Biography is by its nature historical and suited to an historical
method. The history of an institution is written in respect of its
functions. The Christian Church, for instance, played a certain part
in the life of society at the end of the fourth century, and another
part when Clement proclaimed a Crusade to all Western Europe. The
historian of the Church may well be expected to hold in view the later
development during the whole course of his inquiry before that climax;
he must analyse the primitive organism, having regard to its future
growth, and explain how it was that those organs grew. The biographer
has similar duties. We commonly consider the lives of men with
reference to a few conspicuous events or remarkable achievements; and
we want to know what were the essential qualities of the man and how
they grew to those results. In Boswell's case the central theme
is single, for he accomplished one thing of overwhelmingly greater
importance than anything else in his life. But the growth which came
to this glorious end was by no means a simple and serene development.
It is concerned with an amazing war between the conventional and the
real, the false and the true. We have now to investigate more closely
the details of that struggle, and incidentally the effect on Johnson.
Boswell, in the first place, had a number of what may be called
conventional prejudices; he had the common prejudices of the landed
gentleman in the eighteenth century. He was brought up to believe that
he would one day become the Laird of Auchinleck. He was proud of
his family name and ancient lineage; he believed altogether the
conventional idea, that a man was not only in a higher position and
a greater person, but, in some indefinable way, better from the
possession of land. Soil and mansion were not merely the insignia of
the governing class or the boast of blood, but, further, the supreme
expression of an ideal--the commonest practical ideal of the British
people, 'to be as our fathers.' 'Holding an estate,' says Boswell,
in the first of the political letters which he addressed to his
compatriots,[1] 'transmitted to me through my ancestors, by charters
from a series of kings, the importance of a charter, the prerogative
of a king, impresses my mind with seriousness and duty; and while
animated, I hope, as much as any man, with genuine feelings of
liberty, I shall ever adhere to our excellent Monarchy, that venerable
institution under which liberty is best enjoyed.' The truth expressed
by these extravagant words is that Boswell accepted, as a consequence
of having inherited an estate, a certain outfit of principles and
practical objects which was to be worn in the same way that a parson
wears a black coat or a coachman a livery. In politics, therefore, he
was a Monarchist and Tory. Property and the Constitution, these were
his interests.
In the second political letter he shows that he strongly disapproved
of innovation and of change in general; disapproved because he
disliked and mistrusted them as by convention a man of property ought
to do. Reform, however necessary, is never respectable. Boswell liked
an order and formality which should go on for ever exactly as he knew
it. It was for this reason and not from any æsthetic pleasure that he
delighted in the ceremonial of the dinners in the Inner Temple and in
the services which he was wont to attend in St. Paul's Cathedral each
year, if he were able, upon Easter Day.
The same views found expression in a series of essays which Boswell
wrote for the _London Magazine_. It is in fact in these essays rather
than in his biographical writings that we should look for Boswell's
opinions on general subjects. Comprehensive though the 'Life of
Johnson' is, it necessarily refrains from giving the author's view
on many occasions, and when Boswell speaks for himself he does so
incidentally, and not directly. In the _London Magazine_ he is free,
and consequently the range is wider and the matter more diffuse.
'The Hypochondriack'--for such is the title under which Boswell
wrote--appeared in twenty-seven numbers of the _London Magazine_
from October, 1777, to December, 1779. The articles are not very
long--three pages of close double-columns is the average length; but
altogether they must contain enough printed matter to fill one volume
of a moderate size in our day. The title explains the attitude of the
writer in the whole series; Boswell wrote as a hypochondriac to others
who suffered as he did from periodical depression, to divert them, as
he said, by good-humour. 'I may, without ever offending them by excess
of gaiety, insensibly communicate to them that good-humour which, if
it does not make life rise to felicity, at least preserves it from
wretchedness.'
It is remarkable that Boswell formed the plan of writing these papers
at an earlier stage of his existence, during the years which he spent
abroad from 1763-5. The tenth of the series was actually written then
and was intended, so he tells us, to be published, in the _London
Magazine_ as Number X of 'The Hypochondriack.' The fact that it
fulfilled its destiny, and that, though written in a rather more
frivolous style, it is in no way out of place, is a testimony, if any
further were needed besides the _magnum opus_, to the capacity that
Boswell had for carrying a literary project to its due accomplishment.
The qualities required of a biographer, which Boswell had in so
supreme a measure, are not those which necessarily make a good
essayist. But Boswell was by no means contemptible as a writer of
essays. A great thinker he never professed to be, and never could have
become; he had, however, what for his purpose was even more valuable
than profound thought or comprehensive originality--the art of
self-expression. We are obliged to read anything that Boswell wrote
because, by some enchanter's magic, he is there talking to us. This is
not the place to probe the mystery of Orpheus with his lute; perhaps,
in any case, it is better that the mystery should remain for ever
dark; for the charm of Orpheus might be perceptibly less if we knew
its mechanism. And it may be no more than an accomplishment which,
when exercised with particular grace, gives, in the common way, the
capricious illusion of facility. Whatever it be in the art of letters,
Boswell had it. He inevitably produced his effect; and it is himself.
We are made to feel good-humoured and agreeable; and we wish to leave
it at that and trouble our heads no further. A less easy style will
draw our attention to the technique of words. With Boswell, it is
clear midday on the dial, and we have no desire to bother with the
wheels inside.
'The Hypochondriack,' however, is scarcely so gay as one might expect.
Truly this is not the serious business of life; he is out for a spree.
'The pleasure of writing a short essay,' says the lively physician
of melancholy, 'is like taking a pleasant airing that enlivens and
invigorates by the exercise which it yields, while the design is
gratified in its completion.' Boswell the essayist has not the solemn
responsibility of showing a great example to the world; and he has no
need to be the grave judge. Yet there is a very serious background to
the thoughts of this jolly author. When he chooses a theme he searches
in the depths. Religion, Death and Conscience, Fear, Truth, Pleasure
and Pride, Matrimony and Offspring, Youth and Age, Pity and Prudence,
Excess, Drinking, Flattery, and Hypochondria itself--such are the
subjects with which he sets forth to divert his fellow-sufferers.
And having chosen thus, Boswell naturally, on many occasions, says
earnestly what he sincerely thinks. He faithfully describes in one
place the discomfort of his own depression:
To be overpowered with languor must make a man very unhappy.
He is tantalized with a thousand ineffectual wishes which
he cannot realise. For as Tantalus is fabled to have been
tormented by the objects of his desire being ever in his near
view, yet ever receding from his touch as he endeavoured
to approach them, the languid Hypochondriack has the sad
mystification of being disappointed of realising every wish,
by the wretched defect of his own activity. While in that
situation time passes over him only to be loaded with regrets.
The important duties of life, the benevolent offices of
friendship are neglected, though he is sensible that he shall
upbraid himself for that neglect till he is glad to take
shelter under cover of disease.
In this account there is no ill-placed levity and no extravagance such
as we might fear to find. It is a simple and effective account of an
unpleasant experience. The advice which he gives to hypochondriacs
from time to time is similarly grave and sympathetic, and concerned
with defeating the dangers of their state of mind; his view is that
the disease is nearly always curable; he unwillingly admits that there
are cases beyond hope, and condemns pessimistic fatalism:
We should guard against imagining that there is a volcano
within us, a melancholy so dreadful that we can do nothing in
opposition to it.
It would be a mistake to suppose when we read such grave advice that
Boswell had a serious view of himself as the spiritual adviser of
hypochondriacs. His object, as he tells us, was to divert them; and
in that frame of mind no doubt he began to write. He became grave and
even earnest because he had a very strong vein of seriousness. In the
ordinary way of life he was light-hearted enough, and easily dispensed
with his thoughts when they began to be uncomfortable: but when he
had set himself to write from a text he persevered with his
serious reflections and they found expression. He was able to reach
considerable heights; a famous epitaph, when he is writing upon a
motto from Cicero about the duties of Conscience, stirs him to a noble
feeling:
The epitaph upon Sir Christopher Wren in St. Paul's Church,
of which he was the architect, has been justly admired as
sublime: 'Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice';
'Reader, if you would see his monument, cast your eyes around
you,' so that the whole Church is made his Mausoleum. In my
opinion there is a similar sublimity about this sentiment,
by which a man, upon the ancient principle of [Greek: tima
seauton], 'reverence thyself,' is taught to expand his mind
into a grand theatre of self-observation.
Occasionally Boswell, on account of this same seriousness, has an
outburst of Johnsonian anger. He tells of a French writer that he
published a book, 'Réflexions sur ceux qui sont morts en plaisantant,'
that he succeeded in collecting a good number of instances both
ancient and modern: 'But I,' says Boswell 'hold all such extraordinary
appearances to be unnatural, affected, and thoughtless.'
However, when all is said about the gravity of the Hypochondriack, he
is essentially the easy, good-humoured companion he set out to be. He
is often dignified, never indecorous; rarely is he even light-hearted,
for while he supports the cares of this world with smiling equanimity
he leaves the impression that they matter; still more rarely is he
flippant. The effect is never depressing. He is for the most part a
soothing optimist; and if that seem scant praise, be it remembered
that one may resist the optimist's persuasion and yet fall a victim
to the cheerful manners that accompany it. Such is the attitude of
Boswell as an essayist; and, when we consider what he chose to write
about, it is a remarkable performance.
The lightness of touch which was necessary for Boswell's purpose was
obtained partly by anecdote and image. A wide acquaintance with books
evidently supplied Boswell with a store of anecdotes; and he both
selected them well and used them relevantly. One instance, where
Boswell, in an essay about Excess, is speaking of the dangers of
wealth, will suffice to illustrate his method:
The Dutch, who have much sagacity of contrivance in many
respects, have in what they call a 'verbeetering huys' (that
is to say, a correcting and amending house, a house for making
people better) an admirable method of curing laziness. A
fellow who will not work is put into a large reservoir, which
takes him up to the chin; a cock is then turned so as to let
more water run in upon him, and he is then shown a pump. If
he exerts himself with active force he prevents the water from
rising, and breathes freely; but if he does not ply the pump,
the water soon gets up upon him and he is suffocated.
An inundation of wealth will be equally fatal to a man's
happiness, if he does not throw it off by vigorous exertion.
_Aurum potabile_ will choak him; and, when drowning in
Pactolus's streams, it will be no consolation to him to know
that they have golden sands.
Boswell's images, sometimes employed in imitation of Dr. Johnson's
manner, if they are apt to be slightly extravagant, are generally
pointed and help the sense. 'A Dogmatist,' he says, 'is a man that has
got a pair of shoes that fit him exactly well, and therefore he thinks
them so very good that he flies in a passion against those who cannot
wear them.' An image is often used far more gracefully to bring the
argument to a head as in the following admirable passage:
But old men forget in a wonderful degree their own feelings in
the early part of life, are angry because the young are not as
sedate in the season of effervescence as they are, would have
the fruit where in the course of nature there should be only
the blossom, and complain because another generation has not
been able to ascend the steep of prudence in a fourth part of
the time which they themselves have taken.
These few quotations may suffice to show that Boswell's essays are
worthy of some attention. They can be read with pleasure because
Boswell was both a capable writer and an agreeable man. And, moreover,
Boswell was a good man. It is a somewhat ridiculous exclamation,
because the fact is so striking and so indisputable. One might dispute
the proposition that to write an unrivalled biography a man must be
good: it would probably be a foolish discussion, for the common sense
of mortals refuses to believe that one who has done a supremely good
thing is not himself essentially good. But to dispute it in the case
of Boswell--when we consider how many hearts he has won, and with
how excellent a wooing, surely that would be preposterous! He was not
wholly good more than other men, nor less than the majority; but he
possessed a quantity of good that might be envied of the best. And
this is true, not of the man only, but of the writer. The test is
a very simple one: the plain fact is that it is impossible to
read Boswell without feeling better. Boswell does not edify in the
spiritual fashion of Michael Angelo or Milton; but he edifies just
as truly. With Boswell we never want to leave the world for something
better, but we want to live in it and enjoy life to the full; and we
want especially to love other men. It is not a small matter that we
should feel this: and as we may feel it in the 'Life of Johnson,' we
may feel it also, though in a less degree, in the essays.
But 'The Hypochondriack' is not to be read for the sake of the
author's opinions, nor even for the arguments by which he supports
them. For Boswell writes from a conventional point of view. His
conclusions are not his very own. He has never been tossed in the
great void and fought long doubtful battles for a sure place to stand
on. His children have not been begotten with pangs, but adopted for
pleasure.
And here we return to the main battle. Boswell was conventional.
But this is by no means a sufficient explanation. Clearly, in some
respects, it is not even true. What then is the range of Boswell's
conventionality and what are its limits?
Beliefs are the result, as a rule, either of tradition, or of
emotional experience, or of mere desire. In a few rare spirits they
may be determined in more intellectual fashion; but Reason is seldom
mistress, and very often she is servant and nurse. By reason, we seek
to justify our prejudices and convictions. With varying degrees
of intellectual dishonesty we make use of reason to reject what we
dislike and nourish what we prefer.
Boswell's case was somewhat uncommon. He was clearly not very
critical. Having once adopted an attitude he marched through life
without looking back. We have seen something of the outlook he adopted
conventionally. He deceived himself, however, far less than most men
of those opinions. And in the effort to believe what he wished to
believe, Boswell used reason in a curiously deliberate fashion. He
accepted the conventional beliefs and standards in an unconventional
manner--not chaotically and aimlessly, but perceiving what the
conventional aim essentially was, and approving it as a mode of
living.
Boswell's philosophy of life, as far as he had a philosophy, was to
have in all (including, that is, the future life of happiness which he
flattered himself that he would be able to enjoy) the maximum amount
of pleasure. Pleasure and happiness, these are ends in themselves;
and except in so far as pleasure must be restrained for the sake of
happiness either in this state of being or in another--and Boswell
can hardly be said to have practised restraint in any remarkable
degree--they are not distinguished. Pleasure he speaks of as 'not only
the aim but the end of our being.' 'To be happy,' he says, 'as far as
mortality and human imperfection allow, is the wisest study of men.'
In the 'Hypochondriack' essays we see how entirely Boswell's
philosophy of life is a philosophy of comfort. With regard, for
instance, to Love--a subject which, since three papers of 'The
Hypochondriack' are devoted to it, must have been considered
important--though too logical to be entirely conventional, his
doctrine is frankly based upon his view of happiness:
As no disorder of the imagination has produced more evils than
the passion of love, it behoves us to guard ourselves with
caution against its first appearance.
However coldness or indifference is unpleasant, yet excess of
love or fondness is bad, not only as it is not lasting, but
also because it is disagreeable at the time.
It is in his religious views that we see best this attitude
of Boswell. While his opinions were on the one hand completely
conventional, they yet depended quite consciously upon this doctrine
of happiness.
The religious fear which I mean to inculcate, is that
reverential awe for the Most High Ruler of the Universe, mixed
with affectionate gratitude and hope, by which our minds
are kept steady, calm, and placid, at once exalted by the
contemplation of greatness, and warmed by the contemplation
of goodness, while both are contemplated with a reference to
ourselves.[2]
However 'romantic' Boswell may have been in other matters, there is
no shadow of romance in his conception of a Deity. His admiration
for what seems to be merely a superior human being admitted of no
spiritual disquiet. Rather the 'steady, calm, and placid' temper so
produced was to serve as an antidote to hypochondria.
In order to have these comforts which not only relieve but
'delight the soul,' the Hypochondriack must take care to have
the principles of our holy religion firmly established in
his mind, when it is sound and clear, and by the habit and
exercise of piety to strengthen it, so that the flame may live
even in the damp and foul vapour of melancholy.[3]
Further instructions as to how these comforts are to be enjoyed are
given in the 'Life' where his final view is expressed:
This I have learned from a pretty hard course of experience,
and would, from sincere benevolence, impress upon all
who honour this book with a perusal, that until a steady
conviction is obtained that the present life is an imperfect
state, and only a passage to a better, if we comply with the
divine scheme of progressive improvement; and also that it is
part of the mysterious plan of Providence that intellectual
beings must be 'made perfect through suffering'; there will be
a continual recurrence of disappointment and uneasiness. But
if we walk with hope in 'the mid-day sun of revelation' our
temper and disposition will be such that the comforts and
enjoyments in our way will be relished, while we patiently
support the inconveniences and pains.
The argument is clear: we must choose the path where 'uneasiness' is
avoided and 'comforts and enjoyments' are in store for us. The part to
be played by the intellect is not doubtful. The power of reasoning may
be valuable up to a certain point; beyond that point it is unsafe for
it to pass:
After much speculation and various reasonings, I acknowledge
myself convinced of the truth of Voltaire's conclusion,
'_Après tout, c'est un monde passable._' But we must not think
too deeply;
Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise
is, in many respects, more than poetically just. Let us
cultivate, under the command of good principles, '_la théorie
des sensations agréables_'; and, as Mr. Burke once counselled
a grave and anxious gentleman, 'live pleasant.'
'We must not think too deeply'--because it is not pleasant. 'I most
willingly admit,' he says elsewhere, 'that of all kinds of misery, the
misery of thought is the severest.' He wished to escape from thought,
and found his religion a very pleasant substitute. It enabled him to
believe all that he found most pleasant in beliefs, and to reject what
he found disquieting. The fear of death, he discovered, could best
be alleviated by believing in the divine revelation; accordingly he
proceeded to adopt this belief.
But the pleasure which Boswell obtained in this way was not merely the
pleasure of a mind lulled to tranquillity, it was the pleasure also of
possessing a point of view. He wanted to be entirely respectable.
And respectability was to be achieved by adopting wholesale the
respectable beliefs. Boswell perhaps could never have been otherwise
than conventional in his ethical and religious thought; but he did
at one time think, and he deliberately ceased to think; with the
consequence that all those views which he might or might not have
arrived at by thought and experience, instead of being deeply founded
within him, were only an ill-balanced superstructure.
* * * * *
The effect of Johnson upon this development was a very remarkable one.
Johnson himself was pre-eminently a conformist, and it was partly,
no doubt, from his example that Boswell derived his desire to be
respectable--to be, as he expressed it, 'an uniform pretty man.'
Boswell's own words show us that he was influenced in this way.
A meeting had been arranged between Johnson and one of Boswell's
friends, George Dempster, who held the sceptical views of Hume and
Rousseau; a discussion took place in which Johnson, whether by
force of argument or power of lungs, was victorious. 'I had infinite
satisfaction,' says Boswell, 'in hearing solid truth confuting vain
subtilty. I thank God that I have got acquainted with Mr. Johnson. He
has done me infinite service. He has assisted me to obtain peace of
mind, he has assisted me to become a rational Christian.'
How much are we to assume from this? How much of Boswell's
respectability came directly from Johnson?
There could be nothing more unreasonable than to dogmatise about the
extent of a personal influence. How subtle and intricate it is in
the thousand chances of a mind's development, of acquiescence and
rebellion, of mere time and place! how difficult to see the beginning
and the end, to know even approximately the value of any one force
in a number of causes! The distinction alone between a conscious or
unconscious acceptance, what a difference it makes!
That which determines individuality in men more than any other factor
is the freedom of choice. But there is more than one way of choosing.
There are some who choose to march upon the high road where tall
fences on either side prevent the possibility of wandering astray; and
there are others who select the by-paths deliberately. All who choose
are in search of treasure. Those who have rejected the high roads
hardly know what they so urgently desire; but when they come upon a
rare flower in the wilderness which pleases them particularly they
cull it; they are then refreshed and go forward with more certain
step, and there hangs about them something of the fragrance they
inhaled, so that other men when they meet them are reminded of that
flower which they too have seen and smelt. The rest press forward more
directly; when they have chosen the way there is no deviation; they
will pause for nothing unless it be of precious metal. And when their
quest is rewarded they surround themselves with a cloud of gold-dust,
as it seems to them, and cannot be seen except through this strange
mist.
Boswell, it would seem, was among these last. He chose freely, but
did not wander far afield. He was one of those in pursuit of ideal
treasure; and when he found in Dr. Johnson all that he desired, and
the ideal was satisfied, he impregnated himself with the priceless
essence. But, inasmuch as it was the essence he had chosen to seek,
even this exterior atmosphere was entirely of himself.
We expect, indeed, to see in Boswell beyond his own real nature the
marks of a stronger personality. But we may admit the Johnsonian
flavour without impugning the originality of Boswell or degrading him
to the level of a mere imitator. All the conventional prejudices,
the strong conformity which was so pronounced in Johnson, existed
in Boswell independently. The 'old Tory sentiments' inasmuch as they
exceeded the sentiments of Johnson (which they occasionally did,
_e.g._ on the subject of slavery), were definitely a part of the true
Boswell. It is remarkable that in the 'Letters to Temple' the opinions
of Johnson are very rarely mentioned; Boswell on one occasion was
'confirmed in his Toryism'; and Johnson is quoted two or three times:
but his name appears far less often than we should expect. It is
clear, indeed, when we read the 'Life of Johnson,' that Boswell,
however he might be a worshipper, was far from being a slave: his
passion for truth would not allow him to pass lightly by an opinion
he disapproved, and his conviction that Johnson was wrong, or at least
that his own opinions remained unaltered, is frankly if respectfully
stated more than once.
He knew that Johnson's opinions might be formed only to refute an
adversary: 'But it is not improbable that if one had taken the other
side he might have reasoned differently.' Not infrequently Boswell
ventures to criticise his philosopher's argument. On one occasion,
when predestination had been discussed, he even goes so far as to
excuse Johnson's prejudices:
He avoided the question which has excruciated philosophers and
divines beyond any other. I did not press it further, when
I perceived that he was displeased, and shrunk from any
abridgment of an attribute usually ascribed to the divinity,
however irreconcilable in its full extent with the grand
system of moral government. His supposed orthodoxy here
cramped the vigorous powers of his understanding. He was
confined by a chain, which early imagination and long habit
made him think massy and strong, but which, had he ventured to
try, he could at once have snapped asunder.
Boswell's attitude in this passage is very far from being
intellectually dependent on Johnson or on anyone else. And it is
not an unusual attitude. We sometimes see another side--Boswell,
apparently in fetters, a prisoner in the citadel of respectability.
But it cannot be asserted too often that Boswell was essentially an
independent individual, one who was capable of pursuing his own true
vision, inflexible and careless of the consequences.
There is no need to infer from this that the influence of Johnson
was negligible, or even small. We cannot suppose that the guide,
philosopher and friend of Boswell, for whom he had a 'mysterious
veneration,' whose 'just frown' he so greatly dreaded, whom upon so
many occasions he eagerly consulted, can have been of small account.
Boswell himself was far from thinking so; he knew the value of Johnson
to him when, reflecting that death must soon rob him of his friend,
he wrote to Temple, in Johnsonian words: 'it will be like a limb
amputated.'
If influence is to be defined it may be said perhaps that it is a
quality which makes us see what we should not have seen without it. We
cannot doubt that Boswell learnt many things by his intercourse with
Dr. Johnson. The influence of Johnson was in the first place, as we
remarked above, an influence for truth, for honesty. It helped
Boswell in his early life to see the self which he came in the end to
understand so well. He must long have remembered the letter which he
received from Johnson at Utrecht.
Boswell, in his desire to make an impression as the young genius, then
regarded himself as a peculiar mortal who had no need to regulate his
conduct by the ordinary standards. Johnson begins by describing this
state of mind:
There lurks, perhaps, in every human heart a desire of
distinction, which inclines every man first to hope, and then
to believe, that Nature has given him something peculiar to
himself.... You know a gentleman who, when first he set his
foot in the gay world, as he prepared himself to whirl in
the vortex of pleasure, imagined a total indifference and
universal negligence to be the most agreeable concomitants of
youth, and the strongest indication of an airy temper and a
quick apprehension.
The result which he particularly deplored was Boswell's idleness:
Vacant to every object, and sensible of every impulse,
he thought that all appearance of diligence would deduct
something from the reputation of genius; and hoped that he
should appear to attain, amidst all the ease of carelessness,
and all the tumults of diversion, that knowledge and those
accomplishments which mortals of the common fabrick obtain
only by mute abstraction and solitary drudgery.
He then alludes to the wrong conclusions which might be drawn by one
in Boswell's mental condition from the difficulties which attend a
return to a normal course of life:
He tried this scheme of life awhile; was made weary of it
by his sense and his virtue; he then wished to return to his
studies; and finding long habits of idleness and pleasure
harder to be cured than he expected, still willing to retain
his claim to some extraordinary prerogatives, resolved the
common consequences of irregularity into an unalterable decree
of destiny, and concluded that Nature had originally formed
him incapable of rational employment.
And finally he gives some very solemn advice:
Let all such fancies, illusive and destructive, be banished
henceforward from your thoughts for ever. Resolution will
sometimes relax, and diligence will sometimes be interrupted;
but let no accidental surprise or deviation, whether short or
long, dispose you to despondency. Consider these failings as
incident to all mankind.
Boswell was too honest not to realise the truth of what Johnson said,
and we cannot but think of this letter when we read a number of years
later, in the _London Magazine_ of 1778, an attack written by Boswell
upon the association by Aristotle of melancholy with genius; for this
essay seems to aim at undermining the same kind of affectation as that
which Johnson had seen in him.
Similarly the effect of Johnson in making Boswell more respectable was
produced less by example than by dislike of affectation. Johnson was
pre-eminently a conformist; and Boswell desired the same happy state
for himself. But Johnson was honest in his conformity, and he cared
less for the conformity than for the honesty. And so he was able, when
he saw Boswell affecting sentiments which he did not wholly feel, to
reprove him. It was not that the sentiments in themselves were not
good sentiments, for they often were, but that in Boswell they were
unreal.
_Boswell_: 'Perhaps, Sir, I should be the less happy for being
in Parliament. I never would sell my vote, and I should be
vexed if things went wrong.' _Johnson_: 'That's cant, Sir.
It would not vex you more in the House than in the Gallery:
publick affairs vex no man.'
Boswell was probably annoyed at this retort; it is very annoying to be
told the truth about oneself. He now tries to make Johnson admit that
he has been vexed himself 'by all the turbulence of this reign.'
_Johnson_: 'Sir, I have never slept an hour less, nor ate an
ounce less meat. I would have knocked the factious dogs on the
head, to be sure; but I was not _vexed_.'
The argument is too strong:
_Boswell_: 'I declare, Sir, upon my honour, I did imagine
I was vexed, and took a pride in it; but it _was_, perhaps,
cant; for I own I neither ate less, nor slept less.'
_Johnson_: 'My dear friend, clear your _mind_ of cant. You may
_talk_ as other people do; you may say to a man, "Sir, I am
your most humble servant." ... You may _talk_ in this manner;
it is a mode of talking in society: but don't _think_
foolishly.'
The result of Johnson's honesty acting upon Boswell's conventional
affectations was not to make him less but rather more conventional. It
gave him a surer foundation. An affectation does not as a rule become
less affected but rather the reverse. But Boswell's affectations
tended rather to become the substantial and real expression of a mind
as he came to understand that they were affectations. He saw that the
manners and opinions which he affected because they pleased him had
a value in life and a value for him. The lessons which he learnt
from Johnson in this way were, for the most part, moral; they were
concerned with the piety and goodness which were so much a part of
Johnson himself. Boswell was able to reinforce a set of religious
beliefs with a little real piety, and a set of moral axioms with a
little real goodness. If it were necessary to point to one definite
quality in the Johnsonian atmosphere which we might suppose to be of
special value to Boswell, it would be the genuine kind-heartedness
and benevolent interest, the 'tenderness' which we find so carefully
recorded in the 'Life.' It was to some purpose that the naturally
egotistical Boswell was reminded of a duty towards other men, was told
more than once without compromise that he must be kind to his father
and kind to his wife.
But it is not so much in any minute particular that Johnson was
reflected by his biographer, but rather in a more general way, in a
whole attitude towards life, in the one significant fact that Boswell
himself as we see him, not only in the biographical writings but in
his own letters too, is essentially a moralist. The one difficulty
which his conscience found in writing the 'Life' was that he might, by
showing the failings of so great a man, give support to those who were
inclined to the same faults so that they should conceive themselves to
be justified by that example. And so he points out with zealous
care that, where the 'practice' of Johnson does not agree with his
'principle,' it is not because the principle is not good but that even
so great a man was not quite perfect; _humanum est errare_.
Undoubtedly the influence of Johnson was a moral influence; this in
itself may be considered as one aspect of its complete respectability.
Johnson wanted Boswell to be a sober, honest, contented citizen, a
hard-working, successful lawyer, a good son, a good husband, a good
friend and a religious man. 'I have always loved and valued you,' he
wrote in 1769, 'and shall love you and value you still more, as you
become more regular and useful.' And again, in 1771:
I never was so much pleased as now with your account of
yourself; and sincerely hope, that between publick business,
improving studies, and domestick pleasures, neither melancholy
nor caprice will find any place for entrance. Whatever
philosophy may determine of material nature, it is certainly
true of intellectual nature that it 'abhors a vacuum'; our
minds cannot be empty; and evil will break in upon them,
if they are not preoccupied by good. My dear Sir, mind your
studies, mind your business, make your lady happy, and be a
good Christian.
There was no place for any intellectual unquiet--and herein it was
essentially respectable--in Johnson's scheme of life as he presented
it to others. If a subject were unpleasant to think of, it were better
not to heed it. He wished himself to walk through life in a calm,
majestic, and dignified way, with firm knowledge of good and a
resolute purpose to follow it. He never, if we may judge from Boswell,
was in any serious doubt as to the right course, and he seems to
have thought the matter as easy for Boswell as it was for him. It is
because he himself desired to be like this that Boswell found Johnson
such a valuable friend. But it was unfortunate, as it turned out, that
he attached so much importance to mere success in the world, in his
profession, in politics; in these, with the encouragement of Johnson,
he so completely believed, that when he discovered that he had failed,
or had at least fallen far short of his ambitions, he was bitterly
disappointed.
[Footnote 1: For Boswell's political career see pp. 174-182.
He published this letter in 1783, and a second two years
later.]
[Footnote 2: _London Magazine_, vol. xlvi, pp. 492-3.]
[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, vol. xlix, p. 542.]