Note 7: — Chapter III

Boswell had in fact a real generosity of character; he GENEROSITY hated anything mean, and expressed himself as anxious to cure his own 'narrowness.' He could be kind to his friends and was willing to lend money. He was interested as a lawyer in the decisions of the courts and readily bestowed his sympathy. On behalf of a certain Dr. Dodd, a divine who was under sentence of death for forgery, he wrote to Dr. Johnson: 'If for ten righteous men the Almighty would have spared Sodom, shall not a thousand acts of goodness done by Dr. Dodd counterbalance one crime?' And Dr. Johnson afterwards used his pen in Dr. Dodd's service. On another occasion he appealed for his friend's assistance in the case of a Scotch schoolmaster—a client of Boswell's, who had been 'deprived of his office for being somewhat severe in the chastisement of his scholars': Boswell in his letter to Johnson seems to have at heart both the interests of the schoolmaster and the principle of corporal punishment. For his friend Temple he more than once went out of his way to obtain some favour. He treated his tenants with the greatest consideration, and even made special provisions in his will for their future welfare.7 But Boswell was not one of those who continually exercise these amiable qualities. It is probable indeed that, had he tried, he would have met with more rebuffs than encouragement. To be flagrantly kind with any success requires a good deal of cunning, and of that useful quality Boswell had extremely little: he was likely to appear in any good work more meddlesome than great-hearted. But if with him care for the happiness of others was not the first consideration, he was at bottom a sympathetic, kind-hearted man, and capable of generous actions.