonian attack on Milton and +Gray? In whom but himself should we detect the excrescences in his +works—the permutations and combinations in shaving, the wish for a +pulley in bed to raise him, his puzzle over the disproportionate wages +of footmen and maidservants, his boastings, his family pride, his +hastily writing in the sage's presence Johnson's parody of Hervey in the +<i>Meditations on a Pudding</i>, his superstitions, and his weaknesses? It is +this that has cost him so dear with the critics, and the superior +people, 'empty wearisome cuckoos, and doleful monotonous owls, +innumerable jays also and twittering sparrows of the housetops.' He +compares his own ideas to his handwriting, irregular and sprawling; his +nature to Corinthian brass, made up of an infinite variety of +ingredients, and his head to a tavern which might have been full of +lords drinking Burgundy, but has been invaded by low punch-drinkers whom +the landlord cannot expel. Blots and inequalities there are in the great +book. Cooper off the prairie, Galt out of Ayrshire, are not more untrue +to themselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">{159}</a></span> than is Boswell at such moments. But 'within the focus of +the Lichfield lamps' he regains his strength like a Samson.</p> + +<p>Boswell, with all his experience, never attained the mellow Sadduceeism +of the diner-out. As a reward, he never lost the literary conscience, +the capacity for labour, the assiduity and veracity that have set his +work upon a pedestal of its own. The dedication to Reynolds, a masterly +piece of writing, will shew the trouble that he took over his method, +'obliged to run half over London in order to fix a date correctly.' And +he knew the value of his work, which the man with the note-book never +does. In his moments of self-complacency he could compare his +<i>Johnsoniad</i> with the <i>Odyssey</i>; and he will not repress his +'satisfaction in the consciousness of having largely provided for the +instruction and entertainment of mankind.' Literary models before him he +had none. Scott suggests the life of the philosopher Demophon in Lucian, +but Boswell was not likely to have known it. He modestly himself says he +has enlarged on the plan of Mason's <i>Life of Gray</i>; but his merits are +his own. For the history of the period it is, as Cardinal Duperron said +of Rabelais, <i>le livre</i>—<i>the</i> book—'in worth as a book,' decides +Carlyle, 'beyond any other production of the eighteenth century.'</p> + +<p>Time has dealt gently with both Johnson and Boswell. 'The chief glory of +every people,' said the former in the preface to his <i>Dictionary</i> +'arises from its authors: whether I shall add anything to the reputation +of English literature must be left to time.' In the constituency of the +present no dead writer addresses such an audience as Johnson does. Of +Johnson Boswell might have said, as Cervantes did of his great creation +Don Quixote, he and his subject were born for each<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">{160}</a></span> other. There is no +greater figure, no more familiar face in our literature than 'the old +man eloquent'; and as the inseparable companion 'held in my heart of +hearts, whose fidelity and tenderness I consider as a great part of the +comforts which are yet left to me,' rises the figure of his biographer, +the Bozzy no more of countless follies and fatuities, but Boswell, the +prince of biographers, the inheritor of unfulfilled renown, now become, +like his hero himself, an ancient. And they are still in the heyday of +their great fame. Along the stream of time the little bark, as he hoped, +sails attendant, pursues the triumph and partakes the gale.</p> + +<p>With James Boswell it has happened, as Mark Pattison says of Milton, to +have passed beyond the critics into a region of his own. That 'mighty +civil gentlewoman,' the mistress of the <i>Green Man</i> at Ashbourne, M. +Killingley, who waited on him with the note of introduction to his +extensive acquaintance—'a singular favour conferr'd on one who has it +not in her power to make any other return but her most grateful thanks, +&c.,'—is but a symbol of the feelings of the readers who ever wish well +to the name and the fame of James Boswell.</p> + + +<p class='center'><span class="smcap">The End.</span></p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of James Boswell, by William Keith Leask + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JAMES BOSWELL *** + +***** This file should be named 29615-h.htm or 29615-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/6/1/29615/ + +Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: James Boswell + Famous Scots Series + +Author: William Keith Leask + +Release Date: August 5, 2009 [EBook #29615] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JAMES BOSWELL *** + + + + +Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +JAMES +BOSWELL + + + + +FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES + + +_The following Volumes are now ready:_-- + +THOMAS CARLYLE. By Hector C. Macpherson. +ALLAN RAMSAY. By Oliphant Smeaton. +HUGH MILLER. By W. Keith Leask. +JOHN KNOX. By A. Taylor Innes. +ROBERT BURNS. By Gabriel Setoun. +THE BALLADISTS. By John Geddie. +RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor Herkless. +SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By Eve Blantyre Simpson. +THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor W. Garden Blaikie. +JAMES BOSWELL. By W. Keith Leask. + + + + +[Illustration: + +JAMES +BOSWELL + +BY +W KEITH +LEASK + +FAMOUS +.SCOTS. +.SERIES. + +PUBLISHED BY +OLIPHANT ANDERSON +& FERRIER. EDINBURGH +AND LONDON + +] + + * * * * * + +The designs and ornaments of this volume are by Mr Joseph Brown, and the +printing from the press of Messrs Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh. + + * * * * * + +~To~ + +GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL, +D.C.L.; +M.A. Pembroke (Johnson's) College, Oxford; + +CHIEF OF JOHNSON SCHOLARS AND EDITORS; +AND HIMSELF MOST "CLUBABLE" OF MEN. + + * * * * * + + + + +PREFACE + + +The literature of the Johnsonian period has assumed, in spite of the +lexicographer's own dislike of that adjective, prodigious dimensions. +After the critical labours of Malone, Murphy, Croker, J. B. Nichols, +Macaulay, Carlyle, Rogers, Fitzgerald, Dr Hill and others, it may appear +hazardous to venture upon such a well-ploughed field where the pitfalls +are so numerous and the materials so scattered. I cannot, however, +refrain from the expression of the belief that in this biography of +Boswell will be found something that is new to professed students of the +period, and much to the class of general readers that may lead them to +reconsider the verdict at which they may have arrived from the brilliant +but totally misleading essay by Lord Macaulay. At least, the writer +cherishes the hope that it will materially add to the correct +understanding and the enjoyment of Boswell's great work, _the Life of +Johnson_. + +My best thanks are due to J. Pearson & Co., 5 Pall Mall Place, London, +for the use of unpublished letters by Boswell and of his boyish +common-place book. And if "our Boswell" could indulge an honest pride in +availing himself of a dedication to Sir Joshua Reynolds, as to a person +of the first eminence in his department, so may I entertain the same +feeling in inscribing this sketch to Dr Hill who, amid the pressure of +other Johnson labours, has yet found time to revise the proof sheets of +my book. + +W. K. L. + +_ABERDEEN, December 1896._ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +CHAPTER I + +EARLY DAYS--MEETS JOHNSON--1740-63 9 + + +CHAPTER II + +THE CONTINENT--CORSICA--1763-66 35 + + +CHAPTER III + +EDINBURGH BAR--STRATFORD JUBILEE--1766-69 54 + + +CHAPTER IV + +LOVE AFFAIRS--LITERARY CLUB--1766-73 76 + + +CHAPTER V + +TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES--1773 88 + + +CHAPTER VI + +EDINBURGH LIFE--DEATH OF JOHNSON--1773-84 113 + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE ENGLISH BAR--DEATH--1784-95 122 + + +CHAPTER VIII + +IN LITERATURE 143 + + + + +JAMES BOSWELL + + + + +CHAPTER I + +EARLY DAYS--MEETS JOHNSON. 1740-1763 + + 'Behind yon hills, where Lugar flows.'--BURNS. + + +'Every Scotchman,' says Sir Walter Scott, 'has a pedigree. It is a +national prerogative, as inalienable as his pride and his poverty. My +birth was neither distinguished nor sordid.' What, however, was but a +foible with Scott was a passion in James Boswell, who has on numerous +occasions obtruded his genealogical tree in such a manner as to render +necessary some acquaintance with his family and lineage. The family of +Boswell, or Bosville, dates from the Normans who came with William the +Conqueror to Hastings. Entering Scotland in the days of the sore saint, +David I., they had spread over Berwickshire and established themselves, +at least in one branch, at Balmuto in Fife. A descendant of the family, +Thomas Boswell, occupies in the genealogy of the biographer the position +of prominence which Wat of Harden holds in the line of the novelist. He +obtained a grant of the lands in Ayrshire belonging to the ancient house +of Affleck of that ilk, when they had passed by forfeiture into the +hands of the king. Pitcairn, in his _Collection of Criminal Trials_ is +inclined to regard this ancestor as the chief minstrel in the royal +train of James IV.; but, as he fell at Flodden, this may be taken as +being at least not proven, nor would the position of this first literary +man in the family have been quite pleasing to the pride of race so often +shewn by his descendant. A Yorkshire branch of the family, with the +spelling of their name as Bosville, was settled at Gunthwait in the West +Riding, and its head was hailed as 'his chief' by Bozzy, whose +gregarious instincts led him to trace and claim relationship in a way +even more than is national. By marriage and other ties the family in +Scotland was connected with the most ancient and distinguished houses in +the land. + +The great grandfather of the biographer was the Earl of Kincardine who +is mentioned by Gilbert Burnet in his _History of His Own Time_. He had +married a Dutch lady, of the noble house of Sommelsdyck who had once +held princely rank in Surinam. With that branch also of the name did +Boswell, in later years, establish a relationship at the time of his +continental tour, when at the Hague he found the head holding 'an +important charge in the Republick, and is as worthy a man as lives, and +has honoured me with his correspondence these twenty years.' From the +Earl Boswell boasted 'the blood of Bruce in my veins,' a descent which +he seizes every opportunity of making known to his readers, and to which +we find him alluding in a letter of 10th May, 1786, now before us, to +Mickle, the translator of the _Lusiad_, with a promise to 'tell you what +I know about our common ancestor, Robert the Bruce.' When Johnson, in +the autumn of 1773, visited the ancestral seat of his friend, Boswell, +'in the glow of what, I am sensible, will in a commercial age be +considered as a genealogical enthusiasm,' did not forget to remind his +illustrious Mentor of his relationship to the Royal Personage, George +the Third, 'whose pension had given Johnson comfort and independence.' +It would have required a much greater antiquarian than Johnson, who +could scarcely tell the name of his own grandfather, to have traced the +well-nigh twenty generations of connecting links between Bruce and the +third of the Guelph dynasty on the throne. + +From Veronica Sommelsdyck, the wife of this royal ancestor (whose title +is now merged in the earldom of Elgin), was 'introduced into our family +the saint's name,' born by Boswell's own eldest daughter, and other +consequences of a much graver nature were destined to ensue. 'For this +marriage,' says Ramsay of Ochtertyre, 'their posterity paid dear,' for +to it was due, increased no doubt as it was through the inter-marriages +in close degrees between various scions of the house, the insanity which +is now recognised by all students of his writings in Boswell himself, +and which made its appearance in the clearest way in the case of his +second daughter. His grandfather James adopted the profession of law in +which he obtained some distinction, and left three children--Alexander, +the father of the subject of this sketch, John, who followed the +practice of medicine, and a daughter Veronica, married to Montgomerie of +Lainshaw, whose daughter became the wife of her cousin Bozzy. + +Alexander Boswell, Lord Auchinleck, married his cousin Euphemia Erskine. +In the writings of the son the father makes a considerable figure, while +his mother, 'of the family of Buchan, a woman of almost unexampled piety +and goodness,' as he styles her, is but a dim name in the background, as +with John Stuart Mill who has written a copious autobiography, and left +it to the logical instincts of his readers to infer that he had a +mother. The profession of law was adopted by the father, who, after a +residence abroad at Leyden where he graduated, passed as advocate at the +Scottish bar in 1729, from which, after a distinguished career, he was +appointed to the sheriffdom of Wigton, and ultimately raised to the +bench in 1754, with the title of Lord Auchinleck. He possessed, says his +son, 'all the dignified courtesy of an old baron,' of the school of +Cosmo Bradwardine as we may say, and not only was he an excellent +scholar, but, from the intimacy he had cultivated with the Gronovii and +other _literati_ of Leyden, he was a collector of classical manuscripts +and a collator of the texts and editions of Anacreon. His library was +rich in curious editions of the classics, and was in some respects not +excelled by any private collection in Great Britain, and the reputation +of the Auchinleck library was greatly increased by the black-letter +tastes and publications of his grandson. A strong Whig and active +Presbyterian, he was much esteemed in public and in private life. The +son had on his northern tour the pleasure to note, both at Aberdeen and +at Inverness, the high regard in which the old judge was held, and to +find his name and connection a very serviceable means of introduction to +the travellers in their 'transit over the Caledonian hemisphere.' Like +the father of Scott, who kept the whole bead-roll of cousins and +relations and loved a funeral, Lord Auchinleck bequeathed to his eldest +son at least one characteristic, the attention to relatives in the +remotest degree of kin. On the bench, like the judges in _Redgauntlet_, +Hume, Kames, and others, he affected the racy Doric; and his 'Scots +strength of sarcasm, which is peculiar to a North Briton,' was on many +an occasion lamented by his son who felt it, and acknowledged by Johnson +on at least one famous occasion. In the _Boswelliana_ are preserved many +of old Auchinleck's stories which Lord Monboddo says he could tell well +with wit and gravity--stories of the circuit and bar type of Braxfield +and Eskgrove, such as Scott used to tell to the wits round the fire of +the Parliament House. In his younger days he had been a beau, and his +affectation of red heels to his shoes and of red stockings, when brought +under the notice of his son by a friend, so affected Bozzy that he could +hardly sit on his chair for laughing. A great gardener and planter like +others of the race of old Scottish judges he had extended, in the +classic style of architecture then in fashion, the family mansion, and +had, as Johnson found, 'advanced the value of his lands with great +tenderness to his tenants.' Past the older residence flowed the river +Lugar, here of considerable depth, and then bordered with rocks and +shaded with wood--the old castle whose 'sullen dignity' was the nurse of +Boswell's devotion to the feudal principles and 'the grand scheme of +subordination,' of which he lets us hear so much when he touches on 'the +romantick groves of my ancestors.' + +James Boswell, the immortal biographer of Johnson, was born in Edinburgh +on October 29, 1740. The earliest fact which is known about him is one +which he himself would have described as 'a whimsical or +characteristical' anecdote, and which he had told to Johnson:--'Boswell +in the year 1745 was a fine boy, wore a white cockade, and prayed for +King James, till one of his uncles, General Cochrane, gave him a +shilling on condition that he would pray for King George, which he +accordingly did. So you see that Whigs of all ages are made the same +way.' It may have been these early signs of perversity that led his +father to be strict in dealing with him, for we cannot doubt that +Boswell in the _London Magazine_ for 1781, is giving us a picture of +domestic life when he writes as follows:--'I knew a father who was a +violent Whig, and used to upbraid his son with being deficient in "noble +sentiments of liberty," while at the same time he made this son live +under his roof in such bondage, that he was not only afraid to stir from +home without leave, but durst scarcely open his mouth in his father's +presence.' For some time he was privately educated under the tuition of +the Rev. John Dun, who was presented in 1752 to the living of Auchinleck +by the judge, and finally at the High School and the University of +Edinburgh. There he met with two friends with whom, to the close of his +life, he was destined to have varied and close relations. One was Henry +Dundas, first Lord Melville, and by "Harry the Ninth" Bozzy, in his +ceaseless attempts to secure place and promotion, constantly attempted +to steer, while that Pharos of Scotland, as Lord Cockburn calls him, was +as constantly inclined to be diffident of the abilities, or at least the +vagaries, of his suitor. + +The other friend was William Johnson Temple, son of a Northumberland +gentleman of good family, and grandfather of the present Archbishop of +Canterbury. Temple was a little older than Boswell, who for upwards of +thirty-seven years maintained an uninterrupted correspondence with him. +As he is the Atticus of Boswell, we insert here a detailed account of +him in order to avoid isolated references and allusions in the course of +the narrative. On leaving Edinburgh he entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge; +after taking the usual degrees, he was presented by Lord Lisburne to the +living of Mamhead in Devon, which was followed by that of St Gluvias in +Cornwall. Strangely enough for one who was an intimate friend of +Boswell, he was no admirer of Johnson (whose name, by a curious +coincidence, was a part of his own), and a strong Whig and +water-drinker, 'a bill which,' says Bozzy humorously, 'was ever one +which meets with a determined resistance and opposition in my lower +house.' As the friend of Gray and of Mason, he must have been possessed +of some share of ability, yet over his moral character the admirers and +critics of Boswell are divided. To some he appears as the true and +faithful Atticus to the Cicero of his friend, the Mentor and honest +adviser in all times of danger and trial. To others he seems but to have +possessed, in a minor degree, all the failings of Boswell himself, and +it would appear the most natural inference to believe that, had Temple +been endowed with greater force of mental or moral character, the +results would have been seen in many ways upon the actions of his +friend. In his wife he was unfortunate, and, at one time at least, he +attempted to secure a colonial chaplaincy in order to effect a +separation. He was the writer of an _Essay on the Clergy; their Studies +and Recreations_, 1774; _Historical and Political Memoirs_, 1777; _Abuse +of Unrestrained Power_, 1778; all of which have completely passed from +the memory of man. But he lives with a fair claim to fame, as the +correspondent of Boswell, who calls him 'best of friends' to 'a weak +distemper'd soul that swells in sudden gusts, and sinks again in calms.' +A chance memorandum by Temple, on the death of Gray, displaying +considerable felicity of phrase and insight, was sent by Boswell to the +_London Magazine_ of March 1772, from which it was copied by Mason in +his _Life of Gray_, and in an adapted form it was used by Johnson +himself in his sketch of the poet's work, in his _Lives of the Poets_. +The discovery of the _Letters to Temple_ is one of the happiest +accidents in literature, and without them the true life of Boswell could +not be written. To neither Macaulay nor Carlyle were they known for use +in their famous reviews. On the death of Temple in 1796, one year after +the decease of his friend, his papers passed into the possession of his +son-in-law, who retired to France, where he died. Some fifty years ago, +a gentleman making purchases in a shop at Boulogne, observed that the +wrapper was a scrap of a letter, which formed part of a bundle bought +shortly before from a travelling hawker. On investigation, the letters +were found to be the correspondence of Boswell with Temple, and all +doubts as to their genuineness were conclusively set at rest by their +bearing the London and Devon post marks, and the franks of well known +names. But the internal evidence alone, as we shall see, would be +sufficient to establish their authenticity. Published in 1857 by +Bentley, under the careful editorship of Mr Francis, they constitute, +along with the no less happy discovery in 1854, behind an old press in +Sydney, of Campbell's _Diary of a Visit to England_--though Professor +Jowett was inclined to doubt the authenticity of the latter--the most +valuable accession of evidence to the Johnsonian circle of interest, and +they shed on Boswell and his method a light which otherwise would leave +much in darkness, or, at least, but ensure a general acceptance of the +harsher features in the criticism by Macaulay. From the remark by +Boswell to Temple--'remember and put my letters into a book neatly; see +which of us does it first,' it has been inferred that he meditated, in +some sort of altered appearance, their republication. That Temple +entertained the same idea on his part we know from his own words, and +from the title under which Boswell suggested their issue--_Remarks on +Various Authors, in a Series of Letters to James Boswell, Esq._ But that +Boswell himself ever did intend the publication of his own must be +pronounced, by all that know what lies behind their printed form, a +moral impossibility. + +The first preserved letter is dated from Edinburgh, July 29, 1758. It +reveals at once the historic Boswell, such as he remained to the close, +the cheerful self-confidence, the gregarious instincts, the pleasing air +of moralizing, and the easy flow of style. 'Some days ago I was +introduced to your friend Mr Hume; he is a most discreet affable man as +ever I met with, and has really a great deal of learning, a choice +collection of books ... we talk a good deal of genius, fine learning, +improving our style, etc., but I am afraid solid learning is much worn +out. Mr Hume is, I think, a very proper person for a young man to +cultivate an acquaintance with.' Then he digresses to 'my passion for +Miss W----t,' of whom, he assures his friend, he is 'excessively fond, +so don't be surprised if your grave, sedate, philosophic friend who used +to carry it so high, and talk with such a composed indifference of the +beauteous sex, should all at once commence Don Quixote for his adorable +Dulcinea.' We catch sight of him, at eighteen, going on the northern +circuit with his father and Lord Hailes. There, by the advice of an +Edinburgh acquaintance, Love, an old actor at Drury Lane, but then a +teacher of elocution in the town, he began 'an exact journal,' and on +that journey it was that Hailes made Boswell aware of the fact that was +to henceforward colour the entire tide of his life, the existence of Dr +Johnson as a great writer in London, 'which grew up in my fancy into a +kind of mysterious veneration, by figuring to myself a state of solemn +elevated abstraction, in which I supposed him to live in the immense +metropolis of London.' Such were the links, the advice of this obscure +player to keep a journal, and the report given to the youth by the +judge in their postchaise. As early as December 1758 we hear of his +having 'published now and then the production of a leisure hour in the +magazines,' and of his life in Edinburgh he writes, 'from nine to ten I +attend the law class; from ten to eleven study at home, and from one to +two attend a class on Roman Antiquities; the afternoon and evening I +always spend in study. I never walk except on Saturdays.' A full +allowance, surely, all this for one who regrets his sad impotence in +study, and writes the letters to Lord Hailes which we shall quote later. + +Even at this period he betrays the fatal defect which remains with him +through life, the indulgence in 'the luxury of noble sentiments,' and +the easy and irritating Micawber-like genteel roll with which he turns +off a moral platitude or finely vague sentiment, in the belief that good +principles constitute good character. 'As our minds improve in +knowledge,' he writes, 'may the sacred flame still increase until at +last we reach the glorious world above when we shall never be separated, +but enjoy an everlasting society of bliss.... I hope by Divine +assistance, you shall still preserve your amiable character amidst all +the deceitful blandishments of vice and folly.' While still at Edinburgh +he produced _The Coquettes, or the Gallant in the Closet_, by Lady +Houston, but it was ruined on the third night, and found to be merely a +translation of one of the feeblest plays of Thomas Corneille. This play +was long believed to be by Boswell, but his part was merely the +providing the translator with a prologue, nor was the fact revealed till +long after by the lady herself. + +In November 1759 he entered the class of moral philosophy under Adam +Smith at Glasgow. Perhaps his father had thought that in the more sedate +capital of the West, and in close propinquity to Auchinleck, there +would be less scope for the long career of eccentricities upon which he +was now to enter. If such, however, had been the intention, it was +destined to a rude awakening. All his life Bozzy affected the company of +players, among whom he professed to find 'an animation and a relish of +existence,' and at this period he tells us he was flattered by being +held forth as a patron of literature. In the course of his assiduous +visits to the local theatre he met with an old stage-struck army officer +from Ireland, Francis Gentleman, who had sold his commission to risk his +chances on the boards. By this worthy an edition of Southern's +_Oroonoko_ was dedicated to Boswell, and in the epistle are found some +of his qualities:-- + + 'But when with honest pleasure she can find + Sense, taste, religion, and good nature join'd, + There gladly will she raise her feeble Voice + Nor fear to tell that Boswell is her Choice.' + +Thus early had the youthful patron of the drama blossomed into +notoriety, and having also commenced attendance at the Roman Catholic +Chapel he had now resolved to become a priest, though curiously enough +he began this career by eloping, as we are assured by Ramsay of +Ochtertyre, with a Roman Catholic actress. His father followed the pair +to London, and there, it would seem, prevailed on the erratic neophyte +to abandon his fair partner, whose existence would certainly have been a +fatal barrier to the proposed priesthood. At least, like his friend +Gibbon of later days, if he sighed as a lover, he obeyed as a son, and a +compromise by which he was to enter on the profession of arms was +effected. His father called on Archibald, Duke of Argyll, an old +campaigner with Marlborough. 'My Lord,' said the Duke, 'I like your son; +this boy must not be shot at for three shillings and sixpence a day.' +This scene reads like a pre-arranged affair calculated to flatter the +erratic Bozzy out of his warlike schemes, for which it is clear he was +never fitted. Indeed, the true aim was really, as he confesses to +Temple, a wish to be 'about court, enjoying the happiness of the _beau +monde_ and the company of men of genius.' Temple had come forward with +an offer of a thousand pounds to obtain a commission for him in the +Guards, and Boswell assures us repeatedly, 'I had from earliest years a +love for the military life.' Yet we can with equal difficulty figure +'our Bozzy' as priest or soldier. Like Hogg who hankered after the post +of militia ensign with 'nerves not,' as Lockhart says, 'heroically +strung,' Boswell in his own _Letter to the People of Scotland_ confesses +himself 'not blest with high heroic blood, but rather I think troubled +with a natural timidity of personal danger, which it costs me some +philosophy to overcome.' Nor was his devotion to charmer or chapel +likely to weather the dissipated life he led in London. In later life he +may have had thoughts of his own feelings when he proposed to publish, +from the manuscript in his possession, the life of Sir Robert Sibbald. +That antiquary had been pressed by the Duke of Perth to come over to the +Papists, and for some time embraced the ancient religion, until the +rigid fasting led him to reconsider the controversy and he returned to +Protestantism. Bozzy thought the remark of his friend, that as ladies +love to see themselves in a glass, so a man likes to see and review +himself in his journal, 'a very pretty allusion,' and we may be sure, in +spite of his reticence, that his own case was present at the time to his +mind. His distressed father enlisted the interest of Lord Hailes, who +requested Dr Jortin, Prebendary of St Paul's, to take in hand the +flighty youth, and to persuade him to renounce the errors of the Church +of Rome for those of the Church of England, for it was plain that +Boswell had broken loose from his old moorings, and some middle course +might, it was hoped, prove to be possible. 'Your young gentleman,' +writes Jortin to Hailes, 'called at my house. I was gone out for the +day; he then left your letter and a note with it for me, promising to be +with me on Saturday morning. But from that time to this I have heard +nothing of him. He began, I suppose, to suspect some design upon him, +and his new friends may have represented me to him as a heretic and an +infidel, whom he ought to avoid as he would the plague.' More likely the +Catholic fit had passed away. But what a light does this phase, erratic +even among his countless vagaries, shed on his relation to Johnson! +Never, we may rest assured, did he tell the sage of this hidden passage +in his life; yet how often do we find him putting leading questions to +his friend and Mentor on all points of Catholic doctrine and casuistry, +purgatory, and the invocation of the saints, confession, and the mass! +There can be no doubt that this wrench left a deep impress on the +confused religious views of Boswell, and this is the clue which explains +the opening conversation with Johnson at the beginning of their +intimacy. 'I acknowledged,' he writes, 'that though educated strictly in +the principles of religion, I had for some time been misled into a +certain degree of infidelity; but I was now come to a better way of +thinking, and was fully satisfied of the truth of the Christian +revelation, though I was not clear as to every point considered to be +orthodox.' Never in any way does he refer to this episode of his life, +but the _Life of Johnson_ is, as we shall have occasion to show, the +life in many ways also of its author, who says of himself that, 'from a +certain peculiarly frank, open, and ostentatious disposition which he +avows, his history, like that of the old Seigneur Michael de Montaigne, +is to be traced in his writings.' + +Left to himself and the guidance of the writer Derrick, 'my first tutor +in the ways of London, who shewed me the town in all its variety of +departments, both literary and sportive,' he was now busily spelling +through the pages of the Gull's Hornbook. From this course of idle +dissipation he was saved by the interposition of an Ayrshire neighbour +of the family, the Earl of Eglintoun, though were we to credit the +account of the waif himself the Earl 'insisted that young Boswell should +have an apartment in his house.' Certain it is that by his lordship he +was taken to Newmarket and introduced to the members of the Jockey Club. +He would appear to have fancied himself a regularly elected member, for +here his eccentricity broke forth into a yet more violent form. Calling +for pen and paper, while the sporting fraternity gathered round, he +produced the _Cub at Newmarket_, which he printed and dedicated to the +Duke of York in a characteristically Boswellian strain. In doggerel +which defies rhyme or reason he tells how his patron + + 'By chance a curious cub has got + On Scotia's mountains newly caught;' + +and then--the first of his many portraits drawn by himself, and +prophetic of the lover of hospitable boards and good cheer as we know +him in his works--he describes the writer as + + 'Not of the iron race + Which sometimes Caledonia grace; + Though he to combat should advance, + Plumpness shone in his countenance; + And belly prominent declared + That he for beef and pudding cared; + He had a large and ponderous head, + That seemed to be composed of lead; + From which hung down such stiff, lank hair, + As might the crows in autumn scare.' + +At this time it is likely took place the escapade with which he must +have convulsed the gravity of the Edinburgh _literati_ invited to meet +Johnson on their return from the Hebrides. 'I told, when Dr Hugh Blair +was sitting with me in the pit of Drury Lane, in a wild freak of +youthful extravagance I entertained the audience _prodigiously_ by +imitating the lowing of a cow. I was so successful in this boyish frolic +that the universal cry of the galleries was "_encore the cow_." In the +pride of my heart I attempted imitations of other animals, but with very +inferior effect.' Blair's advice was, says Scott, 'Stick to the coo, +man,' in his peculiar burr, but we can imagine how this unforeseen +reminiscence must have confused the divine. After an ineffectual effort +to enter himself at the Inner Temple, the 'cub' had to return in April +1761 to Edinburgh. + +Old Edinburgh was nothing if not convivial. Writing to Temple and +confessing that his London life had 'not been entirely as it ought to +be,' he appeals to him for pity in his present surroundings. Imagine 'a +young fellow,' he cries, 'whose happiness was always centred in London, +hauled away to the town of Edinburgh, obliged to conform to every +Scottish custom, or be laughed at--"Will ye hae some jeel? Oh fie, oh +fie!"--his flighty imagination quite cramped, and be obliged to study +_Corpus Juris Civilis_ and live in his father's strict family; is there +any wonder, sir, that the unlucky dog should be somewhat fretful? Yoke a +Newmarket courser to a dung cart, and I'll lay my life on't he'll either +caper or kick most confoundedly, or be as stupid and restive as an old +battered post-horse.' Among the many clubs of the time Boswell +instituted a jovial society called the _Soaping Club_ which met weekly +in a tavern. The motto of the members was 'Every man soap his own +beard,' a rather recondite witticism which their founder declares +equivalent to the reigning phrase of 'Every man in his humour.' It may +be suggested here that in this company of feeble Bacchanalians Boswell +had copied the Rabelaisian _fay ce que vous voudras_ of the Franciscans +of Medmenham Abbey with Sandwich, Wilkes, and others. At any rate, as +their self-constituted laureate, he produced the following extraordinary +song, which can be paralleled for inanity only by the stave he sang +before Pitt in the Guildhall of London, as a means of attracting the +notice of the Premier with a view to Parliament. The song is +characteristically Boswellian. + + 'Boswell of Soapers the King + On Tuesdays at Tom's does appear, + And when he does talk or does sing, + To him ne'er a one can come near. + For he talks with such ease and such grace, + That all charm'd to attention we sit, + And he sings with so comic a face + That our sides are just ready to split. + + Boswell is modest enough, + Himself not quite Phoebus he thinks, + He never does flourish with snuff, + And hock is the liquor he drinks. + And he owns that Ned Colquet the priest + May to something of honour pretend, + And he swears that he is not in jest, + When he calls this same Colquet his friend. + + Boswell is pleasant and gay, + For frolic by nature design'd; + He heedlessly rattles away + When the company is to his mind. + "This maxim," he says, "you may see, + We never can have corn without chaff;" + So not a bent sixpence cares he, + Whether _with_ him or _at_ him you laugh. + + Boswell does women adore, + And never once means to deceive, + He's in love with at least half a score; + If they're serious he smiles in his sleeve. + He has all the bright fancy of youth, + With the judgment of forty and five; + In short, to declare the plain truth, + There is no better fellow alive.' + +This, it must be confessed, is sad stuff even for a laureate of twenty, +and is jesting with difficulty. Every man, says Johnson, has at one time +or other of his life an ambition to set up for a wag, but that a man who +had completed the _Life of Johnson_ should in after years complacently +refer to this character of himself and 'traits in it which time has not +yet altered, that egotism and self-applause which he is still +displaying, yet it would seem with a conscious smile,' is scarcely +credible were it not out-distanced by graver weaknesses. + +For about this date he published _An Elegy upon the Death of an Amiable +Young Lady_, flanked by three puffing epistles from himself and his +friends, Erskine and Dempster. In the same year appeared his _Ode to +Tragedy_--by a Gentleman of Scotland, with a dedication to--James +Boswell, Esq.!--'for your particular kindness to me, and chiefly for the +profound respect with which you have always treated me.' We hear of his +'old hock' humour, a favourite phrase with him for his Bacchanalian +tastes, and we find the author limning himself as possessing + + 'A soul by nature formed to feel + Grief sharper than the tyrant's steel, + And bosom big with swelling thought + From ancient lore's remembrance brought.' + +In 1760 had appeared a _Collection of Original Poems_, published by +Donaldson in Edinburgh on the model of Dodsley's _Miscellanies_. It +comprised poems by Blacklock, Beattie, and others, and a second volume +was issued by Erskine as editor in 1762. To it Boswell contributed +nearly thirty pieces along with Home, the author of _Douglas_, +Macpherson of _Ossian_ fame or notoriety, John Maclaurin and others. The +merits of the volume are beneath notice, and Boswell's contributions of +Odes, Epigrams, Letters, Epistles, are of the traditional character; but +_An Epistle from a London Buck to his Friend_ must have been read by his +father with regret, and by his mother of 'almost unexampled piety and +goodness' with shame. There is only one poem that calls for attention, +the _Evening Walk in the Abbey Church of Holyrood House_, the original, +perhaps, of Fergusson's lament on the state of neglect of the then +deserted mansion of royalty, where + + 'the thistle springs + In domicile of ancient Kings, + Without a patriot to regret + Our palace and our ancient state.' + +A third volume was announced for publication 'about eighteen months +hence,' but the public had enough of this coagulated jargon as Carlyle +would have styled it, and critics and readers are spared the task of its +consideration. + +Yet all this time he was in the enjoyment of the best company that +Edinburgh could afford; he was admitted a member of the Select Society, +and his circle embraced such men as Lord Somerville, Lord Hailes, Dr +Blair, Kames, Robertson, Hume, Home, Jupiter Carlyle and others. 'Lord +Auchinleck,' he quaintly adds, 'took the trouble himself to give him a +regular course of instruction in law, a circumstance of singular +benefit, and of which Mr Boswell has ever expressed a strong and +grateful sense.' But his sense was not such as to restrain him from a +mock-heroic correspondence with Andrew Erskine, brother of the Earl of +Kellie. Erskine must have been possessed of some parts, for he was the +correspondent of Burns and was intimate with George Thomson the +composer, yet we can fancy the consternation of the old judge when this +farrago of the new humour was published in London in 1763. Writing from +his father's house, he thus begins:--'Dear Erskine, no ceremony I +beseech you! Give me your hand. How is my honest Captain Andrew? How +goes it with the elegant Lady A----? the lovely, sighing Lady J----? and +how, oh how, does that glorious luminary Lady B---- do? you see I retain +my usual volatility. The Boswells, you know, came over from Normandy +with William the Conqueror; and some of us possess the spirit of our +ancestors, the French. I do, for one. A pleasant spirit it is. _Vive la +bagatelle_ is the maxim. A light heart may bid defiance to fortune.' +Again the old man would find 'Allow me a few more words. I live here in +a remote corner of an old ruinous house, where my ancestors have been +very jovial. What a solemn idea rushes on my mind! They are all gone: I +must follow. Well, and what then? Let me shift about to another subject. +The best I can think of is a sound sleep; so good-night.' In fact, like +Sir Fretful Plagiary in the _Critic_, Bozzy was so covetous of +popularity that he would rather be abused than be not mentioned at all. +Little augury, too, of success at the bar could his father find in the +following portrait of his son: 'the author of the _Ode to Tragedy_ is a +most excellent man; he is of an ancient family in the west of Scotland, +upon which he values himself not a little. At his nativity there +appeared omens of his future greatness; his parts are bright, and his +education has been good; he has travelled in post-chaises miles without +number; he is fond of seeing much of the world; he eats of every good +dish, especially apple pie; he drinks old hock; he has a very fine +temper; he is somewhat of a humourist, and a little tinctured with +pride; he has a good, manly countenance, and he owns himself to be +amorous; he has infinite vivacity; yet is at times observed to have a +melancholy cast.' + +Nothing but the most obtuse vanity could ever have induced Bozzy to +publish all this. 'Curiosity,' he declares in the preface, 'is the most +prevalent of all our passions, and the curiosity for reading letters is +the most prevalent of all kinds of curiosity. Had any man in the three +kingdoms found the following letters directed, sealed, and addressed, +with post-marks--provided he could have done so honestly--he would have +read every one of them.' There is the true Boswell in this +characteristic confession, the Boswell that read in the private diaries +of Johnson, and, with an eye to biographical materials, had admitted an +impulse to carry them off, and never see him more. 'Why, sir,' said the +doctor, 'I do not think you could have helped it.' + +After this it was no wonder that his father was induced to allow his +return to London, 'Where a man may soap his own beard, and enjoy +whatever is to be had in this transitory state of things, and every +agreeable whim may be indulged without censure.' The Duke of Queensbery, +the patron of Gay, was one of those to whom he was recommended now that +he inclined to 'persist in his fondness for the Guards, or rather, in +truth, for the metropolis,' but he suspected some arrangement between +his father and the Duke by which the commission was delayed. For some +months he spent a random life as the occupier of Temple's chambers in +the vicinity of Johnson. Little could be expected of the friend of +Churchill and Wilkes, yet Boswell now was at the turning point of his +career. + +'This is to me,' he writes in his great work, 'a memorable year; for in +it I had the happiness to obtain the acquaintance of that extraordinary +man whose memoirs I am now writing; an acquaintance which I shall ever +esteem as one of the most fortunate circumstances of my life.' We have +seen how Lord Hailes, had on the 1758 circuit, mentioned to him the name +of Johnson; how in Glasgow Gentleman had given him a representation of +'dictionary Johnson;' how Derrick in 1760, during his first visit to +London, had promised to introduce this youth of twenty to the great +dictator of literature; and Sheridan, the father of the dramatist, when +in Edinburgh in 1761, giving public lectures on elocution, had made a +similar promise. But on his return to London at the end of 1762, Boswell +had found that Sheridan had quarrelled with Johnson, and Derrick had +retired to Bath as master of the ceremonies in succession to Beau Nash. +Luckily Derrick had before introduced his friend to Davies, the +bookseller in Covent Garden, who as 'one of the best imitators of +Johnson's voice and manner' only increased the ardour of Boswell for the +meeting. Now the hour was come and the man. Yet surely never could there +have been a more apparently unpropitious time chosen. Number 45 of the +_North Briton_ denouncing Bute and his Scotch favourites had appeared on +April 23rd. The minister had bowed to the storm and resigned, while the +writer of the libel had been arrested under a general warrant and +discharged on the 30th of the month under appeal, either to be hanged, +thought Adam Smith, or to get Bute impeached in six months. Alexander +Cruden, of _Concordance_ fame, was rambling over London in his lucid +interval like an inverted Old Mortality, busy with a sponge obliterating +every hated '45' scrawled over the walls and every conceivable spot in +the city against his country. Yet at such an hour it was that the famous +meeting of Johnson and his biographer took place. + +'At last, on Monday the 16th of May, when I was sitting in Mr Davies' +back-parlour, after having drunk tea with him and Mrs Davies, Johnson +unexpectedly came into the shop; and Mr Davies having perceived him +through the glass door in the room in which we were sitting, advancing +towards us,--he announced his awful approach to me, somewhat in the +manner of an actor in the part of Horatio, when he addresses Hamlet on +the appearance of his father's ghost, "Look, my lord, it comes." I found +that I had a very perfect idea of Johnson's figure, from the portrait of +him painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds.... Mr Davies mentioned my name, and +respectfully introduced me to him. I was much agitated; and recollecting +his prejudice against the Scotch, of which I had heard much, I said to +Davies, "Don't tell where I come from."--"From Scotland," cried Davies +roguishly. "Mr Johnson," said I, "I do indeed come from Scotland, but I +cannot help it." ... "That, sir, I find is what a very great many of +your countrymen cannot help." This stroke stunned me a good deal; and +when we had sat down, I felt myself not a little embarrassed, and +apprehensive of what might come next.... Eager to take any opening to +get into conversation with him, I ventured to say, "Oh, sir, I cannot +think Mr Garrick would grudge such a trifle to you." "Sir," said he, +with a stern look, "I have known David Garrick longer than you have +done, and I know no right you have to talk to me on the subject." +Perhaps I deserved this check,' etc., etc. + +Next day Boswell called on Davies, who assured him that the doctor would +not take it amiss if he were to visit him; and so, a week later, 'after +being entertained by the witty sallies of Messieurs Thornton, Wilkes, +Churchill and Lloyd,' from whom he would hear plenty of vigorous abuse +of his country, and whose names we may take it as certain were not +mentioned to his new friend, Boswell boldly repaired to Johnson. Nothing +is more striking than the contrast between the hitherto reckless Bozzy +and the easy assurance and composure with which he faces Johnson, sits +up with the sage, sups at the Mitre, leads the conversation, and +apparently holds his own in the discussions. Doubtless, the 'facility of +manners' which Adam Smith has said was a feature of the man, was here of +service to him, and no less so would have been the flattering way in +which he managed to inform Johnson of his reputation over the Border. +Boswell was not slow to write to Lord Hailes, knowing full well how the +report of such an acquaintance and friendship would be welcome at +Auchinleck as the signs of an approaching reformation. Goldsmith, whom +he met shortly after, he entertained at the Mitre with a party of +friends, among whom was the Rev. Dr John Ogilvie, the author of some +portentous and completely forgotten epics, but who is not yet quite lost +to sight as the writer of the sixty-second paraphrase of Scripture, 'Lo! +in the last of days behold.' A subsequent 'evening by ourselves' he +describes to Lord Hailes in the wariest manner, so as to secure his +father's consent to a plan of travel. The old judge had wished his son +to follow the profession of law which had now in their family become +quite hereditary, and had coupled this with a scheme of study at +Utrecht, after the plan he had himself followed at Leyden. A compromise +had, in fact, been arranged by which this was to be pursued, and the +career of arms dropped. Nothing can be more adroit than the way in which +the young hopeful about to embark on the grand tour manages in his +despatch to his lordship, with an eye to the Home Office, to suggest the +furtherance of his own ideas under the supposed guise of Johnson's +approval. 'He advises me to combat idleness as a distemper, to read five +hours every day, but to let inclination direct me what to read. He is a +great enemy to a stated plan of study. He advises me when abroad to go +to places where there is most to be seen and learned. He is not very +fond of the notion of spending a whole winter in a Dutch town. He thinks +I may do much more by private study than by attending lectures. He would +have me to perambulate (a word in his own style) Spain, also to visit +the northern kingdoms, where more that is new is to be seen than in +France or Italy, but he is not against me seeing these warmer regions.' + +Here, in fact, is the germ of the tour to the Baltic they had hoped when +at Dunvegan one day to carry out, for which Johnson, when in his +sixty-eighth year was still ready, and which Boswell thought would have +made them acquainted with the King of Sweden, and the Empress of Russia. +On a later day of the month he asked his friend to the Mitre to meet his +uncle Dr John, 'an elegant scholar and a physician bred in the School of +Boerhaave,' and George Dempster, M.P. for the Forfar Burghs. As the +latter was infected with the sceptical views of Hume, there would seem +to have been a scene, for in the _Life_ Johnson is made to say, 'I have +not met with any man for a long time who has given me such general +displeasure,' but Boswell, ever with an eye for copy, writes to Temple, +'it was a very fertile evening, and my journal is stored with its +fruits.' Then to Lord Hailes he writes: '_Entre nous_ of +Dempster,--Johnson had seen a pupil of Hume and Rousseau totally +unsettled as to principles. I had infinite satisfaction in hearing solid +truth confuting vain subtilty. I thank God that I have got acquainted +with Mr Johnson. He has done me infinite service. He has assisted me to +obtain peace of mind; he has assisted me to become a rational Christian; +I hope I shall ever remain so.' Pleasantly all this would sound at home. +There would be less now heard of his father's threat in May to +disinherit him, and of the son's appeal to Lord Hailes to intercede with +him--'to have patience with me for a year or two, and I may be what he +pleases.' On July 15th he has had a long letter from his father, full of +affection and good counsel. 'Honest man,' he writes to Temple, 'he is +now happy. He insists on having my solemn promise. The only question is, +how much I am to promise.' Then on the 25th he has his letters of credit +and his introductions to people in Holland. 'They have been sent open +for me to seal, so I have been amused to see the different modes of +treating that favourite subject _myself_.' He is to be allowed L240 a +year, but he is determined not to be straitened, nor to encourage the +least narrowness, but to draw on his father when necessary. Wilkes had +gone to France, but had let him have some franks 'to astonish a few +North Britons.' Parting for a time with Temple, whose family was now in +straitened circumstances, he assures him that their friendship should be +'an exalted comfort' to him in his distress, and concludes +characteristically enough with advice to Temple's younger brother in the +army for his establishment in 'solid notions of religion and morality.' + +Before he bids his native land good-night, there is a final letter to +Hailes with his father, Jortin, and the actress all well in his mind's +eye. 'My scepticism,' he says, 'was not owing to thinking wrong, but to +not thinking at all. It is a matter of great moment to keep a sense of +religion constantly impressed upon our minds. If that divine guest does +not occupy part of the space, vain intruders will,'--the fine old roll +of Micawber to the close. Johnson on the 5th August started with him for +Harwich in the stage coach, half in hopes of visiting Holland in the +summer, and accompanying Bozzy in a tour through the Netherlands. 'I +must see thee out of England,' said the old man kindly. On the beach +they parted, and '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.' Boswell's attendance upon his new friend had not +escaped the notice of the doctor's circle. 'Who,' asked one, 'is this +Scotch cur at Johnson's heels?' 'Not a cur, but a bur,' was Goldsmith's +reply, 'and he has the faculty of sticking.' With what effect the world +was to know. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE CONTINENT--CORSICA. 1763-66 + + 'That's from Paoli of Corsica.'--GOLDSMITH, '_The Good Natured + Man_.' + + +'Utrecht,' writes Boswell, 'seeming at first very dull to me after the +animated scenes of London, my spirits were grievously affected.' But the +depression was not destined to last, and soon we hear of his having +wearied of the proposed two years' course of study. The custom of legal +training in some of the universities of the Continent was about this +time coming to a close, though for long it had remained usual, at least +with the landed classes of Scotland, to secure such an extended field of +study for the bar by an attendance at some of the more developed schools +of jurisprudence in Holland. Cunningham, the celebrated critic of +Bentley, had given prelections in Leyden, and no reader of the _Heart of +Midlothian_ will forget the laments of the inimitable Bartoline +Saddletree over his not being sent to Leyden or Utrecht to study the +Institutes and the Pandects. Since the days of Gilbert Jack at Leyden, +the connection between Holland and the Scottish universities had been +close, and the garrets of Amsterdam had been crowded before the +Revolution by refugees from both Scotland and England who maintained, +upon their return, the ties they had contracted in their exile. Even +Fielding had been sent to Leyden for law, and just before the visit of +Boswell, to which his father had consented rather as a compromise than +from any practical benefit that might ensue, the law of Scotland, +largely based on Roman and feudal precedents, had received fresh +extensions of conveyancing and other branches of jurisprudence, through +the mass of forfeited estates brought into the market after the +suppression of the Jacobite Rebellions. What country, then, could so +rapidly afford such a course of legal study as the Protestant and +commercial Holland? The reputation of Boerhaave had drawn medical +students from all quarters, and Boswell's uncle John, and the celebrated +Monro _primus_ of the Edinburgh Medical School had been among the +number. Goldsmith in 1755 met Irish medical students there, and some +twenty years before the time we have reached Carlyle of Inveresk had +found in Leyden 'an established lodging-house' where his countrymen, +Gregory and Dickson, were domiciled, and numerous others, among whom he +expressly mentions Charles Townshend, Askew the Greek scholar, Johnston +of Westerhall, Doddeswell, afterwards Chancellor of the Exchequer, and +John Wilkes then entering, at eighteen, on the career of profligacy that +was to render him notorious. Carlyle describes their meetings at each +other's rooms twice or thrice a week, when they drank coffee, supped on +Dutch red herrings, eggs and salad, and never sat beyond the decent hour +of twelve. For such a style of living Boswell's annual allowance of L240 +was certainly handsome in a place where the fuel, chiefly peat, was the +only expensive item. + +But such a quiet style of life was not congenial to the lively tastes of +our traveller. He soon tired of the civil law lectures of Professor +Trotz, and longed for fresh woods and pastures new. He sighed to be +upon his travels again. Of his life abroad some isolated notes may be +gathered from the _Boswelliana_, and, as has been mentioned, he sought +out his relatives at the Hague 'of the first fashion,' the Sommelsdycks, +and with his facility of manners, and his father's credentials to the +_literati_ and scholars of the place, his circle of acquaintance was +large and influential. We hear of an intimacy with the Rev. William +Brown, minister of the Scottish congregation at Utrecht, the father of +Principal Laurence Brown of Marischal College, Aberdeen; and with Sir +Joseph Yorke, whom he met later in Ireland, then the Ambassador at the +Hague, he would appear to have been acquainted. But Sir Joseph does not +seem to have welcomed the easy manners of his young friend, and the dull +life of the burgomasters was little suited to Boswell who ridicules +their portly figures and their clothes which they wore as if they had +been 'luggage.' + +The two years' course of study was abruptly reduced to one. At its close +we trace him at Berlin in July 1764, and in close relations with the +British Envoy at the Prussian Court. Fortunately for Boswell this was +both a countryman and a friend of his father's, Sir Andrew Mitchell, the +late M.P. for the Banff Burghs. By the Ambassador he was introduced to +the best society in the capital, and from Berlin he wrote to his father +representing the urgent necessity of extending his travels, and, till +the letter in reply should arrive, he proceeded into Hanover and +Brunswick. On his return to Berlin towards the end of August he found a +letter waiting him from Lord Auchinleck, who was naturally chagrined at +the breakdown of his scheme of compromise. A visit to Paris he was +prepared to allow, but the return of the wanderer to Utrecht was +peremptorily commanded. The family of the Envoy was now at Spa, but +next day Boswell wrote him a letter urging him to intercede with his +father for the proposed extension. The letter is a very long one, and +its abridgement even is impossible here, but few more Boswellian +productions can be found. He has, he tells Sir Andrew, a melancholy +disposition, and to escape from the gloom of dark speculation he has +made excursions into the fields of folly, and in this tone of the +Preacher in _Ecclesiastes_ he rambles on. The words of St Paul, 'I must +see Rome,' he finds are borne in upon him, and such a journey would +afford him the talk for a lifetime, the more so that he was no libertine +and disclaimed all intentions of travelling as _Milord Anglois_, but +simply as the scholar and the man of elegant curiosity. Did not Sir +Andrew as the loved and respected friend of his father think that the +son had a claim to protest before he considered any act regarding +himself as passed, and would not the Envoy remonstrate or persuade the +father as to the justice of his wish? No reply was sent to this, but the +judge, thinking that discretion was the wiser part in circumstances +where it was useless to dictate without the means to enforce compliance, +yielded reluctant consent to the scheme of an Italian tour. Gravely then +does Bozzy rebuke Sir Andrew and for this occasion he forgives him, 'for +I just say the same to young people when I advise. Believe me,' he +somewhat irrelevantly adds, 'I have a soul.' + +Fortune followed him wherever he turned. George, tenth Earl Marischal, +and brother of Frederick the Great's general, Marshal Keith, had joined +the Earl of Mar in the rising of 1715, and had made an ineffectual +descent in 1719 on Glenshiel with the Spaniards. But in the '45 he had +taken no part, and he revealed to the British Government the existence +of the Bourbon Family Compact. In return, his attainder had been +removed by George II., and on his brief visit to Scotland he had lived +with Boswell's father in Ayrshire, perhaps as a friend of the +Commissioners for the forfeited estates, when the occasion had been +seized by Macpherson for an ode, 'attempted after the manner of Pindar,' +in the fustian style of the translator of Ossian. With him or by his +credentials Boswell went the round of the German courts, passing by +Mannheim and Geneva, reaching the latter towards the end of December. +The reader is struck with the airy assurance and self-possession which +the laureate of the Soapers and the Newmarket Cub manifests on the grand +tour, conducting himself at three and twenty with complete success at +the courts of German princes, conversing with plenipotentiaries and +dignitaries of all sorts in French and Italian, for German had not yet +risen into sufficient historical or diplomatic importance to add to the +linguistic burdens of mankind. Lord Marischal as the governor of +Neufchatel had acted as the protector of Rousseau, and so was able to +furnish his companion with a letter of introduction, hinting at his +enthusiastic nature and describing him to the philosopher as a visionary +hypochondriac. Voltaire he interviewed at Ferney, and he managed to +please the great man by repeating--a characteristic trait of Bozzy, who +believed such tale-bearing to be vastly conducive to the practice of +benevolence--Johnson's criticism upon Frederick the Great's writings, +'such as you may suppose Voltaire's foot-boy to do, who has been his +amanuensis.' He broached the subject of the philosophy of the +unconscious, and was eager to know how ideas forgotten at the time were +yet later on recollected. The other replied by a quotation from +Thomson's _Winter_ with the writer's question, as to the winds, + + 'In what far distant region of the sky + Hushed in silence sleep ye when 'tis calm?' + +The attempt to draw out Voltaire upon the tour to the Hebrides, which +Boswell and Johnson had been vaguely talking over, produced only the +rather sarcastic query if he wished him to accompany them, with a look +'as if I had talked of going to the North Pole.' Of his visit to the +wild philosopher, as he styles Rousseau, we have no notice, beyond the +general remark that they had agreed to differ alike in politics and +religion, but that there were points _ou nos ames sont unies_. The +feudal dogmas of Boswell and his rigid adherence to his pet idea of 'the +grand scheme of subordination' were of course not likely to be pleasing +to the sceptical _aqua fortis_ of the sombre Genevese, with his belief +in the fraternity of mankind and the greatness of the untutored Indian. + +Boswell crossed the Alps, and either then or upon his homeward journey +visited Bologna, Venice, and Mantua. He passed through Rome and, unknown +to either, may have met Gibbon in the Eternal City into whose mind, some +weeks before, 'as I sat musing among the ruins of the Capitol while the +bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter,' had +started the idea of writing the _Decline and Fall_. In the city he met +Andrew Lumsden, the Secretary of Prince Charles Edward, but we are not +informed if the young Jacobite of five, who had prayed for the exiled +family now sought any opportunity of making himself known to the object +of his devotion. Naples brought him into the more congenial society of +Wilkes with whom, he says, he 'enjoyed many classical scenes with +peculiar relish.' When Churchill had died at Boulogne in the arms of +Wilkes, the latter had retired to Naples to inscribe his sorrow 'in the +close style of the ancients' upon an urn of alabaster which had been the +gift of Winckelmann, and in that city now he was, as the literary +executor, preparing annotations on the works of Churchill. Boswell +managed with his curious want of tact in such matters, fitting the man +who could suggest cards to a dying friend with an uneasy conscience, to +hint that the poet had 'bounced into the regions below,' and to render +the _Il Bruto Inglese_, by which the papers of the land referred to +Wilkes and liberty, by a version significant of the notorious ugliness +of his gay acquaintance. Naples, as with Milton, was the limit of his +tour, and from it he returned to Rome. He reached that city in April +1765, and dispatched a letter to Rousseau, then 'living in romantick +retirement' in Switzerland, requesting his promised introduction to the +Corsican general, 'which if he refused, I should certainly go without +it, and probably be hanged as a spy.' The wild philosopher was as good +as his word, and the letter met the traveller at Florence. 'The charms +of sweet Siena detained me no longer than they should have done, I +required the hardy air of Corsica to brace me, after the delights of +Tuscany,' an enigmatical turn of expression upon which light is thrown +later, when we discuss the love affairs of Boswell, by a reference to a +dark-eyed 'signora' on whom the tender traveller had glanced. At Leghorn +he was within one day's sail of Corsica. + +Pascal Paoli was the Garibaldi of his day. When his father in 1738 had +been driven from the island by the French, he had retired with him to +Naples where he entered a military college and followed the profession +of arms. The way was paved for his return by the disturbances in the +island in 1755, and so successful was he in his guerilla warfare as +general against the Genoese, the owners of Corsica, that they were +speedily driven to sue for peace. It was in a sort of lull in the storm +of hostilities that our traveller made his unexpected appearance, and +the adroit way in which he managed to lay his plans of action and to +carry them out with such complete success calls for our admiration. In +his _Tour_ he simply says that 'having resolved to pass some years +abroad (this is excellent, after his letter to Sir Andrew) for my +instruction and entertainment, I conceived a design of visiting the +Island of Corsica. I wished for something more than just the common +course of what is called the tour of Europe, and Corsica occurred to me +as a place where nobody else had been.' It may have been suggested to +him by Rousseau, who had been engaged in some vague scheme of +philandering philanthropy by which the wild philosopher was to play the +Solon and the Lycurgus of the distressed islanders, and establish a +fresh code of laws upon the basis of his new fraternity, but with which +'this steady patriot of the world alone,' as Canning styles him, 'the +friend of every country but his own,' managed to mix in a much more +practical way some not very honourable, if characteristic, intrigues for +the surrender of the island to France. + +Bozzy, at all events, was determined to make a bold bid for fame. +Nothing like this had occurred, as an opening, during all his tour. The +dangers of the plan were fully known to him, and the possibility was +laid before his eyes of capture at the hands of the Barbary corsairs and +a term of imprisonment at Algiers. Our adventurer waited on the +commodore in command of the British squadron in the bay of Leghorn, and +he was provided with a passport, the value of which against the +threatened dangers does not sufficiently appear. Before he left Leghorn, +his proposed visit had come to be regarded in a very serious light by +Italian politicians. They saw in him an envoy from the British intrusted +with powers to negotiate a treaty with Corsica, and all disclaimers of +any such intention were politely treated as an evasion. Bozzy was in +consequence viewed as 'a very close young man,' a trait that at no time +of his life was ever applicable to James Boswell, on whom, indeed, the +advice given by Sir Henry Wotton to Milton would have been thrown away. +Putting out to sea in a Tuscan vessel bound for Capo Corso for wine, he +had two days to spend on board in consequence of a dead calm. 'At +sunset,' he says, 'all the people in the ship sang _Ave Maria_ with +great devotion and some melody.' One recalls the similar circumstances +under which Cardinal Newman found himself becalmed on the orange-boat in +the Straits of Bonifacio. For some hours he had put himself in spirits +by taking a hand at the oar, and at seven in the evening of the second +day they landed in the harbour of Centuri. He delivered his credentials, +and on Sunday heard a Corsican sermon, where the preacher told of +Catharine of Siena who wished to be laid in the mouth of the awful pit, +that she might stop it up, and so prevent the falling in of more souls. +'I confess, my brethren,' cried the friar, 'I have not such zeal, but I +do what I can, I warn you how to avoid it.' + +At Corte, the capital of the island, he waited boldly upon the Supreme +Council. He was gravely received, as befitted a supposed British envoy, +and lodged in the apartment of Paoli in a Franciscan convent. Next day, +the old petitioner for a commission in the Guards found the first and +last military experience of his life. Three French deserters waited on +him in the belief that he came to recruit soldiers for Scotland, and +'begged to have the honour of going along with me.' Nor was the idea so +absurd as he seems to have viewed it, for from the _Scots Magazine_ of a +somewhat later date we learn that British Volunteers and Highlanders +disbanded after the wars had been enlisted in the service of Paoli. But +it is not improbable that the deserters had heard of Boswell's +nationality from the woman of Penrith whom he found in the island, +married to a French soldier in the army of the Pretender, whose fortunes +she had followed when they had passed through Carlisle on the retreat +from Derby. Another feature of Boswell, one whose consideration and +explanation we shall attempt later on, now for the first time meets us, +his inveterate love for interviewing criminals, and accordingly, 'as I +wished to see all things in Corsica,' he had a meeting with the hangman +who seemed sensible of his situation. The inhabitants crowded round him +at a village as he advanced, and questioned the traveller, as Coleridge +at Valetta found himself similarly interrogated, as to his professing +himself a Christian when he did not believe in the Pope--_e perche_, and +why? The old candidate for the priesthood managed to deftly evade this +query by an assurance that in Britain the people were too far off and in +a theological climate of their own. He was in the highest humour, and in +this unusual flow of spirits he harangued the men of Bastelica with +great fluency, getting, however, at Sollacaro somewhat nervous as the +interview with the Corsican leader drew nigh. Paoli lived in constant +dread of assassination, and the sudden arrival of this mysterious +stranger was strongly calculated to arouse suspicions. For ten minutes, +in silence, he looked at Boswell, who broke in with the remark that he +was a gentleman from Scotland upon his travels and had lately visited +Rome from which, having seen the ruins of one brave people, he was now +come to view the rise of another. The general was not quite set at ease +by this sententiously balanced sentence, and years after he told Miss +Burney about his impressions at the time of the mysterious stranger. It +shews the ruling passion strong in life, and that Boswell, as 'the +chiel' amang them takin' notes,' forgot the rules of ordinary courtesy +and prudence in the gratification of his darling method. 'He came to my +country sudden,' said Paoli in his broken English, 'and he fetched me +some letters of recommending him. And I supposed, in my _mente_ he was +in the privacy one espy; for I look away from him to my other companies, +and when I look back to him I behold it in his hands his tablet, and one +pencil. O, he was at the work, I give it you my honour, of writing down +all what I say to some persons whatsoever in the room. I was angry +enough, pretty much so. But soon I found out I was myself the monster he +came to observe. O, he is a very good man Mr Boswell at the bottom, so +witty, cheerful, so talkable. But at the first, Oh I was indeed _fache_ +of the sufficient.' This first glimpse of Bozzy at work is delightful. +He was in fact "making himself," all unknown the while, as Shortreed +said of Scott over the Liddesdale raids. + +He dined with the general and suite. In spite of, perhaps by very reason +of, his protestations of having no diplomatic mission, the highest +attention was shewn him as an accredited envoy from St James'. In the +morning chocolate was served up to him on a silver salver with the +national arms; he rode out on the general's horse, with guards marching +before him. Paoli knew sufficient English to maintain the dialogue, +having picked up some slight knowledge of the tongue from Irish refugee +officers in the Neapolitan service. His library was turned over by his +inquisitive guest, who found among the books some odd volumes of _The +Spectator_ and _The Tatler_, Pope's _Essay on Man_, _Gulliver's +Travels_, and Barclay's _Apology for the Quakers_. His good humour, as +it had won on the general, endeared the supposed _ambasciadore Inglese_ +to the peasants, and he had a Corsican dress made for him. Of that +dress--'in which I walked about with an air of true satisfaction'--every +one who has heard of James Boswell has read, and it is inseparable +somehow from our conceptions of the man and writer. + +We select from this Corsican Tour--the least known to the general reader +of Boswell's three great works--what seems to us the gem of the +book:--'One day they must needs hear me play upon my German flute. To +have told my honest natural visitants, 'Really, gentlemen, I play very +ill,' and put on such airs as we do in our genteel companies, would have +been highly ridiculous. I therefore immediately complied with their +request. I gave them one or two Italian airs, and then some of our +beautiful old Scots tunes, _Gilderoy_, _The Lass o' Patie's Mill_, _Corn +Riggs are Bonny_.' The pathetick simplicity and pastoral gaiety of the +Scots musick will always please those who have the genuine feelings of +nature. The Corsicans were charmed with the specimens I gave them, +though I may now say that they were very indifferently performed. My +good friends insisted also to have an English song from me. I +endeavoured to please them in this, too. I sung them 'Hearts of Oak are +our Ships, Hearts of Oak are our Men.' I translated it into Italian for +them, and never did I see men so delighted as the Corsicans were. +'_Cuore di querco_,' cried they, '_bravo Inglese!_' It was quite a +joyous riot. I fancied myself to be a recruiting sea officer. I fancied +all my chorus of Corsicans aboard the British fleet.' + +How admirable is the style of all this, equal quite to Goldsmith's best +and lightest touch! Exquisite, too, is that picture of Bozzy, as the +rollicking British stage-tar of tradition, in his rendering of Garrick's +song, the gems from the Opera and the national melodies. Allan Ramsay's +song in Corsica is to be equalled only by Goldsmith on _his_ tour when +he played, but not for amusement, _Barbara Allan_ and _Johnny +Armstrong's Good Night_ before the doors of Italian convents and Flemish +homesteads. + +But the highstrung Bozzy had to experience a revulsion of low feelings +to which he was ever prone. He is soon in a sort of Byronic fit, and he +continues in a strain with which we should have not credited the 'gay +classic friend of Jack Wilkes' and of that Sienese _signora_, unless he +had turned evidence against himself. He declared his feelings to Paoli, +as he had done to Johnson, whose curt advice had been not to confuse or +resolve the common consequences of irregularity into an unalterable +decree of destiny. To the general he now attributed his feeling of the +vanity of life, the exhaustion in the very heat of youth of all the +sweets of being, and the incapacity for taking part in active life to +his 'metaphysical researches,' his reasoning beyond his depth on such +subjects as it is not given to man to know. These hesitances the other +wisely pushed aside with the soldierly advice to strengthen his mind by +the perusal of Livy and Plutarch. In return Bozzy gave an imitation of +'my revered friend Mr Samuel Johnson,' little dreaming that all three +would one day be intimate in London, and the general's house in Portman +Square be always at the traveller's disposal. From the palace, as he +styles it, of Paoli, Nov. 1765 he wrote to Johnson, as he had done +before, 'from a kind of superstition agreeable to him as to myself,' +from what he calls _loca solennia_--places of solemn interest. 'I dare +to call this a spirited tour. I dare to challenge your approbation;' +and, reading it twenty years later in the original which the old man +had preserved, he found it full of 'generous enthusiasm.' No account of +the continental travels of Boswell would be complete without the +reproduction of his letter to the doctor from Wittenberg. It is one of +the most important for the more subtle shades of psychology in the +writer's character. + + '_Sunday, Sept. 30, 1764._ + + MY EVER DEAR AND MUCH RESPECTED SIR,--You know my solemn + enthusiasm of mind. You love me for it, and I respect myself + for it, because in so far I resemble Mr Johnson. You will be + agreeably surprized when you learn the reason of my writing + this letter. I am at Wittenberg in Saxony. I am in the old + church where the Reformation was first preached, and where some + of the Reformers lie interred. I cannot resist the serious + pleasure of writing to Mr Johnson from the tomb of Melancthon. + My paper rests upon the gravestone of that great and good man + who was undoubtedly the best of all the Reformers.... At this + tomb, then, my ever dear and respected friend! I vow to thee an + eternal attachment. It shall be my study to do what I can to + render your life happy: and if you die before me, I shall + endeavour to do honour to your memory and, elevated by the + remembrance of you, persist in noble piety. May God, the father + of all beings, ever bless you! and may you continue to love + your most affectionate friend, and devoted servant,--JAMES BOSWELL.' + +So early had Boswell made his resolve to be the biographer of Johnson. +On the very day of his introduction to him, he had taken notes of all +that had passed in Davies' back-parlour. He was none of the men that do +things by halves, and blunder into a kind of success, as some of his +depreciators have thought. + +Six weeks he had been in Corsica. The first day of December saw him land +at Genoa on his return, Lyons was reached on the third day of the new +year, Paris one week later. Here Rousseau who had preceded him to London +had provided him with a curious commission, the bringing over into +England of his mistress Therese Levasseur. The easy-going Hume thus +announces the fact to his friend the Countess de Boufflers. +'Mademoiselle sets out with a friend of mine, a young gentleman, very +good humoured, very agreeable, and very mad. He has such a rage for +literature that I dread some event fatal to my friend's honour. For +remember the story of Terentia who was first married to Cicero, then to +Sallust, and at last in her old age married a young nobleman, who +imagined that she must possess some secret which would convey to him +eloquence and genius.' A letter he found waiting from Johnson, together +with one announcing the death of his mother. No more was heard about a +second year at Utrecht. He crossed to London, and was again with his old +friend, who had moved from the Temple to a good house in Johnson's +Court, in Fleet Street. Goldsmith was no longer the obscure writer whom +he had left behind, but the author of the _Vicar of Wakefield_ and the +_Traveller_. The club had been founded. He was encouraged by the sage to +publish his account of his travels in Corsica--'you cannot go to the +bottom, but all that you tell us will be new.' + +He dined at the Mitre as of old, and presented Temple to Johnson. No +word about his companion across the Channel, naturally enough, reached +the old man's ears, but he mentioned Rousseau; though he recognised he +was now in a new moral atmosphere where every attempt was resented to +'unhinge or weaken good principles.' On a modified defence of the +philosopher, whose works he professed had afforded him edification, he +did venture, but thinking it enough to defend one at a time Boswell said +nothing 'of my gay friend Wilkes.' In the Paris _salons_ of that winter +Wilkes, Sterne, Foote, Hume, and Rousseau, had been the received lions. +Hume had taken up the wild philosopher whose melodramatic Armenian dress +had been the attraction at the houses of the leaders of society, the +ladies who (says Horace Walpole who was there this year) 'violated all +the duties of life and gave very pretty suppers.' It was the day of +Anglomania on the Continent, when the name of Chatham was a name to +conjure with, and Hume was expounding deism to the great ladies,--'when +the footmen were in the room,' adds the shocked Horace,--lionizing Hume +'who is the only thing they believe in implicitly; which they must do, +for I defy them to understand any language that he speaks,' in allusion +to the broad Scottish accent of the philosopher. + +The fantastic attire of Rousseau may have suggested to Bozzy the +Corsican dress in his valise, or he may have construed into a command, +willingly enough, the hint Paoli had dropped to let them know at home +how affairs were going. He waited on Chatham with it, and was received +pompously but graciously, says the Earl of Buchan who was present, for a +touch of melodrama was not uncongenial to the great minister, the +'Pericles of Great Britain,' as the general had styled him. Bozzy +thanked him 'for the very genteel manner in which you are pleased to +treat me.' In return, Chatham eulogized Paoli as one of Plutarch's men, +as Cardinal de Retz had said of Montrose. + +He saw Auchinleck in somewhat altered circumstances from those in which, +four years before, he had left his father's house, riding through +Glasgow 'in a cocked hat, a brown wig, brown coat made in the court +fashion, red vest, corduroy small clothes, and long military-looking +boots, with his servant riding a most aristocratic distance behind.' He +had left it likely to vex the soul of his father, the laureate of +doggerel, threatening to be the disgrace of the family; he returned as +the acquaintance, in varying degrees of intimacy, of Johnson, Wilkes, +Churchill, Goldsmith, the Earl Marischal, Voltaire, Rousseau, Paoli, +Chatham, and plenipotentiaries of all kinds. A wonderful list for the +raw youth they had known at home; yet nowhere in all his intercourse +does he show the least want of self-possession or easy bearing. The +'facility of manners' and his good humour had carried him all through +his curious experiences with German courts and Italian peasants. A +'spirited tour,' truly, if perhaps the moral results had been greater. +The nobility and gentry of this country were welcomed abroad with but +too great avidity. Italy, the garden of Europe, Bozzy declared to be the +Covent Garden, and isolated passages in his book shew that he could not +claim, like Milton, to have borne himself truly 'in all these places +where so many things are considered lawful.' Fox, we know, did not +escape the contagion of the grand tour, and Boswell had been 'caught +young.' + +Nor will the reader find much fault in what the adverse critics have +unduly emphasized--his interviewing or forcing himself upon men. A man, +as Johnson said to him when seeking an interlocutor on this point, +always makes himself greater as he increases his knowledge. When he was +at Dunvegan on his northern tour, and Colonel Macleod seemed to hint at +this, Bozzy offers as his defence of what 'has procured me much +happiness' the eagerness he ever felt to share the society of men +distinguished by their rank or talents. If a man, he adds, is praised +for seeking knowledge, though mountains and seas are in his way, he may +be pardoned in the pursuit of the same object under difficulties as +great though of a different kind. And the defence will not be refused +him for the use he has made of the means. Wisdom and literature alike +are justified of their children, and the masters in either are not so +numerous that we can afford to quarrel with them, or wrangle over their +respective merits. 'Sensation,' said Johnson, '_is_ sensation,' and the +pretty general feeling now is that in his department Boswell is a +master. + +From his first setting out, he had written down every night what he had +noted during the day, 'throwing together that I might afterwards make a +selection at leisure.' He was to try his 'prentice hand on his _Tour in +Corsica_ before shewing his strength in his two greater works. Mrs +Barbauld regarded him as no ordinary traveller, with + + 'Working thoughts which swelled the breast + Of generous Boswell, when with noble aim + And views beyond the narrow beaten track + By trivial fancy trod, he turned his course + From polished Gallia's soft delicious vales.' + +Such thoughts were perhaps really foreign to that traveller, yet Dr Hill +assures us that by every Corsican of education the name of Boswell is +known and honoured. One curious circumstance is given. At Pino, when +Boswell fancying himself 'in a publick house' or inn, had called for +things, the hostess had said _una cosa dopo un altra, signore_, 'one +thing after another, sir.' This has lingered as a memento of Bozzy in +Corsica, and has been found by Dr Hill to be preserved among the +traditions in the Tomasi family. Translations of the book in Italian, +Dutch, French, and German, spread abroad the name of the traveller who, +if like a prophet without honour in his own country, has not been +without it elsewhere. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +EDINBURGH BAR--STRATFORD JUBILEE. 1766-69 + + 'A clerk, foredoomed his father's soul to cross, + Who pens a stanza, when he should engross.'--POPE. + + +The return of the prodigal to Auchinleck would seem at first to have +been attended with some satisfaction to both father and son. The father +might now believe that he was entitled to consideration from the son, as +a reward for his long-continued indulgence to the traveller, who might +in his turn reflect on the advantages which he derived from such a +protracted tour. Accordingly, in his papers of the April of this year, +we find the following entry:--'My father said to me, "I am much pleased +with your conduct in every respect." After all my anxiety while abroad, +here is the most perfect approbation and calm of mind. I never felt such +_sollid_ (_sic_) happiness.' But the philosopher, who with Paoli had +compared his mind to a camera obscura, reappears unfortunately in the +next entry. 'But I find I am not so happy with this approbation and this +calm as I expected to be. But why do I say alas! when I really look upon +this life merely as a transient state?' To this curious expression of +Boswell we shall refer when we discuss at the close his religious and +philosophical views, but it is distressing to find such whimsicalities +colouring his sense of the old man's kindness when he writes but +shortly after, 'I must stay at Auchinleck, I have there just the kind of +complaining proper for me. All must complain, and I more than most of my +fellow-creatures.' + +On the 26th July 1766 he passed advocate at the bar. On putting on his +gown he remarked to his brother-advocates, as he says, that his natural +propensities had led him to a military life, but now that he had been +pressed by his father into the service he did not doubt but that he +should shew as good results as those who had joined as volunteers. His +gay friend Wilkes had declared that he would be out-distanced in the +professional race by dull plodders and blockheads, but at the outset he +appears to have started with a fair amount of zest. He dedicated his +inaugural thesis to the son of the Earl of Bute, Lord Mountstuart, with +whom he had travelled in Italy, and on whom he flattered himself he had +made some impression, the first of Boswell's many ineffectual attempts +to secure place and promotion, for on a seat in Parliament he had four +years before set his heart. A copy of the thesis was sent to Johnson, +who by this time had rather cooled over the proposed publication by his +friend of a book on Corsica. 'You have no materials,' he said, 'which +others have not or may not have. You have warmed your imagination. I +wish there were some cure like the lover's leap for all heads of which +some single idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular possession. +Mind your own affairs and leave the Corsicans to theirs.' Touching on +the faulty Latinity of the essay, 'Ruddiman,' added the old man, 'is +dead.' On entering his new career Bozzy began by vows for his good +conduct. These, a remnant of his old Catholic days, we shall find him +renewing again and again, ludicrously and pathetically enough, however, +as we draw to the close. Sometimes they appear with reference to +matters with which the knowledge of the unpublished parts of the letters +to Temple, now in the possession of an American collector, has to deal +without suggesting unduly to the more fastidious sense of the present +day the vagaries and weaknesses of their writer. Johnson protested +against this attempt to 'enchain his volatility' by vows. But Boswell +replies that they may be useful to one 'of a variable judgment and +irregular inclinations. For my part, without affecting to be a Socrates, +I am sure I have a more than ordinary struggle to maintain with the Evil +Principle, and all the methods I can devise are little enough to keep me +tolerably steady in the paths of rectitude.' Could the doctor have read +even the published correspondence he would have been at no loss for a +detailed commentary on this defence. + +And coming events now cast their shadow before. That curious feature of +Boswell's character, the mixture of religious sentiments and the Sterne +vein of pietistic moralizing united with laxity in practice, appears +strangely enough in the letter to Temple, dated in the February of 1767, +and sent to his friend who had just been ordained to the living of +Mamhead in Devon. 'I view,' he writes, 'the profession of a clergyman in +an amiable and respectable light. Don't be moved by declamations against +ecclesiastical history, as if that could blacken the sacred order.' He +admits that ecclesiastical history is not the best field for the display +of the virtues in that profession, but we are to judge of the thousands +of worthy divines who have been a blessing to their parishes. He exhorts +his friend to labour cheerfully in the vineyard and to leave not a tare +in Mamhead. In Edinburgh it appears there were specimens; for after this +pious homily he confesses quietly his own _liaison_ with 'a dear +infidel' of a married woman. But the love affairs of Boswell, one of the +most curious and 'characteristical' (as he would himself have phrased +it) episodes in his life we shall discuss in a connected form in the +next chapter, in order to secure clearness of treatment and +concentration of detail. + +We turn, then, to his career at the bar. There can be no shadow of a +doubt that with proper industry, backed as he was with very strong +social and family connections, he would have secured a lucrative +professional practice. In February of 1767 he is 'coming into great +employment; I have this winter made sixty-five guineas, which is a +considerable sum for a young man,' and the _Boswelliana_ shew him in +easy intercourse with the best society in the Scottish capital. +Belonging as he did to the hereditary _noblesse de la robe_, as Lockhart +calls it, he was not likely, with but moderate attention, to have stood +like Scott, 'an hour by the Tron, wi' deil ane to speir his price,'--Sir +Walter's fee book shews for the first year a return of L24, 3s., and +L57, 15s. for the second. As he had years before vowed to Lord Hailes +that he would transcribe Erskine's _Institutes_ several times over till +he had imprinted it on his memory, so now he was hopeful by binding up +the session papers of securing a treasure of law reasoning and a +collection of extraordinary facts. By March he had cleared eighty +guineas, and was 'Surprised at myself, I speak with so much ease and +boldness, and have already the language of the bar so much at command. I +am doing nobly. I can hardly ever answer the letters of my friends.' He +had quarrelled with Rousseau who had likewise broken with Hume, whose +appointment as secretary to Conway had perhaps cured him of his follies +over the wild philosopher. We find Boswell also designing squibs which +were in the London printshops, writing verses for them and ridiculing +'The Savage' of his former idolatry. + +Paoli had sent him a long letter of sixteen pages. Chatham in his +retirement at Bath, mystifying the court and his colleagues, could yet +find time to send him a three-paged communication. In reply, the young +traveller assures him that the character of the great minister had +'filled many of my best hours with the noble admiration which a +disinterested soul can enjoy in the bower of philosophy.' He informs his +lordship that he is preparing for publication his Tour in Corsica, that +he has entered at the bar, and 'I begin to like it. I labour hard; and +feel myself coming forward, and I hope to be useful to my country. Could +your Lordship _find time to honour me now and then with a letter_? I +have been told how favourably your Lordship has spoken of me. To +correspond with a Paoli and a Chatham is enough to keep a young man ever +ardent in the pursuit of a virtuous fame.' In June he expected to be +busier than ever, during the week when his father sat as Judge of the +Outer House, 'for you must know that the absurdity of mankind makes +nineteen out of twenty employ the son of the judge before whom their +case is heard,' an admission which only increases our regret at the want +of professional industry on the part of the son. His addiction to the +society of players only increased the more as his practice at the bar +would have been thought to engross his attention. For the opening of the +Canongate Theatre, on 9th December 1767, he had been induced to write a +prologue to the play of _The Earl of Essex_ with which the newly +licensed house started its career. Part of the opening verses, as spoken +by Ross, 'a very good copy, very conciliatory' as the Earl of Mansfield +styled them, runs as follows:-- + + 'This night, lov'd _George's_ free enlightened age + Bids _Royal favour_ shield the Scottish stage; + His Royal favour every bosom cheers; + The drama now with dignity appears! + Hard is my fate if murmurings there be + Because that favour is announced by me. + Anxious, alarm'd, and aw'd by every frown, + May I entreat the candour of the Town? + You see me here by no unworthy art; + My _all_ I venture where I've fix'd my heart. + Fondly ambitious of an honest fame, + My humble labours your indulgence claim. + I wish to hold no _Right_ but by your choice, + I'll trust my patent to the Publick Voice.' + +The effect of this, aided by friends properly planted in different parts +of the theatre, Boswell assures us was instantaneous and effectual. But +the plaudits given would have been better in a strictly professional +court, and it led, we can see, to the association of Boswell with but +questionable society. 'The joyous crew of thunderers in the galleries,' +as Robert Fergusson describes them, the vulgar cits applying to their +parched lips 'thirst quenching porter,' and the notoriously irregular +lives of the players, all these were ties and associations ill +calculated to appease the just indignation of his father or to add to +forensic reputation in Edinburgh. The Scottish Themis, says Scott, +speaking from his own early experience of much higher literary pursuits, +is peculiarly jealous of any flirtation with the muses on the part of +those who have ranged themselves under her banners, and to them the +least lingering look behind is fatal. Little wonder, then, that the +paternal anger was again roused, when 'the look behind' on his part was +coupled with the bitter remembrances of the laureate of the Soapers, of +the Erskine Correspondence, and his own long indulgence destined at last +to bear such sorry fruits. + +'How unaccountable it is,' he cries impatiently to Temple, 'that my +father and I should be so ill together! He is a man of sense and a man +of worth; but from some unhappy turn in his disposition he is much +dissatisfied with a son you know.... To give you an instance. I send you +a letter I had a few days ago. I have answered in my own style; I will +be myself! How galling it is to the friend of Paoli to be treated so!' +He confesses his father has 'that Scots strength of sarcasm which is +peculiar to a North Briton,' and that time was when it would have +depressed him. But now he is firm, and, 'as my revered friend Mr Samuel +Johnson used to say,' he feels the privileges of an independent human +being! To add to the confusion of Lord Auchinleck his son had flung +himself with all his enthusiasm into the famous Douglas Trial, the cause +that figures so much to the confusion, it is to be feared, of the +general reader. Of this some full account is necessary in order to +explain that extraordinary trial,--perhaps the most protracted and +famous that ever came before a court,--which, dragging its slow length +along through a longer course than the Peloponnesian War, fills the +shelves of legal libraries with eighteen portly volumes of papers and +reports. In the case Boswell really held no actual brief, though were we +to follow the impression he gives of his services we should infer he had +been leading counsel for the plaintiff, Douglas. 'With a labour of which +few are capable,' says Bozzy, many years after, 'he compressed the +substance of the immense volumes of proofs and arguments into an octavo +pamphlet,' to which its author believed 'we may ascribe a great share +of the popularity on Mr Douglas's side.' Then he adds in a +characteristic sentence, the meaning of which can be fully appreciated +only by those who have followed his contributions to magazines and the +press of the day, 'Mr Boswell took care to keep the newspapers and other +publications incessantly warm with various writings, both in prose and +in verse, all tending to touch the heart and rouse the parental and +sympathetic feelings.' + +Lady Jane Douglas, sister to Archibald, Duke of Douglas, had been +privately married in 1746 to Colonel Steuart, afterwards Sir John +Steuart of Grandtully. She was then in the forty-ninth year of her age, +and the marriage was not divulged till May 1748 to her brother who had +not been reconciled and had in consequence suspended her allowance. At +Paris, in very humble lodgings, she gave birth to male twins in the +house of a Madame le Brun. The parents in 1749 returned to Scotland +where one of the children died; in 1761 the Duke of Douglas had himself +followed. Three claimants took the field, the Duke of Hamilton as heir +male of line, the Earl of Selkirk as heir of provision under former +deeds, and Archibald Steuart or Douglas. Lady Jane died in 1753, and Sir +John in 1764, both on their death-beds testifying to the legitimacy of +their surviving child. The Duke of Douglas, long prejudiced against this +son's claim by the machinations of the Hamiltons, had revoked the deed +in their favour for a settlement executed in behalf of his sister's son +Archibald. But stories had become rife of that son being the child of a +Nicholas Mignon and Marie Guerin from whom he had been purchased, and an +action to reduce service on a plea of _partus suppositio_ was instituted +by the tutors of the Duke of Hamilton who was then a minor. In France +negociations were conducted, investigations made, and witnesses examined +by Burnet of Monboddo, Gardenstone, Hailes, and Eskgrove, and at last in +July 1767 the Court of Session issued its decision. Lord Dundas, the +President, speaking first, and dwelling on the age of Lady Jane, +childless by a former marriage, the secrecy of the birth, and the +intrinsic valuelessness of death-bed depositions when set against +pecuniary interests and family pride, recorded his vote in favour of the +Hamiltons. Six days were subsequently taken up with the speeches of the +other judges, and Monboddo, speaking last, voted for Douglas. The +verdict was seven on each side, and by the President's vote the case in +Scotland was won by the pursuers. Kames, Monboddo, and Lord Auchinleck, +were in favour of the defender, Douglas. + +The case was at once by him appealed to the House of Lords. Douglas was +favoured in Scotland, where for years the state of interest had been +such that people in company used to bargain, for the maintenance of +peace, that no mention of this disturbing plea should be introduced. So +high did the feeling run in Edinburgh that the Hamilton party had been +driven from their apartments in Holyrood Palace and their property +plundered. It was fortunate that this loophole of escape to another +court was opened, for before the Union such a cause would have led +almost to civil broil where the rival interests of the factions, through +the ramifications of marriage and other connections, extended so widely. +In earlier days the strife would have ended by an appeal to the sword on +the causeway. All the court influence of the Hamiltons had been bent, +and bent in vain, to secure the exclusion from the bench of Lord +Monboddo, counsel for Douglas, and a duel had been fought between their +agent Andrew Stuart and Thurlow the opposing advocate. The excitement +over the verdict of the Lords on Monday, February 27, 1769, was +unprecedented. In the _Autobiography of_ Jupiter Carlyle is fortunately +preserved the account of the scene, witnessed by the doctor himself, who +had been successful in gaining admission to the court, where from nine +in the morning till ten at night he remained, hemmed in by the crowd and +overcome with the oppressive heat. Mansfield spoke over one hour, and, +on his appearing to faint, the Chancellor rushed out for a bottle and +glasses, the current of fresh air being felt by the crowd as a relief. +Finally the verdict of the Scottish courts was reversed without a +division, and a verdict found in favour of Douglas. Hume was not +satisfied of the legitimacy of the pursuer, neither was Lord Shelburne, +and bribery on both sides had been extensively employed, over L100,000 +having been calculated to have been spent in this protracted litigation. + +It was on the evening of Thursday, shortly after eight, that the tidings +reached Edinburgh by express. The city was at once illuminated, and next +morning Dundas on his way to the Parliament House was threatened by a +mob such as the town had not seen since the Porteous Riot. Two troops of +dragoons were drafted at once on the same day into the capital. As +usually told, the story, which is vouched for by Ramsay of Ochtertyre, +is that the mob of the night before had been headed by the excited +Boswell, and that the windows of his father's house were smashed. Had +such been the case, it must have been by an oversight on the part of the +mob, or some petulant freak of the son, for on this occasion both +Boswell and his father had for once been unanimous in their belief in +the legitimacy of Douglas. But there is no need for doubting Ramsay's +assertion that Lord Auchinleck had, with tears in his eyes, to implore +President Dundas to commit his son to the Tolbooth! Not only had Bozzy +taken the field in the November of 1767 with his _Essence of the Douglas +Cause_, 'which I regretted that Dr Johnson never took the trouble to +study,' even though 'the question interested nations,' and the pamphlet +had produced, as its writer flattered himself, considerable effect in +deciding the case, but he had ventured on a breach of professional +etiquette in publishing _Dorando, a Spanish Tale_. This brochure was +ordered by the Court of Session to be suppressed as contempt of court, +after it had run through three editions. No copy of this forlorn hope of +the book hunter has ever been found, though doubtless it lurks in some +library where its want of the writer's name upon the title page may have +kept it from making its reappearance. Though it bore no name, yet +Boswell, when writing to Temple over it, speaks of 'My publisher +Wilkie,' and he seems to have been afraid that the copy sent by him +should fall into the hands of strangers. In the _Gentleman's Magazine_ +for July 1767, however, it is reviewed, but the value of the shilling +booklet does not seem to have impressed the critic. 'The Spanish Tale,' +he says, 'supposes the contests to be finally determined in favour of +_Don Ferdinand_ against the family of Ardivoso--but the real question is +still in dispute, having been removed by appeal to the House of Lords. +The pamphlet is zealously but feebly written: the author in some places +affects the sublime, and in some the pathetic; but these are the least +tolerable parts of his performance.' Thus airily does the reviewer +dismiss Bozzy's determined effort to rouse, as he imagined, the parental +and sympathetical feelings, and it is clear at least that, however much +its recovery would add to the stock of harmless pleasure among +professed Boswellians and collectors, its loss cannot be said to have +'eclipsed the gaiety of nations.' + +During the course of the trial the _Tour in Corsica_ had been preparing. +Early in 1768 it was issued from the celebrated press of Robert and +Andrew Foulis in Glasgow, and the publishers were the Dillys in the +Poultry, London, who were to act for him in all his literary +undertakings to the end of his life. It was a lull in the storm of the +Douglas crisis, and the old judge, eager enough to see his son +associated with anything rational, was not unpleased with its appearing +as a pledge of better things. 'Jamie,' he admitted, 'had taen a toot on +a new horn.' The account of Corsica which had been made up from various +sources of information ran to two hundred and thirty-nine pages; but the +real interest of the volume attaches to the _Journal_ which occupies a +hundred and twenty. The translations from Seneca were done by Thomas +Day, then very young, the author of _Sandford and Merton_, and the +creator of that constellation of excellence, Mr Barlow, whose connection +in any degree with Boswell is almost provocative of a smile. The +peculiar orthography of the writer is defended in the preface, for he +allows himself not only such divergencies as 'tremenduous,' 'authour,' +'ambassadour,' but also 'authentick' and 'panegyrick.' The dedication of +the first edition to Paoli was dated on his own birthday, and the book +ran to a third edition before the October of the same year. As purchased +by the Dillys for a hundred guineas it would appear to have been a +profitable speculation, and the wide circulation to which it attained we +shall see was not merely due to accident but to more solid qualities. +'Pray read,' says Horace Walpole to his friend Gray, 'the new account of +Corsica. The author is a strange being, and has a rage of knowing +everybody that ever was talked of. He forced himself upon me at Paris in +spite of my teeth and my doors.' 'Mr B.'s book,' replies Gray--with a +curious anticipation of the Carlylean canon of criticism--'has pleased +and moved me strangely; all I mean that relates to Paoli. The pamphlet +proves, what I have always maintained, that any fool may write a most +valuable book by chance, if he will only tell us what he heard and saw +_with veracity_. Of Mr B.'s book I have not the least suspicion, because +I am sure he could invent nothing of the kind. The title of this part of +his work is a dialogue between a Green Goose and a Hero.' But Gray was +fastidious, in this case blindly so. The merits of Goldsmith he could +when dying perceive, but the rollicking humour of Bozzy in this his +first book was sealed to the recluse critic who 'never spoke out,' a +thing that never could be safely asserted of the author of the _Tour in +Corsica_. + +That 'authour,' however, was now bent on extracting the sanction of +approval from his idol. He hastened to London, heralding his arrival, as +was his wont, by a deftly contributed paragraph to the papers. The +society journals of to-day have not improved on Boswell in their method +of obtaining first hand information; he was a most assiduous chronicler +of his own actions, and there can be no doubt that there is much Boswell +'copy' buried in the pages of the papers of the time. From the _Public +Advertizer_ of February 28th we learn 'James Boswell, Esq., is expected +in town,' and, on March 24th, 'yesterday James Boswell, Esq., arrived +from Scotland at his lodgings in Half Moon Street, Piccadilly.' He had +received no letter from Johnson since the one in which the Latinity of +his thesis had been criticised, and Boswell had heard that the +publication in his book of a letter from his friend had given offence to +its writer. Johnson was in Oxford at the time, and thither flew Bozzy to +obtain the approval of his labours and, with an eye to all future +contingencies, his sanction for the publication _in his biography_ of +all Johnson's letters to him. 'When I am dead, sir,' was the reply, 'you +may do as you will.' + +'My book,' he writes eagerly to Temple, 'has amazing celebrity. Lord +Lyttelton, Mr Walpole, Mrs Macaulay, and Mr Garrick, have all written me +noble letters about it. There are two Dutch translations going forward.' +General Oglethorpe, an old veteran who had seen service under Prince +Eugene, and the friend of Pope whose verses upon him 'I had read from my +early years,' called upon him and solicited his acquaintance. He became +a sort of literary lion. 'I am really the great man now,' he cries; 'I +have David Hume in the forenoon, Mr Johnson in the afternoon of the same +day. I give admirable dinners and good claret, and the moment I go +abroad again, which will be in a day or two, I set up my chariot. This +is enjoying the fruit of my labours, and appearing like the friend of +Paoli.' Alas for that friend!--he confesses to his correspondent that he +has been 'wild.' The form of this outbreak may be sufficiently seen by +the general reader in the leading questions which at this time Boswell +is found putting to Johnson; for the _Life of Johnson_, as we shall +indicate in its proper place, is no less the life of the biographer, +whose mind was ever seeking to shelter itself under the guidance of a +stronger force, and to effect a moral anchorage or moorings behind the +lee of his great friend. When Bozzy indulges in 'the luxury of noble +sentiments,' he is often known to be courting an indemnity to his +conscience for lax practice. Longfellow makes Miles Standish in his +belligerent mood turn in the Caesar to where the thumb-marks in the +margin proclaimed that the battle was hottest; Boswell often indicates +the decline and fall of the moralist by an apparently undue vein of +pietistic comments. + +The next year was to witness the friend of Paoli in his most eccentric +display--the Shakesperian Festival inaugurated by Garrick at Stratford. +By this ludicrous gathering it is that Boswell is known to the mass of +readers who have never cared to know more of 'Corsica Boswell' than what +they can gather from the lively picture of Macaulay. There he is known +only as it were in the gross, to which indeed, as Johnson said of +Milton, the undramatic nature of the essayist's mind was rather prone, +careless as it was or incapable of the finer shades of character. Yet, +as we know, he was not the solitary masker or mummer in this +extraordinary carnival, which seems not creditable to the taste of its +promoters, and resembles rather the entry of a travelling circus into a +provincial town than a serious commemoration of a great man. However, +'thither Mr Boswell repaired with all the enthusiasm of a poetical +mind;' as he informs us, 'such an opportunity for the warbling of his +Muse was not neglected.' On Wednesday, Sept. 6th, about five in the +morning, says _The Scots Magazine_ for that month in its leading +article, the performers from Drury Lane paraded the streets of +Stratford, and serenaded the ladies with a ballad by Garrick, beginning + + 'Ye Warwickshire lads and ye lasses + See what at our Jubilee passes; + Come revel away, rejoice and be glad, + For the lad of all lads was a Warwickshire lad, + Warwickshire lad, + All be glad, + For the lad of all lads was a Warwickshire lad.' + +Guns were fired, the magistrates assembled, and there was a public +breakfast in the town-hall. In this number of the magazine there is a +letter extending to seven columns from James Boswell, Esq., on his +return to London, after being 'much agitated' by 'this jubilee of +genius.' He describes it as 'truly an antique idea, a Grecian thought;' +the oratorio at the great Stratford church, with the music by Dr Arne, +was, he admits, grand and admirable, but 'I could have wished that +prayers had been read, and a short sermon preached.' Then the +performance of the dedication ode by Garrick is described as 'noble and +affecting, like an exhibition in Athens or Rome.' Lord Grosvenor, at the +close, went up to Garrick, 'and told him that he had affected his whole +frame, showing him his nerves and veins still quivering with agitation.' +The masquerade our traveller, as the 'travelled thane,' affects to +regard complacently as an 'entertainment not suited to the genius of the +British nation, but to a warmer country, where the people have a great +flow of spirits, and a readiness at repartee.' Bozzy no doubt had seen +the carnival abroad, and his memories of sunnier skies would not find +congenial atmosphere in the unpropitious weather when the Avon rose with +the floods of rain, the lower grounds were laid under water, and a +guinea for a bed was regarded as an imposition, though 'no one,' +declares our hero, 'was understood to come there who had not plenty of +money'--their own or their father's, presumably. The break up seems to +have been effected in confusion, but the good-humoured mummer, taking +one consideration with another, compares it to eating an artichoke, +where 'we have some fine mouthfuls, but also swallow the leaves and the +hair, which are confoundedly difficult of digestion. After all, I am +highly satisfied with my artichoke.' + +He brought 'the warbling of his muse' with him. It is no better or worse +than the staple. In the character of a Corsican, he sings-- + + 'From the rude banks of Golo's rapid flood, + Alas! too deeply tinged with patriot blood; + O'er which, dejected, injur'd Freedom bends, + And sighs indignant o'er all Europe sends, + Behold a Corsican! In better days + Eager I sought my country's fame to raise. + Now when I'm exiled from my native land + I come to join this classic festal band; + To soothe my soul on Avon's sacred stream, + And from your joy to catch a cheering gleam.' + +After an apostrophe to happy Britons, on whose propitious isle +propitious freedom ever deigns to smile, he closes with an appeal-- + + 'But let me plead for liberty distress'd, + And warm for her each sympathetic breast; + Amidst the splendid honours which you bear, + To save a sister island be your care; + With generous ardour make us also free, + And give to Corsica a noble Jubilee.' + +Colman and Foote, of course, as comedians were there, but Goldsmith and +Johnson shewed their sense by their absence. The only trace of Davy's +old master was found in a Coventry ribbon put out by 'a whimsical +haberdasher,' with the motto from Johnson's _Prologue_ at the opening of +Drury Lane in 1747--'Each change of many colour'd life he drew.' + +Boswell had a free hand as a writer for the _London Magazine_, in which +he had a proprietary interest. To it he contributed the following +account, accompanied with a portrait--the source of much of Macaulay's +indictment. 'One of the most remarkable masks upon this occasion was +James Boswell, Esq., in the dress of an armed Corsican chief. He entered +the amphitheatre about twelve o'clock. He wore a short dark-coloured +coat of coarse cloth, scarlet waistcoat and breeches, and black +spatterdashes; his cap or bonnet was of black cloth; on the front of it +was embroidered in gold letters _viva la liberta_, and on one side of it +was a handsome blue feather and cockade, so that it had an elegant as +well as a warlike appearance. On the breast of his coat was sewed a +Moor's head, the crest of Corsica, surrounded with branches of laurel. +He had also a cartridge-pouch, into which was stuck a stiletto, and on +his left side a pistol was hung upon the belt of his cartridge-pouch. He +had a fusee slung across his shoulder, wore no powder in his hair, but +had it plaited at full length with a knot of blue ribbons at the end of +it. He had, by way of a staff, a very curious vine all of one piece, +emblematical of the sweet bard of Avon. He wore no mask, saying it was +not proper for a gallant Corsican. So soon as he came into the room he +drew universal attention. The novelty of the Corsican dress, its +becoming appearance, and the character of the brave nation concurred to +distinguish the armed Corsican chief. He was first accosted by Mrs +Garrick, with whom he had a good deal of conversation. There was an +admirable dialogue between Lord Grosvenor, in the character of a Turk, +and the Corsican on the different constitution of the countries so +opposite to each other,--Despotism and Liberty; and Captain Thomson, of +the navy, in the character of an honest tar, kept it up very well; he +expressed a strong inclination to stand by the brave islanders. Mr +Boswell danced both a minuet and a country dance with a very pretty +lady, Mrs Sheldon, wife to Captain Sheldon, of the 38th Regiment of +Foot, who was dressed in a genteel domino, and before she danced threw +off her mask.' + +He adds a cool puff of his own verses, 'which, it is thought, are well +suited to the occasion, while at the same time they preserve the true +Corsican character.' About a month after this masquerade, Goldsmith +dined at Boswell's lodging with Garrick, Johnson, Davies, and others, +where 'Goldsmith,' says the biographer, 'strutted about, bragging of his +dress, and I believe was seriously vain of it, for his mind was +wonderfully prone to such impressions!' Bozzy could criticise, as on all +occasions, the bloom coloured coat of 'honest Goldsmith,' yet he was +eager for Garrick to fall in with the idea of the tradesmen of Stratford +to make the Jubilee an annual event in the interests of local trade, and +'I flatter myself with the prospect of attending you at several more +Jubilees.' + +Though he had again commenced in London his attendance on Johnson and +note-taking, there was now a divided source of attraction. Things had +gone hard with Paoli since Boswell had been in the island. In spite of +his Irish brigades and his British volunteers, the overwhelming forces +which the French were able to put in the field, on the cession of the +island to them by the Genoese, brought to an end the stubborn resistance +of the inhabitants. In the August of 1768 Boswell had raised in Scotland +a subscription of L700 for ordnance furnished by the Carron Iron Work +Company, and in 1769 there had issued from the press a little duodecimo, +'_British Essays in favour of the Brave Corsicans_: collected and +published by James Boswell, Esq.' The papers are twenty in number, some +by himself, others by 'a gentleman whose name would do honour to any +cause (whom we think to have been Trecothick, the successor of Beckford, +as Lord Mayor of London), and the greatest part furnished by persons +unknown to me.' They deal with the dangers to trade from France and the +Bourbon Compact, and point at the value of Corsica as a station superior +to Gibraltar or Minorca. One paper signed 'P. J.' has the undoubted +Boswellian touch in dealing with the sailors thrown idle by the +cessation of the along-shore Mediterranean trade. 'None are less +avaricious than our honest tars, nor have they, in reality, any reason +to be discontented. Every common sailor has at least five and thirty +shillings a month, over and above which _he has his victuals and drink, +and that in great abundance_. There is no such thing as stinting aboard +a ship, unless when reduced to difficulties by stormy weather. The crew +have their three meals a day regularly, and if they should be hungry +between meals, _there is always a biscuit or a luncheon of something +cold to be had_.' + +France had bought Corsica from Genoa in May 1768. Marboeuf, whom +Boswell had found in the island, had been superseded, and a descent of +the French under Count Vaux with 20,000 men ended the war. Paoli escaped +to a ruinous convent on the shore, and, after lying there in +concealment, he embarked on an English vessel bound for Leghorn. On +September 20th he reached London, and the _Public Advertizer_ of October +4th, through its faithful correspondent, informed its readers how 'On +Sunday last General Paoli, accompanied by James Boswell, Esq., took an +airing in Hyde Park in his coach.' On the evening of the 10th he was +presented by the traveller to Johnson, who was highly pleased with the +lofty port of the stranger and the easy 'elegance of manners, the brand +of the soldier, _l'homme d'epee_.' + +An impression is abroad that Boswell's books were not taken seriously. +Nothing could be more remote from the truth. The Whigs were in favour +of his views, and Burke, together with Frederick the Great, believed our +interests would suffer by the increase of French power in the +Mediterranean. Shelburne, for Chatham had resigned before November 1768, +was the advocate of similar views, telling our ambassador at Versailles +to remonstrate with the French court, while Junius, in his letter to the +Duke of Grafton, told the country that Corsica would never have been +invaded by the French, but for the sight of a weak and distracted +ministry. When the hand of Napoleon was heavy on the Genoese, they +remembered that their cession of the island had made their master, by +his birth at Ajaccio on August 15, 1769, a Frenchman. But the nation at +the time of Boswell's books was weary of war, and their influence, +though great, was not visible in any actual political results. + +Boswell had expected to draw the sage on the subject of matrimony, +having promised himself, as he says, a good deal of instructive +conversation on the conduct of the married state. But the oracles were +dumb. On his return to the north he was married, on the 25th November +1769, to his cousin. We find in the _Scots Magazine_ of that month the +following extracts under the list of marriages:-- + + 'At Lainshaw, in the shire of Air, JAMES BOSWELL, Esq., of + Auchinleck, advocate, to MISS PEGGY MONTGOMERY, daughter of the + late DAVID MONTGOMERY of Lainshaw, Esq.' + + 'At Edinburgh, ALEXANDER BOSWELL, Esq., of Auchinleck, one of + the Lords of Session and Justiciary, to Miss BETTY BOSWELL, + second daughter of JOHN BOSWELL, Esq., of Balmuto, deceased.' + +His father, now past sixty, had married again, and married a cousin for +the second time, like his son on the present occasion. That they were +married on the same day and at different places affords a clear +indication that the father and son were no longer on the best of terms. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +LOVE AFFAIRS--LITERARY CLUB. 1766-73 + + 'How happy could I be with either, + Were t'other dear charmer away.'--GAY. + + +'Love,' wrote Madame de Stael, 'is with man a thing apart, 'tis woman's +whole existence.' This is not true at least of Boswell, for his love +affairs fill as large a part in his life as in that of Benjamin +Constant. A most confused chapter withal, and one that luckily was not +known to Macaulay, whose colours would otherwise have been more +brilliant. We find Bozzy paying his addresses at one and the same time +to at least eight ladies, exclusive as this is of sundry minor +divinities of a fleeting and more temporary nature not calling here for +allusion. His first divinity was the grass-widow of Moffat, and here +Temple had been compelled to remonstrate in spite of all the lover's +philandering about her freedom from her husband, who had used her ill. +Were she unfaithful, he declares her worthy to be 'pierced with a +Corsican dagger,' but in March he has found it too much like a 'settled +plan of licentiousness,' discovering her to be an ill-bred rompish girl, +debasing his dignity, without refinement, though handsome and lively. +Then there is the quarrel and the reconciliation, she vowing she loved +him more than ever she had done her husband, but meeting with opposition +from his brother David and others, who furnished the love-sick heart of +her adorer with examples of her faithlessness such as made him recoil. +He vows now his frailties are at an end, and he resolves to turn out an +admirable member of society. He had broken with her as with the +gardener's daughter a year ago--an everlasting lesson to him. + +By March 1767 the reigning favourite was Miss Bosville of Yorkshire. But +his lot being cast in Scotland would be an objection to the beauty; then +we hear of a young lady in the vicinity of whose claims Lord Auchinleck +approved, because their lands lay happily together for family extension. +She was just eighteen, pious, good-tempered and genteel, and for four +days she had been on a visit to 'the romantick groves' of his ancestors, +when suddenly the scene is changed for the Sienese _signora_ of whom we +heard upon his travels. 'My Italian angel,' he cries, 'is constant; I +had a letter from her but a few days ago, which made me cry.' He +conjures his friend Temple to come to him, and 'on that Arthur Seat +where our youthful fancies roved abroad shall we take counsel together.' +The local divinity we learn is Miss Blair of Adamtown; he has been +drinking her health, and aberrations from sobriety and virtue have +ensued, but he thought things would be brought to a climax were Temple +to visit her. A long letter of commission follows, the envoy is +instructed to appear as his old friend, praising him to Miss Blair for +his good qualities. Temple is adjured to dwell upon his odd, inconstant, +impetuous nature, how he is accustomed to women of intrigue, and he is +to ask of the fair one if she does not think there is insanity in the +Boswell family. She is to hear of his travels, his acquaintance with +foreign princes, Voltaire and Rousseau, his desire to have a house of +his own; and then he diverges into practicality when he desires his +friend to 'study the mother,' and take notes of all that passed, as it +might have the effect of fixing the fate of the lover. Temple, it may be +imagined, did not interpret his commission in such a literal spirit, and +inconstancy and insanity could hardly be recommendations in Miss Blair's +eyes. That such should be the case,--outside the confessions of Mr +Rochester in _Jane Eyre_,--would appear to the commissioner an obvious +fact. + +A silence followed on Temple's departure from the divinity. Boswell +dreaded a certain nabob, 'a man of copper,' as his rival. Then he +believed the fair offended by his own Spanish stateliness and gravity; +and again a letter, 'written with all the warmth of Italian affection,' +restores the _signora_ to the first place, from which she is deposed by +a note from Miss Blair, explaining that his letter had been delayed a +week at the Ayr post-office. Then fresh ravings, clouded by the belief +that she is cunning and sees his weakness, for three people at Ayr have +assured him she is a jilt, and he is shocked at the risk he has run, a +warning for the future to him against 'indulging the least fondness for +a Scotch lass.' He has, he feels, a soul of a more Southern frame, and +some Englishwoman ought to be sensible of his merit, though the Dutch +translator of his _Tour_, Mademoiselle de Zuyl, has been writing to him. +Random talking is his dread, he must guard against it, and Miss Blair +revives. 'I must have her learn the harpsichord,' he cries, 'and French; +she shall be one of the finest women in the island.' Later on they have +had a long meeting, of which space only prevents the inimitable +reproduction,--'squeezing and kissing her fine hand, while she looked at +me with those beautiful black eyes.' He meets her at the house of Lord +Kames, he sees her at _Othello_--she was in tears at the affecting +scenes, and 'rather leaned' to him (he thought), and 'the jealous Moor +described my own soul.' But true love did never yet run smooth; he has +been 'as wild as ever. Trust me in time coming; I will give you my word +of honour.' Then--curious psychological trait--'to-morrow I shall be +happy with my devotions.' + +By the beginning of 1768 he fears all is over. A rumour--a false one as +it proved--had reached him that the divinity was to be married to Sir +Alexander Gilmour, M.P. for Midlothian. He gets friendly with the nabob, +warms him with old claret, and bewails with him their hapless devotion. +They agree to propose in turn, and, being in turn rejected, he feels +sure that 'a Howard, or some other of the noblest in the kingdom' is to +be his fate. The Dutch translator again holds the field, to be soon +dismissed for her frivolity and her infidelity. Then Miss Dick of +Prestonfield reigns with solid qualifications--she lacks a fortune, but +is fine, young, healthy, and amiable. A visit to Holland, to finally +decide on the Mademoiselle's claims, was proposed, but his father, +warned in time, would not consent. Temple, too, was against this, and +'Temple thou reasonest well,' he cries, and thinks his abnegation will +be a solace to his worthy father on his circuit. Freed now from Miss +Blair and the Dutch divinity, he is devoted to _la belle Irlandaise_, +'just sixteen, with the sweetest countenance and a Dublin education.' +Never till now had he been so truly in love; every flower is united, and +she is a rose without a thorn. Her name 'Mary Anne' he has carved upon a +tree, and cutting off a lock of her hair she had promised Bozzy not to +marry a lord before March, or forget him. 'Sixteen,' he says; 'innocence +and gaiety make me quite a Sicilian swain.' + +His book had dissipated his professional energies, and he had even taken +to gaming. Incidentally we learn that he had lost more than he could +pay, and that Mr Sheridan had advanced enough to clear him, on a promise +that he should not engage in play for three years. Mary Anne has added +to his complications by her forgetfulness, and the local candidate Miss +Blair reappears. Favoured as she was by his father, it would have been +easy to bring things to a climax, but on her mother's part there was +some not unnatural coldness over his indiscreet talk about his love of +the heiress. Bozzy was a convivial knight-errant in what was called +'Saving the ladies.' At clubs and gatherings any member would toast his +idol in a bumper, and then another champion would enter his peerless +Dulcinea in two bumpers, to be routed by the original toper taking off +four. The deepest drinker 'saved his lady,' as the phrase ran; though, +says George Thomson speaking of the old concerts in St Cecilia's Hall, +at the foot of Niddry's Wynd, which were maintained by noblemen and +gentlemen, the bold champion had often considerable difficulty in +_saving himself_ from the floor, in his efforts to regain his seat! Miss +Burnet of Monboddo, celebrated by Burns, and Miss Betty Home, he +describes as the reigning beauties of the time deeply involved in thus +causing the fall of man. Boswell was not behind, and he ascribes his +aberrations to the 'drinking habit which still prevails in Scotland,' +renewing good intentions, only to be broken in the same letter that +reveals the Moffat lady again, 'like a girl of eighteen, with the finest +black hair,' whom he loves so much that he is in a fever. '_This_,' he +adds truly enough, '_is unworthy of Paoli's friend_.' + +The May of 1769 saw him in Ireland, where his relations in County Down +secured his entry into the best society. A dispatch to the _Public +Advertizer_, of July 7th, informed the public that 'James Boswell, Esq., +dined with His Grace the Duke of Leinster at his seat at Carton. He went +by special invitation to meet the Lord Lieutenant; came next morning +with his Excellency to the Phoenix Park, where he was present at a +review of Sir Joseph Yorke's dragoons; he dined with the Lord Mayor, and +is now set out on his return to Scotland.' The _belle Irlandaise_ had +forgotten him, but it is to this occasion that we may refer some verses +that were published by his son Sir Alexander. Chambers thinks they refer +to his cousin, but the general belief tends in the direction of the +notorious Margaret Caroline Rudd, the associate in later years of the +brothers Perreau, who were executed for forgery. In the _Life of +Johnson_ we find Boswell, in 1776, expressing to his companion a desire +to be introduced to this person, so celebrated for her address and +insinuation, and later on he is shewn, on his own confession, to have +visited her, 'induced by the fame of her talents and irresistible power +of fascination,' and to have sent an account of this interview to his +wife, but to have offered its perusal first, 'as it appeared to me +highly entertaining,' to Temple, who was indignant over it. It would +appear, then, that Boswell did not reveal to Johnson his former +flirtation with this notorious woman, but we think that the obvious +marks of the brogue in the verses shew conclusively that either the +feeling was imitative and based on an earlier Irish song, or that the +verses were judged by Boswell's son, not too devoted, as we shall find, +to his father's memory, to be free from offence. + + 'O Larghan Clanbrassil, how sweet is thy sound, + To my tender remembrance as Love's sacred ground; + For there Marg'ret Caroline first charm'd my sight, + And fill'd my young heart with a flutt'ring delight. + + When I thought her my own, ah! too short seemed the _day_ + For a jaunt to Downpatrick, or a trip on the _sea_; + To express what I felt, then all language was vain, + 'Twas in truth what the poets have studied to feign. + + But, too late, I found even she could _deceive_, + And nothing was left but to sigh, weep, and _rave_; + Distracted, I flew from my dear native shore, + Resolved to see Larghan Clanbrassil no more. + + Yet still in some moments enchanted I find + A ray of her fondness beams soft on my mind; + While thus in bless'd fancy my angel I see, + All the world is a Larghan Clanbrassil to me.' + +On this journey with Boswell there was a Margaret--his own cousin, and +it is curious to find him in this mood of sentimental philandering, were +it no worse, when we have now to see Bozzy at the end of his love +affairs. When his great work was completed in 1791, its author +contributed to the _European Magazine_ for May and June a little sketch +of himself, in order to give a fillip to its circulation. There he +describes jauntily his Irish tour, and after what we know of his erratic +course, it is delightful to come across this sage chronicler of his dead +wife, circulating testimonials to her excellences, to which no doubt he +was oblivious in her lifetime. 'They had,' he writes, 'from their +earliest years lived in the most intimate and unreserved friendship.' +His love of the fair sex has been already mentioned (he had quoted the +song of 'the Soapers' in our first chapter), and she was the constant +yet prudent and delicate _confidante_ of all his '_egarements du coeur +et de l'esprit_.' This we may doubt, and the gracefully allusive French +quotation reminds us of Mr Pepys' use of that language when his wife +was in his mind. This jaunt was the occasion of Mr Boswell's resolving +at last to engage himself in that connection to which he had always +declared himself averse. In short, he determined to become a married +man. He requested her, with her excellent judgment and more sedate +manners, to do him the favour of accepting him with all his faults, and +though he assures his readers he had uniformly protested that a large +fortune had been with him a requisite in the fair, he was yet 'willing +to waive that in consideration of her peculiar merit!' + +Hearts are caught in the rebound, and Bozzy had solaced his loss of the +_belle Irlandaise_ with the sympathy of his fellow-traveller. Having let +his fancies roam so far abroad as Siena and Holland, the lover had now +returned like the bird at evening to the nest from which it flew. She +had no fortune, and 'the penniless lass wi' the lang pedigree,' related +as she was to the Eglintoun branch and other high families, had not in +the eyes of his father the landed qualifications of Miss Blair, whose +property lay so convenient for the extension of the Boswell acres. This +may have been the cause of the paternal anger and the separate marriages +on the same day. The wives of literary men have ever been a fruitful +source of disquisition to the admirers of their heroes, and Terentia, +Gemma Donati, and Anne Hathaway, have divided the biographers of Cicero, +Dante, and Shakespeare. To us it seems that, like his father, she had +much to bear, hampered by their domestic difficulties through her +husband's constant dependence on that father for his income, and eyed +with undeserved suspicion by the judge and his second wife as a Mordecai +in the gate, penniless and yet supposed to be the cause of Boswell's +pecuniary embarrassments and indiscretions. The marriage was deferred +till after the Stratford Jubilee, and the newly married pair took up +their house in Chessel's Buildings in the Canongate. For a year and a +half after his marriage his correspondence with Johnson underwent an +entire cessation, and in the August of 1771 General Paoli made a tour in +Scotland, which, for a time, called forth the best organizing abilities +of his friend. From the _London Magazine_ of the day, in an account +contributed by our hero, we learn how Paoli had paid 'a visit to James +Boswell, Esq., who was the first gentleman of this country who visited +Corsica, and whose writings have made the brave islanders and their +general properly known over Europe.' Boswell waited on the exile and the +Polish Ambassador at Ramsay's Inn, at the foot of St Mary's Wynd, +visiting with them Linlithgow and Carron, 'where the general had a +prodigious pleasure in viewing the forge where were formed the cannon +and war-like stores' sent to Corsica by his Scottish admirers. At +Glasgow they were entertained by the professors, and saw 'the elegant +printing of the Scottish Stephani, the Messrs Foulis,' and no doubt +their guide managed to remind their excellencies of a certain _Tour in +Corsica_ emanating thence. Auchinleck was visited to 'the joy of my +worthy father and me at seeing the Corsican Hero in our romantick +groves,' as he tells Garrick, and on their return to Glasgow the freedom +of the city was conferred on Paoli by Lord Provost Dunlop.[A] At +Edinburgh 'the general slept under the roof of his ever grateful +friend.' The whole forms a favourable specimen of Boswell's organizing +capacities, and viewed in relation to the friendly intercourse he is +found maintaining with prominent and influential persons, our regret is +but increased that in the interests of his wife and children his +abilities were not exercised in a more strictly professional channel. + +London he visited in the March of 1772 over an appeal to the Lords from +the Court of Session. Johnson was now in good health, and was eager 'to +see Beattie's College.' In the _Scots Magazine_ for February 1773 there +is mentioned a masked ball, attended by seventy persons of quality, +given in Edinburgh by Sir Alexander Macdonald and his wife, Miss +Bosville of Yorkshire, one of Boswell's loves. Croker says that the +masquerade for which he was rallied by Johnson was given by the Dowager +Countess of Fife, and that Bozzy went as a dumb conjurer; but from the +expression of the _Magazine_, 'an entertainment little known in this +part of the Kingdom,' coupled with the words employed by Johnson, there +can be no doubt that Croker is wrong, and that the host on this occasion +was the churlish chief, whose inhospitable ways they were to experience +in Skye. He was now near the great honour of his life, admission to that +Literary Club, of which, said Sir William Jones, 'I will only say that +there is no branch of human knowledge on which some of our members are +not capable of giving information.' Never was honour better deserved or +better repaid. Without his record the fame of that club would have +passed away, surviving at best in some sort of hazy companionship with +the Kit-Cat, Button's, Will's, and other clubs and assemblies. Never was +there a club of which each member was better qualified to take care of +his own fame with posterity. None of Johnson's associates would have +hesitated in declaring an extended date of renown for the _Rambler_; and +perhaps he himself would have staked the reputation assured, as Cowper +said, by the tears of bards and heroes in order to immortalize the dead, +on his _Rasselas_ or the _Dictionary_. Yet he and most members of that +club, apart from the record of Boswell, would be but names to the +literary antiquary, and be by the mass of readers entirely forgotten. + +He had canvassed the members. Johnson wrote, on April 23rd, to +Goldsmith, who was in the chair that evening, to consider Boswell as +proposed by himself in his absence. On the night of the ballot, April +30th, Boswell dined at Beauclerk's, where, after the company had gone to +the club, he was left till the fate of his election should be announced. +After Johnson had taken the thing in hand there was not much danger, yet +poor Bozzy 'sat in a state of anxiety which even the charming +conversation of Lady Di Beauclerk could not entirely dissipate.' There +he received the tidings of his election, and he hastened to the place of +meeting. Burke he met that night for the first time, and on his +entrance, Johnson, 'with humorous formality, gave me a _charge_, +pointing out the conduct expected from me as a good member of the club.' +That charge we can believe Forster to be right in suspecting to be a +caution against publishing abroad the proceedings and the talk of the +members. + +In the autumn of the year, as they drew near to Monboddo, Johnson, we +should think with excessive rudeness, told him 'several of the members +wished to keep you out. Burke told me, he doubted if you were fit for +it: but, now you are in, none of them are sorry. Burke says, that you +have so much good humour naturally, it is scarce a virtue.' The faithful +Bozzy replied, 'They were afraid of you, sir, as it was you who proposed +me;' and the doctor was prone to admit that if the one blackball +necessary to exclude had been given, they knew they never would have got +in another member. Yet even from this rebuff he managed to deftly +extract a compliment. Beauclerk, the doctor said, had been very earnest +for the admission, and Beauclerk, replied Boswell, 'has a keenness of +mind which is very uncommon.' The witty Topham, along with Reynolds, +Garrick, and others, is immortalized in the pages of the man who was not +thought by the wits of Gerrard Street fit for their club. + + [A] By the Town Clerk Depute of Glasgow, R. Renwick, + Esq., we are informed that no notice of this enrolment of + General Paoli was entered at the time, pursuant to the custom of + the Register over honorary burgesships. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES. 1773 + + 'Breaking the silence of the seas + Among the farthest Hebrides.'--WORDSWORTH. + + +When Boswell was leaving London in May he called, for the last time, +upon Goldsmith, round whom the clouds of misfortune were fast settling, +and who was planning a _Dictionary of Arts and Sciences_ as a means of +extrication from his embarrassments. In such circumstances, it was not +unnatural for Goldsmith to revert to his own past travels, and to the +reflection that he was unlikely again to set out upon them, unless +sheltered like Johnson behind a pension. He assured Boswell that he +would never be able to lug the dead weight of the Rambler through the +Highlands. The enthusiastic pioneer, however, was loud in the praises of +his companion; Goldsmith thought him not equal to Burke, 'who winds into +a subject like a serpent.' The other, with more than wonted irrelevance, +maintained that Johnson was 'the Hercules who strangled serpents in his +cradle;' and with these characteristic utterances they parted, never +again to meet. Throughout his great work, Boswell shews ever a curious +depreciation of Goldsmith. Rivalry for the good graces of their common +friend Johnson, as Scott thought, and the fear of his older acquaintance +as the possible biographer made him suspicious of the merits of the +poet, who figures in the pages of Boswell as a foil for his gently +patronizing tone,--'honest Goldsmith.' + +The tour to the Hebrides had been a project which had occurred to them +in the first days of their friendship. The _Description of the Western +Isles of Scotland_ (1703) by Martin, had been put into Johnson's hands +at a very early age by his father; and, though for long he had +disappointed the expectations of his friend, he had talked of it in the +spring of this year in such a way as to lead Boswell to write to +Beattie, Robertson, Lord Elibank, and the chiefs of the Macdonalds and +the Macleods, for invitations such as he could shew the doctor. Mrs +Thrale also and others were induced to forward the scheme, and at last +the Rambler set out on the 6th day of August. He was nine days upon the +road, including two at Newcastle, where he picked up his friend Scott +(Lord Stowell), and after passing Berwick, Dunbar and Prestonpans, the +coach late in the evening deposited Johnson at Boyd's inn, _The White +Horse_, in the Canongate,--the rendezvous of the old Hanoverian +faction,--which occupied the site of the present building from which +this volume, one hundred and twenty-three years later, is published. On +the Saturday evening of his arrival a note was dispatched by him to +Boswell, who flew to him, and 'exulted in the thought that I now had him +actually in Caledonia.' + +Arm in arm they walked up the High Street to Boswell's house in James's +Court, to which he had removed from the Canongate. The first impression +of the Scottish capital was not pleasing, for at ten the beat of the +city drums was heard; and, amid cries of _gardy loo_, what Oldham +euphemistically calls 'the perils of the night,' were thrown over the +windows down on the pavement, in the absence of covered sewers. When +Captain Burt before this time had been in Edinburgh, a 'caddie' had +preceded him on a scouting expedition with cries of 'haud your han',' +and among flank and rear discharges he had passed to his quarters. A +zealous Scotsman, as Boswell says, could have wished the doctor to be +less gifted with the sense of smell, however much the sense of the +breadth of the street and the height of the buildings impressed him. His +wife had tea waiting, and they sat till two in the morning. To shew +respect for the sage, Mrs Boswell had given up her own room, which her +husband 'cannot but gratefully mention, as one of a thousand obligations +which I owe her, since the great obligation of her being pleased to +accept of me as her husband.' + +Next morning, on the Sunday, Mr Scott and Sir Wm. Forbes of Pitsligo +breakfasted with them, and the host's heart was delighted by the 'little +infantine noise' which his child Veronica made, with the appearance of +listening to the great man. The fond father with a cheerful +recklessness, not realized we fear, declared she should have for this +five hundred pounds of additional fortune. + +The best society in the capital was invited to meet Johnson at breakfast +and dinner--Robertson, Hailes, Gregory, Blacklock, and others. James's +Court was rather a distinguished part of the city, and an improvement +upon the former quarters in Chessel's Buildings. The inhabitants, says +Robert Chambers, took themselves so seriously as to keep a clerk to +record their proceedings, together with a scavenger of their own, and +held among themselves their social meetings and balls. Hume had occupied +part of the house before Johnson's visit, though three years had passed +since he had moved to the new town into St David Street. Writing from +his old house to Adam Smith, he is glad to 'have come within sight of +you, and to have a view of Kirkcaldy from my windows;' the study of the +historian, to which he turned fondly from the Parisian _salons_, is +represented in _Guy Mannering_ as the library of Pleydell with its fine +view from the windows, 'which commanded that incomparable prospect of +the ground between Edinburgh and the sea, the Firth of Forth with its +islands, and the varied shore of Fife to the northward.' Bozzy may have +been reticent about the former tenant; he was 'not clear that it was +right in me to keep company with him,' though he thought the man greater +or better than his books. No word then was sent to him, nor to Adam +Smith across the Forth to Kirkcaldy. They visited the Parliament House, +where Harry Erskine was presented to Johnson, and, having made his bow, +slipped a shilling into Boswell's hand, 'for the sight of his bear.' +Holyrood and the University were inspected, and as they passed up the +College-Wynd, where Goldsmith in his medical student days in Edinburgh +had lived, Scott, as a child of two years, may have seen the party. On +the 18th they set out from the capital, with the Parthian shot from Lord +Auchinleck to a friend--'there's nae hope for Jamie, man; Jamie is gaen +clean gyte. What do you think, man? He's done wi' Paoli. He's off wi' +the land-louping scoundrel of a Corsican, and whose tail do you think he +has pinned himself to now, man? A dominie, an auld dominie; he keepit a +schule and ca'ad it an acaadamy!' No more bitter taunt could have been +levelled against Johnson, with his memories of Edial, near Lichfield; +readers who may remember the munificent manner in which the heritors of +their day had provided for Ruddiman, Michael Bruce, and others, will +see the contempt that the old judge had felt for the past of the +Rambler. Johnson had left behind him in a drawer a volume of his diary; +and, as this would have been excellent copy for his projected _Life_, we +feel the temptation to which Boswell was exposed. 'I wish,' he says +naively, 'that female curiosity had been strong enough to have had it +all transcribed; which might easily have been done; and I think the +theft, being _pro bono publico_, might have been forgiven. But I may be +wrong. My wife told me she never once had looked into it. She did not +seem quite easy when we left her; but away we went!' + +The character-sketch of Johnson, given at the opening of the book is +full of fine shading and touches; but the traveller who now follows them +on the journey will hardly, in comparison with his own tourist attire, +recognise what in 1773 was thought fit and convenient costume. + + 'He wore a full suit of plain brown clothes, with twisted hair + buttons of the same colour, a large bushy greyish wig, a plain + shirt, black worsted stockings, and silver buckles. Upon this + tour, when journeying, he wore boots, and a very wide brown + cloth greatcoat, with pockets which might have almost held the + two volumes of his folio _Dictionary_; and he carried in his + hand a large English oak stick. Let me not be censured for + mentioning such minute particulars. Everything relative to so + great a man is worth observing. I remember Dr Adam Smith, in + his rhetorical lectures at Glasgow, told us he was glad to know + that Milton wore latchets in his shoes, instead of buckles.' + +A companion vignette of himself is added by Boswell. + + 'A gentleman of ancient blood, the pride of which was his + predominant passion. He was then in his thirty-third year, and + had been about four years happily married. His inclination was + to be a soldier; but his father had pressed him into the + profession of the law. He had travelled a good deal, and seen + many varieties of human life. He had thought more than anyone + had supposed, and had a pretty good stock of general learning + and knowledge. He had rather too little, than too much + prudence; and, his imagination being lively, he often said + things of which the effect was very different from the + intention. He resembled sometimes + + 'The best good man, with the worst natur'd muse.' + +The doctor who was thrifty over this tour had not thought it necessary +to bring his own black servant; but Boswell's man, Joseph Ritter, a +Bohemian, a fine stately fellow over six feet, who had been over much of +Europe, was invaluable to them in their journey. For this the valiant +Rambler had provided a pair of pistols, powder, and a quantity of +bullets, but the assurance of their needlessness had induced him to +leave them behind with the precious diary in the keeping of Mrs Boswell. + +Such a tour was then a feat for a man of sixty-four, in a country which, +to the Englishman of his day, was as unknown as St Kilda is now to the +mass of Scotchmen. The London citizen who, says Lockhart, 'makes Loch +Lomond his wash-pot, and throws his shoe over Ben Nevis,' can with +difficulty imagine a journey in the Hebrides with rainy weather, in open +boats, or upon horseback over wild moorland and morasses, a journey that +even to Voltaire sounded like a tour to the North Pole. Smollett, in +_Humphrey Clinker_, says the people at the other end of the island knew +as little of Scotland as they did of Japan, nor was Charing Cross, +witness as it did the greatest height of 'the tide of human existence,' +then bright with the autumnal trips of circular tours and Macbrayne +steamers. The feeling for scenery, besides, was in its infancy, nor was +it scenery but men and manners that were sought by our two travellers, +to whom what would now be styled the Wordsworthian feeling had little +or no interest. Gibbon has none of it, and Johnston laughed at Shenstone +for not caring whether his woods and streams had anything good to eat in +them, 'as if one could fill one's belly with hearing soft murmurs or +looking at rough cascades.' Fleet Street to him was more delicious than +Tempe, and the bare scent of the pastoral draws an angry snort from the +critic. Boswell, in turn, confesses to no relish for nature; he admits +he has no pencil for visible objects, but only for varieties of mind and +_esprit_. The _Critical Review_ congratulated the public on a fortunate +event in the annals of literature for the following account in Johnson's +_Journey_--'I sat down on a bank, such as a writer of romance might have +delighted to feign. I had, indeed, no trees to whisper over my head but +a clear rivulet streamed at my feet. The day was calm, the air soft, and +all was rudeness, silence and solitude. Before me, and on either side, +were high hills, which, if hindering the eye from ranging, forced the +mind to find entertainment for itself.' This, little more than the +reflections of a Cockney on a hayrick, is as far as the eighteenth +century could go, nor need we wonder that the Rambler's moralizing at +Iona struck so much Sir Joseph Banks, the President of the Royal +Society, that he 'clasped his hands together, and remained for some time +in an attitude of silent admiration.' Burns himself, as Prof. Veitch has +rightly indicated, has little of the later feeling and regards barren +nature with the unfavourable eyes of the farmer and the practical +agriculturist, nor has the travelled Goldsmith more to shew. Writing +from Edinburgh, he laments that 'no grove or brook lend their music to +cheer the stranger,' while at Leyden, 'wherever I turned my eye, fine +houses, elegant gardens, statues, grottoes, presented themselves.' Even +Gray found that Mount Cenis carried the permission mountains have of +being frightful rather too far, and Wordsworth and Shelley would have +resented the Johnsonian description of a Highland Ben as 'a considerable +protuberance.' Indeed, Goldsmith's bare mention of that object, so dear +to Pope and his century,--'grottoes'--reminds us we are not yet in the +modern world. Yet the boldness of the sage, and the cheerfulness of +Boswell, carried them through it all. 'I should,' wrote the doctor to +Mrs Thrale, 'have been very sorry to have missed any of the +inconveniences, to have had more light or less rain, for their +co-operation crowded the scene and filled the mind.' + +Crossing the Firth, after landing on Inchkeith, they arrived at St +Andrews which had long been an object of interest to Johnson. They +passed Leuchars, Dundee, and Aberbrothick. The ruins of ecclesiastical +magnificence would seem to have touched a hidden chord in Boswell's +past, for we find him on the road talking of the 'Roman Catholick +faith,' and leading his companion on transubstantiation; but this, being +'an awful subject, I did not then press Dr Johnson upon it.' Montrose +was reached, and at the inn the waiter was called 'rascal' by the +Rambler for putting sugar into the lemonade with his fingers, to the +delight of Bozzy who rallied him into quietness by the assurance that +the landlord was an Englishman. Monboddo was then passed, where 'the +magnetism of his conversation drew us out of our way,' though the prompt +action of Boswell as agent in advance really was the source of their +invitation. Burnet was one of the best scholars in Scotland, and +'Johnson and my lord spoke highly of Homer.' All his paradoxes about the +superiority of the ancients, the existence of men with tails, slavery +and other institutions were vented, but all went well. The decrease of +learning in England, which Johnson lamented, was met by Monboddo's +belief in its extinction in Scotland, but Bozzy, as the old High School +of Edinburgh boy, put in a word for that place of education and brought +him to confess that it did well. + +The New Inn at Aberdeen was full. But the waiter knew Boswell by his +likeness to his father who put up here on circuit--the only portrait, we +believe, there is of Lord Auchinleck--and accommodation was provided. +They visited King's College, where Boswell 'stepped into the chapel and +looked at the tomb of its founder, Bishop Elphinstone, of whom I shall +have occasion to write in my history of James IV., the patron of my +family.' The freedom of the city was conferred on Johnson. Was this an +honour, or an excuse for a social glass among the civic Solons of an +unreformed corporation? The latter may be the case, when we reflect that +none of the four universities thought of giving him an honorary degree, +though Beattie at this time had received the doctorate in laws from +Oxford, and Gray some years before this had declined the offer from +Aberdeen. Nor can we forget the taunt of George Colman the younger about +Pangloss in his _Heir at Law_, and his own recollection how, when a lad +at King's College, he had been 'scarcely a week in Old Aberdeen when the +Lord Provost of the New Town invited me to drink wine with him, one +evening in the Town Hall;' and presented him on October 8th, 1781, with +the freedom of the city. No negative inference can be established from +the contemporary notices in the _Aberdeen Journal_ over the visit. Every +paragraph is contemptuous in its tone; and till October 4th no notice is +taken of the honour, when 'a correspondent says he is glad to find that +the city of Aberdeen has presented Dr Johnson with the freedom of that +place, for he has sold his freedom on this side of the Tweed for a +pension.' The definition of _oats_ in the Dictionary is brought up +against its author, and Bozzy is also attacked in a doggerel epigram on +his Corsican Tour and his system of spelling. But the doctor easily +maintained his conversational supremacy over his academic hosts, who +'started not a single mawkin for us to pursue.' + +Ellon, Slains Castle, and Elgin were visited. They passed Gordon Castle +at Fochabers, drove over the heath where Macbeth met the witches, +'classic ground to an Englishman,' as the old editor of Shakespeare +felt, and reached Nairn, where now they heard for the first time the +Gaelic tongue,--'one of the songs of Ossian,' quoth the justly +incredulous doctor,--and saw peat fires. At Fort George they were +welcomed by Sir Eyre Coote. The old military aspirations of Bozzy flared +up and were soothed: 'for a little while I fancied myself a military +man, and it pleased me.' As they left, the commander reminded them of +the hardships by the way, in return as Boswell interposed for the rough +things Johnson had said of Scotland. 'You must change your name, sir,' +said Sir Eyre. 'Ay, to Dr M'Gregor,' replied Bozzy. The notion of the +lexicographer's assuming the forbidden name of the bold outlaw, with +'his foot upon his native heath,' is rather comic, though later on we +find him striding about with a target and broad sword, and a bonnet +drawn over his wig! Though both professed profuse addiction to Jacobite +sentiments, it is curious no mention is made of Culloden. It may be that +Boswell, who some days later weeps over the battle, may have +diplomatically avoided it, or it may have been dark as their chaise +passed it, though it is not impossible that Boswell, who at St Andrews +had not known where to look for John Knox's grave, and has no mention of +Airsmoss where Cameron fell in his own parish of Auchinleck, was +ignorant of the site. From their inn at Inverness he wrote to Garrick +gleefully over his tour with Davy's old preceptor, and then begged +permission to leave Johnson for a time, 'that I might run about and pay +some visits to several good people,' finding much satisfaction in +hearing every one speak well of his father. + +On Monday, August 30, they began their _equitation_; 'I would needs make +a word too.' They took horses now, a third carried his man Ritter, and a +fourth their portmanteaus. The scene by Loch Ness was new to the sage, +and he rises in his narrative a little to it and the 'limpid waters +beating their bank, and waving their surface by a gentle agitation.' +Through Glenshiel, Glenmorison, Auchnasheal, they passed on to the inn +at Glenelg. They made beds for themselves with fresh hay, and, like +Wolfe at Quebec, they had their 'choice of difficulties;' but the +philosophic Rambler maintained they might have been worse on the +hillside, and buttoning himself up in his greatcoat he lay down, while +Boswell had his sheets spread on the hay, and his clothes and greatcoat +laid over him by way of blankets. + +Next day they got into a boat for Skye, reaching Armidale before one. +Here occurred one of the dramatic episodes of the book. Sir Alexander +Macdonald, husband of Boswell's Yorkshire cousin Miss Bosville, and the +host at the masquerade in February, was on his way to Edinburgh, and met +them at the house of a tenant, 'as we believe,' wrote Johnson to Mrs +Thrale, 'that he might with less reproach entertain us meanly. Boswell +was very angry, and reproached him with his improper parsimony. Boswell +has some thoughts of collecting the stories and making a novel of his +life.' In the first edition of his book something strong had clearly +been written, but it was wisely suppressed at the last moment when the +book was bound, for the new pages are but clumsily pasted on the guard +between leaves 166 and 169. The first edition had accordingly this +account, which was even toned down in the next. + +'Instead of finding the head of the Macdonalds surrounded with his clan, +and a festive entertainment, we had a small company and cannot boast of +our cheer. The particulars are minuted in my journal, but I shall not +trouble the publick with them. I shall mention but one characteristick +circumstance. My shrewd and hearty friend, Sir Thomas Blackett, Lady +Macdonald's uncle, who had preceded us in a visit to this chief, upon +being asked by him if the punchbowl then upon the table was not a very +handsome one, replied, "Yes, if it were full." Sir Alexander, having +been an Eton scholar, Dr Johnson had formed an opinion of him which was +much diminished when he beheld him in the Isle of Sky, where we heard +heavy complaints of rents racked, and the people driven to emigration. +Dr Johnson said, "it grieves me to see the chief of a great clan appear +to such disadvantage. The gentleman has talents, nay, some learning; but +he is totally unfit for his situation. Sir, the Highland chiefs should +not be allowed to go further south than Aberdeen." I meditated an escape +from this the very next day, but Dr Johnson resolved that we should +weather it out till Monday.' + +Next day being Sunday Bozzy's spirits were cheered by the climate and +the weather, but 'had I not had Dr Johnson to contemplate, I should have +been sunk into dejection, but his firmness supported me. I looked at +him as a man whose head is turning giddy at sea looks at a rock.' +Everywhere they met signs of the parting of the ways in the Highlands. +The old days of feudal power were merging in the industrial, the chiefs +were now landlords and exacting ones. Emigration was rife, and the pages +of the _Scots Magazine_ of the time dwell much on this. A month before, +four hundred men had left Strathglass and Glengarry; in June eight +hundred had sailed from Stornoway; Lochaber sent four hundred, 'the +finest set of fellows in the Highlands, carrying L6000 in ready cash +with them. The extravagant rents exacted by the landlords is the sole +cause given for this emigration which seems to be only in its infancy.' +The high price of provisions and the decrease of the linen trade in the +north of Ireland sent eight hundred this year from Stromness, when we +find the linen dealers thanking Boswell's old rival, as he supposed, +with Miss Blair, Sir Alexander Gilmour, M.P. for Midlothian, for his +efforts at providing better legislation. + +Rasay is one of the happiest descriptions in the tour. 'This,' said +Johnson, 'is truly the patriarchal life; this is what we came to find.' +They heard from home and had letters. At Kingsburgh they were welcomed +by the lady of the house, 'the celebrated Miss Flora Macdonald, a little +woman of genteel appearance; and uncommonly mild and well-bred.' 'I was +in a cordial humour, and promoted a cheerful glass. Honest Mr M'Queen +observed that I was in high glee, "my governor being gone to bed." ... +The room where we lay was a celebrated one. Dr Johnson's bed was the +very bed in which the grandson of the unfortunate King James the Second +lay, on one of the nights after the failure of his rash attempt in +1745-6. To see Dr Samuel Johnson lying in that bed, in the Isle of Sky, +in the house of Miss Flora Macdonald, struck me with such a group of +ideas as it is not easy for words to describe, as they passed through +the mind. The room was decorated with a great variety of maps and +prints. Among others, was Hogarth's print of Wilkes grinning, with a cap +of liberty on a pole by him.' Certainly Bozzy had never thought of +finding a remembrance of his 'classic friend' in such circumstances. + +Dunvegan and the castle of the Macleods received them in hospitable +style. 'Boswell,' said Johnson, in allusion to Sir Alexander's stinted +ways, 'we came in at the wrong end of the island;' the memories of their +visit had not been forgotten when Scott was there on his Lighthouse Tour +in 1814. The Rambler 'had tasted lotus, and was in danger of forgetting +he was ever to depart.' + +Landing at Strolimus, they proceeded to Corrichatachin, 'with but a +single star to light us on our way.' There took place the scene that, +though familiar, must be given in the writer's own words. A man who, for +artistic setting and colour, could write it deliberately down even to +his own disadvantage, and who could appeal to serious critics and +readers of discernment and taste against the objections which he saw +himself would be raised from the misinterpretation of others, is a +figure not to be met with every day in literature. + + 'Dr Johnson went to bed soon. When one bowl of punch was + finished, I rose, and was near the door, on my way upstairs to + bed; but Corrichatachin said, it was the first time Col had + been in his house, and he should have his bowl; and would not I + join in drinking it? The heartiness of my honest landlord, and + the desire of doing social honour to our very obliging + conductor, induced me to sit down again. Col's bowl was + finished; and by that time we were well warmed. A third bowl + was soon made, and that too was finished. We were cordial, and + merry to a high degree; but of what passed I have no + recollection, with any accuracy. I remember calling + _Corrichatachin_ by the familiar appellation of _Corri_ which + his friends do. A fourth bowl was made, by which time Col, and + young M'Kinnon, Corrichatachin's son, slipped away to bed. I + continued a little time with Corri and Knockow; but at last I + left them. It was near five in the morning when I got to bed. + _Sunday, September 26._ I awaked at noon with a severe + head-ach. I was much vexed that I should have been guilty of + such a riot, and afraid of a reproof from Dr Johnson, I thought + it very inconsistent with that conduct which I ought to + maintain, while the companion of the Rambler. About one he came + into my room, and accosted me, "What, drunk yet?" His tone of + voice was not that of severe upbraiding; so I was relieved a + little. "Sir," (said I), "they kept me up." He answered, "No, + you kept them up, you drunken dog:"--this he said with + good-humoured _English_ pleasantry. Soon afterwards, + Corrichatachin, Col, and other friends assembled round my bed. + Corri had a brandy bottle and glass with him, and insisted I + should take a dram. "Ay," said Dr Johnson, "fill him drunk + again. Do it in the morning, that we may laugh at him all day. + It is a poor thing for a fellow to get drunk at night, and + skulk to bed, and let his friends have no sport." Finding him + thus jocular, I became quite easy; and when I offered to get + up, he very good naturedly said, "You need be in no such hurry + now." I took my host's advice, and drank some brandy, which I + found an effectual cure for my head-ach. When I rose, I went + into Dr Johnson's room, and taking up Mrs M'Kinnon's + Prayer-Book, I opened it at the twentieth Sunday after Trinity, + in the epistle for which I read, "And be not drunk with wine, + wherein there is excess." Some would have taken this as a + divine interposition.' + +Such is the extraordinary confession. St Augustine, Rousseau, De +Quincey, have not quite equalled this. He found it had been made the +subject of serious criticism and ludicrous banter. But his one object, +as he tells 'serious criticks,' has been to delineate Johnson's +character, and for this purpose he appeals from Philip drunk to Philip +sober, and to the approbation of the discerning reader. Later on, he has +laid the flattering unction to his heart, and has extracted comfort +from the soul of things evil. He felt comfortable, and 'I then thought +that my last night's riot was no more than such a social excess as may +happen without much moral blame; and recollected that some physicians +maintained, that a fever produced by it was, upon the whole, good for +health: so different are our reflections on the same subject, at +different periods; and such the excuses with which we palliate what we +know to be wrong.' + +Leaving Skye, they ran before the wind to Col. + + 'It was very dark, and there was a heavy and incessant rain. + The sparks of the burning peat flew so much about, that I + dreaded the vessel might take fire. Then as _Col_ was a + sportsman, and had powder on board, I figured that we might be + blown up. Our vessel often lay so much on one side, that I + trembled lest she should be overset, and indeed they told me + afterwards that they had run her sometimes to within an inch of + the water, so anxious were they to make what haste they could + before the night should be worse. I now saw what I never saw + before, a prodigious sea, with immense billows coming upon a + vessel, so that it seemed hardly possible to escape. I am glad + I have seen it once. I endeavoured to compose my mind; when I + thought of those who were dearest to me, and would suffer + severely, should I be lost, I upbraided myself. Piety afforded + me comfort; yet I was disturbed by the objections that have + been made against a particular providence, and by the arguments + of those who maintain that it is in vain to hope that the + petitions of an individual, or even of congregations, can have + any influence with the Deity. I asked _Col_ with much + earnestness what I could do. He with a happy readiness put into + my hand a rope, which was fixed to the top of one of the masts, + and told me to hold it till he bade me pull. If I had + considered the matter, I might have seen that this could not be + of the slightest service; but his object was to keep me out of + the way.... Thus did I stand firm to my post, while the wind + and rain beat upon me, always expecting a call to pull my + rope.... They spied the harbour of Lochiern, and _Col_ cried, + "Thank God, we are safe!" Dr Johnson had all this time been + quiet and unconcerned. He had lain down on one of the beds, and + having got free from sickness, was satisfied. The truth is, he + knew nothing of the danger we were in. Once he asked whither we + were going; upon being told that it was not certain whether to + Mull or Col, he cried, "Col for my money!" I now went down to + visit him. He was lying in philosophick tranquillity, with a + greyhound of _Col's_ at his back keeping him warm.' + +Mull, Tobermory, Ulva's Isle, and Inch Kenneth followed. Then +Iona,--'the sacred place which as long as I can remember, I had thought +on with veneration.' The two friends, as they landed on the island, +'cordially embraced,' as they had done in the _White Horse_ at +Edinburgh, and the mark of feeling is a note that we are yet with them +in the eighteenth century. They lay in a barn with a portmanteau for a +pillow, and 'when I awaked in the morning and looked round me, I could +not help smiling at the idea of the chief of the Macleans, the great +English moralist, and myself lying thus extended in such a situation.' +The old Boswell of the Roman Catholic days appears at this time. +'Boswell,' writes Johnson to Mrs Thrale, 'who is very pious went into +the chapel at night to perform his devotions, but came back in haste for +fear of spectres.' Second sight was often in their thoughts and +conversation on their tour; at the club Colman had jocularly to bid +Boswell 'cork it up' when he was too full of his belief on the point. +His fear of ghosts reminds one of Pepys in the year of the great plague, +as he went through the graveyard of the church, with the bodies buried +thick and high, 'frighted and much troubled.' + +'I left him,' says Boswell himself, 'and Sir Allan at breakfast in our +barn, and stole back again to the cathedral, to indulge in solitude and +devout meditation. When contemplating the venerable ruins, _I reflected +with much satisfaction_, that the solemn scenes of piety _never lose +their sanctity and influence_, though the cares and follies of life may +prevent us from visiting them.... I hoped that, ever after having been +in this holy place, I should maintain an exemplary conduct. One has a +strange propensity to fix upon some point of time from whence a better +course of life may begin.' This is a revelation of the inner Boswell. On +the eve of the appearance of the _Tour in Corsica_, he had written to +Temple, about 'fixing some period for my perfection as far as possible. +Let it be when my account of Corsica is finished. I shall then have a +character to support.' On landing at Rasay, he noticed the remains of a +cross on the rock, 'which had to me a pleasing vestige of religion,' and +he 'could not but value the family seat more for having even the ruins +of a chapel close to it. There was something comforting in the thought +of being so near a piece of consecrated ground.' + +Oban received them with a tolerable inn. They were again on the +mainland, and found papers with conjectures as to their motions in the +islands. Next day they spent at Inverary. The castle of the Duke of +Argyll was near, and now, for the first time on the tour, the +indefatigable agent in advance was completely nonplussed. The spectre of +the great Douglas Trial loomed large in the eyes of the pamphleteer and +the hero of the riot. He had reason, he says, to fear hostile reprisals +on the part of the Duchess, who had been Duchess of Hamilton and mother +of the rival claimant, before she had become the wife of John, fifth +Duke of Argyll. It is from this scene and from the Stratford Jubilee +fiasco that the general reader draws his picture of poor Bozzy, and the +belief remains that James Boswell was a pushing and forward interloper, +half mountebank and half showman. Read in the original, as a revelation +of the writer's character, the very reverse is the impression; he is +there presented not in any ludicrous light but rather in a good-humoured +and fussy way. He met his friend the Rev. John Macaulay, one of the +ministers of Inverary, who accompanied them to the castle, where Boswell +presented the doctor to the Duke. 'I shall never forget,' quaintly adds +the chronicler, 'the impression made upon my fancy by some of the +ladies' maids tripping about in neat morning dresses. After seeing for a +long time little but rusticity, their lively manner, and gay inviting +appearance, pleased me so much, that I thought, for a moment, I could +have been a knight-errant for them.' This grandfather of the historian +and essayist, the man who has dealt the heaviest blow to the reputation +of poor Bozzy, was to encounter some warm retorts from the Rambler like +his brother, Macaulay's grand-uncle, the minister at Calder. Mr +Trevelyan is eager for the good name of his family, and finds it +impossible to suppress a wish that the great talker had been there to +avenge them. It may not be quite impossible that, mingling with the +brilliant essayist's ill-will to the politics of the travellers, there +was an unconscious strain of resentment at the contemptuous way in which +his relations had been tossed by the doctor, and that Bozzy's own +subsequent denunciations of the abolitionists and the slave trade had +edged the memories in the mind of the son of Zachary Macaulay. Be this +as it may, for this scene Macaulay has a keen eye, and as much of his +colour is derived from it, it is but right that in some abridged form +the incident be set down here in Boswell's own words-- + + 'I went to the castle just about the time when I supposed the + ladies would be retired from dinner. I sent in my name; and, + being shewn in, found the amiable Duke sitting at the head of + his table with several gentlemen. I was most politely received, + and gave his grace some particulars of the curious journey + which I had been making with Dr Johnson.... As I was going + away, the Duke said, "Mr Boswell, won't you have some tea?" I + thought it best to get over the meeting with the Duchess this + night; so respectfully agreed. I was conducted to the + drawing-room by the Duke, who announced my name; but the + duchess, who was sitting with her daughter, Lady Betty + Hamilton, and some other ladies, took not the least notice of + me. I should have been mortified at being thus coldly received, + had I not been consoled by the obliging attention of the Duke. + + '_Monday, October 25._ I presented Dr Johnson to the Duke of + Argyll ... the duke placed Dr Johnson next himself at table. I + was in fine spirits; and though sensible of not being in favour + with the duchess, I was not in the least disconcerted, and + offered her grace some of the dish that was before me. It must + be owned that I was in the right to be quite unconcerned, if I + could. I was the Duke of Argyll's guest; and I had no reason to + suppose that he adopted the prejudices and resentments of the + Duchess of Hamilton. + + 'I knew it was the rule of modern high life not to drink to + anybody; but, that I might have the satisfaction for once to + look the duchess in the face, with a glass in my hand, I with a + respectful air addressed her,--"My Lady Duchess, I have the + honour to drink your grace's good health." I repeated the words + audibly, and with a steady countenance. This was, perhaps, + rather too much; but some allowance must be made for human + feelings. I made some remark that seemed to imply a belief in + _second sight_. The duchess said, "I fancy you will be _a + methodist_." This was the only sentence her grace deigned to + utter to me; and I take it for granted, she thought it a good + hit on _my credulity_ in the Douglas Cause. + + 'We went to tea. The duke and I walked up and down the + drawing-room, conversing. The duchess still continued to shew + the same marked coldness for me; for which, though I suffered + from it, I made every allowance, considering the very warm part + that I had taken for Douglas, in the cause in which she thought + her son deeply interested. Had not her grace discovered some + displeasure towards me, I should have suspected her of + insensibility or dissimulation. Her grace made Dr Johnson come + and sit by her, and asked him why he made his journey so late + in the year. "Why, madam (said he), you know Mr Boswell must + attend the Court of Session, and it does not rise till the + 12th of August." She said, with some sharpness, "I _know + nothing_ of Mr Boswell." Poor Lady Lucy Douglas, to whom I + mentioned this, observed, "She knew _too much_ of Mr Boswell." + I shall make no remark on her grace's speech, etc., etc.' + +In all this scene it will be confessed there is nothing but rudeness on +the part of the duchess, one of the beautiful Gunnings, intentional or +otherwise, while the kindly touches on Boswell's part, his allowance for +her supposed feelings over the trial, and his determination, for once, +to look a duchess in the face, are admirable. Bozzy was by birth a +gentleman, and there is not the slightest indication here of any want of +breeding or taste on his side. + +At Dumbarton, steep as is the incline, Johnson ascended it. The +_Saracen's Head_, which had welcomed Paoli before now, received the +travellers. There was now no more sullen fuel or peat. 'Here am I,' +soliloquized the Rambler, with a leg upon each side of the grate, 'an +_Englishman_, sitting by a coal fire.' + +'Jamie's aff the hooks noo;' said the old laird, as they drew near +Auchinleck, 'he's bringing doon an auld dominie.' Boswell begged of his +companion to avoid three topics of discourse on which he knew his father +had fixed opinions--Whiggism, Presbyterianism, and Sir John Pringle. For +a time all went well. They walked about 'the romantick groves of my +ancestors,' and Bozzy discoursed on the antiquity and honourable +alliances of the family, and on the merits of its founder, Thomas, who +fell with King James at Flodden. But the storm broke, over the judge's +collection of medals, where that of Oliver Cromwell brought up Charles +the First and Episcopacy. All must regret that the writer's filial +feelings withheld the 'interesting scene in this dramatick sketch.' It +is the one _lacuna_ in the book. Sir John Pringle, as the middle term +in the debate, came off without a bruise, but the honours lay with Lord +Auchinleck. The man whose 'Scots strength of sarcasm' could retort on +Johnson, that Cromwell was a man that let kings know they 'had a _lith_ +in their neck,' was likely to open new ideas to the doctor, whose +political opinions could not rank higher than prejudices. 'Thus they +parted,' says the son, after his father had, with his dignified +courtesy, seen Johnson into the postchaise; 'they are now in a happier +state of existence, in a place where there is no room for _Whiggism_.' +'I have always said,' the doctor maintained, 'the first Whig was the +Devil!' + +Edinburgh was reached on November 9th. Eighty-three days had passed +since they left it, and for five weeks no news of them had been heard. +Writing from London, on his arrival, Johnson said, 'I came home last +night, without any incommodity, danger, or weariness, and am ready to +begin a new journey. I know Mrs Boswell wished me well to go.' The +irregular hours of her guest, and his habit of turning the candles +downward when they did not burn brightly, letting the wax run upon the +carpet, had not been quite to the taste of the hostess, who resented, +'what was very natural to a female mind,' the influence he possessed +over the actions of her husband. + +We may well call this tour a spirited one, as Boswell had styled his own +Corsican expedition. No better book of travels in Scotland has ever been +written than Boswell's _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_. The accuracy +of his description, his eye for scenes and dramatic effects, have all +been fully borne witness to by those who have followed in their track, +and the fact of the book being day by day read by Johnson, during its +preparation, gives it an additional value from the perfect veracity of +its contents--'as I have resolved that the very journal which Dr Johnson +read shall be presented to the publick, I will not expand the text in +any considerable degree.' If the way in which the Rambler roughed it, +'laughing to think of myself roving among the Hebrides at sixty, and +wondering where I shall rove at four score,' is admirable, none the less +so is Bozzy's imperturbable good humour. 'It is very convenient to +travel with him,' writes his companion from Auchinleck to Mrs Thrale, +'for there is no house where he is not received with kindness and +respect. He has better faculties than I had imagined; more justness of +discernment and more fecundity of images.' They had hoped to go sailing +from island to island, and had not reckoned with what Scott, who wonders +they were not drowned, calls the proverbial carelessness of Hebridean +boatmen. They really had come two months too late. But Boswell's +attention to the old man smoothed all difficulties,--'looking on the +tour as a co-partnership between Dr Johnson and myself,' he did his part +faithfully, dancing reels, singing songs, and airing the scraps of +Gaelic he picked up, thinking all this better than 'to play the abstract +scholar.' + +Johnson's account of the journey is an able performance, and is written +with a lighter touch and grace than is to be found in his early works. +One passage from it has become famous,--his description of Iona. 'The +man whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or +whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona,' rivals +Macaulay's New Zealander as a stock quotation, and the whole book is not +without incisive touches. But it is completely eclipsed by the _Journal_ +of Boswell. From start to finish there is not a dull page, and the +literary polish is, we venture to think, of a higher kind than is seen +in the _Life_. The artistic opening, and the grouping of the characters, +together with the wealth of archaeological and historical information, +the tripping style and sustained interest, all render this book of +Boswell's a masterpiece. Johnson's account, published in 1775, took ten +years to reach a second edition. Boswell's appeared in September, 1785; +and by December 20 the issue was exhausted, a third followed on August +15, 1786, and the next year saw a German translation issued at Lubeck. +There had been grave indiscretions, lack of reticence, and other faults +in the book. Caricatures were rife. _Revising for the Second Edition_ +shewed Sir Alexander Macdonald seizing the author by the throat, and +pointing with his stick to the open book, where two leaves are marked as +torn out. But Boswell, in _The Gentleman's Magazine_ for March 1786, +asserts that no such applications or threats had been made. The results, +however, may have added to the writer's unpopularity, as Lord Houghton +suggests, at the Edinburgh bar, through the answers, replies, and other +rejoinders to the strictures of Johnson, for which Boswell, as the +pioneer and the introducer of the stranger, 'the chiel among them takin' +notes,' may in Edinburgh society have been held as mainly responsible. + +To Johnson, the memories of the tour--the lone shieling and the misty +island--were a source of pleasing recollection. Taken earlier, it would +have removed many of his insular prejudices by wider survey and more +varied conversation. 'The expedition to the Hebrides,' he wrote to +Boswell some years after, 'was the most pleasant journey I ever made;' +and two years later, after restless and tedious nights, he is found +reverting to it and recalling the best night he had had these twenty +years back, at Fort Augustus. Yet all through September they had not +more than a day and a half of really good weather, and but the same +during October. Out of such slight materials and uncomfortable +surroundings has Boswell produced a masterpiece of descriptive writing. +The memory of Johnson has lingered where that of the Jacobite Pretender +has well-nigh completely passed away. Mr Gladstone, proposing a +Parliamentary vote of thanks to Lord Napier for 'having planted the +Standard of St George upon the mountains of Rasselas;' Sir Robert Peel, +quoting, in his address to Glasgow University as Lord Rector, Johnson's +description of Iona; Sir Walter Scott finding in Skye that he and his +friends had in their memories, as the one typical association of the +island, the ode to Mrs Thrale, all combine to shew the abiding interest +attaching to the Rambler even in Abyssinia and to his foot-steps in +Scotland. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +EDINBURGH LIFE--DEATH OF JOHNSON. 1773-1784 + + 'My father used to protest I was born to be a strolling + pedlar.'--SIR WALTER SCOTT--_Autobiography._ + + +'You have done Auchinleck much honour and have, I hope, overcome my +father who has never forgiven your warmth for monarchy and episcopacy. I +am anxious to see how your pages will operate on him.' Boswell had good +grounds for thus expressing himself to Johnson over the publication of +the latter's book. He had not long, it would seem, to wait for the +breaking of the storm, as we find him writing to Temple in ominous +language. 'My father,' he says, 'is most unhappily dissatisfied with me. +He harps on my going over Scotland with a brute (think how shockingly +erroneous!) and wandering, or some such phrase, to London. I always +dread his making some bad settlement.' Then the old judge would grimly +relate how Lord Crichton, son of the Earl of Dumfries, would go to +Edinburgh, and how, when he was carried back to the family vault, the +Earl, as he saw the hearse from the window, had said, 'Ay, ay, Charles, +thou went without an errand: I think thou hast got one to bring thee +back again.' + +But had the son chosen to be quite candid here, we should see how just a +cause the father had for his displeasure. In the spring of 1774, he had +written to Johnson suggesting a run up to London, expressing the +peculiar satisfaction which he felt in celebrating Easter at St Paul's, +which to his fancy was like going up to Jerusalem at the feast of the +Passover. The doctor was wisely deaf to this subtle appeal. 'Edinburgh,' +said he, 'is not yet exhausted,' and reminded him that his wife, having +permitted him last year to ramble, had now a claim upon him at home, +while to come to Iona or to Jerusalem could not be necessary, though +useful. Next year, however, Boswell was in London, 'quite in my old +humour,' as he tells Temple, arguing with him for concubinage and the +plurality of the patriarchs, from all which we may see that the plea +urged to Johnson for the visit was to be taken in a lax sense by +Boswell, who made his chief excuse out of some business at the bar of +the House over an election petition in Clackmannan. He waited on Temple +in Devon and shocked his host by his inebriety, but 'under a solemn yew +tree' he had vowed reformation. But his return to town, if it 'exalted +him in piety' at St Paul's, seems to have led but to fresh dissipation. +He hints at 'Asiatic multiplicity,' but this is only when he has taken +too much claret. The good resolutions at Iona and the influence of the +ruins had passed away, the trip is extended to two months, and he frets +irritably over his old friend Henry Dundas's election as King's +Advocate,--'to be sure he has strong parts, but he is a coarse +unlettered dog.' Harry Dundas at least was never found philandering as +we find Bozzy on this occasion, where the mixture of religion and +flirtation is so confusing. 'After breakfasting with Paoli,' he writes +before leaving for the north, 'and worshipping at St Paul's, I dined +_tete-a-tete_ with my charming Mrs Stuart, of whom you have read in my +Journal. We dined in all the elegance of two courses and a dessert, with +dumb waiters, except when the second course and the dessert were +served. We talked with unreserved freedom, as we had nothing to fear. We +were _philosophical_, upon honour--not deep, but feeling, we were pious; +we drank tea and bid each other adieu as finely as romance paints. She +is my wife's dearest friend, so you see how beautiful our intimacy is.' +But from Johnson's letter to Mrs Thrale we see looming ahead a crisis. +'He got two and forty guineas in fees while he was here. He has by _his +wife's persuasion and mine_ taken down a present for his +mother-in-law,'--an error, doubtless, for 'stepmother.' He had entered +himself this time at the Temple, and Johnson was his bond. He left to be +in time for practice before the General Assembly, finding 'something low +and coarse in such employment, but guineas must be had'--a feeling quite +different from that of Lord Cockburn who thought the aisle of St Giles +had seen the best work of the best men in the kingdom since 1640. +Perhaps his feelings on this point were soothed by the traveller in the +coach, a Miss Silverton, an 'amiable creature who has been in France. I +can unite little fondnesses with perfect conjugal love.' Alas for poor +Peggie Montgomerie, 'of the ancient house of Eglintoun,' blamed by his +father for not bridling the follies of his son, waiting, doubtless, +anxiously for the present to the second wife of his father as a means of +peace-offering! + +Then the secret leaks out that the father had refused Boswell's plan of +being allowed L400 a year and the trial of fortune at the London bar. +His debts of L1000 had been paid, and his allowance of L300 threatened +with the reduction of a third. The promise under the old yew had not +been kept; the one bottle of hock as a statutory limit had been +exceeded, he had been 'not drunk, but was intoxicated,'--a subtle point +for bacchanalian casuists, and very ill next day. He lays it on the +drunken habits of the country which, he says, are very bad, and with the +recollection of Burns' temptations in Dumfries we may admit that they +were. His father, too, was now about to entail his estate, and Bozzy's +predilection for feudal principles and heirs male brought things to a +deadlock. He appealed to Lord Hailes, who admitted conscience and self +formed a strong plea when found on different sides. Finally, after the +judge had inserted in the deed his precautions against 'a weak, foolish +and extravagant person,' the estate was entailed on Boswell. 'My +father,' he tells Temple, 'is so different from me. We _divaricate_ so +much, as Dr Johnson said. He has a method of treating me which makes me +feel like a timid boy, which to _Boswell_ (comprehending all that my +character does in my own imagination and in that of a wonderful number +of mankind) is intolerable. It requires the utmost exertion of practical +philosophy to keep myself quiet; but it has cost me drinking a +considerable quantity of strong beer to dull my faculties.' The picture +of the son drinking himself down to the level of the father is truly +inimitable! + +He feared the final settlement. He might be disgraced by his father, and +not a shilling secured to his wife and children. Then he is comforted by +the thought that his father is visibly failing, and he consults his +brother David with a view to a settlement, should the succession pass to +him. The birth of a son, who was diplomatically called Alexander, was +taken by the old man as a compliment, and we find Boswell visiting at +Auchinleck, 'not long at one time, but frequent renewals of attention +are agreeable,' he finds, to his father. He proposed to Johnson a tour +round the English cathedrals, but a brief trip with him to Derbyshire +was all that resulted. We now find for the first time in the _Life_ +indications of what would ensue when the strong hand of Johnson was +removed from the guidance of his weaker companion. 'As we drove back to +Ashbourne,' he writes with curious frankness, 'Dr Johnson recommended to +me, _as he had often done_, to drink water only,' and we meet with as +curious a defence of drinking--the great difficulty of resisting it when +a good man asks you to drink the wine he has had twenty years in his +cellar! Benevolence calls for compliance, for, 'curst be the _spring_,' +he adds with a change of Pope's verse, 'how well soe'er it flow, that +tends to make one worthy man my foe!' 'I do,' he wrote in the _London +Magazine_ for March 1780, 'fairly acknowledge that I love drinking; that +I have a constitutional inclination to indulge in fermented liquors, and +that if it were not for the restraints of reason and religion, I am +afraid that I should be as constant a votary of Bacchus as any man. +Drinking is in reality an occupation which employs a considerable +portion of the time of many people; and to conduct it in the most +rational and agreeable manner is one of the great arts of living. Were +we so framed that it were possible by perpetual supplies of wine to keep +ourselves for ever gay and happy, there could be no doubt that drinking +would be the _summum bonum_, the chief good to find out which +philosophers have been so variously busied.' It looks as if poor Bozzy, +when he wrote this, had heard of the Brunonian system of medicine, and +of the unfortunate exemplication of it in practice and in precept by its +founder in Edinburgh. No wonder such excesses produced violent reaction +to low spirits and the 'black dog' of hypochondria. He finds it, after +going to prayers in Carlisle Cathedral, 'divinely cheering to have a +cathedral so near Auchinleck,' one hundred and fifty miles off, as +Johnson sarcastically replied. Bozzy had been writing a series of +articles, 'The Hypochondriack,' in the _London Magazine_, for about two +years, but he was advised not to mention his own mental diseases, or to +expect for them either the praise for which there was no room, or the +pity which would do him no good. The active old man was now in better +health than he had been upon the Hebridean tour, and was in hopes of yet +shewing himself with Boswell in some part of Europe, Asia, or Africa. +'What have you to do with liberty and necessity?' cries the doctor to +his friend, who had been worrying himself and his correspondent with +philosophical questions, on which some six years before he had got some +light from the _Lettres Persanes_ of Montesquieu. 'Come to me, my dear +Bozzy, and let us be as happy as we can. We will go again to the Mitre, +and talk old times over.' Thrice during the 1781 visit to London do we +see his unfortunate habits breaking out; and, when we find him saying he +has unfortunately preserved none of the conversations, Miss Hannah More, +who met him that day at the Bishop of St Asaph's, explains it--'I was +heartily disgusted with Mr Boswell, who came upstairs after dinner much +disordered with wine.' + +Let us hear his own confession over his conduct at the house of Lady +Galway. + +'Another evening Johnson's kind indulgence towards me had a pretty +difficult trial. I had dined at the Duke of Montrose's with a very +agreeable party, and his Grace, according to his usual custom, had +circulated the bottle very freely. Lord Graham and I went together to +Miss Monckton's where I certainly was in extraordinary spirits, and +above all fear or awe. In the midst of a great number of persons of the +first rank, amongst whom I recollect with confusion a noble lady of the +most stately decorum, I placed myself next to Johnson, and thinking +myself now fully his match, talked to him in a loud and boisterous +manner, desirous to let the company know how I could contend with Ajax. +I particularly remember pressing him upon the value of the pleasures of +the imagination, and, as an illustration of my argument, asking him, +"What, sir, suppose I were to fancy that the--(naming the most charming +Duchess in his Majesty's dominions) were in love with me, should I not +be very happy?" My friend with much address evaded my interrogatories, +and kept me as quiet as possible, but it may be easily conceived how he +must have felt.' + +His father was now dying, and a London trip, which had been planned by +Boswell for 1782, found the son at the very limit of his credit. 'If you +anticipate your inheritance,' he was reminded, 'you can at last inherit +nothing. Poverty (added the old _impransus_ Johnson, out of the depths +of his own experience), my friend, is so great an evil that I cannot but +earnestly enjoin you to avoid it. Live on what you have; live, if you +can, on less.' Lord Auchinleck died suddenly at Edinburgh, on August +30th, 1782; and it was unfortunate for Bozzy that neither at the death +of his father nor of his mother, nor, as we shall see of Johnson, was he +present. The evening of the old man's days had been, we are assured by +Ramsay of Ochtertyre, clouded by the follies and eccentricities of his +son. For thirty years he had been sorely tried; twice he had paid his +debts, he had indulged him with a foreign tour, had provided him with +every means of securing professional success at the bar, only to see +that son do everything to miss it and become everything his father hated +in life--a Tory, an Anglican, and a Jacobite. The new laird was anxious +to display himself on a wider sphere. Johnson was now visibly failing, +and was glad of someone to lean upon for little attentions. 'Boswell,' +he said, 'I think I am easier with you than with almost anybody. Get as +much force of mind as you can. Let your imports be more than your +exports, and you'll never go far wrong.' He reverted to the old days of +the tour in a hopeful strain: 'I should like to come and have a cottage +in your park, toddle about, live mostly on milk, and be taken care of by +Mrs Boswell. She and I are good friends now, are we not?' + +In 1783 Boswell appeared before the public with a _Letter to the People +of Scotland_. It was on Fox's proposed bill to regulate the affairs of +the East India Company. Against it he stands forth, 'as an ancient and +faithful Briton, holding an estate transmitted to him by charters from a +series of kings.' Guardedly Johnson admitted that 'your paper contains +very considerable knowledge of history and of the constitution: it will +certainly raise your character, though perhaps it may not make you a +minister of state.' A copy to Pitt elicited the formal acceptance of +thanks, but the exclusion of the bill Boswell took as proof of his own +advocacy. He stood for Ayrshire, turning back from York when the +dissolution was announced. 'Our Boswell,' wrote the doctor to Langton, +'is now said to stand for some place. Whether to wish him success his +best friends hesitate.' + +May found him with the Rambler for the last time. 'I intend,' he writes +to Dr Percy, 'to be in London about the end of this month, chiefly to +attend upon Dr Johnson with respectful affection. He has for some time +been very ill with dropsical asthmatical complaints, which at his age +are very alarming. I wish to publish as a regale to him a neat little +volume--_The Praises of Doctor Samuel Johnson, by co-temporary writers_. +Will your lordship take the trouble to send me a note of the writers who +have praised our much respected friend?' The attentive Bozzy had written +to all the leading men in the Edinburgh School of Medicine--Cullen, +Hope, Monro, and others. With the expectation that an increase of +Johnson's pension would enable him to visit Italy, he consulted Sir +Joshua Reynolds, and, with his approval, wrote to Thurlow the +Chancellor. At the house of the painter they dined for the last time. + + 'I accompanied him in Sir Joshua Reynolds's coach, to the entry + of Bolt Court. He asked me whether I would not go with him to + his house; I declined it, from an apprehension that my spirits + would sink. We bade adieu to each other affectionately in the + carriage. When he had got down upon the foot-pavement he called + out, "Fare you well;" and, without looking back, sprung away + with a kind of pathetick briskness, if I may use that + expression, which seemed to indicate a struggle to conceal + uneasiness, and impressed me with a foreboding of our long, + long separation.' + +We think of the dying Cervantes, and the student-admirer of the All +Famous and the Joy of the Muses--'parting at the Toledo bridge, he +turning aside to take the road to Segovia.' + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE ENGLISH BAR--DEATH. 1784-1795 + + 'Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.'--JULIUS CAESAR, iii. 2. + + +There is something unsatisfactory in the fact that Boswell was not with +Johnson as he died. It gives to his book an air of something distinctly +lacking, which is not with us as we close Lockhart's _Life of Scott_. +His own account is that he was indisposed during a considerable part of +the year, which may, or may not, be a euphemism for irregular habits; +yet, when we consider how easily he might have been with his old friend, +we must own to a feeling that Boswell's mere satisfaction at learning he +was spoken of with affection by Johnson at the close does not satisfy +the nature of things or the artistic sense of fitness. No literary +executor had been appointed, and the materials for a biography had been +mostly destroyed by Johnson's orders. This, we may be sure, had not been +expected by Boswell, who set himself, however, to prepare for the press +his own _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, which his friend when alive +had not been willing to see appear as a pendant to the _Journey_. +'Between ourselves,' he tells Temple, 'he is not apt to encourage one to +share reputation with him.' Yet he felt, as he wrote to Percy on 20th +March 1785, that it was a great consolation to him now that he had, as +it was, collected so much of the wit and the wisdom of that wonderful +man. 'I do not expect,' he adds, 'to recover from it. I gaze after him +with an eager eye; and I hope again to be with him.' + +Now that the strong hand of Johnson was removed, 'and the light of his +life as if gone out,' the rest of Boswell's life was but a downward +course. He struggles with himself, and feels instinctively the lack of +the curb which the powerful intellect of the Rambler had held on the +weaker character of the other. We find him repeating often to himself +the lines from the _Vanity of Human Wishes_:-- + + 'Shall helpless man, in ignorance sedate, + Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate?' + +The Lord Advocate had brought into the Commons a bill for the +reconstruction of the Court of Session, proposing to reduce the number +of judges from fifteen to ten, with a corresponding increase of salary. +The occasion was wildly seized by Boswell in May 1785 to issue a +half-crown pamphlet, with the title, '_A letter to the People of +Scotland_, on the alarming attempt to infringe the Articles of the +Union, and introduce a most pernicious innovation, by diminishing the +number of the Lords of Session.' This extraordinary production, intended +doubtless as a means of recommendation of the author for parliamentary +honours, can hardly now be read in the light of events by any +sympathetic Boswellian but with feelings of sorrow and confusion. Its +publication we may be sure would never have been sanctioned by Johnson. + +After stating the foundation of the Court of Session, by James V. in +1532, on the model of the Parliament of Paris, he attacks Dundas for +having in himself the whole power of a grand jury. 'Mr Edward Bright of +Malden, the fat man whose print is in all our inns, could button seven +men in his waistcoat; but the learned lord comprehends hundreds.' He +calls on the Scottish people not to be cowed: 'let Lowther come forth +(we cannot emulate Boswell in the plenitude and the magnitude of his +capital letters and other typographical devices), he upon whom the +thousands of Whitehaven depend for three of the elements.' His own +opposition he proclaims is honest, because he has no wish for an office +in the Court of Session; he will try his abilities in a wider sphere. +Rumours of a coalition in the county of Ayr between Sir Adam Ferguson +and the Earl of Eglintoun he hopes are unfounded, 'both as an enthusiast +for ancient feudal attachments, and as having the honour and happiness +to be married to his lordship's relation, a true Montgomerie, whom I +esteem, whom I love, after fifteen years, as on the day when she gave me +her hand.' He assures the people they will have their objections to the +bill supported by 'my old classical companion Wilkes, with whom I pray +you to excuse my keeping company, he is so pleasant;' by Mr Burke, the +Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, and by 'that brave Irishman, +Captain Macbride, the cousin of my wife.' In grandiose capitals he +appeals to Fox and to Pitt. 'Great sir,' he cries, 'forgive my thus +presumptuously, thus rashly, attempting for a moment to forge your +thunder! But I conjure you--in the name of God and the King, I conjure +you--to announce in your own lofty language, that there shall be a stop +put to this conspiracy, which I fear might have the effect of springing +a mine that would blow up your administration.' This letter 'hastily +written upon the spur of the occasion is already too long,' yet he calls +upon his countrymen to allow him to 'indulge a little more my own +egotism and vanity, the indigenous plants of my own mind.' His whole +genealogy, Flodden and all, we hear over again. 'If,' he pertinently +adds, 'it should be asked what this note has to do here, I answer to +illustrate the authour of the text. And to pour out all myself as old +Montaigne, I wish all this to be known.' After a eulogy of himself as no +time-server, and his profession of readiness 'to discuss topicks with +mitred St Asaph, and others; to drink, to laugh, to converse with +Quakers, Republicans, Jews and Moravians,' he exhorts his friends and +countrymen, in the words of his departed Goldsmith, who gave him many +Attic nights and that jewel of the finest water, the acquaintance of Sir +Joshua Reynolds, 'to fly from petty tyrants to the throne.' He declares +himself a Tory, but no slave. He is in possession of an essay, dictated +to him by Dr Johnson, on the distinction between Whig and Tory, and +concludes with _eclat_, 'with one of the finest passages in John Home's +noble and elegant tragedy of _Douglas_.' + +No condensation of this, the most 'characteristical' of all his +writings, can give the reader any idea of this extraordinary production. +Once only does it deviate into sense when, on the last page, we find the +advertisement of the _Tour to the Hebrides_, 'which was read and liked +by Dr Johnson, and will faithfully and minutely exhibit what he said was +the pleasantest part of his life.' + +In the Hilary Term of 1786, he was called to the English bar, feeling +it, as he said, 'a pity to dig in a lead mine, when he could dig in a +gold one.' Johnson had always thrown cold water on the idea, though as +early as February 1775, as we find from a letter of Boswell's to Strahan +the printer, the idea had been proposed to him. In the May of 1786 he +writes to Mickle, the translator of the _Lusiad_, that he is in a +wavering state; he has the house of his friend Hoole, and he still +retains the use of General Paoli's residence in Portman Square. When he +did finally take up his own quarters in Cavendish Square, the result was +not what he had expected. He was discouraged by the want of practice, +and the prospect of any. In fact, he was to feel what, as Malone says, +Lord Auchinleck had all along told his son, that it would cost him much +more trouble to hide his ignorance of Scotch and English law than to +shew his knowledge. He feared his own deficiencies in 'the forms, quirks +and quiddities,' which he saw could be learned only by early habit. He +even doubted whether he should not be satisfied with being simply baron +of Auchinleck with a good income in Scotland; but he felt that such a +course could not 'deaden the ambition which has raged in my veins like a +fever.' The Horatian motto inscribed on the front of Auchinleck House, +telling of the peace of mind dearer than all to be found everywhere, if +the mind itself is in its own place, was never appreciated, however, by +the new laird. + +His ignorance of law was soon shewn at the Lancaster assizes. Mr Leslie +Stephen is inclined to view the story as being not very credible. Yet we +fear the authority is indisputable. 'We found Jemmy Boswell,' writes +Lord Eldon, 'lying upon the pavement--inebriated. We subscribed at +supper a guinea for him and half a guinea for his clerk, and sent him +next morning a brief with instructions to move for the writ of _Quare +adhaesit pavimento_, with observations calculated to induce him to think +that it required great learning to explain the necessity of granting it. +He sent all round the town to attorneys for books, but in vain. He +moved, however, for the writ, making the best use he could of the +observations in the brief. The judge was astonished, and the audience +amazed. The judge said, 'I never heard of such a writ--what can it be +that adheres _pavimento_? Are any of you gentlemen at the bar able to +explain this?' The Bar laughed. At last one of them said, 'My Lord, Mr +Boswell last night _adhaesit pavimento_. There was no moving him for some +time. At last he was carried to bed, and he has been dreaming about +himself and the pavement.' Lord Jeffrey once assisted Bozzy to bed in +similar circumstances. 'You are a promising lad,' he told him next +morning, 'and if you go on as you have begun, you may be a Bozzy +yourself yet.' No wonder that we find him hesitating about going on the +spring northern circuit, which would cost him, he says, fifty pounds, +and oblige him to be in rough company for four weeks. + +His only piece of promotion came from Lord Lonsdale. Pitt had been +brought in by this nobleman for the pocket-borough of Appleby, and Bozzy +had hopes of a Parliamentary introduction that way. Carlyle of Inveresk +found this worthless patron of the unfortunate office seeker 'more +detested than any man alive, as a shameless political sharper, a +domestic bashaw, and an intolerable tyrant over his tenants.' Penrith +and Whitehaven were in fear when he walked their streets; he defied his +creditors; and the father of the poet Wordsworth died without being able +to enforce his claims. The author of the _Rolliad_ describes his power +as + + 'Even by the elements confessed, + Of mines and boroughs Lonsdale stands possessed; + And one sad servitude alike denotes + The slave that labours and the slave that votes.' + +It was on this political boroughmonger and jobber that Boswell was now +pinning his faith. The complete dependence of him on Lonsdale in return +for the Recordership of Carlisle did not escape the notice of the wits, +who now found that the writer who had been declaring over the India Bill +of Fox his devotion to the throne, the Tory, but no slave, had +transferred his entire loyalty and abjectest protestations to 'his king +in Westmoreland.' To add to his distress, his wife was dying. A short +trial of London had led her to return to Ayrshire, and her husband was +lost in doubt whether to revisit her or cling to 'the great sphere of +England,' the whirl of the metropolis, in hopes that the great prize +would at last be drawn. In the north he found her still lingering on, +but in his eagerness to obtain political influence 'I drank so freely +that riding home in the dark I fell from my horse and bruised my +shoulder.' From London he was again summoned, but with his curious +infelicity at such times of trouble, he was not in time to witness her +death: 'not till my second daughter came running out from the house and +announced to us the dismal event in a burst of tears.' Remorse found +vent in an agony of grief. 'She never would have left me,' he cries to +Temple; 'this reflection will pursue me to my grave.' In July, the +widower of a month hastened north to contest the county, only to find +Sir Adam Fergusson chosen. 'Let me never impiously repine,' is his cry +of distress. 'Yet as "Jesus wept" for the death of Lazarus, I hope my +tears at this time are excused. The woeful circumstance of such a state +of mind is that it rejects consolation; it feels an indulgence in its +own wretchedness.' His hustings appearances would appear to have been at +least marked by fluency, for Burns, his junior by eighteen years, +declares his own inability to fight like Montgomerie or 'gab like +Boswell.' + +As he draws to a close, the letters of Boswell improve both in form and +matter. It is painful to see him on every hand seeking the Parliamentary +interest out of which he was all the while doing his best to write +himself. No party could or would take him seriously. His rent-roll was +over L1600, a large sum in these days, and it was yearly rising. +Earnestly did his brother David press upon him a return to Auchinleck +and the retrenchment of his expenses. But the spell of the lights of +London was on him, and 'I could not endure Edinburgh,' he tells us, +'unless I were to have a judge's place to bear me up,' and that was a +thing not to be dreamed of after the publication of the _Letter_. He +dispersed his family to various schools, finding the eldest of the boys +beginning to oppose him, 'and no wonder,' as he bitterly adds. Then the +cry is forced from him in allusion to the famous passage in Shakespeare +on Wolsey's hopes and fall--a passage which, curiously enough, we have +come upon in the common-place book which Boswell had kept as a boy--'O +Temple, Temple, is this realizing any of the towering hopes which have +so often been the subject of our letters. Yet I live much with a great +man, who, upon any day that his fancy shall be inclined, may obtain for +me an office.' Everywhere he casts about, trying the Lord Chancellor, +not seeing the smallest opening in Westminster Hall, but buoyed up by +'the delusion that practice may come at any time.' + +'We must do something for you,' Burke had said in a kindly way, 'for our +own sakes.' He recommended him to General Conway, but though the place +was not obtained the letter was valued by Boswell more. Writing to Mr +Abercrombie in America, even as late as the July of 1793, he is found +expressing 'a great wish to see that country; and I once flattered +myself that I should be sent thither in a station of some importance;' +and from a letter to Burke we learn that this expected post had been a +commissionership in the treaty between America and Britain. Dundas was +another of his hopes. 'The excellent Langton says it is disgraceful, it +is utter folly in Pitt not to attach to his administration a man of my +popular and pleasant talents.' Dundas, however, after having been given +a margin of two months for a reply, has made no sign; 'how can I delude +myself? I will tell you,' he informs Temple, 'Lord Lonsdale shews me +more and more regard. Three of his members assure me that he will give +me a seat at the General Election.' Then that last reed was to break. At +Lowther Castle, his wig was removed from his room, as a practical joke +of a coarse order on the unoffending Boswell, and all the day he was +obliged to go in his nightcap, which he felt was very ill-timed to one +in his situation. The loss of the wig the unsuspecting victim declares +will remain as great a secret as the writer of the letters of Junius, +but ere long the tyrant whom he had invoked as the man of Macedonia to +help Scotland has undeceived him. 'I suppose you thought,' he roughly +said, 'I was to bring you into Parliament? I never had any such +intention.' It is impossible not to feel for Boswell at this crisis. 'I +am down at an inn,' he writes to Temple, 'and ashamed and sunk on +account of the disappointment of hopes which led me to endure such +grievances. I deserve all that I suffer. I am at the same time +distracted what to do in my own county. I am quite in a fever. O my old +and most intimate friend, I intreat you to afford me some consolation, +and pray do not divulge my mortification. I now resign my Recordership, +and shall get rid of all connection with this brutal fellow.' His last +Parliamentary venture was cut short by the reflection how small was his +following. How curiously after all this reads his own little +autobiographical sketch in the _European Magazine_! 'It was generally +supposed that Mr Boswell would have had a seat in Parliament; and indeed +his not being amongst the Representatives of the Commons is one of those +strange things which occasionally happen in the complex operations of +our mixed Government. That he has not been _brought into Parliament_ by +some great man is not to be wondered at when we peruse his publick +declaration.' Not to be wondered at, truly, though the writer chose to +refer the wonder to his independence. Then the reader is informed how he +had been a candidate at the general election for his own county of Ayr, +'where he has a very extensive property and a very fine place of which +there is a view and description in Grose's _Antiquities of Scotland_.' +The conclusion of the sketch relates how, at the last Lord Mayor's day, +he sang with great applause a state-ballad of his own composition, +entitled _The Grocer of London_. This was the last shot in the political +locker. At a Guildhall dinner, given to Pitt by the worshipful company +of grocers, Boswell contrived to get himself called upon for a song. He +rose, and delivered himself of a catch on the model of Dibdin's 'Little +cherub that sits up aloft,' prefaced and interlarded by an address to +the guest of the evening. Honoured as he had been on his continental +tour at the courts of Europe, yet never till to-night had he felt +himself so flattered as now he was, in the presence of the minister he +admired, and to whose home and foreign policy he gave a hearty, if +discriminating support. Boswell for his song was encored six times, till +the cold features of the minister were seen to relax in a smile, amid +the general roar of plaudits and laughter! After this 'state ballad,' a +copy of which was last seen at Lord Houghton's sale, Bozzy and a +friend, in a state of high glee, returned to their lodgings, shouting +all the way _The Grocer of London_! 'He has declared,' adds the +complacent autobiographer, 'his resolution to persevere on the next +vacancy.' + +All this time his great work was slowly advancing. At the end of the +_Journal_ had appeared a notice: 'preparing for the Press, in one volume +quarto, the _Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D._, by James Boswell, Esq.' The +note proceeds to sketch the plan; the collecting of materials for more +than twenty years, his desire to erect to him a literary monument, the +interweaving of 'the most authentick accounts' that can be obtained from +those who knew him, etc. To his chagrin, Mrs Thrale's volume of +anecdotes had been out before him, and Sir John Hawkins had been +commissioned by the London booksellers to produce a _Life_, which had +duly appeared. Not even the unequivocal success and merits of the +_Journal_ could induce 'the trade' to take Boswell seriously. No one had +thought of him, any more than Gay would have been thought of as the +biographer of the circle to which he had been admitted. Percy, even Sir +William Scott, had been successively approached, but none had given a +consideration to 'Johnson's Bozzy.' Such neglect, however, must have +spurred him to exertion. The lively lady's anecdotage, dateless and +confused, he could afford to despise as 'too void of method even for +such a farrago,' as Horace Walpole said of it. But the solemn Hawkins, +as an old friend and executor of Johnson's will, was a more dangerous +rival. 'Observe how he talks of me,' cries Boswell querulously, 'as +quite unknown.' No doubt Sir John was 'unclubable,' and by Reynolds, +Dyer, Percy, and Malone he was detested. Yet his book, though eclipsed +by Boswell's, is not unmeritorious; but for his allusion to 'Mr Boswell, +a native of Scotland,' he has been made to pay severely by systematic +castigation from his rival, who now doggedly, as Johnson would have +said, set himself to the work before him. Wherever first-hand +information could be had, he was constantly on the track. Miss Burney +has told how she met him at the gate of the choir of St George's chapel +at Windsor--'his comic-serious face having lost none of its wonted +singularity, nor yet his mind and language.' She had letters from +Johnson, and he must have some of the doctor's choice little notes: 'We +have seen him long enough upon stilts, I want to shew him in a new +light. He proposed a thousand curious expedients to get them, but I was +invincible.' The approach of the king and queen broke off the interview, +but next morning he was again on the watch. We must regret that they +were not given, however much his indiscretions had made people chary of +their confidences. 'Jemmy Boswell,' writes Lord Eldon, 'called upon me, +desiring to know my definition of taste. I told him I must decline +defining it, because I knew he would publish it.' To secure first-hand, +sifted, and 'authentick' material this man, so long decried by sciolists +as merely a fool with a note-book, would forego every rebuff or refusal. +'Boswell,' says Horace Walpole, 'that quintessence of busy-bodies called +on me last week, and was let in when he should not have been. After +tapping many topics, to which I made as dry answers as an unbribed +oracle, he vented his errand; 'had I seen Dr Johnson's _Lives of the +Poets_?' + +During the progress of the _Life_ he turned aside to his last literary +vagary--_No Abolition of Slavery; or the Universal Empire of Love_, +1791. This long-lost brochure has this year been rediscovered, but it +will add little interest to his life, as its main tenets had long been +known. A writer in the _Athenaeum_ for May 9th describes it as quarto in +form, and dedicated to Miss B----, whom he identifies with Miss Bagnal +to be shortly mentioned. On the three topics of slavery, the Middlesex +election, and America, Bozzy differed respectfully but firmly from the +doctor, who drank at Oxford to the next insurrection of the negroes in +the West Indies. Accordingly he stands stoutly by the planters and the +feudal scheme of subordination, whose annihilation he maintains would +'shut the gates of mercy on mankind.' For his apparent inconsistency +Burke is attacked:-- + + 'Burke, art thou here, too? thou whose pen + Can blast the fancied rights of men. + Pray by what logic are those rights + Allow'd to Blacks,--denied to Whites?' + +Others may fail their king and country, but he as a throne and altar +Tory calls all to know that + + 'An ancient baron of the land + I by my king shall ever stand.' + +He was now at last near the haven. The mass of his papers and materials +had been arranged, after a labour which, as he tells Reynolds, was +really enormous. The capacity for sustained effort, when set to it, of +which he had boasted over his condensation of the evidence in the great +Douglas case, stood him now in good service amid all his vexations, +dissipations and follies. + +In February 1788 we hear of his having yet seven years of the life to +write. By January 1789 he had finished the introduction and the +dedication to Sir Joshua Reynolds, both of which had appeared difficult, +but he was confident they had been well done. To excite the interest in +his coming book, or as Mr Leslie Stephen thinks, to secure copyright, he +published in 1790 two quarto parts at half a guinea each--the letter to +Chesterfield and the conversation of Johnson with the king. By December +he has had additional matter sent him from Warren Hastings, and he hoped +to be out on 8th March, but the January of the new year found him with +still two hundred pages of copy, and the death not yet written. Yet many +a time, as he writes Temple, had he thought of giving it up. To add to +his troubles, he had indulged in landed speculations, paying L2500 for +the estate of a younger branch; he had been lending money to a cousin, +and if he could but raise a thousand pounds on the strength of his book, +he should be inclined to hold on, or 'game with it,' as Sir Joshua said. +Neither Reynolds nor Malone, however, took the hint; and at the latter's +door he cast longing looks as he passed. He tells him he had been in the +chair at the club, with Fox 'quoting Homer and Fielding to the +astonishment of Jo. Warton.' He had bought a lottery ticket with the +hopes of the prize of L5000, but--blank! The advance he needed was got +elsewhere, and the property in his book saved. April finds him +correcting the last sheet. He feared the result: 'I may get no profit, +the public may be disappointed, I may make enemies, even have quarrels. +But the very reverse of all this may happen.' Then on the 19th he writes +to Dempster: 'my _magnum opus_, in two volumes quarto, is to be +published on Monday, 16th May'--by a lucky chance it was the anniversary +of the red day in Boswell's calendar, his meeting with Johnson eight and +twenty years before! 'When it is fairly launched, I mean to stick close +to Westminster Hall, and it will be truly kind if you recommend me +appeals or causes of any sort.' + +The rest of his life is soon told. Paoli was now again in Corsica. When +Mirabeau had recalled the exiles, the general had been made by Louis +XVI. military commandant of the island. Johnson, also, was gone, and the +two strongest checks upon the excesses of Boswell were removed. Piteous +it is to find him writing to Malone: 'that most friendly fellow +Courtenay, begging the pardon of an M.P. for so free an epithet,' had +taken him in hand, and had taken his word that for some months his daily +allowance of wine should not exceed four good glasses at dinner, and a +pint after it. The qualifying adjective 'good' is dangerous, and before +the time for the bill was half expired, Bozzy has closured it and the +amendment. The state of his affairs, the loss of his wife bore heavily +on him, together with 'the disadvantage to my children in having so +wretched a father--nay, the want of absolute certainty of being happy +after death, the _sure_ prospect of which is frightful.' Then a fitful +gleam of the old Adam breaks out. He has heard of a Miss Bagnal, 'about +seven and twenty, lively and gay, a Ranelagh girl, but of excellent +principles insomuch that she reads prayers to the servants in her +father's family every Sunday evening.' Another matrimonial scheme was +the daughter of the late Dean of Exeter, 'a most agreeable woman _d'un +certain age_,' as he engagingly adds, 'and with a fortune of L10,000.' +The preparation of a second edition of the _Life_ for July 1793 raised +his spirits, but after a while he had run into excess, been knocked down +and robbed. This he vows shall be a crisis in his life, and Temple's +apprehension of his friend being carried off in a state of intoxication +he finds awful to contemplate. Early in 1795 the end is announced by +Temple's son writing to his father--'a few nights ago Mr Boswell +returned from the Literary Club, quite weak and languid;' and the last +letter to Temple from his correspondent of thirty-seven years is dated +8th April: 'I would fain write to you in my own hand, but really +cannot.' His son James finishes the letter, to tell that the patient +'feels himself a good deal stronger to-day.' He was attended by Dr +Warren, who had been with Johnson as he died. Some slight hopes of a +recovery had been held out; and, with the ruling passion strong in death +to interview a celebrity, he rallied in a letter to Warren Hastings. +With the spirit on him of the days when he had told Chatham that his +disinterested soul had enjoyed the contemplation of the great minister +in the bower of philosophy, he tells him, 'the moment I am able to go +abroad, I will fly to Mr Hastings and expand my soul in the purest +satisfaction.' On May 19th 1795, at two in the morning, after an illness +of five weeks, he died. He was in his fifty-fifth year. + +A life which cannot challenge the world's attention--like that of John +Sterling--which perhaps does not even modestly solicit it, yet one which +no less certainly will be found to reward the critic of literary history +and pathology. A complex, weak, unsteady life enough, and no one did +more than Boswell himself to bring into glaring prominence the faults +that lie on the surface, by that frank, open, and ostentatious +peculiarity which he avowed, and which he compared to the +characteristics of the old seigneur, Michael de Montaigne. Never was +there a franker critic of James Boswell, Esq., than himself; 'the most +unscottified of mortals,' as Johnson called him, has little or none of +the reserve and reticence that are generally supposed to be marks of the +national character. A rare and curious _Epistle in Verse_, by the Rev. +Samuel Martin of Monimail, 1795, touches on the main points of his life, +and the author, who was apparently a friend of Boswell, had learned +'with affectionate concern and respect that at the end prayer was his +stay.' He criticises, in rather halting and prosaic lines, + + 'The prison scenes, his prying into death, + How felons and how saints resign their breath; + How varying and conflicting passions roll, + How scaffold exhibitions shew the soul.' + +He laments his 'injurious hilarity,' his degrading himself as 'the +little bark, attendant on the huge all-bearing ark,' his political and +ecclesiastical aberrations from the surer and better standpoints of his +family and country. The feeling of this friend of Boswell would +represent, we cannot doubt, the verdict at the time of his own circle. + +The 'prison scenes' are an integral part in Boswell's psychology. Never +did George Selwyn attend them with greater regularity, or Wyndham run +after prize fights more assiduously. In the _Public Advertizer_, April +25, 1768, we find him writing: 'I myself am never absent from a publick +execution. When I first attended them, I was shocked to the greatest +degree ... convulsed with pity and terror. I feel an irresistible +impulse to be present at every execution, as there I behold the various +effects of the near approach of death.' The parallels of Charles V., +Philip II., Philip IV., Charles II. of Spain, will not escape the +reader, and strangely, or rather naturally enough, Boswell is found +disagreeing with the censure pronounced by Johnson on the celebration of +his own obsequies in his lifetime by Charles V. In the _St James' +Gazette_ of April 20, 1779, he is found actually riding in the cart to +Tyburn with Hackman, the murderer of Miss Ray, and writing to the papers +over the feeling of 'unusual Depression of Spirits, joined with that +Pause, which so solemn a warning of the dreadful effects that the +Passion of Love may produce must give all of us who have lively +Sensations and warm Tempers.' But he suddenly deviates into business +when he adds that 'it is very philosophically explained and illustrated +in the _Hypochondriack_, a periodical Paper, peculiarly adapted to the +people of England, and which comes out monthly in the _London Magazine_, +etc.' In his Corsican tour we had seen him interviewing the executioner +in the island, and some days before his final parting with Johnson he +had witnessed the execution of fifteen men before Newgate and been +clouded in his mind by doubts as to whether human life was or was not +mere machinery and a chain of planned fatality. These cravings are +clearly the marks of a mind morbidly affected and diseased, the result +of the Dutch marriage as Ramsay believed. All through his life Boswell +is conscious of his 'distempered imagination,' and the letters to Temple +are scattered with irrelevances and repetitions, fatuities and +inconsistencies that can be explained only on the score of mental +disease. Were any doubts possible on this point, the expressions of his +opinions on religion would dispel them. His 'Popish imagination,' +quickened as it may have been by the escapade with the actress, was but +the natural outcome of an ill-balanced mind. His feelings about +consecrated places, _loca solennia_ such as Iona, and Wittenberg, Rasay +and Carlisle, we have seen. He delighted, says Malone, in what he called +the _mysterious_, leading Johnson on ghosts, and kindred subjects. He +was a believer in second sight: 'it pleases my superstition,' he tells +Temple, 'which you know is not small, and being not of the gloomy but +the grand species is an enjoyment.' When his uncle John died, we learn +he was 'a good scholar and affectionate relative, but had no conduct. +And, do you know, he was not confined to one woman; he had a strange +kind of religion, but I flatter myself he will be ere long, if he is not +already, in heaven!' He comforts himself constantly over life being a +mere state of purification, and looks forward to a condition of events +in which 'a man can soap his own beard and enjoy whatever is to be had +in this transitory state of things.' He is for ever questioning Johnson +upon purgatory, 'having much curiosity to know his notions on that +point.' One of the last authentic glimpses of Boswell is his being found +in the company of Wilberforce, going west, with a nightcap in his +pocket, on some visit to a friend such as Miss Hawkins says he was but +too fond of doing,--'away to the west as the sun went down'--doubtful of +future punishment, but resolute in maintaining the depravity of man. It +would almost appear as if Bozzy had read himself into Butler's doctrine +that our present life is a state of probation for a future one, but had +forgotten the qualification 'that our future interest is now depending +on ourselves.' + +The very influence of Johnson himself may have affected the weaker mind +of Boswell injuriously. Both suffered from hypochondria, though that of +the latter was far distant from the affliction of Johnson whom Dr Adams +found 'in a deplorable state, sighing, groaning, talking to himself, and +restlessly walking from room to room.' Temple maintained that the effect +of Johnson's company had been of a depressing nature to his friend, and +Sir Wm. Forbes believed that some slight tincture of superstition had +been contracted from his companionship with the sage. The 'cloudy +darkness,' as he himself calls it, of his mind, the weakness and the +confusion of moral principles manifest enough in the Temple +correspondence, are better revealed in the conversation with Johnson at +Squire Dilly's, 'where there is always abundance of excellent fare and +hearty welcome.' 'Being in a frame of mind which, I hope for the +felicity of human nature, many experience,--in fine weather,--at the +country-house of a friend,--consoled and elevated by pious exercises, I +expressed myself with an unrestrained fervour to my "guide, philosopher, +and friend;" My dear Sir, I would fain be a good man; and I am very good +now. I fear God, and honour the King; I wish to do no ill, and to be +benevolent to all mankind.' He looked at me with a benignant indulgence; +but took occasion to give me wise and salutary caution. 'Do not, sir, +accustom yourself to trust to _impressions_.' Boswell had surely +forgotten all this when he cries bitterly to Temple that he was inclined +to agree with him in thinking 'my great oracle did allow too much credit +to good principles, without good practice.' Perhaps he remembered +Johnson's appreciation of Campbell, the good pious man that never passed +a church without pulling off his hat, all which shewed 'he has good +principles.' Boswell had, unfortunately, been 'caught young' by the +sceptical talk of Dempster, Hume, and Wilkes, and his extended +Continental ramble had impaired the earlier views under which he had +been reared. + +But James Boswell deserves at the hands of his readers and of critics +better treatment than has been measured out to him in the contemptuous +estimate of Macaulay, and, still worse, in the shrill attack of the +smaller brood 'whose sails were never to the tempest given,' but who +have, by the easy repetition of a few phrases and an imperfect +acquaintance with the writings and character of the man they decry, come +to the complacent depreciation which, as Niebuhr said, is ever so dear +to the soul of mediocrity. If James Boswell was not like Goldsmith, a +great man, as Johnson finely pronounced, whose frailties should not be +remembered, nor was, perhaps, in any final sense a great writer, yet for +twenty years he had been the tried friend of the man who at the Mitre +had called out to him, 'Give me your hand, I have taken a liking to +you.' A plant that, like Goldsmith also, 'flowered late,' he has created +in literature and biography a revolution, and produced a work whose +surpassing merits and value are known the more that it is studied. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +IN LITERATURE + + 'Eclipse is first, the rest nowhere.'--MACAULAY. + + +'How delicate, decent is English Biography,' says Carlyle, 'bless its +mealy mouth! A Damocles sword of Respectability hangs for ever over the +poor English Life-writer (as it does over poor English Life in general), +and reduces him to the verge of paralysis. Thus it has been said there +are no English lives worth reading, except those of Players, who by the +nature of the case have bidden Respectability good-day. The English +biographer has long felt that, if in writing his man's biography he +wrote down anything that could by possibility offend any man, he had +written wrong.' The biographer, as Mr Froude found out for a commentary +on all this, is placed between a Scylla and Charybdis, between what is +due to the subject, and what is expected by the public. If something is +left out of the portrait, the likeness will be imperfect; if the anxiety +or the inquisitiveness of readers to know private details is left +ungratified, the writer will be met by the current cant that the public +has a right to know. The line is not easily drawn, and few subjects for +the biographer can ever desire to be as candidly dealt with by him as +Cromwell acted with Sir Peter Lely, in the request to be painted as he +was, warts and all. Thus, too often the result will be but biography +written _in vacuo_, 'the tragedy of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet +omitted--by particular desire.' + +Biography, like History, has suffered from considerations of dignity and +propriety. The writers of the Hume and Robertson school of history, in +their stately minuet with the historical muse, have been careful to +exclude everything that seemed beneath the dignity of the sceptred pall; +biographers have as consciously studied the proprieties. 'The Muse of +history,' says Thackeray, 'wears the mask and speaks to measure; she too +in our age busies herself with the affairs only of kings. I wonder shall +history ever pull off her periwig and cease to be Court-ridden? I would +have History familiar rather than heroic, and think that Mr Hogarth and +Mr Fielding will give our children a much better idea of the manners of +the present age in England, than the _Court Gazette_ and the newspapers +which we get thence.' As the historian has striven to obscure the real +nature of the Grand Monarque, by confining his action to courts and +battlefields, so the biographer, in his desire of never stepping beyond +the proper, has enveloped his hero in a circle of correct ideas, after +the manner of George the Fourth and his multiplicity of waistcoats. +Dignity and respectability have ruined alike the historian and the +biographer. + +Lockhart foresaw that some readers would accuse him of trenching upon +delicacy and propriety over his sixth and seventh chapters in the _Life +of Scott_, and the circumstances were after all such as, had choice been +permitted him, he might easily have omitted, considering it his duty to +tell what he had to say truly and intelligibly. Of all men Macaulay had +nothing to fear from any rational biography that should ever be written +of him, yet has not Mr Trevelyan assured his readers that the reviewers +had told him, that he would much better have consulted his uncle's +reputation by the omission of passages in his letters and diaries? Such +criticism, as he justly says, is to seriously misconceive the province +and the duty of the biographer, and his justification is that the +reading world has long extended to the man the just approbation which it +so heartily extended to his books. The Latin critics assigned +history,--and accordingly history in miniature, biography,--to the +department of oratory. The feeling, in consequence, has long prevailed +of regarding biography as the field for the display of every other +feeling then veracity. It has been emotional, or it has been decorously +dull. To all such writers the style adopted by Boswell would appear, and +justly appear, revolutionary. The cry is raised of there being nothing +sacred, of the violation of domestic privacy, of the sanctities of life +being endangered, of indiscretions, and violations of confidences, by +the biographer. Accordingly, just as Macaulay decided that, in general, +tragedy was corrupted by eloquence, and comedy by wit, so biography and +history have suffered from the dignity of Clio. Boswell was perfectly +aware what he was doing, nor did he awake to find himself famous for a +method into which the sciolists pretend he only unconsciously blundered. +In the preface to the third edition of the _Journal_ he +writes:--'Remarks have been industriously circulated in the publick +prints by shallow or envious cavillers, who have endeavoured to persuade +the world that Dr Johnson's character has been _lessened_ by recording +such various instances of his lively wit and acute judgment, on every +topick that was presented to his mind. In the opinion of every person of +taste and knowledge that I have conversed with, it has been greatly +_heightened_; and I will venture to predict, that this specimen of his +colloquial talents will become still more valuable, when, by the lapse +of time, he shall have become an _ancient_; and no other memorial of +this great and good man shall remain but the following Journal.' This is +not the writing of one who has been without a clear idea of what he was +undertaking, and of his own qualifications for the task. 'You, my dear +sir,' he tells Sir Joshua Reynolds in the dedication, 'perceived all the +shades which mingled in the grand composition; all the peculiarities and +slight blemishes which marked the literary Colossus.' The inclusion of +the letters and of private details was an integral part of his scheme. +When he introduced the subject of biography at Dr Taylor's, no doubt +with his own book in his eye, he said that in writing a man's life the +man's peculiarities should be mentioned because they mark his character. +When he resolved on their publication, he thought it right to ask +Johnson explicitly on this point, and the reply was what in 1773 the +doctor had given to Macleod in Skye, when he had asked if Orrery had +done wrong, to expose the defects of Swift with whom he had lived in +terms of intimacy. 'Why, no, sir,' Johnson had decided, 'after the man +is dead, for then it is done historically.' A biographer that would omit +or disguise the relations of Nelson to Lady Hamilton, would be justly +suspected of disingenuousness, and Lockhart, especially in his treatment +of the political side of his subject,--for example in the notorious +_Beacon_ incident--is but too open to this charge. But disingenuousness +is a charge that never could have occurred to Boswell, whose veracity is +the prime quality that has made him immortal. When the _Journal_ was in +the press, Hannah More, studious of the name of the moralist and the +sage, 'besought him to mitigate his asperities.' 'I will not,' said +Boswell roughly, but wisely for posterity, 'cut off his claws, nor make +a tiger a cat to please anyone.' + +Boswell's books are veritable books. Few books have had such a severe +test applied to them. His first was dedicated to Paoli, whose sanction +must be taken to guarantee every line of it. "In every narrative," he +writes in the dedication to Malone of the _Journal_, "whether historical +or biographical, authenticity is of the utmost consequence. Of this I +have ever been so firmly persuaded that I inscribed a former work to +that person who was the best judge of its truth. Of this work the +manuscript was daily read by Johnson, and you have perused the original +and can vouch for the strict fidelity of the present publication." His +_Life of Johnson_ was as fearlessly dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds, +one whose intimacy with Johnson could stamp, with assured knowledge of +the subject, the credit and success of the work. Among the 'some dozen, +or baker's dozen, and those chiefly of very ancient date,' of reliable +biographies whose paucity Carlyle laments, the works of Boswell may be +safely included. Their accuracy is confessed by workers in all fields. +His _Tour_ created a type; no better volume of travels has ever been +written than the _Journal_; and the critic who has dealt at the +reputation of Boswell its heaviest blow has yet to confess, that Homer +is no more the first of poets, Shakespeare the first of dramatists, +Demosthenes the first of orators, than Boswell is the first of +biographers, with no second. + +How is this? Written in 1831, before Lockhart Southey and Carlyle by +their biographies of Scott, Nelson, and Frederick had appeared as +rivals, why is it no less true now? What singular gift or quality can +account for this singular aloofness from the ordinary or extraordinary +class of writers? Why does Boswell yet wear the crown of indivisible +supremacy in biography? His own words will not explain it, the +possession of Johnson's intimacy, the twenty years' view of his subject, +his faculty for recollecting, and his assiduity in recording +communications. This and more than this Lockhart possessed, the nearest +rival to the biographical throne. He was the son-in-law of his subject, +for whom he had as true an admiration as Boswell had for Johnson. But +Boswell was only in the company of his idol some 180 days, or 276 if we +include the time on the tour in Scotland, in all the twenty years of his +acquaintance. Lockhart had the journals of Sir Walter, and the +communications of nearly a hundred persons. A comparison in any sense, +literary, social, or moral, would have been felt by Lockhart as an +insult, for he clearly regards Sir Alexander Boswell as a greater man +than his father. But if, like the grandsire of Hubert at Hastings, +Lockhart has drawn a good bow, Boswell, like the Locksley of the +novelist, has notched his shaft, and comparisons have long ceased to be +instituted. Gray has attempted the explanation--a fool with a note-book. +He has invented nothing, he has only reported. But every year sees that +person at work, with his _First Impressions of Brittany_, _Three Weeks +in Greece_, and the everlasting _Tour in Tartanland_. These are the +creations of the note-book, but it has given them no permanence. The +tourist puts in everything he sees, truly enough, or thinks he sees. But +it is the art of Boswell to select 'the characteristical,' and the +typical, to group and to dramatize. Ninety-four days he spent on the +northern tour, and the result is a masterpiece. Pepys is garrulous, +often vulgar, always lower-middle-class; but Boswell writes like a +gentleman. + +Macaulay has explained it by a paradox. Goldsmith was great in spite of +his weaknesses, Boswell by reason of his; if he had not been a great +fool, he would never have been a great writer. He was a dunce, a +parasite, a coxcomb, a Paul Pry, had a quick observation, a retentive +memory, and accordingly--he has become immortal! Alas for the paucity of +such immortals under so common circumstances; their number should be +legion! That a fool may occasionally write interesting matter we know; +but that a man should write a literary classic, graced by arrangement, +selection, expression, is not even paradox but hyperbole run mad. The +truth is, Macaulay had no eye for such a complex character as Boswell. +Too correct himself, too prone to the cardinal virtues and consistency, +to follow one who, by instinct, seemed to anticipate Wendell Holmes' +advice--'Don't be consistent, but be simply _true_'--and too sound +politically in the field where Boswell and the doctor abased themselves +in absurd party spirit, Macaulay can no more understand sympathetically +the vagaries of Boswell than Mommsen or Drumann can follow the political +inconsistency of Cicero. He had no Boswellian 'delight in that +intellectual chemistry which can separate good qualities from evil in +the same person;' and in his essay on _Milton_ he has disclaimed +explicitly all such hero-worship of the living or the dead and denounced +Boswellism as the most certain mark of an ill-regulated intellect. Nor +had he, or Carlyle either, before him the evidence of the letters to +Temple. + +Carlyle, in the theory of hero-worship, has made capital use of Boswell. +He sees the strong mind of Johnson leading 'the poor flimsy little soul' +of James Boswell; he feels 'the devout Discipleship, the gyrating +observantly round the great constellation.' He has Boswell's reiterated +declarations to support him. On one side Carlyle's vindication of the +biographer is successful; he errs in emphasizing the discovery by +Boswell of the Rambler. In such a discovery Langton and Beauclerk had +long preceded him, and the Johnson that Boswell met in Davies' parlour +was the pensioned writer who had out-lived his dark days, and was the +literary dictator of the day, and the associate of Burke and of +Reynolds. But Carlyle comes nearer the truth when he touches on the +Boswellian recipe for being graphic--the possession of an open, loving +heart, and what follows from the possession of such. Like White of +Selborne, with his sparrows and cockchafers, Boswell, too, has copied +some true sentences from the inspired book of nature. + +But however this may account for his insight--the heart seeing farther +than the head--it will not account for his literary qualities. Of all +his contemporaries, Goldsmith and Burke excepted, no one is a greater +master of a pure prose style than Boswell, and for ease of narrative, +felicity of phrase, and rounded diction he is incomparable. Macaulay +believed a London apprentice could detect Scotticisms in Robertson; +Hume's style is often vicious by Gallicisms and Scots law phrases which +nothing but his expository gifts have obscured from the critics. Beattie +confesses learning English as a dead language and taking several years +over the task. But Boswell, 'scarce by North Britons now esteemed a +Scot,' writes with an ease that renders his style his own. 'The fact +is,' says Mr Cotter Morison, 'that no dramatist or novelist of the whole +century surpassed or even equalled Boswell in rounded and clear and +picturesque presentation, or in real dramatic faculty.' + +Let us take one portrait from the Boswell gallery--the meeting of the +two old Pembroke men, Johnson and Oliver Edwards. + + 'It was in Butcher Row that this meeting happened. Mr Edwards, + who was a decent-looking elderly man in gray clothes and a wig + of many curls, accosted Johnson with familiar confidence, + knowing who he was, while Johnson returned his salutation with + a courteous formality, as to a stranger. But as soon as Edwards + had brought to his recollection their having been at Pembroke + College together nine-and-forty years ago, he seemed much + pleased, asked where he lived, and said he should be glad to + see him in Bolt Court. EDWARDS: "Ah, sir! we are old men now." + JOHNSON (who never liked to think of being old): "Don't let us + discourage one another." EDWARDS: "Why, Doctor, you look stout + and hearty. I am happy to see you so; for the newspapers told + us you were very ill." JOHNSON: "Ay, sir, they are always + telling lies of _us old fellows_." + + Wishing to be present at more of so singular a conversation as + that between two fellow collegians, who had lived forty years + in London without ever having chanced to meet, I whispered to + Mr Edwards that Dr Johnson was going home, and that he had + better accompany him now. So Edwards walked along with us, I + eagerly assisting to keep up the conversation. Mr Edwards + informed Dr Johnson that he had practised long as a solicitor + in Chancery.... When we got to Dr Johnson's house and were + seated in his library, the dialogue went on admirably. EDWARDS: + "Sir, I remember you would not let us say _prodigious_ at + College. For even then, sir (turning to me), he was delicate in + language, and we all feared him." JOHNSON (to Edwards): "From + your having practised the law long, sir, I presume you must be + rich." EDWARDS: "No, sir; I had a good deal of money; but I had + a number of poor relations to whom I gave great part of it." + JOHNSON: "Sir, you have been rich in the most valuable sense of + the word." EDWARDS: "But I shall not die rich." JOHNSON: "Nay, + sure, sir, it is better to _live_ rich, than to _die_ rich." + EDWARDS: "I wish I had continued at College." Johnson: "Why do + you wish that, sir?" EDWARDS: "Because I think I should have + had a much easier life than mine has been. I should have been a + parson, and had a good living, like Bloxam and several others, + and lived comfortably." JOHNSON: "Sir, the life of a parson, + of a conscientious clergyman, is not easy. I have always + considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he + is able to maintain. I would rather have Chancery suits upon my + hands than the cure of souls." Here, taking himself up all of a + sudden, he exclaimed, "O! Mr Edwards! I'll convince you that I + recollect you. Do you remember our drinking together at an + ale-house near Pembroke Gate?" ... EDWARDS: "You are a + philosopher, Dr Johnson. I have tried too in my time to be a + philosopher; but, I don't know how, cheerfulness was always + breaking in."--Mr Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr Courtenay, Mr + Malone, and, indeed, all the eminent men to whom I have + mentioned this, have thought it an exquisite trait of + character. The truth is, that philosophy, like religion, is too + generally supposed to be hard and severe, at least so grave as + to exclude all gaiety. EDWARDS: "I have been twice married, + Doctor. You, I suppose, have never known what it was to have a + wife." JOHNSON: "Sir, I have known what it was to have a wife, + and (in a solemn, tender, faltering tone) I have known what it + was to _lose a wife_. It had almost broke my heart." + + EDWARDS: "How do you live, sir? For my part, I must have my + regular meals, and a glass of good wine. I find I require it." + JOHNSON: "I now drink no wine, sir. Early in life I drank wine: + for many years I drank none, I then for some years drank a + great deal." EDWARDS: "Some hogsheads, I warrant you." JOHNSON: + "I then had a severe illness, and left it off. I am a + straggler. I may leave this town and go to Grand Cairo, without + being missed here or observed there." EDWARDS: "Don't you eat + supper, sir?" JOHNSON: "No, sir." EDWARDS: "For my part, now, I + consider supper as a turnpike through which one must pass, in + order to get to bed." JOHNSON: "You are a lawyer, Mr Edwards. + Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have + them to converse with. They have what he wants." EDWARDS: "I am + grown old, I am sixty-five." JOHNSON: "I shall be sixty-eight + next birthday. Come, sir, drink water, and put in for a + hundred." ... Mr Edwards, when going away, again recurred to + his consciousness of senility, and looking full in Johnson's + face, said to him, "You'll find in Dr Young, + + 'O my coevals! remnants of yourselves.'" + + Johnson did not relish this at all; but shook his head with + impatience. Edwards walked off seemingly highly pleased with + the honour of having been thus noticed by Dr Johnson. When he + was gone, I said to Johnson I thought him but a weak man. + JOHNSON: "Why, yes, sir. Here is a man who has passed through + life without experience: yet I would rather have him with me + than a more sensible man who will not talk readily. This man is + always willing to say what he has to say."' + +How admirable is the art in this scene, how numerous and fine are the +strokes of character, and the easy turn of the dialogue! No fool with a +note-book, no tippling reporter, as the shallow critics say, could have +written this. To them there would have appeared in a chance meeting of +two old men nothing worthy of notice, yet how dramatically does Boswell +touch off the Philistine side of Edwards, and insert the fine shading +and the inimitable remarks about the setting up for the philosopher, and +supper being a turnpike to bed! This art of the biographer is what gives +a memorableness to slight incidents, by the object being real and really +seen; it is the 'infinitude of delineation, the intensity of conception +which informs the Finite with a certain Infinitude of significance, +ennobling the Actual into Idealness.' + +Openness of mind will do much, but there must be the seeing eye behind +it. For the mental development of Boswell, there is no doubt that, as +with Goldsmith, his foreign travels had done much. As Addison in the +_Freeholder_ had recommended foreign travel to the fox-hunting Tory +squires of his day as a purge for their provincial ideas, Boswell shares +with the author of the _Traveller_ and the _Deserted Village_ +cosmopolitan instincts and feelings. 'I have always stood up for the +Irish,' he writes, 'in whose fine country I have been hospitably and +jovially entertained, and with whom I feel myself to be congenial. In +my _Tour in Corsica_ I do generous justice to the Irish, in opposition +to the English and Scots.' Again, 'I am, I flatter myself, completely a +citizen of the world. In my travels through Holland, Germany, +Switzerland, Italy, Corsica, France, I never felt myself from home; and +I sincerely love every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.' +This is the very antithesis to Johnson, whose frank confession was, 'for +anything that I can see, foreigners are fools.' + +Yet Boswell's stock of learning was small. 'I have promised,' he writes +in 1775, 'to Dr Johnson to read when I get to Scotland; and to keep an +account of what I read. He is to buy for me a chest of books, of his +choosing, off stalls, and I am to read more, and drink less--that was +his counsel.' The death of his wife forces the confession, 'how much do +I regret that I have not applied myself more to learning,' and he +acknowledges to their common friend Langton that, if Johnson had said +that Boswell and himself did not talk from books, this was because he +had not read books enough to talk from them. In his manuscripts there +are many misspellings. He assigns to Terence a Horatian line and, in a +letter to Garrick, quotes as Horatian the standard _mens sana in corpore +sano_ of Juvenal. More strange is his quoting in a note an illustration +of the phrase 'Vexing thoughts,' without his being apparently aware that +the words are by Rous of Pembroke, the Provost of Eton, whose portrait +in the college hall he must often have seen, the writer of the Scottish +Metrical Version of the Psalms. Yet his intellectual interests were +keen. Late in life he has 'done a little at Greek; Lord Monboddo's +_Ancient Metaphysics_ which I am reading carefully helps me to recover +the language.' He has his little scraps of irritating Latinity which he +loves to parade, and when he dined at Eton, at the fellows' table, he +'made a considerable figure, having certainly the art of making the most +of what I know. I had my classical quotations very ready.' Besides, the +easy allusiveness of Boswell to books and to matters beyond the scope of +general readers, his interest in all things going forward in the +Johnsonian circle, his shewing himself in some metaphysical +points--predestination, for example--fully a match for Johnson, and his +own words in the _Journal_--'he had thought more than anybody supposed, +and had a pretty good stock of general learning and knowledge'--all +conspire to shew that, if he had no more learning than what he could not +help, James Boswell was altogether, as Dominie Sampson said of +Mannering, 'a man of considerable erudition despite of his imperfect +opportunities.' + +Nor were his entire interests Johnsonian. Scattered through his writings +we find allusions to other books, in a more or less forward stage of +completeness, and of which some must have been destroyed by his +faithless executors. We hear of a _Life of Lord Kames_; an _Essay on the +Profession of an Advocate_; _Memoirs_ of Hume when dying, 'which I may +some time or other communicate to the world;' a quarto with plates on +_The Beggar's Opera_; a _History of James IV._, 'the patron of my +family;' a _Collection of Feudal Tenures and Charters_, 'a valuable +collection made by my father, with some additions and illustrations of +my own;' an _Account of my Travels_, 'for which I had a variety of +materials collected;' a _Life of Sir Robert Sibbald_, 'in the original +manuscript in his own writing;' a _History of the Rebellion of 1745_; an +edition of _Walton's Lives_; a _Life of Thomas Ruddiman_, the Latin +grammarian; a _History of Sweden_, where three of his ancestors had +settled, who took service under Gustavus Adolphus; an edition of +_Johnson's Poems_, 'a complete edition, in which I shall with the utmost +care ascertain their authenticity, and illustrate them with notes and +various readings;' a work on _Addison's Poems_, in which 'I shall +probably maintain the merit of Addison's poetry, which has been very +unjustly depreciated.' His _Journal_, which is unfortunately lost, he +designed as the material for his own _Autobiography_. A goodly list, and +a varied one, involving interest, knowledge, and research, fit to form +the equipment of a professed scholar. + +Boswell foresaw the danger, and he justified his method of reporting +conversations. 'It may be objected by some persons, as it has been by +one of my friends, that he who has the power of thus exhibiting an exact +transcript of conversations is not a desirable member of society. I +repeat the answer which I made to that friend:--'Few, very few, need be +afraid that their sayings will be recorded. Can it be imagined that I +would take the trouble to gather what grows on every hedge, because I +have collected such fruits as the _Nonpareil_ and the _Bon Chretien_? On +the other hand, how useful is such a faculty, if well exercised! To it +we owe all those interesting apophthegms and _memorabilia_ of the +ancients, which Plutarch, Xenophon, and Valerius Maximus, have +transmitted to us. To it we owe all those instructive and entertaining +collections which the French have made under the title of _Ana_, affixed +to some celebrated name. To it we owe the Table-Talk of Selden, the +_Conversation_ between Ben Jonson and Drummond of Hawthornden, Spence's +_Anecdotes_ of Pope, and other valuable remains in our own language. How +delighted should we have been, if thus introduced into the company of +Shakespeare and of Dryden, of whom we know scarcely anything but their +admirable writings! What pleasure would it have given us, to have known +their petty habits, their characteristick manners, their modes of +composition, and their genuine opinion of preceding writers and of their +contemporaries!' + +The world in consideration of what it has gained, and the recollection +of what we should have acquired had such a reporter been found for the +talk of other great men, has long since forgiven Boswell, and forgotten +also his baiting the doctor with questions on all points, his rebuffs +and his puttings down--'there is your _want_, sir; I will not be put to +the question;' his watching 'every dawning of communication from that +illuminated mind;' his eyes goggling with eagerness, the mouth dropt +open to catch every syllable, his ear almost on the shoulder of the +doctor, and the final burst of 'what do you do there, sir,--go to the +table, sir,--come back to your place, sir.' + +And these conversations which he reported in his short-hand, yet 'so as +to keep the substance and language of discourse?' How far did he +Johnsonize the form or matter? The remark by Burke to Mackintosh, that +Johnson was greater in Boswell's books than in his own, the absence of +the terse and artistic touch to the sayings of the Rambler in the pages +of Hawkins, Thrale, Murphy and others, suggest inevitably that they have +been touched up by their reporter. The _Boswelliana_ supplies here some +slight confirmation of this, for there have been preserved in that +collection stories that reappear in the _Life_, and the final form in +which they appear in the later book is always that of a pointed and +improved nature. It would, therefore, seem that Boswell, whose +imitations of Johnson Mrs Thrale declared in some respects superior to +Garrick's, in his long devotion to the style and manner of his friend, +'inflated with the Johnsonian ether,' did consciously or otherwise add +much to the originals, and so has denied himself a share of what would +otherwise be justly, if known, set down to his credit. + +'I own,' he writes in 1789 to Temple, 'I am desirous that my life should +tell.' He counted doubtless on the _Autobiography_ for this purpose. 'It +is a maxim with me,' said the great Bentley, 'that no man was ever +written out of reputation but by himself.' At first sight it would +appear that Boswell had inflicted upon his own fame an indelible blot. +From whom but himself should we ever have learned those failings, of +which Macaulay has deftly made so much in his unsympathetic writing down +of the man, after the manner of the Johnsonian attack on Milton and +Gray? In whom but himself should we detect the excrescences in his +works--the permutations and combinations in shaving, the wish for a +pulley in bed to raise him, his puzzle over the disproportionate wages +of footmen and maidservants, his boastings, his family pride, his +hastily writing in the sage's presence Johnson's parody of Hervey in the +_Meditations on a Pudding_, his superstitions, and his weaknesses? It is +this that has cost him so dear with the critics, and the superior +people, 'empty wearisome cuckoos, and doleful monotonous owls, +innumerable jays also and twittering sparrows of the housetops.' He +compares his own ideas to his handwriting, irregular and sprawling; his +nature to Corinthian brass, made up of an infinite variety of +ingredients, and his head to a tavern which might have been full of +lords drinking Burgundy, but has been invaded by low punch-drinkers whom +the landlord cannot expel. Blots and inequalities there are in the great +book. Cooper off the prairie, Galt out of Ayrshire, are not more untrue +to themselves than is Boswell at such moments. But 'within the focus of +the Lichfield lamps' he regains his strength like a Samson. + +Boswell, with all his experience, never attained the mellow Sadduceeism +of the diner-out. As a reward, he never lost the literary conscience, +the capacity for labour, the assiduity and veracity that have set his +work upon a pedestal of its own. The dedication to Reynolds, a masterly +piece of writing, will shew the trouble that he took over his method, +'obliged to run half over London in order to fix a date correctly.' And +he knew the value of his work, which the man with the note-book never +does. In his moments of self-complacency he could compare his +_Johnsoniad_ with the _Odyssey_; and he will not repress his +'satisfaction in the consciousness of having largely provided for the +instruction and entertainment of mankind.' Literary models before him he +had none. Scott suggests the life of the philosopher Demophon in Lucian, +but Boswell was not likely to have known it. He modestly himself says he +has enlarged on the plan of Mason's _Life of Gray_; but his merits are +his own. For the history of the period it is, as Cardinal Duperron said +of Rabelais, _le livre_--_the_ book--'in worth as a book,' decides +Carlyle, 'beyond any other production of the eighteenth century.' + +Time has dealt gently with both Johnson and Boswell. 'The chief glory of +every people,' said the former in the preface to his _Dictionary_ +'arises from its authors: whether I shall add anything to the reputation +of English literature must be left to time.' In the constituency of the +present no dead writer addresses such an audience as Johnson does. Of +Johnson Boswell might have said, as Cervantes did of his great creation +Don Quixote, he and his subject were born for each other. There is no +greater figure, no more familiar face in our literature than 'the old +man eloquent'; and as the inseparable companion 'held in my heart of +hearts, whose fidelity and tenderness I consider as a great part of the +comforts which are yet left to me,' rises the figure of his biographer, +the Bozzy no more of countless follies and fatuities, but Boswell, the +prince of biographers, the inheritor of unfulfilled renown, now become, +like his hero himself, an ancient. And they are still in the heyday of +their great fame. Along the stream of time the little bark, as he hoped, +sails attendant, pursues the triumph and partakes the gale. + +With James Boswell it has happened, as Mark Pattison says of Milton, to +have passed beyond the critics into a region of his own. That 'mighty +civil gentlewoman,' the mistress of the _Green Man_ at Ashbourne, M. +Killingley, who waited on him with the note of introduction to his +extensive acquaintance--'a singular favour conferr'd on one who has it +not in her power to make any other return but her most grateful thanks, +&c.,'--is but a symbol of the feelings of the readers who ever wish well +to the name and the fame of James Boswell. + + +THE END. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of James Boswell, by William Keith Leask + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JAMES BOSWELL *** + +***** This file should be named 29615.txt or 29615.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/6/1/29615/ + +Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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