My Dear Sir,
In every narrative, whether historical or biographical, authenticity
is of the utmost consequence. Of this I have ever been so firmly
persuaded, that I inscribed a former work to that person who was the
best judge of its truth. I need not tell you I mean General Paoli;
who, after his great, though unsuccessful, efforts to preserve the
liberties of his country, has found an honourable asylum in Britain,
where he has now lived many years the object of Royal regard and
private respect; and whom I cannot name without expressing my very
grateful sense of the uniform kindness which he has been pleased to
shew me.
The friends of Doctor Johnson can best judge, from internal evidence,
whether the numerous conversations which form the most valuable part
of the ensuing pages, are correctly related. To them, therefore I wish
to appeal, for the accuracy of the portrait here exhibited to the
world.
As one of those who were intimately acquainted with him, you have a
tide to this address. You have obligingly taken the trouble to peruse
the original manuscript of this tour, and can vouch for the strict
fidelity of the present publication. Your literary alliance with our
much lamented friend, in consequence of having undertaken to render
one of his labours more complete, by your edition of Shakespeare, a
work which I am confident will not disappoint the expectations of the
publick, gives you another claim. But I have a still more powerful
inducement to prefix your name to this volume, as it gives me an
opportunity of letting the world know that I enjoy the honour and
happiness of your friendship; and of thus publickly testifying the
sincere regard with which I am.
My dear Sir,
Your very faithful and obedient servant,
James Boswell.
London, 20 September 1785.
"He was of an admirable pregnancy of wit, and that pregnancy much
improved by continual study from his childhood; by which he had gotten
such a promptness in expressing his mind, that his extemporal speeches
were little inferior to his premeditated writings. Many, no doubt, had
read as much and perhaps more than he; but scarce ever any concocted
his reading into judgement as he did."--Baker's Chronicle
Dr Johnson had for many years given me hopes that we should go
together, and visit the Hebrides. Martin's Account of those islands
had impressed us with a notion that we might there contemplate a
system of life almost totally different from what we had been
accustomed to see; and, to find simplicity and wildness, and all the
circumstances of remote time or place, so near to our native great
island, was an object within the reach of reasonable curiosity. Dr
Johnson has said in his Journey, 'that he scarcely remembered how the
wish to visit the Hebrides was excited'; but he told me, in summer,
1763, that his father put Martin's Account into his hands when he was
very young, and that he was much pleased with it. We reckoned there
would be some inconveniencies and hardships, and perhaps a little
danger; but these we were persuaded were magnified in the imagination
of every body. When I was at Ferney, in 1764, I mentioned our design
to Voltaire. He looked at me, as if I had talked of going to the North
Pole, and said, 'You do not insist on my accompanying you?' 'No, sir.'
'Then I am very willing you should go.' I was not afraid that our
curious expedition would be prevented by such apprehensions; but I
doubted that it would not be possible to prevail on Dr Johnson to
relinquish, for some time, the felicity of a London life, which, to a
man who can enjoy it with full intellectual relish, is apt to make
existence in any narrower sphere seem insipid or irksome. I doubted
that he would not be willing to come down from his elevated state of
philosophical dignity; from a superiority of wisdom among the wise,
and of learning among the learned; and from flashing his wit upon
minds bright enough to reflect it.
He had disappointed my expectations so long, that I began to despair;
but in spring, 1773, he talked of coming to Scotland that year with so
much firmness, that I hoped he was at last in earnest. I knew that, if
he were once launched from the metropolis, he would go forward very
well; and I got our common friends there to assist in setting him
afloat. To Mrs Thrale in particular, whose enchantment over him seldom
failed, I was much obliged. It was, 'I'll give thee a wind.' 'Thou art
kind.' To attract him, we had invitations from the chiefs Macdonald
and Macleod; and, for additional aid, I wrote to Lord Elibank, Dr
William Robertson, and Dr Beattie.
To Dr Robertson, so far as my letter concerned the present subject, I
wrote as follows:
Our friend, Mr Samuel Johnson, is in great health and spirits; and, I
do think, has a serious resolution to visit Scotland this year. The
more attraction, however, the better; and therefore, though I know he
will be happy to meet you there, it will forward the scheme, if, in
your answer to this, you express yourself concerning it with that
power of which you are so happily possessed, and which may be so
directed as to operate strongly upon him.
His answer to that part of my letter was quite as I could have wished.
It was written with the address and persuasion of the historian of
America.
When I saw you last, you gave us some hopes that you might prevail
with Mr Johnson to make that excursion to Scotland, with the
expectation of which we have long flattered ourselves. If he could
order matters so, as to pass some time in Edinburgh, about the close
of the summer session, and then visit some of the Highland scenes, I
am confident he would be pleased with the grand features of nature in
many parts of this country: he will meet with many persons here who
respect him, and some whom I am persuaded he will think not unworthy
of his esteem. I wish he would make the experiment. He sometimes
cracks his jokes upon us; but he will find that we can distinguish
between the stabs of malevolence, and 'the rebukes of the righteous,
which are like excellent oil [footnote: Our friend Edmund Burke, who
by this time had received some pretty severe strokes from Dr Johnson,
on account of the unhappy difference in their politicks, upon my
repeating this passage to him, exclaimed, 'Oil of vitriol!'], and
break not the head'. Offer my best compliments to him, and assure him
that I shall be happy to have the satisfaction of seeing him under my
roof.
To Dr Beattie I wrote,
The chief intention of this letter is to inform you, that I now
seriously believe Mr Samuel Johnson will visit Scotland this year: but
I wish that every power of attraction may be employed to secure our
having so valuable an acquisition, and therefore I hope you will
without delay write to me what I know you think, that I may read it to
the mighty sage, with proper emphasis, before I leave London, which I
must soon. He talks of you with the same warmth that he did last year.
We are to see as much of Scotland as we can, in the months of August
and September. We shall not be long of being at Marischal College
[footnote: This, I find, is a Scotticism. I should have said, 'It will
not be long before we shall be at Marischal College.']. He is
particularly desirous of seeing some of the Western Islands.
Dr Beattie did better: ipse venit. He was, however, so polite as to
wave his privilege of nil mihi rescribus, and wrote from Edinburgh, as
follows:
Your very kind and agreeable favour of the 20th of April overtook me
here yesterday, after having gone to Aberdeen, which place I left
about a week ago. I am to set out this day for London, and hope to
have the honour of paying my respects to Mr Johnson and you, about a
week or ten days hence. I shall then do what I can, to enforce the
topick you mentioned; but at present I cannot enter upon it, as I am
in a very great hurry; for I intend to begin my journey within an hour
or two.
He was as good as his word, and threw some pleasing motives into the
northern scale. But, indeed, Mr Johnson loved all that he heard from
one whom he tells us, in his Lives of the Poets, Gray found 'a poet, a
philosopher, and a good man'.
My Lord Elibank did not answer my letter to his lordship for some
time. The reason will appear, when we come to the Isle of Sky. I shall
then insert my letter, with letters from his lordship, both to myself
and Mr Johnson. I beg it may be understood, that I insert my own
letters, as I relate my own sayings, rather as keys to what is
valuable belonging to others, than for their own sake.
Luckily Mr Justice (now Sir Robert) Chambers, who was about to sail
for the East Indies, was going to take leave of his relations at
Newcastle, and he conducted Dr Johnson to that town. Mr Scott, of
University College, Oxford, (now Dr Scott, of the Commons) accompanied
him from thence to Edinburgh. With such propitious convoys did he
proceed to my native city. But, lest metaphor should make it be
supposed he actually went by sea, I choose to mention that he
travelled in post-chaises, of which the rapid motion was one of his
most favourite amusements.
Dr Samuel Johnson's character, religious, moral, political, and
literary, nay his figure and manner, are, I believe, more generally
known than those of almost any man; yet it may not be superfluous here
to attempt a sketch of him. Let my readers then remember that he was a
sincere and zealous Christian, of high Church of England and
monarchical principles, which he would not tamely suffer to be
questioned; steady and inflexible in maintaining the obligations of
piety and virtue, both from a regard to the order of society, and from
a veneration for the Great Source of all order; correct, nay stern in
his taste; hard to please, and easily offended, impetuous and
irritable in his temper, but of a most humane and benevolent heart;
having a mind stored with a vast and various collection of learning
and knowledge, which he communicated with peculiar perspicuity and
force, in rich and choice expression. He united a most logical head
with a most fertile imagination, which gave him an extraordinary
advantage in arguing; for he could reason close or wide, as he saw
best for the moment. He could, when he chose it, be the greatest
sophist that ever wielded a weapon in the schools of declamation; but
he indulged this only in conversation; for he owned he sometimes
talked for victory; he was too conscientious to make errour permanent
and pernicious, by deliberately writing it. He was conscious of his
superiority. He loved praise when it was brought to him; but was too
proud to seek for it. He was somewhat susceptible of flattery. His
mind was so full of imagery, that he might have been perpetually a
poet. It has been often remarked, that in his poetical pieces, which
it is to be regretted are so few, because so excellent, his style is
easier than in his prose. There is deception in this: it is not
easier, but better suited to the dignity of verse; as one may dance
with grace, whose motions, in ordinary walking--in the common
step--are awkward. He had a constitutional melancholy, the clouds of
which darkened the brightness of his fancy, and gave a gloomy cast to
his whole course of thinking: yet, though grave and awful in his
deportment, when he thought it necessary or proper, he frequently
indulged himself in pleasantry and sportive sallies. He was prone to
superstition, but not to credulity. Though his imagination might
incline him to a belief of the marvellous, and the mysterious, his
vigorous reason examined the evidence with jealousy. He had a loud
voice, and a slow deliberate utterance, which no doubt gave some
additional weight to the sterling metal of his conversation. Lord
Pembroke said once to me at Wilton, with a happy pleasantry, and some
truth, that 'Dr Johnson's sayings would not appear so extraordinary,
were it not for his bow-wow way': but I admit the truth of this only
on some occasions. The Messiah, played upon the Canterbury organ, is
more sublime than when played upon an inferior instrument: but very
slight musick will seem grand, when conveyed to the ear through that
majestick medium. WHILE THEREFORE DOCTOR JOHNSON'S SAYINGS ARE READ,
LET HIS MANNER BE TAKEN ALONG WITH THEM. Let it however be observed,
that the sayings themselves are generally great; that, though he might
be an ordinary composer at times, he was for the most part a Handel.
His person was large, robust, I may say approaching to the gigantick,
and grown unwieldy from corpulency. His countenance was naturally of
the craft of an ancient statue, but somewhat disfigured by the scars
of that evil, which, it was formerly imagined, the royal touch could
cure. He was now in his sixty-fourth year, and was become a little
dull of hearing. His sight had always been somewhat weak; yet, so much
does mind govern, and even supply the deficiency of organs, that his
perceptions were uncommonly quick and accurate. His head, and
sometimes also his body, shook with a kind of motion like the effect
of a palsy: he appeared to be frequently disturbed by cramps, or
convulsive contractions, [Footnote: Such they appeared to me: but
since the first edition, Sir Joshua Reynolds has observed to me, 'that
Dr Johnson's extraordinary gestures were only habits, in which he
indulged himself at certain times. When in company, where he was not
free, or when engaged earnestly in conversation, he never gave way to
such habits, which proves that they were not involuntary', I still
however think, that these gestures were involuntary; for surely had
not that been the case, he would have restrained them in the publick
streets.] of the nature of that distemper called St Vitus's dance. He
wore a full suit of plain brown clothes, with twisted-hair buttons of
the same colour, a large bushy greyish wig, a plain shirt, black
worsted stockings, and silver buckles. Upon this tour, when
journeying, he wore boots, and a very wide brown cloth great coat,
with pockets which might have almost held the two volumes of his folio
dictionary; and he carried in his hand a large English oak stick. Let
me not be censured for mentioning such minute particulars. Every thing
relative to so great a man is worth observing. I remember Dr Adam
Smith, in his rhetorical lectures at Glasgow, told us he was glad to
know that Milton wore latchets in his shoes, instead of buckles. When
I mention the oak stick, it is but letting Hercules have his club;
and, by-and-by, my readers will find this stick will bud, and produce
a good joke.
This imperfect sketch of 'the combination and the form' of that
Wonderful Man, whom I venerated and loved while in this world, and
after whom I gaze with humble hope, now that it has pleased Almighty
God to call him to a better world, will serve to introduce to the
fancy of my readers the capital object of the following journal, in
the course of which I trust they will attain to a considerable degree
of acquaintance with him.
His prejudice against Scotland was announced almost as soon as he
began to appear in the world of letters. In his London, a poem, are
the following nervous lines:
For who would leave, unbrib'd, Hibernia's land
Or change the rocks of Scotland for the Strand
There none are swept by sudden fate away;
But all, whom hunger spares, with age decay.
The truth is, like the ancient Greeks and Romans, he allowed himself
to look upon all nations but his own as barbarians: not only Hibernia,
and Scotland, but Spain, Italy, and France, are attacked in the same
poem. If he was particularly prejudiced against the Scots, it was
because they were more in his way; because he thought their success in
England rather exceeded the due proportion of their real merit; and
because he could not but seen in them that nationality which I believe
no liberal-minded Scotsman will deny. He was indeed, if I may be
allowed the phrase, at bottom much of a John Bull; much of a blunt
'true born Englishman'. There was a stratum of common clay under the
rock of marble. He was voraciously fond of good eating; and he had a
great deal of that quality called humour, which gives an oiliness and
a gloss to every other quality.
I am, I flatter myself, completely a citizen of the world. In my
travels through Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Corsica, France,
I never felt myself from home; and I sincerely love 'every kindred and
tongue and people and nation'. I subscribe to what my late truly
learned and philosophical friend Mr Crosbie said, that the English are
better animals than the Scots; they are nearer the sun; their blood is
richer, and more mellow: but when I humour any of them in an
outrageous contempt of Scotland, I fairly own I treat them as
children. And thus I have, at some moments, found myself obliged to
treat even Dr Johnson.
To Scotland however he ventured; and he returned from it in great
humour, with his prejudices much lessened, and with very grateful
feelings of the hospitality with which he was treated; as is evident
from that admirable work, his Journey to the Western Islands of
Scotland, which, to my utter astonishment, has been misapprehended,
even to rancour, by many of my countrymen.
To have the company of Chambers and Scott, he delayed his journey so
long, that the court of session, which rises on the eleventh of
August, was broke up before he got to Edinburgh.
On Saturday the fourteenth of August, 1773, late in the evening, I
received a note from him, that he was arrived at Boyd's inn, at the
head of the Canongate. I went to him directly. He embraced me
cordially; and I exulted in the thought, that I now had him actually
in Caledonia. Mr Scott's amiable manners, and attachment to our
Socrates, at once united me to him. He told me that, before I came in,
the Doctor had unluckily had a bad specimen of Scottish cleanliness.
He then drank no fermented liquor. He asked to have his lemonade made
sweeter; upon which the waiter, with his greasy fingers, lifted a lump
of sugar, and put it into it. The Doctor, in indignation, threw it out
of the window. Scott said, he was afraid he would have knocked the
waiter down. Mr Johnson told me, that such another trick was played
him at the house of a lady in Paris. He was to do me the honour to
lodge under my roof. I regretted sincerely that I had not also a room
for Mr Scott. Mr Johnson and I walked arm-in-arm up the High Street,
to my house in James's court: it was a dusky night: I could not
prevent his being assailed by the evening effluvia of Edinburgh. I
heard a late baronet, of some distinction in the political world in
the beginning of the present reign, observe, that 'walking the streets
of Edinburgh at night was pretty perilous, and a good deal
odoriferous'. The peril is much abated, by the care which the
magistrates have taken to enforce the city laws against throwing foul
water from the windows; but, from the structure of the houses in the
old town, which consist of many stories, in each of which a different
family lives, and there being no covered sewers, the odour still
continues. A zealous Scotsman would have wished Mr Johnson to be
without one of his five senses upon this occasion. As we marched
slowly along, he grumbled in my ear, 'I smell you in the dark!' But he
acknowledged that the breadth of the street, and the loftiness of the
buildings on each side, made a noble appearance.
My wife had tea ready for him, which it is well known he delighted to
drink at all hours, particularly when sitting up late, and of which
his able defence against Mr Jonas Hanway should have obtained him a
magnificent reward from the East India Company. He shewed much
complacency upon finding that the mistress of the house was so
attentive to his singular habit; and as no man could be more polite
when he chose to be so, his address to her was most courteous and
engaging; and his conversation soon charmed her into a forgetfulness
of his external appearance.
I did not begin to keep a regular full journal till some days after we
had set out from Edinburgh; but I have luckily preserved a good many
fragments of his Memorabilia from his very first evening in Scotland.
We had, a little before this, had a trial for murder, in which the
judges had allowed the lapse of twenty years since its commission as a
plea in bar, in conformity with the doctrine of prescription in the
civil law, which Scotland and several other countries in Europe have
adopted. He at first disapproved of this; but then he thought there
was something in it, if there had been for twenty years a neglect to
prosecute a crime which was KNOWN. He would not allow that a murder,
by not being DISCOVERED for twenty years, should escape punishment. We
talked of the ancient trial by duel. He did not think it so absurd as
is generally supposed; 'For,' said he, 'it was only allowed when the
question was in equilibria, as when one affirmed and another denied;
and they had a notion that Providence would interfere in favour of him
who was in the right. But as it was found that in a duel, he who was
in the right had not a better chance than he who was in the wrong,
therefore society instituted the present mode of trial, and gave the
advantage to him who is in the right.'
We sat till near two in the morning, having chatted a good while after
my wife left us. She had insisted, that to shew all respect to the
Sage, she would give up her own bed-chamber to him, and take a worse.
This I cannot but gratefully mention, as one of a thousand obligations
which I owe her, since the great obligation of her being pleased to
accept of me as her husband.