Chapter VI

Lord Auchinleck died in 1782. His relations with Boswell are of some interest in this place, because they exhibit Boswell in the rôle of son and incidentally raise an important question. The two never agreed very well. Was this the fault of the son? Was he deliberately unkind, or negligent, or disagreeable?

There is no reason to suppose that Boswell was culpable in any such way: indiscretion on the one hand and intolerance on the other are sufficient to account for all the friction. Lord Auchinleck had evidently a very rigid view of the career fitting for his eldest son. His ideal of progeniture seems to have assumed with a not uncommon complacency that the ego was worthy of a second edition. James Boswell must be after the pattern of his father—a Scotch lawyer, a hard-headed, practical man of affairs, a wise man of business successful in his profession.

James, however, was not made like that: and if he had practical ability he hated the Scotch law and lawyers far too much ever to use it with success. He had a taste for extravagant behaviour and liked to exhibit his high spirits. Johnson might A FATHER'S VIEWS condone this, though he disapproved of it, and love Boswell the more, because 'he was a boy longer than others.' Lord Auchinleck regarded it with alarm while Boswell was young, and with contempt when he was of a mature age. Conduct that would have been regrettable to a milder father, was to him intolerable.

It is not surprising, then, that Boswell found the company of his father extremely irksome:

We divaricate so much (he writes to Temple) that I am often hurt when I dare say he means no harm; and he has a method of treating me which makes me feel like a timid boy, which to me (comprehending all that my character does in my own imagination, and in that of a wonderful number of mankind) is intolerable. I have appeared good-humoured; but it has cost me drinking a considerable quantity of strong beer to dull my faculties.

The stern father had undoubtedly some good reasons for disapproving of the irresponsible James. Besides the habitual lack of restraint in Boswell's behaviour, money was a continual source of irritation. The heir to Auchinleck, it is clear, considered that he had a sort of natural right to his father's money. He found an allowance of £300 a year insufficient. He wrote to Temple in a complaining tone about his financial difficulties and his father:

He allows me £300 a year. But I find that what I gain by practice and that sum together will not support my family. I have now two sons and three daughters. I am in hopes that my father will augment my allowance to £400.

He admits, however, that 'his paying £1000 of my debt some years ago was a large bounty.' Lord Auchinleck, no doubt with justice, considered Boswell to be extravagant; and he did not approve of his marriage. 'I understand,' writes Boswell, 'he fancies that if I had married another woman, I might not only have had a better portion with her, but might have been kept from what he thinks idle and extravagant conduct.'

The indiscretion of Boswell in his correspondence and conversation with his father must have continually aggravated the pronounced prejudices and preferences of the ill-tempered old lawyer. It was a wanton imprudence to express his extreme aversion to his father's second marriage; we can hardly doubt that he was equally imprudent with regard to the Scotch law and Scotch legal circles. Boswell intended that his father should appreciate him for what he was rather than tolerate him for what he was not. In 1767 he writes to Temple:

How unaccountable it is 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 whom you know. I write to him with warmth, with an honest pride, wishing that he should think of me as I am; but my letters shock him, and every expression in them is interpreted unfavourably.

Boswell did not understand that the temperaments of his father and himself were in some degree incompatible, and he succeeded in emphasising their points of disagreement rather than cultivating what they had in common. He was very slow to realise how much his father disapproved of his literary friends in London, and of Dr. Johnson in particular: to Temple he exclaims, with horrified surprise, 'he harps on my going over Scotland with a brute (think how shockingly erroneous) and wandering (or some such phrase) to London.' Johnson was actually taken to visit Auchinleck—a most hazardous experiment!

Boswell must certainly be blamed, if blame can be distributed in this sort, for indiscretion, but not for unkindness. From no passage in the 'Letters to Temple' can it be inferred that he disliked his father, or wished to displease him; on several occasions he speaks of him with affection. Moreover the obligation to be deliberately kind to one who cannot occupy the position of a friend is based upon a supposed affection on his part. Boswell clearly was not cruel in any positive or malevolent sense; he can only be condemned as unkind if it be proved that he was inconsiderate to a man who displayed a substantial affection towards him. But Lord Auchinlech cannot be said to have done this—if we may accept as true the dictum of Dr. Johnson to Boswell on the occasion of his father's death: 'His disposition towards you was undoubtedly that of a kind, though not of a fond father.' And so we may say that Boswell was a disappointing, though not a bad son.

.....

In 1782 Boswell, on his father's death, became Laird of Auchinleck. The new position was a matter of importance to him. Not only were the duties it involved such duties as he liked to perform, but it was a considerable advance in the right direction. He was the man of property. A part of his dream was come true; and he could now invest himself with a fresh halo of respect and respectability derived from his new station. Local and public affairs were more intimately connected in the eighteenth century than in our own day; and, when the men of estate had a monopoly of governing, it was not unnatural for one who inherited land to cast his eyes beyond the fences of his patrimony. At the age of forty-two Boswell was by no means too old to look forward. The event of inheriting quickened his aspirations, and the prospect of becoming 'the great man' seemed nearer.

The ambitions of Boswell were not destined to be realised in any high degree.

His hopes were of a double nature; they were both legal and political. Of his early life at the Bar BOSWELL BECOMES LAIRD we have already spoken, and we must now briefly trace out the course of his legal career to its dismal conclusion.

It was hardly to be expected that a man who disliked and despised so much the whole Scotch atmosphere of his work should persevere with it. Boswell was so discontented with his lot that he began to hope for a change which should bring him into a more congenial situation. In 1775 he entered at the Inner Temple with the intention of being called eventually to the English Bar.

Ambition was one motive which prompted Boswell to seek a different sphere; he seems to have thought the abilities which were cramped in Scotland and were not appreciated by the Scotch would grow in London to their full stature and be handsomely recognised. In 1777 he talked to Johnson upon the subject of the English Bar:

I had long complained to him that I felt myself discontented in Scotland as too narrow a sphere, and that I wished to make my chief residence in London, the great scene of ambition, instruction and amusement: a scene which was to me, comparatively speaking, a heaven upon earth.

There were, however, a number of reasons which prevented Boswell from making his home in London till long after this conversation. The possibility of his father's death, which would probably make him the Laird of Auchinleck, was always present to him, and it would be inconvenient as well as expensive to have a separate establishment in London. It was by no means certain, moreover, as Boswell seems to have realised, that there would be much financial gain by the change, and he could not afford to fail at the English Bar; his father as well as Johnson opposed the step, a consideration which would probably in itself have prevented it, from interested motives on Boswell's part if from no others.

We found Jemmy Boswell lying upon the pavement—inebriated. We subscribed at supper a guinea for him and half-a-crown for his clerk, and sent him next morning a brief with instructions to move for the writ Quare adhæsit pavimento, with observations calculated to induce him to think that it required great learning to explain the necessity of granting it. He sent all round the town to attornies for books, but in vain. He moved, however, for the writ, making the best use he could of the observations in the brief. The judge was astonished and the audience amazed. The judge said, 'I never heard of such a writ—what can it be that adheres pavimento? Are any of you gentlemen at the Bar able to explain this?' The Bar laughed. At last one of them said, 'My Lord, Mr. Boswell last night adhæsit pavimento. There was no moving him for some time. At last he was carried to bed, and he has been dreaming about himself and the pavement.'

Boswell himself pours out to Temple in plaintive accents the tangled story of a wig lost at Carlisle in 1789, from which we may suspect, as he did himself, another practical joke. 'I suspected a wanton trick, which some people think witty, but I thought it very ill-timed to one in my situation.'

We might judge from the manner in which he was treated by his fellow-lawyers that Boswell was not wholly successful at the English Bar. No one can have realised this more keenly than himself.

'I am sadly discouraged,' he writes, 'by having no practice, nor probable prospect of it.... Yet the delusion of Westminster Hall, of brilliant reputation and splendid fortune as a barrister, still weighs upon my imagination. I must be seen in the courts, and must hope for some happy openings in causes of importance. The Chancellor, as you observe, has not done as I expected; but why did I expect it?' Later in the same year, 1789, he exclaims: 'O Temple! Temple! is this realising any of the towering hopes which have so often been the subject of our conversations and letters?' It is pathetic to see him clinging still to the old hopes and ideals, when his real title to fame lay near at hand in his Johnsonian stores, so much thought of, and yet so little valued beside the great world of practical affairs.

Boswell, moreover, had never the reputation which is suitable for a legal man. The sober citizen does not choose either the adventurer or the littérateur to plead his cause before a jury. His connections with actors, who were disapproved as a class by the respectable community, told against Boswell in legal circles. And worst of all was the tour in the Hebrides with the avowed enemy of Scotland.

Boswell, besides, acquired a reputation for eccentricity which must have been fatal to the chances of a barrister.

One habit, that of attending executions, deserves a closer examination; by this behaviour Boswell made himself conspicuous in a wholly unprofessional attitude, which must have been extremely damaging to his position as a lawyer. 'I must confess,' he writes, 'that I myself am never absent from a public execution.... When I first attended them I was shocked to the greatest degree. I was in a manner convulsed with pity and terror, and for several days, EXECUTIONS but especially nights after, I was in a very dismal situation.' The object in the first place seems then to have been the mere indulgence of morbid sentiment; but later he continued the habit more out of curiosity and as an inherent part of his whole study of Man.

I can now see one with great composure. I can account for this curiosity in a philosophical manner, when I consider that death is the most awful object before every man who ever directs his thoughts seriously towards futurity. Therefore it is that I feel an irresistible impulse to be present at every execution, as I there behold the various effects of the near approach of death.

In accordance with this practice Boswell accompanied a celebrated criminal, Hackman, in the prison coach to the gibbet; and he made the acquaintance of the murderess Mrs. Rudd. The latter apparently was an interesting woman. Johnson entirely approved Boswell's conduct, and said he would have done the same himself if he had not been afraid that his presence would be reported in the newspapers. It is interesting to note that Boswell had scruples, and wrote to Temple: 'Perhaps the adventure with Mrs. Rudd is very foolish notwithstanding the approbation of Dr. Johnson.'

On one occasion Boswell persuaded Sir Joshua Reynolds to go with him, and evidently won him over to his view about the question of propriety: 'I am obliged to you,' wrote Sir Joshua, 'for carrying me yesterday to see the execution at Newgate of the five malefactors. I am convinced it is a vulgar error in the opinion that it is so terrible a spectacle, or that it in any way implies a hardness of heart or cruelty of disposition.'

Sir Walter Scott gives a kinder motive on Boswell's part than mere curiosity:

He used to visit the prisoners on the day before execution, with the singular wish to make the condemned wretches laugh by dint of buffoonery, in which he not infrequently succeeded.

The satisfaction which Boswell had from these strange interviews was no doubt in part the commendable satisfaction of being kind and good; and his piety as well as his jesting may have been a comfort to many of these criminals in their last hours. It was also a pleasure to Boswell to read his name in the newspaper on the day following an execution. But probably this conduct did not earn the praises of the Scotch lawyers nor inspire the confidence of the litigating public.

.....

The failure which attended Boswell's legal career included also his political schemes.

It is clear that Boswell had an idea of some kind of Parliamentary career. His ambition was to be a Minister:

POLITICAL AMBITIONS He [Hume] says there will in all probability be a change of the Ministry soon, which he regrets. Oh Temple, while they change so often, how does one feel an ambition to have a share in that great department; but I fear my wish to be a man of consequence in the State is much like some of your ambitious sallies.

Boswell, if he was ambitious in 1775 of some high office in the State, can certainly have had little chance, as he evidently realised, of being immediately satisfied. His financial difficulties alone would have prevented this. But when in 1782 he became the Laird of Auchinleck the increase of his importance seemed to warrant some more definite plan. 'I wish much to be in Parliament, Sir,' he said to Johnson; and though the latter discouraged him he applied himself with energy to his political schemes.

You are now connected with a nobleman [Lord Lonsdale] who serves his friends with a zeal and spirit which I hope will be attended with the happiest consequences to your establishment in England. I also anticipate his bringing you into the House of Commons, as an event no less certain and splendid to your fortunes.

The word seems to do very well. Boswell writes later:

But this would seem to be the final achievement of Boswell's political career, for he was not successful in the General Election, and we hear no more in the 'Letters' of political schemes.

Dear Sir,—Upon my honour I began a letter to you some time ago, and did not finish it, because I imagined you were then near your apotheosis—as poor Goldsmith said upon a former occasion, when he thought your party was coming into administration; and being one of your old barons of Scotland, my pride could not brook the appearance of paying my court to a Minister, amongst the crowd of interested expectants on his accession.

Certainly if one wishes to obtain a post it is better to avoid the 'crowd of interested expectants.' The 'old baron' too is an excellent card to play to one who is not of the aristocratic circles; few men are free from the taint of snobbishness, and patronage may be courted by cultivating disinterested friendship. It is well at the same time to remember Qui s'excuse s'accuse. 'At present,' Boswell continues, 'I take it for granted that I need be under no such apprehension, and, therefore, I resume the indulgence of my inclination.' Only one who was really interested and wished to conceal the fact could be so careful. Boswell realises that there is something rather odd about the explanation. It may not after all be entirely wise. It is possible that men rather like it to be thought that they have much patronage, and find some pleasure in being asked for favours. 'This may be, perhaps, a singular method of beginning a correspondence; and, in one sense may not be very complimentative. But I can sincerely assure you, my dear Sir, that it is a genuine compliment to Mr. Burke himself.' The explanation of how it is a compliment is now to follow, but the desire for self-excuse obtrudes itself again: 'It is generally thought no meanness to solicit the notice and favour of a man in power, and, surely, it is much less a meanness to endeavour, by honest means, to have the honour and pleasure of being on an agreeable footing with a superior man of knowledge, abilities and genius.' A further excuse is furnished by the favours shown to Boswell in the past by Mr. Burke himself:

I have to thank you for the obligation which you have already conferred upon me, by the welcome which I have, upon repeated occasions, experienced under your roof.

A LETTER TO BURKEWhen I was last in London, you gave me a general invitation, which I value more than a treasury warrant: an invitation to the 'feast of reason'; and what I like still more, the 'flow of the soul,' which you dispense with liberal and elegant abundance, is, in my estimation, a privilege of enjoying certain felicity.

The comparison between the places that come of courting a patron and this sublime 'felicity' that comes of friendship must still be maintained—'and we know that riches and honour are desirable only as a means of felicity, and that they often fail of the end.'

It is necessary now to give an account of his political opinions, so that Mr. Burke may be assured that Mr. Boswell is his supporter:

Most heartily do I rejoice that our present Ministers have, at last, yielded to conciliation. For amidst all the sanguinary zeal of my countrymen I have professed myself a friend to our fellow-subjects in America, so far as they claim an exemption from being taxed by the representatives of the King's British subjects. I do not perfectly agree with you; for I deny the Declaratory Act; and I am a warm Tory, in its true constitutional sense.

It will be noticed that the assertion of independence adds to this declaration a considerable degree of importance. After so careful a preparation the real point of the letter may be disclosed:

I wish I were a Commissioner, or one of the Secretaries of the Commission, for the grand treaty. I am to be in London this spring, and if His Majesty should ask me what I would choose, my answer will be, to assist at the compact between Britain and America.

The letter to Burke is only less absurd than the letter to Chatham, which was quoted above. What most surprises us is not the vanity of the young man who confided to Chatham his hopes and prospects, nor his impudence in asking a Minister to favour him with a letter and in bothering Burke with his political opinions, but the entire ignorance displayed by a man of intelligence about the kind of impression that letters such as these would produce upon their recipients.

Boswell indeed as we have said—and it is a sufficient reason to account for his failure—was a fool. It is this ignorance of the minds of others about oneself, a certain simplicity of character, an unquestioning, childlike self-confidence, that makes fools of men. No fool would wish to be thought foolish, and if a fool were to understand what was thought about him he would soon alter his behaviour. His foolishness depends upon the fact that in this respect he has no imagination. The ignorance of Boswell about the effect of his behaviour is the more remarkable because he was in many ways intelligent, sagacious, and extremely observant. It was not a quality which vanished with maturity, though it was slightly modified in later years: he was nearly fifty when he wrote to Temple an account of his attempts to enlist PITT the patronage of Pitt (the younger), which shows how completely he misunderstood the whole situation:

It is utter folly in Pitt not to reward and attach to his administration a man of my popular and pleasant talents, whose merit he has acknowledged in a letter under his own hand. He did not answer several letters, which I wrote at intervals, requesting to wait upon him; I lately wrote to him that such behaviour to me was certainly not generous. 'I think it is not just, and (forgive the freedom) I doubt if it be wise. If I do not hear from you in ten days, I shall conclude that you are resolved to have no farther communication with me; for I assure you, Sir, I am extremely unwilling to give you, or indeed myself, unnecessary trouble.' About two months have elapsed, and he has made no sign.

And it was an ignorance which included even his own father:

But if all fools are alike in so far as they have this common foundation upon which the flimsy fabric of folly is erected, yet they differ widely in the manner of their foolishness. To say that a man is a fool is to say but little of all that is meant by the expression in his individual case. Boswell was a fool in a number of ways which we shall now have to consider.

The extract of Boswell's letter to his father which we have quoted above in his letter to Temple is typical of one phase of all his foolishness. The impulse which made him write in this place about 'cultivating his little farm and ornamenting his nuptial villa' is one which he frequently had. It is difficult to find a name which exactly fits it. It is the melodramatic instinct applied to real life. The words which he uses in this case contain a sentiment beyond the mere facts they represent; and it is a false sentiment—false not because he did not feel it, but because there was no occasion for it; sentiment is wasted. In Boswell there was a sentimental side to the affectation that we have already spoken of as having been partially cured by Johnson. It is not meant, by this expression, that Boswell consciously assumed sentiment which he did not feel: we cannot always tell whether he was conscious or not; and it does not matter. Affectation implies only the presence of what is unreal; it is concerned as much with the feeling of what is false as with falsely pretending to feel.

EXTRAVAGANT WORDSPerhaps the most remarkable of Boswell's extravagant utterances are those to Temple on the subject of their friendship. He idealises this to suit his conception of the most perfect of human relationships, and frequently alludes to it. 'May indulgent Heaven grant a continuance of our friendship! As our minds improve in knowledge, may the sacred flame still increase, until at last we reach the glorious world above, when we shall never be separated, but enjoy an everlasting society of bliss!' He was able to enjoy the 'luxury of philosophy and friendship,' and 'invaluable hours of elegant friendship and classical sociality,' and 'calmly smile' in consequence 'at the attacks of envy or of malevolence.' Temple, 'whose kind and amiable counsel never failed to soothe my dejected mind,' was told to 'reflect, my friend, that you have sure comfort, you have true friends—you have Nichols and Boswell, whom you may look upon as parts of yourself. Consider this as an exalted comfort which few enjoy, although they have many of the shining gifts of fortune.' He seems at one moment to have suspected that he might grow cold in his affection:

I am a quick fire, but I know not if I last sufficiently, though, surely, my dear Temple, there is always a warm place for you. With many people I have compared myself to a taper, which can light up a great and lasting fire though itself is soon extinguished.

The friendship, indeed, was of the greatest value to Boswell; as we see, behind his absurd manner of expressing it, it must have been a comfort to him in many disappointments:

His friendship with Mrs. Stuart is treated in the same manner:

The romantic sphere into which Boswell elevated these friendships contrasts very strangely with his acute analysis to Johnson of his true sentiments: 'The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef.' One would suspect that the feeling of friendship with him was, as he might have expressed it himself, like a balloon, which rises higher and higher as it is more blown out with gas.

The affectation or extravagance of Boswell appears also from time to time in his pious and moral remarks.

Boswell, however, though he was continually posing, posed not for others but for himself. He had an insatiable greed of sensation. He derived prodigious pleasure from the view of himself in a situation. 'I cannot resist,' he says, 'the serious pleasure of writing to Mr. Johnson from the tomb of Melancthon. My paper rests upon the tomb of that great and good man.' While he wrote the letter he admired the scene he had arranged. He admired himself playing every kind of rôle; he could be the grave author, or the romantic lover, the scholar of 'solid learning' or the elegant ENJOYMENT OF LIFE man of the world, the sage counsellor or the jolly good fellow, the enthusiast for liberty who talked heroics with Paoli and politics with Chatham, explorer and diplomat, the feudal lord or the humble paterfamilias of a rustic domesticity; he could be literary, theological, pious, philosophical, legal, or political, as occasion suited, with profound enjoyment of the part he was acting. He delighted in the solemnity of a vow, and even had a taste for the solitude of a hermit: 'Sometimes,' he exclaims, 'I have been in the humour of wishing to retire to a desert.' His gust for London was the same gust for sensation; and his pursuit of distinguished men was partly for the sake of an added zest and excitement from their company.

'You can almost see him,' says Lionel Johnson, 'reckoning up, as it were, on his plump fingers, his eminent acquaintances, the cities and courts he has visited, his writings and flirtations and experiences in general: they are his treasures and his triumphs. The acquisition of Johnson was but the greatest of them all, his crowning achievement; all his life was devoted to social coups d'état. To hear service in an Anglican cathedral, to attend an exceptionally choice murderer to the gallows; to contrive a meeting between Johnson and Wilkes;... to pray among the ruins of Iona, and to run away for fear of ghosts; to turn Roman Catholic, and immediately to run away with an actress: each and all of these performances were to him sensational, enlivening, vivid.'

Boswell was not unaware of this extravagance in his temperament. He alludes to his 'warm imagination.' In 'Boswelliana,' pleased at having found 'a good image,' he records:

There have been many people who built castles in the air; but, I believe, I am the first who ever attempted to live in them.

By castles in the air, he means not only glorious plans for the future, but the sensational and emotional in common incidents. A moment during the 'Tour to the Hebrides' reveals the whole of what he meant:

I can never forget the impression made upon my fancy by some of the ladies' maids tripping about in neat morning dresses. After seeing for a long time little but rusticity, their lively appearance pleased me so much that I thought for a moment I could have been a knight-errant for them.

A knight-errant for a couple of Scotch maids! A preposterous fancy! But none the less it is Boswell.

It would be too large a task to deal here with all the recorded affectation or extravagance of Boswell. But we must not omit to mention one particular phase of it. Consciously or unconsciously, Boswell in some degree imitated Dr. Johnson—precisely in what degree it is difficult to determine.

IMITATION OF JOHNSONThe influence which Johnson had upon his faithful follower has been discussed already. This must be carefully distinguished from the imitation in question now; for an influence is something acquired from the manner and mind of another, assimilated and reproduced, not as original but as genuine; an imitation is, as it were, a garment put on, an adornment of the outward person, reflecting no true sentiment within.

Though Johnson had a real moral influence upon Boswell, some of his remarks, and especially some of the pious exclamations, such as those we have quoted, were of the latter kind. We find passages in the 'Life' when Boswell makes truly Johnsonian remarks; as on the occasion when, in a discussion about the freedom of the will, Dr. Mayo alluded to the distinction between moral and physical necessity, and Boswell replied: 'Alas! Sir, they come both to the same thing. You may be bound as hard by chains when covered by leather, as when the iron appears'; or when he said in answer to Dr. Johnson's remark that he had downed Dr. Robertson with the King of Prussia, 'Yes, Sir, you threw a bottle at his head.'

When actually in his presence, it is clear from Fanny Burney's account that Boswell imitated Dr. Johnson:

It is a curious and striking picture, and we may gather that there was always something odd and laughable, and yet rather lamentable, about Boswell's appearance. The effect of imitation he seems sometimes half-conscious of producing, from the care with which he accentuates in the 'Life' and the 'Tour' any point of difference between Dr. Johnson and himself. But it must be remembered that Miss Burney's account is an account of particular circumstances—the company was a large one, and not an inner circle of more intimate friends of Boswell and Johnson. We have no reason to suppose that Boswell's behaviour, particularly his behaviour apart from Dr. Johnson, was greatly affected by this strange homage to his friend.

It is clear in any case that affectation, however LITERARY SENTIMENTALITY much it may have taken a Johnsonian form, was fundamental in Boswell's character; for we can see it plainly before the date of that eventful meeting. Johnson indeed had a marked aversion from the kind of sentimentality which Boswell frequently indulged in, and there is in it something which could not possibly have been the effect of imitating Dr. Johnson. How very far removed from anything which Johnson could have done is the absurd conduct of Boswell (the best instance, perhaps, of this kind of affectation in him) when he visited Mr. Ireland and saw the fraudulent Shakespeare papers:

However absurd the behaviour of Boswell in the rôle of a man of letters may seem to us when we understand the feelings which prompted it, it is doubtful whether it would have been sufficient alone to give him the reputation of a fool. Extravagance of this kind is not very commonly condemned if it is not seen to be insincere, and though it is easy enough for us who are in possession of all the records of his life to see the imposture, it must have been more difficult for those who knew Boswell to have a real interest in literature, and to be already a man of letters, to understand that he was posing as the literary man. His acquaintance would more readily have called him a fool on account of his vanity.

We have all at bottom in some degree the love of self, and vanity is the expression we apply to it when it causes us in some way to lose our sense of proportion, to see things, as it were, in a false perspective. Self-love becomes vanity when we love ourselves undeservedly, or when it makes necessary to us the approbation of others. Usually when it has one effect it has also the other.

But Boswell was vain, not, like many people, of VANITY qualities which he did not possess, or which, if he did possess them, were no cause for self-congratulation, but because he had an uncontrollable desire that everyone else should know about his success and share his wonder and admiration. It was not so much that he exaggerated his importance, though he did that sometimes, as that he exaggerated the importance to other people of his importance. He not only desired their applause as well as his own, but assumed, with his curious ignorance of the mind of others in matters which concerned himself, that what interested him would naturally interest them.

'For my own part, I should claim no credit, did I not flatter myself that I practise what I now presume to recommend. I have mentioned former circumstances, perhaps of too much egotism, to show that I am no time server; and at this moment, friends to whom I am attached by affection, gratitude, and interest, are zealous for the measure which I deem so alarming. Let me add that a dismission of the Portland administration will probably disappoint an object which I have most ardently at heart.

The second letter alludes to the former one as though it had almost created a revolution, and manages in the same sentence to remind his readers that he had the approval of Pitt and was himself descended from an old Scotch family:

I had the happiness to find my letter received not only with indulgence, but with a generous warmth of heart I can never forget, but to the latest moment of my life shall most gratefully remember. The fire of loyalty was kindled. It flew through our counties and our boroughs. The King was addressed: the Constitution was saved. I was proud to have been able thus ciere viros; prouder still than of receiving the applause of the Minister of the Crown, which he was pleased to convey to me in a very handsome letter; upon which, however, I set a high value, considering not only the Minister, but the man; and accordingly it shall be preserved in the archives of my family.

In the same pamphlet Boswell refers to his wife's aristocratic connections, and intrudes an assertion of his domestic felicity which could have no bearing on ABSURDITY IN PUBLIC the political theme. He wishes to appear as 'the friend of Lord Eglintoun':

Amongst those friends I myself am one of the warmest, both as an enthusiast for ancient feudal attachments, and as having the honour and happiness to be married to his Lordship's relation, a true Montgomerie, whom I esteem, after fifteen years, as on the day when she gave me her hand.

This declaration satisfied in some strange manner a personal vanity, and was also no doubt intended to enlist the support of his Lordship.

But by far the most remarkable story of Boswell's absurdities is one told by John Taylor, editor of the Sun, about his behaviour at a public dinner:

The value of this tale as evidence of Boswell's behaviour and character depends in some degree upon the extent of his potations. Though he may have had the audacity to do such things when in a normal condition, it must have been easier to do them when tipsy. It may be judged, from the continuation of Dr. Taylor's story, that a part of Boswell's confidence in the presence of Mr. Pitt was due to the festivity of the occasion:

Boswell and I came away together, both in so convivial a mood that we roared out all the way 'The Grocer of London,' till we reached Hatton Garden, where I then resided, to the annoyance of many watchmen whom we roused from their peaceful slumbers, without, however, being taken into custody for disturbing their repose.... I met him the next day about twelve o'clock near St. Dunstan's Church, as fresh as a rose.

THE GROCERS' DINNERFitzgerald, after quoting this account of the mayoralty dinner, continues:

This ludicrous exhibition was much talked of and laughed at. To heighten the absurdity, his Liberal friends affected to be shocked at his want of principle, in singing praises of the 'Grocer,' whom he had been heard to abuse. They were enchanted to find him rise to the bait, and thus vindicate himself: 'Pray let them know that I am vain of a hasty composition which has procured me large draughts of the popular applause in which I delight. Let me add that there was certainly no servility on my part, for I publicly declared in Guildhall, between the encores, "that this same Grocer had treated me arrogantly and ungratefully, but that, from his great merit as a minister, I was compelled to support him." The time will come when I shall have a riper opportunity to show, that in one instance, at least, the man has wanted wisdom.'

He goes on to explain that Boswell gained a good deal of notoriety from the escapade, which was alluded to in a popular satirical poem of the time.

It is easy indeed to understand the motives of Boswell. His childish and unrestrained love of merriment, his insatiable desire to be the wag and the buffoon, enabled him to give vent in the most mirthful fashion to his passion for self-advertisement, to explain how he had been honoured by the attention of kings and how he intended to have an introduction to the great Minister; and with all this he retained a certain fundamental honesty about himself, so that he was compelled to exclaim between the encores 'that this same Minister had treated me arrogantly and ungratefully.' He understood so little what was the opinion of the company about him that he seems to have believed that he was recommending himself to a patron, and he was so vain that he was undoubtedly proud of what must have been an absurd composition.

It is remarkable, when we recollect what a large sense of humour he had, that many of his verses and of his jokes should be so dull and colourless. But the faculty for appreciating what is amusing is very different from the capacity for originating it. It is HUMOROUS VERSE the difference between humour and wit. The latter involves the power of expression; and a man may as easily be full of humour, without making a joke, as he may be by nature a poet without ever writing a line of good poetry. Boswell had some wit, but not very much—far less than anyone would imagine merely from reading the 'Life' or the 'Tour.' His position perhaps is not unlike that of several poets who have written some stanzas and stray lines of a rare beauty, and are none the less poets because they have written also much that seems quite unpoetical.

A specimen of Boswell's humorous verse is printed in the 'Life.' He had dined one evening at Lord Montrose's and afterwards went to Miss Monckton's, where 'a great number of persons of the first rank' were assembled, in a state of improper elevation. 'Next day,' says Boswell, 'I endeavoured to give what had happened the most ingenious turn I could, by the following verses:

Certainly this is amusing in some degree, and amusing too in an original way; but much of it is mere rhyming without any sort of wit. Boswell could be as banal as anyone. An ode ('Horatian Ode,' he calls it) to Charles Dilly, which is chiefly concerned with one Dr. Lettsom, frequently the host of both Boswell and Dilly, exhibits the author of humorous verse at his worst; it will be enough to quote one stanza:

Boswell's mots are of a common eighteenth-century type. The turn of phrase admired by both Johnson and Boswell and most of their contemporaries JOKES IN 'BOSWELLIANA' was the image. In 'Boswelliana' is a story of Boswell's introduction to Scotch lawyers: 'Boswell had a great aversion to the law, but forced himself to enter upon that laborious profession in compliance with the anxious desire of his father, for whom he had the greatest regard. After putting on the gown he said with great good humour to his brother advocates, 'Gentlemen, I am prest into the service here; but I have observed that a prest man, either by sea or land, after a little time does just as well as a volunteer.'

That is Boswell at his best.

Here is another specimen of Boswell's wit: 'A modern man of taste found fault with the avenues at Auchinleck, and said he wished to see straggling trees. 'I wish,' said Boswell, 'I could see straggling fools in this world.'

That is Boswell at his worst.

The enjoyment which Boswell had in public at Stratford and at the mayoralty dinner and in private, no doubt, on many occasions of which unfortunately we have no account, is perhaps best illustrated and best understood from a single sentence of his own in one of the 'Letters to Temple':

I was the great man (as we used to say) at the late Drawing-Room, in a suit of imperial blue lined with rose-coloured silk, and ornamented with rich gold-wrought buttons.

For the eagerness which Boswell had to reveal to others anything about himself which he was proud of, and a sort of inevitable obtrusiveness in him, Johnson with his usual shrewdness found an excellent parallel which is faithfully recounted in the 'Life':

Once when checking my boasting too frequently of myself in company, he said to me, 'Boswell, you often vaunt so much as to provoke ridicule. You put me in mind of a man who was standing in the kitchen of an inn with his back to the fire, and thus accosted the person next him, "Do you know, sir, GULLIBILITY who I am?" "No, sir," said the other, "I have not that advantage." "Sir," said he, "I am the great Twalmley, who invented the New Floodgate Iron."'

Endowed with these qualities of unsuspecting simplicity and open-mouthed vanity, Boswell naturally became, as we have seen, an object of mirth to his fellow-lawyers. When they took away his wig he did indeed half suspect a trick; but how confident and innocent and entirely unsuspicious he is when he boldly pleads for the writ, 'Quare adhaesit pavimento.' His own story of the storm during the sail to Mull, told in the 'Tour to the Hebrides,' illustrates perhaps better than any other the childish confidence of his conduct. Boswell, though filled with undisguised terror, still ardently wished to play the man and be the hero, and he thought, no doubt, as he stood holding the rope in expectation of the captain's command, that the post assigned to him was one of vital importance.

As I saw them all busy doing something, I asked Col, with much earnestness, what I could do. He, with a happy readiness, put into my hand a rope, which was fixed to the top of one of the masts, and told me to hold it till he bade me pull. If I had considered the matter, I might have seen that this could not be of the least service; but his object was to keep me out of the way of those who were busy working the vessel, and at the same time to divert my fear by employing me and making me think that I was of use. Thus did I stand firm to my post, while the wind and rain beat upon me, always expecting a call to pull my rope.'

The vanity and simplicity of Boswell no doubt obtruded themselves very frequently in his behaviour; and they caused a certain expansiveness and recklessness of conversation which would be interpreted at once as thoughtless and foolish. We have an admirable glimpse into the kind of atmosphere produced by his talk in a story which he tells of a snub he received from Colman:

Nor was it merely from his disregard of what was appropriate that his conversation might be thought foolish, but rather because a man who is very ready to talk of his most intimate thoughts and feelings is usually supposed to be a fool.

Boswell certainly had far more candour than most men, and he had also a far greater curiosity and interest in mankind, which made him ready to talk like a child of things about which many men prefer to be silent. But it would seem, too, that though far from incapable of feeling deep emotion he was unaffected where most of us would be touched. 'He was a boy longer than others,' and this perhaps is the explanation.