Samuel Johnson - Leslie Stephen
[Footnote 1: The story is often told how Boswell appeared at the
Stratford Jubilee with "Corsica Boswell" in large letters on his hat.
The account given apparently by himself is sufficiently amusing, but the
statement is not quite fair. Boswell not unnaturally appeared at a
masquerade in the dress of a Corsican chief, and the inscription on his
hat seems to have been "Viva la Liberta."]
In other ways Boswell was more successful in aping his friend's
peculiarities. When in company with Johnson, he became delightfully
pious. "My dear sir," he exclaimed once with unrestrained fervour, "I
would fain be a good man, and I am very good now. I fear God and honour
the king; I wish to do no ill and to be benevolent to all mankind."
Boswell hopes, "for the felicity of human nature," that many experience
this mood; though Johnson judiciously suggested that he should not trust
too much to impressions. In some matters Boswell showed a touch of
independence by outvying the Johnsonian prejudices. He was a warm
admirer of feudal principles, and especially held to the propriety of
entailing property upon heirs male. Johnson had great difficulty in
persuading him to yield to his father's wishes, in a settlement of the
estate which contravened this theory. But Boswell takes care to declare
that his opinion was not shaken. "Yet let me not be thought," he adds,
"harsh or unkind to daughters; for my notion is that they should be
treated with great affection and tenderness, and always participate of
the prosperity of the family." His estimate of female rights is
indicated in another phrase. When Mrs. Knowles, the Quaker, expressed a
hope that the sexes would be equal in another world, Boswell replied,
"That is too ambitious, madam. _We_ might as well desire to be equal
with the angels." Boswell, again, differed from Johnson--who, in spite
of his love of authority, had a righteous hatred for all recognized
tyranny--by advocating the slave-trade. To abolish that trade would, he
says, be robbery of the masters and cruelty to the African savages. Nay,
he declares, to abolish it would be
To shut the gates of mercy on mankind!
Boswell was, according to Johnson, "the best travelling companion in the
world." In fact, for such purposes, unfailing good-humour and readiness
to make talk at all hazards are high recommendations. "If, sir, you were
shut up in a castle and a new-born baby with you, what would you do?" is
one of his questions to Johnson,--_a propos_ of nothing. That is
exquisitely ludicrous, no doubt; but a man capable of preferring such a
remark to silence helps at any rate to keep the ball rolling. A more
objectionable trick was his habit not only of asking preposterous or
indiscreet questions, but of setting people by the ears out of sheer
curiosity. The appearance of so queer a satellite excited astonishment
among Johnson's friends. "Who is this Scotch cur at Johnson's heels?"
asked some one. "He is not a cur," replied Goldsmith; "he is only a bur.
Tom Davies flung him at Johnson in sport, and he has the faculty of
sticking." The bur stuck till the end of Johnson's life. Boswell visited
London whenever he could, and soon began taking careful notes of
Johnson's talk. His appearance, when engaged in this task long
afterwards, is described by Miss Burney. Boswell, she says, concentrated
his whole attention upon his idol, not even answering questions from
others. When Johnson spoke, his eyes goggled with eagerness; he leant
his ear almost on the Doctor's shoulder; his mouth dropped open to
catch every syllable; and he seemed to listen even to Johnson's
breathings as though they had some mystical significance. He took every
opportunity of edging himself close to Johnson's side even at
meal-times, and was sometimes ordered imperiously back to his place like
a faithful but over-obtrusive spaniel.
It is hardly surprising that Johnson should have been touched by the
fidelity of this queer follower. Boswell, modestly enough, attributes
Johnson's easy welcome to his interest in all manifestations of the
human mind, and his pleasure in an undisguised display of its workings.
The last pleasure was certainly to be obtained in Boswell's society. But
in fact Boswell, though his qualities were too much those of the
ordinary "good fellow," was not without virtues, and still less without
remarkable talents. He was, to all appearance, a man of really generous
sympathies, and capable of appreciating proofs of a warm heart and a
vigorous understanding. Foolish, vain, and absurd in every way, he was
yet a far kindlier and more genuine man than many who laughed at him.
His singular gifts as an observer could only escape notice from a
careless or inexperienced reader. Boswell has a little of the true
Shaksperian secret. He lets his characters show themselves without
obtruding unnecessary comment. He never misses the point of a story,
though he does not ostentatiously call our attention to it. He gives
just what is wanted to indicate character, or to explain the full
meaning of a repartee. It is not till we compare his reports with those
of less skilful hearers, that we can appreciate the skill with which the
essence of a conversation is extracted, and the whole scene indicated by
a few telling touches. We are tempted to fancy that we have heard the
very thing, and rashly infer that Boswell was simply the mechanical
transmitter of the good things uttered. Any one who will try to put
down the pith of a brilliant conversation within the same space, may
soon satisfy himself of the absurdity of such an hypothesis, and will
learn to appreciate Boswell's powers not only of memory but artistic
representation. Such a feat implies not only admirable quickness of
appreciation, but a rare literary faculty. Boswell's accuracy is
remarkable; but it is the least part of his merit.
The book which so faithfully reflects the peculiarities of its hero and
its author became the first specimen of a new literary type. Johnson
himself was a master in one kind of biography; that which sets forth a
condensed and vigorous statement of the essentials of a man's life and
character. Other biographers had given excellent memoirs of men
considered in relation to the chief historical currents of the time. But
a full-length portrait of a man's domestic life with enough picturesque
detail to enable us to see him through the eyes of private friendship
did not exist in the language. Boswell's originality and merit may be
tested by comparing his book to the ponderous performance of Sir John
Hawkins, or to the dreary dissertations, falsely called lives, of which
Dugald Stewart's _Life of Robertson_ may be taken for a type. The writer
is so anxious to be dignified and philosophical that the despairing
reader seeks in vain for a single vivid touch, and discovers even the
main facts of the hero's life by some indirect allusion. Boswell's
example has been more or less followed by innumerable successors; and we
owe it in some degree to his example that we have such delightful books
as Lockhart's _Life of Scott_ or Mr. Trevelyan's _Life of Macaulay_. Yet
no later biographer has been quite as fortunate in a subject; and
Boswell remains as not only the first, but the best of his class.
One special merit implies something like genius. Macaulay has given to
the usual complaint which distorts the vision of most biographers the
name of _lues Boswelliana_. It is true that Boswell's adoration of his
hero is a typical example of the feeling. But that which distinguishes
Boswell, and renders the phrase unjust, is that in him adoration never
hindered accuracy of portraiture. "I will not make my tiger a cat to
please anybody," was his answer to well-meaning entreaties of Hannah
More to soften his accounts of Johnson's asperities. He saw
instinctively that a man who is worth anything loses far more than he
gains by such posthumous flattery. The whole picture is toned down, and
the lights are depressed as well as the shadows. The truth is that it is
unscientific to consider a man as a bundle of separate good and bad
qualities, of which one half may be concealed without injury to the
rest. Johnson's fits of bad temper, like Goldsmith's blundering, must be
unsparingly revealed by a biographer, because they are in fact
expressions of the whole character. It is necessary to take them into
account in order really to understand either the merits or the
shortcomings. When they are softened or omitted, the whole story becomes
an enigma, and we are often tempted to substitute some less creditable
explanation of errors for the true one. We should not do justice to
Johnson's intense tenderness, if we did not see how often it was masked
by an irritability pardonable in itself, and not affecting the deeper
springs of action. To bring out the beauty of a character by means of
its external oddities is the triumph of a kindly humourist; and Boswell
would have acted as absurdly in suppressing Johnson's weaknesses, as
Sterne would have done had he made Uncle Toby a perfectly sound and
rational person. But to see this required an insight so rare that it is
wanting in nearly all the biographers who have followed Boswell's
steps, and is the most conclusive proof that Boswell was a man of a
higher intellectual capacity than has been generally admitted.
CHAPTER IV.
JOHNSON AS A LITERARY DICTATOR.
We have now reached the point at which Johnson's life becomes distinctly
visible through the eyes of a competent observer. The last twenty years
are those which are really familiar to us; and little remains but to
give some brief selection of Boswell's anecdotes. The task, however, is
a difficult one. It is easy enough to make a selection of the gems of
Boswell's narrative; but it is also inevitable that, taken from their
setting, they should lose the greatest part of their brilliance. We lose
all the quaint semiconscious touches of character which make the
original so fascinating; and Boswell's absurdities become less amusing
when we are able to forget for an instant that the perpetrator is also
the narrator. The effort, however, must be made; and it will be best to
premise a brief statement of the external conditions of the life.
From the time of the pension until his death, Johnson was elevated above
the fear of poverty. He had a pleasant refuge at the Thrales', where
much of his time was spent; and many friends gathered round him and
regarded his utterances with even excessive admiration. He had still
frequent periods of profound depression. His diaries reveal an inner
life tormented by gloomy forebodings, by remorse for past indolence and
futile resolutions of amendment; but he could always escape from himself
to a society of friends and admirers. His abandonment of wine seems to
have improved his health and diminished the intensity of his melancholy
fits. His literary activity, however, nearly ceased. He wrote a few
political pamphlets in defence of Government, and after a long period of
indolence managed to complete his last conspicuous work--the _Lives of
the Poets_, which was published in 1779 and 1781. One other book of some
interest appeared in 1775. It was an account of the journey made with
Boswell to the Hebrides in 1773. This journey was in fact the chief
interruption to the even tenour of his life. He made a tour to Wales
with the Thrales in 1774; and spent a month with them in Paris in 1775.
For the rest of the period he lived chiefly in London or at Streatham,
making occasional trips to Lichfield and Oxford, or paying visits to
Taylor, Langton, and one or two other friends. It was, however, in the
London which he loved so ardently ("a man," he said once, "who is tired
of London is tired of life"), that he was chiefly conspicuous. There he
talked and drank tea illimitably at his friends' houses, or argued and
laid down the law to his disciples collected in a tavern instead of
Academic groves. Especially he was in all his glory at the Club, which
began its meetings in February, 1764, and was afterwards known as the
Literary Club. This Club was founded by Sir Joshua Reynolds, "our
Romulus," as Johnson called him. The original members were Reynolds,
Johnson, Burke, Nugent, Beauclerk, Langton, Goldsmith, Chamier, and
Hawkins. They met weekly at the Turk's Head, in Gerard Street, Soho, at
seven o'clock, and the talk generally continued till a late hour. The
Club was afterwards increased in numbers, and the weekly supper changed
to a fortnightly dinner. It continued to thrive, and election to it came
to be as great an honour in certain circles as election to a membership
of Parliament. Among the members elected in Johnson's lifetime were
Percy of the _Reliques_, Garrick, Sir W. Jones, Boswell, Fox, Steevens,
Gibbon, Adam Smith, the Wartons, Sheridan, Dunning, Sir Joseph Banks,
Windham, Lord Stowell, Malone, and Dr. Burney. What was best in the
conversation at the time was doubtless to be found at its meetings.
Johnson's habitual mode of life is described by Dr. Maxwell, one of
Boswell's friends, who made his acquaintance in 1754. Maxwell generally
called upon him about twelve, and found him in bed or declaiming over
his tea. A levee, chiefly of literary men, surrounded him; and he seemed
to be regarded as a kind of oracle to whom every one might resort for
advice or instruction. After talking all the morning, he dined at a
tavern, staying late and then going to some friend's house for tea, over
which he again loitered for a long time. Maxwell is puzzled to know when
he could have read or written. The answer seems to be pretty obvious;
namely, that after the publication of the _Dictionary_ he wrote very
little, and that, when he did write, it was generally in a brief spasm
of feverish energy. One may understand that Johnson should have
frequently reproached himself for his indolence; though he seems to have
occasionally comforted himself by thinking that he could do good by
talking as well as by writing. He said that a man should have a part of
his life to himself; and compared himself to a physician retired to a
small town from practice in a great city. Boswell, in spite of this,
said that he still wondered that Johnson had not more pleasure in
writing than in not writing. "Sir," replied the oracle, "you _may_
wonder."
I will now endeavour, with Boswell's guidance, to describe a few of the
characteristic scenes which can be fully enjoyed in his pages alone.
The first must be the introduction of Boswell to the sage. Boswell had
come to London eager for the acquaintance of literary magnates. He
already knew Goldsmith, who had inflamed his desire for an introduction
to Johnson. Once when Boswell spoke of Levett, one of Johnson's
dependents, Goldsmith had said, "he is poor and honest, which is
recommendation enough to Johnson." Another time, when Boswell had
wondered at Johnson's kindness to a man of bad character, Goldsmith had
replied, "He is now become miserable, and that insures the protection of
Johnson." Boswell had hoped for an introduction through the elder
Sheridan; but Sheridan never forgot the contemptuous phrase in which
Johnson had referred to his fellow-pensioner. Possibly Sheridan had
heard of one other Johnsonian remark. "Why, sir," he had said, "Sherry
is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of
pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, sir,
is not in Nature." At another time he said, "Sheridan cannot bear me; I
bring his declamation to a point." "What influence can Mr. Sheridan have
upon the language of this great country by his narrow exertions? Sir, it
is burning a farthing candle at Dover to show light at Calais." Boswell,
however, was acquainted with Davies, an actor turned bookseller, now
chiefly remembered by a line in Churchill's _Rosciad_ which is said to
have driven him from the stage--
He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone.
Boswell was drinking tea with Davies and his wife in their back parlour
when Johnson came into the shop. Davies, seeing him through the
glass-door, announced his approach to Boswell in the spirit of Horatio
addressing Hamlet: "Look, my Lord, it comes!" Davies introduced the
young Scotchman, who remembered Johnson's proverbial prejudices. "Don't
tell him where I come from!" cried Boswell. "From Scotland," said Davies
roguishly. "Mr. Johnson," said Boswell, "I do indeed come from Scotland;
but I cannot help it!" "That, sir," was the first of Johnson's many
retorts to his worshipper, "is what a great many of your countrymen
cannot help."
Poor Boswell was stunned; but he recovered when Johnson observed to
Davies, "What do you think of Garrick? He has refused me an order for
the play for Miss Williams because he knows the house will be full, and
that an order would be worth three shillings." "O, sir," intruded the
unlucky Boswell, "I cannot think Mr. Garrick would grudge such a trifle
to you." "Sir," replied Johnson sternly, "I have known David Garrick
longer than you have done, and I know no right you have to talk to me on
the subject." The second blow might have crushed a less intrepid
curiosity. Boswell, though silenced, gradually recovered sufficiently to
listen, and afterwards to note down parts of the conversation. As the
interview went on, he even ventured to make a remark or two, which were
very civilly received; Davies consoled him at his departure by assuring
him that the great man liked him very well. "I cannot conceive a more
humiliating position," said Beauclerk on another occasion, "than to be
clapped on the back by Tom Davies." For the present, however, even Tom
Davies was a welcome encourager to one who, for the rest, was not easily
rebuffed. A few days afterwards Boswell ventured a call, was kindly
received and detained for some time by "the giant in his den." He was
still a little afraid of the said giant, who had shortly before
administered a vigorous retort to his countryman Blair. Blair had asked
Johnson whether he thought that any man of a modern age could have
written _Ossian_. "Yes, sir," replied Johnson, "many men, many women,
and many children." Boswell, however, got on very well, and before long
had the high honour of drinking a bottle of port with Johnson at the
Mitre, and receiving, after a little autobiographical sketch, the
emphatic approval, "Give me your hand, I have taken a liking to you."
In a very short time Boswell was on sufficiently easy terms with
Johnson, not merely to frequent his levees but to ask him to dinner at
the Mitre. He gathered up, though without the skill of his later
performances, some fragments of the conversational feast. The great man
aimed another blow or two at Scotch prejudices. To an unlucky compatriot
of Boswell's, who claimed for his country a great many "noble wild
prospects," Johnson replied, "I believe, sir, you have a great many,
Norway, too, has noble wild prospects; and Lapland is remarkable for
prodigious noble wild prospects. But, sir, let me tell you the noblest
prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to
England." Though Boswell makes a slight remonstrance about the "rude
grandeur of Nature" as seen in "Caledonia," he sympathized in this with
his teacher. Johnson said afterwards, that he never knew any one with
"such a gust for London." Before long he was trying Boswell's tastes by
asking him in Greenwich Park, "Is not this very fine?" "Yes, sir,"
replied the promising disciple, "but not equal to Fleet Street." "You
are right, sir," said the sage; and Boswell illustrates his dictum by
the authority of a "very fashionable baronet," and, moreover, a baronet
from Rydal, who declared that the fragrance of a May evening in the
country might be very well, but that he preferred the smell of a
flambeau at the playhouse. In more serious moods Johnson delighted his
new disciple by discussions upon theological, social, and literary
topics. He argued with an unfortunate friend of Boswell's, whose mind,
it appears, had been poisoned by Hume, and who was, moreover, rash
enough to undertake the defence of principles of political equality.
Johnson's view of all propagators of new opinions was tolerably simple.
"Hume, and other sceptical innovators," he said, "are vain men, and will
gratify themselves at any expense. Truth will not afford sufficient food
to their vanity; so they have betaken themselves to error. Truth, sir,
is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone
to milk the bull." On another occasion poor Boswell, not yet acquainted
with the master's prejudices, quoted with hearty laughter a "very
strange" story which Hume had told him of Johnson. According to Hume,
Johnson had said that he would stand before a battery of cannon to
restore Convocation to its full powers. "And would I not, sir?"
thundered out the sage with flashing eyes and threatening gestures.
Boswell judiciously bowed to the storm, and diverted Johnson's
attention. Another manifestation of orthodox prejudice was less
terrible. Boswell told Johnson that he had heard a Quaker woman preach.
"A woman's preaching," said Johnson, "is like a dog's walking on his
hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at
all."
So friendly had the pair become, that when Boswell left England to
continue his studies at Utrecht, Johnson accompanied him in the
stage-coach to Harwich, amusing him on the way by his frankness of
address to fellow-passengers, and by the voracity of his appetite. He
gave him some excellent advice, remarking of a moth which fluttered
into a candle, "that creature was its own tormentor, and I believe its
name was Boswell." He refuted Berkeley by striking his foot with mighty
force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it. As the ship put
out to sea Boswell watched him from the deck, whilst he remained
"rolling his majestic frame in his usual manner." And so the friendship
was cemented, though Boswell disappeared for a time from the scene,
travelled on the Continent, and visited Paoli in Corsica. A friendly
letter or two kept up the connexion till Boswell returned in 1766, with
his head full of Corsica and a projected book of travels.
In the next year, 1767, occurred an incident upon which Boswell dwells
with extreme complacency. Johnson was in the habit of sometimes reading
in the King's Library, and it came into the head of his majesty that he
should like to see the uncouth monster upon whom he had bestowed a
pension. In spite of his semi-humorous Jacobitism, there was probably
not a more loyal subject in his majesty's dominions. Loyalty is a word
too often used to designate a sentiment worthy only of valets,
advertising tradesmen, and writers of claptrap articles. But it deserves
all respect when it reposes, as in Johnson's case, upon a profound
conviction of the value of political subordination, and an acceptance of
the king as the authorized representative of a great principle. There
was no touch of servility in Johnson's respect for his sovereign, a
respect fully reconcilable with a sense of his own personal dignity.
Johnson spoke of his interview with an unfeigned satisfaction, which it
would be difficult in these days to preserve from the taint of
snobbishness. He described it frequently to his friends, and Boswell
with pious care ascertained the details from Johnson himself, and from
various secondary sources. He contrived afterwards to get his minute
submitted to the King himself, who graciously authorized its
publication. When he was preparing his biography, he published this
account with the letter to Chesterfield in a small pamphlet sold at a
prohibitory price, in order to secure the copyright.
"I find," said Johnson afterwards, "that it does a man good to be talked
to by his sovereign. In the first place a man cannot be in a passion."
What other advantages he perceived must be unknown, for here the oracle
was interrupted. But whatever the advantages, it could hardly be
reckoned amongst them, that there would be room for the hearty cut and
thrust retorts which enlivened his ordinary talk. To us accordingly the
conversation is chiefly interesting as illustrating what Johnson meant
by his politeness. He found that the King wanted him to talk, and he
talked accordingly. He spoke in a "firm manly manner, with a sonorous
voice," and not in the subdued tone customary at formal receptions. He
dilated upon various literary topics, on the libraries of Oxford and
Cambridge, on some contemporary controversies, on the quack Dr. Hill,
and upon the reviews of the day. All that is worth repeating is a
complimentary passage which shows Johnson's possession of that courtesy
which rests upon sense and self-respect. The King asked whether he was
writing anything, and Johnson excused himself by saying that he had told
the world what he knew for the present, and had "done his part as a
writer." "I should have thought so too," said the King, "if you had not
written so well." "No man," said Johnson, "could have paid a higher
compliment; and it was fit for a King to pay--it was decisive." When
asked if he had replied, he said, "No, sir. When the King had said it,
it was to be. It was not for me to bandy civilities with my sovereign."
Johnson was not the less delighted. "Sir," he said to the librarian,
"they may talk of the King as they will, but he is the finest gentleman
I have ever seen." And he afterwards compared his manners to those of
Louis XIV., and his favourite, Charles II. Goldsmith, says Boswell, was
silent during the narrative, because (so his kind friend supposed) he
was jealous of the honour paid to the dictator. But his natural
simplicity prevailed. He ran to Johnson, and exclaimed in 'a kind of
flutter,' "Well, you acquitted yourself in this conversation better than
I should have done, for I should have bowed and stammered through the
whole of it."