affection which their Jamie had for Johnson. I always delight in the
story of his father saying to an old friend, "There's nae hope for
Jamie, mon. Jamie is gaen clean gyte. What do you think, mon? He's done
wi' Paoli--he's off wi' the land-louping scoundrel of a Corsican; and
whose tail do you think he has pinned himself to now, mon? A dominie,
mon--an auld dominie: he keeped a schule, and ca'd it an academy."
Mrs. Boswell, a sensible, cold, rather shadowy person, saw but little of
Johnson, and was satisfied that it should be so. There is one good story
to her credit. Unaccustomed to the ways of genius, she caught Johnson,
who was nearsighted, one evening burnishing a lighted candle on her
carpet to make it burn more brightly, and remarked, "I have seen many a
bear led by a man, but never before have I seen a man led by a bear."
Boswell was just the fellow to appreciate this, and promptly repeated it
to Johnson, who failed to see the humor of it.
In 1782 his father died and he came into the estate, but by his
improvident management he soon found himself in financial difficulties.
Johnson's death two years later removed a restraining influence that he
much needed. He tried to practice law, but he was unsuccessful. Never an
abstemious man, he now drank heavily and constantly, and as constantly
resolved to turn over a new leaf.
Shortly after Johnson's death, Boswell published his "Journal of the
Tour of the Hebrides," which reached a third edition within the year and
established his reputation as a writer of a new kind, in which anecdotes
and conversation are woven into a narrative with a fidelity and skill
which were as easy to him as they were impossible to others.
The great success of this book encouraged him to begin, and continue to
work upon, the great biography of Johnson on which his fame so securely
rests. Others had published before him. Mrs. Piozzi's "Anecdotes of the
Late Samuel Johnson" had sold well, and Hawkins, the "unclubable
Knight," as Johnson called him, had been commissioned by the booksellers
of London to write a formal biography, which appeared in 1787; while of
lesser publications there was seemingly no end; nevertheless, Boswell
persevered, and wrote his friend Temple that his
mode of biography which gives not only a history of Johnson's
visible progress through the world, and of his publications, but a
view of his mind in his letters and conversations, is the most
perfect that can be conceived, and will be more of a life than any
work that has yet appeared.
He had been preparing for the task for more than twenty years; he had,
in season and out, been taking notes of Johnson's conversations, and
Johnson himself had supplied him with much of the material. Thus in
poverty, interrupted by periods of dissipation, amid the sneers of many,
he continued his work. While it was in progress his wife died, and he,
poor fellow, justly upbraided himself for his neglect of her.
[Illustration: DR. JOHNSON IN TRAVELING DRESS, AS DESCRIBED IN BOSWELL'S
TOUR
_Engraved by Trotter_]
Meanwhile, a "new horn" was presented to him. He had, or thought he had,
a chance of being elected to Parliament, or at least of securing a place
under government; but in all this he was destined to be disappointed. It
would be difficult to imagine conditions more unfavorable to sustained
effort than those under which Boswell labored. He was desperately hard
up. Always subject to fits of the blues, which amounted almost to
melancholia, he many a time thought of giving up the task from which he
hoped to derive fame and profit. He considered selling his rights in the
publication for a thousand pounds. But it would go to his heart, he
said, to accept such a sum; and again, "I am in such bad spirits that I
have fear concerning it--I may get no profit, nay, may lose--the public
may be disappointed and think I have done it poorly--I may make enemies,
and even have quarrels." Then the depression would pass and he could
write: "It will be, without exception, the most entertaining book you
ever read." When his friends heard that the Life would make two large
volumes quarto, and that the price was two guineas, they shook their
heads and Boswell's fears began again.
At last, on May 16, 1791, the book appeared, with the imprint of Charles
Dilly, in the Poultry; and so successful was it that by August twelve
hundred copies had been disposed of, and the entire edition was
exhausted before the end of the year. The writer confesses to such a
passion for this book that of this edition he owns at present four
copies in various states, the one he prizes most having an inscription
in Boswell's hand: "To James Boswell, Esquire, Junior, from his
affectionate father, the Authour." Of other editions--but why display
one's weakness?
"Should there," in Boswell's phrase, "be any cold-blooded and morose
mortals who really dislike it," I am sorry for them. To me it has for
thirty years been a never-ending source of profit--and pleasure, which
is as important. It is a book to ramble in--and with. I have never, I
think, read it through from cover to cover, as the saying is, but some
day I will; meanwhile let me make a confession. There are parts of it
which are deadly dull; the judicious reader will skip these without hint
from me. I have, indeed, always had a certain sympathy with George Henry
Lewes, who for years threatened to publish an abridgment of it. It could
be done: indeed, the work could be either expanded or contracted at
will; but every good Boswellian will wish to do this for himself;
tampering with a classic is somewhat like tampering with a will--it is
good form not to.
[Illustration: To James Boswell Esq: Junior, from his affectionate
Father
The Authour.]
What is really needed is a complete index to the sayings of Johnson--his
_dicta_, spoken or written. It would be an heroic task, but heroic tasks
are constantly being undertaken. My friend Osgood, of Princeton, a ripe
scholar and an ardent Johnsonian, has been devoting the scanty leisure
of years to a concordance of Spenser. No one less competent than he
should undertake to supervise such a labor of love.
It will be remembered that the Bible is not lacking in quotations, nor
is Shakespeare; but these sources of wisdom aside, Boswell, quoting
Johnson, supplies us more frequently with quotations than any other
author whatever. Could the irascible old Doctor come to earth again, and
with that wonderful memory of his call to mind the purely casual remarks
which he chanced to make to Boswell, he would surely be amazed to hear
himself quoted, and to learn that his _obiter dicta_ had become fixed in
the minds of countless thousands who perhaps have never heard his name.
I chanced the other day to stop at my broker's office to see how much I
had lost in an unexpected drop in the market, and to beguile the time,
picked up a market letter in which this sentence met my eye: "The
unexpected and perpendicular decline in the stock of Golden Rod mining
shares has left many investors sadder if not wiser. When will the public
learn that investors in securities of this class are only indulging
themselves in proving the correctness of Franklin's [_sic_] adage, that
the expectation of making a profit in such securities is simply _the
triumph of hope over experience_?" Good Boswellians will hardly need to
be reminded that this is Dr. Johnson on marriage. He had something
equally wise to say, too, on the subject of "shares"; but in this
instance he was speaking of a man's second venture into matrimony, his
first having proved very unhappy.
* * * * *
Most men, when they write a book of memoirs in which hundreds of living
people are mentioned, discreetly postpone publication until after they
and the chief personages of the narrative are dead. Johnson refers to
Bolingbroke as a "cowardly scoundrel" for writing a book (charging a
blunderbuss, he called it) and leaving half a crown to a beggarly
Scotchman to pull the trigger after his death. Boswell spent some years
in charging his blunderbuss; he filled it with shot, great and small,
and then, taking careful aim, pulled the trigger.
Cries of rage, anguish, and delight instantly arose from all over the
kingdom. A vast number of living people were mentioned, and their merits
or failings discussed with an _abandon_ which is one of the great charms
of the book to-day, but which, when it appeared, stirred up a veritable
hornets' nest. As some one very cleverly said, "Boswell has invented a
new kind of libel." "A man who is dead once told me so and so"--what
redress have you in law? None! The only thing to do is to punch his
head.
Fortunately Boswell escaped personal chastisement, but he made many
enemies and alienated some friends. Mrs. Thrale, by this time Mrs.
Piozzi, quite naturally felt enraged at Boswell's contemptuous remarks
about her, and at his references to what Johnson said of her while he
was enjoying the hospitality of Streatham. The best of us like to
criticize our friends behind their backs; and Johnson could be frank,
and indeed brutal, on occasion. Mrs. Boscawen, the wife of the admiral,
on the other hand, had no reason to be displeased when she read: "If it
is not presumptuous in me to praise her, I would say that her manners
are the best of any lady with whom I ever had the happiness to be
acquainted."
Bishop Percy, shrewdly suspecting that Boswell's judgment was not to be
trusted, when he complied with his request for some material for the
Life, desired that his name might not be mentioned in the work; to which
Boswell replied that it was his intention to introduce as many names of
eminent persons as he could, adding, "Believe me, my Lord, you are not
the only Bishop to grace my pages." We may suspect that he, like many
another, took up the book with fear and trembling, and put it down in a
rage.
Wilkes, too, got a touch of tar, but little he cared; the best beloved
and the best hated man in England, he probably laughed, properly
thinking that Boswell could do little damage to his reputation. But what
shall we say of Lady Diana Beauclerk's feelings when she read the stout
old English epithet which Johnson had applied to her. Johnson's
authorized biographer, Sir John Hawkins, dead and buried "without his
shoes and stawkin's," as the old jingle goes, had sneered at Boswell and
passed on; verily he hath his reward. Boswell accused him of stupidity,
inaccuracy, and writing fatiguing and disgusting "rigmarole." His
daughter came to the rescue of his fame, and Boswell and she had a
lively exchange of letters; indeed Boswell, at all times, seemed to
court that which most men shrink from, a discussion of questions of
veracity with a woman.
But on the whole the book was well received, and over his success
Boswell exulted, as well he might; he had achieved his ambition, he had
written his name among the immortals. With its publication his work was
done. He became more and more dissipated. His sober hours he devoted to
schemes for self-reform and a revision of the text for future editions.
He was engaged on a third printing when death overtook him. The last
words he wrote--the unfinished letter to his old friend Temple--have
already been quoted. The pen which he laid down was taken up by his son,
who finished the letter. From him we learn the sad details of his death.
He passed away on May 19, 1795, in his fifty-fifth year.
Like many another man, Boswell was always intending to reform, and never
did. His practice was ever at total variance with his principles. In
opinions he was a moralist; in conduct he was--otherwise. Let it be
remembered, however, that he was of a generous, open-hearted, and loving
disposition. A clause in his will, written in his own hand, sheds
important light upon his character. "I do beseech succeeding heirs of
entail to be kind to the tenants, and not to turn out old possessors to
get a little more rent."
What were the contemporary opinions of Boswell? Walpole did not like
him, but Walpole liked few. Paoli was his friend; with Goldsmith and
with Garrick he had been intimate. Mrs. Thrale and he did not get along
well together; he could not bear the thought that she saw more of
Johnson than he, and he was jealous of her influence over him. Fanny
Burney did not like him, and declined to give him some information which
he very naturally wanted for his book, because she wanted to use it
herself. Gibbon thought him terribly indiscreet, which, compared with
Gibbon, he certainly was. Reynolds and he were firm friends--the great
book is dedicated to Sir Joshua.
Of Boswell, Johnson wrote during their journey in Scotland, "There is no
house where he is not received with kindness and respect"; and
elsewhere, "He never left a house without leaving a wish for his
return"; also, "He was a man who finds himself welcome wherever he goes
and makes friends faster than he can want them"; and "He was the best
traveling companion in the world." If there is a greater test than this,
I do not know it. It is summering and wintering with a man in a month.
Burke said of him that "good humor was so natural to him as to be
scarcely a virtue to him." I know many admirable men of whom this cannot
be said.
Several years ago, being in Ayrshire, I found myself not far from
Auchinleck; and although I knew that Boswell's greatest editor, Birkbeck
Hill, had experienced a rebuff upon his attempt to visit the old estate
which Johnson had described as "very magnificent and very convenient," I
determined, out of loyalty to James Boswell, to make the attempt. I
thought that perhaps American nerve would succeed where English
scholarship had failed.
We had spent the night at Ayr, and early next morning I inquired the
cost of a motor-trip to take my small party over to Auchinleck; and I
was careful to pronounce the word as though spelled Afflek, as Boswell
tells us to.
"To where, sir?"
"Afflek," I repeated.
The man seemed dazed. Finally I spelled it for him,
"A-U-C-H-I-N-L-E-C-K."
"Ah, sir, Auchinleck,"--in gutturals the types will not
reproduce,--"that would be two guineas, sir."
"Very good," I said; "pronounce it your own way, but let me have the
motor."
We were soon rolling over a road which Boswell must have taken many
times, but certainly never so rapidly or luxuriously. How Dr. Johnson
would have enjoyed the journey! I recalled his remark, "Sir, if I had no
duties and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life driving
briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman." Futurity was not
bothering me and I had a pretty woman, my wife, by my side. Moreover, to
complete the Doctor's remark, she was "one who could understand me and
add something to the conversation." We set out in high spirits.
As we approached the house by a fine avenue bordered by venerable
trees,--no doubt those planted by the old laird, who delighted in such
work,--my courage almost failed me; but I had gone too far to retire. To
the servant who responded to my ring I stated my business, which seemed
trivial enough.
I might as well have addressed a graven image. At last it spoke. "The
family are away. The instructions are that no one is to be admitted to
the house under pain of instant dismissal."
Means elsewhere successful failed me here.
"You can walk in the park."
"Thanks, but I did not come to Scotland to walk in a park. Perhaps you
can direct me to the church where Boswell is buried."
"You will find the tomb in the kirk in the village."
Coal has been discovered on the estate, and the village, a mile or two
away, is ugly, and, to judge from the number of places where beer and
spirits could be had, their consumption would seem to be the chief
occupation of the population. I found the kirk, with door securely
locked. Would I try for the key at the minister's? I would; but the
minister was away for the day. Would I try the sexton? I would; but he,
too, was away, and I found myself in the midst of a crowd of barefooted
children who embarrassed me by their profitless attentions. It was cold
and it began to rain. I remembered that we were not far from Greenock
where "when it does not rain, it snaws."
My visit had not been a success, I cannot recommend a Boswell
pilgrimage. I wished that I was in London, and bethought me of Johnson's
remark that "the noblest prospect in Scotland is the high-road that
leads to England." On that high-road my party made no objection to
setting out.
I once heard an eminent college professor speak disparagingly of
Boswell's "Life of Johnson," saying that it was a mere literary
slop-pail into which Boswell dropped scraps of all kinds--gossip,
anecdotes and scandal, literary and biographical refuse generally. I
stood aghast for a moment; then my commercial instinct awakened. I
endeavored to secure this nugget of criticism in writing, with
permission to publish it over the author's name. In vain I offered a
rate per word that would have aroused the envy of a Kipling. My friend
pleaded "writer's cramp," or made some other excuse, and it finally
appeared that, after all, this was only one of the cases where I had
neglected, in Boswell's phrase, to distinguish between talk for the sake
of victory and talk with the desire to inform and illustrate. Against
this opinion there is a perfect chorus of praise rendered by a full
choir.[11]
[Illustration: SAMUEL JOHNSON
_Painted by Sir J. Reynolds. Engraved by Heath_]
The great scholar Jowett confessed that he had read the book fifty
times. Carlyle said, "Boswell has given more pleasure than any other man
of this time, and perhaps, two or three excepted, has done the world
greater service." Lowell refers to the "Life" as a perfect granary of
discussion and conversation. Leslie Stephen says that his fondness for
reading began and would end with Boswell's "Life of Johnson." Robert
Louis Stevenson wrote: "I am taking a little of Boswell daily by way of
a Bible. I mean to read him now until the day I die." It is one of the
few classics which is not merely talked about and taken as read, but is
constantly being read; and I love to think that perhaps not a day goes
by when some one, somewhere, does not open the book for the first time
and become a confirmed Boswellian.
"What a wonderful thing your English literature is!" a learned Hungarian
once said to me. "You have the greatest drama, the greatest poetry, and
the greatest fiction in the world, and you are the only nation that has
any biography." The great English epic is Boswell's "Life of Johnson."
[Illustration: INSCRIPTION TO EDMUND BURKE, BY JAMES BOSWELL]
VII
A LIGHT-BLUE STOCKING
Sometime, when seated in your library, as it becomes too dark to read
and is yet too light,--to ring for candles, I was going to say, but
nowadays we simply touch a button,--let your thoughts wander over the
long list of women who have made for themselves a place in English
literature, and see if you do not agree with me that the woman you would
like most to meet in the flesh, were it possible, would be Mrs. Piozzi,
born Hester Lynch Salusbury, but best known to us as Mrs. Thrale.
Let us argue the matter. It may at first seem almost absurd to mention
the wife of the successful London brewer, Henry Thrale, in a list which
would include the names of Fanny Burney, Jane Austen, George Eliot, the
Brontës, and Mrs. Browning; but the woman I have in mind should unite
feminine charm with literary gifts: she should be a woman whom you would
honestly enjoy meeting and whom you would be glad to find yourself
seated next to at dinner.
[Illustration: MRS. PIOZZI Engraved by Ridley from a miniature]
The men of the Johnsonian circle affected to love "little Burney," but
was it not for the pleasure her "Evelina" gave them rather than for
anything in the author herself? According to her own account, she was so
easily embarrassed as to be always "retiring in confusion," or "on
the verge of swooning." It is possible that we would find this rather
limp young lady a trifle tiresome.
Jane Austen was actually as shy and retiring as Fanny Burney affected to
be. She could hardly have presided gracefully in a drawing-room in a
cathedral city; much less would she have been at home among the wits in
a salon in London.
Of George Eliot one would be inclined to say, as Dr. Johnson said of
Burke when he was ill, "If I should meet Burke now it would kill me."
Perhaps it would not kill one to meet George Eliot, but I suspect few
men would care for an hour's tête-à-tête with her without a preliminary
oiling of their mental machinery--a hateful task.
The Brontës were geniuses undoubtedly, particularly Emily, but one would
hardly select the author of "Wuthering Heights" as a companion for a
social evening.
Mrs. Browning, with her placid smile and tiresome ringlets, was too
deeply in love with her husband. After all, the woman one enjoys meeting
must be something of a woman of the world. She need not necessarily be a
good wife or mother. We are provided with the best of wives and at the
moment are not on the lookout for a good mother.
It may at once be admitted that as a mother Mrs. Thrale was not a
conspicuous success; but she was a woman of charm, with a sound mind in
a sound body. Although she could be brilliant in conversation, she
would let you take the lead if you were able to; but she was quite
prepared to take it herself rather than let the conversation flag; and
she must have been a very exceptional woman, to steady, as she did, a
somewhat roving husband, to call Dr. Johnson to order, and upon occasion
to reprove Burke, even while entertaining the most brilliant society of
which London at the period could boast.
At the time when we first make her acquaintance, she was young and
pretty, the mistress of a luxurious establishment; and if she was not
possessed of literary gifts herself, it may fairly be said that she was
the cause of literature in others.
In these days, when women, having everything else, want the vote also
(and I would give it to them promptly and end the discussion), it may be
suggested that to shine by a reflected light is to shine not at all.
Frankly, Mrs. Thrale owes her position in English letters, not to
anything important that she herself did or was capable of doing, but to
the eminence of those she gathered about her. But her position is not
the less secure; she was a charming and fluffy person; and as firmly as
I believe that women have come to stay, so firmly am I of the opinion
that, in spite of all the well-meaning efforts of some of their sex to
prevent it, a certain, and, thank God, sufficient number of women will
stay charming and fluffy to the end of the chapter.
On one subject only could Mrs. Thrale be tedious--her pedigree. I have
it before me, written in her own bold hand, and I confess that it seems
very exalted indeed. She would not have been herself had she not stopped
in transcribing it to relate how one of her ancestors, Katherine Tudor
de Berayne, cousin and ward of Queen Elizabeth and a famous heiress, as
she was returning from the grave of her first husband, Sir John
Salusbury, was asked in marriage by Maurice Wynne of Gwydir, who was
amazed to learn that he was too late, as she had already engaged herself
to Sir Richard Clough. "But," added the lady, "if in the providence of
God I am unfortunate enough to survive him, I consent to be the lady of
Gwydir." Nor does the tale end here, for she married yet another, and
having sons by all four husbands, she came to be called "Mam y
Cymry,"--Mother of Wales,--and no doubt she deserved the appellation.
With such marrying blood in her veins it is easily understood that, as
soon as Thrale's halter was off her neck,--this sporting phrase, I
regret to say, is Dr. Johnson's,--she should think of marrying again;
and that having the first time married to please her family, she should,
at the second venture, marry to please herself. But this chapter is
moving too rapidly--the lady is not yet born.
* * * * *