Wilkes, too, got a touch of tar, but little he cared; the best beloved and the best hated man in England, he probably laughed, properly thinking that Boswell could do little damage to his reputation. But what shall we say of Lady Diana Beauclerk’s feelings when she read the stout old English epithet which Johnson had applied to her. Johnson’s authorized biographer, Sir John Hawkins, dead and buried “without his shoes and stawkin’s,” as the old jingle goes, had sneered at Boswell and passed on; verily he hath his reward. Boswell accused him of stupidity, inaccuracy, and writing fatiguing and disgusting “rigmarole.” His daughter came to the rescue of his fame, and Boswell and she had a lively exchange of letters; indeed Boswell, at all times, seemed to court that which most men shrink from, a discussion of questions of veracity with a woman.
But on the whole the book was well received, and over his success Boswell exulted, as well he might; he had achieved his ambition, he had written his name among the immortals. With its publication his work was done. He became more and more dissipated. His sober hours he devoted to schemes for self-reform and a revision of the text for future editions. He was engaged on a third printing when death overtook him. The last words he wrote—the unfinished letter to his old friend Temple—have already been quoted. The pen which he laid down was taken up by his son, who finished the letter. From him we learn the sad details of his death. He passed away on May 19, 1795, in his fifty-fifth year.
Like many another man, Boswell was always intending to reform, and never did. His practice was ever at total variance with his principles. In opinions he was a moralist; in conduct he was—otherwise. Let it be remembered, however, that he was of a generous, open-hearted, and loving disposition. A clause in his will, written in his own hand, sheds important light upon his character. “I do beseech succeeding heirs of entail to be kind to the tenants, and not to turn out old possessors to get a little more rent.”
What were the contemporary opinions of Boswell? Walpole did not like him, but Walpole liked few. Paoli was his friend; with Goldsmith and with Garrick he had been intimate. Mrs. Thrale and he did not get along well together; he could not bear the thought that she saw more of Johnson than he, and he was jealous of her influence over him. Fanny Burney did not like him, and declined to give him some information which he very naturally wanted for his book, because she wanted to use it herself. Gibbon thought him terribly indiscreet, which, compared with Gibbon, he certainly was. Reynolds and he were firm friends—the great book is dedicated to Sir Joshua.
Of Boswell, Johnson wrote during their journey in Scotland, “There is no house where he is not received with kindness and respect”; and elsewhere, “He never left a house without leaving a wish for his return”; also, “He was a man who finds himself welcome wherever he goes and makes friends faster than he can want them”; and “He was the best traveling companion in the world.” If there is a greater test than this, I do not know it. It is summering and wintering with a man in a month. Burke said of him that “good humor was so natural to him as to be scarcely a virtue to him.” I know many admirable men of whom this cannot be said.
Several years ago, being in Ayrshire, I found myself not far from Auchinleck; and although I knew that Boswell’s greatest editor, Birkbeck Hill, had experienced a rebuff upon his attempt to visit the old estate which Johnson had described as “very magnificent and very convenient,” I determined, out of loyalty to James Boswell, to make the attempt. I thought that perhaps American nerve would succeed where English scholarship had failed.
We had spent the night at Ayr, and early next morning I inquired the cost of a motor-trip to take my small party over to Auchinleck; and I was careful to pronounce the word as though spelled Afflek, as Boswell tells us to.
“To where, sir?”
“Afflek,” I repeated.
The man seemed dazed. Finally I spelled it for him, “A-u-c-h-i-n-l-e-c-k.”