The rough notes of the moment and the elaborate journal made by writing them out at large 'soon after the time'—these, then, form the basis of Boswell's method for preserving Johnson's talk. It is not to be supposed that Boswell strictly adhered to this method on every occasion. He was too much an experimentalist for that; and sometimes it must have been very difficult to take notes. We cannot imagine that when Boswell was alone with Johnson he pulled out 'tablets' in the course of an argument. More probably he seized an opportunity, as soon afterwards as possible, when Johnson was not talking, to put down the more striking phrases and record the point of the discussion. But there must have been some occasions when opportunities did not occur. Johnson, no doubt, became accustomed to his companion's habits and was often willing to help him by telling him details about his early life or dictating the text of a letter for Boswell to write down there and then. But sometimes he was in the mood to resent memoranda; and sometimes the talk was too continuous for Boswell's task to be an easy one. At such times Boswell may have written the journal as well as he could without the notes, and as soon afterwards as possible. At Ashbourne, for instance, in 1777, he may have done this: he was alone with Johnson more than usual, and several discussions made Johnson very angry; he may well have waited to record anything until he wrote the journal, for he had no lack of time to devote to this purpose while staying in the quiet country town, and in point of fact he actually kept the journal more fully at this time than at any other. He mentions that he has 'acquired a facility in recollecting his conversation.'[8] This may refer to the effort of memory required in recalling altogether what had been said, as well as to the effort of reconstructing the talk from what he had written down at the moment. In the early part of the 'Life' Boswell says:
In progress of time, when my mind was, as it were, strongly impregnated with the Johnsonian æther, I could, with much more facility and exactness, carry in my memory and commit to paper the exuberant variety of his wisdom and wit.[9]
Here again he may well have had in mind a process of writing the journal with no notes to help him.
All the original documents from which Boswell compiled the 'Life' are concealed from this generation. There are, however—or at least there were—in existence two of Boswell's note-books. Mr. Fitzgerald relates that in Mr. Pocock's 'Johnsonian Catalogue' there was
a note-book in which Boswell jotted down from day to day the actual sayings and doings of the eminent lexicographer. This volume contains literary opinions and aphorisms peculiar to this great man, and of which many have never been published. He gives a specific account of the manner in which he compiled the 'Dictionary,' and relates other matters of interest, bearing on his long literary career and contemporaries.
This manuscript, if it were to be seen, might reveal more definitely what Boswell's method was. The description of it can do nothing but emphasise the use of the 'tablets'; but its value as evidence depends upon its accuracy with regard to the sequence of the notes: if they were really 'jotted down from day to day,' then they are the 'tablets' without a doubt.
The other note-book is 'Boswelliana'; and it is of a different kind.
Boswell kept in a portfolio a quantity of loose quarto sheets, inscribed on each page Boswelliana. In certain of these sheets the pages are denoted by numerals in the ordinary fashion; another portion is numbered by the folios; while a further portion consists of loose leaves and letter-backs. The greater part of the entries are made so carefully as to justify the belief that the author intended to embody the whole in a volume of literary anecdotes.[10]
Emphatically this collection was not 'tablets.' It was probably intended for a particular purpose. Boswell may have had several collections of a similar kind. But it is clear that the purpose of 'Boswelliana' has no connection with the 'Life of Johnson.'[11] Stories of Johnson it does indeed contain; but they are few, and are unconnected by any chronological arrangement. They form only a small part of the whole.
The journal itself was kept in quarto and octavo volumes,[12] and Boswell on one occasion showed it to Sir William Forbes.[13] It seems that his object in doing this was to get an opinion which might encourage him to publish; he quotes with great pleasure in the 'Life' the praise which this gentleman had bestowed upon it. One would suppose that the journal displayed in this way gave the Johnsonian conversations and anecdotes in words almost identical with the text of the 'Life.' In the preface to the 'Corsican Journal' Boswell says of the Paoli memoirs: