Life of Johnson
Chapter 51 : [53] Six years before this Dedication Sir Joshua had conferred on him another favour. &

[53] Six years before this Dedication Sir Joshua had conferred on him another favour. 'I have a proposal to make to you,' Boswell had written to him, 'I am for certain to be called to the English bar next February.

Will you now do my picture? and the price shall be paid out of the first fees which I receive as a barrister in Westminster Hall. Or if that fund should fail, it shall be paid at any rate five years hence by myself or my representatives.' Boswell told him at the same time that the debts which he had contracted in his father's lifetime would not be cleared off for some years. The letter was endorsed by Sir Joshua:--'I agree to the above conditions;' and the portrait was painted. Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 477.

[54] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 24, 1773.

[55] 'I surely have the art of writing agreeably. The Lord Chancellor [Thurlow] told me he had read every word of my _Hebridian Journal_;' he could not help it; adding, 'could you give a rule how to write a book that a man _must_ read? I believe Longinus could not.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 322.

[56] Boswell perhaps quotes from memory the following pa.s.sage in Goldsmith's _Life of Nash_:--'The doctor was one day conversing with Locke and two or three more of his learned and intimate companions, with that freedom, gaiety, and cheerfulness, which is ever the result of innocence. In the midst of their mirth and laughter, the doctor, looking from the window, saw Nash's chariot stop at the door. "Boys, boys,"

cried the philosopher, "let us now be wise, for here is a fool coming."'

Cunningham's Goldsmith's _Works_, iv. 96. Dr. Warton in his criticism on Pope's line

'Unthought of frailties cheat us in the wise,'

(_Moral Essays_, i. 69) says:--'For who could imagine that Dr. Clarke valued himself for his agility, and frequently amused himself in a private room of his house in leaping over the tables and chairs.'

Warton's _Essay on Pope_, ii. 125. 'It is a good remark of Montaigne's,'

wrote Goldsmith, 'that the wisest men often have friends with whom they do not care how much they play the fool.' Forster's _Goldsmith_, i. 166.

Mr. Seward says in his _Anecdotes_, ii. 320, that 'in the opinion of Dr.

Johnson' Dr. Clarke was the most complete literary character that England ever produced.' For Dr. Clarke's sermons see _post_, April 7, 1778.

[57] See _post_, Oct. 16, 1769, note.

[58] How much delighted would Boswell have been, had he been shewn the following pa.s.sage, recorded by Miss Burney, in an account she gives of a conversation with the Queen:--

THE QUEEN:--'Miss Burney, have you heard that Boswell is going to publish a life of your friend Dr. Johnson?' 'No, ma'am!' 'I tell you as I heard, I don't know for the truth of it, and I can't tell what he will do. He is so extraordinary a man that perhaps he will devise something extraordinary.' _Mme. D'Artlay's Diary_, ii. 400. 'Dr. Johnson's history,' wrote Horace Walpole, on June 20, 1785, 'though he is going to have as many lives as a cat, might be reduced to four lines; but I shall wait to extract the quintessence till Sir John Hawkins, Madame Piozzi, and Mr. Boswell have produced their quartos.' Horace Walpole's _Letters_, viii. 557.

[59] The delay was in part due to Boswell's dissipation and place-hunting, as is shewn by the following pa.s.sages in his _Letters_ to Temple:--'Feb. 24, 1788, I have been wretchedly dissipated, so that I have not written a line for a fortnight.' p. 266. 'Nov. 28, 1789, Malone's hospitality, and my other invitations, and particularly my attendance at Lord Lonsdale's, have lost us many evenings.' _Ib_. p.

311. 'June 21, 1790, How unfortunate to be obliged to interrupt my work!

Never was a poor ambitious projector more mortified. I am suffering without any prospect of reward, and only from my own folly.' _Ib_.

p. 326.

[60] 'You cannot imagine what labour, what perplexity, what vexation I have endured in arranging a prodigious multiplicity of materials, in supplying omissions, in searching for papers, buried in different ma.s.ses, and all this besides the exertion of composing and polis.h.i.+ng; many a time have I thought of giving it up.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 311.

[61] Boswell writing to Temple in 1775, says:--'I try to keep a journal, and shall shew you that I have done tolerably; but it is hardly credible what ground I go over, and what a variety of men and manners I contemplate in a day; and all the time I myself am _pars magna_, for my exuberant spirits will not let me listen enough.' _Ib_. p. 188. Mr.

Barclay said that 'he had seen Boswell lay down his knife and fork, and take out his tablets, in order to register a good anecdote.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 837. The account given by Paoli to Miss Burney, shows that very early in life Boswell took out his tablets:--'He came to my country, and he fetched me some letter of recommending him; but I was of the belief he might be an impostor, and I supposed in my minde he was an espy; for I look away from him, and in a moment I look to him again, and I behold his tablets. Oh! he was to the work of writing down all I say.

Indeed I was angry. But soon I discover he was no impostor and no espy; and I only find I was myself the monster he had come to discern. Oh! he is a very good man; I love him indeed; so cheerful, so gay, so pleasant!

but at the first, oh! I was indeed angry.' _Mme. D'Arblay's Diary_, ii.

155. Boswell not only recorded the conversations, he often stimulated them. On one occasion 'he a.s.sumed,' he said, 'an air of ignorance to incite Dr. Johnson to talk, for which it was often necessary to employ some address.' See _post_, April 12, 1776. 'Tom Tyers,' said Johnson, 'described me the best. He once said to me, "Sir, you are like a ghost: you never speak till you are spoken to."' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 20, 1773. Boswell writing of this Tour said:--'I also may be allowed to claim some merit in leading the conversation; I do not mean leading, as in an orchestra, by playing the first fiddle; but leading as one does in examining a witness--starting topics, and making him pursue them.' _Ib_.

Sept. 28. One day he recorded:--'I did not exert myself to get Dr.

Johnson to talk, that I might not have the labour of writing down his conversation.' _Ib_. Sept. 7. His industry grew much less towards the close of Johnson's life. Under May 8, 1781, he records:--'Of his conversation on that and other occasions during this period, I neglected to keep any regular record.' On May 15, 1783:--'I have no minute of any interview with Johnson [from May 1] till May 15. 'May 15, 1784:--'Of these days and others on which I saw him I have no memorials.'

[62] It is an interesting question how far Boswell derived his love of truth from himself, and how far from Johnson's training. He was one of Johnson's _school_. He himself quotes Reynolds's observation, 'that all who were of his _school_ are distinguished for a love of truth and accuracy, which they would not have possessed in the same degree if they had not been acquainted with Johnson' (_post_, under March 30, 1778).

Writing to Temple in 1789, he said:--'Johnson taught me to cross-question in common life.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 280. His quotations, nevertheless, are not unfrequently inaccurate. Yet to him might fairly be applied the words that Gibbon used of Tillemont:--'His inimitable accuracy almost a.s.sumes the character of genius.' Gibbon's _Misc. Words_, i. 213.

[63] 'The revision of my _Life of Johnson_, by so acute and knowing a critic as Mr. Malone, is of most essential consequence, especially as he is _Johnsonianissimum_.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 310. A few weeks earlier he had written:--'Yesterday afternoon Malone and I made ready for the press thirty pages of Johnson's _Life_; he is much pleased with it; but I feel a sad indifference [he had lately lost his wife], and he says, "I have not the use of my faculties."' _Ib_. p. 308.

[64] Horace, _Odes_, i. 3. 1.

[65] He had published an answer to Hume's _Essay on Miracles_. See _post_, March 20, 1776.

[66] Macleod asked if it was not wrong in Orrery to expose the defects of a man [Swift] with whom he lived in intimacy, Johnson, 'Why no, Sir, after the man is dead; for then it is done historically.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 22, 1773. See also _post_, Sept 17, 1777.

[67] See Mr. Malone's Preface to his edition of Shakspeare. BOSWELL.

[68] 'April 6, 1791.

'My _Life of Johnson_ is at last drawing to a close.... I really hope to publish it on the 25th current.... I am at present in such bad spirits that I have every fear concerning it--that I may get no profit, nay, may lose--that the Public may be disappointed, and think that I have done it poorly--that I may make many enemies, and even have quarrels. Yet perhaps the very reverse of all this may happen.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 335.

'August 22, 1791.

'My _magnum opus_ sells wonderfully; twelve hundred are now gone, and we hope the whole seventeen hundred may be gone before Christmas.' _Ib_.

p. 342.

Malone in his Preface to the fourth edition, dated June 20, 1804, says that 'near four thousand copies have been dispersed.' The first edition was in 2 vols., quarto; the second (1793) in 3 vols., octavo; the third (1799), the fourth (1804), the fifth (1807), and the sixth (1811), were each in 4 vols., octavo. The last four were edited by Malone, Boswell having died while he was preparing notes for the third edition.

[69] 'Burke affirmed that Boswell's _Life_ was a greater monument to Johnson's fame than all his writings put together.' _Life of Mackintosh_, i. 92.

[70] It is a pamphlet of forty-two pages, under the t.i.tle of _The Princ.i.p.al Corrections and Additions to the First Edition of Mr.

Boswell's Life Of Johnson_. Price two s.h.i.+llings and sixpence.

[71] Reynolds died on Feb. 23, 1792.

[72] Sir Joshua in his will left 200 to Mr. Boswell 'to be expended, if he thought proper, in the purchase of a picture at the sale of his paintings, to be kept for his sake.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 636.

[73] Of the seventy-five years that Johnson lived, he and Boswell did not spend two years and two months in the same neighbourhood. Excluding the time they were together on their tour to the Hebrides, they were dwelling within reach of each other a few weeks less than two years.

Moreover, when they were apart, there were great gaps in their correspondence. Between Dec. 8, 1763, and Jan. 14, 1766, and again between Nov. 10, 1769 and June 20, 1771, during which periods they did not meet, Boswell did not receive a single letter from Johnson. The following table shows the times they were in the same neighbourhood.

1763, May 16 to Aug. 6, London.

1766, a few days in February "

1768, " " March, Oxford.

1768, a few days in May, London.

1769, end of Sept. to Nov. 10, "

1772, March 21 to about May 10, "

1773, April 3 to May 10, "

" Aug. 14 to Nov. 22, Scotland.

1775, March 21 to April 18, London.

May 2 to May 23, "

1776, March 15 to May 16, London, Oxford, Birmingham, with an interval of Lichfield, about a fortnight, Ashbourne, when Johnson was at and Bath and Boswell at Bath.

London, 1777, Sept. 14 to Sept. 24, Ashbourne.

1778, March 18 to May 19, London.

1779, March 15 to May 3, "

" Oct. 4 to Oct. 18, "

1781, March 19 to June 5, London and Southill.

1783, March 21 to May 30, London.

1784, May 5 to June 30, London and Oxford.

[74]

'To shew what wisdom and what sense can do, The poet sets Ulysses in our view.'

_Francis_. Horace, _Ep_. i. 2. 17.