I can never forget the impression made upon my fancy by some of the ladies' maids tripping about in neat morning dresses. After seeing for a long time little but rusticity, their lively appearance pleased me so much that I thought for a moment I could have been a knight-errant for them.
A knight-errant for a couple of Scotch maids! A preposterous fancy! But none the less it is Boswell.
It would be too large a task to deal here with all the recorded affectation or extravagance of Boswell. But we must not omit to mention one particular phase of it. Consciously or unconsciously, Boswell in some degree imitated Dr. Johnson—precisely in what degree it is difficult to determine.
IMITATION OF JOHNSONThe influence which Johnson had upon his faithful follower has been discussed already. This must be carefully distinguished from the imitation in question now; for an influence is something acquired from the manner and mind of another, assimilated and reproduced, not as original but as genuine; an imitation is, as it were, a garment put on, an adornment of the outward person, reflecting no true sentiment within.
Though Johnson had a real moral influence upon Boswell, some of his remarks, and especially some of the pious exclamations, such as those we have quoted, were of the latter kind. We find passages in the 'Life' when Boswell makes truly Johnsonian remarks; as on the occasion when, in a discussion about the freedom of the will, Dr. Mayo alluded to the distinction between moral and physical necessity, and Boswell replied: 'Alas! Sir, they come both to the same thing. You may be bound as hard by chains when covered by leather, as when the iron appears'; or when he said in answer to Dr. Johnson's remark that he had downed Dr. Robertson with the King of Prussia, 'Yes, Sir, you threw a bottle at his head.'
When actually in his presence, it is clear from Fanny Burney's account that Boswell imitated Dr. Johnson:
He had an odd mock-solemnity of tone and manner that he had acquired imperceptibly from constantly thinking of and imitating Dr. Johnson, whose own solemnity, nevertheless, far from mock, was the result of pensive rumination. There was, also, something slouching in the gait and dress of Mr. Boswell that wore an air, ridiculously enough, of purporting to personify the same model. His clothes were always too large for him; his hair, or wig, was constantly in a state of negligence; and he never for a moment sat still or upright upon a chair. Every look and movement displayed either intentional or voluntary imitation. Yet certainly it was not meant for caricature, for his heart, almost even to idolatry, was in his reverence for Dr. Johnson.[31]
It is a curious and striking picture, and we may gather that there was always something odd and laughable, and yet rather lamentable, about Boswell's appearance. The effect of imitation he seems sometimes half-conscious of producing, from the care with which he accentuates in the 'Life' and the 'Tour' any point of difference between Dr. Johnson and himself. But it must be remembered that Miss Burney's account is an account of particular circumstances—the company was a large one, and not an inner circle of more intimate friends of Boswell and Johnson. We have no reason to suppose that Boswell's behaviour, particularly his behaviour apart from Dr. Johnson, was greatly affected by this strange homage to his friend.
It is clear in any case that affectation, however LITERARY SENTIMENTALITY much it may have taken a Johnsonian form, was fundamental in Boswell's character; for we can see it plainly before the date of that eventful meeting. Johnson indeed had a marked aversion from the kind of sentimentality which Boswell frequently indulged in, and there is in it something which could not possibly have been the effect of imitating Dr. Johnson. How very far removed from anything which Johnson could have done is the absurd conduct of Boswell (the best instance, perhaps, of this kind of affectation in him) when he visited Mr. Ireland and saw the fraudulent Shakespeare papers: