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.