Aware of Boswell’s tendency to form resolutions, which he afterwards departed from, Dr. Johnson entreated him to abandon his practice of vow-making. To a letter from the lexicographer on this subject Boswell made the following answer:—
“Auchinleck, 6th November, 1766.
“Might I venture to differ from you with regard to the utility of vows? I am sensible that it may be very dangerous to make vows rashly, and without a due consideration. But I cannot help thinking that they may often be of great advantage to one of a variable judgment and irregular inclinations. I always remember a passage in one of your letters to our Italian friend, Baretti; where, talking of the monastic life, you say you do not wonder that serious men should put themselves under the protection of a religious order, when they have found how unable they are to take care of themselves. For my own part, without affecting to be a Socrates, I am sure I have a more than ordinary struggle to maintain with the Evil Principle; and all the methods I can devise are little enough to keep me tolerably steady in the paths of rectitude.”
In February, 1767, Boswell conveyed his congratulations to Mr. Temple on his being admitted to priest’s orders, and instituted Rector of Mamhead. The following remarks with which his congratulations were accompanied would have reflected credit on Dr. Johnson:—
“I am sincerely happy that you are at length the Reverend Mr. Temple. I view the profession of a clergyman in an amiable and respectable light. Don’t be moved by declamations against ecclesiastical history, as if that could blacken the sacred order. I confess that it is not in ecclesiastical history that we find the most agreeable account of divines: their politics, their ambition, and their cruelty are there displayed; but remember, Temple, you are there reading the vices of only political divines,—of such individuals as in so numerous a body have been very unworthy members of the Church, and should have rather been employed in the rudest secular concerns. But if you would judge fairly of the priests of Jesus, you must consider how many of the distressed they have comforted, how many of the wicked they have reclaimed, how many of the good they have improved; consider the lives of thousands of worthy pious divines who have been a blessing to their parishes. This is just, Temple. You say the truths of morality are written in the hearts of all men, and they find it their interest to practise them. My dear friend, will you believe a specious moral essayist against your own experience? Don’t you in the very same letter complain of the wickedness of those around you? Don’t you talk of the tares in society? My friend, it is your office to labour cheerfully in the vineyard, and, if possible, to leave not a tare in Mamhead.
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“In a word, my dear Temple, be a good clergyman, and you will be happy both here and hereafter.”
Boswell proceeds to advise his friend to marry a suitable wife, and expresses a regret that he himself cannot wed so long as his father lives. Having administered these virtuous counsels, he intimates that he has involved himself in an illicit amour—or, as he expresses it, that he is attached to “a dear infidel.” The person so described was a married woman, who had separated from her husband. Boswell had met her in the autumn of 1765 at Moffat Spa, where he had been sojourning with his friend Mr. Johnston, of Grange, a Dumfriesshire landowner. He had brought her to Edinburgh, and she was now maintained at his expense. In mitigation of his conduct in associating with her, he thus expatiates to Mr. Temple:—
“Don’t think her unfaithful; I could not love her if she was. There is baseness in all deceit which my soul is virtuous enough to abhor, and therefore I look with horror on adultery. But my amiable mistress is no longer bound to him who was her husband: he has used her shockingly ill; he has deserted her; he lives with another. Is she not then free? She is, it is clear, and no arguments can disguise it. She is now mine; and were she to be unfaithful to me, she ought to be pierced with a Corsican poniard; but I believe she loves me sincerely. She has done everything to please me: she is perfectly generous, and would not hear of any present.”