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BOSWELL, JAMES (1740-1795)

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 299 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BOSWELL, See also:JAMES (1740-1795) , Scottish See also:man of letters, the biographer of See also:Samuel See also:Johnson, was See also:born at See also:Edinburgh on the 29th of See also:October 1740. His grandfather was in See also:good practice at the Scottish See also:bar, and his See also:father, See also:Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck, was also a noted See also:advocate, who, on his See also:elevation to the supreme See also:court in 1754, took the name of his See also:Ayrshire See also:property as See also:Lord Auchinleck. A See also:Thomas Boswell (said upon doubtful See also:evidence to have been a See also:minstrel in the See also:household of James IV.) was killed at See also:Flodden, and since 1513 the See also:family had greatly improved its position in the See also:world by intermarriage with the first Scots See also:nobility. In See also:contradiction to his father, a rigid Presbyterian Whig, James was " a See also:fine boy, wore a See also:white See also:cockade, and prayed for See also:King James until his See also:uncle Cochrane gave him a See also:shilling to pray for King See also:George, which he accordingly did " (" Whigs of all ages are made in. the same way " was Johnson's comment). He met one or two See also:English boys, and acquired a " See also:tincture of polite letters " at the high school in Edinburgh. Like R. L. See also:Stevenson, he See also:early frequented society such as that of the actors at the Edinburgh See also:theatre, sternly disapproved of by his father. At the university, where he was constrained for a See also:season to study See also:civil See also:law, he met See also:William Johnson See also:Temple, his future friend and correspondent. The letters of Boswell to his " See also:Atticus " were first published by See also:Bentley in 1857. One See also:winter he spent at See also:Glasgow, where he sat under See also:Adam See also:Smith, who was then lecturing on moral See also:philosophy and See also:rhetoric. In 176o he was first brought into contact with " the elegance, the refinement and the liberality " of See also:London society, for which he had See also:long sighed.

The See also:

young See also:earl of Eglintoun took him to See also:Newmarket and introduced him into the society of " the See also:great, the See also:gay and the ingenious." He wrote a poem called " The Cub at Newmarket," published by See also:Dodsley in 1762, and had visions of entering the See also:Guards. Reclaimed with some difficulty by his father from his rakish companions in the See also:metropolis, he contrived to alleviate the irksomeness of law study in Edinburgh by forcing his acquaintance upon the celebrities then assembled in the See also:northern See also:capital, among them See also:Kames, See also:Blair, See also:Robertson, See also:Hume and See also:Sir See also:David Dalrymple (Lord See also:Hailes), of whose sayings on the Northern See also:Circuit he kept a brief See also:journal. Boswell had already realized his vocation, the exercise of which was to give a new word to the See also:language. He had begun to Boswellize. He was already on the track of bigger game—the biggest available in the See also:Britain of that See also:day. In the See also:spring of 1763 Boswell came to a See also:composition with his father. He consented to give up his pursuit of a guidon in the Guards and three and sixpence a day on See also:condition that his father would allow him to study civil law on the See also:continent. He set out in See also:April 1763 by " the best road in See also:Scot-See also:land " with a servant, on horseback like himself, in " a cocked See also:hat, a See also:brown See also:wig, brown coat made in the court See also:fashion, red vest, See also:corduroy small clothes and long military boots." On See also:Monday, the 16th of May 1763, in the back See also:shop of Tom See also:Davies the See also:book-seller, No. 8 See also:Russell See also:Street, Covent See also:Garden, James Boswell first met " See also:Dictionary Johnson," the great man of his dreams, and was severely buffeted by him. Eight days later, on Tuesday, the 24th of May, Boswell boldly called on Mr Johnson at his See also:chambers on the first See also:floor of No. 1 Inner Temple See also:Lane. On this occasion Johnson pressed him to stay; on the 13th of See also:June he said, " Come to me as often as you can "; on the 25th of June Boswell gave the great man a little See also:sketch of his own See also:life, and Johnson exclaimed with warmth, " Give me your See also:hand; I have 298 taken a liking to you." Boswell experienced a variety of sensations, among which exultation was predominant.

Some one asked, " Who is this Scotch cur at Johnson's heels? " " He is not a cur," replied See also:

Goldsmith, " he is only a See also:bur. Tom Davies flung him at Johnson in See also:sport, and he has the See also:faculty of sticking." Johnson was fifty-four at this See also:time and Boswell twenty-three. After June 1763 they met on something like 270 subsequent days. These meetings formed the memorable See also:part of Boswell's life, and they are told inimitably in his famous See also:biography of his friend. The friendship, consecrated by the most delightful of See also:biographies, and one of the most gorgeous feasts in the whole banquet of letters, was not so See also:ill-assorted as has been inconsiderately maintained. Boswell's freshness at the table of conversation gave a new zest to every See also:maxim that Johnson enunciated, while Boswell See also:developed a perfect See also:genius for interpreting the See also:kind of worldly philosophy at which Johnson was so unapproachable. Both men welcomed an excuse for avoiding the task-See also:work of life. Johnson's favourite See also:indulgence was to talk; Boswell's great See also:idea of success to elicit memorable conversation. Boswell is almost equally admirable as a reporter and as an interviewer, as a See also:collector and as a researcher. He prepared meetings for Johnson, he prepared topics for him, he See also:drew him out on questions of the day, he secured a copy of his famous See also:letter to Lord See also:Chesterfield, he obtained an almost verbatim See also:report of Johnson's interview with the king, he frequented the See also:tea-table of See also:Miss See also:Williams, he attended the testy old See also:scholar on lengthy peregrinations in the See also:Highlands and in the midlands. " Sir," said Johnson to his follower, " you appear to have only two subjects, yourself and me, and I am sick of both." Yet thorough as the See also:scheme was from the outset, and admirable as was the devotedness of the biographer, Boswell was far too volatile a man to confine himself to any one ambition in life that was not consistent with a large amount of See also:present fame and notoriety.

He would have liked to Boswellize the popular idol Wilkes, or See also:

Chatham, or See also:Voltaire, or even the great See also:Frederick himself. As it was, during his See also:continental tour he managed in the autumn of 1765 to get on terms with Pasquale di See also:Paoli, the See also:leader of the Corsican insurgents in their unwise struggle against See also:Genoa. After a few See also:weeks in See also:Corsica he returned to London in See also:February 1766, and was received by Johnson with the utmost cordiality. In accordance with the family compact referred to he was now admitted advocate at Edinburgh, and signalized his return to the law by an enthusiastic pamphlet entitled The Essence of the See also:Douglas Cause (See also:November 1767), in which he vigorously repelled the See also:charge of imposture from the youthful claimant. In the same See also:year he issued a little book called Dorando, containing a See also:history of the Douglas cause in the See also:guise of a See also:Spanish See also:tale, and bringing the See also:story to a conclusion by the See also:triumph of See also:Archibald Douglas in the law courts. Editors who published extracts while the See also:case was still sub judice were censured severely by the court of session; but though his identity was notorious the author himself escaped censure. In the spring of 1768 Boswell published through the See also:Foulis See also:brothers of Glasgow his See also:Account of Corsica, Journal of a Tour to that See also:Island, and See also:Memoirs of See also:Pascal Paoli. The liveliness of See also:personal impression which he managed to communicate to all his books gained for this one a deserved success, and the Tour was promptly translated into See also:French, See also:German, See also:Italian and Dutch. See also:Walpole and others, jeered, but Boswell was talked about everywhere, as Paoli Boswell or Paoli's Englishman, and to aid the See also:mob in the task of identifying him at the See also:Shakespeare See also:jubilee of 1769 he took the trouble to insert a See also:placard in his hat bearing the See also:legend " Corsica Boswell." The amazing See also:costume of " a Corsican See also:chief " which he 'wore on this occasion was described at length in the magazines. On the 25th of November 1769, after a See also:short tour in See also:Ireland undertaken to empty his See also:head of Corsica (Johnson's emphatic direction), Boswell married his See also:cousin See also:Margaret See also:Montgomery at Lainshaw in Ayrshire. For some years henceforth his visits to London were brief, but on the 3oth of April 1773 he was present at his See also:admission to the See also:Literary See also:Club, for which See also:honour he had been proposed by Johnson himself, and in the autumn of thisyear in the course of his tour to the See also:Hebrides Johnson visited the Boswells in Ayrshire. Neither Boswell's father nor his wife shared his See also:enthusiasm for the lexicographer.

Phoenix-squares

Lord Auchinleck remarked that Jamie was " gave clean gyte . . . And whose tail do ye think he has pinned himself to now, man? A dominie, an auld dominie, that keepit a schule and ca'd it an See also:

academy!" Housewives less See also:prim than Mrs Boswell might have objected to Johnson's See also:habit of turning lighted candles upside down when in the parlour to make them See also:burn better. She called the great man a See also:bear. Boswell's Journal of a Tour in the Hebrides was written for the most part during the See also:journey, but was not published until the spring of 1786. The See also:diary of See also:Pepys was not then known to the public, and Boswell's indiscretions as to the emotions aroused in him by the neat ladies' maids at See also:Inveraray, and the extremity of See also:drunkenness which he exhibited at Corrichatachin, created a literary sensation and sent the Tour through three See also:editions in one year. In the meantime his pecuniary and other difficulties at See also:home were great; he made hardly more than £zoo a year by his profession, and his relations with his father were chronically strained. In 1775 he began to keep terms at the Inner Temple and managed to see a good See also:deal of Johnson, between whom and See also:John Wilkes he succeeded in bringing about a See also:meeting at the famous See also:dinner at Dilly's on the 15th of May 1776. On the 30th of See also:August 1782 his father died, leaving him an See also:estate See also:worth £1600 a year. On the 3oth of June 1784, Boswell met Johnson for the last time at a dinner at Sir See also:Joshua See also:Reynolds's. He accompanied him back in the See also:coach from See also:Leicester Square to See also:Bolt Court.

" We bade adieu to each other affectionately in the See also:

carriage. When he had got down upon the See also:foot See also:pavement he called out ` Fare you well'; and without looking back, sprung away with a kind of pathetic briskness, if I may use that expression, which seemed to indicate a struggle tQ conceal uneasiness, and impressed me with a fore-boding of our long, long separation." Johnson died that year, and two years later the Boswells moved to London. In 1789 Mrs Boswell died, leaving five See also:children. She had been an excellent See also:mother and a good wife, despite the infidelities and drunkenness of her See also:husband, and from her See also:death Boswell relapsed into worse excesses, grievously aggravated by hypochondria. He died of a complication of disorders at his See also:house in Great See also:Poland Street on the 19th of May 1795, and was buried a fortnight later at Auchinleck. Up to the See also:eve of his last illness Boswell had been busy upon his magnum See also:opus, The Life of Samuel Johnson, which was in See also:process of See also:crystallization to the last. The first edition was published in two See also:quarto volumes in an edition of 1700 copies on the 16th of May 1791. He was preparing a third edition when he died; this was completed by his friend See also:Edmund See also:Malone, who brought out a fifth edition in 1807. That of James Boswell junior (the editor of Malone's Variorum Shakespeare, 1821) appeared in 1811. The Life of Johnson was written on a See also:scale practically unknown to biographers before Boswell. It is a full-length with all the blotches and pimples revealed (" I will not make my See also:tiger a See also:cat to please anybody," wrote " Bozzy "). It may be overmuch an See also:exhibition of oddities, but it is also, be it remembered, a See also:pioneer application of the experimental method to the determination of human See also:character.

Its See also:

size and lack of divisions (to See also:divide it into chapters was an See also:original See also:device of See also:Croker's) are a draw-back, and have prevented Boswell's Life from that assured triumph abroad which has fallen to the See also:lot of various English See also:classics such as See also:Robinson Crusoe or Gulliver's Travels. But wherever English is spoken, it has become a veritable sacred book and has pervaded English life and thought in the same way, that the See also:Bible, Shakespeare and See also:Bunyan have done. Boswell has successfully (to use his own phrase) " Johnsonized " Britain, but has not yet Johnsonized the See also:planet. The See also:model originally proposed to himself by Boswell was See also:Mason's Life of See also:Gray, but he far surpassed that, or indeed any other, model. The fashion that Boswell adopted of giving the conversations not in the neutral tints of oratio obliqua but in full oratio recta was a stroke of genius. But he is far from being the See also:mere See also:mechanical transmitter of good things. He is a dramatic and descriptive artist of the first See also:order. The extraordinary vitality of his figures postulates a certain admixture of fiction, and it is certain that Boswell exaggerates the sympathy expressed in word or See also:deed by Johnson for some of his own tenderer foibles. But, on the whole, the best See also:judges are of See also:opinion that Boswell's accuracy is exceptional, as it is undoubtedly seconded by a See also:power of observation of a singular retentiveness and intensity. The difficulty of dramatic description can only be realized, as See also:Jowett well pointed out, by those who have attempted it, and it is not until we compare Boswell's 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 See also:scene indicated by a few telling touches. The result is that Johnson, not, it is true, in the early days of his poverty, See also:total idleness and the See also:pride of literature, but in the fulness of fame and competence of See also:fortune from 1763 to 1784, is better known to us than any other man in history. The old theory to explain such a marvel (originally propounded by Gray when the Tour in Corsica appeared) that " any See also:fool may write a valuable book by See also:chance " is now regarded as untenable.

If fool is a word to describe Boswell (and his folly was at times transcendent) he wrote his great book because and not in despite of the fact that he was one. There can be no doubt, in fact, that he was a See also:

biographical genius, and that he arranged his opportunities just as he prepared his transitions and introduced those inimitable glosses by which Johnson's motives are explained, his See also:state of mind upon particular occasions indicated, and the See also:general feeling of his See also:company conveyed. This remark-able literary faculty, however, was but a fraction of the total make-up requisite to produce such a masterpiece as the Life. There is a See also:touch of genius, too, in the naif and imperturbable good nature and persistency (" Sir, I will not be baited with ` what ' and ` why.' ` Why is a cow's tail long?' ` Why is a See also:fox's tail bushy?' "), and even in the abnegation of all personal dignity, with which Boswell pursued his See also:hero. As he himself said of Goldsmith, " He had sagacity enough to cultivate assiduously the acquaintance of Johnson, and his faculties were gradually enlarged." Character, the vital principle of the individual, is the ignis fatuus of the mechanical biographer. Its attainment may be secured by a variety of means—witness See also:Xenophon, See also:Cellini, See also:Aubrey, See also:Lockhart and Froude—but it has never been attained with such See also:complete intensity as by Boswell in his Life of Johnson. The more we study Boswell, the more we compare him with other biographers, the greater his work appears. The See also:eleventh edition of Boswell's Johnson was brought out by John See also:Wilson Croker in 1831; in this the original See also:text is See also:expanded by numerous letters and variorum anecdotes and is already See also:knee-deep in annotation. Its blunders provoked the celebrated and mutually corrective criticisms of See also:Macaulay and See also:Carlyle. Its value as an unrivalled granary of Johnsoniana, stored opportunely before the last links with a Johnsonian See also:age had disappeared, has not been adequately recognized. A new edition of the original text was issued in 1874 by See also:Percy See also:Fitzgerald (who has also written a useful life of James Boswell in 2 vols., London, 1891) ; a six-See also:volume edition, including the Tour and Johnsoniana, was published by the Rev. Alexander See also:Napier in 1884; the definitive edition is that by Dr See also:Birkbeck See also:Hill in 6 vols., 1887, with copious annotations and a model See also:index.

A generously ilhlstrated edition was completed in 1907 in two large volumes by See also:

Roger Ingpen, and reprints of value have also been edited by R. Carruthers (with woodcuts), A. See also:Birrell, See also:Mowbray See also:Morris (Globe edition) and See also:Austin See also:Dobson. A short biography of Boswell was written in 1896 by W. See also:Keith Leask. Boswell's See also:commonplace-book was published in 1876, under the See also:title of Boswelliana, with a memoir by the Rev. C. See also:Rogers. (T.

End of Article: BOSWELL, JAMES (1740-1795)

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