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Hawkins, Sir John, Life of Johnson London, 1787

Henley, W. E., Views and Reviews London, 1902

Hill, Dr. George Birkbeck, Life of Johnson. 6 vols. Oxford, 1887

Holcroft, Thomas, Memoirs. 3 vols. London, 1816

Hume, David, Correspondence London, 1846

Ireland, S. W. H., The Confessions of W. H. Ireland London, 1805

Johnson, Lionel, Post Liminium, Critical Essays London, 1911

Johnson Club Papers, by various hands London, 1899

Leask, W. K., James Boswell, Famous Scots Series. Edinburgh, 1896

London Magazine

Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays. 3 vols. London, 1843

Malone, Life of, Prior London, 1860

More, Hannah, Memoirs of. 4 vols. London, 1834

Piozzi, Mrs., Autobiography. 2 vols. London, 1861

Raleigh, Sir Walter, Six Essays on Johnson Oxford, 1910

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, Life by Leslie and Taylor. 2 vols. London, 1865

Rogers, Rev. Charles, Memoir of Boswell, in Boswelliana

Taylor, John, Records of My Life London, 1832

Trevelyan, Sir G. O., Life of Fox London, 1912

Walpole, Horace, Letters. 9 vols. London, 1861

BOSWELL THE BIOGRAPHER

Boswell's 'Life of Johnson' is, as we all know, a unique biography; it has no rival. Its unchallenged supremacy has a special significance from the position which Johnson himself retains in literature. For as it must be admitted that his work has been but little read since his own day, and that by far his greatest performance, the compiling of a dictionary, has in its nature nothing of an artistic appeal, it may well be supposed that the literary men of this age find more to stir the imagination in the lives of the great figures of the nineteenth century, in the romance of Byron, Shelley, Keats, and at a later date of the Pre-Raphaelite group, in the peculiar simplicity of Wordsworth, the splendour of Tennyson, and the fervid passion of Browning. And yet we have for Johnson a more intimate place which is all his own.

It is because we know him better. Subsequent biographers, Lockhart, Froude, Trevelyan--to mention a few of the more successful--have like Boswell written good biographies: we know much that is interesting about Scott, Carlyle, and Macaulay. But what we know of Johnson is more vivid, real, and true; it is the man himself. Boswell is therefore the first of biographers. He is first beyond the jealousy of a rival and above the common earth of imitators--as Homer is first in epic poetry, as Moli?re and Racine, Shakespeare and Milton are all first where they most excel. And he is first only for this reason, that we know most intimately the man who was portrayed by him.

But if the mere extent of our knowledge of Johnson determines the greatness of Boswell, there is yet some particular appeal besides, some special charm that wins us in Boswell's 'Johnson.' When we come to think of the nature of Boswell's value for so many people, we shall find that it depends not altogether upon the completeness of his method or his capacity for giving expression to it, but also upon an interest which exists apart from any structural or artistic quality. The 'Life of Johnson' is one of those rare books which have by nature a certain universality. It exists not for one but for every generation. It is not for the cultured alone nor for the uncultured, nor yet, if he exists, for the normal person. It is everybody's book. And this is a fact which requires explanation.

It would be easy if we were merely seeking to distinguish that which has a special value or quality from what is merely commonplace, if we simply wished to determine the peculiar flavour and virtue of the work, to find a number of reasons why the book we are speaking of should have a special value among biographies. The careful art of the writer, the vividness of the scenes he depicts, his unrivalled humour, the mere form of what he presents, including as it does all that he meant by biography, the interest we feel in the distinguished men who play, as it were, the minor parts of the drama--all these are responsible in their several degrees for the pleasure we derive from Boswell's 'Johnson.'

In presenting the literary portrait of a man there can be no greater error than to indulge in controversy. It is an error which one may make very readily, for we have all at heart the love of battle; moreover, it is easy to contradict another, and difficult to give a whole picture of one's own. And in the case of Boswell there is matter for controversy particularly obvious and particularly inviting. Distinguished men have formed entirely different conceptions of his character and used the pen with more energy than wisdom to support their views. It seems clear now that Boswell has been widely misunderstood.

We are confronted at the outset by a sort of popular paradox. Not only Lord Macaulay, but most of Boswell's contemporaries and most of his editors, have thought of him as nothing more than a fool--they have supposed with the poet Gray, 'Any fool may write a most valuable book by chance.' No one has ever denied that the 'Life' is a good book. No one after his own generation, till Carlyle, ever denied that Boswell was a bad man, just the mean, snivelling creature imagined by Macaulay.

Modern criticism has done much to raise the besmirched name of the biographer, but has managed at the same time to envelop his character in a sort of generous obscurity. 'Boswell,' Professor Raleigh has boldly exclaimed, 'was a genius.' The Boswellian student will probably agree: but in agreeing we must be cautious not to confuse our ideas about Boswell's character; to say that a man is a genius is not to say that he is unaccountable for his actions, or even of necessity to imply that he is mad. The genius is often more complex than other men, but not more incomprehensible. It is possible, if we like, to look behind the veil that is drawn between humanity and a particular human being. We can see in a genius not less than in others the meaning of all the names which we use to describe life, of love and sympathy, greed and egoism, hate, fear, joy, and the rest; of all the qualities that form for better or for worse what we call character, what it is to be kind or cruel, vain or modest, false or true. Nor, when we say that Boswell is a genius, do we preclude the possibility of his being a fool. Boswell was indeed a fool, as is easy enough to show; but he was not, as was long supposed, a stupid fool.

We do, however, mean something by the term genius; and it is something of the inward life. The soul of man is composed of combustible matter, and the violence and quality of its conflagration depend upon the proportions in which the ingredients are mixed. In certain cases an abnormal quantity of one substance or another produces an extraordinary result; and when this result can be classified neither as criminal nor lunatic it is called by the more approved name of genius.

Two questions therefore are to be asked especially with regard to a genius: First, in what way was the conflagration peculiar? Secondly, what were the substances present in abnormal quantity which caused the peculiarity?

It is intended that these two questions shall be answered with regard to Boswell in the course of this general inquiry concerning his psychology. It is held that Boswell was a genius; it must be explained in what his genius consisted, and how, in the end, this abnormal essence dominated the whole man and inspired the great work of his life.

James Boswell was born in Edinburgh on October 29th, 1740. He came of an old Scottish stock, and his ancestors, if not eminent, were at least distinguished men and proud of being the Lairds of Auchinleck.

Of his mother we know but little; she was, however, a woman of 'almost unexampled piety and goodness.'

Lord Auchinleck, his father, figures occasionally in the various authorities for Boswell's 'Life,' and we can get a very good picture of him. Scott gives the following account:

The Laird, as is evident from the account in the 'Tour to the Hebrides' of Johnson's visit to Boswell's home, held his opinions with that conviction which admits of no discussion. A story of him is related by Scott that when challenged by Johnson to explain the utility of Cromwell's career, he very curtly remarked: 'God, Doctor, he gart kings ken they had a lith in their neck.'

I knew a father who was a violent Whig and used to attack his son for being a Tory, upbraiding him with being deficient in noble sentiments of liberty, while at the same time he made this son live under his roof in such bondage as he was not only afraid to stir from home without leave like a child, but durst scarcely open his mouth in his father's presence. This was sad living.

The problem of youth is one of selection. Not many of us accept for ourselves the whole of our inheritance. Of the influences of our early years there are some which we reject; and the judgments which we make about the problems that affected us when young, differ as a rule from those about other questions which come upon us only in maturer years. In youth we must either love or hate--there is no indifference; and so in youth very often are formed the prejudices of a lifetime. Thus it was with Boswell. It was inevitable that the inflexible, hard-headed old judge, and the gay, clever son, should agree very ill. The latter contrived to be in many ways the exact antithesis of his father, and he had the courage of his opinions. It is remarkable, when we think of the violence of the old Whig's political views, that in 1745 Boswell 'wore a white cockade and prayed for King James.' The advances of an uncle it is true were able to purchase his political sympathies, and for the sum of one shilling Boswell became a Whig. But it is more decorous, at the age of five, to side with one's father without the persuasion of a silver bribe, especially upon a question of so great importance as the choice of a sovereign. For his tutor, Mr. Dunn, James seems to have retained no startling degree of affection or even of respect; for it was he who 'discovered a narrowness of information concerning the dignitaries of the Church of England. He talked before Dr. Johnson of fat bishops and drowsy deans, and in short seemed to believe the illiberal and profane scoffings of professed satirists or vulgar railers'; and so brought upon himself the admirable rebuke: 'Sir, you know no more of our Church than a Hottentot.'

In the uncongenial atmosphere of home Boswell learnt, no doubt, to dislike instruction and to mistrust what he was told about the way to live, about manners in the old use of the word. There is, however, the trace of a pious mother's influence in the respect which Boswell always showed for religion and for principles. To know what he thought right or wrong was always of importance to him, however slight the relation to his practice of these moral decisions. It is possible indeed that he could never have been better than a tyro in the art of living: but the close-fettered days of this unfortunate childhood must be partly responsible for the fact.

When the term of his education at home was accomplished, Boswell very properly went to school at Edinburgh. We have reason to complain, if we may complain at all, that we can know nothing of Boswell's school life. It is idle to conjecture what it was like. We may only suppose that school was to him a place of comparative freedom, and that to his schoolfellows his presence there was a valuable source of merriment, and perhaps also an occasion of maliciousness.

From school Boswell went by a natural sequence to Edinburgh University: he was barely seventeen years old when the change took place. It was at Edinburgh University, at Hunter's Greek class, that Boswell met his lifelong friend William Temple.

Temple is distinguished as the grandfather of an archbishop. Beyond this his life has no considerable distinction; and beyond the fact that he was Boswell's friend it has no peculiar interest. His eminence in the immediate affairs of this world may be rightly judged from the unembellished statement that, after his ordination in 1766, he remained a country parson, first at Mamhead, near Exeter, and later at St. Gluvias, in Cornwall, for his entire life. It is a curiously undecorated career for one who obtained so large a measure not merely of Boswell's friendship, but of his admiration.

A sad mischance has denied us at least the gratification of curiosity by hiding from our view, and perhaps destroying, the letters of Temple to Boswell; those qualities which attracted the youthful biographer, and completely won his confidence, are no doubt exposed therein; but we may not see. Boswell's own letters however reveal something of his correspondent's character. Temple in the first place--and this perhaps is the most important fact--was literary. He was evidently a far better scholar than Boswell, and knew more about books. He was a writer too in a small way. He published several unpretentious volumes. They have no particular interest that demands our attention, but one of them, 'An Essay on the Clergy, &c.,' 'by some divine mischance,' as Mr. Seccombe puts it, 'materially aided his prospects.' Temple's ability seems rather to have been that of a critic. In the letters that he wrote to Boswell he pronounced his views about books and authors: Boswell esteemed his opinions highly, and there was a proposal, apparently fruitless, that these passages should be collected into a book. It would be wrong to assume from Boswell's optimistic remarks that Temple was really capable of writing anything valuable. But his opinion was in one instance at least supported by eminent men of letters. Boswell quoted in a periodical an appreciation of Gray which Temple wrote at the time of that poet's death; Mason thought this so good that he inserted it in his 'Life of Gray'; and Dr. Johnson afterwards included the same passage in the 'Lives of the Poets.'

Temple, as we see, is not entitled to the fame of Letters; but it is important to realise, since he was the greatest friend both of the young and the old Boswell, that though he had not the qualities that deserve success, and had not the good fortune that may bring it by chance, he had, however, a certain distinction.

There are other reasons for Boswell's preference. If neither Temple nor Boswell was a successful man, yet they both desired success in a quite extraordinary degree, and in the early days of their friendship at Edinburgh this was a strong link. They perceived, no doubt, that they were unlike the majority of students, and concluded they were better than the rest. They looked forward to brilliant careers and elegant fame, to the respect of princes and the friendship of the ingenious. Boswell lived for the greater part of his life in a palace of boyish dreams where Wishes became Destiny, and it is fair to suppose that Temple at the Scottish University shared this luxury of anticipation. He, too, could look back to the Edinburgh days and consider if he were becoming 'the great man, as we used to say.' And in later life the link held firm; for neither of them was 'the great man' in the sense that he intended. If they were companions in hopeful optimism when young, they were equally companions at a maturer age in the discontent and despair of unrealised ambition.

It is clear that Boswell had no moral respect for Temple; it was not in search of guidance that he told stories of his profligacy, but simply because he liked to tell them. Boswell, as his friend remarked, mounted the hobby-horse of his own temperament; this was his perennial and unfailing interest, and the irrepressible delight which he had in his own feelings and performances found an outlet in the 'Letters to Temple' and in many amusing passages in the 'Life of Johnson.'

Boswell no doubt was capable of self-revelation without encouragement, and it is difficult for this reason to tell how much sympathy he had from his friend. Temple wanted to hear from Boswell; he asked him to write, and praised his letters. But his mild disapproval was probably genuine. When he accuses Boswell of neglecting a friend or of unkindness to his father, he must have thought himself a more considerate man. He was not like Boswell, a tippler, and seems to have been really distressed by the other's intemperate habits. In a manuscript diary, reports Mr. Seccombe, he describes Boswell, no doubt in a moment of irritation, as 'irregular in conduct and manners, selfish, indelicate, no sensibility or feeling for others.' And yet Temple himself was not above a gross fault; he talks of a 'dear infidel,' and Boswell exclaims that he is exceeded by his friend. Boswell no doubt made the most of any lapse on Temple's part from the path of rectitude; he would like to feel that he had the support of a respectable companion. His conscience was by no means complacent, and it would become more tranquil if one whom he respected were in the same boat with himself. It is conceivable that Temple encouraged Boswell's confidence with the object of controlling him as much as he could; his advice certainly was always that he should get well married instead of carrying on a number of flirtations. But it is difficult to believe, if we read the letters carefully, that Temple ever appeared to be shocked by Boswell's confessions; and to the latter no doubt that was an encouragement.

In brief, we may describe Temple as a refined and well-intentioned creature, but hardly wise and not courageous. His marriage was so much a failure that he sought at one time a colonial chaplaincy with the object of living apart from his wife. He was discontented with his lot and inclined rather to complain acrimoniously than to make the best of it. He had apparently no staunch qualities to influence a friend; and this friend needed a firm monitor.

The date of the first of Boswell's letters to Temple is July 1758. In 1763 he met Johnson. In the five years between these dates we see Boswell in a number of characteristic lights. The period from eighteen to twenty-three is commonly held to mark a special change and development in a man's character. In Boswell's, however, we do not see this very strongly. As he grew up he did fewer, no doubt, of the wild things of youth. But he seems hardly to have become older in the ordinary way, until towards the close of his life. He was always to the world the gay, good-humoured, sociable being, with a strong vein of fatuous buffoonery, that we see in these early years. A great difficulty in rightly understanding Boswell's life lies in this fact. It seems impossible at times to realise that this was a serious man; he appears to find the world and himself such a preposterous joke. And yet if he saw to the full the humour of living, he felt too very keenly that it was an important matter, that there were real standards. No one has valued more the opinion of others about himself, and no one has experienced more miserably the bitterness of disappointed ambition. It must be our duty, then, to mark, with all the follies and frivolities which express the youth he retained so long, a more serious nature within, which showed itself also from time to time to the outer world.

The course of Boswell's life during this period of five years may be briefly followed in chronological order. In 1758 he was at Edinburgh University, and it is from there that his first letter to Temple is dated. The summer vacation was spent on the Northern Circuit with his father and Sir David Dalrymple, afterwards also a Scottish judge with the title of Lord Hailes. In November 1759, he entered Adam Smith's class for Moral Philosophy in Glasgow University. In 1760 he paid his first visit to London, and in the spring of 1761 returned to Edinburgh, where he resided until the close of 1762; he then went for the second time to London. It was upon this second visit that he met Dr. Johnson.

It is characteristic of these years that he did not quite know what he was or what he wanted. He was posing now in one guise and now in another, wondering the while what his serious purpose might be. At Edinburgh University he seems to have wished to appear an intellectual cynic. He writes to Temple:

Among Boswell's friends of the aristocracy of letters were several younger men. Charles Dilly, the publisher, who was afterwards host at the famous dinner when Dr. Johnson met Jack Wilkes, was a native of Edinburgh; and George Dempster, who became M.P. for the burghs of Fife and Forfar in 1762, was, like Boswell, a member of the Select Society; it was he who afterwards appeared as the disciple of Hume and Rousseau, and of whom Johnson said, 'I have not met with any man for a long time who has given me such general displeasure.'

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