James Boswell was born in Ayrshire, Scotland. His family was of ancient
origin and some social pretension, but the name derives its real
distinction from him. He attended the University of Edinburgh and was
admitted to the Scotch bar. He was, however, of a socially excitable and
adventurous spirit, which impelled him out of the humdrum life of a
petty Scotch laird into the broad currents of the world, and led him to
attach himself to men of intellectual distinction. He was introduced to
Dr. Johnson in 1763, and scrupulously sought his society till Johnson's
death, making at least nine journeys to London for the purpose, and
recording his conversation with painstaking assiduity. To this
enthusiastic industry we owe the 'Life,' published in 1791, a book
allowed on all hands to fulfill the purpose of a biography, in giving an
exact and lively picture of the central figure and of his environment
better than any other ever written. Previous to this, Boswell had spent
some time on the Continent, and, driven by the peculiar form of
hero-worship which was his overmastering impulse, he visited Corsica and
became intimate with Pascal Paoli, the patriot who freed the island from
the Genoese, but was subsequently conquered by the French, In 1768
Boswell published 'An Account of Corsica, Memoirs of Pascal Paoli, and a
Journal of a Tour to the Island.' Of this Johnson said, "The history is
like other histories, but the journal is in a high degree delightful and
curious." Gray said the journal was "a dialogue between a green goose
and a hero."
[Illustration: James Boswell]
In 1793 Boswell was admitted a member of the famous "Literary Club," and
soon after persuaded Dr. Johnson to make a tour of the Hebrides, a
journey at that time presenting almost as many difficulties as a trip to
Labrador does now. His journal, a book quite as entertaining as the
'Life,' was not published till 1786, two years after Johnson's death. As
stated before, Boswell's great book, the 'Life,' was published in 1791.
The author also published a number of minor works which are not worth
enumerating.
The position of James Boswell as a classic author is as well established
as it is unique. It depends entirely on the two books mentioned: 'The
Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson' and the 'Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides,'
which may be considered as one, and indeed were amalgamated into one in
Croker's edition. Further, the interest of these books depends more on
the subject-matter than on the style. No books are better known than
these, and none are buried deeper in oblivion than his other
productions, with the possible exception of the Corsican journal. One is
as obscure as the other is immortal, though from the artistic standpoint
they do not differ greatly in literary merit. But it is not just to say
that the value of Boswell's 'Life of Johnson' depends entirely on the
subject-matter. It depends rather on a happy relation or co-ordination
between the subject and the author. In consequence, it is hardly
possible to consider Boswell as a writer without some reference to
Samuel Johnson. Not only is Johnson the central figure in the book, but
in a sense he is a joint author of it. About one-third of the book is in
Johnson's words, and this third is decidedly the best part. Boswell's
reputation as a great writer is unique in that it depends upon greatness
as an interviewer and reporter.
Macaulay says, "If Boswell had not been a great fool he never would have
been a great writer." This is one of those paradoxical statements to
which Macaulay likes to give a glittering plausibility. It is true that
Boswell wrote a great book, and it is also true that in some regards he
was what we are accustomed to designate as a fool; but to connect the
two as cause and effect is like saying that a man was a great athlete
because he was lame, or that Lord Byron had a beautiful face because he
had a club-foot, or that Demosthenes was a great orator because he
stammered. Men have been made by their foibles, but in those cases
weakness in some directions has been more than compensated for by
strength in others. Boswell lacked some of the great literary powers,
but he possessed others, and those that he did possess happened to be
precisely the ones necessary to the writer of the life of Samuel
Johnson. Boswell had no imagination, no moral elevation, no decided wit
or power of phrase, no deep insight, no invention. But he had one power
which lies behind all great realistic literary work; and that is,
observation. Johnson furnished the power of phrase, in which he was as
eminent as any Englishman between Shakespeare and Charles Lamb. The
higher powers are not needed in a transcript of fact. Boswell possessed
too an eye for the externals which indicate character, and--a quality
rare in the eighteenth century--absolute accuracy. Sir Joshua Reynolds
said, "Every word of the 'Life' might be depended on as if it were
given on oath."
It was this habit of painstaking accuracy, rather than good taste, which
led him to avoid the vice of rhetorical amplification. It also prevented
him from missing the point of a joke of which he was unconscious. As a
rule, his 'Johnsoniana' are better than those of Sir John Hawkins or
Mrs. Piozzi, because they are more literal. In one or two instances an
embellishment which improved a story was rejected by him because it was
not true. These powers--observation, scrupulous accuracy and industry,
and enthusiastic admiration of his hero--were all that he needed for the
production of a great book; for Dr. Johnson was so unaffected, so
outspoken, and so entertaining a man, and every sentence he uttered was
so characteristic, that realism was a far better method for his
biographer than analysis. Perhaps it is always better when the subject
is strongly marked. That Dr. Johnson was a good subject is so evident
that the mere statement is sufficient. Mrs. Thrale-Piozzi's and even Sir
John Hawkins's books are entertaining simply because they are about him.
The eighteenth-century man presents a number of excellent features for
literary portraiture, because he is a compound of formality and
explosiveness. The formal manners and dress and ponderous courtesy of
the eighteenth century, combined with an outspoken way of calling things
by their right names and a boyish petulance and quickness of temper,
make a contrast that is essentially humorous, and more attractive than
the philosophic and broad-minded temper of earlier times or the
reticence and indifference of our own day. Dr. Johnson was a typical
eighteenth-century man, and epitomized these contrasts. Personally, too,
he was a man for whom we must feel the most profound regard and respect.
He represents the normal Englishman, a compound of moral integrity,
rooted prejudice, and hatred of shams, with a mind which works
mechanically and a kind heart. We instinctively recognize this compound
as the ancestral type of our race, and are drawn to it. The real power
of our race depends upon the simplicity and solid humanity of this
central type, the heavy-armed and disciplined infantry about which are
grouped the more gifted and erratic types, the scouts and light-horse of
civilization. For these general reasons Samuel Johnson seems to us the
best sitter for a literary portrait that ever fell into the hands of a
literary painter, and the excellence of his biography to depend quite as
much upon the fact that it is a life of Samuel Johnson as upon the fact
that it is a life by James Boswell.
Boswell's private character is outside the question in a consideration
of his writings. Macaulay calls him a drunkard. If this be true, it
seems a little severe to call a Scotchman to account for being
intoxicated one hundred years ago. He also speaks of him as a toady; but
he was a friend of Johnson, whose detestation of sycophancy was a
positive principle. Hume speaks of him as a "friend of mine, very
good-humored, very agreeable, and very mad." Macaulay's and Carlyle's
essays may be considered as mutually corrective. The truth is that
Boswell was absolutely frank, and if a man is frank about himself on
paper he must write himself down a fool, unless he belongs to a higher
type than Boswell or his critics.
[Illustration: Charles F. Johnson Signature]