Part 14

While thus distrusting or despising his other patrons, Boswell rested strongly on Lord Lonsdale. To Mr. Temple he communicated in March that his lordship showed him “more and more regard.” He was his last star of hope; but the setting was at hand.

Checked in his legal, political, and parliamentary aspirations, Boswell began to devote some attention to family affairs. By his brother David he was advised to return to Scotland, and there attend to the education of his children. Concerning this proposal he remarks to Mr. Temple:—

“Undoubtedly my having a house in Edinburgh would be best for them (the children); but, besides that my withdrawing thither would cut me off from all those chances which may in time raise me in life, I could not possibly endure Edinburgh now, unless I were to have a judge’s place to bear me up; and even then I should deeply sigh for the metropolis.”

He determined to remain in London. Plans for the disposal of his children were, after much wavering, at length resolved upon. Alexander, his eldest son, having “begun to oppose him,”[90] was removed from Soho Academy to Eton. He was afterwards to be sent to the University of Edinburgh, and latterly to Holland and Germany for the study of civil law. James, the second son, described to Mr. Temple as “an extraordinary boy, much of his father,” was to be educated as a barrister. Meanwhile, being in his eleventh year, he was to be continued at the Soho school. Veronica, the eldest daughter, was kept in London under the charge of Mrs. Buchanan, a widow. Euphemia, the second daughter, was sent to a boarding-school in Edinburgh; and Elizabeth, the youngest, was placed in an educational institution at Ayr. By thus dispersing the members of his family, Boswell secured himself against any interference with his habits. For his children the arrangement was salutary, since they could not have profited by the exhibition of his weaknesses.

Amidst incessant place-hunting and a round of social indulgences, the “Life of Johnson” proceeded slowly. The public were meanwhile entertained by Mrs. Piozzi’s Anecdotes.[91] This work and the “Life of Johnson,” by Sir John Hawkins, seemed to satisfy general curiosity. The latter work, which appeared in 1787, deeply mortified Boswell; he was mentioned in it only once, and then as “Mr. James Boswell, a native of Scotland.”[92] Indignation inspired him with energy. As specimens of his forthcoming work, he issued in quarto form two portions of its contents, with these titles:—“The Celebrated Letter from Samuel Johnson, LL.D., to Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, now first published, with notes by James Boswell, Esq. London: Printed by Henry Baldwin for Charles Dilly, in the Poultry, 1790. [Price Half a Guinea.]” “A Conversation between His Most Sacred Majesty George III. and Samuel Johnson, LL.D., illustrated with Observations by James Boswell, Esq. London: Printed by Henry Baldwin for Charles Dilly, in the Poultry, 1790. [Price Half a Guinea.]”

The former of these _fasciculi_ occupied four, and the latter eight quarto pages. Intimating to Mr. Temple that “a part of his _magnum opus_ was ready for the press,” he added that Hawkins should not be spared. His labours were interrupted by Mrs. Boswell’s illness and his return to inebriate habits. On the 28th November he wrote to Mr. Temple:—

“Let me first address you from Cato:—

‘Thou best of friends, Pardon a weak distemper’d soul that swells, In sudden gusts, and sinks again in calms.’

Your last letter supposes too truly my situation. With grief continually at my heart, I have been endeavouring to seek relief in dissipation and in wine, so that my life for some time past has been unworthy of myself, of you, and of all that is valuable in my character and connections. For a week past, as the common phrase is, ‘I have taken up,’ and by a more regular and quiet course find myself, I think, rather better.”

As in the case of his “Tour to the Hebrides,” Boswell submitted each successive chapter of the “Life of Johnson” to the revision of Mr. Malone. In his letter to Mr. Temple of the 28th November he remarks:—

“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 _Johnsonianissimus_; and as he is to hasten to Ireland as soon as his Shakspere[93] is fairly published, I must avail myself of him _now_. His hospitality and my other invitations, and particularly my attendance at Lord Lonsdale’s, have lost us many evenings; but I reckon that a third of the work is settled, so that I shall get to press very soon. 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 masses, and all this besides the exertion of composing and polishing. Many a time have I thought of giving it up. However, though I shall be uneasily sensible of its many deficiencies, it will certainly be to the world a very valuable and peculiar volume of biography, full of literary and characteristical anecdotes (which word, by the way, Johnson always condemned, as used in the sense that the French, and we from them, use it, as signifying particulars), told with authenticity, and in a lively manner. Would that it were in the booksellers’ shops! Methinks, if I had this _magnum opus_ launched, the public has no further claim upon me; for I have promised no more, and I may die in peace, or retire into dull obscurity, _reddarque tenebris_.”

Writing to Mr. Temple on the 8th February, 1790, Boswell thus reports progress:—

“I am within a short walk of Mr. Malone, who revises my ‘Life of Johnson’ with me. We have not yet gone over quite a half of it, but it is at last fairly in the press. I intended to have printed it upon what is called an _English_ letter, which would have made it look better; but upon calculation it would have made two quarto volumes, and two quarto volumes for one life would have appeared exorbitant, though in truth it is a view of much of the literature, and many of the literary men of Great Britain for more than half a century. I have therefore taken a smaller type, called _Pica_, and even upon that I am afraid its bulk will be very large. It is curious to observe how a printer calculates; he arranges a number of pages, and the words in them at different parts of the ‘copy’ (as the MS. is called), and so finds the number of words. Mine here are four hundred and one thousand six hundred. Does not this frighten you. By printing a page the number of words it holds is discovered; and by dividing the sum-total of words by that number we get the number of pages. Mine will be eight hundred. I think it will be, without exception, the most entertaining book you ever read. I cannot be done with printing before the end of August.”

In excellent terms with himself, and rejoicing in his literary aptitude, he thus addresses Mr. Temple on the 13th February:—

“I dine in a different company almost every day, at least scarcely ever twice running in the same company, so that I have fresh accessions of ideas. I drink with Lord Lonsdale one day; the next I am quiet in Malone’s elegant study revising my Life of Johnson, of which I have high expectations, both as to fame and profit. I surely have the art of writing agreeably. The Lord Chancellor[94] told me he had read every word of my Hebridean Journal; he could not help it.”

On the 4th December Boswell addressed Mr. Malone:[95]—

“The _magnum opus_ advances. I have revised p. 216. The additions which I have received are a Spanish quotation from Mr. Cambridge, an account of Johnson at Warley Camp from Mr. Langton, and Johnson’s letters to Mr. Hastings—three in all,—one of them long and admirable; but what sets the diamonds in pure gold of Ophir is a letter from Mr. Hastings to me, illustrating them and their writer. I had this day the honour of a long visit from the late Governor-General of India. There is to be no more impeachment. But you will see his character nobly vindicated, depend upon this.”

Though still ambitious of professional advancement, Boswell began to dread the merriment of the Circuit mess, promoted too frequently at his personal cost. On the plea of saving £50, and “avoiding rough, unpleasant company,” he informed Mr. Temple in February, 1789, that he would omit the spring Northern Circuit. In August he communicated to the same correspondent that he had proceeded to Lord Lonsdale’s with the intention of joining the autumn Circuit at Carlisle; but that considering his “late severe loss,” and “the rough scenes of the roaring, bantering society of lawyers,” he preferred to remain at Lowther Castle. At the castle he was subjected to a practical jest, which as an annoying incident he thus describes to Mr. Temple:—

“A strange accident happened; the house at Lowther was so crowded that I and two other gentlemen were laid in one room. On Thursday morning my wig was missing; a strict search was made, all in vain. I was obliged to go all day in my night-cap, and absent myself from a party of ladies and gentlemen who went and dined with the Earl on the banks of the lake,—a piece of amusement which I was glad to shun, as well as a dance which they had at night. But I was in a ludicrous situation. I suspected a wanton trick which some people think witty; but I thought it very ill-timed to one in my situation. Next morning the Earl and a colonel, who I thought might have concealed my wig, declared to me, upon honour they did not know where it was; and the conjecture was that a clergyman who was in the room with me, and had packed up his portmanteau in a great hurry to set out in the morning early, might have put it up among his things. This is very improbable; but I could not long remain an object of laughter, so I went twenty-five miles to Carlisle on Tuesday, and luckily got a wig there fitted for me in a few hours.”

On the 13th October Boswell informed Mr. Temple that on lately visiting Lowther Castle he received back his wig. “The way in which it was lost,” he adds, “will remain as secret as the author of Junius.”

Mr. Temple became urgent for repayment of a loan of £200, and in obtaining the necessary means Boswell severely taxed his resources. Referring to the debt, he assured his correspondent that he had, after deducting family costs, a free income of not more than £350, and that while he had been in straitened circumstances for twenty years, he dreaded that his embarrassments would continue. In a letter dated 28th November he returns to his pecuniary difficulties.

“The state of my affairs is very disagreeable; but be not afraid of your £200, as you may depend upon its being repaid. My rent-roll is above £1,600; but deducting annuities, interest of debts, and expenses absolutely necessary at Auchinleck, I have but about £850 to spend. I reckon my five children at £500 a year. You see what remains for myself.”... “I am this year to make one trial of the Lord Chancellor. In short, I cast about everywhere. I do not see the smallest opening in Westminster Hall; but I like the scene, though I have attended only one day this last term, being eager to get my ‘Life of Johnson’ finished. And the delusion that practice may come at any time (which is certainly true) still possesses me.” He adds, “I have given up my house, and taken good chambers in the Inner Temple, to have the appearance of a lawyer. O Temple! Temple! is this realizing any of the towering hopes which have so often been the subject of our conversation and letters? Yet I live much with a great man, who, upon any day that his fancy shall be so inclined, may obtain for me an office which would make me independent.”

Boswell could cherish no reasonable hope of professional advancement, save through the patronage of Lord Lonsdale. And the recent escapade at Lowther Castle might have shown him that sentiments of respect were unassociated with his lordship’s friendship. What he could not perceive in August, 1789, was made sufficiently plain in the following June. The narrative must be presented in his own words. Writing from Carlisle to Mr. Temple on the 21st June, 1790, he proceeds:—

“At no period during our long friendship have I been more unhappy than at present. The day on which I was obliged to set out from London I had no time allowed me after a most shocking conversation with Lord Lonsdale, and I hastened home in hopes of finding you, but you were gone out. It was to inform you that upon his seeing me by no means in good humour, he challenged it roughly, and said, ‘I suppose you thought I was to bring you into Parliament. I never had any such intention.’ In short, he expressed himself in the most degrading manner, in presence of a low man from Carlisle, and one of his menial servants. The miserable state of low spirits I had, as you too well know, laboured under for some time before made me almost sink under such unexpected insulting behaviour. He insisted rigorously on my having solicited the office of Recorder of Carlisle; and that I could not, without using him ill resign it until the duties which were now required of it were fulfilled, and without a sufficient time being given for the election of a successor. Thus was I dragged away as wretched as a convict; and in my fretfulness I used such expressions as excited him almost to fury, so that he used such expressions towards me that I should have, according to the irrational laws of honour sanctioned by the world, been under the necessity of risking my life, had not an explanation taken place.... I am down at an inn, in wretched spirits, and ashamed and sunk on account of the disappointment of hopes which led me to endure such grievances. I deserve all that I suffer. I may be kept hanging on for weeks, till the election and Midsummer Sessions are over; and I am at the same time distracted what to do in my own county, as to the state of which I expect letters every day. I am quite in a fever. O my old and most intimate friend, what a shocking state am I now reduced to! I entreat of you, if you possibly can, to afford me some consolation, directed to me here, and pray do not divulge my mortification. I will endeavour to appear indifferent; and as I now resign my Recordership, I shall gradually get rid of all communication with this brutal fellow.”

In Boswell’s correspondence Lord Lonsdale’s name only reappears once. Writing to Mr. Temple on the 21st July, he remarks, “I parted from the northern tyrant in a strange equivocal state, for he was half irritated, half reconciled; but I promise you I shall keep myself quite independent of him.”

Parliament was dissolved in July, and Boswell proposed once more to offer his services to the Ayrshire constituency. He ultimately determined more wisely, remarking to Mr. Temple that “he did not go to Ayrshire, finding that he could only show how small a party he had.”

Amidst these distractions, Boswell found leisure warmly to interest himself in two objects to which he had pledged his support. The first of these was to obtain subscribers for two volumes of sermons, published by his former tutor and early friend, Mr. John Dun, parish minister of Auchinleck.[96] In these volumes the reverend author attempted to ridicule the poet Burns. The following verses, a parody on the bard’s “Address to the Deil,” were regarded by Boswell without disfavour:—

“THE DEIL’S ANSWER TO HIS VERRA FREEND R. BURNS.

“So zealous Robin, stout an’ fell, True champion for the cause o’ hell, Thou beats the righteous down pell mell, Sae frank and frothy, That o’ a seat where devils dwell, There’s nane mair worthy.

* * * * *

“Thou does as weel’s could be expectit, O’ ane wha’s wit lay long neglectet; Some _godly folk_ your rhyme, I trow, Ca’ worthless blether; But be na feart, ye’s get your due, When we forgather.

* * * * *

“In hell when I read o’er your sang, Where rhymes come thun’ring wi’ a bang, Quoth I, trouth I’s see Rab or lang, An’ that’s be seen. Giff Nick should on me ride the stang To Aberdeen.”

Mr. Dun’s work was still-born. In a letter to Mr. Temple, Boswell regrets that his friend would, by his performance, be “a sad loser.”

While thus abetting the ridicule of the Ayrshire poet, Boswell’s other enterprize was more creditable. He gave assistance in raising funds for a monument to Dr. Johnson in Westminster Abbey. To this undertaking he thus refers in a letter to Mr. Temple, dated the 28th November, 1789:—

“Last Sunday I dined with him (Malone), with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir Joseph Banks, Mr. Metcalfe, Mr. Windham, Mr. Courtenay, and young Mr. Burke, being a select number of Dr. Johnson’s friends, to settle as to effectual measures for having a monument erected to him in Westminster Abbey; it is to be a whole-length statue of him, by Bacon, which will cost £600. Sir Joshua and Sir William Scott, his executors, are to send circular letters to a number of people, of whom we make a list, as supposing they will contribute. Several of us subscribed five guineas each, Sir Joshua and Metcalfe ten guineas each, Courtenay and young Burke two guineas each. Will you not be one of us, were it but for one guinea? We expect that the Bench of Bishops will be liberal, as he was the greatest supporter of the hierarchy. That venerable sound brings to my mind the ruffians of France, who are attempting to destroy all order, ecclesiastical and civil. The present state of that country is an intellectual earthquake, a whirlwind, a mad insurrection, without any immediate cause, and therefore we see to what a horrible anarchy it tends.”

The subject of the monument is resumed in Boswell’s letter to Mr. Temple, dated 8th February, 1790:—

“You will have seen that Johnson’s friends have been exerting themselves for his monument, which is to cost six hundred guineas. We have now near to £400 of the money. Can we have no Cornish coin? I wish you could assist us in your neighbourhood. As your character of Gray was adopted by him it would appear well if you sent two guineas. We shall have a great dispute as to the epitaph. Flood, the orator, though a distinguished scholar, says it should be in English, as a compliment to Johnson’s having perpetuated our language; he has compressed his opinion in these lines:—

“No need of Latin, or of Greek to grace Our Johnson’s memory and inscribe his grave; His native tongue demands this mournful space, To pay the immortality he gave.”

Johnson’s monument in Westminster Abbey was erected in 1796 at the cost of eleven hundred guineas; it was inscribed with a Latin epitaph composed by Dr. Parr. Mr. Temple’s name does not appear among the subscribers.

With the entire prostration of his political and professional expectations, Boswell relapsed into melancholy. In a letter to Mr. Temple dated 21st July he expresses himself in this earnest manner:—

“Surely, my dear friend, there must be another world in which such beings as we are will have our misery compensated. But is not this a state of probation? and if it is, how awful is the consideration! I am struck with your question, ‘Have you confidence in the Divine aid?’ In truth I am sensible that I do not sufficiently ‘_try_ my ways’ as the Psalmist says, and am ever almost inclined to think with you _that_ my great _oracle Johnson did allow too much credit to good principles, without good practice_.”

In this passage Dr. Johnson’s sentiments on practical religion are strangely perverted. Had not the great moralist warned his companion against vanity and self-deceit, and the substitution of good intentions for the active practice of virtue? In the autumn of 1790, Boswell’s intemperance was excessive. On the 4th December, he wrote to Mr. Malone in these words:—

“On the day after your departure, that most friendly fellow Courtenay[97] (begging the pardon of an M.P. for so free an epithet) called on me, and took my word and honour that, till the 1st of March, my allowance of wine per diem should not exceed four good glasses at dinner, and a pint after it; and this I have kept, though I have dined with Jack Wilkes; at the London Tavern, after the launch of an Indiaman with dear Edwards; Dilly; at home with Courtenay; Dr. Barrow; at the mess of the Coldstream; at the Club; at Warren Hastings’; at Hawkins the Cornish member’s; and at home with a colonel of the guards, &c. This regulation, I assure you, is of essential advantage in many respects.”

Like the vow under “the solemn yew” at Mamhead, the word of honour pledged to Mr. Courtenay was soon forgotten. On the 25th February, 1791, Boswell wrote to Mr. Malone as follows:—

“Your friendly admonition as to excess in wine has been often too applicable; but upon this late occasion I erred on the other side. However as I am now free from my restriction to Courtenay I shall be much upon my guard; for, to tell the truth, I did go too deep the day before yesterday, having dined with Michael Angelo Taylor, and then supped at the London Tavern with the stewards of the Humane Society.”

In his letter of the 4th December, Boswell affirms that his promise of sobriety extended till the 1st of March; he reports on the 25th of February, that the term had closed! His melancholy had returned. On the 7th of February Mr. Temple was addressed thus:—

“Before this time you have been informed of my having had a most miserable return of bad spirits. Not only have I had a total distaste of life, but have been perpetually gnawed by a kind of mental fever. It is really shocking that human nature is liable to such inexplicable distress. Oh, my friend, what can I do? * * * Your observation in a former letter, as to time being measured not only by days and years, but by an advancement in life, is new and striking, and is brought home to us both, especially to me, who have obtained no advancement whatever; but let me not harass you with my complaints.”

In his next letter to Mr. Temple, written on the 2nd of April, Boswell further expatiates on his melancholy. He writes:—

“Your kindness to me fairly makes me shed tears. Alas! I fear that my constitutional melancholy, which returns in such dismal fits, and is now aggravated by the loss of my valuable wife, must prevent me from any permanent felicity in this life. I snatch gratifications, but have no comfort, at least very little; yet your encouraging letters make me think at times that I may yet, by God’s blessing, attain to a portion of happiness, such as philosophy and religion concur in assuring us that this state of progressive being allows. I get bad rest in the night, and then I brood over all my complaints, the sickly mind which I have had from my early years—the disappointment of my hopes of success in life—the irrevocable separation between me and that excellent woman, who was my cousin, my friend and my wife; the embarrassment of my affairs—the disadvantage to my children in having so wretched a father—nay, the want of absolute certainty of being happy after death, the _sure prospect_ of which is frightful.”

Within a few months after sustaining that bereavement, which he still deplored, Boswell contemplated the repair of his shattered fortunes by contracting a second marriage. While in the North he wrote Mr. Temple in July, 1790. “I got such accounts of the lady of fortune, whose reputation you heard something of, that I was quite determined to make no advances. Whether I shall take any such step I doubt much. The loss I have experienced is perpetually recurring.”