CHAPTER III
The portion of Boswell's career which we have been relating up to this point gives rise by natural sequence to the discussion of one or two interesting questions about his personality. We must know the part played in the main theme by his peculiar qualities. We must notice how they seem to assist or to impede his particular faculty for biography.
Allusion has already been made to the reasons for which Boswell was attracted by two great men, Dr. Johnson and General Paoli. We must see now in general the reason of that intimacy which he took care to cultivate with a large number of distinguished men.
Boswell, there can be no doubt, liked men in some way because they were distinguished. We must remember that the judgments of the world were always very real standards to him. If a man were great, he must be somehow good; and to be the friend of such a man, that was good too. It is not that Boswell judged of characters wholly by success. We may see that as he grew older he judged them more and more by the Johnsonian morality. He grew less tolerant of heresy under the influence of his moral guide. Hence the dislike of Gibbon:—'He is an ugly, affected, disgusting fellow, and poisons our Literary Club to me.' Johnson probably shared this feeling and undoubtedly shared the reasons for it, which Boswell expresses in Johnsonian phrases: 'I think it is right that as fast as infidel wasps or venomous insects, whether creeping or flying, are hatched, they should be crushed.' This was said in reference to Gibbon's book; the sentiments were extended to Adam Smith. 'Murphy says that he has read thirty pages of Smith's "Wealth," but says that he shall read no more: Smith too is now of our Club. It has lost its select merit.' Personal antipathy in the one case and ignorance of economics in the other need not surprise us. But it comes as a shock, nevertheless, to discover Boswell's views upon the two men who were, intellectually, the most distinguished of his contemporaries. The Doctor's prejudices may have much to do with it. Boswell records a similar judgment in the 'Tour to the Hebrides': 'Infidelity in a Highland gentleman appeared to me peculiarly offensive. I was sorry for him as he had otherwise a good character.'
And yet he was probably always as he was in the early years far more tolerant than Johnson. There is an instructive passage also in the 'Tour to the Hebrides' about Hume. Johnson was talking about Hume's infidelity: 'He added something much too rough, DISTINGUISHED FRIENDS both as to Mr. Hume's head and heart, which I suppress. Violence is, in my opinion, not suitable to the Christian cause. Besides I always lived on good terms with Mr. Hume, though I have frankly told him I was not clear that it was right in me to keep company with him.' That he did not condemn the infidel Hume, shows that Boswell's prejudices were weaker, at least, than friendship. Boswell, besides, throughout his life gave a very high value to mere intellectual power. He complained of 'dull provinciality' in Scotland, because the people of Edinburgh were less intelligent than the Londoners. His love of London was founded upon the need he felt of conversing with clever people; and this need became in him with maturity, not weaker, as in most cases, but stronger.
In these early years Boswell was glad to make a friend of any particularly intelligent person, and his acquaintances included characters widely differing—Hume and Rousseau, Johnson and Lord Hailes, Wilkes and Paoli. Boswell clearly had pleasure in the society of them all; he did not, like Johnson, condemn them to a place beyond the range of his acquaintance; these men were specimens of human nature worthy to be studied; he saw some good in all of them. There is a characteristic passage in the 'Life' about the meeting of Johnson and Wilkes which illustrates the attitude:
My desire of being acquainted with celebrated men of every description had made me, much about the same time, obtain an introduction to Dr. Samuel Johnson and to John Wilkes, Esq. Two men more different could perhaps not be selected out of all mankind. They have even attacked one another with some asperity in their writings; yet I lived in habits of friendship with both. I could fully relish the excellence of each; for I have ever delighted in that intellectual chymistry which can separate good qualities from evil in the same person.
He looked upon men much as we look upon works of art, distinguishing that which, as art, has merit, and crediting with a certain value every design or idea which has been executed well, but attaching ourselves more particularly to a few rare objects which have some special significance or appeal for our own nature. Johnson and Paoli had this appeal for Boswell. Wilkes and Hume attracted him more because they were interesting individuals for whom, though he really disapproved of them, he might retain some slight affection because they were representative men. He might dislike the things they represented, but like them in spite of this: like them, one might almost say, for representing something.
With Hume, for instance, he had a considerable friendship at one time. He was of course, an individual to be studied; to Temple, Boswell related his conversations much as he recorded those of Johnson and Paoli. But he did not see him merely because he INTEREST IN MEN was interested; he liked him too: 'David is really amiable; I always regret to him his unlucky principles and he smiles at my faith.' It is probable that as he grew older Boswell grew less tolerant. He was always somewhat of an experimentalist, interested in various sides of life and fitting one or another to his own case; but though he became with maturity more definitely attached to the conventional Christianity, to 'belief,' as he termed it, as opposed to 'infidelity,' and less tolerant of the people who held different views, he never hated a man for being a Whig or an atheist as Johnson did.
Interest and affection: these, then, are real motives with Boswell for seeking as he did the company of distinguished men. The question, however, of a further motive—of the snobbishness in Boswell's nature—still remains.
Boswell himself was well aware of a certain 'propensity in his disposition,' of a particular pleasure from the society of the great and a desire which he had to form friendships among them; he knew too that his behaviour was condemned by many of his contemporaries. In the 'Tour to the Hebrides'[1] he has given his own account and explanation of his conduct:
My fellow-traveller and I talked of going to Sweden; and, while we were settling our plan, I expressed a pleasure in the prospect of seeing the king. Johnson: 'I doubt, Sir, if he would speak to us.' Colonel McLeod said, 'I am sure Mr. Boswell would speak to him.' But, seeing me a little disconcerted by his remark, he politely added, 'and with great propriety.' Here let me offer a short defence of that propensity in my disposition, to which this gentleman alluded. It has procured me much happiness. I hope it does not deserve so hard a name as either forwardness or impudence. If I know myself, it is nothing more than an eagerness to enjoy the society of men distinguished either by their rank or their talents, and a diligence to attain what I desire. If a man is praised for seeking knowledge, though mountains and seas are in his way, may he not be pardoned, whose ardour, in pursuit of the same object, leads him to encounter difficulties as great, though of a different kind?
This defence is characteristic of the manner in which Boswell consistently treated the world. 'Curiosity,' said Mrs. Thrale, 'carried Boswell farther than it ever carried any mortal breathing. He cared not what he provoked so as he said what such a one would say or do.'[2] But the basis of social conventions is a desire to consider the feelings of others. A person's 'forwardness' and 'impudence' are judged not so much by his own sentiments as by the effect he produces upon other people. Boswell pressed an acquaintanceship entirely because he thought it might be good for himself; he never considered the views of the acquaintance: 'It has procured me much happiness.' He did not BOSWELL A SNOB understand the consequences of this attitude. He was an intellectual parasite upon society, determined at any cost to feed upon the good qualities of others, taking where he would, without caring if he gave. It may possibly be well for the individual that he should consider himself alone; but society, just because it is society, must object to the egoist. This Boswell never was able to understand. His own point of view was concerned with what he could get from others; and though he was by nature in many ways excellent as the member of a community, he had no conception of himself in this capacity. He cared a great deal about his importance, but very little about his value. He took systematically, he gave at random. Interest in human beings simply for his own sake because it pleased him[3]: that is one prime motive which impelled him to seek the acquaintance of distinguished men.
Boswell, besides this, was essentially a snob. To have pleasure in the company of distinguished men, not only from a sense of the good qualities they have, but from a feeling that their greatness adds to one's position in the esteem of mankind, that is to be a snob. Boswell had this feeling; he freely admitted it. 'Now, Temple,' he writes, 'can I help indulging my vanity? Sir David Dalrymple says to me in his last letter, "It gives me much pleasure to think that you have obtained the friendship of Mr. Samuel Johnson...."' And again:
I am really the great man now. I have had David Hume, in the forenoon, and Mr. Johnson, in the afternoon, of the same day, visiting me. Sir John Pringle, Dr. Franklin, and some more company dined with me to-day; and Mr. Johnson and General Oglethorpe one day, Mr. Garrick alone another, and David Hume and some more literati another, dine with me next week. 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. By the bye, the Earl of Pembroke and Captain Meadows are just setting out for Corsica, and I have the honour of introducing them by a letter to the General. David Hume came on purpose, the other day, to tell me that the Duke of Bedford was very fond of my book, and had recommended it to the Duchess.
'The great man' because he kept the company of great men—that is what he says, and it is snobbish. His enjoyment of 'the society of men distinguished by their rank or their talents' depended partly upon that. He considered this to be a legitimate way of acquiring fame.
The absurdity of Boswell's behaviour in this respect seems all the more ridiculous from the fact that it was unnecessary. When he returned from Corsica he had obtained, as we remarked above, a position of LETTER TO CHATHAM considerable distinction for a young man. He had only to wait discreetly and carefully and he was certain to obtain the patronage of the great. But he courted them, on the contrary, with unheard-of fervour. The climax was reached in a letter to Chatham, with whom he had an opportunity of corresponding about Corsica. He writes from the pinnacle of pomposity to descend to the pit of adulation: 'I only wish that circumstances were such that your Lordship could have an opportunity of showing the interest you take in the fate of a people who well deserve the favour of so illustrious a patron of liberty as your Lordship.' He proceeds by quoting, as the mediator between the General and Lord Chatham, a letter from Paoli. There is then an immortal passage in which the underlying egoism, too little concealed, is yoked with a flattery which could scarcely be tolerated in Olympia:
Your Lordship applauds my 'generous warmth for so striking a character as the able chief.' Indeed, my Lord, I have the happiness of being capable to contemplate with supreme delight those distinguished spirits by whom God is sometimes pleased to honour humanity; and as I have no personal favour to ask of your Lordship, I will tell you with the confidence of one who does not fear to be thought a flatterer, that your character, my Lord, has filled many of my best hours with that noble admiration which a disinterested soul can enjoy in the bower of philosophy.
Then follows an account of Boswell's plan for his book about Corsica; and finally his personal vanity leaps over every barrier.
As for myself, to please a worthy and respected father, one of our Scotch judges, I studied law, and am now fairly entered to the bar. I begin to like it. I can labour hard; I 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 virtuous fame.
This letter illustrates much of Boswell's attitude towards the great, and it will be necessary to refer to it again in that connection; it shows, at least, how earnestly Boswell desired the friendship of the great man, and what a thrill of pleasure those letters from Chatham must have given him.
However much we may dislike this propensity of Boswell's disposition, while admitting that it is unpleasant in itself, although we would not and could not have Boswell without it, there is no reason to see in much of it a blacker vice than merely the ignorance of how to behave. And it was connected as we have shown with feelings not entirely selfish. But of the flagrant self-advertisement to which we have referred above no such agreeable things may be said. It is condemnable without compensation as an obtrusive egoism and foolish vanity. It must be written LIMITS OF EGOISM down frankly on the debit side of Boswell's peculiar genius, and it was as much opposed to the proper exercise of his biographical talents as to his more practical career.
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We are forced to wonder, and it is important that we should decide, whether in spite of his immoderate self-centredness Boswell was capable of acting without considering his own advantage in the interest of others. Had he, in the first place, any real care for the cause of Corsican liberty?
It is often far from easy to discover what Boswell's feelings were, because the balance between sentiment and expression was with him very ill-adjusted. By prolonged study of the Boswellian extravagances we may come to perceive, as we think, how much Boswell really felt; but even so it is hardly possible to explain any valid reason for judgments of this nature. Boswell was often guilty of extravagance; but it would be as false to believe that he felt none of the zeal he talks about so easily, as to believe that he felt as much as he says. He undoubtedly exaggerated, but he probably never made an absolute misstatement.
There is a passage of great enthusiasm for the Corsicans in a letter to Johnson:[4] 'Shall they not rise in the great cause of liberty, and break the galling yoke? And shall not every liberal soul be warm for them?' Boswell's heart must have been warm when he wrote that: but we are unfortunately still left in doubt by an anti-climax: 'No! while I live, Corsica and the cause of the brave islanders shall ever employ much of my attention, shall ever interest me in the sincerest manner.' The letter in which these quotations occur is dated April 26, 1768; it is possible that Boswell's ardour had begun to cool by that time and that the cause of liberty, though it might 'employ much of his attention' was less vital to him than he imagined. The 'Tour to Corsica,' however, gives an impression of genuine interest and sympathy with the Corsicans. Boswell seems to have liked very well these simple folk, who appreciated more readily than his countrymen the natural gaiety and good humour of his spirits.[5] How different is his attitude in the 'Tour to the Hebrides' towards the Scots! We must remember too that Boswell, whatever may have been his motives, did much in England and Scotland to help the Corsicans. Besides publishing his book, which was of value to their cause, he raised a subscription and sent out £700 worth of ordnance.[6] He also collected and published a volume of 'British Essays in favour of the Brave Corsicans,' some of which he himself wrote.
Boswell had in fact a real generosity of character; he GENEROSITY hated anything mean, and expressed himself as anxious to cure his own 'narrowness.' He could be kind to his friends and was willing to lend money. He was interested as a lawyer in the decisions of the courts and readily bestowed his sympathy. On behalf of a certain Dr. Dodd, a divine who was under sentence of death for forgery, he wrote to Dr. Johnson: 'If for ten righteous men the Almighty would have spared Sodom, shall not a thousand acts of goodness done by Dr. Dodd counterbalance one crime?' And Dr. Johnson afterwards used his pen in Dr. Dodd's service. On another occasion he appealed for his friend's assistance in the case of a Scotch schoolmaster—a client of Boswell's, who had been 'deprived of his office for being somewhat severe in the chastisement of his scholars': Boswell in his letter to Johnson seems to have at heart both the interests of the schoolmaster and the principle of corporal punishment. For his friend Temple he more than once went out of his way to obtain some favour. He treated his tenants with the greatest consideration, and even made special provisions in his will for their future welfare.[7] But Boswell was not one of those who continually exercise these amiable qualities. It is probable indeed that, had he tried, he would have met with more rebuffs than encouragement. To be flagrantly kind with any success requires a good deal of cunning, and of that useful quality Boswell had extremely little: he was likely to appear in any good work more meddlesome than great-hearted. But if with him care for the happiness of others was not the first consideration, he was at bottom a sympathetic, kind-hearted man, and capable of generous actions.
It is very important that we should bear this in mind about Boswell. Those who are gifted with powers of expression are often in one sense primarily egoists—more so than other men because they are apt to become more completely absorbed—and Boswell, as we have shown, was not without his portion of egoism; but there may be a place in the lives of such men for unselfish feelings, and if we may think that Boswell had his due share of them we may judge less harshly in him the egoism which we cannot admire.
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Boswell, as we have seen, had already at the age of twenty-seven made a bid for renown. He was anxious to shine in more lights than one. It was not mere social success or literary fame that he wanted: he had an ardent desire to be successful in his profession. The sphere of employment which had been chosen for him by his father with his own sanction was the Scotch Bar, to which he was formally 'called' in 1766.[8] His work seems to have engrossed at once a great AT THE BAR deal of his time. He writes on March 4th, 1767, to Temple:
I am surprised at myself, I already speak with so much ease and boldness, and have already the language of the bar so much at command. I have now cleared eighty guineas. My clerk comes to me every morning at six, and I have dictated to him forty folio pages in one day. It is impossible to give you an idea of my present life. I send you one of my law papers, and a copy of my thesis. I am doing nobly; but I have not leisure for learning. I can hardly ever answer the letters of my friends.
This is the letter of a man who finds himself engrossed as well as busy. The truth is that Boswell was extremely anxious to make a mark in his profession. Here, as always, he must win approval; he must become a person to be considered. To this end he succeeded in mixing himself up with the Douglas Cause, a case concerned with a Scotch title which was commanding much attention in the summer of 1767. He seems to have acted as a voluntary counsel to Mr. Douglas the plaintiff, and was most diligent, even perhaps to excess, in his interest. In connection with this trial, two small publications appeared from Boswell's hand. The first of them, 'The Essence of the Douglas Cause,' is a précis of the whole affair, well arranged and clearly expressed; it was written with a view to aiding Boswell's own side in the case,[9] in reply to a pleading from the other side, 'Considerations on the Douglas Cause.' The labour of compiling this summary must have been very great. Boswell tells us in the introduction that he was present during the whole deliberation of the Cause before the Court of Session and took very full notes. It shows, as Mr. Fitzgerald has remarked, how industrious Boswell could be when his enthusiasm was aroused.
The other publication, 'Dorando: A Spanish Tale'[10] affects to be a story about a trial in Spain, but reproduces the characters in the Douglas case. Under this thin veil approbation and criticism are distributed to the two parties, and the cause decided. The publication of 'Dorando,'[11] extracts of which appeared in several of the Scotch newspapers and were held by some of the Scotch judges to be contempt of court, was wholly characteristic of Boswell. Whether or no it would be possible to find in his conduct anything which amounted to a breach of etiquette, it is clear that a publication of this sort might well injure his position at the Bar. It is true that the author's name did not appear, but it was not to be supposed that it would always remain a secret, and the precaution was probably taken with a view to being on the right side rather of the law than of the lawyers. Boswell, with all his wish to win the esteem THE DOUGLAS CAUSE of men, never understood how easily the opposite is earned and how harshly a tiny cosmos will punish an offence against itself. And when the humorous side of things struck him forcibly he was unable to repress his feelings.
Boswell's behaviour during the Douglas Cause is said to have been decidedly extravagant. His father was heard to say that 'James had taken a tout on a new horn,'[12] and a story got about which, though it may have been false, must have had some relation to the common conception of Boswell, that when he heard that the House of Lords had reversed the decision of the Court of Session, he placed himself at the head of an uproarious mob who broke his father's windows.
There are other indications than the Douglas Cause to show that Boswell was anxious to be successful in his legal career. It is not to be thought that he always displayed the energy which he showed at this time. But he clearly took the trouble, on several occasions recorded in the 'Life,' to prepare the best arguments he could to support his case; and if we must suppose that he was as anxious as he represents himself to be that justice should be done, it is still quite evident that he hoped to gain some advantage to himself from the assistance which he solicited and obtained from Johnson, and was glad that the right should triumph, in part no doubt because it was supported by James Boswell. In fact it is probable that Johnson's assistance was of little value. As Boswell says on one occasion, having presented the written arguments of Johnson without success, 'their Lordships in general, though they were pleased to call this, "a well-drawn paper," preferred the former very inferior petition which I had written; thus confirming the truth of an observation made to me by one of their number in a merry mood: "My dear Sir, give yourself no trouble in the composition of the paper you present to us; for, indeed, it is casting pearls before swine."'
We shall have to consider when we come to the last years of Boswell's life the various reasons for his failure at the Bar. But one reason may be mentioned here because it is so essential a part of his character that we should do wrong not to have it in mind as we go over the spectacle of his whole life. Boswell, it must be remembered, was called to the Scotch Bar; but the society of the Scotch, and particularly of the Scotch lawyers, was never congenial to him. As early as March 1767 he writes to Temple: 'It must be confessed that our Court of Session is not so favourable to eloquence as the English Courts.' By 1775 he was apparently quite tired of his work; 'On my arrival here [Edinburgh] I had the pleasure to find my wife and two little daughters as well as I could wish; but indeed, my worthy priest, it required some DISLIKES THE SCOTCH philosophy to bear the change from England to Scotland. The unpleasing tone, the rude familiarity, the barren conversation of those whom I found here, in comparison with what I had left, really hurt my feelings.'
It is probable that Boswell's opinions about the Scotch lawyers were not entirely concealed from them. And they knew, no doubt, that he had friends among the Edinburgh players, and may have resented the fact. 'The Scottish Themis,' says Scott, speaking of his own early experience, 'is peculiarly jealous of any flirtation with the Muses on the part of those who have ranged themselves under her banners.' We may suppose that Boswell's flirtations, with the Muses at all events, injured his position in legal circles.
The General Assembly [Boswell continues] is sitting, and I practise at its Bar. There is de facto something low and coarse in such employment, though on paper it is a Court of Supreme Judicature; but guineas must be had.... To speak well, when I despise both the cause and the judges, is difficult; but I believe I shall do wonderfully. I look forward with aversion to the little, dull, labours of the Court of Session.
Boswell himself was quite unlike most Scotchmen, and he relates in the 'Life' the remarks upon this subject made by Johnson at various times:
Johnson: 'I never say, I do not value Boswell more for being born to an estate, because I do not care.' Boswell: 'Nor for being a Scotchman.' Johnson: 'Nay, Sir, I do value you more for being a Scotchman. You are a Scotchman without the faults of a Scotchman. You would not have been so valuable as you are, had you not been a Scotchman.' And again, when talking of the Scotch nation, Johnson: 'You are an exception, though. Come, gentlemen, let us candidly admit that there is one Scotchman who is cheerful.' Beauclerk: 'But he is a very unnatural Scotchman.'
Professor Raleigh has emphasised this point in his delightful manner:
If I had to find a paradox in Boswell, I should find it in this, that he was a Scot. His character was destitute of all the vices, and all the virtues, which are popularly, and in the main rightly, attributed to the Scottish people. The young Scot is commonly shy, reserved, and self-conscious; independent in temper, sensible to affront, slow to make friends, and wary in society. Boswell was the opposite of all these things. He made himself at home in all societies, and charmed others into a like ease and confidence. Under the spell of his effervescent good-humour the melancholy Highlanders were willing to tell stories of the supernatural. 'Mr. Boswell's frankness and gayety,' says Johnson, 'made everybody communicative.'
And Boswell himself took no trouble to conceal, but rather published this truth. He saw very clearly certain qualities in the Scotch character which he disliked.
It must be remembered, however, that Boswell professed to be in one sense, perhaps the only right LOVE FOR SCOTLAND sense, patriotic. He may have hated the Scotch, but he loved Scotland and loved in particular the home of his ancestors. If he preferred to live in England, it was a preference only for the society he found there. During those memorable months when the great Doctor made his tour in Scotland, Boswell had a real anxiety that Johnson should get rid of his prejudices and appreciate the country. He takes the trouble to defend at length Johnson's 'Journey to the Western Islands' from the anger of Scotchmen, but he does so by asserting that Johnson saw both the good and the bad.
'And let me add' [he says in an extravagant vein] 'that, citizen of the world as I hold myself to be, I have that just sense of the merit of an ancient nation, which has been ever renowned for its valour, which in former times maintained its independence against a powerful neighbour, and in modern times has been equally distinguished for its ingenuity and industry in civilised life, that I should have felt a genuine indignation at any injustice done to it. Johnson treated Scotland no worse than he did even his best friends, whose characters he used to give as they appeared to him, both in light and shade.'
However Boswell may have had 'that just sense of the merit of an ancient nation,' it is clear, as we have said, that he disliked very much his legal work in Scotland. But it must not be thought that he rapidly became grave and soured by constant irritation. That process was a slow one in his case. His disposition was too sanguine to feel very much, as a young man, his disappointments. He did without doubt, as he grew older, become less frivolous, and more sedate; with this we must suppose that his marriage in 1769 was in some way connected.
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Before we come to discuss the domesticity of Boswell we must consider for a time those affairs of the heart in which he had such a plentiful experience.
About these he was as frank as he was about all the subjects which he discusses in his letters to Temple. We have detailed accounts (detailed enough, apparently, to offend, unfortunately for our purpose, the delicate ear of the first editor of the letters) which describe in several cases the precise nature of Boswell's love or passion or whatever be the appropriate expression. These accounts were intentionally complete. The eye of Boswell is fixed upon the thermometer of his affections to observe and indicate its rise and fall. Nothing could illustrate the man so well as the attitude which he here so nakedly revealed, typical entirely of Boswell because it is so completely self-centred. He lived for his own pleasure and says as much: 'That pleasure is not the aim but the end of our being, seems to be philosophically demonstrable. Therefore all the labour and all the serious business of life should first be considered as means to FIRST LOVE that end.'[13] In love he was not less governed by this system than he was in every other phase of life.
It was at the early age of eighteen when Boswell was still at the University that the son of Venus came to him upon the first of many visits. The lady, a Miss W——t, is described as a most desirable companion; and Cupid in one sense was kind to Boswell—for though his hope of an ideal future in the company of the beloved, the heiress to a fortune of thirty thousand pounds, was not destined to be realised, he was able, if the lady were disinclined to adorn his life, to 'bear it æquo animo, and retire into the calm regions of philosophy.'
The subject of matrimony seems often to have occupied the thoughts of Boswell. At times the appeal of unmarried life was strong. 'The bachelor has a carelessness of disposition which pleases everybody, and everybody thinks him a sort of common good—a feather which flies about and lights now here, now there.' But the ideal of a winged good which was to float about thus amiably gave way at times to a more sedate view of living. 'If you think of the comforts of a home, where you are a sort of sovereign, the kind endearments of an amiable woman, who has no wish but to make you happy, the amusement of seeing your children grow up from infancy to manhood, and the pleasing pride of being the father of brave and learned men, all which may be the case—then marriage is truly the condition in which true felicity is to be found.' In the absence, however, of a felicity which could add so much comfort and pleasure and so small a burden of responsibility to his life, Boswell was happy enough, he proceeds to relate, to have a 'dear infidel.' That there was no infidelity on the part of this 'charmer' Boswell is able to affirm, while he does not deny that she has a husband; but though, as he says, 'imagination represented it just as being fond of a pretty, lively, black little lady, who, to oblige me, stayed in Edinburgh, and I very genteelly paid her expenses,' he was glad no doubt that circumstances permitted him to arrange his pleasures without hypocrisy.
The course of his amour was not destined to run very smoothly. The ardour of Boswell for the deserted or deserting lady was intermittent and expensive; it was difficult to be rid of her because the tendernesses of a farewell upset the unstable balance of Boswell's susceptibility; 'I was sometimes resolved to let her go, and sometimes my heart was like to burst within me. I took her dear hand; her eyes were full of passion, I took her in my arms.' The dramatic moment is too much for the best-laid plans, and Boswell was grateful, as he well might be, to find himself free after two months. 'I am totally emancipated from my charmer, as much as from the gardener's daughter who now puts on my fire and performs menial offices SEVERAL LADIES like any other wench.' The affair with the gardener's daughter is unfortunately not related. She is mentioned only this once where Boswell tells us that a year before this date (March 30, 1767), he had been 'so madly in love as to think of marrying her.' Two other ladies are mentioned in the same letter, Miss Bosville and Miss Blair. He thought of the former, who was his cousin, as a convenient match, but the suit does not appear to have been prosecuted with much vigour. She was kept, as it were, in the second line of battle to fill up a gap when an object of devotion was required. There is another name of the same kind, Zelide, a Dutch lady whom he met at Utrecht and who appears upon the scene periodically. Boswell several times threatened to marry her. How many affairs there were of this class it is difficult to estimate. Exact information on the subject would be valuable as enabling us to adjust the proportion of these matters. From isolated remarks referring to women not elsewhere mentioned, such as 'My Italian angel is constant,' we might suppose that Boswell conducted his amours on the magnificent scale of Solomon. But this can hardly have been the case.
Miss Blair was a Scotch heiress whose estate was not far from Auchinleck. Boswell's father was in favour of the match, which would have been in every way desirable, particularly so if it be considered appropriate that the young lady was in love with Boswell. The initial stages were highly propitious. Miss Blair with her mother was persuaded, without great difficulties we may suppose, to stay at Auchinleck, where Boswell in the 'romantic groves' of his ancestors 'adored her like a divinity.' The heir whose 'grand object is the ancient family of Auchinleck—a venerable and noble principle' intends to carry off the 'neighbouring princess' by assault rather than siege, and in the pursuit of romance allows no time for love to languish. An emissary[14] is despatched, no other than the faithful Temple, who is at once to blow the trumpet as a herald, and as a spy to observe the enemy's fortifications. 'Praise me for my good qualities—you know them.' These are the instructions. Romance is to be fed by mystery and the chase encouraged by the elusiveness of the quarry. 'But talk also how odd, how inconstant, how impetuous, how much accustomed to women of intrigue. Ask gravely, Pray don't you imagine there is something of madness in that family?' A tinge of insanity may be a pleasing dash of colour in the hero; or the suggestion may draw the attention of the fair one to extravagances which are to be noted as the fantasies of genius. The ultimate halo, the crown of glory, is reserved for the explorer of distant lands and the friend of men distinguished in a continent. PURSUIT OF MISS BLAIR 'Talk of my various travels, German princes—Voltaire and Rousseau.' The effect upon the audience of this elaborate comedy is to be duly registered in order that the manager may arrange the sequence appropriately and the principal actor appear in splendour at the dramatic moment. 'Observe her well. See how amiable! Judge if she would be happy with your friend. Think of me as the great man at Adamtown—quite classical too; study the mother. Remember well what passes.... Consider what a romantic expedition you are on; take notes.' By the final injunction, the biographer's own peculiar weapon is to be directed at the prize and the lady captured by a sheet of memoranda.
An accident, however, occurs and trivial circumstance is swollen to importance by the fever of impatience. The fervour of a suitor's letter demands immediate reply; but the letter remains for some days in the post. Letter follows letter, and the perturbation increases when jealousy summons the image of a yellow nabob. The actor doubts if he has chosen the proper rôle, and fears the effect of his 'Spanish stateliness.' But the ardent lover is able to exclaim, 'I am entertained with this dilemma like another chapter in my adventures,' and consolation comes in a letter from the Signora 'written with all the warmth of Italian affection.' Finally the matter is explained and there is the pleasure of restoring harmony. Lucky that these matters run never smoothly, for there will be further opportunity of experiencing the tortured joy of a quarrel and the supreme delight of reconciliation. An uninteresting interval is amused by a renewal of intimacy with the 'dear infidel' before another coolness is arranged. The self-possession of the lady now provokes 'a strange sultanish letter, very cold and very formal,' and after an absence of three weeks the suitor pays an eminently agreeable visit to the prospective bride, though still apparently in a rather sultanish mood: 'I am dressed in green and gold. I have my chaise in which I sit alone with Mr. Gray, and Thomas rides by me in a claret-coloured suit with a silver-laced hat.' The final joy was however withheld. 'The princess and I have not yet made up our quarrel, she talks lightly of it.' The adorer is prepared conditionally to soar to the last heights of adoration. 'If she feels as I wish her to do, I shall adore her while my blood is warm': but the philosopher is determined to escape the inconvenience of a wounded heart: 'I shall just bring myself, I hope, to a good, easy tranquillity.' The 'princess' by this time has ceased to be a dupe; she may have seen that the courtship was arranged to give the colouring of romance to conventional matrimony, and alter the pompous comedy of surrender to a serious farce for one party and for the other probably to a serious tragedy. Her manner in any case became more reserved: 'She FAILURE AND CONSOLATION refused sending me a lock ... and she says very cool things upon that head.' The burning lover begins to congratulate himself upon escape from so unsatisfying a mate, and the beautiful princess is discovered to be a jilt. 'Wish me joy, my good friend, of having discovered the snake before it was too late.... After this I shall be upon my guard against ever indulging the least fondness for a Scot lass; I am a soul of a more Southern frame. I may perhaps be fortunate enough to find an Englishwoman who will be sensible of my merits and will study to please my singular humour.' Zelide and Miss Bosville are mentioned in the same letter, the former to illustrate the truth that 'an old flame is easily rekindled' and the latter as a possibility to be kept in mind.
But a volatility amazing even in Boswell produces on the following day a letter which is full of the charms of Miss Blair. The more violent the quarrel the more pleasing the peace-making. A meeting is arranged at Edinburgh; a declaration is made and the now enthusiastic suitor reports, 'I ventured to seize her hand. She is really the finest woman I ever saw.' The 'princess' however is still reserved, and determined efforts have to be made at the theatre.
Next evening I was at the play with them; it was 'Othello.' I sat close behind the princess, and at the most affecting scenes I pressed my hand upon her waist; she was in tears and rather leaned to me. The jealous Moor described my very soul. I often spake to her of the torment she saw before her.
But even after this touching scene there is cause for disquiet. 'Still,' he says, 'I thought her distant, and still I felt uneasy.'
The encouragement however was sufficient to give confidence to the attack, and there follows a tête-à-tête in which 'pleasure from the intimacy of often squeezing and kissing her fine hand, while she looked at me with those beautiful black eyes,' was somewhat darkened by a disconcerting surprise. 'I then asked her to tell me if she had any particular liking for me. What think you, Temple, was her answer? "No; I really have no particular liking for you; I like many people as well as you—I like Jeany Maxwell better than you."' Consolation must now be sought where love is denied. Boswell: 'If you should happen to love another, will you tell me immediately and help me to make myself easy?' Princess: 'Yes, I will.' But the lady's sympathy shows a want of imagination which is highly unsatisfying. Boswell: 'I must, if possible, endeavour to forget you. What would you have me do?' Princess: 'I really don't know what you should do.'
It would appear that honour had no escape from such a defeat but in renewing the encounter. The history of the last period of this wooing, of the nadir of the wooer's fortunes and his cheerfulness in spite of repulses, is told to Temple six weeks later. A new DEFEAT WITHOUT DESPAIR rival appears upon the scene, and there is rumour of an engagement. The rejected suitor writes to ascertain the truth of this alarming story. But his appeal is neglected. Dignity now demands that disappointment shall be concealed, and an alliance is formed with the presumably successful rival, Sir Alexander Gilmour. 'I endeavoured to laugh off my passion, and I got Sir Alexander Gilmour to frank a letter to her, which I wrote in a pleasant strain, and amused myself with the whim.' The lady now appears in London and at the same moment the Nabob. He too is to be an ally, and a final scene is arranged. 'We gave our words as men of honour that we would be honest to each other so that neither should suffer needlessly; and to satisfy ourselves of our real situation, we gave our words of honour that we should both ask her this morning, and I should go first.' The result can hardly have been doubtful. Boswell tells his adorable princess, 'I have great animal spirits, and bear it wonderfully well,' and proceeds to write 'A Crambo Song on Losing my Mistress.'
Although I be an honest laird,
In person rather strong and brawny,
For me the heiress never cared,
For she would have the knight, Sir Sawney.
And when, with ardent vows, I swore,
Loud as Sir Jonathan Trelawney,
The heiress showed me to the door,
And said, she'd have the knight, Sir Sawney.
She told me with a scornful look,
I was as ugly as a tawney;
For she a better fish could hook,
The rich and gallant knight, Sir Sawney.
We might suppose that Boswell in spite of his cheerfulness would have been at heart rather dejected by these events; but he writes to Temple, 'My mind is now twice as enlarged as it has been for some months. You cannot say how fine a woman I may marry; perhaps a Howard or some other of the noblest in the kingdom.'
The realities were hardly so elevated as these dreams, for in the following spring (1768), it is Zelide again, and not she alone. 'Zelide may have had her faults but is she always to have them? May not time have altered her for the better as it has altered me? But you will tell me that I am not so greatly altered, as I have still many unruly passions. To confess to you at once Temple, I have, since my last coming to town been as wild as ever.' But flowers were to be fresh at last in the month of August. 'I am exceedingly lucky in having escaped the insensible Miss Bosville and the furious Zelide, for I have now seen the finest creature that ever was formed, la belle Irlandaise. Figure to yourself, Temple, a young lady just sixteen, formed like a Grecian nymph, with the sweetest countenance full of sensibility....' Everything was favourable. 'Here every flower is united.' The diplomat who LA BELLE IRLANDAISE had been fatigued before by the restraint of a wise cautiousness is resolved that this time there shall be no reserve. 'Ah, my friend, I am now as I ought to be; no reserved prudent conduct as with Miss Bosville. No! all youthful, warm, natural, in short, all genuine love.' And the ardent hunter seems to have been more successful than the wily angler. 'I repeated my fervent passion to her again and again; she was pleased and I could swear that her little heart beat. I carved the first letter of her name on a tree; I cut off a lock of her hair, male pertinax. She promised not to forget me, nor to marry a lord before March.' Moreover, the unspoilt joy of advance without contest was more pleasant than the doubts and hopes of expectation, while a puritanical idealism and the solemnity of an oath were a welcome change for less spiritual delights.
This is the most agreeable passion I ever felt; sixteen, innocence, and gaiety make me quite a Sicilian swain. Before I left London I made a vow in St. Paul's Church that I would not allow myself in licentious connections of any kind for six months, I am hitherto firm to my vow, and already feel myself a superior being ... in short, Maria has me without any rival; I do hope the period of my perfect felicity, as far as this state can afford, is now in view.
Whether this 'perfect felicity' was attained and how long it lasted we do not know. Maria no doubt had her day like the others; the sequel to the vow in St. Paul's we may conjecture. Boswell, if his name endured for no other talents, would remain with us for ever as an incomparable genius for reviving affection. In December we learn: 'Miss Blair is Miss Blair still,'—still a fit subject for this curious pastime. 'I was two or three times at Adamtown, and, upon my word, the old flame was kindled.' Miss Blair apparently had been piqued because her suitor had made such a joke of his love for the heiress in every company. 'Temple, to a man again in love, this was engaging. I walked whole hours with the princess; I kneeled; I became truly amorous.' These brief sentences adequately describe the last recorded love-scene. If Boswell corresponded with Temple between December 1768 and May 1770 the letters have been lost; and so the outrageous story ends abruptly—and it is fortunate perhaps for the readers of this book, for it is a story so fascinating and so absurd and so richly human that no part of it can be omitted.
Boswell in fact was destined to be married to his cousin, Miss Montgomerie. The Montgomeries were an aristocratic family related to Lord Eglinton, and Boswell was proud of the connection: he speaks in a published pamphlet of 'having the honour and happiness to be married to his Lordship's relation, a true Montgomerie.' We know very little about Mrs. Boswell. Johnson's curt judgment in a letter to Mrs. Thrale is probably right in placing her with the great bulk of MISS MONTGOMERIE mediocre humanity: 'Mrs. B—— has the mien and manners of a gentlewoman; and such a person and mind as would not be in any place either admired or contemned. She is in a proper degree inferior to her husband: she cannot rival him, nor can he ever be ashamed of her.' But if undistinguished, as in Johnson's view a good wife should be, the lady had some excellent qualities; and Johnson himself would have been the first to praise them. If he urged Boswell on more than one occasion to be considerate of his home, it was because he knew that the home was both pleasant and valuable to his friend: 'I need not tell you what regard you owe to Mrs. Boswell's entreaties; or how much you ought to study the happiness of her who studies yours with so much diligence, and of whose kindness you enjoy such good effects.' Boswell, too, loudly sings the praise of his wife: 'I am fully sensible,' he writes to Temple, 'of my happiness in being married to so excellent a woman, so sensible a mistress of a family, so agreeable a companion, so affectionate and peculiarly proper helpmate for me.' After her death he writes: 'I had no occasion almost to think concerning my family, and every particular was thought of by her better than I could'; and he refers to her in the 'Life of Johnson' as 'my very valuable wife, and the very affectionate mother of my children, who, if they inherit her good qualities, will have no reason to complain of their lot.'
That Mrs. Boswell had in abundance the matronly virtues is sufficiently clear. She had besides considerable intellectual gifts. Boswell calls her, 'A lady of admirable good sense and quickness of understanding'; he kept a common-place book, 'Uxoriana,' to preserve her witty sayings, and after her death regretted her 'admirable conversation.' From her own expressed opinion of her husband's friendship with Dr. Johnson we are obliged to think well of her intelligence: it was a female opinion, as Boswell remarks, with something of resentment for the intrusion of this uncomfortable guest: 'His irregular hours and uncouth habits, such as turning the candles with their heads downwards, when they did not burn bright enough, and letting the wax drop upon the carpet, could not but be disagreeable to a lady.' And no doubt she failed to appreciate the devotion of Boswell to this ungainly and unpleasing animal. But her observation, in the manner of the times, is admirably pointed: 'I have seen many a bear led by a man, but I never before saw a man led by a bear.'
The marriage took place in the autumn of 1769; Boswell was then twenty-nine years of age. The situation is summed up in his own remarks in the London Magazine for April 1781:
After having for many years cherished a system of marrying for money, I at last totally departed from BOSWELL'S MARRIAGE it, and married for love. But the truth was that I had not been careful enough to weed my mind; for while I cultivated the plant of interest, love all the time grew up along with it and fairly got the better. Naturally somewhat singular, independent of any additions which affectation and vanity may perhaps have made, I resolved to have a more pleasing species of marriage than common, and bargained with my bride that I should not be bound to live with her longer than I really inclined; and that whenever I tired of her domestic society, I should be at liberty to give it up.
That Boswell was always fond of his wife is clear enough. 'Eleven years have elapsed and I have never yet wanted to take advantage of my stipulated privilege.' He never speaks of her without affection, and was deeply distressed by her death in 1789. But for how long he continued to love her fervently it is difficult to tell; not, one would suppose, for a great length of time, or he could hardly have written in the London Magazine: 'Whatever respect I may have for the institution of marriage, and however much I am convinced that it upon the whole produces rational happiness, I cannot but be of the opinion that the passion of love has been improperly feigned as continuing long after the conjugal knot has been tied.' Nor, if Boswell had continued to love his wife passionately, would he have found it disagreeable to return to Edinburgh, after visits to London.
But Boswell no doubt wanted to be a faithful husband: 'I can unite little fondnesses with perfect conjugal love.'[15] His idea of fidelity would seem to involve no kind of restriction upon his natural inclinations except in so far as that he should appear to be a good husband in the eyes of the world and particularly of his wife. However sensible this view may have been, it was not such as commonly finds favour among the female sex. But he was undoubtedly in his own view a faithful husband and he had really at heart the welfare of his wife. 'Upon the whole I do believe,' he says, 'I make her very happy.'[16]
[1:] Tour to the Hebrides, September 17.
[2:] Autobiography, Letters, &c., of Mrs. Piozzi, ii, 124.
[3:] Perhaps the best evidence of all for this quality is Boswell's habit of attending executions (mentioned several times in the Life and also in the Life of Reynolds, by Leslie and Taylor), and his acquaintance with Mrs. Rudd, a notorious criminal.
[4:] Life of Johnson, ii, 59. This letter is an admirable instance of Boswell's affected manner of expressing real feelings.
[5:] Life of Johnson, ii, 3, note 1.
[6:] Letters to Temple, p. 126.
[7:] Boswelliana, p. 186.
[8:] Life of Johnson, ii, 20.
[9:] Fitzgerald's Life of Boswell, i, 111.
[10:] Boswell's authorship proved by Letters to Temple, p. 89.
[11:] Fitzgerald's Life of Boswell, i, 113.
[12:] Fitzgerald's Life of Boswell, i, 116.
[13:] London Magazine, 1, 40.
[14:] Temple, it appears, was promised payment for his services: 'You shall have consultation guineas, as an ambassador has his appointments.' This seems to imply more than the mere travelling expenses which Dr. Rogers suggests as an explanation.
[15:] Letters to Temple, p. 159.
[16:] Ib. p. 137.