Edinburgh. They were complimented and entertained by Lord Elibank, Lady
Colville, Lord Hailes, Principal Robertson, and others. Mrs. Boswell,
though she did not oppose her husband taking part in the Hebridean
journey, was not reconciled to it. On his return she remarked to
him, “I have seen a bear led by a man, but I never before saw a man
led by a bear.” Boswell accepted the remark facetiously, and, in the
belief he would enjoy it, repeated it to Dr. Johnson. As might have
been expected, the lexicographer felt most keenly the allusion to his
rough manners, and he was placed in circumstances in which retort was
impossible. Removal was his only refuge, and he hastened his departure.
He left Edinburgh in the stage-coach on the 22nd November—just twelve
days after his return to the city. But he did not forget Mrs. Boswell’s
censure. For several years he alluded to her disliking him in many
letters to her husband. Writing to Boswell on the 29th January, 1774,
he sends his compliments to Mrs. Boswell, adding, “Tell her I do not
love her the less for wishing me away.” On the 5th March he wrote,
“Mrs. Boswell is a sweet lady—only she was so glad to see me go that
I have almost a mind to come again, that she may again have the same
pleasure.” In the same strain he writes to Boswell on the 27th August,
1775,—
“Of Mrs. Boswell, though she knows in her heart that she does not love
me, I am always glad to hear any good, and hope that she and the dear
little ladies will have neither sickness nor any other affliction. But
she knows that she does not care what becomes of me, and for that she
may be sure that I think her very much to blame.”
Dr. Johnson prepared his “Journey to the Hebrides” most leisurely; it
was not published till January, 1775. Boswell received a parcel of
copies, one for himself, others for persons who had shown particular
attention to the writer. In distributing the volumes he invited special
attention to an encomium upon himself in the earlier portion of the
work. Obtaining charge of several cases appealed from the Court of
Session to the House of Lords, he hastened to London to enjoy the
honours which he conceived Dr. Johnson’s eulogy must have secured him.
On the evening of Saturday, the 18th March, Boswell by the Edinburgh
diligence reached Grantham. Travelling being suspended till Monday, he
in the interval wrote a long letter to Mr. Temple. An extract follows.
“I am now,” he proceeded, “so far on my way to London in the fly.
It is Saturday night, and we repose here all Sunday. I have an
acquaintance in Grantham, the Rev. Mr. Palmer, who was chaplain to
the late Speaker; he is a worthy, learned, social man. I sent him a
card that I would breakfast with him to-morrow, if not inconvenient to
him. His answer is just come, which you shall hear: As breakfasting
will be attended with some inconveniences in the present state of his
family, he will be very glad of the favour of his company to a family
dinner to-morrow at two o’clock. What can be the meaning of this?
_How can breakfasting be inconvenient to a family that dines?_ Can
he wish to lie long in the morning that Queen Mab may be with him,
‘tickling the parson as he lies asleep’? or can his wife and daughter
not dress early enough? Pray guess in your next, with a sacerdotal
sagacity, what this can be. I shall try to learn and let you know. It
is now early in the morning. I am writing in a great English parlour,
to have my letter ready for the post at nine. It is comfortable to
have such an acquaintance as Palmer—so situated. I have thought of
making a good acquaintance in each town on the road. No man has been
more successful in making acquaintance easily than I have been. I even
bring people quickly on to a degree of cordiality. I am a quick fire,
but I know not if I last sufficiently, though surely, my dear Temple,
there is always a warm place for you. With many people I have compared
myself to a taper, which can light up a great and lasting fire, though
itself is soon extinguished....
“Mr. Johnson, when enumerating our club, observed of some of us that
they talked from books,—Langton in particular. Garrick, he said,
would talk from books, if he talked seriously. ‘I,’ said he, ‘do not
talk from books; you do not talk from books.’ This was a compliment
to my originality, but I am afraid I have not read books enough to
be able to talk from them. You are very kind in saying that I may
overtake you in learning. Believe me, though, that I have a kind of
impotency of study; however, _nil desperandum est_....
“For my own part, I have continued schemes of publication, but cannot
fix. I am still very unhappy with my father. We are so totally
different that a good understanding is scarcely possible. He looks
on my going to London just now as an _expedition_, as idle and
extravagant, when in reality it is highly improving to me, considering
the company which I enjoy; and I think it is also for my interest, as
in time I may get something. Lord Pembroke was very obliging to me
when he was in Scotland, and has corresponded with me since. I have
hopes from him. How happy should I be to get an independency by my own
influence while my father is alive!
“I am in charming health and spirits. There is a handsome maid in this
inn, who interrupts me by coming sometimes into the room—I have no
confession to make, my priest, so be not curious.
* * * * *
“Dr. Young says,—
‘A fever argues better than a Clarke.’
It is as fair reasoning for me to say that this handsome maid (Matty
is her name) argues better than—whom you please.”
Boswell reached London on the 21st March, and at once waited on Dr.
Johnson, who received him cordially. On the 4th April he despatched a
long letter to Mr. Temple, of which a portion is subjoined:—
“MY DEAR TEMPLE,
“My last was indeed a characteristical letter: I was quite in my old
humour. My mind, formerly a wild, has been for some years pretty well
enclosed with moral fences; but I fear the fences are stone hedges
(to use a strange expression of Mr. Johnson in his ‘Journey’) of a
loose construction, for a storm of passion would blow them down. When
at Grantham there was a pretty brisk gale, which shook them; but now
Reason, that steady builder and overseer, has set them firm, or they
have proved to be better than I thought them, for my enclosures are in
as good order as ever. I thank you, however, for your friendly props;
your kind counsels pleased me much.
* * * * *
“Your soft admonitions would at any time calm the tempests of my soul.
I told you that my arguments for concubinage were only for theory; the
patriarchs might have a plurality, because they were not taught that
it was wrong; but I, who have always been taught that it is wrong,
cannot have the same enjoyment without an impression of its being so,
and consequently without my moral sense suffering. But is not this
prejudice? Be it so....
“I had last night an unexpected call to be at the bar of the House
of Commons this day for Captain Erskine, brother to Miss Floyer’s
husband, as counsel for him in the Clackmannan election, where he is
petitioner. I had neither wig nor gown with me. I posted to Claxton’s
early this morning, and he has kindly lent me both. I know not but in
equity he should have a share of the guineas which they bring....
“To-day I dine at Sir John Pringle’s; to-morrow at Dilly’s, with Mr.
Johnson and Langton, &c.; Thursday at Tom Davies’s, with Mr. Johnson
and some others; Friday at the Turk’s Head, Gerrard Street, with our
club, Sir Joshua Reynolds, &c., who now dine once a month, and sup
every Friday. My forenoons are spent in visiting, and you know the
distances of London make that business enough. Mr. Johnson has allowed
me to write out a supplement to his Journey, but I wish I may be able
to settle to it. This House of Commons work will be good ballast for
me. I am little in what is called the gaiety of London; I went to
Mrs. Abingdon’s benefit to please Sir Joshua Reynolds. I have been
at no other public place except exhibitions of pictures with Lord
Mountstuart;[53] he is warmly my friend, and has engaged to do for me.
His brother’s lady,[54] a sweet, handsome, lively little woman, is
my wife’s intimate friend. I pass many of my morning hours with her.
Paoli and I (for his simple designation is the highest) are to be at
Wilton some time between the 10th and 26th of this month; I shall go
from thence to your parsonage and overpower you with vivacity, and
return to Bath.”
Boswell proceeded to Mamhead, and there, though his host was an
abstainer, got very drunk. Mr. Temple entreated him, when he became
sober, to abandon his intemperate habits. As they talked together under
an aged yew, Boswell vowed that he should henceforth avoid excess and
cherish moderation. In a letter to Mr. Temple, dated the 10th May, he
remarked that Dr. Johnson was now discouraging his proposal to add
a supplement to his “Journey.” This proceeding he attributes to Dr.
Johnson’s unwillingness that any one should share his laurels. “But
don’t you think,” he adds, “I may write out my remarks on Scotland, and
send them to be revised by you? and then they may be published freely.
Give me your opinion of this.”
Good Friday, which fell upon the 14th of April, Boswell spent with Dr.
Johnson. They were present at three religious services, and in the
evening they sat “a long while together in a serene, undisturbed frame
of mind.” On Easter Sunday Boswell “attended the solemn service at St.
Paul’s.” Writing next day to Mr. Temple, he informs him that he had
“received the holy sacrament, and was exalted in piety.” In the same
letter he reports that he is enjoying “the metropolis to the full,” and
that he has had “too much dissipation.” He asks his friend not to fear
“his Asiatic multiplicity,” except when he happens to “take too much
claret.”
Boswell remained in London about two months, and though chiefly engaged
in driving out, contrived to pocket forty guineas of professional
fees. From Grantham, _en route_ for Scotland, he wrote to Mr. Temple
that, much to his disgust, “Henry Dundas,[55] a coarse, unlettered,
unfanciful dog,” was to be made Lord Advocate “at thirty-three,” and
that he had personally resolved to join the English Bar on obtaining
his father’s consent. He proceeds,—
“I passed a delightful day yesterday. After breakfasting with Paoli
and worshipping at St. Paul’s, I dined _tête-à-tête_ with my charming
Mrs. Stuart, of whom you have read in my Journal. She refused to be of
a party at Richmond, that she and I might enjoy a farewell interview.
We dined in all the elegance of two courses and a dessert, with dumb
waiters, except when the second course and the dessert were served.
We talked with unreserved freedom, as we had nothing to fear; we were
_philosophical_, upon honour—not deep, but feeling we were pious; we
drank tea, and bid each other adieu as purely as romance paints. She
is my wife’s dearest friend, so you see how beautiful our intimacy is.”
Boswell adds that “the handsome chambermaid had gone from the inn,”
and that he had promised Dr. Johnson to accept a chest of books of
the moralist’s own selection, and to “read more and drink less.” He
sums up, “Tell Mrs. Temple that I am a favourite with her, because she
knows me better, and that she may be assured that the more she knows
me the more allowance will she make for my faults.” A postscript is
added. “There is,” he writes, “a Miss Silverton in the fly with me, an
amiable creature, who has been in France. I can unite little fondnesses
with perfect conjugal love. Remember to put my letters in a book
neatly,—see which of us does it first.”
From Edinburgh, on the 3rd June, Boswell wrote to Mr. Temple as
follows:—
“On my arrival here I had the pleasure to find my wife and two little
daughters as well as I could wish; but indeed, my worthy friend, it
required some philosophy to bear the change from England to Scotland.
The unpleasing tone, the rude familiarity, the barren conversation, of
those whom I found here, in comparison with what I had left, really
hurt my feelings.... The General Assembly is sitting, and I practise
at its bar. There is _de facto_ something low and coarse in such
employment, though on paper it is a Court of _Supreme Judicature_; but
guineas must be had.”
“Low and coarse” as Boswell regarded the practice of his profession in
the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, he acknowledges that
he did not perform his part without some misgiving. “Do you know,” he
proceeds, “it requires more than ordinary spirit to do what I am to do
this very morning; I am to go to the General Assembly and arraign a
judgment pronounced last year by Dr. Robertson, John Home, and a good
many more of them, and they are to appear on the other side. To speak
well, when I despise both the cause and the judges, is difficult; but I
believe I shall do so wonderfully. I look forward with aversion to the
little dull labours of the Court of Session.”
Besides being disgusted with the Scottish Lord Advocate, Scottish
manners, and Scottish courts, ecclesiastical and civil, Boswell was
particularly dissatisfied with his father. He had sent him, he writes,
“a conciliatory letter, but he fears he is callous.” In dread of the
paternal allowance being discontinued, he writes,—
“If Lord Mountstuart would but give me an independency from the King
while my father lives, I should be a fine fellow.” He adds, “My
promise under the venerable yew has kept me sober.”
Boswell’s habits were not more pleasing to his father than were his
professional diligence and domestic economy. In the belief that his
son was an incorrigible idler, Lord Auchinleck seriously meditated a
withdrawal of his pension. But for his two children, disinheritance
might have followed. To Mr. Temple on the 19th of June he wrote thus:—
“My father is most unhappily dissatisfied with me. My wife and I
dined with him on Saturday; he did not salute her, though he had
not seen her for three months; nor did he so much as ask her how she
did, though she is advanced in pregnancy. I understand he fancies
that if I had married another woman, I might not only have had a
better portion with her, but might have been kept from what he thinks
idle and extravagant conduct. He harps on my going over Scotland
with a brute[56] (think how shockingly erroneous!), and wandering,
or some such phrase, to London. In vain do I defend myself; even the
circumstance that my last jaunt to London did not cost me £20—as I
got forty-two guineas in London—does not affect him. How hard it is
that I am totally excluded from parental comfort! I have a mind to go
to Auchinleck next autumn, and try what living in a mixed stupidity
of attention to common objects, and restraint from expressing any of
my own feelings, can do with him. I always dread his making some bad
settlement.”
Lord Auchinleck had solid grounds for indignation. He allowed his son
£300 per annum, besides having provided him with a very expensive
education. In the Scottish courts Boswell had abundant employment
when he evinced the slightest inclination to attend to it. He had run
himself aground; he owed a thousand pounds, which he could not pay,
and his creditors were clamorous. Fretting under the unexpected burden
which he was expected to sustain, Lord Auchinleck felt disposed to
blame his daughter-in-law for encouraging his son’s extravagance, and
it is not certain that Boswell took the blame solely upon himself.
The worthy judge was at length got over, and Boswell recovered his
elasticity. To Mr. Temple on the 12th August he writes as follows:—
“Tell me, my dear Temple, if a man who receives so many marks of more
than ordinary consideration can be satisfied to drudge in an obscure
corner, where the manners of the people are disagreeable to him? You
see how soon I revive again. Could I but persuade my father to give
me £400 a year, and let me go to the English Bar, I think I should be
much better. That, however, seems to be impossible. As he is bound for
£1,000 which I owe, he has resolved to lessen his allowance to me of
£300 to £200. I must not dispute with him, but he is really a strange
man. He is gone to Auchinleck. I intend to pass a little while with
him there soon, and sound him; or there see just what attention can
produce.”
In allusion to the request that his letters might be preserved, Boswell
was assured by Mr. Temple that he too contemplated a publication.
Boswell pronounces it “a charming thought.”[57] He refers exultingly
to the attention he had lately received from Paoli. “For the last
fortnight that I was in London,” he writes, “I lay at his house, and had
the command of his coach.... I felt more dignity when I had several
servants at my devotion, a large apartment, and the convenience and
state of a coach; I recollected that this dignity in London was
honourably acquired by my travels abroad, and my pen after I came home,
so I could enjoy it with my own approbation; and in the extent and
multiplicity of the metropolis other people had not even the materials
for finding fault, as my situation was not particularly known.”
Referring to his resolution to read more constantly, Boswell informs
Mr. Temple, on the 19th June, that he has not yet “begun to read,” but
that “his resolution is lively.” Lord Kames had asked him to become
his biographer, a piece of intelligence which does not again crop up.
In a conversation about Dr. Johnson he had disputed with Mr. Hume. The
quarrel is thus described:—
“Mr. Hume said he would give me half a crown for every page of his
dictionary in which he would not find an absurdity, if I would give
him half a crown for every page in which he did find one; he talked
so insolently, really, that I calmly determined to be at him; so I
repeated, by way of telling that Dr. Johnson could be touched, the
admirable passage in your letter, how the Ministry had set him to
write in a way that they ‘could not ask even their infidel pensioner
Hume to write.’ Upon honour, I did not give the least hint from whom
I had the letter. When Hume asked if it was from an American, I said
‘No; it was from an English gentleman.’ ‘Would a gentleman write so?’
said he. In short, Davy was finely punished for his treatment of my
revered friend; and he deserved it richly, both for his petulance to
so great a character, and for his talking so before me.”
In a letter dated 12th August he informed his reverend correspondent
that he had been suffering from his “atrabilious temperament.” In his
melancholy he had been strongly impressed by the phrase in Scripture,
“Seek ye the Lord while He may be found.” From sleep at night he had
awakened “dreading annihilation or being thrown into some horrible
state of being.” He proceeds:—
“My promise under the solemn yew I have observed wonderfully, having
never infringed it till the other day a very jovial company of us
dined at a tavern, and I unwarily exceeded my bottle of old hock;
and having once broke over the pale I run wild. But I did not get
drunk; I was, however, intoxicated, and very ill next day. I ask your
forgiveness, and I shall be more strictly cautious for the future. The
drunken manners of this country are very bad.”
The distinction between being _intoxicated_ and _drunk_ is not very
obvious, and the allusion by way of defence to the intemperate habits
of the country is _Boswellian_. Amidst his general gloom Boswell
experienced comfort in the assurance by Mr. Temple that he was
preparing for the press a portion of their correspondence. A specimen
was transmitted, and Boswell tendered his advice. He insisted that
anonymous authorship would not suit, and suggested that his own name
as “James Boswell, Esq.,” should be displayed upon the title-page. Mr.
Temple subsequently published selections from his own letters under the
title of “Selection of Historical and Political Memoirs.”
About the middle of August Boswell begged Dr. Johnson for a
prescription against melancholy. The moralist replied:—
“For the black fumes which rise in your mind I can prescribe nothing
but that you disperse them by honest business or innocent pleasure,
and by reading, sometimes easy and sometimes serious. Change of place
is useful, and I hope your residence at Auchinleck will have many good
effects.... Never, my dear sir,” added Dr. Johnson, “do you take it
in your head to think that I do not love you; you may settle yourself
in full confidence both of my love and esteem. I love you as a kind
man, I value you as a worthy man, and hope in time to reverence you as
a man of exemplary piety. I hold you, as Hamlet has it, ‘in my heart
of hearts,’ and therefore it is little to say that I am, sir, your
affectionate, humble servant,
“SAM. JOHNSON.”
To check his “atrabilious” complaint Boswell did not have recourse to
reading. He informed Mr. Temple that since his return from England his
reading had been confined to some small treatises on midwifery. On
the 2nd September he communicated with Mr. Temple from Auchinleck. He
had been there a week, and had experienced an unsupportable distress.
Next day being Sunday, he proposed to worship in the parish church,
and on Monday to join at Edinburgh his “valuable spouse and dear
little children.” To his dissension with his father he refers in
characteristic fashion:—
“My father, whom I really both respect and affectionate (if that is a
word, for it is a different feeling from that which is expressed by
_love_, which I can say of you from my soul), is so different from me.
We _divaricate_ so much, as Dr. Johnson said, that I am often hurt
when I dare say he means no harm; and he has a method of treating
me which makes me feel myself like a _timid boy_, which to _Boswell_
(comprehending all that my character does in my own imagination and in
that of a wonderful number of mankind) is intolerable. His wife, too,
whom in my conscience I cannot condemn for any capital bad quality,
is so narrow-minded, and, I don’t know how, so set upon keeping him
under her own management, and so suspicious and so sourishly tempered
that it requires the utmost exertion of practical philosophy to keep
myself quiet. I, however, have done so all this week to admiration;
nay, I have appeared good-humoured, but it has cost me drinking a
considerable quantity of strong beer to dull my faculties....
“I have sauntered about with my father, and he has seen that I am
pleased with his works. But what a discouraging reflection it is that
he has in his possession a renunciation of my birthright which I madly
granted him, and which he has not the generosity to restore now that
I am doing beyond his utmost hopes, and that he may incommode and
disgrace me by some strange settlement, while all this time not a
shilling is secured to my wife and children in case of my death.... My
father is visibly failing. Perhaps I may get him yet to do as I wish.
In the meantime I have written plainly to my brother David, to see if
he will settle on my wife and daughters, in case of his succeeding. I
shall now know whether trade has destroyed his liberal spirit.”
Amidst his many aberrations, and in spite of Dr. Johnson’s
discouragement, Boswell put into shape his travels in the Hebrides. He
forwarded the MS. to Johnson, who remarked on it to Mrs. Thrale, “One
would think the man had been hired to be a spy upon me.” To Boswell he
conveyed Mrs. Thrale’s favourable judgment, but reserved his own. On
this subject Boswell thus communicated with Mr. Temple:—
“Dr. Johnson has said nothing to me of my remarks during my journey
with him which I wish to write. Shall I task myself to write so much
of them a week, and send you for revisal? If I do not publish them
now they will be good materials for my ‘Life of Dr. Johnson.’”
On the 9th October Boswell was enabled to rejoice in an important
event,—Mrs. Boswell presented him with a son. To Mr. Temple he wrote
on the 6th November:—
“My wife is recovered remarkably well. This son has been quite a
cordial to her. He has been a little unlucky; the nurse had not milk
enough, and as he is a big-boned fellow he cannot subsist without
plentiful sustenance. We have got another nurse, a strong, healthy
woman, with an abundant breast. His mother is quite unfit for nursing,
she is of a temper so exceedingly anxious.”