EDINBURGH BAR--STRATFORD JUBILEE. 1766-69
'A clerk, foredoomed his father's soul to cross,
Who pens a stanza, when he should engross.'--POPE.
The return of the prodigal to Auchinleck would seem at first to have
been attended with some satisfaction to both father and son. The father
might now believe that he was entitled to consideration from the son, as
a reward for his long-continued indulgence to the traveller, who might
in his turn reflect on the advantages which he derived from such a
protracted tour. Accordingly, in his papers of the April of this year,
we find the following entry:--'My father said to me, "I am much pleased
with your conduct in every respect." After all my anxiety while abroad,
here is the most perfect approbation and calm of mind. I never felt such
_sollid_ (_sic_) happiness.' But the philosopher, who with Paoli had
compared his mind to a camera obscura, reappears unfortunately in the
next entry. 'But I find I am not so happy with this approbation and this
calm as I expected to be. But why do I say alas! when I really look upon
this life merely as a transient state?' To this curious expression of
Boswell we shall refer when we discuss at the close his religious and
philosophical views, but it is distressing to find such whimsicalities
colouring his sense of the old man's kindness when he writes but
shortly after, 'I must stay at Auchinleck, I have there just the kind of
complaining proper for me. All must complain, and I more than most of my
fellow-creatures.'
On the 26th July 1766 he passed advocate at the bar. On putting on his
gown he remarked to his brother-advocates, as he says, that his natural
propensities had led him to a military life, but now that he had been
pressed by his father into the service he did not doubt but that he
should shew as good results as those who had joined as volunteers. His
gay friend Wilkes had declared that he would be out-distanced in the
professional race by dull plodders and blockheads, but at the outset he
appears to have started with a fair amount of zest. He dedicated his
inaugural thesis to the son of the Earl of Bute, Lord Mountstuart, with
whom he had travelled in Italy, and on whom he flattered himself he had
made some impression, the first of Boswell's many ineffectual attempts
to secure place and promotion, for on a seat in Parliament he had four
years before set his heart. A copy of the thesis was sent to Johnson,
who by this time had rather cooled over the proposed publication by his
friend of a book on Corsica. 'You have no materials,' he said, 'which
others have not or may not have. You have warmed your imagination. I
wish there were some cure like the lover's leap for all heads of which
some single idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular possession.
Mind your own affairs and leave the Corsicans to theirs.' Touching on
the faulty Latinity of the essay, 'Ruddiman,' added the old man, 'is
dead.' On entering his new career Bozzy began by vows for his good
conduct. These, a remnant of his old Catholic days, we shall find him
renewing again and again, ludicrously and pathetically enough, however,
as we draw to the close. Sometimes they appear with reference to
matters with which the knowledge of the unpublished parts of the letters
to Temple, now in the possession of an American collector, has to deal
without suggesting unduly to the more fastidious sense of the present
day the vagaries and weaknesses of their writer. Johnson protested
against this attempt to 'enchain his volatility' by vows. But Boswell
replies that they may be useful to one 'of a variable judgment and
irregular inclinations. For my part, without affecting to be a Socrates,
I am sure I have a more than ordinary struggle to maintain with the Evil
Principle, and all the methods I can devise are little enough to keep me
tolerably steady in the paths of rectitude.' Could the doctor have read
even the published correspondence he would have been at no loss for a
detailed commentary on this defence.
And coming events now cast their shadow before. That curious feature of
Boswell's character, the mixture of religious sentiments and the Sterne
vein of pietistic moralizing united with laxity in practice, appears
strangely enough in the letter to Temple, dated in the February of 1767,
and sent to his friend who had just been ordained to the living of
Mamhead in Devon. 'I view,' he writes, 'the profession of a clergyman in
an amiable and respectable light. Don't be moved by declamations against
ecclesiastical history, as if that could blacken the sacred order.' He
admits that ecclesiastical history is not the best field for the display
of the virtues in that profession, but we are to judge of the thousands
of worthy divines who have been a blessing to their parishes. He exhorts
his friend to labour cheerfully in the vineyard and to leave not a tare
in Mamhead. In Edinburgh it appears there were specimens; for after this
pious homily he confesses quietly his own _liaison_ with 'a dear
infidel' of a married woman. But the love affairs of Boswell, one of the
most curious and 'characteristical' (as he would himself have phrased
it) episodes in his life we shall discuss in a connected form in the
next chapter, in order to secure clearness of treatment and
concentration of detail.
We turn, then, to his career at the bar. There can be no shadow of a
doubt that with proper industry, backed as he was with very strong
social and family connections, he would have secured a lucrative
professional practice. In February of 1767 he is 'coming into great
employment; I have this winter made sixty-five guineas, which is a
considerable sum for a young man,' and the _Boswelliana_ shew him in
easy intercourse with the best society in the Scottish capital.
Belonging as he did to the hereditary _noblesse de la robe_, as Lockhart
calls it, he was not likely, with but moderate attention, to have stood
like Scott, 'an hour by the Tron, wi' deil ane to speir his price,'--Sir
Walter's fee book shews for the first year a return of L24, 3s., and
L57, 15s. for the second. As he had years before vowed to Lord Hailes
that he would transcribe Erskine's _Institutes_ several times over till
he had imprinted it on his memory, so now he was hopeful by binding up
the session papers of securing a treasure of law reasoning and a
collection of extraordinary facts. By March he had cleared eighty
guineas, and was 'Surprised at myself, I speak with so much ease and
boldness, and have already the language of the bar so much at command. I
am doing nobly. I can hardly ever answer the letters of my friends.' He
had quarrelled with Rousseau who had likewise broken with Hume, whose
appointment as secretary to Conway had perhaps cured him of his follies
over the wild philosopher. We find Boswell also designing squibs which
were in the London printshops, writing verses for them and ridiculing
'The Savage' of his former idolatry.
Paoli had sent him a long letter of sixteen pages. Chatham in his
retirement at Bath, mystifying the court and his colleagues, could yet
find time to send him a three-paged communication. In reply, the young
traveller assures him that the character of the great minister had
'filled many of my best hours with the noble admiration which a
disinterested soul can enjoy in the bower of philosophy.' He informs his
lordship that he is preparing for publication his Tour in Corsica, that
he has entered at the bar, and 'I begin to like it. I labour hard; and
feel myself coming forward, and I hope to be useful to my country. Could
your Lordship _find time to honour me now and then with a letter_? I
have been told how favourably your Lordship has spoken of me. To
correspond with a Paoli and a Chatham is enough to keep a young man ever
ardent in the pursuit of a virtuous fame.' In June he expected to be
busier than ever, during the week when his father sat as Judge of the
Outer House, 'for you must know that the absurdity of mankind makes
nineteen out of twenty employ the son of the judge before whom their
case is heard,' an admission which only increases our regret at the want
of professional industry on the part of the son. His addiction to the
society of players only increased the more as his practice at the bar
would have been thought to engross his attention. For the opening of the
Canongate Theatre, on 9th December 1767, he had been induced to write a
prologue to the play of _The Earl of Essex_ with which the newly
licensed house started its career. Part of the opening verses, as spoken
by Ross, 'a very good copy, very conciliatory' as the Earl of Mansfield
styled them, runs as follows:--
'This night, lov'd _George's_ free enlightened age
Bids _Royal favour_ shield the Scottish stage;
His Royal favour every bosom cheers;
The drama now with dignity appears!
Hard is my fate if murmurings there be
Because that favour is announced by me.
Anxious, alarm'd, and aw'd by every frown,
May I entreat the candour of the Town?
You see me here by no unworthy art;
My _all_ I venture where I've fix'd my heart.
Fondly ambitious of an honest fame,
My humble labours your indulgence claim.
I wish to hold no _Right_ but by your choice,
I'll trust my patent to the Publick Voice.'
The effect of this, aided by friends properly planted in different parts
of the theatre, Boswell assures us was instantaneous and effectual. But
the plaudits given would have been better in a strictly professional
court, and it led, we can see, to the association of Boswell with but
questionable society. 'The joyous crew of thunderers in the galleries,'
as Robert Fergusson describes them, the vulgar cits applying to their
parched lips 'thirst quenching porter,' and the notoriously irregular
lives of the players, all these were ties and associations ill
calculated to appease the just indignation of his father or to add to
forensic reputation in Edinburgh. The Scottish Themis, says Scott,
speaking from his own early experience of much higher literary pursuits,
is peculiarly jealous of any flirtation with the muses on the part of
those who have ranged themselves under her banners, and to them the
least lingering look behind is fatal. Little wonder, then, that the
paternal anger was again roused, when 'the look behind' on his part was
coupled with the bitter remembrances of the laureate of the Soapers, of
the Erskine Correspondence, and his own long indulgence destined at last
to bear such sorry fruits.
'How unaccountable it is,' he cries impatiently to Temple, 'that my
father and I should be so ill together! He is a man of sense and a man
of worth; but from some unhappy turn in his disposition he is much
dissatisfied with a son you know.... To give you an instance. I send you
a letter I had a few days ago. I have answered in my own style; I will
be myself! How galling it is to the friend of Paoli to be treated so!'
He confesses his father has 'that Scots strength of sarcasm which is
peculiar to a North Briton,' and that time was when it would have
depressed him. But now he is firm, and, 'as my revered friend Mr Samuel
Johnson used to say,' he feels the privileges of an independent human
being! To add to the confusion of Lord Auchinleck his son had flung
himself with all his enthusiasm into the famous Douglas Trial, the cause
that figures so much to the confusion, it is to be feared, of the
general reader. Of this some full account is necessary in order to
explain that extraordinary trial,--perhaps the most protracted and
famous that ever came before a court,--which, dragging its slow length
along through a longer course than the Peloponnesian War, fills the
shelves of legal libraries with eighteen portly volumes of papers and
reports. In the case Boswell really held no actual brief, though were we
to follow the impression he gives of his services we should infer he had
been leading counsel for the plaintiff, Douglas. 'With a labour of which
few are capable,' says Bozzy, many years after, 'he compressed the
substance of the immense volumes of proofs and arguments into an octavo
pamphlet,' to which its author believed 'we may ascribe a great share
of the popularity on Mr Douglas's side.' Then he adds in a
characteristic sentence, the meaning of which can be fully appreciated
only by those who have followed his contributions to magazines and the
press of the day, 'Mr Boswell took care to keep the newspapers and other
publications incessantly warm with various writings, both in prose and
in verse, all tending to touch the heart and rouse the parental and
sympathetic feelings.'
Lady Jane Douglas, sister to Archibald, Duke of Douglas, had been
privately married in 1746 to Colonel Steuart, afterwards Sir John
Steuart of Grandtully. She was then in the forty-ninth year of her age,
and the marriage was not divulged till May 1748 to her brother who had
not been reconciled and had in consequence suspended her allowance. At
Paris, in very humble lodgings, she gave birth to male twins in the
house of a Madame le Brun. The parents in 1749 returned to Scotland
where one of the children died; in 1761 the Duke of Douglas had himself
followed. Three claimants took the field, the Duke of Hamilton as heir
male of line, the Earl of Selkirk as heir of provision under former
deeds, and Archibald Steuart or Douglas. Lady Jane died in 1753, and Sir
John in 1764, both on their death-beds testifying to the legitimacy of
their surviving child. The Duke of Douglas, long prejudiced against this
son's claim by the machinations of the Hamiltons, had revoked the deed
in their favour for a settlement executed in behalf of his sister's son
Archibald. But stories had become rife of that son being the child of a
Nicholas Mignon and Marie Guerin from whom he had been purchased, and an
action to reduce service on a plea of _partus suppositio_ was instituted
by the tutors of the Duke of Hamilton who was then a minor. In France
negociations were conducted, investigations made, and witnesses examined
by Burnet of Monboddo, Gardenstone, Hailes, and Eskgrove, and at last in
July 1767 the Court of Session issued its decision. Lord Dundas, the
President, speaking first, and dwelling on the age of Lady Jane,
childless by a former marriage, the secrecy of the birth, and the
intrinsic valuelessness of death-bed depositions when set against
pecuniary interests and family pride, recorded his vote in favour of the
Hamiltons. Six days were subsequently taken up with the speeches of the
other judges, and Monboddo, speaking last, voted for Douglas. The
verdict was seven on each side, and by the President's vote the case in
Scotland was won by the pursuers. Kames, Monboddo, and Lord Auchinleck,
were in favour of the defender, Douglas.
The case was at once by him appealed to the House of Lords. Douglas was
favoured in Scotland, where for years the state of interest had been
such that people in company used to bargain, for the maintenance of
peace, that no mention of this disturbing plea should be introduced. So
high did the feeling run in Edinburgh that the Hamilton party had been
driven from their apartments in Holyrood Palace and their property
plundered. It was fortunate that this loophole of escape to another
court was opened, for before the Union such a cause would have led
almost to civil broil where the rival interests of the factions, through
the ramifications of marriage and other connections, extended so widely.
In earlier days the strife would have ended by an appeal to the sword on
the causeway. All the court influence of the Hamiltons had been bent,
and bent in vain, to secure the exclusion from the bench of Lord
Monboddo, counsel for Douglas, and a duel had been fought between their
agent Andrew Stuart and Thurlow the opposing advocate. The excitement
over the verdict of the Lords on Monday, February 27, 1769, was
unprecedented. In the _Autobiography of_ Jupiter Carlyle is fortunately
preserved the account of the scene, witnessed by the doctor himself, who
had been successful in gaining admission to the court, where from nine
in the morning till ten at night he remained, hemmed in by the crowd and
overcome with the oppressive heat. Mansfield spoke over one hour, and,
on his appearing to faint, the Chancellor rushed out for a bottle and
glasses, the current of fresh air being felt by the crowd as a relief.
Finally the verdict of the Scottish courts was reversed without a
division, and a verdict found in favour of Douglas. Hume was not
satisfied of the legitimacy of the pursuer, neither was Lord Shelburne,
and bribery on both sides had been extensively employed, over L100,000
having been calculated to have been spent in this protracted litigation.
It was on the evening of Thursday, shortly after eight, that the tidings
reached Edinburgh by express. The city was at once illuminated, and next
morning Dundas on his way to the Parliament House was threatened by a
mob such as the town had not seen since the Porteous Riot. Two troops of
dragoons were drafted at once on the same day into the capital. As
usually told, the story, which is vouched for by Ramsay of Ochtertyre,
is that the mob of the night before had been headed by the excited
Boswell, and that the windows of his father's house were smashed. Had
such been the case, it must have been by an oversight on the part of the
mob, or some petulant freak of the son, for on this occasion both
Boswell and his father had for once been unanimous in their belief in
the legitimacy of Douglas. But there is no need for doubting Ramsay's
assertion that Lord Auchinleck had, with tears in his eyes, to implore
President Dundas to commit his son to the Tolbooth! Not only had Bozzy
taken the field in the November of 1767 with his _Essence of the Douglas
Cause_, 'which I regretted that Dr Johnson never took the trouble to
study,' even though 'the question interested nations,' and the pamphlet
had produced, as its writer flattered himself, considerable effect in
deciding the case, but he had ventured on a breach of professional
etiquette in publishing _Dorando, a Spanish Tale_. This brochure was
ordered by the Court of Session to be suppressed as contempt of court,
after it had run through three editions. No copy of this forlorn hope of
the book hunter has ever been found, though doubtless it lurks in some
library where its want of the writer's name upon the title page may have
kept it from making its reappearance. Though it bore no name, yet
Boswell, when writing to Temple over it, speaks of 'My publisher
Wilkie,' and he seems to have been afraid that the copy sent by him
should fall into the hands of strangers. In the _Gentleman's Magazine_
for July 1767, however, it is reviewed, but the value of the shilling
booklet does not seem to have impressed the critic. 'The Spanish Tale,'
he says, 'supposes the contests to be finally determined in favour of
_Don Ferdinand_ against the family of Ardivoso--but the real question is
still in dispute, having been removed by appeal to the House of Lords.
The pamphlet is zealously but feebly written: the author in some places
affects the sublime, and in some the pathetic; but these are the least
tolerable parts of his performance.' Thus airily does the reviewer
dismiss Bozzy's determined effort to rouse, as he imagined, the parental
and sympathetical feelings, and it is clear at least that, however much
its recovery would add to the stock of harmless pleasure among
professed Boswellians and collectors, its loss cannot be said to have
'eclipsed the gaiety of nations.'
During the course of the trial the _Tour in Corsica_ had been preparing.
Early in 1768 it was issued from the celebrated press of Robert and
Andrew Foulis in Glasgow, and the publishers were the Dillys in the
Poultry, London, who were to act for him in all his literary
undertakings to the end of his life. It was a lull in the storm of the
Douglas crisis, and the old judge, eager enough to see his son
associated with anything rational, was not unpleased with its appearing
as a pledge of better things. 'Jamie,' he admitted, 'had taen a toot on
a new horn.' The account of Corsica which had been made up from various
sources of information ran to two hundred and thirty-nine pages; but the
real interest of the volume attaches to the _Journal_ which occupies a
hundred and twenty. The translations from Seneca were done by Thomas
Day, then very young, the author of _Sandford and Merton_, and the
creator of that constellation of excellence, Mr Barlow, whose connection
in any degree with Boswell is almost provocative of a smile. The
peculiar orthography of the writer is defended in the preface, for he
allows himself not only such divergencies as 'tremenduous,' 'authour,'
'ambassadour,' but also 'authentick' and 'panegyrick.' The dedication of
the first edition to Paoli was dated on his own birthday, and the book
ran to a third edition before the October of the same year. As purchased
by the Dillys for a hundred guineas it would appear to have been a
profitable speculation, and the wide circulation to which it attained we
shall see was not merely due to accident but to more solid qualities.
'Pray read,' says Horace Walpole to his friend Gray, 'the new account of
Corsica. The author is a strange being, and has a rage of knowing
everybody that ever was talked of. He forced himself upon me at Paris in
spite of my teeth and my doors.' 'Mr B.'s book,' replies Gray--with a
curious anticipation of the Carlylean canon of criticism--'has pleased
and moved me strangely; all I mean that relates to Paoli. The pamphlet
proves, what I have always maintained, that any fool may write a most
valuable book by chance, if he will only tell us what he heard and saw
_with veracity_. Of Mr B.'s book I have not the least suspicion, because
I am sure he could invent nothing of the kind. The title of this part of
his work is a dialogue between a Green Goose and a Hero.' But Gray was
fastidious, in this case blindly so. The merits of Goldsmith he could
when dying perceive, but the rollicking humour of Bozzy in this his
first book was sealed to the recluse critic who 'never spoke out,' a
thing that never could be safely asserted of the author of the _Tour in
Corsica_.
That 'authour,' however, was now bent on extracting the sanction of
approval from his idol. He hastened to London, heralding his arrival, as
was his wont, by a deftly contributed paragraph to the papers. The
society journals of to-day have not improved on Boswell in their method
of obtaining first hand information; he was a most assiduous chronicler
of his own actions, and there can be no doubt that there is much Boswell
'copy' buried in the pages of the papers of the time. From the _Public
Advertizer_ of February 28th we learn 'James Boswell, Esq., is expected
in town,' and, on March 24th, 'yesterday James Boswell, Esq., arrived
from Scotland at his lodgings in Half Moon Street, Piccadilly.' He had
received no letter from Johnson since the one in which the Latinity of
his thesis had been criticised, and Boswell had heard that the
publication in his book of a letter from his friend had given offence to
its writer. Johnson was in Oxford at the time, and thither flew Bozzy to
obtain the approval of his labours and, with an eye to all future
contingencies, his sanction for the publication _in his biography_ of
all Johnson's letters to him. 'When I am dead, sir,' was the reply, 'you
may do as you will.'
'My book,' he writes eagerly to Temple, 'has amazing celebrity. Lord
Lyttelton, Mr Walpole, Mrs Macaulay, and Mr Garrick, have all written me
noble letters about it. There are two Dutch translations going forward.'
General Oglethorpe, an old veteran who had seen service under Prince
Eugene, and the friend of Pope whose verses upon him 'I had read from my
early years,' called upon him and solicited his acquaintance. He became
a sort of literary lion. 'I am really the great man now,' he cries; 'I
have David Hume in the forenoon, Mr Johnson in the afternoon of the same
day. I give admirable dinners and good claret, and the moment I go
abroad again, which will be in a day or two, I set up my chariot. This
is enjoying the fruit of my labours, and appearing like the friend of
Paoli.' Alas for that friend!--he confesses to his correspondent that he
has been 'wild.' The form of this outbreak may be sufficiently seen by
the general reader in the leading questions which at this time Boswell
is found putting to Johnson; for the _Life of Johnson_, as we shall
indicate in its proper place, is no less the life of the biographer,
whose mind was ever seeking to shelter itself under the guidance of a
stronger force, and to effect a moral anchorage or moorings behind the
lee of his great friend. When Bozzy indulges in 'the luxury of noble
sentiments,' he is often known to be courting an indemnity to his
conscience for lax practice. Longfellow makes Miles Standish in his
belligerent mood turn in the Caesar to where the thumb-marks in the
margin proclaimed that the battle was hottest; Boswell often indicates
the decline and fall of the moralist by an apparently undue vein of
pietistic comments.
The next year was to witness the friend of Paoli in his most eccentric
display--the Shakesperian Festival inaugurated by Garrick at Stratford.
By this ludicrous gathering it is that Boswell is known to the mass of
readers who have never cared to know more of 'Corsica Boswell' than what
they can gather from the lively picture of Macaulay. There he is known
only as it were in the gross, to which indeed, as Johnson said of
Milton, the undramatic nature of the essayist's mind was rather prone,
careless as it was or incapable of the finer shades of character. Yet,
as we know, he was not the solitary masker or mummer in this
extraordinary carnival, which seems not creditable to the taste of its
promoters, and resembles rather the entry of a travelling circus into a
provincial town than a serious commemoration of a great man. However,
'thither Mr Boswell repaired with all the enthusiasm of a poetical
mind;' as he informs us, 'such an opportunity for the warbling of his
Muse was not neglected.' On Wednesday, Sept. 6th, about five in the
morning, says _The Scots Magazine_ for that month in its leading
article, the performers from Drury Lane paraded the streets of
Stratford, and serenaded the ladies with a ballad by Garrick, beginning
'Ye Warwickshire lads and ye lasses
See what at our Jubilee passes;
Come revel away, rejoice and be glad,
For the lad of all lads was a Warwickshire lad,
Warwickshire lad,
All be glad,
For the lad of all lads was a Warwickshire lad.'
Guns were fired, the magistrates assembled, and there was a public
breakfast in the town-hall. In this number of the magazine there is a
letter extending to seven columns from James Boswell, Esq., on his
return to London, after being 'much agitated' by 'this jubilee of
genius.' He describes it as 'truly an antique idea, a Grecian thought;'
the oratorio at the great Stratford church, with the music by Dr Arne,
was, he admits, grand and admirable, but 'I could have wished that
prayers had been read, and a short sermon preached.' Then the
performance of the dedication ode by Garrick is described as 'noble and
affecting, like an exhibition in Athens or Rome.' Lord Grosvenor, at the
close, went up to Garrick, 'and told him that he had affected his whole
frame, showing him his nerves and veins still quivering with agitation.'
The masquerade our traveller, as the 'travelled thane,' affects to
regard complacently as an 'entertainment not suited to the genius of the
British nation, but to a warmer country, where the people have a great
flow of spirits, and a readiness at repartee.' Bozzy no doubt had seen
the carnival abroad, and his memories of sunnier skies would not find
congenial atmosphere in the unpropitious weather when the Avon rose with
the floods of rain, the lower grounds were laid under water, and a
guinea for a bed was regarded as an imposition, though 'no one,'
declares our hero, 'was understood to come there who had not plenty of
money'--their own or their father's, presumably. The break up seems to
have been effected in confusion, but the good-humoured mummer, taking
one consideration with another, compares it to eating an artichoke,
where 'we have some fine mouthfuls, but also swallow the leaves and the
hair, which are confoundedly difficult of digestion. After all, I am
highly satisfied with my artichoke.'
He brought 'the warbling of his muse' with him. It is no better or worse
than the staple. In the character of a Corsican, he sings--
'From the rude banks of Golo's rapid flood,
Alas! too deeply tinged with patriot blood;
O'er which, dejected, injur'd Freedom bends,
And sighs indignant o'er all Europe sends,
Behold a Corsican! In better days
Eager I sought my country's fame to raise.
Now when I'm exiled from my native land
I come to join this classic festal band;
To soothe my soul on Avon's sacred stream,
And from your joy to catch a cheering gleam.'
After an apostrophe to happy Britons, on whose propitious isle
propitious freedom ever deigns to smile, he closes with an appeal--
'But let me plead for liberty distress'd,
And warm for her each sympathetic breast;
Amidst the splendid honours which you bear,
To save a sister island be your care;
With generous ardour make us also free,
And give to Corsica a noble Jubilee.'
Colman and Foote, of course, as comedians were there, but Goldsmith and
Johnson shewed their sense by their absence. The only trace of Davy's
old master was found in a Coventry ribbon put out by 'a whimsical
haberdasher,' with the motto from Johnson's _Prologue_ at the opening of
Drury Lane in 1747--'Each change of many colour'd life he drew.'
Boswell had a free hand as a writer for the _London Magazine_, in which
he had a proprietary interest. To it he contributed the following
account, accompanied with a portrait--the source of much of Macaulay's
indictment. 'One of the most remarkable masks upon this occasion was
James Boswell, Esq., in the dress of an armed Corsican chief. He entered
the amphitheatre about twelve o'clock. He wore a short dark-coloured
coat of coarse cloth, scarlet waistcoat and breeches, and black
spatterdashes; his cap or bonnet was of black cloth; on the front of it
was embroidered in gold letters _viva la liberta_, and on one side of it
was a handsome blue feather and cockade, so that it had an elegant as
well as a warlike appearance. On the breast of his coat was sewed a
Moor's head, the crest of Corsica, surrounded with branches of laurel.
He had also a cartridge-pouch, into which was stuck a stiletto, and on
his left side a pistol was hung upon the belt of his cartridge-pouch. He
had a fusee slung across his shoulder, wore no powder in his hair, but
had it plaited at full length with a knot of blue ribbons at the end of
it. He had, by way of a staff, a very curious vine all of one piece,
emblematical of the sweet bard of Avon. He wore no mask, saying it was
not proper for a gallant Corsican. So soon as he came into the room he
drew universal attention. The novelty of the Corsican dress, its
becoming appearance, and the character of the brave nation concurred to
distinguish the armed Corsican chief. He was first accosted by Mrs
Garrick, with whom he had a good deal of conversation. There was an
admirable dialogue between Lord Grosvenor, in the character of a Turk,
and the Corsican on the different constitution of the countries so
opposite to each other,--Despotism and Liberty; and Captain Thomson, of
the navy, in the character of an honest tar, kept it up very well; he
expressed a strong inclination to stand by the brave islanders. Mr
Boswell danced both a minuet and a country dance with a very pretty
lady, Mrs Sheldon, wife to Captain Sheldon, of the 38th Regiment of
Foot, who was dressed in a genteel domino, and before she danced threw
off her mask.'
He adds a cool puff of his own verses, 'which, it is thought, are well
suited to the occasion, while at the same time they preserve the true
Corsican character.' About a month after this masquerade, Goldsmith
dined at Boswell's lodging with Garrick, Johnson, Davies, and others,
where 'Goldsmith,' says the biographer, 'strutted about, bragging of his
dress, and I believe was seriously vain of it, for his mind was
wonderfully prone to such impressions!' Bozzy could criticise, as on all
occasions, the bloom coloured coat of 'honest Goldsmith,' yet he was
eager for Garrick to fall in with the idea of the tradesmen of Stratford
to make the Jubilee an annual event in the interests of local trade, and
'I flatter myself with the prospect of attending you at several more
Jubilees.'
Though he had again commenced in London his attendance on Johnson and
note-taking, there was now a divided source of attraction. Things had
gone hard with Paoli since Boswell had been in the island. In spite of
his Irish brigades and his British volunteers, the overwhelming forces
which the French were able to put in the field, on the cession of the
island to them by the Genoese, brought to an end the stubborn resistance
of the inhabitants. In the August of 1768 Boswell had raised in Scotland
a subscription of L700 for ordnance furnished by the Carron Iron Work
Company, and in 1769 there had issued from the press a little duodecimo,
'_British Essays in favour of the Brave Corsicans_: collected and
published by James Boswell, Esq.' The papers are twenty in number, some
by himself, others by 'a gentleman whose name would do honour to any
cause (whom we think to have been Trecothick, the successor of Beckford,
as Lord Mayor of London), and the greatest part furnished by persons
unknown to me.' They deal with the dangers to trade from France and the
Bourbon Compact, and point at the value of Corsica as a station superior
to Gibraltar or Minorca. One paper signed 'P. J.' has the undoubted
Boswellian touch in dealing with the sailors thrown idle by the
cessation of the along-shore Mediterranean trade. 'None are less
avaricious than our honest tars, nor have they, in reality, any reason
to be discontented. Every common sailor has at least five and thirty
shillings a month, over and above which _he has his victuals and drink,
and that in great abundance_. There is no such thing as stinting aboard
a ship, unless when reduced to difficulties by stormy weather. The crew
have their three meals a day regularly, and if they should be hungry
between meals, _there is always a biscuit or a luncheon of something
cold to be had_.'
France had bought Corsica from Genoa in May 1768. Marboeuf, whom
Boswell had found in the island, had been superseded, and a descent of
the French under Count Vaux with 20,000 men ended the war. Paoli escaped
to a ruinous convent on the shore, and, after lying there in
concealment, he embarked on an English vessel bound for Leghorn. On
September 20th he reached London, and the _Public Advertizer_ of October
4th, through its faithful correspondent, informed its readers how 'On
Sunday last General Paoli, accompanied by James Boswell, Esq., took an
airing in Hyde Park in his coach.' On the evening of the 10th he was
presented by the traveller to Johnson, who was highly pleased with the
lofty port of the stranger and the easy 'elegance of manners, the brand
of the soldier, _l'homme d'epee_.'
An impression is abroad that Boswell's books were not taken seriously.
Nothing could be more remote from the truth. The Whigs were in favour
of his views, and Burke, together with Frederick the Great, believed our
interests would suffer by the increase of French power in the
Mediterranean. Shelburne, for Chatham had resigned before November 1768,
was the advocate of similar views, telling our ambassador at Versailles
to remonstrate with the French court, while Junius, in his letter to the
Duke of Grafton, told the country that Corsica would never have been
invaded by the French, but for the sight of a weak and distracted
ministry. When the hand of Napoleon was heavy on the Genoese, they
remembered that their cession of the island had made their master, by
his birth at Ajaccio on August 15, 1769, a Frenchman. But the nation at
the time of Boswell's books was weary of war, and their influence,
though great, was not visible in any actual political results.
Boswell had expected to draw the sage on the subject of matrimony,
having promised himself, as he says, a good deal of instructive
conversation on the conduct of the married state. But the oracles were
dumb. On his return to the north he was married, on the 25th November
1769, to his cousin. We find in the _Scots Magazine_ of that month the
following extracts under the list of marriages:--
'At Lainshaw, in the shire of Air, JAMES BOSWELL, Esq., of
Auchinleck, advocate, to MISS PEGGY MONTGOMERY, daughter of the
late DAVID MONTGOMERY of Lainshaw, Esq.'
'At Edinburgh, ALEXANDER BOSWELL, Esq., of Auchinleck, one of
the Lords of Session and Justiciary, to Miss BETTY BOSWELL,
second daughter of JOHN BOSWELL, Esq., of Balmuto, deceased.'
His father, now past sixty, had married again, and married a cousin for
the second time, like his son on the present occasion. That they were
married on the same day and at different places affords a clear
indication that the father and son were no longer on the best of terms.