of us shall die first, is only known to the Great Disposer of events;
but were I sure that James Boswell would write _my_ life, I do not
know whether I would not anticipate the measure by taking _his_.’
(Here he made three or four strides across the room, and returned to
his chair with violent emotion.)
“_P. P._: ‘I am afraid that he means to do you the favour.’
“_Johnson_: ‘He dares not—he would make a scarecrow of me. I give
him liberty to fire his blunderbuss in _his own_ face, but not murder
_me_, sir. I heed not his [Greek: autos epha]. Boswell write my life!
why, the fellow possesses not abilities for writing the life of an
ephemeron.’”
Naturally indolent and procrastinating, Boswell was, like persons
of his temperament, aroused to enterprise by harsh and ungenerous
criticism. Johnson’s “Life” was commenced at once, and for some time
prosecuted vigorously. Abandoned for many months, it was taken up in
1787, and worked upon at intervals in the year following.
The progress of the undertaking is in February 1788, thus reported to
Mr. Temple:—
“Mason’s Life of Gray is excellent, because it is interspersed with
letters which show us the man.... I am absolutely certain that my mode
of biography, which gives not only a history of Johnson’s visible
progress through the world, and of his publications, but a view of his
mind in his letters and conversations, is the most perfect that can
be conceived, and will be more of a life than any work that has ever
yet appeared. I have been wretchedly dissipated, so that I have not
written a line for a fortnight; but to-day I resume my pen, and shall
labour vigorously.”
To Mr. Temple a further report is presented in January, 1789:—
“I am now very near my rough draft of Johnson’s Life. On Saturday I
finished the Introduction and Dedication to Sir Joshua, both of which
had appeared very difficult to be accomplished. I am confident they
are well done. Whenever I have completed the rough draft, by which I
mean the work without nice correction, Malone and I are to prepare
one-half perfectly, and then it goes to press, whence I hope to have
it early in February, so as to be out by the end of May.”
After joining the English Bar, and establishing his headquarters in
London, Boswell rented inexpensive chambers near the law courts; but
in the winter of 1788-9 he removed to a house in Queen Anne Street
West, Cavendish Square. He was joined by his two sons, and his daughter
Veronica,—the sons attending an academy in Soho. His attendants were
“a butler and Scotch housekeeper,” whom he kept “on account of their
fidelity and moderate wages.”[85]
Mrs. Boswell made a trial of London, but soon returned to Auchinleck.
She disapproved her husband’s preference for the English Bar, and
feared that the fogs of London would prove injurious to her health.
She had been an asthmatic patient, and at the commencement of 1789 the
complaint returned in an aggravated form. Writing to Mr. Temple on
the 5th March, Boswell expresses himself deeply concerned about his
“valuable and affectionate wife,” but he feels that joining her in the
country would destroy the completion of the Life of Johnson, and remove
him from “the great whirl of the metropolis,” from which he hoped “in
time to have a capital prize.” He had visited Ayrshire at the close
of 1788, and there prosecuted an active canvass among his supposed
friends, the parliamentary freeholders. The visit and its prospective
results are thus detailed to Mr. Temple:—
“_London, 10th January, 1789._
“As to my canvass in my own county, I started in opposition to a
junction between Lord Eglintoun and Sir Adam Fergusson, who were
violent opponents, and whose coalition is as odious there as the Great
One is to the nation. A few friends and real independent gentlemen
early declared for me; three other noble lords, the Earls of Cassilis,
Glencairn, and Dumfries, have lately joined and set up a nephew of the
Earl of Cassilis: a Mr. John Whitefoord, who as yet stands as I do,
will, I understand, make a bargain with this alliance. Supposing he
does, the two great parties will be so poised that I shall have it in
my power to cast the balance. If they are so piqued that either will
rather give the seat to me than be beaten by the other, I may have it.
Thus I stand, and I shall be firm. Should Lord Lonsdale give me a seat
he would do well, but I have no claim upon him for it. In the matter
of the regency he adds that he had ‘almost written one of his very
warm popular pamphlets in favour of the Prince;’ but as Lord Lonsdale
was ill, and he had no opportunity of learning his sentiments, he had
‘prudently refrained.’ He accuses Pitt of ‘behaving very ill,’ in
neglecting him, and denounces Dundas ‘as a sad fellow in his private
capacity.’”
Boswell returned to Ayrshire in April. Mrs. Boswell had written
that she was “wasting away,” and her physician was not hopeful of
her improvement. Her husband thus describes her condition to Mr.
Temple:[86]—
“I found,” he writes, “my dear wife as ill, or rather worse than
I apprehended. The consuming hectic fever had preyed upon her
incessantly during the winter and spring, and she was miserably
emaciated and weak. The physician and surgeon-apothecary, whom she
allows occasionally, though rarely, to visit her, told me fairly, as
to a man able to support with firmness what they announced, that they
had no hopes of her recovery, though she might linger they could not
say how long.... No man ever had a higher esteem or a warmer love
for a wife than I have for her. You will recollect, my Temple, how
our marriage was the result of an attachment truly romantic; yet how
painful is it to me to recollect a thousand instances of inconsistent
conduct! I can justify,” he adds, “my removing to the great sphere of
England upon a principle of laudable ambition, but the frequent scenes
of what I must call dissolute conduct are inexcusable; and often and
often, when she was very ill in London, have I been indulging in
festivity with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Courtenay, Malone, &c., and have
come home late and disturbed her repose.”
In these expressions of affection Boswell was sincere, but he would
have better indicated regret for past inattention to his suffering
helpmate if his conduct during her last illness had been more suited to
her condition. During the five weeks he remained at Auchinleck, he was,
according to his own acknowledgment, “repeatedly from home,” and both
“on these occasions, and when neighbours visited him, drank too much
wine.” Returning from a neighbour’s house in a state of inebriety, he
experienced an accident, the particulars of which he thus related to
Mr. Temple:—
“On Saturday last, dining at a gentleman’s house where I was visiting
for the first time, and was eager to obtain political influence; I
drank so freely that, riding home in the dark without a servant, I
fell from my horse and bruised my shoulder severely. Next morning I
had it examined by a surgeon, who found no fracture or dislocation,
but blooded me largely to prevent inflammation.”
The presence in Auchinleck House of one whose habits were so irregular,
and who had narrowly escaped death in a fit of drunkenness, was not
likely to soothe the dying gentlewoman. Some days after the occurrence
of his accident, Boswell was invited by a friend of Lord Lonsdale to
accompany his lordship in an early journey to London. Though still a
sufferer and in bed on account of his fall, he resolved to obey the
summons, and Mrs. Boswell “animated him to set out.” With his arm in
a sling he posted to Carlisle. Reaching Lowther Castle, he found Lord
Lonsdale “in no hurry to proceed on the London journey.” Meanwhile his
shoulder became more uneasy, the pain extending to the breast and over
the entire arm, so that he was unable to put on his clothes without
help.[87]
* * * * *
Two weeks after he had reached London a letter from the Auchinleck
physician informed him that Mrs. Boswell was rapidly sinking. He at
once set out for Ayrshire, accompanied by his two sons, and, as he is
particular in relating, the journey was performed in “sixty-four hours
and a quarter.” On his arrival he found that Mrs. Boswell had died four
days before. In a letter to Mr. Temple, dated 3rd July, he wrote thus:—
“I cried bitterly and upbraided myself for leaving her, for she would
not have left me. This reflection, my dear friend, will, I fear,
pursue me to my grave.... I could hardly bring myself to agree that
the body should be removed, for it was still a consolation to me to
go and kneel by it, and talk to my dear, dear Peggy.... Her funeral
was remarkably well attended. There were nineteen carriages followed
the hearse, and a large body of horsemen, and the tenants of all my
lands. It is not customary in Scotland for a husband to attend a
wife’s funeral, but I resolved, if I possibly could, to do her the
last honours myself; and I was able to go through it very decently.
I privately read the funeral service over her coffin in presence of
my sons, and was relieved by that ceremony a good deal. On the Sunday
after Mr. Dun delivered, almost _verbatim_, a few sentences which I
sent him as a character of her.”
Boswell’s religious views were still unsettled. During his wife’s
illness he wrote to Mr. Temple, “What aid can my wife have from
religion, except a pious resignation to the great and good God? for
indeed she is too shrewd to receive the common topics; she is keen and
penetrating.” What “the common topics” were, belief in which Boswell
regarded with contempt, he has not informed us, and it might be
hazardous to conjecture.
The dissolution of Parliament expected in the spring of 1789 did not
occur, but the representation of Ayrshire became vacant in July, owing
to the acceptance of a public office by the sitting member, Colonel
Montgomerie. Obtaining intimation of the vacancy, Boswell, four weeks
a widower, hastened from London to Ayrshire to renew his claims. There
were two other candidates—Sir Adam Fergusson and Mr. John Whitefoord.
The former was chosen. Boswell informed Mr. Temple that “he would make
an admirable figure even if he should be unsuccessful.” He stood alone!
Since his failure at the English Bar, Boswell had been most energetic
in the pursuit of patronage. He rested his hopes on Mr. Dundas and Mr.
Pitt, but more especially on Mr. Burke and Lord Lonsdale. Concerning
the two former he thus communicated with Mr. Temple in the spring of
1789. After censuring Mr. Dundas for neglecting to promote his brother
David, he proceeds:—
“As to myself, Dundas, though he _pledged himself_ (as the modern
phrase is) to assist me in advancing in promotion, and though he
last year assured me, upon his honour, that my letter concerning the
Scottish judges made no difference; yet, except when I in a manner
compelled him to dine with me last winter, he has entirely avoided
me, and I strongly suspect has given Pitt a prejudice against me. The
excellent Langton says it is disgraceful; it is utter folly in Pitt
not to reward and attach to his administration a man of my popular
and pleasant talents, whose merit he has acknowledged in a letter
under his own hand. He did not answer several letters which I wrote
at intervals, requesting to wait upon him; I lately wrote to him that
such behaviour to me was certainly not generous. ‘I think it is not
just, and (forgive the freedom) I doubt if it be wise. If I do not
hear from you in ten days, I shall conclude that you are inclined
to have no further communication with me; for I assure you, sir, I
am extremely unwilling to give you, or indeed myself, unnecessary
trouble.’ About two months have elapsed, and _he has made no sign_.
How can I still delude myself with dreams of rising in the great
sphere of life.”
Mr. Burke knew Boswell’s good qualities, and had sought to befriend
him. In 1782 he recommended him for employment to General Conway,[88]
though without success. Boswell still hoped to obtain a post through
his influence, and not infrequently reminded him that he was unprovided
for. To Mr. Temple, in March, 1789, he describes Mr. Burke in these
terms:—
“I cannot help thinking with you that Pitt is the ablest and most
useful minister of any of those whom we know; yet I am not sure that
after the _pericula_ which should give caution, others (and amongst
them Burke, whom I visited yesterday, and found as ably philosophical
in political disquisition as ever) might not do as well; and if he has
treated me unjustly in his stewardship for the public, and behaved
with ungrateful insolence to my _patron_,[89] who first introduced
him into public life, may I not warrantably arraign many articles,
and great ones too, in his conduct which I can attack with forcible
energy? At present I keep myself quiet, and wait till we see how
things will turn out.”
While thus distrusting or despising his other patrons, Boswell rested
strongly on Lord Lonsdale. To Mr. Temple he communicated in March that
his lordship showed him “more and more regard.” He was his last star of
hope; but the setting was at hand.
Checked in his legal, political, and parliamentary aspirations, Boswell
began to devote some attention to family affairs. By his brother David
he was advised to return to Scotland, and there attend to the education
of his children. Concerning this proposal he remarks to Mr. Temple:—
“Undoubtedly my having a house in Edinburgh would be best for them
(the children); but, besides that my withdrawing thither would cut
me off from all those chances which may in time raise me in life,
I could not possibly endure Edinburgh now, unless I were to have a
judge’s place to bear me up; and even then I should deeply sigh for
the metropolis.”
He determined to remain in London. Plans for the disposal of his
children were, after much wavering, at length resolved upon. Alexander,
his eldest son, having “begun to oppose him,”[90] was removed from
Soho Academy to Eton. He was afterwards to be sent to the University
of Edinburgh, and latterly to Holland and Germany for the study
of civil law. James, the second son, described to Mr. Temple as
“an extraordinary boy, much of his father,” was to be educated as
a barrister. Meanwhile, being in his eleventh year, he was to be
continued at the Soho school. Veronica, the eldest daughter, was kept
in London under the charge of Mrs. Buchanan, a widow. Euphemia, the
second daughter, was sent to a boarding-school in Edinburgh; and
Elizabeth, the youngest, was placed in an educational institution at
Ayr. By thus dispersing the members of his family, Boswell secured
himself against any interference with his habits. For his children the
arrangement was salutary, since they could not have profited by the
exhibition of his weaknesses.
Amidst incessant place-hunting and a round of social indulgences,
the “Life of Johnson” proceeded slowly. The public were meanwhile
entertained by Mrs. Piozzi’s Anecdotes.[91] This work and the “Life of
Johnson,” by Sir John Hawkins, seemed to satisfy general curiosity. The
latter work, which appeared in 1787, deeply mortified Boswell; he was
mentioned in it only once, and then as “Mr. James Boswell, a native
of Scotland.”[92] Indignation inspired him with energy. As specimens
of his forthcoming work, he issued in quarto form two portions of
its contents, with these titles:—“The Celebrated Letter from Samuel
Johnson, LL.D., to Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, now
first published, with notes by James Boswell, Esq. London: Printed by
Henry Baldwin for Charles Dilly, in the Poultry, 1790. [Price Half a
Guinea.]” “A Conversation between His Most Sacred Majesty George III.
and Samuel Johnson, LL.D., illustrated with Observations by James
Boswell, Esq. London: Printed by Henry Baldwin for Charles Dilly, in
the Poultry, 1790. [Price Half a Guinea.]”
The former of these _fasciculi_ occupied four, and the latter eight
quarto pages. Intimating to Mr. Temple that “a part of his _magnum
opus_ was ready for the press,” he added that Hawkins should not be
spared. His labours were interrupted by Mrs. Boswell’s illness and
his return to inebriate habits. On the 28th November he wrote to Mr.
Temple:—
“Let me first address you from Cato:—
‘Thou best of friends,
Pardon a weak distemper’d soul that swells,
In sudden gusts, and sinks again in calms.’
Your last letter supposes too truly my situation. With grief
continually at my heart, I have been endeavouring to seek relief
in dissipation and in wine, so that my life for some time past has
been unworthy of myself, of you, and of all that is valuable in my
character and connections. For a week past, as the common phrase is,
‘I have taken up,’ and by a more regular and quiet course find myself,
I think, rather better.”
As in the case of his “Tour to the Hebrides,” Boswell submitted each
successive chapter of the “Life of Johnson” to the revision of Mr.
Malone. In his letter to Mr. Temple of the 28th November he remarks:—
“The revision of my ‘Life of Johnson’ by so acute and knowing a critic
as Mr. Malone is of most essential consequence, especially as he is
_Johnsonianissimus_; and as he is to hasten to Ireland as soon as
his Shakspere[93] is fairly published, I must avail myself of him
_now_. His hospitality and my other invitations, and particularly
my attendance at Lord Lonsdale’s, have lost us many evenings; but I
reckon that a third of the work is settled, so that I shall get to
press very soon. You cannot imagine what labour, what perplexity,
what vexation I have endured in arranging a prodigious multiplicity
of materials, in supplying omissions, in searching for papers, buried
in different masses, and all this besides the exertion of composing
and polishing. Many a time have I thought of giving it up. However,
though I shall be uneasily sensible of its many deficiencies, it
will certainly be to the world a very valuable and peculiar volume
of biography, full of literary and characteristical anecdotes (which
word, by the way, Johnson always condemned, as used in the sense that
the French, and we from them, use it, as signifying particulars), told
with authenticity, and in a lively manner. Would that it were in the
booksellers’ shops! Methinks, if I had this _magnum opus_ launched,
the public has no further claim upon me; for I have promised no more,
and I may die in peace, or retire into dull obscurity, _reddarque
tenebris_.”
Writing to Mr. Temple on the 8th February, 1790, Boswell thus reports
progress:—
“I am within a short walk of Mr. Malone, who revises my ‘Life of
Johnson’ with me. We have not yet gone over quite a half of it, but
it is at last fairly in the press. I intended to have printed it upon
what is called an _English_ letter, which would have made it look
better; but upon calculation it would have made two quarto volumes,
and two quarto volumes for one life would have appeared exorbitant,
though in truth it is a view of much of the literature, and many of
the literary men of Great Britain for more than half a century. I have
therefore taken a smaller type, called _Pica_, and even upon that I
am afraid its bulk will be very large. It is curious to observe how a
printer calculates; he arranges a number of pages, and the words in
them at different parts of the ‘copy’ (as the MS. is called), and so
finds the number of words. Mine here are four hundred and one thousand
six hundred. Does not this frighten you. By printing a page the number
of words it holds is discovered; and by dividing the sum-total of
words by that number we get the number of pages. Mine will be eight
hundred. I think it will be, without exception, the most entertaining
book you ever read. I cannot be done with printing before the end of
August.”
In excellent terms with himself, and rejoicing in his literary
aptitude, he thus addresses Mr. Temple on the 13th February:—
“I dine in a different company almost every day, at least scarcely
ever twice running in the same company, so that I have fresh
accessions of ideas. I drink with Lord Lonsdale one day; the next I am
quiet in Malone’s elegant study revising my Life of Johnson, of which
I have high expectations, both as to fame and profit. I surely have
the art of writing agreeably. The Lord Chancellor[94] told me he had
read every word of my Hebridean Journal; he could not help it.”
On the 4th December Boswell addressed Mr. Malone:[95]—
“The _magnum opus_ advances. I have revised p. 216. The additions
which I have received are a Spanish quotation from Mr. Cambridge, an
account of Johnson at Warley Camp from Mr. Langton, and Johnson’s
letters to Mr. Hastings—three in all,—one of them long and
admirable; but what sets the diamonds in pure gold of Ophir is a
letter from Mr. Hastings to me, illustrating them and their writer. I
had this day the honour of a long visit from the late Governor-General
of India. There is to be no more impeachment. But you will see his
character nobly vindicated, depend upon this.”
Though still ambitious of professional advancement, Boswell began to
dread the merriment of the Circuit mess, promoted too frequently at
his personal cost. On the plea of saving £50, and “avoiding rough,
unpleasant company,” he informed Mr. Temple in February, 1789, that
he would omit the spring Northern Circuit. In August he communicated
to the same correspondent that he had proceeded to Lord Lonsdale’s
with the intention of joining the autumn Circuit at Carlisle; but
that considering his “late severe loss,” and “the rough scenes of the
roaring, bantering society of lawyers,” he preferred to remain at
Lowther Castle. At the castle he was subjected to a practical jest,
which as an annoying incident he thus describes to Mr. Temple:—
“A strange accident happened; the house at Lowther was so crowded
that I and two other gentlemen were laid in one room. On Thursday
morning my wig was missing; a strict search was made, all in vain. I
was obliged to go all day in my night-cap, and absent myself from a
party of ladies and gentlemen who went and dined with the Earl on the
banks of the lake,—a piece of amusement which I was glad to shun,
as well as a dance which they had at night. But I was in a ludicrous
situation. I suspected a wanton trick which some people think witty;
but I thought it very ill-timed to one in my situation. Next morning
the Earl and a colonel, who I thought might have concealed my wig,
declared to me, upon honour they did not know where it was; and the
conjecture was that a clergyman who was in the room with me, and
had packed up his portmanteau in a great hurry to set out in the
morning early, might have put it up among his things. This is very
improbable; but I could not long remain an object of laughter, so I
went twenty-five miles to Carlisle on Tuesday, and luckily got a wig
there fitted for me in a few hours.”
On the 13th October Boswell informed Mr. Temple that on lately visiting
Lowther Castle he received back his wig. “The way in which it was
lost,” he adds, “will remain as secret as the author of Junius.”
Mr. Temple became urgent for repayment of a loan of £200, and in
obtaining the necessary means Boswell severely taxed his resources.
Referring to the debt, he assured his correspondent that he had, after
deducting family costs, a free income of not more than £350, and that
while he had been in straitened circumstances for twenty years, he
dreaded that his embarrassments would continue. In a letter dated 28th
November he returns to his pecuniary difficulties.