I am carrying it up, to be presented by the Earl of Eglintoun, accompanied by such Justices of us as may be in London. This will add something to my 'conspicuousness.' Will that word do?[11]
The word seems to do very well. Boswell writes later:
The Prince of Wales has received our Address most graciously, and I am to be presented to his Royal Highness, who desired it might be signified that he regretted Mr. Boswell was gone from town.[12]
But this would seem to be the final achievement of Boswell's political career, for he was not successful in the General Election, and we hear no more in the 'Letters' of political schemes.
Beyond any special reasons which there may be for the failure of Boswell in his legal career, there is a more general cause for all his disappointment. We must remember that Boswell throughout his life was, like many men in the eighteenth century less gifted than himself, a thorough-going place-hunter. He hoped even in his early life for some advantages through his great patrons, Lord Somerville,[13] Sir David Dalrymple,[14] Lord Eglintoun,[13] Lord Mount Stuart,[15] Sir Andrew Mitchell[16]; he had obtained by their means a number of introductions. The ardour with which he pursued the acquaintance of the great must have been prompted in some degree by an interested expectation, and we may suppose that from the friendship of Chatham, which he was so eager to cultivate, he had flattered himself with a hope of political advancement, a hope of fulfilling the dreams that he had dreamt, with Temple, in University days, of their future greatness. They were but vague hopes in those early years, since he could hardly have expected an immediate recognition of his particular services. But Boswell when he grew older attached himself more definitely to particular patrons. There are a number of names—Lord Pembroke, Lord Lisburne, Lord Lonsdale, Burke, Dundas.[17] To these in turn he seems to have pinned his faith and almost to have expected some promotion to have fallen upon PATRONS him. And from all his great acquaintances he was to get but one poor post, the Recordership of Carlisle.
We can hardly be surprised from what we have seen already of Boswell's methods of approaching his patrons that he had no great success in these schemes of advancement. We have quoted already a letter to Chatham, which was designed to impress that Minister with the fact that he was a rising young man, and to solicit his favour. There is another letter of a later date[18] intended to further his acquaintance with Burke. The great orator might have one day at his disposal some Government posts; his memory must not be allowed to lapse:
Dear Sir,—Upon my honour I began a letter to you some time ago, and did not finish it, because I imagined you were then near your apotheosis—as poor Goldsmith said upon a former occasion, when he thought your party was coming into administration; and being one of your old barons of Scotland, my pride could not brook the appearance of paying my court to a Minister, amongst the crowd of interested expectants on his accession.
Certainly if one wishes to obtain a post it is better to avoid the 'crowd of interested expectants.' The 'old baron' too is an excellent card to play to one who is not of the aristocratic circles; few men are free from the taint of snobbishness, and patronage may be courted by cultivating disinterested friendship. It is well at the same time to remember Qui s'excuse s'accuse. 'At present,' Boswell continues, 'I take it for granted that I need be under no such apprehension, and, therefore, I resume the indulgence of my inclination.' Only one who was really interested and wished to conceal the fact could be so careful. Boswell realises that there is something rather odd about the explanation. It may not after all be entirely wise. It is possible that men rather like it to be thought that they have much patronage, and find some pleasure in being asked for favours. 'This may be, perhaps, a singular method of beginning a correspondence; and, in one sense may not be very complimentative. But I can sincerely assure you, my dear Sir, that it is a genuine compliment to Mr. Burke himself.' The explanation of how it is a compliment is now to follow, but the desire for self-excuse obtrudes itself again: 'It is generally thought no meanness to solicit the notice and favour of a man in power, and, surely, it is much less a meanness to endeavour, by honest means, to have the honour and pleasure of being on an agreeable footing with a superior man of knowledge, abilities and genius.' A further excuse is furnished by the favours shown to Boswell in the past by Mr. Burke himself:
I have to thank you for the obligation which you have already conferred upon me, by the welcome which I have, upon repeated occasions, experienced under your roof.
A LETTER TO BURKEWhen I was last in London, you gave me a general invitation, which I value more than a treasury warrant: an invitation to the 'feast of reason'; and what I like still more, the 'flow of the soul,' which you dispense with liberal and elegant abundance, is, in my estimation, a privilege of enjoying certain felicity.
The comparison between the places that come of courting a patron and this sublime 'felicity' that comes of friendship must still be maintained—'and we know that riches and honour are desirable only as a means of felicity, and that they often fail of the end.'