Boswell in Extremes, 1776-78

Boswell's Journals #9

by James Boswell, Charles M. Weis (Editor), Frederick A. Pottle (Editor)

418 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

James Boswell, 10th Laird of Auchinleck and 1st Baronet was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was the eldest son of a judge, Alexander Boswell, 8th Laird of Auchinleck and his wife Euphemia Erskine, Lady Auchinleck. Boswell's mother was a strict Calvinist, and he felt that his father was cold to him. Boswell, who is best known as Samuel Johnson’s biographer, inherited his father’s estate Auchinleck in Ayrshire. His name has passed into the English language as a term (Boswell, Boswellian, Boswellism) for a constant companion and observer.

Boswell is also known for the detailed and frank journals that he wrote for long periods of his life, which remained undiscovered until the 1920s. These included voluminous notes on the grand tour of Europe that he took as a young nobleman and, subsequently, of his tour of Scotland with Johnson. His journals also record meetings and conversations with eminent individuals belonging to The Club, including Lord Monboddo, David Garrick, Edmund Burke, Joshua Reynolds and Oliver Goldsmith. His written works focus chiefly on others, but he was admitted as a good companion and accomplished conversationalist in his own right.

Reviews

[Gareth Reeves · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boswell is something of a cartoon misogynist in his private papers. In his London Journal there is the hilarious/horrifying 'I lay in direful apprehension that my testicle, which formerly was ill, was again swelled', resulting from his frequent trips to brothels. Here, he is fondling maids one minute and praising his 'most valuable spouse' the next, the latter no doubt emanating from a gnawing sense of guilt. His alcoholism also has a larger-than-life quality.

A relief, then, to find that real people also feature in this journal: David Hume, for example, though not for long (he dies); and Sir Walter Scott, about six years old at the time (1777). However, the main star is Dr Johnson, who features in two portions of the book (Ashbourne and London):

- I told Dr. Johnson that David Hume's persisting in his infidelity when he was dying shocked me much. 'Why should it?' said he. 'Hume owned he had never read the New Testament with attention. Here then was a man who had been at no pains to inquire into the truth of religion, and had continually turned his mind the other way. It was not to be expected that the prospect of death would alter his way of thinking, unless GOD should send an angel to set him right.' I said he told me he was quite easy at the thought of annihilation. 'He lied,' said Dr. Johnson. 'He had a vanity in being thought easy.' [...] The horror for death which I have always observed in Dr. Johnson appeared strong tonight.

- At breakfast I unguardedly said to Dr. Johnson, 'I wish I saw you and Mrs. Macaulay together.' [A Whig historian; the two disliked each other from afar.] He grew very angry, and after a pause, a cloud gathered on his brow, he burst out, 'No, Sir. You would not see us quarrel to make you sport. Don't you see that it is very uncivil to pit two people against one another?' Then, taking himself, and wishing to be more gentle, he added, 'I do not say you should be hanged or drowned for this, but it is very uncivil.

- 'I have drank [sic] three bottles of port without being the worse of it. University College has witnessed this.'

The reason I give this three stars instead of five is because the quotations above, among the best moments in the book, can all be found in the excellent Life of Johnson. Whoever has read that work will only find new information about Boswell himself, who (as mentioned above) is somewhat cartoonish. Still, good fun.