A Georgian Pageant

by Frank Frankfort Moore

The Duchess did not allow her conversation with Dr. Johnson to be interrupted by so flagrant a piece of politeness; she continued chatting quite pleasantly to the great man, ignoring the little one. That was how she had got on in life; and, indeed, a better epitome of the whole art of getting on in life could scarcely be compiled even by the cynical nobleman who wrote letters to his son instructing him in this and other forms of progress—including the Rake's.

Mr. Boswell, who, as usual, is the pitiless narrator of the incident, records his satisfaction at having attained to the distinction of a snub from the beautiful creature at whose table he was sitting, and we are, as usual, deeply indebted to him for giving us an illuminating glimpse of the Duchess of whom at one time all England and the greater part of Ireland were talking. He also mentions that Her Grace made use of an idiom by which her Irish upbringing revealed itself. If we had not Mr. Boswell's account of his visit to Inveraray to refer to we might be tempted to believe that Horace Walpole deviated into accuracy when he attributed to the Duchess of Argyll, as well as her sister, the Countess of Coventry, the brogue of a bog-trotter. It was only by her employment of an idiom common to the south and west of Ireland and a few other parts of the kingdom, that Her Grace made him know that she had not been educated in England, or for that matter in Scotland, where doubtless Mr. Boswell fondly believed the purest English in the world was spoken.

Mr. Boswell faithfully records—sometimes with glee and occasionally with pride—many snubs which he received in the course of a lifetime of great pertinacity, and some that he omitted to note, his contemporaries were obliging enough to record; but on none did he reflect with more satisfaction than that, or those, which he suffered in the presence of the Duchess of Argyll.

It happened during that memorable tour to the Hebrides to which he lured Johnson in order to show his countrymen how great was his intimacy with the man who traduced them once in his Dictionary and daily in his life. It was like Boswell to expect that he would impress the Scottish nation by leading Johnson to view their fine prospects—he certainly was never foolish enough to hope to impress Johnson by introducing the Scottish nation to him. In due time, however, the exploiter and the exploited found themselves in the neighbourhood of Inveraray, the Duke of Argyll's Castle, and the stronghold of the Clan Campbell.

It chanced that the head of the great family was in residence at this time, and Mr. Boswell hastened to apprise him of the fact that the great Dr. Johnson was at hand. He called at the Castle very artfully shortly after the dinner hour, when he believed the Duchess and her daughter would have retired to a drawing-room. He was successful in finding the Duke still at the dinner-table, the ladies having retired. In the course of the interview the Duke said: “Mr. Boswell, won't you have some tea?” and Mr. Boswell, feeling sure that the Duchess could not go very far in insulting him when other people were present, followed his host into the drawing-room. “The Duke,” he records, “announced my name, but the Duchess, who was sitting with her daughter, Lady Betty Hamilton, and some other ladies, took not the least notice of me. I should,” he continues, “have been mortified at being thus coldly received by a lady of whom I, with the rest of the world, have always entertained a very high admiration, had I not been consoled by the obliging attention of the Duke.”

The Duke was, indeed, obliging enough to invite Johnson to dinner the next day, and Mr. Boswell was included in the invitation. (So it is that the nursery governess gets invited to the table in the great house to which she is asked to bring the pretty children in her charge.) Of course, Boswell belonged to a good family, and his father was a judge. It was to a Duke of Argyll—not the one who was now so obliging—that the Laird of Auchinleck brought his son, James Boswell, to be examined in order to find out whether he should be put into the army or some other profession. Still, he would never have been invited to Inveraray at this time or any other unless he had had charge of Johnson. No one was better aware of this fact than Boswell; but did he therefore decline the invitation? Not he. Mr. Boswell saw an opportunity ahead of him. He had more than once heard Johnson give an account of how he had behaved when the King came upon him in the Royal Library; and probably he had felt melancholy at the reflection that he himself had had no part or lot in the incident. It was all Dr. Johnson and the King. But now he was quick to perceive that when, in after years, people should speak with bated breath of Dr. Johnson's visit to Inveraray they would be compelled to say: “And Mr. Boswell, the son of auld Auchinleck, was there too.”

He knew very well that there were good reasons why Mr. Boswell could not hope to be a persona grata to the Duchess of Argyll. In the great Douglas lawsuit the issue of which was of considerable importance to the Duke of Hamilton, the son of Her Grace, the Boswells were on the side of the opposition, and had been very active on this side into the bargain. James Boswell himself narrowly escaped being committed for contempt of court for publishing a novel founded on the Douglas cause and anticipating in an impudent way the finding of the judges. Had the difference been directly with the Duke of Argyll some years earlier, no doubt every man in the Clan Campbell would have sharpened his skene when it became known that a friend of an opponent of the MacCallein More was coming, and have awaited his approach with complacency; but now the great chief tossed Boswell his invitation when he was asking Johnson, and Boswell jumped at it as a terrier jumps for a biscuit, and he accompanied his friend to the Castle.