James Boswell

st, the rest no

, if in writing his man's biography he wrote down anything that could by possibility offend any man, he had written wrong.' The biographer, as Mr Froude found out for a commentary on all this, is placed between a Scylla and Charybdis, between what is due to the subject, and what is expected by the public. If something is left out of the portrait, the likeness will be imperfect; if the anxiety or the inquisitiveness of readers to know private details i

ks to measure; she too in our age busies herself with the affairs only of kings. I wonder shall history ever pull off her periwig and cease to be Court-ridden? I would have History familiar rather than heroic, and think that Mr Hogarth and Mr Fielding will give our children a much better idea of the manners of the present age in England, than the Court Gazette and the newspapers which we get thence.' A

s, and violations of confidences, by the biographer. Accordingly, just as Macaulay decided that, in general, tragedy was corrupted by eloquence, and comedy by wit, so biography and history have suffered from the dignity of Clio. Boswell was perfectly aware what he was doing, nor did he awake to find himself famous for a method into which the sciolists pretend he only unconsciously blundered. In the preface to the third edition of the Journal he writes:-'Remarks have been industriously circulated in the publick prints by shallow or envious cavillers, who have endeavoured to persuade the world that Dr Johnson's character has been lessened by recording such various instances of his lively wit and acute judgment, on every topick that was presented to his mind. In the opinion of every person of taste and knowledge that I have conversed with, it has been greatly heightened; and I will venture to predict, that this specimen of his colloquial talents will become still more valuable, when, by the lapse of time, he shall have become an ancient; and no other memorial of this great and good man shall remain but the following Journal.' This is not the writing of one who has been without a clear idea of what he was undertaking, and of his own qualifications for the task. 'You, my dear sir,' he tells Sir Joshua Reynolds in the dedication, 'perceived all the shades which mingled in the grand composition; all the peculiarities an

f this work the manuscript was daily read by Johnson, and you have perused the original and can vouch for the strict fidelity of the present publication." His Life of Johnson was as fearlessly dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds, one whose intimacy with Johnson could stamp, with assured knowledge of the subject, the credit and success of the work. Among the 'some dozen, or baker's dozen, and those chiefly of very ancient date,' of reliable biographies whose paucity Carl

om he had as true an admiration as Boswell had for Johnson. But Boswell was only in the company of his idol some 180 days, or 276 if we include the time on the tour in Scotland, in all the twenty years of his acquaintance. Lockhart had the journals of Sir Walter, and the communications of nearly a hundred persons. A comparison in any sense, literary, social, or moral, would have been felt by Lockhart as an insult, for he clearly regards Sir Alexander Boswell as a greater man than his father. But if, like the grandsire of Hubert at Hastings, Lockhart has drawn a good bow, Boswell, like the Locksley of the novelist, has notched his shaft, and comparisons have long ceased to be institut

ite a literary classic, graced by arrangement, selection, expression, is not even paradox but hyperbole run mad. The truth is, Macaulay had no eye for such a complex character as Boswell. Too correct himself, too prone to the cardinal virtues and consistency, to follow one who, by instinct, seemed to anticipate Wendell Holmes' advice-'Don't be consistent, but be simply true'-and too sound politically in the field where Boswell and the doctor abased themselves in absurd party spirit, Macaulay can no more und

ation of the biographer is successful; he errs in emphasizing the discovery by Boswell of the Rambler. In such a discovery Langton and Beauclerk had long preceded him, and the Johnson that Boswell met in Davies' parlour was the pensioned writer who had out-lived his dark days, and was the literary dictator of the day, and the associate of

is incomparable. Macaulay believed a London apprentice could detect Scotticisms in Robertson; Hume's style is often vicious by Gallicisms and Scots law phrases which nothing but his expository gifts have obscured from the critics. Beattie confesses learning English as a dead language and taking several years over the t

ll gallery-the meeting of the two old P

stranger. But as soon as Edwards had brought to his recollection their having been at Pembroke College together nine-and-forty years ago, he seemed much pleased, asked where he lived, and said he should be glad to see him in Bolt Court. Edwards: "Ah, sir! we are old men now."

I had a number of poor relations to whom I gave great part of it." Johnson: "Sir, you have been rich in the most valuable sense of the word." Edwards: "But I shall not die rich." Johnson: "Nay, sure, sir, it is better to live rich, than to die rich." Edwards: "I wish I had continued at College." Johnson: "Why do you wish that, sir?" Edwards: "Because I think I should have had a much easier life than mine has been. I should have been a parson, and had a good living, like Bloxam and several others, and lived comfortably." Johnson: "Sir, the life of a parson, of a conscientious clergyman, is not easy. I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain. I would rather have Chancery suits upon my hands than the cure of souls." Here, taking himself up all of a sudden, he exclaimed, "O! Mr Edwards! I'l

straggler. I may leave this town and go to Grand Cairo, without being missed here or observed there." Edwards: "Don't you eat supper, sir?" Johnson: "No, sir." Edwards: "For my part, now, I consider supper as a turnpike through which one must pass, in order to get to bed." Johnson: "You are a lawyer, Mr Edwards. Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man sho

! remnants of

ed by Dr Johnson. When he was gone, I said to Johnson I thought him but a weak man. Johnson: "Why, yes, sir. Here is a man who has passed through life withou

meeting of two old men nothing worthy of notice, yet how dramatically does Boswell touch off the Philistine side of Edwards, and insert the fine shading and the inimitable remarks about the setting up for the philosopher, and supper being a turnpike to bed! This art of the

uthor of the Traveller and the Deserted Village cosmopolitan instincts and feelings. 'I have always stood up for the Irish,' he writes, 'in whose fine country I have been hospitably and jovially entertained, and with whom I feel myself to be congenial. In my Tour in Corsica I do generous justice to the Irish, in opposition to the English and Scots.' Again,

s as Horatian the standard mens sana in corpore sano of Juvenal. More strange is his quoting in a note an illustration of the phrase 'Vexing thoughts,' without his being apparently aware that the words are by Rous of Pembroke, the Provost of Eton, whose portrait in the college hall he must often have seen, the writer of the Scottish Metrical Version of the Psalms. Yet his intellectual interests were keen. Late in life he has 'done a little at Greek; Lord Monboddo's Ancient Metaphysics which I am reading carefully helps me to recover the language.' He has his little scraps of irritating Latinity which he loves to parade, and when he dined at Eton, at the fellows' table, he 'made a considerable figure, having certain

ures and Charters, 'a valuable collection made by my father, with some additions and illustrations of my own;' an Account of my Travels, 'for which I had a variety of materials collected;' a Life of Sir Robert Sibbald, 'in the original manuscript in his own writing;' a History of the Rebellion of 1745; an edition of Walton's Lives; a Life of Thomas Ruddiman, the Latin grammarian; a History of Sweden, where three of his ancestors had settled, who took service under Gustavus Adolphus; an edition of Johnson's

ave collected such fruits as the Nonpareil and the Bon Chretien? On the other hand, how useful is such a faculty, if well exercised! To it we owe all those interesting apophthegms and memorabilia of the ancients, which Plutarch, Xenophon, and Valerius Maximus, have transmitted to us. To it we owe all those instructive and entertaining collections which the French have made under the title of Ana, affixed to some celebrated name. To it we owe the Table-Talk of Selden, the Conversation bet

baiting the doctor with questions on all points, his rebuffs and his puttings down-'there is your want, sir; I will not be put to the question;' his watching 'every dawning of communication from that illuminated mind;' his

ale, Murphy and others, suggest inevitably that they have been touched up by their reporter. The Boswelliana supplies here some slight confirmation of this, for there have been preserved in that collection stories that reappear in the Life, and the final form in which they appear in the later book is always that of a pointed and improved nature. It would, therefor

ut himself should we detect the excrescences in his works-the permutations and combinations in shaving, the wish for a pulley in bed to raise him, his puzzle over the disproportionate wages of footmen and maidservants, his boastings, his family pride, his hastily writing in the sage's presence Johnson's parody of Hervey in the Meditations on a Pudding, his superstitions, and his weaknesses? It is this that has cost him so dear with the critics, and the superior people, 'empty wearisome cuckoos, and doleful monotonous owls, innumerable jays also and twittering sparrows

order to fix a date correctly.' And he knew the value of his work, which the man with the note-book never does. In his moments of self-complacency he could compare his Johnsoniad with the Odyssey; and he will not repress his 'satisfaction in the consciousness of having largely provided for the instruction and entertainment of mankind.' Literary models before him he had none. Scott sugges

have said, as Cervantes did of his great creation Don Quixote, he and his subject were born for each other. There is no greater figure, no more familiar face in our literature than 'the old man eloquent'; and as the inseparable companion 'held in my heart of hearts, whose fidelity and tenderness I consider as a great part of the comforts which are yet left to me,' rises t

the Green Man at Ashbourne, M. Killingley, who waited on him with the note of introduction to his extensive acquaintance-'a singular favour conferr'd on one who has it not in h

e