Among the good things which the year 1922 has brought to us I count the Boswell redivivus from the industrious and skilful hand of Professor Chauncey Brewster Tinker of Yale. He calls his excellent book, which is largely enriched with new material in the way of hitherto unpublished letters, Young Boswell. This does not mean that he deals only with the early years, amatory episodes, and first literary ventures of Johnson’s inimitable biographer, but that he sees in the man a certain persistent youngness which accounts for the exuberance of his faults and follies as well as for the enthusiasm of his hero-worship.
Mr. Tinker does not attempt to camouflage the incorrigible absurdities of Boswell’s disposition, nor the excesses of his conduct, but finds an explanation if not an excuse for them in the fact that he had a juvenile temperament which inclined him all through life to self-esteem and self-indulgence, and kept him “very much a boy” until he died of it. Whether this is quite consistent with his being “in fullest truth a genius,” as Mr. Tinker claims, may be doubted; for genius in the high sense is something that ripens if time be given it. But what is certain beyond a question is that this vain and vagarious little Scotch laird had in him a gift of observation, a talent of narration, and above all a power of generous admiration, which enabled him to become, by dint of hard work, what Macaulay entitled him, “the first of biographers.”
Ever since it appeared in 1791, Boswell’s Life of Johnson has been a most companionable book. Reprinted again and again, it finds a perennial welcome. To see it in a new edition is no more remarkable nowadays than it once was to see Dr. Oliver Goldsmith in a new and vivid waistcoat. For my own part I prefer it handsomely drest, with large type, liberal margins, and a-plenty of illustrations. For it is not a book in which economy of bulk is needful; it is less suitable for company on a journey or a fishing-trip, than for a meditative hour in the library after dinner, or a pleasant wakeful hour in bed, when the reading-lamp glows clear and steady, and all the rest of the family are asleep or similarly engaged in recumbent reading.
There are some books with which we can never become intimate. However long we may know them they keep us on the cold threshold of acquaintance. Others boisterously grasp our hand and drag us in, only to bore us and make us regret the day of our introduction. But if there ever was a book which invited genially to friendship and delight it is this of Boswell’s. The man who does not know it is ignorant of some of the best cheer that can enliven a solitary fireside. The man who does not enjoy it is insensible alike to the attractions of a noble character vividly depicted, and to the amusement afforded by the sight of a great genius in company with an adoring follower capable, at times, of acting like an engaging ass.
Yet after all, I have always had my doubts about the supposed “asininity” of Boswell. As his Great Friend said, “A man who talks nonsense so well must know that he is talking nonsense.” It is only fair to accept his own explanation and allow that when he said or did ridiculous things it was, partly at least, in order to draw out his Tremendous Companion. Thus we may think with pleasure of Boswell taking a rise out of Johnson. But we do not need to imagine Johnson taking a rise out of Boswell; it was not necessary; he rose of his own accord. He made a candid record of these diverting incidents because, though self-complacent, he was not touchy, and he had sense enough to see that the sure way to be entirely entertaining is to be quite frank.
Boswell threw a stone at one bird and brought down two. His triumphant effort to write the life of his Immense Hero just as it was, with all its surroundings, appurtenances, and eccentricities, has won for himself a singular honour: his proper name has become a common noun. It is hardly necessary to use a capital letter when we allude to a boswell. His pious boast that he had “Johnsonized the land,” is no more correct than it would be to say, (and if he were alive he would certainly say it,) that he had boswellized biography.
The success of the book appears the more remarkable when we remember that of the seventy-five years of Samuel Johnson’s life not more than two years and two months were passed in the society of James Boswell. Yet one would almost think that they had been rocked in the same cradle, or, (if this figure of speech seem irreverent,) that the Laird of Auchinleck had slept in a little trundle-bed beside the couch of the Mighty Lexicographer. I do not mean by this that the record is trivial and cubicular, but simply that Boswell has put into his book as much of Johnson as it will hold.
Let no one imagine, however, that a like success can be secured by following the same recipe with any chance subject. The exact portraiture of an insignificant person confers information where there is no curiosity, and becomes tedious in proportion as it is precise.[19] The first thing needful is to catch a giant for your hero; and in this little world it is seldom that one like Johnson comes to the net.
What a man he was,—this “old struggler,” as he called himself,—how uncouth and noble and genuine and profound,—“a labouring, working mind; an indolent, reposing body”! What a heart of fortitude in the bosom of his melancholy, what a kernel of human kindness within the shell of his rough manner! He was proud but not vain, sometimes rude but never cruel. His prejudices were insular, but his intellect was continental. There was enough of contradiction in his character to give it variety, and enough of sturdy faith to give it unity. It was not easy for him to be good, but it was impossible for him to be false; and he fought the battle of life through along his chosen line even to the last skirmish of mortality.