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BOSWELL THE BIOGRAPHER
[Illustration:
+_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]
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
[This is a list of books bearing directly upon Boswell which have been
used for this volume.]
Birrell, A., Introduction to his edition of Boswell's
Life of Johnson London, 1906
Boswell, James:
Elegy on the Death of an Amiable Young Lady 1761
Ode to Tragedy 1761
Collection of Original Poems, contributions to 1762
The Cub at Newmarket 1762
Critical Strictures on Mallet's Elvira, by A. Erskine and
J. Boswell 1763
Correspondence with the Hon. Andrew Erskine 1763
Dorando, a Spanish Tale 1767
Essence of the Douglas Cause 1767
Account of Corsica, &c., 2nd edition 1768
(1st edition was published 1768)
British Essays in favour of the Brave Corsicans 1769
The Hypochondriack in the London Magazine, Oct. 1777
to Dec. 1779
Letter to the People of Scotland on the Present State of
the Nation 1783
Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. Ed. G. Birkbeck Hill 1887
(1st edition 1785)
Letter to the People of Scotland against the attempt to
diminish the number of the Lords of Session 1785
No Abolition of Slavery, or the Universal Empire of Love 1791
Life of Johnson. Ed. Right Hon. John Wilson Croker 1866
Life of Samuel Johnson. Ed. G. Birkbeck Hill. 6 vols.
Oxford, 1887[1]
(1st edition 1791)
Letters to Temple, reprint London, 1908[1]
---- Life of, see Rogers, Fitzgerald, and Leask.
Boswelliana, the Commonplace Book of James Boswell,
London, Grampian Club, 1876
Burke, Edmund, Correspondence London, 1824
Burney, Miss, _see_ D'Arblay.
Campbell, Rev. Dr. Thomas, Diary London, 1854
Carlyle, Miscellanies London, 1872
Chatham, Earl of, Correspondence. 4 vols. London, 1838
Collection of Original Poems Edinburgh, 1763
Croker, Right Hon. John Wilson, Correspondence
and Diaries. 3 vols. London, 1884
D'Arblay, Diary of Madame. Ed. Austin Dobson.
6 vols. London, 1904
---- Memoirs of Dr. Burney. 3 vols. London, 1832
Edinburgh, Traditions of 1869
Eldon, Lord Chancellor, Life of, by Horace Twiss.
3 vols. London, 1844
Fitzgerald, Percy, Life of Boswell London, 1891
Forbes, Sir William, Life of James Beattie London, 1806
Gentleman's Magazine
Goldsmith, Life by James Prior. 2 vols. London, 1837
Gray, Life by Mason. 2 vols. London, 1807
Hawkins, Sir John, Life of Johnson London, 1787
---- Lætitia Matilda, Memoirs. 2 vols. London, 1824
Henley, W. E., Views and Reviews London, 1902
Hill, Dr. George Birkbeck, Life of Johnson. 6 vols. Oxford, 1887
---- Dr. Johnson, his Friends and Critics London, 1878
_See also_ Johnson Club Papers.
Holcroft, Thomas, Memoirs. 3 vols. London, 1816
Hume, David, Correspondence London, 1846
Ireland, S. W. H., The Confessions of W. H.
Ireland London, 1805
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, Dictionary London, 1755
---- Lives of the Poets London, 1781
---- Journey to the Western Islands London, 1775
Johnson, Lionel, Post Liminium, Critical Essays London, 1911
Johnson Club Papers, by various hands London, 1899
Leask, W. K., James Boswell, Famous Scots Series. Edinburgh, 1896
London Magazine
Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays. 3 vols. London, 1843
Malone, Life of, Prior London, 1860
More, Hannah, Memoirs of. 4 vols. London, 1834
Nichols, John, Literary Anecdotes of the XVIIIth
Century. 9 vols. London, 1812-15
---- Literary History of the XVIIIth Century.
8 vols. London, 1817-58
Piozzi, Mrs., Autobiography. 2 vols. London, 1861
---- Johnson's Letters to. 2 vols. London, 1788
---- Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson,
2nd edition London, 1789
Raleigh, Sir Walter, Six Essays on Johnson Oxford, 1910
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, Life by Leslie and Taylor.
2 vols. London, 1865
Rogers, Rev. Charles, Memoir of Boswell, in Boswelliana
Taylor, John, Records of My Life London, 1832
Trevelyan, Sir G. O., Life of Fox London, 1912
Walpole, Horace, Letters. 9 vols. London, 1861
[Footnote 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.
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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
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 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 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, 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.
[Footnote 1: Joint.]
[Footnote 2: I have not seen a copy; _v._ Fitzgerald, _Life of
Boswell_ i. 37-38, and _Life of Garrick_.]