Boswell the Biographer. George Mallory
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cheer to his companions. In the journal which he afterwards published, the 'Tour to Corsica,' there is an admirable account of an evening spent with the Corsican peasants which shows what an acceptable guest the good-humoured and lively Boswell must have been.
The Corsican peasants and soldiers were quite free and easy with me. Numbers of them used to come and see me of a morning, and just go out and in as they pleased. I did everything in my power to make them fond of the British, and bid them hope for an alliance with us. They asked me a thousand questions about my country, all which I cheerfully answered as well as I could. One day they would needs hear me play upon my German flute. To have told my honest natural visitants, 'Really, gentlemen, I play very ill,' and put on such airs as we do in our genteel companies, would have been highly ridiculous. I therefore immediately complied with their request. I gave them one or two Italian airs, and then some of our beautiful old Scotch tunes, 'Gilderoy,' 'The Lass of Patie's Mill,' 'Corn Riggs are Bonny.' The pathetick simplicity and pastoral gaiety of the Scots THE CORSICAN PEASANTS musick will always please those who have the genuine feelings of nature. The Corsicans were charmed with the specimens I gave them, though I may now say that they were very indifferently performed.
My good friends insisted also to have an English song from me. I endeavoured to please them in this too, and was very lucky in that which occurred to me. I sung them, 'Hearts of oak are our ships, Hearts of oak are our men.' I translated it into Italian for them, and never did I see men so delighted with a song as the Corsicans were with 'Hearts of Oak.' 'Cuori di querco,' cried they, 'bravo Inglese.' It was quite a joyous riot. I fancied myself to be a recruiting sea-officer. I fancied all my chorus of Corsicans aboard the British fleet.6
There is a natural good fellowship or social instinct, a splendid enjoyment in the company of others, revealed in this story: it is a quality that pleases everybody. To Paoli he was agreeable besides for other reasons. He had a real enthusiasm and taste for literature, which the intellectual world understood and appreciated readily enough. Hume writes of Boswell's return from Paris, in the company of Thérèse Le Vasseur. He calls him, 'a young gentleman, very good-humoured, very agreeable, and very mad'; and afterwards refers to his literary tastes: 'He has such a rage for literature that I dread some event fatal to our friend's honour. You remember the story of Terentia, who was first married to Cicero, then to Sallust, and at last, in her old age, married a young nobleman, who imagined that she must possess some secret which would convey to him eloquence and genius.'7
There is a certain extravagance suggested by this which is very characteristic of Boswell. He produced almost the expectation that he would do something odd. This in itself is not to every one an attractive quality; but it is one which combined with others may bring an added charm. Boswell had great generosity of a certain kind which was more than sufficient to excuse anything that might be tiresome about him; he had an unabashed admiration and real respect for great men. He was also able and was not unwilling to capture the hearts of men by repeating things that would please them; as he relates that he did upon his visit to Voltaire, by repeating the dictum of Johnson about Frederick the Great: 'He writes just as you might suppose Voltaire's footboy to do, who has been his amanuensis. He has such parts as the valet might have, and about as much of the colouring of his style as might be got by transcribing his works.' 'When I was at Ferney,' Boswell records, 'I repeated this to Voltaire, in order to reconcile him somewhat to Johnson, whom he, in affecting the English mode of expression, had previously characterised as 'a superstitious dog'; but after PAOLI hearing such a criticism on Frederick the Great, with whom he was then on bad terms, he exclaimed, 'An honest fellow!'
With such pleasant qualities Boswell won the esteem of the General of the Corsicans. Paoli not only treated him with the courtesy due to a distinguished and possibly a useful stranger but entertained him with the spontaneous enjoyment of friendship.
The intimate relations which sprang up between Boswell and Paoli were, as we may judge from Boswell's own account, very similar to those already in existence between himself and Johnson.
The taste for the heroic may be satisfied easily. Even about the scamp Wilkes in exile there was a glamour which appealed to the imaginative young Bozzy. But for the real Boswellian admiration something more was required—the portentous possession of the 'solid virtues.' The probity of Paoli could never be in question. He appears to have been a simple character with a noble disinterestedness and the honesty of the Mediterranean sun. His interest was Corsica, and, if we may believe Boswell, there was hardly a thought of self in the matter. In this he was perhaps not different from the greater part of his countrymen; but he had besides enthusiasm a wise moderation and self-control, a knowledge of men and a military ability which gave him an authority of the most absolute kind over the Corsicans. His power rested solely upon the weight of his personal influence. It was an impressive figure no doubt—a man to be admired; and Boswell was good at admiring: but a man also to be loved, direct, kind-hearted and sympathetic. He had too what we should scarcely expect in the patriot general—a wide knowledge of literature and considerable culture. General Paoli was in fact entirely suitable to be Boswellised, more suitable it might almost seem than Doctor Sam himself; but the latter was a man of far greater intelligence.
The opinions of Boswell in any case are clear enough, and we may read a few specimens from the 'Tour in Corsica.'
The contemplation of such a character really existing was of more service to me than all I had been able to draw from books, from conversation or from the exertions of my own mind. I had often enough formed the idea of a man continually such as I could conceive in my best moments. But this idea appeared like the ideas we are taught in the schools to form of things which may exist, but do not; of seas of milk, and ships of amber. But I saw my highest idea realised in Paoli. It was impossible for me, speculate as I pleased, to have a little opinion of human nature in him.
One morning, I remember, I came in upon him without ceremony, while he was dressing. I was glad to have an opportunity of seeing him in those teasing moments, when, according to the Duke of Rochefoucault, no man is a hero to his valet de chambre. The lively nobleman who has a malicious pleasure in endeavouring to divest human nature of its dignity, by exhibiting partial views, and exaggerating faults, would HERO-WORSHIP have owned that Paoli was every moment of his life a hero.
Here is a candid unpretending hero-worship. If it eludes the virtue of moderation it escapes the vice of mediocrity. In this is its capacity for greatness. For the moment there is nothing very great about it, but it has a most desirable effect for good in Boswell:
Never was I so thoroughly sensible of my own defects as while I was in Corsica. I felt how small were my abilities, and how little I knew.
The example made for a genuine modesty in the admirer (though it is doubtful if Boswell was ever suspected of being modest); the Boswell who was 'ambitious to be the companion of Paoli' was willing to deserve the honour of that companionship:
From having known intimately so exalted a character my sentiments of human nature were raised, while, by a sort of contagion, I felt an honest ardour to distinguish myself, and be useful, as far as my situation and abilities would allow; and I was, for the rest of my life, set free from a slavish timidity in the presence of great men, for where shall I find a man greater than Paoli?
The expedition to Corsica was, as we have said, a complete success. To visit the island, to observe the manners of the heroic peasants, and to become the friend of Paoli were admirable undertakings at that time, and under those circumstances. But it was in England that Boswell was to triumph. He was launched upon society with the éclat of an interesting personage; he returned from his adventures over seas to exact without reluctance the homage due to a brave traveller.
The early fame of Boswell came not from Johnson, but from Paoli and Corsica. It is a fact worth remarking, because Boswell's connection with Johnson is so much the more important for us, that we are apt to forget that he can have had another title to renown. He was 'Corsica' Boswell and 'Paoli' Boswell, as Dr. Birkbeck Hill remarks, long before he became famous as 'Johnson' Boswell.
Boswell himself fully appreciated the situation.