The rôle which Boswell played in this theatrical performance may be illustrated by some passages of his own letters. He was before everything else the knight of chivalry—a chivalry which was occupied LETTERS TO ERSKINE exclusively with an excess of romantic attachment and an adoring worship of female charm. Boswell in real life was extravagant enough, we may suppose, in his homage to women; but his performance can have hardly reached the standard set up in the letters to Erskine:
Lady B—— entreats me to come and pass the Christmas holidays with her. Guess, O guess! what transport I felt at reading that; I did not know how to contain my elevation of spirits. I thought myself one of the greatest geniuses in Europe; I thought I could write all sorts of books and work at all handicraft trades; I imagined that I had fourscore millions of money out at interest, and, that I should actually be chosen Pope at the next election.
It is conceivable of course that Boswell imagined that he had the fourscore millions; there is evidence which might suggest a misconception of this kind. And it is even possible that he entertained at some time the dream of becoming Pope. But that at all events is not meant to appear. It is meant as the froth of youthful gallantry. There is no deception. We are not expected to suppose that Boswell was like this: we are expected merely to be amused at the pose.
He represents himself also as the bon-vivant. There are allusions to splendid feasts and there is an 'Ode to Gluttony.' The poet is always very much to the fore, and his behaviour is supposed to be marked occasionally by a vein of seriousness, which is to suggest the anxious cogitation of the philosopher:
We had a splendid ball.... I exhibited my existence in a minuet, and as I was dressed in a full chocolate suit and wore my most solemn countenance, I looked, as you used to tell me, like the fifth act of a deep tragedy.
Perhaps the most significant passages in these letters are where Boswell plays the cynic:
A light heart may bid defiance to fortune. And yet, Erskine, I must tell you that I have been a little pensive of late, amorously pensive, and disposed to read Shenstone's 'Pastoral on Absence,' the tendency of which I greatly admire. A man who is in love is like a man who has got the toothache: he feels in most acute pain, while nobody pities him. In that situation I am at present, but well do I know that I will not be long so. So much for inconstancy!
Boswell represented himself in the letters to Erskine very much as he affected to be in real life—the gay young wit with a serious background, the jolly good fellow and at the same time the budding genius, and finally, the cynical philosopher, such as he alludes to in the first letter to Temple. The whole picture is exaggerated and laughed at: yet we feel very often that the laughter has a hollow ring. It is the laughter in reality of one who wishes to protect himself from ridicule by jesting at his own expense. The real Boswell peeps through in many places. The remark about Shenstone's 'Pastoral on Absence' might equally well have been made in all seriousness to Temple.
In another letter he says:
Allow me a few more words. I live here in a remote corner of an old ruinous house, where my ancestors have been very jovial. What a solemn idea rushes on my mind! They are all gone: I must follow. Well, and what then? I must shift about to another subject. The best I can think of is a sound sleep: so good-night!