because his mind was less vigorous than when he wrote Rasselas
in the evenings of a week, but because he had foolishly
chosen, or suffered others to choose for him, a subject such as
he would at no time have been competent to treat. He was
in no sense a statesman. He never willingly read or thought 30
or talked about affairs of state. He loved biography, literary
history, the history of manners; but political history was
positively distasteful to him. The question at issue between
the colonies and the mother country was a question about
which he had really nothing to say. He failed, therefore, as
the greatest men must fail when they attempt to do that for
which they are unfit; as Burke would have failed if Burke
had tried to write comedies like those of Sheridan; as Reynolds
would have failed if Reynolds had tried to paint landscapes 5
like those of Wilson. Happily, Johnson soon had an
opportunity of proving most signally that his failure was not
to be ascribed to intellectual decay.
45. On Easter eve 1777, some persons, deputed by a meeting
which consisted of forty of the first booksellers in London, 10
called upon him. Though he had some scruples about doing
business at that season, he received his visitors with much
civility. They came to inform him that a new edition of the English
poets, from Cowley downwards, was in contemplation, and to ask
him to furnish short biographical prefaces. He readily undertook 15
the task, a task for which he was pre-eminently qualified.
His knowledge of the literary history of England since the
Restoration was unrivalled. That knowledge he had derived
partly from books, and partly from sources which had long been
closed; from old Grub Street traditions; from the talk of 20
forgotten poetasters and pamphleteers who had long been lying
in parish vaults; from the recollections of such men as Gilbert
Walmesley, who had conversed with the wits of Button's; Cibber,
who had mutilated the plays of two generations of dramatists;
Orrery, who had been admitted to the society of Swift; and 25
Savage, who had rendered services of no very honourable kind
to Pope. The biographer therefore sate down to his task with
a mind full of matter. He had at first intended to give only
a paragraph to every minor poet, and only four or five pages
to the greatest name. But the flood of anecdote and criticism 30
overflowed the narrow channel. The work, which was originally
meant to consist only of a few sheets, swelled into ten
volumes, small volumes, it is true, and not closely printed.
The first four appeared in 1779, the remaining six in 1781.
46. The Lives of the Poets are, on the whole, the best of
Johnson's works. The narratives are as entertaining as any
novel. The remarks on life and on human nature are eminently
shrewd and profound. The criticisms are often excellent, and,
even when grossly and provokingly unjust, well deserve to be 5
studied. For, however erroneous they may be, they are never
silly. They are the judgments of a mind trammelled by prejudice
and deficient in sensibility, but vigorous and acute.
They therefore generally contain a portion of valuable truth
which deserves to be separated from the alloy; and, at the 10
very worst, they mean something, a praise to which much of
what is called criticism in our time has no pretensions.
47. Savage's Life Johnson reprinted nearly as it had
appeared in 1744. Whoever, after reading that life, will
turn to the other lives will be struck by the difference of 15
style. Since Johnson had been at ease in his circumstances
he had written little and had talked much. When, therefore,
he, after the lapse of years, resumed his pen, the mannerism
which he had contracted while he was in the constant habit
of elaborate composition was less perceptible than formerly; 20
and his diction frequently had a colloquial ease which it had
formerly wanted. The improvement may be discerned by a
skilful critic in the Journey to the Hebrides, and in the Lives
of the Poets is so obvious that it cannot escape the notice of
the most careless reader. 25
48. Among the lives the best are perhaps those of Cowley,
Dryden, and Pope. The very worst is, beyond all doubt,
that of Gray.
49. This great work at once became popular. There was,
indeed, much just and much unjust censure: but even those 30
who were loudest in blame were attracted by the book in
spite of themselves. Malone computed the gains of the publishers
at five or six thousand pounds. But the writer was
very poorly remunerated. Intending at first to write very
short prefaces, he had stipulated for only two hundred guineas.
The booksellers, when they saw how far his performance had
surpassed his promise, added only another hundred. Indeed,
Johnson, though he did not despise, or affect to despise, money,
and though his strong sense and long experience ought to 5
have qualified him to protect his own interests, seems to have
been singularly unskilful and unlucky in his literary bargains.
He was generally reputed the first English writer of his time.
Yet several writers of his time sold their copyrights for sums
such as he never ventured to ask. To give a single instance, 10
Robertson received four thousand five hundred pounds for
the History of Charles V.; and it is no disrespect to the
memory of Robertson to say that the History of Charles V.
is both a less valuable and a less amusing book than the Lives
of the Poets. 15
50. Johnson was now in his seventy-second year. The
infirmities of age were coming fast upon him. That inevitable
event of which he never thought without horror was brought
near to him; and his whole life was darkened by the shadow
of death. He had often to pay the cruel price of longevity. 20
Every year he lost what could never be replaced. The strange
dependents to whom he had given shelter, and to whom,
in spite of their faults, he was strongly attached by habit,
dropped off one by one; and, in the silence of his home, he
regretted even the noise of their scolding matches. The kind 25
and generous Thrale was no more; and it would have been
well if his wife had been laid beside him. But she survived
to be the laughing-stock of those who had envied her, and
to draw from the eyes of the old man who had loved her
beyond anything in the world tears far more bitter than he 30
would have shed over her grave. With some estimable and
many agreeable qualities, she was not made to be independent.
The control of a mind more steadfast than her own
was necessary to her respectability. While she was restrained
by her husband, a man of sense and firmness, indulgent to
her taste in trifles, but always the undisputed master of his
house, her worst offences had been impertinent jokes, white
lies, and short fits of pettishness ending in sunny good humour.
But he was gone; and she was left an opulent widow of forty, 5
with strong sensibility, volatile fancy, and slender judgment.
She soon fell in love with a music-master from Brescia, in
whom nobody but herself could discover anything to admire.
Her pride, and perhaps some better feelings, struggled hard
against this degrading passion. But the struggle irritated her 10
nerves, soured her temper, and at length endangered her
health. Conscious that her choice was one which Johnson
could not approve, she became desirous to escape from his
inspection. Her manner towards him changed. She was
sometimes cold and sometimes petulant. She did not conceal 15
her joy when he left Streatham; she never pressed him
to return; and, if he came unbidden, she received him in a
manner which convinced him he was no longer a welcome
guest. He took the very intelligible hints which she gave.
He read, for the last time, a chapter of the Greek Testament in 20
the library which had been formed by himself. In a solemn
and tender prayer he commended the house and its inmates
to the Divine protection, and, with emotions which choked
his voice and convulsed his powerful frame, left for ever that
beloved home for the gloomy and desolate house behind Fleet 25
Street, where the few and evil days which still remained to
him were to run out. Here, in June 1783, he had a paralytic
stroke, from which, however, he recovered, and which
does not appear to have at all impaired his intellectual faculties.
But other maladies came thick upon him. His asthma 30
tormented him day and night. Dropsical symptoms made
their appearance. While sinking under a complication of
diseases, he heard that the woman whose friendship had been
the chief happiness of sixteen years of his life had married an
Italian fiddler; that all London was crying shame upon her;
and that the newspapers and magazines were filled with
allusions to the Ephesian matron, and the two pictures in
Hamlet. He vehemently said that he would try to forget her
existence. He never uttered her name. Every memorial 5
of her which met his eye he flung into the fire. She meanwhile
fled from the laughter and hisses of her countrymen
and countrywomen to a land where she was unknown, hastened
across Mount Cenis, and learned, while passing a merry
Christmas of concerts and lemonade parties at Milan, that 10
the great man with whose name hers is inseparably associated
had ceased to exist.
51. He had, in spite of much mental and much bodily
affliction, clung vehemently to life. The feeling described
in that fine but gloomy paper which closes the series of his 15
Idlers seemed to grow stronger in him as his last hour drew
near. He fancied that he should be able to draw his breath
more easily in a southern climate, and would probably have
set out for Rome and Naples, but for his fear of the expense
of the journey. That expense, indeed, he had the means of 20
defraying; for he had laid up about two thousand pounds,
the fruit of labours which had made the fortune of several
publishers. But he was unwilling to break in upon this hoard,
and he seems to have wished even to keep its existence a
secret. Some of his friends hoped that the government might 25
be induced to increase his pension to six hundred pounds a
year, but this hope was disappointed, and he resolved to stand
one English winter more. That winter was his last. His
legs grew weaker; his breath grew shorter; the fatal water
gathered fast, in spite of incisions which he, courageous against 30
pain, but timid against death, urged his surgeons to make
deeper and deeper. Though the tender care which had mitigated
his sufferings during months of sickness at Streatham
was withdrawn, he was not left desolate. The ablest physicians
and surgeons attended him, and refused to accept fees from
him. Burke parted from him with deep emotion. Windham
sate much in the sick-room, arranged the pillows, and sent his
own servant to watch at night by the bed. Frances Burney,
whom the old man had cherished with fatherly kindness, stood 5
weeping at the door; while Langton, whose piety eminently
qualified him to be an adviser and comforter at such a time,
received the last pressure of his friend's hand within. When
at length the moment, dreaded through so many years, came
close, the dark cloud passed away from Johnson's mind. His 10
temper became unusually patient and gentle; he ceased to
think with terror of death, and of that which lies beyond
death; and he spoke much of the mercy of God, and of the
propitiation of Christ. In this serene frame of mind he died
on the 13th of December 1784. He was laid, a week later, 15
in Westminster Abbey, among the eminent men of whom he
had been the historian,--Cowley and Denham, Dryden and
Congreve, Gay, Prior, and Addison.
52. Since his death the popularity of his works--the Lives
of the Poets, and, perhaps, the Vanity of Human Wishes, 20
excepted--has greatly diminished. His Dictionary has been
altered by editors till it can scarcely be called his. An allusion
to his Rambler or his Idler is not readily apprehended in
literary circles. The fame even of Rasselas has grown somewhat
dim. But, though the celebrity of the writings may have 25
declined, the celebrity of the writer, strange to say, is as great
as ever. Boswell's book has done for him more than the best
of his own books could do. The memory of other authors is
kept alive by their works. But the memory of Johnson keeps
many of his works alive. The old philosopher is still among 30
us in the brown coat with the metal buttons and the shirt which
ought to be at wash, blinking, puffing, rolling his head, drumming
with his fingers, tearing his meat like a tiger, and swallowing
his tea in oceans. No human being who has been more
than seventy years in the grave is so well known to us. And
it is but just to say that our intimate acquaintance with what
he would himself have called the anfractuosities of his intellect
and of his temper serves only to strengthen our conviction that
he was both a great and a good man. 5
FROM MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON CROKER'S EDITION OF BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON
(_Edinburgh Review, September, 1831_)
1. The Life of Johnson is assuredly a great, a very great
work. Homer is not more decidedly the first of heroic poets,
Shakspeare is not more decidedly the first of dramatists,
Demosthenes is not more decidedly the first of orators, than
Boswell is the first of biographers. He has no second. He has 5
distanced all his competitors so decidedly that it is not worth
while to place them. Eclipse is first, and the rest nowhere.
2. We are not sure that there is in the whole history of the
human intellect so strange a phænomenon as this book. Many
of the greatest men that ever lived have written biography. 10
Boswell was one of the smallest men that ever lived, and he has
beaten them all. He was, if we are to give any credit to his
own account or to the united testimony of all who knew him, a
man of the meanest and feeblest intellect. Johnson described
him as a fellow who had missed his only chance of immortality 15
by not having been alive when the Dunciad was written.
Beauclerk used his name as a proverbial expression for a bore.
He was the laughing-stock of the whole of that brilliant society
which has owed to him the greater part of its fame. He was
always laying himself at the feet of some eminent man, and 20
begging to be spit upon and trampled upon. He was always
earning some ridiculous nickname, and then "binding it as a
crown unto him," not merely in metaphor, but literally. He
exhibited himself, at the Shakspeare Jubilee, to all the crowd
which filled Stratford-on-Avon, with a placard round his hat
bearing the inscription of Corsica Boswell. In his Tour he
proclaimed to all the world that at Edinburgh he was known 5
by the appellation of Paoli Boswell. Servile and impertinent,
shallow and pedantic, a bigot and a sot, bloated with family
pride, and eternally blustering about the dignity of a born
gentleman, yet stooping to be a tale-bearer, an eavesdropper,
a common butt in the taverns of London, so curious to know 10
every body who was talked about, that, Tory and high Churchman
as he was, he manoeuvred, we have been told, for an introduction
to Tom Paine, so vain of the most childish distinctions,
that when he had been to court, he drove to the office where
his book was printing without changing his clothes, and summoned 15
all the printer's devils to admire his new ruffles and
sword; such was this man, and such he was content and proud
to be. Every thing which another man would have hidden,
every thing the publication of which would have made another
man hang himself, was matter of gay and clamorous exultation 20
to his weak and diseased mind. What silly things he said,
what bitter retorts he provoked, how at one place he was
troubled with evil presentiments which came to nothing, how
at another place, on waking from a drunken doze, he read the
prayerbook and took a hair of the dog that had bitten him, 25
how he went to see men hanged and came away maudlin, how
he added five hundred pounds to the fortune of one of his babies
because she was not scared at Johnson's ugly face, how he was
frightened out of his wits at sea, and how the sailors quieted
him as they would have quieted a child, how tipsy he was at 30
Lady Cork's one evening and how much his merriment annoyed
the ladies, how impertinent he was to the Duchess of Argyle
and with what stately contempt she put down his impertinence,
how Colonel Macleod sneered to his face at his impudent
obtrusiveness, how his father and the very wife of his bosom
laughed and fretted at his fooleries; all these things he proclaimed
to all the world, as if they had been subjects for pride
and ostentatious rejoicing. All the caprices of his temper, all
the illusions of his vanity, all his hypochondriac whimsies, all 5
his castles in the air, he displayed with a cool self-complacency,
a perfect unconsciousness that he was making a fool of himself,
to which it is impossible to find a parallel in the whole history
of mankind. He has used many people ill; but assuredly
he has used nobody so ill as himself. 10
3. That such a man should have written one of the best
books in the world is strange enough. But this is not all.
Many persons who have conducted themselves foolishly in
active life, and whose conversation has indicated no superior
powers of mind, have left us valuable works. Goldsmith was 15
very justly described by one of his contemporaries as an
inspired idiot, and by another as a being
"Who wrote like an angel, and talked like poor Poll."
La Fontaine was in society a mere simpleton. His blunders
would not come in amiss among the stories of Hierocles. But 20
these men attained literary eminence in spite of their weaknesses.
Boswell attained it by reason of his weaknesses. If
he had not been a great fool, he would never have been a
great writer. Without all the qualities which made him the
jest and the torment of those among whom he lived, without 25
the officiousness, the inquisitiveness, the effrontery, the
toad-eating, the insensibility to all reproof, he never could have
produced so excellent a book. He was a slave, proud of his
servitude, a Paul Pry, convinced that his own curiosity and
garrulity were virtues, an unsafe companion who never scrupled 30
to repay the most liberal hospitality by the basest violation of
confidence, a man without delicacy, without shame, without
sense enough to know when he was hurting the feelings of
others or when he was exposing himself to derision; and
because he was all this, he has, in an important department
of literature, immeasurably surpassed such writers as Tacitus,
Clarendon, Alfieri, and his own idol Johnson.
4. Of the talents which ordinarily raise men to eminence 5
as writers, Boswell had absolutely none. There is not in all
his books a single remark of his own on literature, politics,
religion, or society, which is not either commonplace or absurd.
His dissertations on hereditary gentility, on the slave-trade,
and on the entailing of landed estates, may serve as examples. 10
To say that these passages are sophistical would be to pay
them an extravagant compliment. They have no pretence to
argument, or even to meaning. He has reported innumerable
observations made by himself in the course of conversation.
Of those observations we do not remember one which is above 15
the intellectual capacity of a boy of fifteen. He has printed
many of his own letters, and in these letters he is always ranting
or twaddling. Logic, eloquence, wit, taste, all those things
which are generally considered as making a book valuable, were
utterly wanting to him. He had, indeed, a quick observation 20
and a retentive memory. These qualities, if he had been a
man of sense and virtue, would scarcely of themselves have sufficed
to make him conspicuous; but, because he was a dunce,
a parasite, and a coxcomb, they have made him immortal.
5. Those parts of his book which, considered abstractedly, 25
are most utterly worthless, are delightful when we read them
as illustrations of the character of the writer. Bad in themselves,
they are good dramatically, like the nonsense of Justice
Shallow, the clipped English of Dr. Caius, or the misplaced
consonants of Fluellen. Of all confessors, Boswell is the most 30
candid. Other men who have pretended to lay open their
own hearts, Rousseau, for example, and Lord Byron, have
evidently written with a constant view to effect, and are to be
then most distrusted when they seem to be most sincere.
There is scarcely any man who would not rather accuse himself
of great crimes and of dark and tempestuous passions,
than proclaim all his little vanities and wild fancies. It would
be easier to find a person who would avow actions like those
of Cæsar Borgia or Danton, than one who would publish a 5
daydream like those of Alnaschar and Malvolio. Those weaknesses
which most men keep covered up in the most secret
places of the mind, not to be disclosed to the eye of friendship
or of love, were precisely the weaknesses which Boswell
paraded before all the world. He was perfectly frank, because 10
the weakness of his understanding and the tumult of his spirits
prevented him from knowing when he made himself ridiculous.
His book resembles nothing so much as the conversation of
the inmates of the Palace of Truth.
6. His fame is great; and it will, we have no doubt, be 15
lasting; but it is fame of a peculiar kind, and indeed
marvellously resembles infamy. We remember no other case in
which the world has made so great a distinction between a
book and its author. In general, the book and the author
are considered as one. To admire the book is to admire the 20
author. The case of Boswell is an exception, we think the
only exception, to this rule. His work is universally allowed
to be interesting, instructive, eminently original: yet it has
brought him nothing but contempt. All the world reads it:
all the world delights in it: yet we do not remember ever to 25
have read or ever to have heard any expression of respect and
admiration for the man to whom we owe so much instruction
and amusement. While edition after edition of his book was
coming forth, his son, as Mr. Croker tells us, was ashamed of
it, and hated to hear it mentioned. This feeling was natural 30
and reasonable. Sir Alexander saw that, in proportion to the
celebrity of the work, was the degradation of the author. The
very editors of this unfortunate gentleman's books have forgotten
their allegiance, and, like those Puritan casuists who
took arms by the authority of the king against his person,
have attacked the writer while doing homage to the writings.
Mr. Croker, for example, has published two thousand five
hundred notes on the life of Johnson, and yet scarcely ever
mentions the biographer whose performance he has taken such 5
pains to illustrate without some expression of contempt.
7. An ill-natured man Boswell certainly was not. Yet the
malignity of the most malignant satirist could scarcely cut
deeper than his thoughtless loquacity. Having himself no
sensibility to derision and contempt, he took it for granted 10
that all others were equally callous. He was not ashamed to
exhibit himself to the whole world as a common spy, a common
tattler, a humble companion without the excuse of poverty,
and to tell a hundred stories of his own pertness and
folly, and of the insults which his pertness and folly brought 15
upon him. It was natural that he should show little discretion
in cases in which the feelings or the honour of others
might be concerned. No man, surely, ever published such
stories respecting persons whom he professed to love and
revere. He would infallibly have made his hero as contemptible 20
as he has made himself, had not his hero really
possessed some moral and intellectual qualities of a very high
order. The best proof that Johnson was really an extraordinary
man is that his character, instead of being degraded, has,
on the whole, been decidedly raised by a work in which all 25
his vices and weaknesses are exposed more unsparingly than
they ever were exposed by Churchill or by Kenrick.