James Boswell

by W. Keith Leask

And coming events now cast their shadow before. That curious feature of Boswell's character, the mixture of religious sentiments and the Sterne vein of pietistic moralizing united with laxity in practice, appears strangely enough in the letter to Temple, dated in the February of 1767, and sent to his friend who had just been ordained to the living of Mamhead in Devon. 'I view,' he writes, '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.' He admits that ecclesiastical history is not the best field for the display of the virtues in that profession, but we are to judge of the thousands of worthy divines who have been a blessing to their parishes. He exhorts his friend to labour cheerfully in the vineyard and to leave not a tare in Mamhead. In Edinburgh it appears there were specimens; for after this pious homily he confesses quietly his own liaison with 'a dear infidel' of a married woman. But the love affairs of Boswell, one of the most curious and 'characteristical' (as he would himself have phrased it) episodes in his life we shall discuss in a connected form in the next chapter, in order to secure clearness of treatment and concentration of detail.

We turn, then, to his career at the bar. There can be no shadow of a doubt that with proper industry, backed as he was with very strong social and family connections, he would have secured a lucrative professional practice. In February of 1767 he is 'coming into great employment; I have this winter made sixty-five guineas, which is a considerable sum for a young man,' and the Boswelliana shew him in easy intercourse with the best society in the Scottish capital. Belonging as he did to the hereditary noblesse de la robe, as Lockhart calls it, he was not likely, with but moderate attention, to have stood like Scott, 'an hour by the Tron, wi' deil ane to speir his price,'—Sir Walter's fee book shews for the first year a return of £24, 3s., and £57, 15s. for the second. As he had years before vowed to Lord Hailes that he would transcribe Erskine's Institutes several times over till he had imprinted it on his memory, so now he was hopeful by binding up the session papers of securing a treasure of law reasoning and a collection of extraordinary facts. By March he had cleared eighty guineas, and was 'Surprised at myself, I speak with so much ease and boldness, and have already the language of the bar so much at command. I am doing nobly. I can hardly ever answer the letters of my friends.' He had quarrelled with Rousseau who had likewise broken with Hume, whose appointment as secretary to Conway had perhaps cured him of his follies over the wild philosopher. We find Boswell also designing squibs which were in the London printshops, writing verses for them and ridiculing 'The Savage' of his former idolatry.

Paoli had sent him a long letter of sixteen pages. Chatham in his retirement at Bath, mystifying the court and his colleagues, could yet find time to send him a three-paged communication. In reply, the young traveller assures him that the character of the great minister had 'filled many of my best hours with the noble admiration which a disinterested soul can enjoy in the bower of philosophy.' He informs his lordship that he is preparing for publication his Tour in Corsica, that he has entered at the bar, and 'I begin to like it. I labour hard; and feel myself coming forward, and I hope to be useful to my country. Could your Lordship find time to honour me now and then with a letter? I have been told how favourably your Lordship has spoken of me. To correspond with a Paoli and a Chatham is enough to keep a young man ever ardent in the pursuit of a virtuous fame.' In June he expected to be busier than ever, during the week when his father sat as Judge of the Outer House, 'for you must know that the absurdity of mankind makes nineteen out of twenty employ the son of the judge before whom their case is heard,' an admission which only increases our regret at the want of professional industry on the part of the son. His addiction to the society of players only increased the more as his practice at the bar would have been thought to engross his attention. For the opening of the Canongate Theatre, on 9th December 1767, he had been induced to write a prologue to the play of The Earl of Essex with which the newly licensed house started its career. Part of the opening verses, as spoken by Ross, 'a very good copy, very conciliatory' as the Earl of Mansfield styled them, runs as follows:—

'This night, lov'd George's free enlightened age
Bids Royal favour shield the Scottish stage;
His Royal favour every bosom cheers;
The drama now with dignity appears!
Hard is my fate if murmurings there be
Because that favour is announced by me.
Anxious, alarm'd, and aw'd by every frown,
May I entreat the candour of the Town?
You see me here by no unworthy art;
My all I venture where I've fix'd my heart.
Fondly ambitious of an honest fame,
My humble labours your indulgence claim.
I wish to hold no Right but by your choice,
I'll trust my patent to the Publick Voice.'

The effect of this, aided by friends properly planted in different parts of the theatre, Boswell assures us was instantaneous and effectual. But the plaudits given would have been better in a strictly professional court, and it led, we can see, to the association of Boswell with but questionable society. 'The joyous crew of thunderers in the galleries,' as Robert Fergusson describes them, the vulgar cits applying to their parched lips 'thirst quenching porter,' and the notoriously irregular lives of the players, all these were ties and associations ill calculated to appease the just indignation of his father or to add to forensic reputation in Edinburgh. The Scottish Themis, says Scott, speaking from his own early experience of much higher literary pursuits, is peculiarly jealous of any flirtation with the muses on the part of those who have ranged themselves under her banners, and to them the least lingering look behind is fatal. Little wonder, then, that the paternal anger was again roused, when 'the look behind' on his part was coupled with the bitter remembrances of the laureate of the Soapers, of the Erskine Correspondence, and his own long indulgence destined at last to bear such sorry fruits.

'How unaccountable it is,' he cries impatiently to Temple, 'that my father and I should be so ill together! He is a man of sense and a man of worth; but from some unhappy turn in his disposition he is much dissatisfied with a son you know.... To give you an instance. I send you a letter I had a few days ago. I have answered in my own style; I will be myself! How galling it is to the friend of Paoli to be treated so!' He confesses his father has 'that Scots strength of sarcasm which is peculiar to a North Briton,' and that time was when it would have depressed him. But now he is firm, and, 'as my revered friend Mr Samuel Johnson used to say,' he feels the privileges of an independent human being! To add to the confusion of Lord Auchinleck his son had flung himself with all his enthusiasm into the famous Douglas Trial, the cause that figures so much to the confusion, it is to be feared, of the general reader. Of this some full account is necessary in order to explain that extraordinary trial,—perhaps the most protracted and famous that ever came before a court,—which, dragging its slow length along through a longer course than the Peloponnesian War, fills the shelves of legal libraries with eighteen portly volumes of papers and reports. In the case Boswell really held no actual brief, though were we to follow the impression he gives of his services we should infer he had been leading counsel for the plaintiff, Douglas. 'With a labour of which few are capable,' says Bozzy, many years after, 'he compressed the substance of the immense volumes of proofs and arguments into an octavo pamphlet,' to which its author believed 'we may ascribe a great share of the popularity on Mr Douglas's side.' Then he adds in a characteristic sentence, the meaning of which can be fully appreciated only by those who have followed his contributions to magazines and the press of the day, 'Mr Boswell took care to keep the newspapers and other publications incessantly warm with various writings, both in prose and in verse, all tending to touch the heart and rouse the parental and sympathetic feelings.'

Lady Jane Douglas, sister to Archibald, Duke of Douglas, had been privately married in 1746 to Colonel Steuart, afterwards Sir John Steuart of Grandtully. She was then in the forty-ninth year of her age, and the marriage was not divulged till May 1748 to her brother who had not been reconciled and had in consequence suspended her allowance. At Paris, in very humble lodgings, she gave birth to male twins in the house of a Madame le Brun. The parents in 1749 returned to Scotland where one of the children died; in 1761 the Duke of Douglas had himself followed. Three claimants took the field, the Duke of Hamilton as heir male of line, the Earl of Selkirk as heir of provision under former deeds, and Archibald Steuart or Douglas. Lady Jane died in 1753, and Sir John in 1764, both on their death-beds testifying to the legitimacy of their surviving child. The Duke of Douglas, long prejudiced against this son's claim by the machinations of the Hamiltons, had revoked the deed in their favour for a settlement executed in behalf of his sister's son Archibald. But stories had become rife of that son being the child of a Nicholas Mignon and Marie Guerin from whom he had been purchased, and an action to reduce service on a plea of partus suppositio was instituted by the tutors of the Duke of Hamilton who was then a minor. In France negociations were conducted, investigations made, and witnesses examined by Burnet of Monboddo, Gardenstone, Hailes, and Eskgrove, and at last in July 1767 the Court of Session issued its decision. Lord Dundas, the President, speaking first, and dwelling on the age of Lady Jane, childless by a former marriage, the secrecy of the birth, and the intrinsic valuelessness of death-bed depositions when set against pecuniary interests and family pride, recorded his vote in favour of the Hamiltons. Six days were subsequently taken up with the speeches of the other judges, and Monboddo, speaking last, voted for Douglas. The verdict was seven on each side, and by the President's vote the case in Scotland was won by the pursuers. Kames, Monboddo, and Lord Auchinleck, were in favour of the defender, Douglas.

The case was at once by him appealed to the House of Lords. Douglas was favoured in Scotland, where for years the state of interest had been such that people in company used to bargain, for the maintenance of peace, that no mention of this disturbing plea should be introduced. So high did the feeling run in Edinburgh that the Hamilton party had been driven from their apartments in Holyrood Palace and their property plundered. It was fortunate that this loophole of escape to another court was opened, for before the Union such a cause would have led almost to civil broil where the rival interests of the factions, through the ramifications of marriage and other connections, extended so widely. In earlier days the strife would have ended by an appeal to the sword on the causeway. All the court influence of the Hamiltons had been bent, and bent in vain, to secure the exclusion from the bench of Lord Monboddo, counsel for Douglas, and a duel had been fought between their agent Andrew Stuart and Thurlow the opposing advocate. The excitement over the verdict of the Lords on Monday, February 27, 1769, was unprecedented. In the Autobiography of Jupiter Carlyle is fortunately preserved the account of the scene, witnessed by the doctor himself, who had been successful in gaining admission to the court, where from nine in the morning till ten at night he remained, hemmed in by the crowd and overcome with the oppressive heat. Mansfield spoke over one hour, and, on his appearing to faint, the Chancellor rushed out for a bottle and glasses, the current of fresh air being felt by the crowd as a relief. Finally the verdict of the Scottish courts was reversed without a division, and a verdict found in favour of Douglas. Hume was not satisfied of the legitimacy of the pursuer, neither was Lord Shelburne, and bribery on both sides had been extensively employed, over £100,000 having been calculated to have been spent in this protracted litigation.

It was on the evening of Thursday, shortly after eight, that the tidings reached Edinburgh by express. The city was at once illuminated, and next morning Dundas on his way to the Parliament House was threatened by a mob such as the town had not seen since the Porteous Riot. Two troops of dragoons were drafted at once on the same day into the capital. As usually told, the story, which is vouched for by Ramsay of Ochtertyre, is that the mob of the night before had been headed by the excited Boswell, and that the windows of his father's house were smashed. Had such been the case, it must have been by an oversight on the part of the mob, or some petulant freak of the son, for on this occasion both Boswell and his father had for once been unanimous in their belief in the legitimacy of Douglas. But there is no need for doubting Ramsay's assertion that Lord Auchinleck had, with tears in his eyes, to implore President Dundas to commit his son to the Tolbooth! Not only had Bozzy taken the field in the November of 1767 with his Essence of the Douglas Cause, 'which I regretted that Dr Johnson never took the trouble to study,' even though 'the question interested nations,' and the pamphlet had produced, as its writer flattered himself, considerable effect in deciding the case, but he had ventured on a breach of professional etiquette in publishing Dorando, a Spanish Tale. This brochure was ordered by the Court of Session to be suppressed as contempt of court, after it had run through three editions. No copy of this forlorn hope of the book hunter has ever been found, though doubtless it lurks in some library where its want of the writer's name upon the title page may have kept it from making its reappearance. Though it bore no name, yet Boswell, when writing to Temple over it, speaks of 'My publisher Wilkie,' and he seems to have been afraid that the copy sent by him should fall into the hands of strangers. In the Gentleman's Magazine for July 1767, however, it is reviewed, but the value of the shilling booklet does not seem to have impressed the critic. 'The Spanish Tale,' he says, 'supposes the contests to be finally determined in favour of Don Ferdinand against the family of Ardivoso—but the real question is still in dispute, having been removed by appeal to the House of Lords. The pamphlet is zealously but feebly written: the author in some places affects the sublime, and in some the pathetic; but these are the least tolerable parts of his performance.' Thus airily does the reviewer dismiss Bozzy's determined effort to rouse, as he imagined, the parental and sympathetical feelings, and it is clear at least that, however much its recovery would add to the stock of harmless pleasure among professed Boswellians and collectors, its loss cannot be said to have 'eclipsed the gaiety of nations.'

During the course of the trial the Tour in Corsica had been preparing. Early in 1768 it was issued from the celebrated press of Robert and Andrew Foulis in Glasgow, and the publishers were the Dillys in the Poultry, London, who were to act for him in all his literary undertakings to the end of his life. It was a lull in the storm of the Douglas crisis, and the old judge, eager enough to see his son associated with anything rational, was not unpleased with its appearing as a pledge of better things. 'Jamie,' he admitted, 'had taen a toot on a new horn.' The account of Corsica which had been made up from various sources of information ran to two hundred and thirty-nine pages; but the real interest of the volume attaches to the Journal which occupies a hundred and twenty. The translations from Seneca were done by Thomas Day, then very young, the author of Sandford and Merton, and the creator of that constellation of excellence, Mr Barlow, whose connection in any degree with Boswell is almost provocative of a smile. The peculiar orthography of the writer is defended in the preface, for he allows himself not only such divergencies as 'tremenduous,' 'authour,' 'ambassadour,' but also 'authentick' and 'panegyrick.' The dedication of the first edition to Paoli was dated on his own birthday, and the book ran to a third edition before the October of the same year. As purchased by the Dillys for a hundred guineas it would appear to have been a profitable speculation, and the wide circulation to which it attained we shall see was not merely due to accident but to more solid qualities. 'Pray read,' says Horace Walpole to his friend Gray, 'the new account of Corsica. The author is a strange being, and has a rage of knowing everybody that ever was talked of. He forced himself upon me at Paris in spite of my teeth and my doors.' 'Mr B.'s book,' replies Gray—with a curious anticipation of the Carlylean canon of criticism—'has pleased and moved me strangely; all I mean that relates to Paoli. The pamphlet proves, what I have always maintained, that any fool may write a most valuable book by chance, if he will only tell us what he heard and saw with veracity. Of Mr B.'s book I have not the least suspicion, because I am sure he could invent nothing of the kind. The title of this part of his work is a dialogue between a Green Goose and a Hero.' But Gray was fastidious, in this case blindly so. The merits of Goldsmith he could when dying perceive, but the rollicking humour of Bozzy in this his first book was sealed to the recluse critic who 'never spoke out,' a thing that never could be safely asserted of the author of the Tour in Corsica.