“On Friday, May 8, I dined with him at Mr. Langton’s. I was reserved
and silent, which I supposed he perceived, and might recollect the
cause. After dinner, when Mr. Langton was called out of the room and
we were by ourselves, he drew his chair near to mine and said, in a
tone of conciliating courtesy, ‘Well, how have you done?’ _Boswell_:
‘Sir, you have made me very uneasy by your behaviour to me at Sir
Joshua Reynolds’s. You know, my dear sir, no man has a greater respect
and affection for you, or would sooner go to the end of the world to
serve you. Now to treat me so——’ He insisted that I had interrupted,
which I assured him was not the case, and proceeded, ‘But why treat
me so before people who neither love you nor me?’ ‘Well, I’m sorry
for it. I’ll make it up to you twenty different ways, as you please.’
_Boswell_: ‘I said to-day to Sir Joshua, when he observed that you
_tossed_ me sometimes, I don’t care how often or how high he tosses me
when only friends are present, for then I fall upon soft ground; but
I do not like falling on stones, which is the case when enemies are
present. I think this is a pretty good image, sir.’ _Johnson_: ‘Sir,
it is one of the happiest I have ever heard.’”
Boswell left London on the 19th of May. On his return to Edinburgh he
was seized with an irrepressible longing for an early settlement in
London, and forthwith communicated his sentiments to Dr. Johnson. He
had the following answer:—
“I wish you would a little correct or restrain your imagination, and
imagine that happiness such as life admits may be had at other places
as well as London. Without affecting stoicism, it may be said that it
is our business to exempt ourselves as much as we can from the power
of external things. There is but one solid basis of happiness, and
that is, the reasonable hope of a happy futurity. This may be had
everywhere. I do not blame your preference of London to other places,
for it is really to be preferred if the choice is free; but few have
the choice of their place or their manner of life, and mere pleasure
ought not to be the prime motive of action.”
In August Mrs. Boswell gave birth to her third son, who was christened
James. Dr. Johnson sent suitable congratulations.
In March, 1779, Boswell again repaired to the metropolis. He spent Good
Friday with Dr. Johnson, attending him at both diets of worship in St.
Clement’s Church. Johnson, he relates, preferred silent meditation
during the interval of worship, and for his improvement handed him “Les
Pensées de Paschal,” a book which he perused with reverence. On Easter
Sunday he worshipped in St. Paul’s, and afterwards dined with Dr.
Johnson.
A letter to Mr. Temple, which Boswell commenced at London on the 31st
May, and finished at Newcastle on the 8th June, contains the following
passages:—
“Had you been in London last week, you would have seen your friend
sadly changed for a little. So trifling a matter as letting the
nails of my great toes grow into the flesh, particularly in one
foot, produced so much pain and inflammation and lameness and
apprehension, that I was confined to bed, and my spirits sank to
dreary dejection.... I am now much better, but still unable to
walk; and having received a very wise letter from my dear, sensible,
valuable wife, that although my father is in no immediate danger, his
indisposition is such that I ought to be with him, I have resolved
to set out to-morrow, being the very first day after completing
another term at the Temple.... Is it not curious that at times we
are in so happy a frame that not the least trace of former misery
or vexation is left upon the mind? But is not the contrary, too,
experienced?—Gracious Author of our being, do Thou bring us at
length to steady felicity.—What a strange, complicated scene is
this life! It always strikes me that we cannot seriously, closely,
and clearly examine almost any part of it. We are at pains to bring
up children, just to give them an opportunity of struggling through
cares and fatigues; but let us hope for gleams of joy here, and a
blaze hereafter.... I got into the fly at Buckden, and had a very good
journey. An agreeable young widow nursed me, and supported my lame
foot on her knee. Am I not fortunate in having something about me
that interests most people at first sight in my favour?... You ask me
about Lowth’s ‘Isaiah.’ I never once heard it mentioned till I asked
Dr. Johnson about it.... I do not think Lowth an engaging man; I sat a
good while with him this last spring. He said Dr. Johnson had _great
genius_. I give you this as a specimen of his talk, which seemed to me
to be neither discriminating, pointed, nor animated; yet he certainly
has much curious learning, and a good deal of critical sagacity.... I
did not know Monboddo’s new book, ‘The Metaphysics of the Ancients,’
had been advertised. I expect it will be found to be a very wonderful
performance. I think I gathered from a conversation with him that he
believes the ‘metempsychosis.’”
On his arrival in Edinburgh, learning that the celebrated Mr. John
Wesley was on a visit to the city, Boswell waited on him with a
letter from Dr. Johnson. The writer expressed a wish that “worthy
and religious men should be acquainted with each other.” Mr. Wesley
received Boswell with politeness, but did not encourage any closer
intimacy.
For two months after his return to Scotland Boswell despatched no
letters to Dr. Johnson. He in this fashion made trial of his friend’s
fidelity. At length receiving a letter from the Doctor inquiring for
his welfare, he resolved “never again to put him to the test.”[66]
The friendship which subsisted between Mrs. Boswell and Mrs. Stuart,
wife of the second son of John, third Earl of Bute, has been referred
to. Boswell was, we have seen, also a favourite with Mrs. Stuart. To
her regard for him Boswell delighted to refer, however, inopportunely.
In his _Boswelliana_ he relates that Lord Mountstuart having remarked
that he resembled Charles Fox, Colonel Stuart (Mrs. Stuart’s husband)
ejaculated, “You are much uglier.” Boswell replied, looking his
tormentor in the face, “Does your wife think so, Colonel James?”
Colonel Stuart knew Boswell intimately, and, in common with his wife,
enjoyed his humour and excused his egotism. Being in command of the
Bedfordshire Militia, he invited Boswell to accompany him and the
regiment to London and some other stations. Boswell readily complied.
He delighted “to accompany a man of sterling good sense, information,
discernment, and conviviality,” and he hoped in his society “to have a
second crop, in one year, of London and Johnson.”
On Monday, 4th October, Boswell waited on Dr. Johnson, thereafter
attending him daily during a fortnight’s residence in London. On the
18th October he departed for Chester, in company with Colonel Stuart.
He tarried a few hours at Lichfield, where he visited some of Dr.
Johnson’s relatives. His proceedings at Chester are related in the
following letter to Mr. Temple, dated Edinburgh, 4th January, 1780:—
“From London, after an excellent fortnight there, I accompanied
Colonel Stuart to Chester, to which town his regiment was ordered
from Leeds, and there I passed another fortnight in mortal felicity.
I had from my earliest years a love for the military life, and there
is in it an animation and relish of existence which I have never
found amongst any other set of men, except players, with whom you
know I once lived a great deal. At the mess of Colonel Stuart’s
regiment I was quite the great man, as we used to say; and I was at
the same time all joyous and gay. Such was my home at Chester. But
I had the good fortune to be known to the bishop, who is one of the
most distinguished prelates for piety and eloquence, and one of the
most pleasing men in social life that you can imagine. His palace was
open to me, morning, noon, and night; and I was liberally entertained
at his hospitable board. At Chester, too, I found Dean Smith, the
translator of ‘Longinus,’ with whom you and I were so well acquainted
when we were studying under Mr. John Stevenson. I was surprised to
find him, for I somehow had imagined that he was an ancient English
author, comparatively speaking. He is very old, but is quite cheerful
and full of anecdotes. He lives very retired, with a disagreeable
wife, and they told me I was the only man who had been in the deanery
for a long time. I found too at Chester Mr. Falconer, a gentleman of
fortune and extraordinary learning and knowledge, who is preparing a
new edition of Strabo, at the desire of the University of Oxford; he
was exceedingly obliging to me.”
At Chester Boswell found the young ladies to be especially charming.
Forgetting that he and his correspondent were both married, he informed
Mr. Temple that several of the ladies had “capital fortunes.” He wrote
to Dr. Johnson that he had complimented Miss Letitia Bainston, niece
of one of the prebendaries, in these words:—“I have come to Chester,
madam, I cannot tell how; and far less can I tell how I am able to
get away from it.” In his journey from Chester to Scotland Boswell
lingered at Carlisle. He wrote to Dr. Johnson that he had received the
sacrament in the cathedral, and that it was “divinely cheering to him
that there was a cathedral so near Auchinleck.” Dr. Johnson reminded
his correspondent that Carlisle cathedral was at least one hundred and
fifty miles from Auchinleck, adding, “If you are pleased, it is so far
well.”
In the spring of 1777 Boswell obtained a connection with the _London
Magazine_. He then commenced in its pages a series of papers, which
he styled “The Hypochondriack.” These papers are generally short,
and often disconnected; they abound in allusions to the writer’s
personal tastes and peculiar opinions, while classical quotations
are interspersed without point and without purpose. But Boswell was
pleased to see himself in print, and so he complacently reports to Mr.
Temple, in January, 1780, that his “Hypochondriack gets on wonderfully
well.” In his paper for March, 1780, he thus alludes to his love of
dissipation:—
“I do fairly acknowledge,” he writes, “that I love drinking; that I
have a constitutional inclination to indulge in fermented liquors,
and that were it not for the restraints of reason and religion, I am
afraid I should be as constant a votary of Bacchus as any man.”[67]
At the close of his letter of January he informs Mr. Temple that his
father had been ill of fever, with his pulse at ninety-five; he then
begs a loan of £200, to satisfy a demand which his father could not be
informed of. The loan was not granted, and Boswell afterwards sought
repayment of an advance made to his friend at a former period, and
which remained undischarged.
In September Boswell experienced a family loss in the death of Dr. John
Boswell, his father’s brother. Of his deceased relative he writes to
Mr. Temple that he was “a good scholar and affectionate relative,” but
“had no conduct.” He adds, “He had a strange kind of religion, but I
flatter myself he will be ere long, if he is not already in heaven.”
This passage might imply that in abandoning the Romish faith he had not
abjured the doctrine of purgatory; yet that doctrine is inconsistent
with the following aspiration contained in the same letter:—
“I comfort myself with the Christian revelation of our being in a
state of purification, and that we shall, in course of time, attain to
felicity. It is delightful, Temple, to look forward to the period when
you and I shall enjoy what we now imagine. In the meantime let us be
patient, and do what we can.”
Writing to Mr. Temple in November, Boswell thus refers to an
unpleasantness which had for some months subsisted between him and his
father:—
“I could not help smiling at the expostulation which you suggest to me
to try with my father. It would do admirably with some fathers, but
it would make mine much worse, for he cannot bear that his son should
talk with him as a man. I can only lament his unmelting coldness to
my wife and children, for I fear it is hopeless to think of his ever
being more affectionate towards them. Yet it must be acknowledged
that his paying £1,000 of my debt some years ago was a large bounty.
He allows me £300 a year; but I find that what I gain by my practice
and that sum together will not support my family. I have now two sons
and three daughters. I am in hopes that my father will augment my
allowance to £400 a year. I was indeed very imprudent in expressing
my extreme aversion to his second marriage; but since it took place
I am conscious of having behaved to himself and his lady with such
respectful attention, and imposed such restraint upon myself as is
truly meritorious. The woman is very implacable, and I imagine it is
hardly possible that she can ever be my friend. She, however, behaves
much better to the children than their grandfather does. We are all
to dine at my father’s to-day; he is better now than he has been for
several years.”
In thus writing Boswell lacked candour. Had he chosen to observe his
usual frankness he would not have heaped censure on his father’s
wife, but attributed the paternal resentment to its true cause—the
payment of that sum of £200 which Mr. Temple had declined to lend. His
correspondent’s advice respecting the plan for a London settlement was,
for the time not unacceptable. On this subject he writes:—
“Your counsel to me to set my mind at rest, and be content with
promotion in Scotland, is, I believe, very wise. My brother David
enforced it earnestly. If my father lives a few years longer, age
will, I suppose, fix me here without any question; for to embark in
a new sphere when one is much after forty is not advisable. Yet, my
dear Temple, ambition to be in Parliament or in the metropolis is
very allowable. Perhaps my exalted notions of public situation are
fallacious, for I begin to think that true elevation is to be acquired
from study and thinking, and that when one is used to the most eminent
situations they become familiar and insipid, and perhaps vexatious.”
The embarrassed condition of his affairs kept Boswell in Scotland
during the whole of 1780. In March, 1781, he again presented himself
in London. Good Friday was, as usual, spent with Dr. Johnson, the
friends worshipping together in St. Clement’s church. On Easter
Sunday he performed his wonted devotions in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Not
long afterwards he afforded sad evidence of persistent recklessness.
Dining with the Duke of Montrose, he became inebriated, and in this
condition joined an evening party at the Honourable Miss Monckton’s.
He talked incoherently, and Dr. Johnson, who was present, endeavoured
to shield him from observation.[68] Next, day being made conscious of
his lamentable aberration, he despatched to his hostess the following
verses as an apology for violating good manners:—
“Not that with th’ excellent Montrose
I had the happiness to dine;
Not that I late from table rose,
From Graham’s wit, from generous wine;
“It was not these alone which led
On sacred manners to encroach,
And made me feel what most I dread,
Johnson’s just frown and self-reproach:
“But when I entered, not abashed,
From your bright eyes were shot such rays,
At once intoxication flashed,
And all my frame was in a blaze.
“But not a brilliant blaze, I own;
Of the dull smoke I’m yet ashamed,
I was a dreary ruin grown,
And not enlightened, though enflamed.
“Victim at once to wine and love,
I hope, Maria, you’ll forgive;
While I invoke the powers above,
That henceforth I may wiser live.”
Boswell remained in London till the beginning of June. _En route_ for
Scotland, he accompanied Dr. Johnson to Southill, Bedfordshire, on a
visit to Mr. Charles Dilly, publisher, who had there established his
country seat. The friends reached Southill on Saturday, the 2nd June.
Next day they accompanied Mr. Dilly’s family to the parish church.
Boswell remained behind to receive the sacrament. During the evening he
sought religious conversation with Dr. Johnson, commencing thus:—“My
dear sir, I would fain be a good man; and I am very good now. I fear
God and honour the king; I wish to do no ill, and to be benevolent
to all mankind.” Dr. Johnson said impressions were deceitful and
dangerous, and explained the nature of the Christian atonement. Boswell
requested him to repeat his remarks, and proceeded to record them.[69]
Neglecting the practice of his profession, Boswell became wholly
dependent on his allowance from Lord Auchinleck, and again ran himself
aground. He explained his condition to Dr. Johnson as a reason why
he could not visit London in the spring of 1782, adding that could
he possibly reach the metropolis, he might obtain a post which would
restore his fortunes. Dr. Johnson replied as follows:—
“To come hither with such expectations at the expense of borrowed
money, which I find you know not where to borrow, can hardly be
considered prudent. I am sorry to find, what your solicitations seem
to imply, that you have already gone the length of your credit. This
is to set the quiet of your whole life at hazard. If you anticipate
your inheritance, you can at last inherit nothing; all that you
receive must pay for the past. You must get a place, or pine in
penury, with the empty name of a great estate. Poverty, my dear
friend, is so great an evil, and pregnant with so much temptation, and
so much misery, that I cannot but earnestly enjoin you to avoid it.
Live on what you have; live if you can on less; do not borrow either
for vanity or pleasure; the vanity will end in shame, and the pleasure
in regret; stay therefore at home till you have saved money for your
journey hither.”
In a letter written some months subsequently, Johnson resumed his
discourse on the miseries of improvidence:—
“Whatever might have been your pleasure or mine, I know not how I
could have honestly advised you to come hither with borrowed money.
Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience;
you will find it a calamity. Poverty takes away so many means of doing
good, and produces so much inability to resist evil, both natural
and moral, that it is by all virtuous means to be avoided. Consider
a man whose fortune is very narrow; whatever be his rank by birth,
or whatever his reputation by intellectual excellence, what can he
do, or what evil can he prevent? That he cannot help the needy is
evident; he has nothing to spare. But perhaps his advice or admonition
may be useful. His poverty will destroy his influence; many more can
find that he is poor than that he is wise; and few will reverence
the understanding that is of so little advantage to its owner. I say
nothing of the personal wretchedness of a debtor, which, however, has
passed into a proverb.”
After a long illness, patiently borne, Lord Auchinleck died at
Edinburgh on the 31st August. He had settled on his eldest son the
ancestral estate, with an unencumbered rental of £1,600 a year. On
receipt of the tidings, Dr. Johnson wrote to Boswell as follows:—
“Your father’s death had every circumstance that could enable you
to bear it; it was at a mature age, and it was expected; and as his
general life had been pious, his thoughts had doubtless for many years
past been turned upon eternity. That you did not find him sensible
must doubtless grieve you; his disposition towards you was undoubtedly
that of a kind, though not of a fond father. Kindness, at least
actual, is in our power, but fondness is not; and if by negligence or
imprudence you had extinguished his fondness, he could not at will
rekindle it. Nothing then remained for you but mutual forgiveness of
each other’s faults, and mutual desire of each other’s happiness. I
shall long to know his final disposition of his fortune.”
At Auchinleck the deceased judge was deeply revered. In the
Kirk-Session Records of that parish, Mr. David Murdoch,[70]
schoolmaster and session clerk, has accompanied the entry of his death
with the following lines, entitled “Essay towards a character of Lord
Auchinleck:”—
“For every sovereign virtue much renowned,
Of judgment steady, and in wisdom sound,
Through a long life in active bus’ness spent,
For justice and for prudence eminent;
Well qualified to occupy the line
Allotted him by Providence divine;
Employed with indefatigable pains
In very num’rous and important scenes;
And as his fame for justice was well known,
His clemency no less conspicuous shone;
Reliever of the needful and opprest,
The gen’rous benefactor of distrest,
Ready to hear and rectify a wrong,
To re-establish harmony among
Contending friends, or such as disagreed,
And of his interposing aid had need;
Successfully he laboured much and long
As healer of the breaches us among;
And still from jarring order brought about,
Carefully searching unknown causes out.
A foe to vice, detesting liars much,
Of shrewd acuteness in discerning such;
Averse to flattery, hating all deceit,
Though in resentment mod’rate and discreet;
And ready still, with sympathizing grace,
To wipe the tear from every mourning face.
Whether we see him talking at the Bar,
Or on the Bench, a step exalted far,
Display the spirit of his country’s laws,
Or ruminate the merits of a cause;
Or in retirement from such legal strife
View him a gentleman in private life,—
In all connections, and in him we find
The husband loving and the parent kind,
The easy master and the faithful friend,
The honest counsellor, as all will own,
And most indulgent landlord ever known.
In all departments on the earthly stage,
In every scene in which he did engage,
Such steadiness, such truth and candour shone,
As equalled is by few, surpassed by none;
In everything important less or more,
Supporting well the character he bore.
A person thus disposed and thus endowed
Must have been universally allowed
The tribute of our praises heretofore,
And claims our tears when now he is no more.
All ranks in him a mighty loss sustain,
Both rich and poor, the noble and the mean;
For why? his services did far extend
Through town and country to the kingdom’s end;
The whole to him in obligations bound,
As to his honour ever will redound.
Revere his memory, and his death lament,
As well becomes, with uniform assent;
Your high concern by loud encomiums show,
Unite the shout of praise and tear of woe;
Your warm effusions only can reveal
(And faintly too) what every heart must feel.
This benefactor lost, the meaner man
May quiver, and so he will, that’s all he can;
Let those descended of a station higher,
To imitate his virtuous life aspire;
Transcribe the bright example set by him,
Best way to evidence their true esteem.
May after generations who succeed,
From Register, his famed remembrance read.
Alive his character afar was known,
So may it long continue when he’s gone;
And let the undissembled voice of fame
To distant ages celebrate his name—
A name of veneration and respect,
Of honour and esteem, Lord Auchinleck.”
On Friday, the 21st March, 1783, Boswell arrived in London. He found
Dr. Johnson at Mrs. Thrale’s in feeble health. As on former occasions,
the friends worshipped together in St. Clement’s Church on Good Friday,
while Boswell again kept Easter in St. Paul’s. When congratulating
his friend on his position as a landowner, Dr. Johnson unsparingly
exposed his egotism. “Boswell,” said he, “you often vaunt so much, as
to provoke ridicule. You put me in mind of a man who was standing in
the kitchen of an inn with his back to the fire, and thus accosted the
person next him:—‘Do you know, sir, who I am?’ ‘No, sir,’ said the
other, ‘I have not that advantage.’ ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘I am the great
Twamley, who invented the new floodgate iron.’”[71]
Boswell left London for Scotland on the 29th of May. From Dr. Johnson
he received these parting counsels:—“Get as much force of mind as you
can. Live within your income. Always have something saved at the end of
the year. Let your imports be more than your exports, and you’ll never
go far wrong.”