It is remarkable, as we have observed, in view of his personal
animosities, and of his determination to prove Dr. Johnson to be both
a greater and a better man than would appear from previous accounts,
and to be an extremely dignified man as fitted his own conception
of him, that Boswell should have presented a complete picture of
Johnson--that he should have mentioned all the incidents from which
he might appear both a less important and a less pleasant man--all the
circumstances that might detract from his dignity.
The explanation which seems so simple and involves, when we come to
understand all that it means, not only the exact shades of what the
author said, but many things that he refrained from saying, is that
Boswell in this particular sphere, the sphere of the biographer,
was entirely truthful. And truth meant far more than that he did not
distort the facts and did not suppress them; it involved in him the
capacity for creating, the essential quality of his genius. Boswell
had in fact the scientific spirit and applied it to the greatest of
all subjects, to human nature. He was, in the first place, extremely
accurate both in observing and recording; he watched attentively and
often; and he described patiently what he had seen and heard.
The biographer's own pen has given us a short account of his
qualifications, as they appeared to him, for the task of writing the
life of Johnson:
'As I had the honour and happiness of enjoying his friendship
for upwards of twenty years; as I had the scheme of writing
his life constantly in view; as he was well apprised of this
circumstance, and from time to time obligingly satisfied my
inquiries, by communicating to me the incidents of his early
years; as I acquired a facility in recollecting and was
very assiduous in recording his conversation, of which the
extraordinary vigour and vivacity constituted one of the first
features of his character; and as I have spared no pains in
obtaining materials concerning him, from every quarter where
I could discover that they were to be found, and have been
favoured with the most liberal communications by his friends;
I flatter myself that few biographers have entered upon such
a work as this, with more advantages; independent of literary
abilities, in which I am not vain enough to compare myself
with some great names who have gone before me in this kind of
writing.'[1]
With this statement we may heartily agree; but all that it really
says is that Boswell had opportunities, and acquired a faculty, for
_recording_. He had, besides, a quite remarkable faculty of acute
observation. All that he says of Johnson's appearance, his clothes,
his walk, that truly horrible paragraph about his nails and knuckles,
is admirable, because he tells us in a few words exactly what is
most characteristic. The event of his first visit to Dr. Johnson was
naturally an occasion for Boswell to describe his hero:
His brown suit of clothes looked very rusty; he had on a
little old shrivelled unpowdered wig, which was too small for
his head; his shirt-neck and knees of his breeches were loose;
his black worsted stockings ill drawn up; and he had a pair of
unbuckled shoes by way of slippers.
That is all! And what more or what less could anyone want? In the
'Tour to the Hebrides' it is recorded that
He wore ... a very wide brown cloth great-coat, with pockets
which might have almost held the two volumes of his folio
'Dictionary'; and he carried in his hand a large English oak
stick.
What a difference it makes to our knowledge of Johnson that we know
these details! Boswell compels us to see Johnson. Plenty of men would
have noticed what he noticed, but few would have presented it so
vividly. Boswell's superiority depends upon his powers as an observer;
he saw things clear and strong, and so they are clear and strong for
his readers.
And Boswell excelled not only in painting the mere exterior; he often
alludes to the spirit that it expresses with the same dexterity.
'Generally,' he says, speaking of Johnson in the course of a dispute,
'when he had finished a period, by which time he was a good deal
exhausted by violence and vociferation, he used to blow out his breath
like a whale. This I suppose was a relief to his lungs; and seemed
in him to be a contemptuous mode of expression, as if he had made the
arguments of his opponents fly like chaff before the wind.' We are
told the physical details, but so much more! The whole attitude
of Johnson is described. Similarly all the little touches, as when
Johnson 'sprung away with a kind of pathetick briskness,' reveal his
feelings with startling fidelity. Perhaps most remarkable of all is
the account of Johnson's behaviour to his cat:
I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated
Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and buy
oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take
a dislike to the poor creature.... I recollect him one day
scrambling up Dr. Johnson's breast, apparently with much
satisfaction, while my friend, smiling and half-whistling,
rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I
observed he was a fine cat, saying, 'Why yes, Sir, but I
have had cats whom I liked better than this'; and then as if
perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, 'but he is
a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.'
We are pleased to find that Boswell has preserved for us the motive of
Johnson, 'lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike
to the poor creature.'[2] This is characteristic and interesting.
But how deeply satisfying it is to discover that poor Hodge, as it
appeared to Johnson, was 'out of countenance.'
It is not, however, only because he observed so accurately what was
obviously relevant, as the appearance of Johnson, or that he saw
exactly what his motives were, that Boswell was a good observer;
the range of his observation is equally remarkable. He observed
everything; no detail was too insignificant for his attention. It was
of vital importance for him to record (in the 'Tour to the Hebrides')
'I slept in the same room with Dr. Johnson. Each had a neat bed, with
Tartan curtains, in an upper chamber,' and it is well that he did
so; it is highly agreeable to imagine Johnson and Boswell in this
situation. It is also interesting to know that Boswell, on the
following morning, found upon the table in their room a slip of
paper, on which Dr. Johnson had written these words: '_Quantum
cedat virtutibus aurum_'; and that when Johnson turned his cup at
Aberbrothick, where they drank tea, he muttered '_Claudite jam rivos
pueri_.' And what an invaluable devotion it was that has preserved for
us so small a fact as this--that the book which Johnson presented to a
Highland lass was 'Cocker's Arithmetic'!
These details are ours not by the fortune of a naturally endowed
memory, but by the labour and patience and attention that trained a
mind to a point of excellence. Miss Burney has left us an admirable
account of Boswell's deportment when in the act of 'memorandising' Dr.
Johnson's conversation, and from this we may see something of what it
cost him to observe and record and remember:
In truth, when he met with Dr. Johnson, he commonly forbore
even answering anything that was said, or attending to
anything that went forward, lest he should miss the smallest
sound from that voice to which he paid such exclusive, though
merited, homage. But the moment that voice burst forth, the
attention which it excited in Mr. Boswell amounted almost to
pain. His eyes goggled with eagerness; he leant his ear almost
on the shoulder of the Doctor; and his mouth dropped open to
catch every syllable that might be uttered; nay, he seemed not
only to dread losing a word, but to be anxious not to miss a
breathing, as if hoping from it, latently or mystically, some
information.
Miss Burney had no admiration for Boswell, and the effect of this
description is merely grotesque. It is probable that Boswell was not
so wholly unconscious of self in this performance as Miss Burney
seems to have thought. His behaviour appears to have been absurd, in
a degree unnecessary alike to his curious character and his
extraordinary task. It is possible that Boswell, aware that his minute
attention to Dr. Johnson was a rather laughable affair, tried by a
sort of buffoonery to avoid the natural consequence. Boswell, when he
imitates Dr. Johnson in his presence, and when his eyes goggle
with eagerness, was perhaps attempting to divert the company by
caricaturing what was already ridiculous.
But however that may be, Miss Burney's account is no doubt faithful
enough as regards the original motive of the biographer's behaviour;
his eyes goggled with a genuine eagerness. That exclusive attention
was the attention of one who had a difficult task to perform and was
extremely anxious to perform it.
Boswell's infinite capacity for concentration in observing and
recording, and for patience in collecting and preserving the smallest
facts, is indeed an essential part of his genius; for genius, whenever
it achieves anything, implies devotion, implies the relentless pursuit
of its object, however small the actual result of the moment may seem
when compared to the trouble which has been expended upon it. And this
capacity for concentration enabled Boswell not merely to observe
and record what he saw and heard, but to seek continually for any
information, however it was to be obtained, which might be of value to
him.
It is easy to see from many passages in the early portion of the
'Life'--the portion, that is, which deals with Johnson before Boswell
made his acquaintance, and which naturally required the greatest
labour, in collecting and investigating material, on the part of the
biographer--how much trouble Boswell took. In order to obtain a copy
of the famous letter to Lord Chesterfield he tells us:
I for many years solicited Johnson to favour me with a copy
of it, that so excellent a composition might not be lost to
posterity. He delayed from time to time to give it me; till
at last, in 1781, when we were on a visit at Mr. Dilly's, at
Southill in Bedfordshire, he was pleased to dictate it to me
from memory. He afterwards found among his papers a copy of
it, which he had dictated to Mr. Baretti, with its title
and corrections in his own handwriting. This he gave to Mr.
Langton; adding that if it were to come into print, he wished
it to be from that copy. By Mr. Langton's kindness, I am
enabled to enrich my work with a perfect transcript of what
the world has so eagerly desired to see.
It appears that, though he had at last succeeded in obtaining a copy
from Johnson, he was willing to take the further trouble of getting
Mr. Langton's copy, which was more likely to be absolutely accurate.
Still more remarkable is the manner in which he discovered the facts
about Johnson's pension:
_Lord Bute told me_[3] that Mr. Wedderburne, now Lord
Loughborough, was the person who first mentioned this subject
to him. _Lord Loughborough told me_ that the pension was
granted solely as a reward of his literary merit.... _Mr.
Thomas Sheridan and Mr. Murphy_, who then lived a good deal
both with him and Mr. Wedderburne, _told me_, that they
previously talked with Johnson on this matter.... _Sir Joshua
Reynolds told me_ that Johnson called on him.
The mere number of names consulted is sufficiently imposing. Boswell
in fact was collecting evidence for a case. He must examine all the
witnesses: also he must examine them in such a way that the truth
might be discovered.
Mr. Murphy and the late Mr. Sheridan severally contended for
the distinction of having been the first who mentioned to
Mr. Wedderburne that Johnson ought to have a pension. _When
I spoke of this to Lord Loughborough_, wishing to know if he
recollected the prime mover in the business, _he said_: 'All
his friends assisted,' and when I told him that Mr. Sheridan
strenuously asserted his claim to it, his Lordship said: 'He
rang the bell.' And it is but just to add, that _Mr. Sheridan
told me_ that when he communicated to Dr. Johnson that a
pension was to be granted him he replied in a fervour of
gratitude.... _When I repeated this to Dr. Johnson he did not
contradict it._
The profusion of information about this particular point may seem to
us unnecessary--it is of course controversial, and the controversy has
lost much of its interest. But it shows in any case not only the great
number of questions Boswell was willing to ask in order to find
out exactly what had taken place and the scale upon which his
investigations were conducted, but also the minute and detailed care
with which he preserved the truth.
Boswell has himself said something of the labour it cost him to
compile the 'Life':
The labour and anxious attention with which I have collected
and arranged the materials of which these volumes are
composed, will hardly be conceived by those who read them with
careless facility. The stretch of mind and prompt assiduity by
which so many conversations were preserved, I myself, at
some distance of time, contemplate with wonder; and I must
be allowed to suggest, that the nature of the work in other
respects, as it consists of innumerable detached particulars,
all of which, even the most minute, I have spared no pains
to ascertain with a scrupulous authenticity, has occasioned
a degree of trouble far beyond that of any other species
of composition. Were I to detail the books which I have
consulted, and the inquiries which I have found it necessary
to make by various channels, I should probably be thought
ridiculously ostentatious. Let me only observe, as a specimen
of my trouble, that I have sometimes been obliged to run half
over London in order to fix a date correctly.[4]
Something of all that Boswell meant by this can be seen more nearly in
Dr. Birkbeck Hill's essay upon Boswell's Proof-sheets:
A delay was sometimes caused by his desire to 'ascertain
particulars with scrupulous authenticity.' 'Sheet 777,' he
wrote, 'is with Mr. Wilkes to look at a note.' ... A short
delay is caused in ascertaining the number of years the Rev.
Mr. Vilette had been Ordinary of Newgate. A blank had been
left in the text. On the margin Boswell wrote: 'Send my note
to Mr. Vilette in the morning and open the answer. Or inquire
of Mr. Akerman (the keeper of Newgate) for the number of
years. Get it somehow.' ... On page 505 of the second volume
Boswell writes: 'I could wish that the forme in which page 512
is were not thrown off till I have an answer from Mr. Stone,
the gentleman mentioned in the note, to tell me his Christian
name, that I may call him Esq.' ... In the margin of the
passage in which he quotes the inscription on a gold snuff-box
given to Reynolds by Catherine II., he writes, 'Pray be very
careful in printing the words of the Empress of _all the
Russias_.' ... Opposite the long note where he quotes the
anonymous editor of 'Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian,'
he writes in the margin: '_This page_ must not be laid on
till I hear from Dr. Parr whether his name may be mentioned.'
Accordingly he wrote to him requesting 'to have by return of
post if I may say or guess that Dr. Parr is the editor.'
The success of these inquiries was far from certain. Dr. Parr's name
does not appear.
Boswell was more fortunate in obtaining a name for another
entry, which had originally stood: 'He was in this like ...
who, Mr. Daines Barrington told me, used to say: 'I hate a
_cui bono_ man!' In the margin he filled up the blank with 'a
respectable person'; but before the sheet was 'laid on,' he
learnt this respectable person's name. In the published text
he figures as 'Dr. Shaw, the great traveller.'[5]
The proof-sheets which Dr. Birkbeck Hill was so fortunate as to see
were not the first sheets, but only 'revises': in the earlier stages
there must have been many more minute facts for Boswell to find out.
But they are undoubtedly documents of great interest, and the point
which stands out most clearly from the essay we have quoted is the
extraordinary minuteness of Boswell's care and attention.
* * * * *
The devotion of Boswell to his biographical work is illustrated not so
much by the prodigious toil it cost him--for many men have this power
of sustained labour when they have found the right object for it--as
by the reckless disregard of conventions and people to which it led
him.
The admirable account in the 'Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft'[6] of how
Boswell obtained from Mr. Lowe a copy of one of Johnson's letters
shows how attentive he could be even to a man whom, it would seem, he
rather despised, when there was a chance of acquiring any document or
information which might be of use to him. Lowe had requested Johnson
to write him a letter, which Johnson did, and Boswell came in while
it was writing; his attention was immediately fixed. Lowe took the
letter, retired, and was followed by Boswell.
'Nothing,' said Lowe, 'could surprise me more. Till that
moment he had so entirely overlooked me that I did not imagine
he knew there was such a creature in existence, and he
now accosted me with the most overstrained and insinuating
compliments possible. "How do you do, Mr. Lowe? I hope you are
well, Mr. Lowe? Pardon my freedom, Mr. Lowe, but I think I saw
my dear friend Dr. Johnson writing a letter for you." "Yes,
sir." "I hope you will not think me rude, but if it would not
be too great a favour, you would infinitely oblige me if you
would just let me have a sight of it; everything from that
hand, you know, is so inestimable." "Sir, it is on my own
private affairs, but----." "I would not pry into a person's
affairs, my dear Mr. Lowe, by any means. I am sure you would
not accuse me of such a thing, only, if it were no particular
secret----" "Sir, you are welcome to read the letter." "I
thank you, my dear Mr. Lowe, you are very obliging. I take it
exceedingly kind." ... (Having read): "It is nothing I believe,
Mr. Lowe, that you would be ashamed of----" "Certainly not."
"Why, then, my dear sir, if you would do me another favour you
would make the obligation eternal. If you would but step to
Peele's coffee-house with me and just suffer me to take a copy
of it I would do anything in my power to oblige you." 'I
was so overcome,' said Lowe, 'by this sudden familiarity and
condescension, accompanied with bows and grimaces, I had no
power to refuse. We went to the coffee-house. My letter was
presently transcribed, and as soon as he had put his document
in his pocket Mr. Boswell walked away as erect and as proud as
half an hour before. I ever after was unnoticed. Nay, I am not
certain,' added he sarcastically, 'whether the Scotchman did
not leave me, poor as he knew I was, to pay for my own dish of
coffee.'[7]
Miss Burney also gives an amusing account of how she was pressed to
give her recollections of Johnson.
Boswell met her at the gate of St. George's chapel, and since the
lady relates 'Mr. Turbulent brought him to me,' it would seem that the
anxious biographer sought the mediation of a friend so as to have a
better reception. Miss Burney, however, found the occasion unsuitable;
she was on the way to the 'Queen's Lodge'; a Queen's lady has to
reflect the aloofness of royalty, and a conversation with Mr. Boswell
would not add to her dignity. Her assistance is sought in most
eloquent terms:
Yes, madam; you must give me some of your choice little notes
of the Doctor's; we have seen him long enough upon stilts; I
want to show him in a new light. Grave Sam, and great Sam, and
solemn Sam, and learned Sam--all these he has appeared over
and over. Now I want to entwine a wreath of the graces across
his brow; I want to show him as gay Sam, agreeable Sam,
pleasant Sam; so you must help me with some of his beautiful
billets to yourself.
Miss Burney apparently had no wish that her 'choice little notes'
should appear in the 'Life.' Boswell did his best in vain. 'I evaded
this by declaring I had not any stores at hand. He proposed a thousand
curious expedients to get at them, but I was invincible....'
But Boswell was not easily to be dismissed; he must glean what he may
from Miss Burney; she must, at least, give judgment on the style of
the work.
He then told me his 'Life of Dr. Johnson' was nearly printed,
and took a proof-sheet out of his pocket to show me, with
crowds passing and repassing, knowing me well, and staring
well at him: for we were now at the iron rails of the Queen's
Lodge.
I stopped; I could not ask him in: I saw he expected it, and
was reduced to apologise, and tell him I must attend the Queen
immediately....
But finding he had no chance for entering, he stopped me again
at the gate, and said he would read me a part of his work.
There was no refusing this: and he began, with a letter of Dr.
Johnson's to himself. He read it in strong imitation of the
Doctor's manner, very well, and not caricature. But Mrs.
Schwellenberg was at her window, a crowd was gathering to
stand round the rails, and the King and Queen and Royal Family
now approached from the Terrace.
It is a delightful scene--the enthusiastic Boswell oblivious of
Royalty as he declaims the sonorous words of the Doctor, and Miss
Burney anxious only to effect an escape. The whole account shows how
importunate Boswell could become in the cause of his art and for his
'sacred love of truth.'
[Footnote 1: _Life of Johnson_, i, 25-6.]
[Footnote 2: So also Mrs. Piozzi.]
[Footnote 3: The italics throughout are of course mine.]
[Footnote 4: _Life of Johnson_, Advertisement to First
Edition.]
[Footnote 5: _Johnson Club Papers_, pp. 58-60. The
proof-sheets were in 1893 possessed by Mr. R. B. Adam,
Barnstaple, Cape Cod.]
[Footnote 6: Quoted in the introduction to Mr. Birrell's
edition of the _Life_.]
[Footnote 7: _Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft_, iii, 29-31.]