Boswell the Biographer

by George Mallory

'Several of the members wished to keep you out. Burke told me he doubted if you were fit for it....' Boswell: 'They were afraid of you, Sir, as it was you who proposed me.' Johnson: 'Sir, they knew that if they refused you, they'd probably have never got in another. I'd have kept them all out.'

Boswell, of course, did not get on equally well with all of Johnson's friends. Goldsmith especially he seems to have disliked, and at a later date Mrs. Thrale, Miss Burney and Baretti; we may suppose that the feeling was mutual, especially after the appearance of the 'Life of Johnson,' in which Boswell made little attempt to conceal his feelings. With Hawkins, who was chosen to write the official biography of Johnson, he was eventually to quarrel. But he had strong supporters in the club. 'Now you are in,' Johnson told him, 'none of them are sorry. Burke says you have so much good humour naturally, it is scarce a virtue.' Beauclerk too appreciated him. 'Beauclerk was very earnest for you.' His greatest friend of this coterie besides Dr. Johnson was Sir Joshua Reynolds. Sir Joshua seems always to have understood and insisted upon the value of Boswell. He was prepared to take up the cudgels. 'He thaws reserve wherever he comes and sets the ball of conversation rolling.'[¹] The club, whatever else it might think about Boswell, was obliged to admit that he was excellent company.

There were some, no doubt, who had a high opinion of Boswell's abilities; it was admitted by everyone THE LONDON CIRCLE that he had written a good book, and not all, like Gray and Walpole,[²] can have thought that he wrote it by chance. And Boswell too, if not a good literary critic, was interested in books and able to talk about them. The opinions to which he gave expression in the 'Life of Johnson' about various books which came under discussion are often more appreciative and better supported by reason than the dicta of Johnson, and he sometimes shows considerable sagacity. His views about Johnson's own books, and especially his criticism of Johnson's style and the high estimate he formed of the 'Lives of the Poets,' are excellent.

But it was far more for his social than for his literary qualities that Boswell was valued. In the circle of Johnson's admirers he was in a sense the most important figure; he had a greater admiration than any other and was rewarded by Johnson with a greater degree of affection. He came to understand Johnson. Hannah More relates that she was on one occasion made umpire in a trial of skill between Garrick and Boswell, which could most nearly imitate Dr. Johnson's manner.[³] 'I remember I gave it for Boswell in familiar conversation, and for Garrick in reciting poetry.' To have beaten Garrick was a great performance and shows how Boswell must have studied Johnson. He was, as it were, his chief exploiter. It was he above all the rest who could make Johnson talk.[⁴] He knew what would provoke a discussion, and was so reckless of appearing foolish that he would introduce any subject. He made opportunities for Johnson to exhibit his powers. The description of how he arranged the meeting with Wilkes, though more famous almost than any other passage of the 'Life,' is too important as illustrating the whole attitude of Boswell to be omitted here. It is not inappropriate to say that the very name of Wilkes was to Johnson like a red rag to a bull. He hated what he considered to be a pretentious notoriety, and what he no doubt talked about as 'this cant of liberty' was the signal for an outburst of violence in his best manner. Boswell conceived the idea of bringing these two together, and probably hoped to witness an incomparable contest. But how was this to be done? 'I was persuaded that if I had come upon him with a direct proposal, "Sir, will you dine in company with Jack Wilkes?" he would have flown into a passion and would probably have answered, "Dine with Jack Wilkes, Sir! I'd as soon dine with Jack Ketch."' But it was easy to see the weak point in the Doctor's armour. 'Notwithstanding the high veneration which I entertained for Dr. Johnson, I was sensible that he was a little actuated sometimes by contradiction, and by means of that I hoped I should THE EXPLOITER OF JOHNSON gain my point.' Boswell, who knows exactly what will provoke his friend, has thought out beforehand precisely what he shall say, and opens with a proposal which Johnson is sure to accept. 'Mr. Dilly, Sir, sends me his respectful compliments, and would be happy if you would do him the honour to dine with him on Wednesday next along with me, as I must soon go to Scotland.' Johnson: 'Sir, I am obliged to Mr. Dilly. I will wait upon him.' The dictator is in a gracious mood, and the moment favourable to excite a rebuke in defence of that formal courtesy which he loved to practise. 'Provided, Sir, I suppose,' adds Boswell, 'that the company which he is to have is agreeable to you.' The apparent artlessness of the remark in the true Boswellian fashion, with the exaggerated respect that so often irritated Johnson, took effect at once. Johnson: 'What do you mean, Sir? What do you take me for? Do you think I am so ignorant of the world as to imagine that I am to prescribe to a gentleman what company he is to have at his table?' An excuse must now be made which is certain to meet with sledge-hammer reasoning or piercing sarcasm, and it will then be safe to lead up to the disagreeable intelligence. 'I beg your pardon, Sir, for wishing to prevent you from meeting people whom you might not like. Perhaps he may have some of what he calls his patriotic friends with him.' Johnson: 'Well, Sir, what then? What care I for his patriotic friends? Poh!' Boswell: 'I should not be surprised to find Jack Wilkes there.' The possibility may have been disconcerting, but retreat was now out of the question. Johnson: 'And if Jack Wilkes should be there, what is that to me, Sir? My dear friend, let me have no more of this. I am sorry to be angry with you, but really it is treating me strangely to talk to me as if I could not meet any company whatever, occasionally.' So the matter was settled. Boswell asks forgiveness and clinches the matter: 'Pray forgive me, Sir; I meant well. But you shall meet whoever comes.' 'Thus,' he tells the reader, with evident satisfaction, 'I secured him.'

The man who could do this was clearly of importance to those who were interested, even though in a less degree than himself, in Dr. Johnson. We may suppose that the circle of Johnson's literary friends welcomed Boswell as much for his peculiar homage to the Doctor as for his own social talents.

.....

We must now more nearly examine that friendship, which is as much the concern of our own age as it was of Boswell's. We have considered already what it was that caused these two men to be friends; but the meanest picture of Boswell must include some account of his behaviour towards Johnson; we must review the progress of their friendship and remark the more characteristic attitudes of the biographer.

THE COURSE OF FRIENDSHIPIn the pages of the 'Life of Johnson' is recorded in detail, and almost without reserve, the story of the relations between these two friends. It is a story full of humour, telling of all the little peculiarities of a great man, of all the whims and foibles which we are accustomed to observe in old age and which we both like and laugh at; but it is the story also of a deep and anxious affection.

If the course of friendship ran smoothly on the whole for Johnson and Boswell, as might be expected when one of the two was so well balanced and so practically wise as the older man, yet, as must always be the case with people who are not either quite perfect or quite colourless, there were rough places here and there; and these, if responsible for no great misery, were, however, the cause of some unhappiness to both. Boswell, at all events, realised very keenly the great gulf between them; between his own sensitive, uncertain nature and Johnson's rude strength. He, probably more than most men, wanted sympathy, wanted to be understood. With what relief he speaks from his heart to Temple: 'I have not had such a relief as this for I don't know how long. I have broke the trammels of business, and am roving unconfined with my Temple.' It is unfortunate for Boswell that he expressed himself so extravagantly. We sympathise with those who are self-contained about sentiment and particularly about their own sorrows, but we have few kind feelings for those who exaggerate. And Boswell, because he was difficult to understand, was more than usually isolated: to Johnson, at all events, there must have been many matters about which he could not talk, and he was nettled sometimes by the other's blunt advice. It was unpleasant to be told by one whom he so much respected, at the moment of his first serious publication, 'The Corsican Journal,' to 'empty his head of Corsica which had filled it too long.' It must have been more than annoying when he had written to Johnson in a despondent mood (there is no reason to doubt that he was genuine in despondency) to receive his answer: 'I had hoped you had got rid of all this hypocrisy of misery. What have you to do with Liberty and Necessity? Or what more than to hold your tongue about it? Do not doubt that I shall be most heartily glad to see you here again, for I love every part about you but your affectation of distress.'