Chapter I: Boswell and Johnson

It is quite common for people to say that we owe our knowledge of Doctor Johnson entirely to the fact that James Boswell devoted his life to a close study of his model. The statement is generally made by those who have taken Boswell’s Life of Johnson as read; perhaps, indeed, have gone a step further and placed it on a shelf where it will be read in that indefinite time “some day,” when ephemeral literature shall be no more. The statement sounds well but is quite untrue. To be sure, James Boswell wrote the finest biography that the world has seen thus far, for he had the ambition to produce a book which the world would want. Few biographies reach its excellence and none surpass it. Frank Harris, with his Life of Oscar Wilde, comes nearest. Of other works of a like character, Leigh Hunt achieved immortality with his Autobiography, and, being the intimate associate of Shelley, Byron, Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt, and Carlyle, produced a picture of contemporary life very valuable indeed. Lockhart’s Memoirs of Sir Walter Scott must also be mentioned. Nor should there be overlooked as worthy of a place on the book shelf with Boswell’s masterpiece, Horace Walpole’s Letters, Pepys’ Diary, Froude’s Carlyle and Isaac Walton’s Lives. But Boswell has a supremacy which none can deny, and, because of that supremacy, there are not wanting those who assert that Boswell made Johnson, rescued Johnson from oblivion, gave Johnson a place to which his literary efforts do not entitle him, and so on, while others have talked about self-abnegation, self-surrender and all that kind of thing, until the conception has arisen among those who talk of Boswell’s Life of Johnson without having read it, and they are as the sands of the seashore in number, that Johnson and Boswell went through life like twin stars bound in the same orbit, while others look upon Johnson as a kind of Sindbad carrying an Old Man of the Sea.

We know Johnson, not alone because Boswell knew him, but because many others knew him, just as many articulate men knew and wrote about Oscar Wilde. In the case of Wilde, besides Frank Harris, there were friends, publishers, enemies, and some who were all three. In the case of Johnson, we have Burke, Langton, Garrick, Levett, Miss Burney, Miss Seward and the inimitable Mrs. Thrale with her chatty “Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson, LL. D., During the Last Twenty Years of His Life.” She was no ordinary woman and the worthy Doctor was in love with her for many years we suppose, for it is a matter of record that he not only quarreled with her, scolded her and constantly visited her, but he also wrote to her more than three hundred letters. As for the common suspicion that Boswell spent his life at Dr. Johnson’s heels, a careful count will show that Boswell met Johnson on two hundred and seventy-six days. Still, in that time, Boswell did excellent work. As a biographer he was free from timidity, painting his model as he actually was. Fear of unfriendly criticism did not daunt him and he was quite unmoral in his methods when it came to gathering data. We sometimes suspect eavesdropping and key-hole activities. At any rate, he was not above appropriating little things associated with the Doctor’s work, and, as we shall see, propriety did not prevent him from leaving his place at a dinner table to hear what the sage was whispering to a young lady. A story that bears the impress of truth is to be found in Holcroft’s Life, edited by Hazlitt. Mary Lamb called it “the Life Everlasting” because Hazlitt was so long seeing it through the press. Here is the story:

Lowe, (mentioned by Boswell in his life of Johnson) once gave me a
humorous picture of him. Lowe had requested Johnson to write him a
letter, which Johnson did, and Boswell came in while it was writing.
His attention was immediately fixed; Lowe took the letter, retired,
and was followed by Boswell. “Nothing,” said Lowe, “could surprise
me more. Till that moment he had so entirely overlooked me that I
did not imagine he knew there was such a creature in existence;
and he now accosted me with the most overstrained and insinuating
compliments possible. ‘How do you do, Mr. Lowe? I hope you are well
Mr. Lowe. Pardon my freedom, Mr. Lowe, but I think I saw my dear
friend, Dr. Johnson, writing a letter for you.’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘I hope
you will not think me rude, but if it would not be too great a
favor, you would infinitely oblige me if you would just let me have a
sight of it. Everything from that hand, you know, is so inestimable.’
‘Sir, it is on my own private affairs, but----’ ‘I would not pry into
a person’s affairs my dear Mr. Lowe, by any means. I am sure you
would not accuse me of such a thing; only, if it were no particular
secret----’ ‘Sir, you are welcome to read the letter.’ ‘I thank you,
my dear Mr. Lowe; you are very obliging; I take it exceedingly kind.’
(Having read) ‘It is nothing, I believe, Mr. Lowe, that you would
be ashamed of?’ ‘Certainly not!’ ‘Why, then, my dear sir, if you
would do me another favor, you would make the obligation eternal. If
you would but step to Peele’s Coffee House with me and just suffer
me to take a copy of it, I would do anything in my power to oblige
you.’” “I was overcome,” said Lowe, “by this sudden familiarity and
condescension, accompanied with bows and grimaces. I had no power
to refuse; we went to the Coffee House, my letter was presently
transcribed, and as soon as he had put his document in his pocket Mr.
Boswell walked away as erect and proud as he was half an hour before,
and I, ever afterwards, was unnoticed. Nay, I am not sure,” he added
sarcastically, “whether the Scotchman did not leave me, poor as he
knew I was, to pay for my own dish of coffee.”

It was the Boswell method. The good Mr. Lowe was extremely fortunate in that Boswell took with him the copy of the letter and not the original, for, of all men, this biographer seems to illustrate the Nietzschean requirement that he who intends to know, shall be hard, severe, narrow, cruel, inexorable. However, Boswell applied his method on Johnson for just one-hundredth part of Johnson’s life, and, loving both Johnson and himself, and being richly endowed with the rare faculty of observation, made his man live as no character in literature or history has lived.

Macaulay quite unjustly called Boswell “one of the smallest men that ever lived,” and pictures him as a snob and a sycophant, and many have repeated Macaulay’s words. Any one who will take the trouble to read Boswell’s book with attention, will be persuaded that the man himself had great conversational gifts, much good nature and tact, and prodigious powers of memory. As a record of the manners and customs of the period, Boswell’s Life of Johnson is as valuable as Pepys’ Diary.

There is one recorded incident which, more than any other, goes to show that Boswell’s path, even with Johnson himself, was not one of roses. Boswell had been questioning Johnson until the catechism had become a torture, and he turned upon his tormenter. “Sir, I will not be put to the question!” he roared. “Don’t you consider, sir, that these are not the manners of a gentleman? I will not be baited with _what_ and _why_: What is this? What is that? Why is a cow’s tail long? Why is a fox’s tail bushy?” “Why, sir, you are so good that I venture to trouble you,” answered Boswell. “Sir,” replied the irritated doctor, “my being good is no reason why you should be so ill.”

On another occasion he turned angrily upon Boswell with this: “You have but two topics, sir, yourself and me, and I am sick of both.”