The Project Gutenberg eBook, Boswell the Biographer, by George Herbert Leigh Mallory, Illustrated by George Dance

BOSWELL THE BIOGRAPHER

April 27^th. 1753 Emery Walker Ph. So.

James Boswell
from a drawing by George Dance R.A.

BOSWELL
THE BIOGRAPHER
BY
GEORGE MALLORY

WITH A PORTRAIT BY GEORGE DANCE, R.A.

LONDON
SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1912

[All rights reserved]

CONTENTS

PREFACE

The responsibility for upwards of 300 pages in print is a burden which my unaccustomed conscience cannot easily bear, and by accepting it I lose for ever the unassailable dignity of private criticism. In these circumstances I approach my readers in an apologetic frame of mind. I shall not apologise for writing a dull book by explaining in what manner it is interesting. I had thought of doing something of the sort, but at the present moment that course presents insuperable difficulties. An explanation, if not apology, is however necessary; for this volume is in one sense a compromise. It is less than a biography and more than an essay. It aims at being not a complete Life of Boswell, but an explanation of his character. This purpose may not seem to require so long a treatment as mine. Certainly it would have been easier to say, and easier to read, all that I have said about Boswell's psychology in far fewer words. But my design was to prove my case. Boswell has been so much a subject of controversy that, were I merely to state my views, I should convince, if anyone is to be convinced by me, only those who had observed the same facts as myself—the facts upon which those views are based. By bringing forward the evidence without stint I have hoped to establish my opinions on a firmer base.

A list of the books to which I have referred is printed at the beginning of this volume. I am naturally indebted to the researches of Dr. G. Birkbeck Hill, to the three biographers of Boswell—Dr. Rogers (in 'Boswelliana'), Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, and Mr. W. K. Leask—and to the brilliant study by Carlyle. I must also mention three essays which have been particularly illuminating—that by W. E. Henley in 'Views and Reviews,' by Lionel Johnson in 'Post Liminium,' and by Mr. Birrell in his edition of Boswell's 'Life of Johnson.'

I am grateful especially to Mr. A. C. Benson, whose encouragement promoted this enterprise, to Mr. G. L. Strachey for many valuable suggestions, and to Mr. E. H. Marsh for correcting my proofs, which was no mean labour.

GEORGE MALLORY.

Charterhouse:

July 25, 1912.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1:] All references are to this edition.

BOSWELL THE BIOGRAPHER

CHAPTER I

Boswell's 'Life of Johnson' is, as we all know, a unique biography; it has no rival. Its unchallenged supremacy has a special significance from the position which Johnson himself retains in literature. For as it must be admitted that his work has been but little read since his own day, and that by far his greatest performance, the compiling of a dictionary, has in its nature nothing of an artistic appeal, it may well be supposed that the literary men of this age find more to stir the imagination in the lives of the great figures of the nineteenth century, in the romance of Byron, Shelley, Keats, and at a later date of the Pre-Raphaelite group, in the peculiar simplicity of Wordsworth, the splendour of Tennyson, and the fervid passion of Browning. And yet we have for Johnson a more intimate place which is all his own.

It is because we know him better. Subsequent biographers, Lockhart, Froude, Trevelyan—to mention a few of the more successful—have like Boswell written good biographies: we know much that is interesting about Scott, Carlyle, and Macaulay. But what we know of Johnson is more vivid, real, and true; it is the man himself. Boswell is therefore the first of biographers. He is first beyond the jealousy of a rival and above the common earth of imitators—as Homer is first in epic poetry, as Molière and Racine, Shakespeare and Milton are all first where they most excel. And he is first only for this reason, that we know most intimately the man who was portrayed by him.

But if the mere extent of our knowledge of Johnson determines the greatness of Boswell, there is yet some particular appeal besides, some special charm that wins us in Boswell's 'Johnson.' When we come to think of the nature of Boswell's value for so many people, we shall find that it depends not altogether upon the completeness of his method or his capacity for giving expression to it, but also upon an interest which exists apart from any structural or artistic quality. The 'Life of Johnson' is one of those rare books which have by nature a certain universality. It exists not for one but for every generation. It is not for the cultured alone nor for the uncultured, nor yet, if he exists, for the normal person. It is everybody's book. And this is a fact which requires explanation.

INTEREST IN JOHNSON AND BOSWELL

It would be easy if we were merely seeking to distinguish that which has a special value or quality from what is merely commonplace, if we simply wished to determine the peculiar flavour and virtue of the work, to find a number of reasons why the book we are speaking of should have a special value among biographies. The careful art of the writer, the vividness of the scenes he depicts, his unrivalled humour, the mere form of what he presents, including as it does all that he meant by biography, the interest we feel in the distinguished men who play, as it were, the minor parts of the drama—all these are responsible in their several degrees for the pleasure we derive from Boswell's 'Johnson.'

But to account for its universality we must look elsewhere—to the simple human interest felt by everyone in two such characters as Johnson and Boswell. A biography may be written about an interesting man by a dull one or about a dull man by an interesting one; and interest in either may be satisfied by reading it: even when both the men are dull some pleasure may be obtained from a biography by one who is interested in the psychological phenomenon of dullness. The 'Life of Johnson' may be read with pleasure, and even with something more than pleasure, because both Johnson and his biographer are supremely interesting men. There may be some of Boswell's readers who have pleasure from his magnum opus, for the treatment, as it is technically called; but it is the subject, or rather one might say the two subjects, since there is in it so much also of autobiography, that attract the greater number of them. And there must be many to whom—of these two historic people, Johnson and Boswell—the more interesting because he was more interested in himself, the more attractive because we can see in him more of ourselves, is Boswell the biographer.

.....

In presenting the literary portrait of a man there can be no greater error than to indulge in controversy. It is an error which one may make very readily, for we have all at heart the love of battle; moreover, it is easy to contradict another, and difficult to give a whole picture of one's own. And in the case of Boswell there is matter for controversy particularly obvious and particularly inviting. Distinguished men have formed entirely different conceptions of his character and used the pen with more energy than wisdom to support their views. It seems clear now that Boswell has been widely misunderstood.

We are confronted at the outset by a sort of popular paradox. Not only Lord Macaulay, but most of Boswell's contemporaries and most of his editors, have thought of him as nothing more than a fool—they have supposed with the poet Gray, 'Any fool may write a most valuable book by chance.' No one has ever denied that the 'Life' is a good book. No one after GENIUS AND FOOL his own generation, till Carlyle, ever denied that Boswell was a bad man, just the mean, snivelling creature imagined by Macaulay.

Modern criticism has done much to raise the besmirched name of the biographer, but has managed at the same time to envelop his character in a sort of generous obscurity. 'Boswell,' Professor Raleigh has boldly exclaimed, 'was a genius.' The Boswellian student will probably agree: but in agreeing we must be cautious not to confuse our ideas about Boswell's character; to say that a man is a genius is not to say that he is unaccountable for his actions, or even of necessity to imply that he is mad. The genius is often more complex than other men, but not more incomprehensible. It is possible, if we like, to look behind the veil that is drawn between humanity and a particular human being. We can see in a genius not less than in others the meaning of all the names which we use to describe life, of love and sympathy, greed and egoism, hate, fear, joy, and the rest; of all the qualities that form for better or for worse what we call character, what it is to be kind or cruel, vain or modest, false or true. Nor, when we say that Boswell is a genius, do we preclude the possibility of his being a fool. Boswell was indeed a fool, as is easy enough to show; but he was not, as was long supposed, a stupid fool.

We do, however, mean something by the term genius; and it is something of the inward life. The soul of man is composed of combustible matter, and the violence and quality of its conflagration depend upon the proportions in which the ingredients are mixed. In certain cases an abnormal quantity of one substance or another produces an extraordinary result; and when this result can be classified neither as criminal nor lunatic it is called by the more approved name of genius.

Two questions therefore are to be asked especially with regard to a genius: First, in what way was the conflagration peculiar? Secondly, what were the substances present in abnormal quantity which caused the peculiarity?

It is intended that these two questions shall be answered with regard to Boswell in the course of this general inquiry concerning his psychology. It is held that Boswell was a genius; it must be explained in what his genius consisted, and how, in the end, this abnormal essence dominated the whole man and inspired the great work of his life.

.....

James Boswell was born in Edinburgh on October 29th, 1740. He came of an old Scottish stock, and his ancestors, if not eminent, were at least distinguished men and proud of being the Lairds of Auchinleck.

Of his mother we know but little; she was, however, a woman of 'almost unexampled piety and goodness.'

Lord Auchinleck, his father, figures occasionally BOSWELL'S FATHER in the various authorities for Boswell's 'Life,' and we can get a very good picture of him. Scott gives the following account:

Old Lord Auchinleck was an able lawyer, a good scholar, after the manner of Scotland, and highly valued his own advantages as a man of good estate and ancient family; and, moreover, he was a strict Presbyterian and Whig of the old Scottish cast. This did not prevent his being a terribly proud aristocrat, and great was the contempt he entertained and expressed for his son James, for the nature of his friendships and the character of the personages of whom he was engoué one after another. 'There's nae hope for Jamie, mon,' he said to a friend. 'Jamie is gaen clean gyte.... Whose tail do you think he has pinned himself to now, mon?' Here the old judge summoned up a sneer of most sovereign contempt. 'A dominie, mon—an auld dominie; he keeped a schule and cau'd it an acaadamy.'

The Laird, as is evident from the account in the 'Tour to the Hebrides' of Johnson's visit to Boswell's home, held his opinions with that conviction which admits of no discussion. A story of him is related by Scott that when challenged by Johnson to explain the utility of Cromwell's career, he very curtly remarked: 'God, Doctor, he gart kings ken they had a lith[¹] in their neck.'

Boswell seems to have summed up the situation at home when he wrote in the London Magazine for 1781:

I knew a father who was a violent Whig and used to attack his son for being a Tory, upbraiding him with being deficient in noble sentiments of liberty, while at the same time he made this son live under his roof in such bondage as he was not only afraid to stir from home without leave like a child, but durst scarcely open his mouth in his father's presence. This was sad living.

The problem of youth is one of selection. Not many of us accept for ourselves the whole of our inheritance. Of the influences of our early years there are some which we reject; and the judgments which we make about the problems that affected us when young, differ as a rule from those about other questions which come upon us only in maturer years. In youth we must either love or hate—there is no indifference; and so in youth very often are formed the prejudices of a lifetime. Thus it was with Boswell. It was inevitable that the inflexible, hard-headed old judge, and the gay, clever son, should agree very ill. The latter contrived to be in many ways the exact antithesis of his father, and he had the courage of his opinions. It is remarkable, when we think of the violence of the old Whig's political views, that in 1745 Boswell 'wore a white cockade and prayed for King James.' The advances of an uncle it is true were able to purchase his political sympathies, and for the EARLY YEARS AND HOME LIFE sum of one shilling Boswell became a Whig. But it is more decorous, at the age of five, to side with one's father without the persuasion of a silver bribe, especially upon a question of so great importance as the choice of a sovereign. For his tutor, Mr. Dunn, James seems to have retained no startling degree of affection or even of respect; for it was he who 'discovered a narrowness of information concerning the dignitaries of the Church of England. He talked before Dr. Johnson of fat bishops and drowsy deans, and in short seemed to believe the illiberal and profane scoffings of professed satirists or vulgar railers'; and so brought upon himself the admirable rebuke: 'Sir, you know no more of our Church than a Hottentot.'

In the uncongenial atmosphere of home Boswell learnt, no doubt, to dislike instruction and to mistrust what he was told about the way to live, about manners in the old use of the word. There is, however, the trace of a pious mother's influence in the respect which Boswell always showed for religion and for principles. To know what he thought right or wrong was always of importance to him, however slight the relation to his practice of these moral decisions. It is possible indeed that he could never have been better than a tyro in the art of living: but the close-fettered days of this unfortunate childhood must be partly responsible for the fact.

When the term of his education at home was accomplished, Boswell very properly went to school at Edinburgh. We have reason to complain, if we may complain at all, that we can know nothing of Boswell's school life. It is idle to conjecture what it was like. We may only suppose that school was to him a place of comparative freedom, and that to his schoolfellows his presence there was a valuable source of merriment, and perhaps also an occasion of maliciousness.

From school Boswell went by a natural sequence to Edinburgh University: he was barely seventeen years old when the change took place. It was at Edinburgh University, at Hunter's Greek class, that Boswell met his lifelong friend William Temple.

Temple is distinguished as the grandfather of an archbishop. Beyond this his life has no considerable distinction; and beyond the fact that he was Boswell's friend it has no peculiar interest. His eminence in the immediate affairs of this world may be rightly judged from the unembellished statement that, after his ordination in 1766, he remained a country parson, first at Mamhead, near Exeter, and later at St. Gluvias, in Cornwall, for his entire life. It is a curiously undecorated career for one who obtained so large a measure not merely of Boswell's friendship, but of his admiration.

A sad mischance has denied us at least the gratification WILLIAM TEMPLE of curiosity by hiding from our view, and perhaps destroying, the letters of Temple to Boswell; those qualities which attracted the youthful biographer, and completely won his confidence, are no doubt exposed therein; but we may not see. Boswell's own letters however reveal something of his correspondent's character. Temple in the first place—and this perhaps is the most important fact—was literary. He was evidently a far better scholar than Boswell, and knew more about books. He was a writer too in a small way. He published several unpretentious volumes. They have no particular interest that demands our attention, but one of them, 'An Essay on the Clergy, &c.,' 'by some divine mischance,' as Mr. Seccombe puts it, 'materially aided his prospects.' Temple's ability seems rather to have been that of a critic. In the letters that he wrote to Boswell he pronounced his views about books and authors: Boswell esteemed his opinions highly, and there was a proposal, apparently fruitless, that these passages should be collected into a book. It would be wrong to assume from Boswell's optimistic remarks that Temple was really capable of writing anything valuable. But his opinion was in one instance at least supported by eminent men of letters. Boswell quoted in a periodical an appreciation of Gray which Temple wrote at the time of that poet's death; Mason thought this so good that he inserted it in his 'Life of Gray'; and Dr. Johnson afterwards included the same passage in the 'Lives of the Poets.'

Temple, as we see, is not entitled to the fame of Letters; but it is important to realise, since he was the greatest friend both of the young and the old Boswell, that though he had not the qualities that deserve success, and had not the good fortune that may bring it by chance, he had, however, a certain distinction.

There are other reasons for Boswell's preference. If neither Temple nor Boswell was a successful man, yet they both desired success in a quite extraordinary degree, and in the early days of their friendship at Edinburgh this was a strong link. They perceived, no doubt, that they were unlike the majority of students, and concluded they were better than the rest. They looked forward to brilliant careers and elegant fame, to the respect of princes and the friendship of the ingenious. Boswell lived for the greater part of his life in a palace of boyish dreams where Wishes became Destiny, and it is fair to suppose that Temple at the Scottish University shared this luxury of anticipation. He, too, could look back to the Edinburgh days and consider if he were becoming 'the great man, as we used to say.' And in later life the link held firm; for neither of them was 'the great man' in the sense that he intended. If they were companions in hopeful optimism when young, they were equally FRIENDSHIP FOR TEMPLE companions at a maturer age in the discontent and despair of unrealised ambition.

It might be supposed that any friend of Boswell would play the part of the strong man. He might not have the capacity of Dr. Johnson for sweeping away cobwebs and for discouraging complaint, but one would expect to find him upon the same platform. Temple, however, did not take this attitude. On the contrary it was Boswell who encouraged Temple. Not once but many times we find in the letters that Temple has told the tale of his evil fortune in tones of despondency, and Boswell tries to present the circumstances in a more favourable light. Boswell perhaps did not do this very well. Neither the cheerfulness of optimism nor the consolation of philosophy is sufficient for the occasion; and it may be doubted whether the philosophy advocated by Boswell was anything more than an affectation of indifference. But it does him credit that he should have made the attempt to console, and at the same time displays the weakness of Temple's character. Certainly this was not the kind of man to exert a strong influence. Boswell seems to have regarded him in the light of a father confessor with whom a certain ceremony is to be performed, and is reproved and forgiven by a natural sequence, which adds nothing but pleasure to the agreeable duty of confession. Temple expostulates in the rôle of parson when the conduct of his friend is particularly damnable; it is possible there shall be a 'blaze hereafter,' and one must at least be on the safe side. So Boswell no doubt understood it. The mild reproofs of his clerical friend never for a moment deterred him either from doing or from telling of his deed. He came to expect and even to like them. 'Admonish me, but forgive me,' he says after a particularly detailed account of his amours; and at a later date, in an expression which seems to epitomise the relations of the pastor and his erring sheep, 'Your soft admonitions,' he writes, 'would at any time calm the tempests of my soul.'

It is clear that Boswell had no moral respect for Temple; it was not in search of guidance that he told stories of his profligacy, but simply because he liked to tell them. Boswell, as his friend remarked, mounted the hobby-horse of his own temperament; this was his perennial and unfailing interest, and the irrepressible delight which he had in his own feelings and performances found an outlet in the 'Letters to Temple' and in many amusing passages in the 'Life of Johnson.'

Boswell no doubt was capable of self-revelation without encouragement, and it is difficult for this reason to tell how much sympathy he had from his friend. Temple wanted to hear from Boswell; he asked him to write, and praised his letters. But his mild disapproval was probably genuine. When he LETTERS TO TEMPLE accuses Boswell of neglecting a friend or of unkindness to his father, he must have thought himself a more considerate man. He was not like Boswell, a tippler, and seems to have been really distressed by the other's intemperate habits. In a manuscript diary, reports Mr. Seccombe, he describes Boswell, no doubt in a moment of irritation, as 'irregular in conduct and manners, selfish, indelicate, no sensibility or feeling for others.' And yet Temple himself was not above a gross fault; he talks of a 'dear infidel,' and Boswell exclaims that he is exceeded by his friend. Boswell no doubt made the most of any lapse on Temple's part from the path of rectitude; he would like to feel that he had the support of a respectable companion. His conscience was by no means complacent, and it would become more tranquil if one whom he respected were in the same boat with himself. It is conceivable that Temple encouraged Boswell's confidence with the object of controlling him as much as he could; his advice certainly was always that he should get well married instead of carrying on a number of flirtations. But it is difficult to believe, if we read the letters carefully, that Temple ever appeared to be shocked by Boswell's confessions; and to the latter no doubt that was an encouragement.

In brief, we may describe Temple as a refined and well-intentioned creature, but hardly wise and not courageous. His marriage was so much a failure that he sought at one time a colonial chaplaincy with the object of living apart from his wife. He was discontented with his lot and inclined rather to complain acrimoniously than to make the best of it. He had apparently no staunch qualities to influence a friend; and this friend needed a firm monitor.

.....

The date of the first of Boswell's letters to Temple is July 1758. In 1763 he met Johnson. In the five years between these dates we see Boswell in a number of characteristic lights. The period from eighteen to twenty-three is commonly held to mark a special change and development in a man's character. In Boswell's, however, we do not see this very strongly. As he grew up he did fewer, no doubt, of the wild things of youth. But he seems hardly to have become older in the ordinary way, until towards the close of his life. He was always to the world the gay, good-humoured, sociable being, with a strong vein of fatuous buffoonery, that we see in these early years. A great difficulty in rightly understanding Boswell's life lies in this fact. It seems impossible at times to realise that this was a serious man; he appears to find the world and himself such a preposterous joke. And yet if he saw to the full the humour of living, he felt too very keenly that it was an important matter, that there were real standards. No one has valued more the opinion of others about himself, and no one EIGHTEEN TO TWENTY-THREE has experienced more miserably the bitterness of disappointed ambition. It must be our duty, then, to mark, with all the follies and frivolities which express the youth he retained so long, a more serious nature within, which showed itself also from time to time to the outer world.

The course of Boswell's life during this period of five years may be briefly followed in chronological order. In 1758 he was at Edinburgh University, and it is from there that his first letter to Temple is dated. The summer vacation was spent on the Northern Circuit with his father and Sir David Dalrymple, afterwards also a Scottish judge with the title of Lord Hailes. In November 1759, he entered Adam Smith's class for Moral Philosophy in Glasgow University. In 1760 he paid his first visit to London, and in the spring of 1761 returned to Edinburgh, where he resided until the close of 1762; he then went for the second time to London. It was upon this second visit that he met Dr. Johnson.

It is characteristic of these years that he did not quite know what he was or what he wanted. He was posing now in one guise and now in another, wondering the while what his serious purpose might be. At Edinburgh University he seems to have wished to appear an intellectual cynic. He writes to Temple:

Don't be surprised if your grave, sedate, philosophic friend, who used to carry it so high, and talk with such composed indifference of the beauteous sex, and whom you used to admonish not to turn an old man too soon—don't be thunderstruck if this same fellow should all at once subito furore obreptus commence Don Quixote for his adorable Dulcinea.

The inference is clear; the subito furore obreptus type of conduct is a great change from a sedate indifference.

He often adopted the rôle of the wise counsellor. His letters to Temple are full of excellent advice. It is always hard to be quite certain that Boswell is serious, but it is probable that he was sincere enough in this. He was ready always with sympathy and kind actions for his friend, and we may conjecture that besides wishing to appear wise beyond his years he thought that Temple could best be served by the commonplace advice of the old to the young.

But it is pre-eminently as the promising young littérateur that we see Boswell in these years. He became acquainted with many interesting people, who were attracted, no doubt, by a clever young man, fond of literature and appearing less ignorant than most young men. Lord Hailes, Lord Kames, and Dr. Robertson were numbered among his friends. Even Hume took notice of him: 'We talk a great deal of genius, fine learning, improving in our style, &c., but I am afraid solid learning is much wore out. Mr. Hume, I think, is a very proper person for a young man to cultivate an acquaintance with.' Boswell was not eighteen when he wrote these words. They OTHER EARLY FRIENDSHIPS suggest an amusing picture of a clever and conceited young genius. He was admitted in 1761 to the Select Society, a distinguished group of men who represented the best learning of Edinburgh—a high compliment this, both to his brains and to his social qualities.

Among Boswell's friends of the aristocracy of letters were several younger men. Charles Dilly, the publisher, who was afterwards host at the famous dinner when Dr. Johnson met Jack Wilkes, was a native of Edinburgh; and George Dempster, who became M.P. for the burghs of Fife and Forfar in 1762, was, like Boswell, a member of the Select Society; it was he who afterwards appeared as the disciple of Hume and Rousseau, and of whom Johnson said, 'I have not met with any man for a long time who has given me such general displeasure.'

A greater friend than either of these, and one who had far more influence in forming the literary tastes of Boswell, was the Honourable Andrew Erskine. This lively young gentleman was both soldier and writer. His interest in literature was not of a very creative order: he edited, however, in 1760 and 1761, two volumes of a 'Collection of Original Poems by the Rev. Mr. Blacklock and other Scotch Gentlemen,' to which both he and Boswell contributed; in 1764, he published a farce in two acts, and in 1773 he issued a poem of twenty-two quarto pages intended 'to expose the false taste for florid description which prevails in modern poetry.' He appears to have had considerable discrimination; he was an early admirer of the poet Burns, and Burns, in a letter to a friend, praises some of Erskine's songs; an eminent publisher describes him as having 'an excellent taste in the fine arts.' Such a man may well have had influence with Boswell, and the two became associated in several small literary ventures.

The early tastes and tendencies of Boswell in literary matters are connected with several influences of a different nature. There was always a strong instinct of rebellion in Boswell, and with him it found expression in sympathy for those whom the world rejected. Some of his friends among those who sought favour of the Muses were therefore less successful and less respectable than the distinguished members of the Select Society, the learned and the grave.

Several of these friends were connected in various ways with the stage. Acting was not supported as an art in Edinburgh, nor countenanced as a profession, at the time when Boswell was an undergraduate at the University. But he came in contact with a Mr. Love who, it would seem, was the first to encourage his sympathy with the drama. Mr. Love had been connected at one time with Drury Lane Theatre; fortune cannot have favoured him greatly, since he left London for Edinburgh; and there after fruitless attempts to practise private theatricals he became a teacher of elocution. It was in this last capacity that Boswell met him.

The lessons of Mr. Love were apparently of some MR. LOVE use to Boswell; for Dr. Johnson said in commendation of his English accent, 'Sir, your pronunciation is not offensive'; and Miss Burney too speaks approvingly. Mr. Love became the great friend of Boswell after Temple had proceeded to the University of Cambridge. He is mentioned in the first of the 'Letters to Temple' as the only other confidant of Boswell in a matter of the heart; and in the next letter he is called his 'second-best friend.' Boswell says of him: 'He has not only good taste, genius and learning, but a good heart.' He must in any case have been a man of singular virtue, for it was he who persuaded Boswell to keep a diary. 'I went along with my father to the Northern Circuit and was so happy as to be in the same chaise as Sir David Dalrymple the whole way. I kept an exact journal, at the particular desire of my friend Mr. Love, and sent it to him in sheets every post.' So was the habit of 'memorandising' begun. Boswell was destined no doubt to form that habit; it was the most vital factor in his method of biography; and it was besides a complete expression in itself of that inner secret which, by a magic touch, was to marshal the soul of a glorious man before the eyes of us all. The wheel of Fate might have turned ever so little differently for Boswell and altered the whole course of his mortal existence; but if it were still to be Boswell, there must still have been the tablets; and his title to immortality would have been secured by these alone. And yet, though the tablets are Boswell's by indubitable birthright, we may allow ourselves a pious exclamation at the name of Mr. Love.

When Boswell went to Glasgow he made friends with another actor in depressed circumstances. 'The merchants of Glasgow,' Dr. Rogers tells us, 'tolerated theatrical representations, obtaining on their boards such talent as their provincial situation could afford.' Boswell evidently took an interest in the Glasgow theatre. One of those who sought a livelihood there was a certain Francis Gentleman, a native of Ireland, and originally an officer in the army. 'This amiable gentleman sold his commission in the hope of obtaining fame and opulence as a dramatic author.' He obtained neither, and became an actor; and so he qualified to be the friend of Boswell, who entertained him, and 'encouraged him to publish an edition of Southern's "Tragedy of Oroonoco."' To Boswell it must have been a double pleasure to play the patron and to read the dedication of the volume addressed to himself. Mr. Gentleman thought well of the man who had befriended him, and the dedication ends thus:

But where, with honest pleasure, she can find

Sense, taste, religion, and good nature joined,

There gladly will she raise her feeble voice

Nor fear to tell that Boswell is her choice.

On his return to Edinburgh Boswell became more DAVID ROSS AND THE STAGE than ever concerned with the ill-favoured art of the drama. 'The popular prejudice against theatricals,' says Dr. Rogers, 'was a sufficient cause for our author falling into the opposite extreme; he threw his whole energies into a movement which led, six years afterwards, to a theatre being licensed in the capital.'

He became associated in this movement with a Mr. David Ross, the most important save Garrick of his actor friends. Ross, too, was acquainted with misfortune, yet not without earning some kind of celebrity. When he made his first appearance at Drury Lane, 'he was approved by a polite and distinguishing audience, who seemed to congratulate themselves on seeing an actor whom they imagined capable of restoring to the stage the long-lost character of the real fine gentleman'; and his first success was followed by a considerable measure of popularity at Covent Garden. He must have been a good actor, for Garrick is said to have been jealous of his reputation. It was the 'fine gentleman' we may suppose that Boswell particularly admired. 'Poor Ross!' he exclaims at the time of his death; 'he was an unfortunate man in some respects; but he was a true bon-vivant, a most social man, and never was without good eating and drinking and hearty companions.' These qualities were no doubt to Boswell the highest recommendation. And he seems besides to have found the society of actors in general especially congenial. In his own character there was much of the actor: he was so often conscious of a part to be played! And he had a way of occupying the stage when conversing in company. He may have found, too, that actors appreciated best his lively social qualities.

Ross, though irregular habits, as we are told, may have interfered with his advancement, was evidently a man of some talents and some enthusiasm, and eventually he succeeded in starting a theatre in Edinburgh. He had some respect, it would appear, for Boswell's talents; for on the occasion of his first performance in the capital of Scotland, he requested Boswell to write a prologue which the actor himself was to recite. Boswell can hardly have seen much of Ross in later years, but the friendship between them was preserved, and Boswell was chief mourner at the actor's funeral in 1790.

One other friend of Boswell's in these early years must be mentioned here. Actors may have had particular qualities which made them attractive to him, but Boswell in any case had always a sympathy with misfortune which was mere good-nature; he had at the same time an interest in the shady walks of life, in human nature exhibited under stress of adverse circumstances, and in an added poignancy to the performance of intellect when spurred by poverty. These feelings may account for his friendship with DERRICK THE POET Mr. Derrick the poet. Derrick, like Love and Gentleman and Ross, was somewhat of a failure. He had been apprenticed to a linendraper, and deserted the concerns of trade to seek his fortune as an actor; when Boswell met him as a man of thirty-six he aspired to be a poet. His verses must have been remarkably poor; Boswell refers to some of them as 'infamously bad.' Dr. Johnson, who knew him slightly, 'reproved his muse and condemned his levity.' But he was a writer, and that meant a great deal to Boswell; the mark of his profession was a sign of grace. The Doctor was probably right when he said: 'It is to his being a writer that he owes anything he has. Sir, had not Derrick been a writer, he would have been sweeping the crosses in the streets, and asking halfpence from everybody that passed.' Derrick no doubt was a gay companion, and Boswell evidently liked him, though not excessively. He was of some importance, too, in the youth of Boswell, for he was his first tutor in the ways of London, and these were not entirely good ways.

.....

It was as a poet that Boswell was to make his début in literary performance. Besides his contributions to the collections edited by Erskine, he published in 1761 two longer poems, 'An Elegy on the Death of an Amiable Young Lady' and 'An Ode to Tragedy.' The latter was apparently a serious attempt at poetry; but it serves only to demonstrate that poetry was quite beyond Boswell's grasp. His productions were typical of the eighteenth century. He had no imagination teeming with beautiful images, such as came to a later generation; the graces and conceits of the Elizabethans, and the appeal of Nature, were alike unknown to him; and he never acquired the technical skill which was the merit of the best poets of the age. The 'Ode' is neither better nor worse than might be expected from a wholly misdirected literary talent; it could have been written by almost anyone who had read a certain quantity of English verse.

The 'Elegy' also was intended to express a serious vein. It would be an error to suppose that Boswell meant to be satirical; but he evidently saw that he might be laughed at as extravagant, and published it without alteration, introducing some prefatory letters to ridicule its sentimentality.

In 1762 he published, apparently at his own expense, 'The Cub at Newmarket, a tale.' This, as he states in the preface, is the story told in doggerel verse of his visit to the Jockey Club at Newmarket. He had been taken there when in London by Lord Eglinton, and was discovered in the coffee-room while in the act of composing. The Cub at Newmarket is, of course, himself. Lord Eglinton afterwards introduced him to the Duke of York, to whom Boswell, not unwillingly we may suppose, read out his poem. It THE YOUNG LITTÉRATEUR must have been a triumphant moment for the young author, and he felt obliged to preserve the memory of it by asking and obtaining leave to dedicate the poem to his Royal Highness—he desired, as he explains in the preface, 'to let the world know that this same Cub has been laughed at by the Duke of York, has been read to his Royal Highness by the genius himself, and warmed by the immediate beams of his kind indulgence.' The humorous poem is not remarkably funny; one stanza which describes himself is perhaps worthy to be quoted:

He was not of the iron Race,

Which sometimes Caledonia grace,

Though he to combat could advance—

Plumpness shone in his countenance;

And Belly prominent declar'd

That he for Beef and Pudding car'd;

He had a large and pond'rous head,

That seemed to be composed of lead;

From which hung down such stiff, lank hair,

As might the crows in Autumn scare.

But besides being a somewhat light-headed poet, Boswell was anxious to appear as the 'young Buck.' 'The Epistle of a London Buck to his Friend' is the title of one of his publications in the 'Collection of Original Poems.' There is also a confused story of a club he formed in Edinburgh called the 'Soaping Club,' which existed apparently for Bacchanalian purposes; Boswell was the king of the Soapers and wrote some verses about himself:

Boswell is pleasant and gay,

For frolic by nature designed;

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.

Stories about 'frolic' (to use Boswell's word) are not as a rule very laughable, and we are perhaps too apt to consider them as merely childish and contemptible when they fail to amuse us. The exact atmosphere of the moment which accounts for its merriment is forgotten too often and seldom reproduced, and we are left cold after a recital of such behaviour as we may suppose the Club of Soapers to have indulged in. In Boswell's character there was a large vein of buffoonery which is apt when recounted by anyone but himself to appear stupid enough. But in reality it seems to have contained a true sense of the incongruous, and had at least the success of making people laugh. What an incomparable moment that must have been when Boswell, as one of the audience GAY BEHAVIOUR at Drury Lane theatre, took upon himself to imitate the lowing of a cow! 'I was so successful in this boyish frolic,' he relates, 'that the universal cry of the galleries was: "Encore the cow! Encore the cow!"'

There is nothing very brilliant about Boswell's comic verses, but it is curious that those we have quoted should represent the facts so closely:

So not a bent sixpence cares he

Whether with him or at him you laugh;

these lines express exactly the social principle which Boswell adopted. He had no objection to men laughing at his oddities so long as they laughed good-humouredly.

He wished to find gaiety in every company, and it is just to say that he brought more than his share of mirth regardless of dignity.

There are many other instances of these self-portraits, anonymous sometimes, but easily to be recognised. We can hardly do better than illustrate Boswell's life by his own words about himself, because upon this subject he found it necessary, when he had anything to say, to say it truthfully. In another early literary venture, the correspondence between Erskine and Boswell, which these two young gentlemen published, there is a letter of Boswell's containing an account of the author of the 'Ode to Tragedy,' which he had published anonymously; he thus describes himself:

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 postchaises 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 observed at times to have a melancholy cast; he is rather fat than lean, rather short than tall, rather young than old; his shoes are neatly made, and he never wears spectacles.

The 'Letters between the Honourable Andrew Erskine and James Boswell, Esq.' are the most remarkable in some ways of these early literary ventures. The letters were evidently written from the first with a view to publication. They are completely frivolous, but attempt to be satirical and amusing. Boswell and Erskine wish to appear as two young men of society who are budding poets and have brilliant wit. They hoped, perhaps, to take the world by storm like the Admirable Crichton and his friend Aldus. The result, if far from brilliant, is certainly clever and amusing.

The rôle which Boswell played in this theatrical performance may be illustrated by some passages of his own letters. He was before everything else the knight of chivalry—a chivalry which was occupied LETTERS TO ERSKINE exclusively with an excess of romantic attachment and an adoring worship of female charm. Boswell in real life was extravagant enough, we may suppose, in his homage to women; but his performance can have hardly reached the standard set up in the letters to Erskine:

Lady B—— entreats me to come and pass the Christmas holidays with her. Guess, O guess! what transport I felt at reading that; I did not know how to contain my elevation of spirits. I thought myself one of the greatest geniuses in Europe; I thought I could write all sorts of books and work at all handicraft trades; I imagined that I had fourscore millions of money out at interest, and, that I should actually be chosen Pope at the next election.

It is conceivable of course that Boswell imagined that he had the fourscore millions; there is evidence which might suggest a misconception of this kind. And it is even possible that he entertained at some time the dream of becoming Pope. But that at all events is not meant to appear. It is meant as the froth of youthful gallantry. There is no deception. We are not expected to suppose that Boswell was like this: we are expected merely to be amused at the pose.

He represents himself also as the bon-vivant. There are allusions to splendid feasts and there is an 'Ode to Gluttony.' The poet is always very much to the fore, and his behaviour is supposed to be marked occasionally by a vein of seriousness, which is to suggest the anxious cogitation of the philosopher:

We had a splendid ball.... I exhibited my existence in a minuet, and as I was dressed in a full chocolate suit and wore my most solemn countenance, I looked, as you used to tell me, like the fifth act of a deep tragedy.

Perhaps the most significant passages in these letters are where Boswell plays the cynic:

A light heart may bid defiance to fortune. And yet, Erskine, I must tell you that I have been a little pensive of late, amorously pensive, and disposed to read Shenstone's 'Pastoral on Absence,' the tendency of which I greatly admire. A man who is in love is like a man who has got the toothache: he feels in most acute pain, while nobody pities him. In that situation I am at present, but well do I know that I will not be long so. So much for inconstancy!

Boswell represented himself in the letters to Erskine very much as he affected to be in real life—the gay young wit with a serious background, the jolly good fellow and at the same time the budding genius, and finally, the cynical philosopher, such as he alludes to in the first letter to Temple. The whole picture is exaggerated and laughed at: yet we feel very often that the laughter has a hollow ring. It is the laughter in reality of one who wishes to protect himself from ridicule by jesting at his own expense. The real Boswell peeps through in many places. The remark about Shenstone's 'Pastoral on Absence' might equally well have been made in all seriousness to Temple.

In another letter he says:

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? I must shift about to another subject. The best I can think of is a sound sleep: so good-night!

The sentiment about his dead ancestors is a flash of the true Boswell as bright and real as anything in Pepys' Diary. The pleasure which the thought gave him and the pleasure he had in imparting it to another cannot be concealed by the forced levity of the ending.

The friendship of Boswell with Erskine was responsible for yet another publication; these two with George Dempster collaborated to criticise some dramatic performances in 'Critical Strictures on Mallet's "Elvira."' This brochure[²] would seem to have been written in the same flippant manner as the 'Letters.' Mr. Mallet's 'Elvira' came in for plenty of abuse, but there was no serious attempt at literary criticism. And yet this publication must rank with the letters as the most important exhibition of Boswell's talents up to the age of twenty-three.

.....

In London no doubt Boswell enjoyed himself very well, and Edinburgh seemed a dull town by comparison. In May, 1761, Boswell writes:

A young fellow whose happiness was always centred in London, who had at last got there, and had begun to taste its delights, who had got his mind filled with the most gay ideas,—getting into the Guards, being about the court, enjoying the happiness of the beau monde, and the company of men of genius, in short everything that he could wish,—consider this poor fellow hauled away to the town of Edinburgh, obliged to conform to every Scotch custom or be laughed at—'Will you hae some jeel? oh fie! oh fie!'—his flighty imagination quite cramped, and he 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?

This passage from a letter to Temple explains very well the attitude of Boswell towards the world at the age of twenty-one. He is the gay, frank, talkative, amusing, sociable young man, frivolous if you like and a little unrestrained in his affections, extravagant one would rather say in that matter as in others, but quite without malice.

The profession to which for a time he aspired was that of a soldier. In the Guards, no doubt, he would be able to enjoy just that kind of life which attracted BOSWELL'S STUDIES him, the 'happiness of the beau monde,' with no thought of what is supposed to be the serious business of soldiering, and probably a decided preference for the gay, smart costume. But for the army he was clearly unsuited. 'I like your son,' said the Duke of Argyll to his father; 'that boy must not be shot at for three-and-sixpence a day.' It was resolved accordingly that he should study law.

We hear so much in the letters to Temple of Boswell's amusements that it is easy to lose sight altogether of a less frivolous side to his life. It is safe at least to conjecture that he read a good many books at this time; in the rôle of a young littérateur he would naturally keep up with the books that were coming out; we know that he read Johnson and Hume and Harris, and, from the knowledge of literature that he always showed, we may infer that he read much else besides.

The law studies he took seriously at this time.

I can assure you [he writes to Temple] the study of law here is a most laborious task. In return for yours, I shall give you an account of my studies. From nine to ten I attend the law class; from ten to eleven study at home, and from one to two attend a College upon Roman Antiquities. The afternoons and evenings I likewise spend in study; I never walk except on Saturdays.

This is hard work for one at a University! And especially for one of Boswell's temperament. There is no great amount of diligence associated as a rule with the youth of either the literary or the very sociable character.

The truth is that Boswell was very far from being idle; he had great energy, and often applied himself to something which interested him with fervent industry; he was irregular no doubt, as are very many people who work in this way.

An indication of the channel into which his industry was to be turned is provided by that journal (and what pains it must have cost!), which he began to keep while travelling with Lord Hailes and his father; and at the same time he was made aware of the existence of Dr. Johnson as a great writer in London, began to read his works, and also no doubt to feel, as he afterwards said, that 'highest reverence for their author, which had grown up with 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.'

Boswell also seems to have been deeply interested in religion even during these early years. While at Glasgow University his views underwent a violent revolution, most distressing to his parents, and he became for a short time a Roman Catholic. There is no reason to suppose that Boswell was in any way frivolous when he took this decisive step. He clearly INCONSTANCY hated the Presbyterianism of his youth and was probably in search of some creed to take its place. He cannot, however, have gained much credit from this episode, since it was mixed up in some way with an elopement with a Roman Catholic lady.

It is probable that Boswell was in earnest both about the young lady and about his religion. But since, in order to be entirely respectable, it is often necessary to give a hypocritical consistency to our fickle inclinations, we are not thought to be serious if we do not affect to be constant. We can assume, in the case of most people, from a sort of faith they hold in the durability of sentiment, and a desire which they have to prove by a time test the depth of their emotion, that the feelings which do not appear to endure are trivial and shallow. In Boswell's case we cannot make this assumption; though he affected much, he yet had real and vivid feelings; but since they could never be wholly dissociated from the pleasure which they gave him, they were both various and contradictory; he could be grave and sedate at one moment and gay and boyish the next, yet really feeling something both of the gravity and the gaiety of living; he could be almost in the same breath either the romantic lover or the indifferent cynic, and yet feel something both of the romance of love and of the aloofness which has tasted often enough the joys and sorrows of life; he forgot more quickly than most men, but did not care very often—while it was part of his inconsistency that he did sometimes care—to conceal the fundamental elasticity of his nature.

This volatility of Boswell, exhibited especially in his sexual inconstancy, was in itself but a phase of an innate and irrepressible candour which, in spite of a lifelong desire and struggle for respectability, showed itself very often to his friend Temple in the 'Letters,' and not infrequently also to the general public.

In all that he wrote we find passages of amazing frankness about matters which most men would prefer to conceal. He was absurdly vain, he was childishly sanguine, he was often both foolish and ridiculous, and he tells us all about it as a matter that should interest us as well as him. 'Why,' he says, '"out of the abundance of the heart" should I not speak?' The light of truth led him into strange paths. He was a formalist and yet he was sometimes known to fail in formalism through an aversion to insincerity; when his enemy Baretti came, by chance, into the room where he was being entertained by a friend, Boswell refused to greet him; he could even be flagrantly rude in company.

To be entirely respectable and conventional, to be the man of the world, the gentleman of society, that is what Boswell wanted most in life; and that he never could become, because there was in his nature a further consciousness, which was not to be subdued, INNATE CANDOUR and which determined, by reason of the curious inconsistency so produced, his whole capacity for interesting mankind, for fame, for greatness.

And so beside the sentimentality, the self-deception, the respectability, which he so often exhibited, we see the germ of self-knowledge, of honesty, of truth, which developed and was ultimately expressed, almost by chance as it seems, in a supreme biography: for it is the candour of Boswell far more than any other single factor, the natural instinct to record what he observed both of himself and of others, the honesty in observing and the truthfulness which he had as an artist in recording, that distinguishes his literary work. Herein lay the essence of his genius. The story of Boswell's life is the story of a struggle between influences and ambitions which led him towards the commonplace, and the rare qualities grafted deeply within him, which bore him steadily in an opposite direction. The triumph of the latter involved no doubt the unhappiness of Boswell, but it also involved the production of a great work of art; and this achievement has won for its author a unique place among distinguished men; he is famous beyond any fame that he dreamed of attaining and failed to attain.

[1:] Joint.

[2:] I have not seen a copy; v. Fitzgerald, Life of Boswell i. 37-38, and Life of Garrick.

CHAPTER II

'The accident,' says Professor Raleigh,[¹] 'which gave Boswell to Johnson and Johnson to Boswell is one of the most extraordinary pieces of good fortune in literary history.' The event of their meeting took place on May 16th, 1763, and if in one sense it was clearly, as the word is commonly used, an accident, it was equally the result of a strong wish and intention, if not of deliberate design, on Boswell's part. He had long known of Johnson, and as early as 1760 had hoped for an introduction from 'Mr. Derrick, the poet,' 'an honour,' he says, 'of which I was very ambitious.' This honour bestowed eventually upon a vain and extravagant youth (a circumstance which must be highly esteemed among the good gifts of the Lady Fortune to humanity) was to be attained through a humble agent. Among those of Boswell's friends who were not of the higher strata in society was one Tom Davies. He was at this time a bookseller, but as he had been formerly an actor and then dramatic critic, there was something uncommon and adventurous MEETING WITH JOHNSON about his career. He had in fact in some degree the equivalent of what has been known at a later date as Bohemianism. It seems particularly appropriate that Boswell should have forgotten the pride of birth to meet so, in humble circumstances, the object of his devotion. The scene which took place in Tom Davies' back-parlour has the essence of true comedy. Two of the actors are light-heartedly unconscious that the moment has the least importance; the third is painfully and anxiously aware that it is important to him, and naturally unaware that it can have a value to anyone else. And it has, too, that dramatic quality of great events taking place by accident, as it seems, among incongruous circumstances. It is a scene which must kindle always, for one who feels a serious value in humour, an emotion beyond mere pleasure.

The comedy opens by Tom Davies announcing the eventful news in farcical manner.

At last, on Monday the 16th of May, when I was sitting in Mr. Davies's 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 aweful 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....'

Boswell, who at once became nervous, had only time to give a warning to Davies, and the latter maliciously said the one thing he had been asked not to say. '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.' This was apparently a disastrous beginning, and something must be done to retrieve the position. '"Mr. Johnson," said I, "I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it."' It was rash indeed to originate the conversation and not less typical of Boswell for that. But a more pleasing remark could hardly be imagined, at once courteous and frank and full of humour.[²] Johnson no doubt appreciated it very well, and the more because he was able to find an excellent repartee. For the moment, however, Boswell seemed to be involved in fresh calamity. 'This speech was somewhat unlucky; for with that quickness of wit for which he was so remarkable, he seized the expression, "come from Scotland," which I used in the sense of being of that country; and, as if I had said that I had come away from it, or left it, FIRST TALK WITH JOHNSON retorted, "That, Sir, I find, is what a great many of your countrymen cannot help."' Boswell for the moment was completely crushed: 'This stroke stunned me a good deal,' and he now found himself left out of the conversation, in which situation he felt that he was unlikely to make a very favourable impression. 'He then addressed himself to Davies: "What do you think of Garrick? He has refused me an order for the play for Miss Williams, because he knows that the house will be full, and that an order would be worth three shillings."' No opportunity must be missed, and youth is prompted by enthusiasm. 'Eager to take any opening to get into conversation with him, I ventured to say, "O, Sir, I cannot think Mr. Garrick would grudge such a trifle to you!"' If this was bold it was at least both genuine and polite, and the reproof was severe though Boswell admits its justice. '"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' Boswell continues, 'I deserved this check; for it was rather presumptuous in me, an entire stranger, to express any doubt of the justice of his animadversion upon his old acquaintance and pupil. I now felt myself much mortified, and began to think that the hope which I had long indulged of obtaining his acquaintance was blasted. And, in truth, had not my ardour been uncommonly strong, and my resolution uncommonly persevering, so rough a reception might have deterred me for ever from making any further attempts. Fortunately, however, I remained upon the field not wholly discomfited; and was soon rewarded by hearing some of his conversation.'

Eventually, when he went away, Davies made some encouraging remarks: 'Tom Davies followed me to the door; and when I complained to him a little of the hard blows which the great man had given me, he kindly took upon him to console me by saying, "Don't be uneasy. I can see he likes you very well!"' The evidence that Johnson liked him very well was not very convincing, we may suppose, to Boswell. But he called upon Johnson a week later.

In the account of Boswell's first visit to Dr. Johnson's house there is one instructive passage:

He told me that he generally went abroad at four in the afternoon, and seldom came home till ten in the morning. I took the liberty to ask if he did not think it wrong to live thus, and not make more use of his great talents. He owned it was a bad habit. On reviewing, at the distance of many years, my journal of this period, I wonder how, at my first visit, I ventured to talk to him so freely, and that he bore it with so much indulgence.

Clearly Boswell was good at saying what he thought—the remark about Garrick and the question as to the morality of Johnson's habits, so early in their acquaintance, show this; he is himself amazed, at a JOHNSON LIKES BOSWELL later date, 'how I ventured to talk so freely.' It is this candour, in fact, which particularly attracted Johnson. His fame for brilliant argument and crushing repartee, and his unbending dogmatic manner in conversation, prevented very often the course of free and fearless expression in his presence. The young, too, from their supposed ignorance, have still something of the privilege of childhood in saying what they think without offending. It is refreshing to older men to hear the frank opinions of youth; and it was very characteristic of Johnson that he liked people to speak quite openly upon serious subjects, so long as they were sincere.

It is easy enough indeed to see why the two became friends. Boswell was attractive to Johnson in more ways than one. His outspokenness was happily blended with more gentle softening qualities, which made it modest and appealing rather than over-confident and repelling. He expressed, by his 'light pleasantry to soothe and conciliate him'—and also, we may suppose, by something respectful in his manner—a frank admiration for Johnson. And though some may say that this attitude—flattery one might almost call it (for it is something very near to that)—is repulsive to them, there are very few people in practice who, when it is managed with sufficient dexterity, do not find in it something peculiarly pleasant. Johnson certainly liked to have admirers, and it was Boswell's nature to admire—but not in a mean or servile fashion. He managed, one may suppose, to make Johnson feel pleased with himself, but without lying and without compromising his own opinions. We may see the attitude which he adopted from his own words upon the subject of flattery:

[³]But there may be honest as well as dishonest flattery. There may be flattery from a sincere admiration, and a desire to please. It is benevolent to indulge this: and a man of good disposition may find frequent opportunities for it, by directly or obliquely bringing under the view of those with whom he associates, such circumstances in their situations and characters as are agreeable.

There is nothing unpleasant about this attitude: on the contrary it is a very desirable civility.

It must be remembered, too, that Boswell with all his good-humoured gaiety and pleasant social qualities could be, and often wanted to be serious. And the conversation of Johnson was very often, at least during the latter end of his life, of a serious nature. Morality, human beings, literature, these were his great subjects; religion and politics were discussed, but less often. Boswell was interested in the same things; if with him more than with most men his own case was the mainspring of all interests, this made him not less, but rather more, attentive to all questions dealing with right and wrong and the motives of men; and A SUITABLE COMPANION in literature, as we shall have occasion to show later, he had a strong natural interest.

But there is another reason which made him an extremely suitable companion for Johnson. What Johnson loved best in conversation was to 'buffet' his adversary; this mode of proceeding has, however, the obvious disadvantage that it prevents people talking, and also may possibly offend them, a result which Johnson himself held to be inexpedient. Boswell, fortunately, was little affected in either way. Nothing, it is evident, could prevent him talking, and it took a great deal to offend or even to hurt him. He was so divinely good-humoured! For the moment, sometimes, he might be annoyed; but it very soon blew over, and there was no malice in his nature to irritate a wound. The consequence of this was that Johnson was often rude, which pleased him, and sometimes went too far, which made him really sorry, so that his kind-hearted nature liked the object of his brutality the better for having injured it.

Of the attraction of Dr. Johnson for Boswell we need hardly speak. The little that has been said already about Boswell's strange personality and desires is almost sufficient explanation. We must not think that he attached himself to Johnson with any particular object. 'To suppose,' said Malone '(as some of his detractors have suggested), that he attached himself to Dr. Johnson for the purpose of writing his life, is to know nothing of the author and nothing of human nature.' Malone, who knew Boswell very well at the end of his life, was probably a good judge; and it is not difficult to account for Johnson's attraction for Boswell without making a supposition of this kind. Apart from the unique position which he had among literary men, Johnson was a very striking figure and a very lovable man, and one who would readily appeal to the imagination of the young; the honour of receiving the attentions of Johnson would be pleasant in every way; and Boswell's character was eminently capable of devotion.

The friendship which grew up between these two men, who were so different, was not wholly without the shadow of romance. The relations between them were of the kind that parents would wish to exist between father and son. A great deal of affection on both sides there certainly was. The journey together which they took to Harwich on the occasion of Boswell's departure for the Continent[⁴] is significant enough of Johnson's feelings, and Boswell's account of their parting may speak for his:

My revered friend walked down with me to the beach, where we embraced and parted with tenderness and engaged to correspond by letters. I said, 'I hope, Sir, you will not forget me in my absence.' Johnson, 'Nay, Sir, it is more likely you should forget me, than that I should forget you.' 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 DEVOTION TO JOHNSON manner: and at last I perceived him walk back into the town, and he disappeared.

There is a note of regret in the paragraph, which, as anyone can see, is perfectly genuine.

But Boswell's attitude was much more complicated than one of mere affection. The friendship was of that complementary order where each person contributes something which the other lacks, so that they have a natural need each of the other. Johnson liked Boswell for his youth and freshness; Boswell worshipped Johnson for his strength.[⁵] Worship! it was no less than that; he admitted it, he was proud of it. His own mind was of the indecisive kind which sees many things and finds it difficult to choose among them; he turned very readily to the strong, definite view of life, the expression of an intelligence not smaller, as convinced people are often fundamentally smaller, but clearly larger than his own; Johnson's overwhelming personality was able to support their common prejudices, usually by argument, but, if not so, by sheer force of conviction. It was not so much that Boswell approved of everything in Johnson's mind as that he could depend upon finding there a certain attitude expressive, as he thought, of his own better self, or of what he would like to have become had he been able to forgo a part of his own nature.

.....

Dr. Johnson, if he was by far the most important, was by no means the only great man who was to become Boswell's friend. The paternal graciousness admitted of two years to be spent on the Continent, years that were to be devoted to diligent study in the University of Utrecht. Boswell turned them to the best advantage. The parting was propitious; his friend of the past few months accompanied him to the quay-side and Boswell was launched for the Continent by the great literary dictator. That the excellent advice of the moralist and the command of a father were neglected made little difference to the success of the lively young man. Utrecht was frankly a dull place, and there were several gay spots to be visited. Boswell fulfilled his destiny by amusing the best society, and made acquaintances among distinguished men. The capital of Prussia was visited, and the English ambassador Sir Andrew Mitchell was assailed and surrendered. The courts of Saxe-Gotha and Baden were the sphere of the young Scotsman's wit. Philosophers were among his honoured objects of attachment. The youthful Bozzy called upon Voltaire at Ferney, and became almost the friend of Rousseau. Lord Mount Stuart desired him for a travelling companion. The greatest achievement, perhaps, and the most characteristic was the capture of the notorious Wilkes; and intimacy with him was not unfitting, for the two were much alike in their irresponsible levity.

But all this was no more than the tinkling of a BOSWELL ON THE CONTINENT cymbal before the booming of an heroic drum. Boswell determined to visit the Island of Corsica.

Corsica was at this time the scene of a romantic struggle. Tired of the heavy yoke of the Genoese republic, the islanders were in a state of rebellion and were fighting under the flag of Liberty. Their leader was an admirable figurehead, one General Paoli, a zealous and disinterested patriot, a capable soldier and a wise politician. The Byronic furore of a later date for an oppressed people would have found a suitable object in the Corsicans and their national idol. For the mind of Boswell in search of the heroic they had a special appeal. A letter of introduction to Paoli was solicited from Rousseau, and with this the light-hearted young man stepped bravely forth with the bravery of ignorance, to be the first Englishman of his generation to visit those distant and uncivilised shores.

The event was properly considered to be worthy of notice in the English Press, and the requisite information as to Mr. Boswell's movements was supplied from time to time by the pen of Mr. Boswell himself.

The visit of Boswell to Corsica was a complete success. He travelled in the rôle of explorer, but was treated as an unknown political force. Men of many wiles sought behind an ingenuous and good-natured simplicity a deeper significance when there was none such to be found; Paoli, who hoped for English assistance, was glad to treat with especial favour the one English subject whom he had the opportunity of knowing. And Boswell, if he disclaimed an embassy, was not unwilling to be seen with an escort of Corsicans as he rode upon the general's horse, and to be entertained with diplomatic courtesy.

His own social qualities were perhaps of even greater service to him. He exercised to the full his invaluable talent for bringing good cheer to his companions. In the journal which he afterwards published, the 'Tour to Corsica,' there is an admirable account of an evening spent with the Corsican peasants which shows what an acceptable guest the good-humoured and lively Boswell must have been.

The Corsican peasants and soldiers were quite free and easy with me. Numbers of them used to come and see me of a morning, and just go out and in as they pleased. I did everything in my power to make them fond of the British, and bid them hope for an alliance with us. They asked me a thousand questions about my country, all which I cheerfully answered as well as I could. One day they would 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 Scotch tunes, 'Gilderoy,' 'The Lass of Patie's Mill,' 'Corn Riggs are Bonny.' The pathetick simplicity and pastoral gaiety of the Scots THE CORSICAN PEASANTS 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, and was very lucky in that which occurred to me. 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 with a song as the Corsicans were with 'Hearts of Oak.' 'Cuori 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.[⁶]

There is a natural good fellowship or social instinct, a splendid enjoyment in the company of others, revealed in this story: it is a quality that pleases everybody. To Paoli he was agreeable besides for other reasons. He had a real enthusiasm and taste for literature, which the intellectual world understood and appreciated readily enough. Hume writes of Boswell's return from Paris, in the company of Thérèse Le Vasseur. He calls him, 'a young gentleman, very good-humoured, very agreeable, and very mad'; and afterwards refers to his literary tastes: 'He has such a rage for literature that I dread some event fatal to our friend's honour. You 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.'[⁷]

There is a certain extravagance suggested by this which is very characteristic of Boswell. He produced almost the expectation that he would do something odd. This in itself is not to every one an attractive quality; but it is one which combined with others may bring an added charm. Boswell had great generosity of a certain kind which was more than sufficient to excuse anything that might be tiresome about him; he had an unabashed admiration and real respect for great men. He was also able and was not unwilling to capture the hearts of men by repeating things that would please them; as he relates that he did upon his visit to Voltaire, by repeating the dictum of Johnson about Frederick the Great: 'He writes just as you might suppose Voltaire's footboy to do, who has been his amanuensis. He has such parts as the valet might have, and about as much of the colouring of his style as might be got by transcribing his works.' 'When I was at Ferney,' Boswell records, 'I repeated this to Voltaire, in order to reconcile him somewhat to Johnson, whom he, in affecting the English mode of expression, had previously characterised as 'a superstitious dog'; but after PAOLI hearing such a criticism on Frederick the Great, with whom he was then on bad terms, he exclaimed, 'An honest fellow!'

With such pleasant qualities Boswell won the esteem of the General of the Corsicans. Paoli not only treated him with the courtesy due to a distinguished and possibly a useful stranger but entertained him with the spontaneous enjoyment of friendship.

The intimate relations which sprang up between Boswell and Paoli were, as we may judge from Boswell's own account, very similar to those already in existence between himself and Johnson.

The taste for the heroic may be satisfied easily. Even about the scamp Wilkes in exile there was a glamour which appealed to the imaginative young Bozzy. But for the real Boswellian admiration something more was required—the portentous possession of the 'solid virtues.' The probity of Paoli could never be in question. He appears to have been a simple character with a noble disinterestedness and the honesty of the Mediterranean sun. His interest was Corsica, and, if we may believe Boswell, there was hardly a thought of self in the matter. In this he was perhaps not different from the greater part of his countrymen; but he had besides enthusiasm a wise moderation and self-control, a knowledge of men and a military ability which gave him an authority of the most absolute kind over the Corsicans. His power rested solely upon the weight of his personal influence. It was an impressive figure no doubt—a man to be admired; and Boswell was good at admiring: but a man also to be loved, direct, kind-hearted and sympathetic. He had too what we should scarcely expect in the patriot general—a wide knowledge of literature and considerable culture. General Paoli was in fact entirely suitable to be Boswellised, more suitable it might almost seem than Doctor Sam himself; but the latter was a man of far greater intelligence.

The opinions of Boswell in any case are clear enough, and we may read a few specimens from the 'Tour in Corsica.'

The contemplation of such a character really existing was of more service to me than all I had been able to draw from books, from conversation or from the exertions of my own mind. I had often enough formed the idea of a man continually such as I could conceive in my best moments. But this idea appeared like the ideas we are taught in the schools to form of things which may exist, but do not; of seas of milk, and ships of amber. But I saw my highest idea realised in Paoli. It was impossible for me, speculate as I pleased, to have a little opinion of human nature in him.

One morning, I remember, I came in upon him without ceremony, while he was dressing. I was glad to have an opportunity of seeing him in those teasing moments, when, according to the Duke of Rochefoucault, no man is a hero to his valet de chambre. The lively nobleman who has a malicious pleasure in endeavouring to divest human nature of its dignity, by exhibiting partial views, and exaggerating faults, would HERO-WORSHIP have owned that Paoli was every moment of his life a hero.

Here is a candid unpretending hero-worship. If it eludes the virtue of moderation it escapes the vice of mediocrity. In this is its capacity for greatness. For the moment there is nothing very great about it, but it has a most desirable effect for good in Boswell:

Never was I so thoroughly sensible of my own defects as while I was in Corsica. I felt how small were my abilities, and how little I knew.

The example made for a genuine modesty in the admirer (though it is doubtful if Boswell was ever suspected of being modest); the Boswell who was 'ambitious to be the companion of Paoli' was willing to deserve the honour of that companionship:

From having known intimately so exalted a character my sentiments of human nature were raised, while, by a sort of contagion, I felt an honest ardour to distinguish myself, and be useful, as far as my situation and abilities would allow; and I was, for the rest of my life, set free from a slavish timidity in the presence of great men, for where shall I find a man greater than Paoli?

The expedition to Corsica was, as we have said, a complete success. To visit the island, to observe the manners of the heroic peasants, and to become the friend of Paoli were admirable undertakings at that time, and under those circumstances. But it was in England that Boswell was to triumph. He was launched upon society with the éclat of an interesting personage; he returned from his adventures over seas to exact without reluctance the homage due to a brave traveller.

The early fame of Boswell came not from Johnson, but from Paoli and Corsica. It is a fact worth remarking, because Boswell's connection with Johnson is so much the more important for us, that we are apt to forget that he can have had another title to renown. He was 'Corsica' Boswell and 'Paoli' Boswell, as Dr. Birkbeck Hill remarks, long before he became famous as 'Johnson' Boswell.

Boswell himself fully appreciated the situation. He felt that he had accomplished something of which he could be justly proud. He knew himself to be in the public eye. 'No apology shall be made,' he writes in the preface to his book, 'for presenting the world with "An Account of Corsica." It has been for some time expected from me; and I own that the ardour of publick opinion has both encouraged and intimidated me.' Johnson wrote him a letter which he quoted without permission in the 'Tour to Corsica'—'Come home and expect such a welcome as is due to him whom a wise and noble curiosity has led where perhaps no native of this country ever was before.' He said no doubt what he really felt.

When Boswell returned to England in 1766 he became therefore, quite naturally, the champion of Corsican liberty. But this was only one phase of the ACCOUNT OF CORSICA fame to which he aspired; there was still, and there was always, the desire to shine in the great and elevated sphere of literature, and the opportunity had now arrived to write a book of universal interest.

It was in 1768 that the first literary work of any magnitude which Boswell produced, 'An Account of Corsica, the journal of a tour to that island; and memoirs of Pascal Paoli,' was published. The title explains exactly the scope of the book. The account of Corsica is historical; the journal is in its method much like other books of travel, except for the biographical part which deals with Paoli. Of the historical part of the book there is nothing particular to be said: it is, as Johnson remarked, 'like other histories.' 'Your History,' he told him, 'was copied from books; your Journal rose out of your own experience and observation.' The chief interest of the book is that it is the earliest example of Boswell's biographical method. The memoirs that we have here of Paoli aim at giving a picture of a man in much the same way as does the 'Life of Johnson.' The question as to what exactly was Boswell's method will be discussed later; but we are reminded here that the man who preserved the conversations of Paoli and 'came in upon him without ceremony while he was dressing,' in order to see how he conducted himself before his valet de chambre, was becoming an adept in his own peculiar art.

A great charm of the Journal, also prophetic of the future, lies in the perfect frankness with which Boswell discusses his own feelings. 'We retired to another room to drink coffee. My timidity wore off. I no longer anxiously thought of myself; my whole attention was employed in listening to the illustrious commander of a nation.' Or again, 'I enjoyed a luxury of noble sentiment. Paoli became more affable with me. I made myself known to him. I forgot the great distance between us and had every day some hours of private conversation with him.' Boswell realised that a Journal is delightful only if it is quite informal. We have a pleasing sense of inconsequent freedom when we read in the Journal several pages quoted from the 'First Book of the Maccabees.' But it is not irrelevant to Boswell's purpose. It occurred to his thoughts; and that is a sufficient justification, whether it seem ludicrous or incongruous or ponderous, for its inclusion. There is no scene in the 'Tour in Corsica' which comes up to the best in the 'Life of Johnson,' but there are several descriptions, such as that quoted above, when Boswell played the pipe and sang 'Hearts of Oak,' which are really artistic and pleasing.

The book, at all events, had the effect of amusing people and it gave them an interest in Corsica too. Boswell had good accounts of it on all sides. 'My A SUCCESSFUL BOOK book,' he writes to Temple, 'has amazing celebrity:[⁸] Lord Lyttelton, Mr. Walpole, Mrs. Macaulay, Mr. Garrick, have all written me noble letters about it.' The sale must have been very rapid. The dedication to the first edition is dated October 29, 1767, and the preface to the third edition on the same day of October, his birthday, in the following year. In this preface he explains that he has acquired that literary fame which he desired:

May I be permitted to say that the success of this book has exceeded my warmest hopes. When I first ventured to send it into the world, I fairly owned an ardent desire for literary fame. I have obtained my desire; and whatever clouds may overcast my days, I can now walk here among the rocks and woods of my ancestors, with an agreeable consciousness that I have done something worthy.

There is nothing deserving particular remark in an author's desire for literary fame. But it is remarkable that a man should proclaim it to the world as Boswell did. The common ideal of an artist supposes that his work should be, in the first place, the expression of his own personality; an expression because to him it is necessary to reproduce in some form what he sees and feels: it is for himself and himself alone, and the world without is allowed to share, partly that the artist may earn a living, partly perhaps that he may have some justification for his self-absorption; and in greater part no doubt, in some cases more than in others, but in every case a little, that he may win the applause that we all like at bottom. None of these reasons, and, least of all, the desire for fame, is held to be a motive for producing art. There may be various impulses with varying circumstances; but there can be but one motive.

The ambition which Boswell had, and which he expressed so freely, is peculiar in some ways for the end desired, but it is not essentially different from that of other artists.

He who publishes a book, affecting not to be an 'authour',[⁹] and professing an indifference for literary fame, may possibly impose upon many people such an idea of his consequence as he wishes may be received. For my part, I should be proud to be known as an authour and I have an ardent ambition for literary fame; for of all possessions I should imagine literary fame to be the most valuable. A man who has been able to furnish a book which has been approved by the world, has established himself as a respectable character in distant society, without any danger of having that character lessened by the observation of his weaknesses. To preserve an uniform dignity among those who see us every day is hardly possible; and to aim at it must put us under the fetters of a perpetual LITERARY AMBITION restraint. The authour of an approved book may allow his natural disposition an easy play, and yet indulge the pride of superiour genius when he considers that, by those who know him only as an authour, he never ceases to be respected. Such an authour, when in his hours of discontent, may have the consolation to think that his writings are at that very time giving pleasure to numbers; and such an authour may cherish the hope of being remembered after death, which has been a great object to the noblest minds in all ages.

The nature of the desire for fame which he had is revealed to us by Boswell in this curious passage. It does not compromise his character as an artist.[¹⁰] He wished to obtain the public esteem, to have the reputation of an ingenious and worthy man; and literature was considered as a means to this end. But we cannot argue that he must therefore have pandered to the public taste: he wrote, as he proclaimed at a later date in a contribution to a periodical, 'from the primary motive of pleasing himself.' This ambition is not in its nature an attitude towards art but towards the world. In all his writings, even in the frivolous publications of his youth, Boswell has expressed his own person in a peculiar degree. We must not suppose, when we see an eagerness for literary fame, which, from the frankness of his expression, may appear extravagant, that he lacked a literary conscience, for he had an excellent one; nor indeed that it mattered at all to him whether opinion in general should care about his book, except in so far as it approved of him, of the real Boswell, which it could not but find there.

Boswell's ideal of the literary man's position is well expressed in one of the letters to Temple:

Temple, I wish to be at last an uniform, pretty man. I am astonishingly so already, but I wish to be a man who deserves Miss B.... I am always for fixing some period for my perfection as far as possible. Let it be when my account of Corsica is published; I shall then have a character which I must support. I will swear, like an ancient disciple of Pythagoras, to observe silence; I will be grave and reserved, though cheerful and communicative of what is verum atque decens. One great fault of mine is talking at random; I will guard against it.

It is amusing to think of Boswell in this rôle. Already we may see the great contest in his life between natural candour and commonplace ambition—the charm of the 'Tour to Corsica' was the charm of candour, and it was dangerous to dreams of future greatness in the sphere of public affairs. Boswell understood that to gain respect he must be more serious. But this he never was able to be; it was his nature to be extravagant. He had a mind which in some respects was wholly unconventional, and though he tried sometimes, he could never entirely repress his BUFFOONERY feelings: the consequence was that though there were many things about which he cared very much, it was never possible to take him quite seriously; if a man plays the buffoon sometimes we are in danger of being fooled if we give him credit for being in earnest; and so, if we are to preserve our amour propre, which is what everybody wants to do, we must laugh at a buffoon whatever he does.

A most notable piece of Boswell's buffoonery was in connection with the Shakespeare Jubilee at Stratford-on-Avon in 1769. He attended this festival dressed as an armed Corsican chief. This perhaps was not particularly odd; the form of rejoicing which the company indulged in was a 'Mask.' It is dangerous even so, and hardly decent, to blow the personal trumpet so loudly. Boswell, however, was not content merely with the public advertisement of his connexion with Corsica; he wrote to the London Magazine[¹¹] an elaborate unsigned account of himself and his costume: it was entitled 'Account of the Armed Corsican Chief at the Masquerade at Shakespeare's Jubilee, with a fine whole-length portrait of James Boswell, Esq., in the dress of an armed Corsican chief, as he appeared at the Jubilee Mask.' There is no need to give here the text of this document: it has been quoted at length a number of times, and it suffices to say that there can be no possible doubt that Boswell wrote it and that he wrote it to exhibit himself in a favourable light. The incident is characteristic of Boswell. It is not the mad whim that may occur once in a lifetime, the event which stands as it were by itself apart from the man; it is not an experiment miscarried, that has taken him away from his usual self and so must remain unexplained or be put to the long account of genius: rather it is the sort of oddity that we come to expect of Boswell.

Frolics of this kind naturally deprived Boswell of the respect which he desired for himself as a man of letters. The 'Tour to Corsica' was an admirable beginning to a literary career; he had then the chance of founding the reputation he wanted as a person of weight, a man whose judgment must be accounted of some importance by the world at large. His writings about Corsica had been widely read and his views had found general sympathy. Moreover the popular poetess, Mrs. Barbauld, had paid homage in verse to his fame as an explorer. But by such behaviour as this at Stratford these hopes were frustrated. And to him, though perhaps not to us, this was the tragedy of his life.

[1:] Samuel Johnson, by Walter Raleigh, 1907.

[2:] This remark we may suppose was deliberately misinterpreted by some of Boswell's contemporaries and he finds it necessary to introduce a defence of it: 'I am willing to believe that I meant this as light pleasantry to soothe and conciliate him, and not as humiliating abasement at the expense of my country.' It was of course an apology for coming from Scotland, but an absurd apology of which he saw the absurdity, as though a man were to apologise for being six feet high.

[3:] London Magazine, vol. li., p. 359.

[4:] In August 1763.

[5:] Life of Johnson, iii., 331.

[6:] Tour to Corsica, pp. 320-1.

[7:] Private Correspondence of David Hume, 1820.

[8:] It is an interesting fact that it was translated into German, Dutch, Italian, and French (Gentleman's Magazine, June 1795—Letter from J. B. R.) The Life, I believe, has never been translated. The same correspondent says, 'It was received with extraordinary approbation.'

[9:] For Boswell's views on spelling see this same preface.

[10:] Mr. Malone, speaking of the Life, said, 'That in this work he had not both fame and profit in view, would be idle to assert; but to suppose that these were his principal objects is to know nothing of the author, and nothing of human nature.' Gentleman's Magazine, June 1795.

[11:] September 1769.

CHAPTER III

The portion of Boswell's career which we have been relating up to this point gives rise by natural sequence to the discussion of one or two interesting questions about his personality. We must know the part played in the main theme by his peculiar qualities. We must notice how they seem to assist or to impede his particular faculty for biography.

Allusion has already been made to the reasons for which Boswell was attracted by two great men, Dr. Johnson and General Paoli. We must see now in general the reason of that intimacy which he took care to cultivate with a large number of distinguished men.

Boswell, there can be no doubt, liked men in some way because they were distinguished. We must remember that the judgments of the world were always very real standards to him. If a man were great, he must be somehow good; and to be the friend of such a man, that was good too. It is not that Boswell judged of characters wholly by success. We may see that as he grew older he judged them more and more by the Johnsonian morality. He grew less tolerant of heresy under the influence of his moral guide. Hence the dislike of Gibbon:—'He is an ugly, affected, disgusting fellow, and poisons our Literary Club to me.' Johnson probably shared this feeling and undoubtedly shared the reasons for it, which Boswell expresses in Johnsonian phrases: 'I think it is right that as fast as infidel wasps or venomous insects, whether creeping or flying, are hatched, they should be crushed.' This was said in reference to Gibbon's book; the sentiments were extended to Adam Smith. 'Murphy says that he has read thirty pages of Smith's "Wealth," but says that he shall read no more: Smith too is now of our Club. It has lost its select merit.' Personal antipathy in the one case and ignorance of economics in the other need not surprise us. But it comes as a shock, nevertheless, to discover Boswell's views upon the two men who were, intellectually, the most distinguished of his contemporaries. The Doctor's prejudices may have much to do with it. Boswell records a similar judgment in the 'Tour to the Hebrides': 'Infidelity in a Highland gentleman appeared to me peculiarly offensive. I was sorry for him as he had otherwise a good character.'

And yet he was probably always as he was in the early years far more tolerant than Johnson. There is an instructive passage also in the 'Tour to the Hebrides' about Hume. Johnson was talking about Hume's infidelity: 'He added something much too rough, DISTINGUISHED FRIENDS both as to Mr. Hume's head and heart, which I suppress. Violence is, in my opinion, not suitable to the Christian cause. Besides I always lived on good terms with Mr. Hume, though I have frankly told him I was not clear that it was right in me to keep company with him.' That he did not condemn the infidel Hume, shows that Boswell's prejudices were weaker, at least, than friendship. Boswell, besides, throughout his life gave a very high value to mere intellectual power. He complained of 'dull provinciality' in Scotland, because the people of Edinburgh were less intelligent than the Londoners. His love of London was founded upon the need he felt of conversing with clever people; and this need became in him with maturity, not weaker, as in most cases, but stronger.

In these early years Boswell was glad to make a friend of any particularly intelligent person, and his acquaintances included characters widely differing—Hume and Rousseau, Johnson and Lord Hailes, Wilkes and Paoli. Boswell clearly had pleasure in the society of them all; he did not, like Johnson, condemn them to a place beyond the range of his acquaintance; these men were specimens of human nature worthy to be studied; he saw some good in all of them. There is a characteristic passage in the 'Life' about the meeting of Johnson and Wilkes which illustrates the attitude:

My desire of being acquainted with celebrated men of every description had made me, much about the same time, obtain an introduction to Dr. Samuel Johnson and to John Wilkes, Esq. Two men more different could perhaps not be selected out of all mankind. They have even attacked one another with some asperity in their writings; yet I lived in habits of friendship with both. I could fully relish the excellence of each; for I have ever delighted in that intellectual chymistry which can separate good qualities from evil in the same person.

He looked upon men much as we look upon works of art, distinguishing that which, as art, has merit, and crediting with a certain value every design or idea which has been executed well, but attaching ourselves more particularly to a few rare objects which have some special significance or appeal for our own nature. Johnson and Paoli had this appeal for Boswell. Wilkes and Hume attracted him more because they were interesting individuals for whom, though he really disapproved of them, he might retain some slight affection because they were representative men. He might dislike the things they represented, but like them in spite of this: like them, one might almost say, for representing something.

With Hume, for instance, he had a considerable friendship at one time. He was of course, an individual to be studied; to Temple, Boswell related his conversations much as he recorded those of Johnson and Paoli. But he did not see him merely because he INTEREST IN MEN was interested; he liked him too: 'David is really amiable; I always regret to him his unlucky principles and he smiles at my faith.' It is probable that as he grew older Boswell grew less tolerant. He was always somewhat of an experimentalist, interested in various sides of life and fitting one or another to his own case; but though he became with maturity more definitely attached to the conventional Christianity, to 'belief,' as he termed it, as opposed to 'infidelity,' and less tolerant of the people who held different views, he never hated a man for being a Whig or an atheist as Johnson did.

Interest and affection: these, then, are real motives with Boswell for seeking as he did the company of distinguished men. The question, however, of a further motive—of the snobbishness in Boswell's nature—still remains.

Boswell himself was well aware of a certain 'propensity in his disposition,' of a particular pleasure from the society of the great and a desire which he had to form friendships among them; he knew too that his behaviour was condemned by many of his contemporaries. In the 'Tour to the Hebrides'[¹] he has given his own account and explanation of his conduct:

My fellow-traveller and I talked of going to Sweden; and, while we were settling our plan, I expressed a pleasure in the prospect of seeing the king. Johnson: 'I doubt, Sir, if he would speak to us.' Colonel McLeod said, 'I am sure Mr. Boswell would speak to him.' But, seeing me a little disconcerted by his remark, he politely added, 'and with great propriety.' Here let me offer a short defence of that propensity in my disposition, to which this gentleman alluded. It has procured me much happiness. I hope it does not deserve so hard a name as either forwardness or impudence. If I know myself, it is nothing more than an eagerness to enjoy the society of men distinguished either by their rank or their talents, and a diligence to attain what I desire. If a man is praised for seeking knowledge, though mountains and seas are in his way, may he not be pardoned, whose ardour, in pursuit of the same object, leads him to encounter difficulties as great, though of a different kind?

This defence is characteristic of the manner in which Boswell consistently treated the world. 'Curiosity,' said Mrs. Thrale, 'carried Boswell farther than it ever carried any mortal breathing. He cared not what he provoked so as he said what such a one would say or do.'[²] But the basis of social conventions is a desire to consider the feelings of others. A person's 'forwardness' and 'impudence' are judged not so much by his own sentiments as by the effect he produces upon other people. Boswell pressed an acquaintanceship entirely because he thought it might be good for himself; he never considered the views of the acquaintance: 'It has procured me much happiness.' He did not BOSWELL A SNOB understand the consequences of this attitude. He was an intellectual parasite upon society, determined at any cost to feed upon the good qualities of others, taking where he would, without caring if he gave. It may possibly be well for the individual that he should consider himself alone; but society, just because it is society, must object to the egoist. This Boswell never was able to understand. His own point of view was concerned with what he could get from others; and though he was by nature in many ways excellent as the member of a community, he had no conception of himself in this capacity. He cared a great deal about his importance, but very little about his value. He took systematically, he gave at random. Interest in human beings simply for his own sake because it pleased him[³]: that is one prime motive which impelled him to seek the acquaintance of distinguished men.

Boswell, besides this, was essentially a snob. To have pleasure in the company of distinguished men, not only from a sense of the good qualities they have, but from a feeling that their greatness adds to one's position in the esteem of mankind, that is to be a snob. Boswell had this feeling; he freely admitted it. 'Now, Temple,' he writes, 'can I help indulging my vanity? Sir David Dalrymple says to me in his last letter, "It gives me much pleasure to think that you have obtained the friendship of Mr. Samuel Johnson...."' And again:

I am really the great man now. I have had David Hume, in the forenoon, and Mr. Johnson, in the afternoon, of the same day, visiting me. Sir John Pringle, Dr. Franklin, and some more company dined with me to-day; and Mr. Johnson and General Oglethorpe one day, Mr. Garrick alone another, and David Hume and some more literati another, dine with me next week. 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. By the bye, the Earl of Pembroke and Captain Meadows are just setting out for Corsica, and I have the honour of introducing them by a letter to the General. David Hume came on purpose, the other day, to tell me that the Duke of Bedford was very fond of my book, and had recommended it to the Duchess.

'The great man' because he kept the company of great men—that is what he says, and it is snobbish. His enjoyment of 'the society of men distinguished by their rank or their talents' depended partly upon that. He considered this to be a legitimate way of acquiring fame.

The absurdity of Boswell's behaviour in this respect seems all the more ridiculous from the fact that it was unnecessary. When he returned from Corsica he had obtained, as we remarked above, a position of LETTER TO CHATHAM considerable distinction for a young man. He had only to wait discreetly and carefully and he was certain to obtain the patronage of the great. But he courted them, on the contrary, with unheard-of fervour. The climax was reached in a letter to Chatham, with whom he had an opportunity of corresponding about Corsica. He writes from the pinnacle of pomposity to descend to the pit of adulation: 'I only wish that circumstances were such that your Lordship could have an opportunity of showing the interest you take in the fate of a people who well deserve the favour of so illustrious a patron of liberty as your Lordship.' He proceeds by quoting, as the mediator between the General and Lord Chatham, a letter from Paoli. There is then an immortal passage in which the underlying egoism, too little concealed, is yoked with a flattery which could scarcely be tolerated in Olympia:

Your Lordship applauds my 'generous warmth for so striking a character as the able chief.' Indeed, my Lord, I have the happiness of being capable to contemplate with supreme delight those distinguished spirits by whom God is sometimes pleased to honour humanity; and as I have no personal favour to ask of your Lordship, I will tell you with the confidence of one who does not fear to be thought a flatterer, that your character, my Lord, has filled many of my best hours with that noble admiration which a disinterested soul can enjoy in the bower of philosophy.

Then follows an account of Boswell's plan for his book about Corsica; and finally his personal vanity leaps over every barrier.

As for myself, to please a worthy and respected father, one of our Scotch judges, I studied law, and am now fairly entered to the bar. I begin to like it. I can labour hard; I 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 virtuous fame.

This letter illustrates much of Boswell's attitude towards the great, and it will be necessary to refer to it again in that connection; it shows, at least, how earnestly Boswell desired the friendship of the great man, and what a thrill of pleasure those letters from Chatham must have given him.

However much we may dislike this propensity of Boswell's disposition, while admitting that it is unpleasant in itself, although we would not and could not have Boswell without it, there is no reason to see in much of it a blacker vice than merely the ignorance of how to behave. And it was connected as we have shown with feelings not entirely selfish. But of the flagrant self-advertisement to which we have referred above no such agreeable things may be said. It is condemnable without compensation as an obtrusive egoism and foolish vanity. It must be written LIMITS OF EGOISM down frankly on the debit side of Boswell's peculiar genius, and it was as much opposed to the proper exercise of his biographical talents as to his more practical career.

.....

We are forced to wonder, and it is important that we should decide, whether in spite of his immoderate self-centredness Boswell was capable of acting without considering his own advantage in the interest of others. Had he, in the first place, any real care for the cause of Corsican liberty?

It is often far from easy to discover what Boswell's feelings were, because the balance between sentiment and expression was with him very ill-adjusted. By prolonged study of the Boswellian extravagances we may come to perceive, as we think, how much Boswell really felt; but even so it is hardly possible to explain any valid reason for judgments of this nature. Boswell was often guilty of extravagance; but it would be as false to believe that he felt none of the zeal he talks about so easily, as to believe that he felt as much as he says. He undoubtedly exaggerated, but he probably never made an absolute misstatement.

There is a passage of great enthusiasm for the Corsicans in a letter to Johnson:[⁴] 'Shall they not rise in the great cause of liberty, and break the galling yoke? And shall not every liberal soul be warm for them?' Boswell's heart must have been warm when he wrote that: but we are unfortunately still left in doubt by an anti-climax: 'No! while I live, Corsica and the cause of the brave islanders shall ever employ much of my attention, shall ever interest me in the sincerest manner.' The letter in which these quotations occur is dated April 26, 1768; it is possible that Boswell's ardour had begun to cool by that time and that the cause of liberty, though it might 'employ much of his attention' was less vital to him than he imagined. The 'Tour to Corsica,' however, gives an impression of genuine interest and sympathy with the Corsicans. Boswell seems to have liked very well these simple folk, who appreciated more readily than his countrymen the natural gaiety and good humour of his spirits.[⁵] How different is his attitude in the 'Tour to the Hebrides' towards the Scots! We must remember too that Boswell, whatever may have been his motives, did much in England and Scotland to help the Corsicans. Besides publishing his book, which was of value to their cause, he raised a subscription and sent out £700 worth of ordnance.[⁶] He also collected and published a volume of 'British Essays in favour of the Brave Corsicans,' some of which he himself wrote.

Boswell had in fact a real generosity of character; he GENEROSITY hated anything mean, and expressed himself as anxious to cure his own 'narrowness.' He could be kind to his friends and was willing to lend money. He was interested as a lawyer in the decisions of the courts and readily bestowed his sympathy. On behalf of a certain Dr. Dodd, a divine who was under sentence of death for forgery, he wrote to Dr. Johnson: 'If for ten righteous men the Almighty would have spared Sodom, shall not a thousand acts of goodness done by Dr. Dodd counterbalance one crime?' And Dr. Johnson afterwards used his pen in Dr. Dodd's service. On another occasion he appealed for his friend's assistance in the case of a Scotch schoolmaster—a client of Boswell's, who had been 'deprived of his office for being somewhat severe in the chastisement of his scholars': Boswell in his letter to Johnson seems to have at heart both the interests of the schoolmaster and the principle of corporal punishment. For his friend Temple he more than once went out of his way to obtain some favour. He treated his tenants with the greatest consideration, and even made special provisions in his will for their future welfare.[⁷] But Boswell was not one of those who continually exercise these amiable qualities. It is probable indeed that, had he tried, he would have met with more rebuffs than encouragement. To be flagrantly kind with any success requires a good deal of cunning, and of that useful quality Boswell had extremely little: he was likely to appear in any good work more meddlesome than great-hearted. But if with him care for the happiness of others was not the first consideration, he was at bottom a sympathetic, kind-hearted man, and capable of generous actions.

It is very important that we should bear this in mind about Boswell. Those who are gifted with powers of expression are often in one sense primarily egoists—more so than other men because they are apt to become more completely absorbed—and Boswell, as we have shown, was not without his portion of egoism; but there may be a place in the lives of such men for unselfish feelings, and if we may think that Boswell had his due share of them we may judge less harshly in him the egoism which we cannot admire.

.....

Boswell, as we have seen, had already at the age of twenty-seven made a bid for renown. He was anxious to shine in more lights than one. It was not mere social success or literary fame that he wanted: he had an ardent desire to be successful in his profession. The sphere of employment which had been chosen for him by his father with his own sanction was the Scotch Bar, to which he was formally 'called' in 1766.[⁸] His work seems to have engrossed at once a great AT THE BAR deal of his time. He writes on March 4th, 1767, to Temple:

I am surprised at myself, I already speak with so much ease and boldness, and have already the language of the bar so much at command. I have now cleared eighty guineas. My clerk comes to me every morning at six, and I have dictated to him forty folio pages in one day. It is impossible to give you an idea of my present life. I send you one of my law papers, and a copy of my thesis. I am doing nobly; but I have not leisure for learning. I can hardly ever answer the letters of my friends.

This is the letter of a man who finds himself engrossed as well as busy. The truth is that Boswell was extremely anxious to make a mark in his profession. Here, as always, he must win approval; he must become a person to be considered. To this end he succeeded in mixing himself up with the Douglas Cause, a case concerned with a Scotch title which was commanding much attention in the summer of 1767. He seems to have acted as a voluntary counsel to Mr. Douglas the plaintiff, and was most diligent, even perhaps to excess, in his interest. In connection with this trial, two small publications appeared from Boswell's hand. The first of them, 'The Essence of the Douglas Cause,' is a précis of the whole affair, well arranged and clearly expressed; it was written with a view to aiding Boswell's own side in the case,[⁹] in reply to a pleading from the other side, 'Considerations on the Douglas Cause.' The labour of compiling this summary must have been very great. Boswell tells us in the introduction that he was present during the whole deliberation of the Cause before the Court of Session and took very full notes. It shows, as Mr. Fitzgerald has remarked, how industrious Boswell could be when his enthusiasm was aroused.

The other publication, 'Dorando: A Spanish Tale'[¹⁰] affects to be a story about a trial in Spain, but reproduces the characters in the Douglas case. Under this thin veil approbation and criticism are distributed to the two parties, and the cause decided. The publication of 'Dorando,'[¹¹] extracts of which appeared in several of the Scotch newspapers and were held by some of the Scotch judges to be contempt of court, was wholly characteristic of Boswell. Whether or no it would be possible to find in his conduct anything which amounted to a breach of etiquette, it is clear that a publication of this sort might well injure his position at the Bar. It is true that the author's name did not appear, but it was not to be supposed that it would always remain a secret, and the precaution was probably taken with a view to being on the right side rather of the law than of the lawyers. Boswell, with all his wish to win the esteem THE DOUGLAS CAUSE of men, never understood how easily the opposite is earned and how harshly a tiny cosmos will punish an offence against itself. And when the humorous side of things struck him forcibly he was unable to repress his feelings.

Boswell's behaviour during the Douglas Cause is said to have been decidedly extravagant. His father was heard to say that 'James had taken a tout on a new horn,'[¹²] and a story got about which, though it may have been false, must have had some relation to the common conception of Boswell, that when he heard that the House of Lords had reversed the decision of the Court of Session, he placed himself at the head of an uproarious mob who broke his father's windows.

There are other indications than the Douglas Cause to show that Boswell was anxious to be successful in his legal career. It is not to be thought that he always displayed the energy which he showed at this time. But he clearly took the trouble, on several occasions recorded in the 'Life,' to prepare the best arguments he could to support his case; and if we must suppose that he was as anxious as he represents himself to be that justice should be done, it is still quite evident that he hoped to gain some advantage to himself from the assistance which he solicited and obtained from Johnson, and was glad that the right should triumph, in part no doubt because it was supported by James Boswell. In fact it is probable that Johnson's assistance was of little value. As Boswell says on one occasion, having presented the written arguments of Johnson without success, 'their Lordships in general, though they were pleased to call this, "a well-drawn paper," preferred the former very inferior petition which I had written; thus confirming the truth of an observation made to me by one of their number in a merry mood: "My dear Sir, give yourself no trouble in the composition of the paper you present to us; for, indeed, it is casting pearls before swine."'

We shall have to consider when we come to the last years of Boswell's life the various reasons for his failure at the Bar. But one reason may be mentioned here because it is so essential a part of his character that we should do wrong not to have it in mind as we go over the spectacle of his whole life. Boswell, it must be remembered, was called to the Scotch Bar; but the society of the Scotch, and particularly of the Scotch lawyers, was never congenial to him. As early as March 1767 he writes to Temple: 'It must be confessed that our Court of Session is not so favourable to eloquence as the English Courts.' By 1775 he was apparently quite tired of his work; 'On my arrival here [Edinburgh] I had the pleasure to find my wife and two little daughters as well as I could wish; but indeed, my worthy priest, it required some DISLIKES THE SCOTCH philosophy to bear the change from England to Scotland. The unpleasing tone, the rude familiarity, the barren conversation of those whom I found here, in comparison with what I had left, really hurt my feelings.'

It is probable that Boswell's opinions about the Scotch lawyers were not entirely concealed from them. And they knew, no doubt, that he had friends among the Edinburgh players, and may have resented the fact. 'The Scottish Themis,' says Scott, speaking of his own early experience, 'is peculiarly jealous of any flirtation with the Muses on the part of those who have ranged themselves under her banners.' We may suppose that Boswell's flirtations, with the Muses at all events, injured his position in legal circles.

The General Assembly [Boswell continues] is sitting, and I practise at its Bar. There is de facto something low and coarse in such employment, though on paper it is a Court of Supreme Judicature; but guineas must be had.... To speak well, when I despise both the cause and the judges, is difficult; but I believe I shall do wonderfully. I look forward with aversion to the little, dull, labours of the Court of Session.

Boswell himself was quite unlike most Scotchmen, and he relates in the 'Life' the remarks upon this subject made by Johnson at various times:

Johnson: 'I never say, I do not value Boswell more for being born to an estate, because I do not care.' Boswell: 'Nor for being a Scotchman.' Johnson: 'Nay, Sir, I do value you more for being a Scotchman. You are a Scotchman without the faults of a Scotchman. You would not have been so valuable as you are, had you not been a Scotchman.' And again, when talking of the Scotch nation, Johnson: 'You are an exception, though. Come, gentlemen, let us candidly admit that there is one Scotchman who is cheerful.' Beauclerk: 'But he is a very unnatural Scotchman.'

Professor Raleigh has emphasised this point in his delightful manner:

If I had to find a paradox in Boswell, I should find it in this, that he was a Scot. His character was destitute of all the vices, and all the virtues, which are popularly, and in the main rightly, attributed to the Scottish people. The young Scot is commonly shy, reserved, and self-conscious; independent in temper, sensible to affront, slow to make friends, and wary in society. Boswell was the opposite of all these things. He made himself at home in all societies, and charmed others into a like ease and confidence. Under the spell of his effervescent good-humour the melancholy Highlanders were willing to tell stories of the supernatural. 'Mr. Boswell's frankness and gayety,' says Johnson, 'made everybody communicative.'

And Boswell himself took no trouble to conceal, but rather published this truth. He saw very clearly certain qualities in the Scotch character which he disliked.

It must be remembered, however, that Boswell professed to be in one sense, perhaps the only right LOVE FOR SCOTLAND sense, patriotic. He may have hated the Scotch, but he loved Scotland and loved in particular the home of his ancestors. If he preferred to live in England, it was a preference only for the society he found there. During those memorable months when the great Doctor made his tour in Scotland, Boswell had a real anxiety that Johnson should get rid of his prejudices and appreciate the country. He takes the trouble to defend at length Johnson's 'Journey to the Western Islands' from the anger of Scotchmen, but he does so by asserting that Johnson saw both the good and the bad.

'And let me add' [he says in an extravagant vein] 'that, citizen of the world as I hold myself to be, I have that just sense of the merit of an ancient nation, which has been ever renowned for its valour, which in former times maintained its independence against a powerful neighbour, and in modern times has been equally distinguished for its ingenuity and industry in civilised life, that I should have felt a genuine indignation at any injustice done to it. Johnson treated Scotland no worse than he did even his best friends, whose characters he used to give as they appeared to him, both in light and shade.'

However Boswell may have had 'that just sense of the merit of an ancient nation,' it is clear, as we have said, that he disliked very much his legal work in Scotland. But it must not be thought that he rapidly became grave and soured by constant irritation. That process was a slow one in his case. His disposition was too sanguine to feel very much, as a young man, his disappointments. He did without doubt, as he grew older, become less frivolous, and more sedate; with this we must suppose that his marriage in 1769 was in some way connected.

.....

Before we come to discuss the domesticity of Boswell we must consider for a time those affairs of the heart in which he had such a plentiful experience.

About these he was as frank as he was about all the subjects which he discusses in his letters to Temple. We have detailed accounts (detailed enough, apparently, to offend, unfortunately for our purpose, the delicate ear of the first editor of the letters) which describe in several cases the precise nature of Boswell's love or passion or whatever be the appropriate expression. These accounts were intentionally complete. The eye of Boswell is fixed upon the thermometer of his affections to observe and indicate its rise and fall. Nothing could illustrate the man so well as the attitude which he here so nakedly revealed, typical entirely of Boswell because it is so completely self-centred. He lived for his own pleasure and says as much: 'That pleasure is not the aim but the end of our being, seems to be philosophically demonstrable. Therefore all the labour and all the serious business of life should first be considered as means to FIRST LOVE that end.'[¹³] In love he was not less governed by this system than he was in every other phase of life.

It was at the early age of eighteen when Boswell was still at the University that the son of Venus came to him upon the first of many visits. The lady, a Miss W——t, is described as a most desirable companion; and Cupid in one sense was kind to Boswell—for though his hope of an ideal future in the company of the beloved, the heiress to a fortune of thirty thousand pounds, was not destined to be realised, he was able, if the lady were disinclined to adorn his life, to 'bear it æquo animo, and retire into the calm regions of philosophy.'

The subject of matrimony seems often to have occupied the thoughts of Boswell. At times the appeal of unmarried life was strong. 'The bachelor has a carelessness of disposition which pleases everybody, and everybody thinks him a sort of common good—a feather which flies about and lights now here, now there.' But the ideal of a winged good which was to float about thus amiably gave way at times to a more sedate view of living. 'If you think of the comforts of a home, where you are a sort of sovereign, the kind endearments of an amiable woman, who has no wish but to make you happy, the amusement of seeing your children grow up from infancy to manhood, and the pleasing pride of being the father of brave and learned men, all which may be the case—then marriage is truly the condition in which true felicity is to be found.' In the absence, however, of a felicity which could add so much comfort and pleasure and so small a burden of responsibility to his life, Boswell was happy enough, he proceeds to relate, to have a 'dear infidel.' That there was no infidelity on the part of this 'charmer' Boswell is able to affirm, while he does not deny that she has a husband; but though, as he says, 'imagination represented it just as being fond of a pretty, lively, black little lady, who, to oblige me, stayed in Edinburgh, and I very genteelly paid her expenses,' he was glad no doubt that circumstances permitted him to arrange his pleasures without hypocrisy.

The course of his amour was not destined to run very smoothly. The ardour of Boswell for the deserted or deserting lady was intermittent and expensive; it was difficult to be rid of her because the tendernesses of a farewell upset the unstable balance of Boswell's susceptibility; 'I was sometimes resolved to let her go, and sometimes my heart was like to burst within me. I took her dear hand; her eyes were full of passion, I took her in my arms.' The dramatic moment is too much for the best-laid plans, and Boswell was grateful, as he well might be, to find himself free after two months. 'I am totally emancipated from my charmer, as much as from the gardener's daughter who now puts on my fire and performs menial offices SEVERAL LADIES like any other wench.' The affair with the gardener's daughter is unfortunately not related. She is mentioned only this once where Boswell tells us that a year before this date (March 30, 1767), he had been 'so madly in love as to think of marrying her.' Two other ladies are mentioned in the same letter, Miss Bosville and Miss Blair. He thought of the former, who was his cousin, as a convenient match, but the suit does not appear to have been prosecuted with much vigour. She was kept, as it were, in the second line of battle to fill up a gap when an object of devotion was required. There is another name of the same kind, Zelide, a Dutch lady whom he met at Utrecht and who appears upon the scene periodically. Boswell several times threatened to marry her. How many affairs there were of this class it is difficult to estimate. Exact information on the subject would be valuable as enabling us to adjust the proportion of these matters. From isolated remarks referring to women not elsewhere mentioned, such as 'My Italian angel is constant,' we might suppose that Boswell conducted his amours on the magnificent scale of Solomon. But this can hardly have been the case.

Miss Blair was a Scotch heiress whose estate was not far from Auchinleck. Boswell's father was in favour of the match, which would have been in every way desirable, particularly so if it be considered appropriate that the young lady was in love with Boswell. The initial stages were highly propitious. Miss Blair with her mother was persuaded, without great difficulties we may suppose, to stay at Auchinleck, where Boswell in the 'romantic groves' of his ancestors 'adored her like a divinity.' The heir whose 'grand object is the ancient family of Auchinleck—a venerable and noble principle' intends to carry off the 'neighbouring princess' by assault rather than siege, and in the pursuit of romance allows no time for love to languish. An emissary[¹⁴] is despatched, no other than the faithful Temple, who is at once to blow the trumpet as a herald, and as a spy to observe the enemy's fortifications. 'Praise me for my good qualities—you know them.' These are the instructions. Romance is to be fed by mystery and the chase encouraged by the elusiveness of the quarry. 'But talk also how odd, how inconstant, how impetuous, how much accustomed to women of intrigue. Ask gravely, Pray don't you imagine there is something of madness in that family?' A tinge of insanity may be a pleasing dash of colour in the hero; or the suggestion may draw the attention of the fair one to extravagances which are to be noted as the fantasies of genius. The ultimate halo, the crown of glory, is reserved for the explorer of distant lands and the friend of men distinguished in a continent. PURSUIT OF MISS BLAIR 'Talk of my various travels, German princes—Voltaire and Rousseau.' The effect upon the audience of this elaborate comedy is to be duly registered in order that the manager may arrange the sequence appropriately and the principal actor appear in splendour at the dramatic moment. 'Observe her well. See how amiable! Judge if she would be happy with your friend. Think of me as the great man at Adamtown—quite classical too; study the mother. Remember well what passes.... Consider what a romantic expedition you are on; take notes.' By the final injunction, the biographer's own peculiar weapon is to be directed at the prize and the lady captured by a sheet of memoranda.

An accident, however, occurs and trivial circumstance is swollen to importance by the fever of impatience. The fervour of a suitor's letter demands immediate reply; but the letter remains for some days in the post. Letter follows letter, and the perturbation increases when jealousy summons the image of a yellow nabob. The actor doubts if he has chosen the proper rôle, and fears the effect of his 'Spanish stateliness.' But the ardent lover is able to exclaim, 'I am entertained with this dilemma like another chapter in my adventures,' and consolation comes in a letter from the Signora 'written with all the warmth of Italian affection.' Finally the matter is explained and there is the pleasure of restoring harmony. Lucky that these matters run never smoothly, for there will be further opportunity of experiencing the tortured joy of a quarrel and the supreme delight of reconciliation. An uninteresting interval is amused by a renewal of intimacy with the 'dear infidel' before another coolness is arranged. The self-possession of the lady now provokes 'a strange sultanish letter, very cold and very formal,' and after an absence of three weeks the suitor pays an eminently agreeable visit to the prospective bride, though still apparently in a rather sultanish mood: 'I am dressed in green and gold. I have my chaise in which I sit alone with Mr. Gray, and Thomas rides by me in a claret-coloured suit with a silver-laced hat.' The final joy was however withheld. 'The princess and I have not yet made up our quarrel, she talks lightly of it.' The adorer is prepared conditionally to soar to the last heights of adoration. 'If she feels as I wish her to do, I shall adore her while my blood is warm': but the philosopher is determined to escape the inconvenience of a wounded heart: 'I shall just bring myself, I hope, to a good, easy tranquillity.' The 'princess' by this time has ceased to be a dupe; she may have seen that the courtship was arranged to give the colouring of romance to conventional matrimony, and alter the pompous comedy of surrender to a serious farce for one party and for the other probably to a serious tragedy. Her manner in any case became more reserved: 'She FAILURE AND CONSOLATION refused sending me a lock ... and she says very cool things upon that head.' The burning lover begins to congratulate himself upon escape from so unsatisfying a mate, and the beautiful princess is discovered to be a jilt. 'Wish me joy, my good friend, of having discovered the snake before it was too late.... After this I shall be upon my guard against ever indulging the least fondness for a Scot lass; I am a soul of a more Southern frame. I may perhaps be fortunate enough to find an Englishwoman who will be sensible of my merits and will study to please my singular humour.' Zelide and Miss Bosville are mentioned in the same letter, the former to illustrate the truth that 'an old flame is easily rekindled' and the latter as a possibility to be kept in mind.

But a volatility amazing even in Boswell produces on the following day a letter which is full of the charms of Miss Blair. The more violent the quarrel the more pleasing the peace-making. A meeting is arranged at Edinburgh; a declaration is made and the now enthusiastic suitor reports, 'I ventured to seize her hand. She is really the finest woman I ever saw.' The 'princess' however is still reserved, and determined efforts have to be made at the theatre.

Next evening I was at the play with them; it was 'Othello.' I sat close behind the princess, and at the most affecting scenes I pressed my hand upon her waist; she was in tears and rather leaned to me. The jealous Moor described my very soul. I often spake to her of the torment she saw before her.

But even after this touching scene there is cause for disquiet. 'Still,' he says, 'I thought her distant, and still I felt uneasy.'

The encouragement however was sufficient to give confidence to the attack, and there follows a tête-à-tête in which 'pleasure from the intimacy of often squeezing and kissing her fine hand, while she looked at me with those beautiful black eyes,' was somewhat darkened by a disconcerting surprise. 'I then asked her to tell me if she had any particular liking for me. What think you, Temple, was her answer? "No; I really have no particular liking for you; I like many people as well as you—I like Jeany Maxwell better than you."' Consolation must now be sought where love is denied. Boswell: 'If you should happen to love another, will you tell me immediately and help me to make myself easy?' Princess: 'Yes, I will.' But the lady's sympathy shows a want of imagination which is highly unsatisfying. Boswell: 'I must, if possible, endeavour to forget you. What would you have me do?' Princess: 'I really don't know what you should do.'

It would appear that honour had no escape from such a defeat but in renewing the encounter. The history of the last period of this wooing, of the nadir of the wooer's fortunes and his cheerfulness in spite of repulses, is told to Temple six weeks later. A new DEFEAT WITHOUT DESPAIR rival appears upon the scene, and there is rumour of an engagement. The rejected suitor writes to ascertain the truth of this alarming story. But his appeal is neglected. Dignity now demands that disappointment shall be concealed, and an alliance is formed with the presumably successful rival, Sir Alexander Gilmour. 'I endeavoured to laugh off my passion, and I got Sir Alexander Gilmour to frank a letter to her, which I wrote in a pleasant strain, and amused myself with the whim.' The lady now appears in London and at the same moment the Nabob. He too is to be an ally, and a final scene is arranged. 'We gave our words as men of honour that we would be honest to each other so that neither should suffer needlessly; and to satisfy ourselves of our real situation, we gave our words of honour that we should both ask her this morning, and I should go first.' The result can hardly have been doubtful. Boswell tells his adorable princess, 'I have great animal spirits, and bear it wonderfully well,' and proceeds to write 'A Crambo Song on Losing my Mistress.'

Although I be an honest laird,

In person rather strong and brawny,

For me the heiress never cared,

For she would have the knight, Sir Sawney.

And when, with ardent vows, I swore,

Loud as Sir Jonathan Trelawney,

The heiress showed me to the door,

And said, she'd have the knight, Sir Sawney.

She told me with a scornful look,