Boswell the Biographer

by George Mallory

Though literature did not supply for Boswell the wine of life, it had always attracted him very strongly. He had a taste for books and a very keen desire for LITERARY AMBITION learning; above all, he had literary ambition. He made a number of literary plans besides that of writing Johnson's 'Life.'[¹¹] He was not merely, in his own conception, the biographer of Johnson, but the man of letters in a most extended fashion, and something of a scholar. And it was towards the end of his life, though then concerned almost exclusively with Johnson, that Boswell was most industrious in the literary field. Not only did he publish the magnum opus four years before his death, but he continued diligently to collect fresh material. The second edition appeared two years later, in July 1793. The third edition was being prepared, with Malone's valuable help, when Boswell died. The biographer evidently did not consider his labours ended when the 'Life of Johnson' was at last published. Its favourable reception 'has excited,' he says in the Advertisement to the Second Edition, 'my best exertions to render my Book more perfect; and in this endeavour I have had the assistance not only of some of my particular friends, but of many other learned and ingenious men, by which I have been able to rectify some mistakes, and to enrich the Work with many valuable additions.'

The scale of Boswell's literary efforts towards the end of his life is the measure of his satisfaction in the performance, and this satisfaction, though it did not take the place of the magnificent pleasure he had imagined in being 'the great man,' and did not cure his disappointment, must have frequently consoled, and, in some moods, keenly delighted Boswell. In the 'Life' he expresses, with a note of triumph, his satisfaction in the fate of the 'Tour to the Hebrides':

To please the true, candid, warm admirers of Johnson, and in any degree increase the splendour of his reputation, I bid defiance to the shafts of ridicule, or even of malignity. Showers of them have been discharged at my 'Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides'; yet it still sails unhurt along the stream of time, and, as attendant upon Johnson,

Pursues the triumph, and partakes the gale.

Boswell is equally triumphant about the 'Life':

That I was anxious for the success of a Work which had employed much of my time and labour, I do not wish to conceal: but whatever doubts I at any time entertained, have been entirely removed by the very favourable reception with which it has been honoured.

It was not merely literary fame that so much delighted Boswell: it was literary fame of the best sort. The most respected of Johnson's friends and the best critics had praised his book. Boswell could now feel secure in his own conviction that his 'Life' was beyond comparison as a portrait of a man and as a portrait of Johnson:

SATISFACTION In reflecting that the illustrious subject of this Work, by being more extensively and more intimately known, however elevated before, has risen in the veneration and love of mankind, I feel a satisfaction beyond what fame can afford.... It seems to me, in my moments of self-complacency, that this extensive biographical work, however inferior in its nature, may in one respect be assimilated to the Odyssey.

Boswell goes on to explain that the 'Hero,' like Ulysses, 'in the whole course of the History, is exhibited by the authour for the best advantage of his readers.' So certain is he of the merits of his book that he tells his readers, in so many words, that, if they do not like it, their own bad temper is to blame.