He saw Auchinleck in somewhat altered circumstances from those in which, four years before, he had left his father's house, riding through Glasgow 'in a cocked hat, a brown wig, brown coat made in the court fashion, red vest, corduroy small clothes, and long military-looking boots, with his servant riding a most aristocratic distance behind.' He had left it likely to vex the soul of his father, the laureate of doggerel, threatening to be the disgrace of the family; he returned as the acquaintance, in varying degrees of intimacy, of Johnson, Wilkes, Churchill, Goldsmith, the Earl Marischal, Voltaire, Rousseau, Paoli, Chatham, and plenipotentiaries of all kinds. A wonderful list for the raw youth they had known at home; yet nowhere in all his intercourse does he show the least want of self-possession or easy bearing. The 'facility of manners' and his good humour had carried him all through his curious experiences with German courts and Italian peasants. A 'spirited tour,' truly, if perhaps the moral results had been greater. The nobility and gentry of this country were welcomed abroad with but too great avidity. Italy, the garden of Europe, Bozzy declared to be the Covent Garden, and isolated passages in his book shew that he could not claim, like Milton, to have borne himself truly 'in all these places where so many things are considered lawful.' Fox, we know, did not escape the contagion of the grand tour, and Boswell had been 'caught young.'
Nor will the reader find much fault in what the adverse critics have unduly emphasized—his interviewing or forcing himself upon men. A man, as Johnson said to him when seeking an interlocutor on this point, always makes himself greater as he increases his knowledge. When he was at Dunvegan on his northern tour, and Colonel Macleod seemed to hint at this, Bozzy offers as his defence of what 'has procured me much happiness' the eagerness he ever felt to share the society of men distinguished by their rank or talents. If a man, he adds, is praised for seeking knowledge, though mountains and seas are in his way, he may be pardoned in the pursuit of the same object under difficulties as great though of a different kind. And the defence will not be refused him for the use he has made of the means. Wisdom and literature alike are justified of their children, and the masters in either are not so numerous that we can afford to quarrel with them, or wrangle over their respective merits. 'Sensation,' said Johnson, 'is sensation,' and the pretty general feeling now is that in his department Boswell is a master.
From his first setting out, he had written down every night what he had noted during the day, 'throwing together that I might afterwards make a selection at leisure.' He was to try his 'prentice hand on his Tour in Corsica before shewing his strength in his two greater works. Mrs Barbauld regarded him as no ordinary traveller, with
'Working thoughts which swelled the breast
Of generous Boswell, when with noble aim
And views beyond the narrow beaten track
By trivial fancy trod, he turned his course
From polished Gallia's soft delicious vales.'
Such thoughts were perhaps really foreign to that traveller, yet Dr Hill assures us that by every Corsican of education the name of Boswell is known and honoured. One curious circumstance is given. At Pino, when Boswell fancying himself 'in a publick house' or inn, had called for things, the hostess had said una cosa dopo un altra, signore, 'one thing after another, sir.' This has lingered as a memento of Bozzy in Corsica, and has been found by Dr Hill to be preserved among the traditions in the Tomasi family. Translations of the book in Italian, Dutch, French, and German, spread abroad the name of the traveller who, if like a prophet without honour in his own country, has not been without it elsewhere.
CHAPTER III
EDINBURGH BAR—STRATFORD JUBILEE. 1766-69
'A clerk, foredoomed his father's soul to cross,
Who pens a stanza, when he should engross.'—Pope.
The return of the prodigal to Auchinleck would seem at first to have been attended with some satisfaction to both father and son. The father might now believe that he was entitled to consideration from the son, as a reward for his long-continued indulgence to the traveller, who might in his turn reflect on the advantages which he derived from such a protracted tour. Accordingly, in his papers of the April of this year, we find the following entry:—'My father said to me, "I am much pleased with your conduct in every respect." After all my anxiety while abroad, here is the most perfect approbation and calm of mind. I never felt such sollid (sic) happiness.' But the philosopher, who with Paoli had compared his mind to a camera obscura, reappears unfortunately in the next entry. 'But I find I am not so happy with this approbation and this calm as I expected to be. But why do I say alas! when I really look upon this life merely as a transient state?' To this curious expression of Boswell we shall refer when we discuss at the close his religious and philosophical views, but it is distressing to find such whimsicalities colouring his sense of the old man's kindness when he writes but shortly after, 'I must stay at Auchinleck, I have there just the kind of complaining proper for me. All must complain, and I more than most of my fellow-creatures.'
On the 26th July 1766 he passed advocate at the bar. On putting on his gown he remarked to his brother-advocates, as he says, that his natural propensities had led him to a military life, but now that he had been pressed by his father into the service he did not doubt but that he should shew as good results as those who had joined as volunteers. His gay friend Wilkes had declared that he would be out-distanced in the professional race by dull plodders and blockheads, but at the outset he appears to have started with a fair amount of zest. He dedicated his inaugural thesis to the son of the Earl of Bute, Lord Mountstuart, with whom he had travelled in Italy, and on whom he flattered himself he had made some impression, the first of Boswell's many ineffectual attempts to secure place and promotion, for on a seat in Parliament he had four years before set his heart. A copy of the thesis was sent to Johnson, who by this time had rather cooled over the proposed publication by his friend of a book on Corsica. 'You have no materials,' he said, 'which others have not or may not have. You have warmed your imagination. I wish there were some cure like the lover's leap for all heads of which some single idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular possession. Mind your own affairs and leave the Corsicans to theirs.' Touching on the faulty Latinity of the essay, 'Ruddiman,' added the old man, 'is dead.' On entering his new career Bozzy began by vows for his good conduct. These, a remnant of his old Catholic days, we shall find him renewing again and again, ludicrously and pathetically enough, however, as we draw to the close. Sometimes they appear with reference to matters with which the knowledge of the unpublished parts of the letters to Temple, now in the possession of an American collector, has to deal without suggesting unduly to the more fastidious sense of the present day the vagaries and weaknesses of their writer. Johnson protested against this attempt to 'enchain his volatility' by vows. But Boswell replies that they may be useful to one 'of a variable judgment and irregular inclinations. For my 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.' Could the doctor have read even the published correspondence he would have been at no loss for a detailed commentary on this defence.