Boswell the Biographer. George Mallory
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great figures of the nineteenth century, in the romance of Byron, Shelley, Keats, and at a later date of the Pre-Raphaelite group, in the peculiar simplicity of Wordsworth, the splendour of Tennyson, and the fervid passion of Browning. And yet we have for Johnson a more intimate place which is all his own.
It is because we know him better. Subsequent biographers, Lockhart, Froude, Trevelyan—to mention a few of the more successful—have like Boswell written good biographies: we know much that is interesting about Scott, Carlyle, and Macaulay. But what we know of Johnson is more vivid, real, and true; it is the man himself. Boswell is therefore the first of biographers. He is first beyond the jealousy of a rival and above the common earth of imitators—as Homer is first in epic poetry, as Molière and Racine, Shakespeare and Milton are all first where they most excel. And he is first only for this reason, that we know most intimately the man who was portrayed by him.
But if the mere extent of our knowledge of Johnson determines the greatness of Boswell, there is yet some particular appeal besides, some special charm that wins us in Boswell's 'Johnson.' When we come to think of the nature of Boswell's value for so many people, we shall find that it depends not altogether upon the completeness of his method or his capacity for giving expression to it, but also upon an interest which exists apart from any structural or artistic quality. The 'Life of Johnson' is one of those rare books which have by nature a certain universality. It exists not for one but for every generation. It is not for the cultured alone nor for the uncultured, nor yet, if he exists, for the normal person. It is everybody's book. And this is a fact which requires explanation.
INTEREST IN JOHNSON AND BOSWELL
It would be easy if we were merely seeking to distinguish that which has a special value or quality from what is merely commonplace, if we simply wished to determine the peculiar flavour and virtue of the work, to find a number of reasons why the book we are speaking of should have a special value among biographies. The careful art of the writer, the vividness of the scenes he depicts, his unrivalled humour, the mere form of what he presents, including as it does all that he meant by biography, the interest we feel in the distinguished men who play, as it were, the minor parts of the drama—all these are responsible in their several degrees for the pleasure we derive from Boswell's 'Johnson.'
But to account for its universality we must look elsewhere—to the simple human interest felt by everyone in two such characters as Johnson and Boswell. A biography may be written about an interesting man by a dull one or about a dull man by an interesting one; and interest in either may be satisfied by reading it: even when both the men are dull some pleasure may be obtained from a biography by one who is interested in the psychological phenomenon of dullness. The 'Life of Johnson' may be read with pleasure, and even with something more than pleasure, because both Johnson and his biographer are supremely interesting men. There may be some of Boswell's readers who have pleasure from his magnum opus, for the treatment, as it is technically called; but it is the subject, or rather one might say the two subjects, since there is in it so much also of autobiography, that attract the greater number of them. And there must be many to whom—of these two historic people, Johnson and Boswell—the more interesting because he was more interested in himself, the more attractive because we can see in him more of ourselves, is Boswell the biographer.
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In presenting the literary portrait of a man there can be no greater error than to indulge in controversy. It is an error which one may make very readily, for we have all at heart the love of battle; moreover, it is easy to contradict another, and difficult to give a whole picture of one's own. And in the case of Boswell there is matter for controversy particularly obvious and particularly inviting. Distinguished men have formed entirely different conceptions of his character and used the pen with more energy than wisdom to support their views. It seems clear now that Boswell has been widely misunderstood.
We are confronted at the outset by a sort of popular paradox. Not only Lord Macaulay, but most of Boswell's contemporaries and most of his editors, have thought of him as nothing more than a fool—they have supposed with the poet Gray, 'Any fool may write a most valuable book by chance.' No one has ever denied that the 'Life' is a good book. No one after GENIUS AND FOOL his own generation, till Carlyle, ever denied that Boswell was a bad man, just the mean, snivelling creature imagined by Macaulay.
Modern criticism has done much to raise the besmirched name of the biographer, but has managed at the same time to envelop his character in a sort of generous obscurity. 'Boswell,' Professor Raleigh has boldly exclaimed, 'was a genius.' The Boswellian student will probably agree: but in agreeing we must be cautious not to confuse our ideas about Boswell's character; to say that a man is a genius is not to say that he is unaccountable for his actions, or even of necessity to imply that he is mad. The genius is often more complex than other men, but not more incomprehensible. It is possible, if we like, to look behind the veil that is drawn between humanity and a particular human being. We can see in a genius not less than in others the meaning of all the names which we use to describe life, of love and sympathy, greed and egoism, hate, fear, joy, and the rest; of all the qualities that form for better or for worse what we call character, what it is to be kind or cruel, vain or modest, false or true. Nor, when we say that Boswell is a genius, do we preclude the possibility of his being a fool. Boswell was indeed a fool, as is easy enough to show; but he was not, as was long supposed, a stupid fool.
We do, however, mean something by the term genius; and it is something of the inward life. The soul of man is composed of combustible matter, and the violence and quality of its conflagration depend upon the proportions in which the ingredients are mixed. In certain cases an abnormal quantity of one substance or another produces an extraordinary result; and when this result can be classified neither as criminal nor lunatic it is called by the more approved name of genius.
Two questions therefore are to be asked especially with regard to a genius: First, in what way was the conflagration peculiar? Secondly, what were the substances present in abnormal quantity which caused the peculiarity?
It is intended that these two questions shall be answered with regard to Boswell in the course of this general inquiry concerning his psychology. It is held that Boswell was a genius; it must be explained in what his genius consisted, and how, in the end, this abnormal essence dominated the whole man and inspired the great work of his life.
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James Boswell was born in Edinburgh on October 29th, 1740. He came of an old Scottish stock, and his ancestors, if not eminent, were at least distinguished men and proud of being the Lairds of Auchinleck.
Of his mother we know but little; she was, however, a woman of 'almost unexampled piety and goodness.'
Lord Auchinleck, his father, figures occasionally BOSWELL'S FATHER in the various authorities for Boswell's 'Life,' and we can get a very good picture of him. Scott gives the following account:
Old Lord Auchinleck was an able lawyer, a good scholar, after the manner of Scotland, and highly valued his own advantages as a man of good estate and ancient family; and, moreover, he was a strict Presbyterian and Whig of the old Scottish cast. This did not prevent his being a terribly proud aristocrat, and great was the contempt he entertained and expressed for his son James, for the nature of his friendships and the character of the personages of whom he was engoué one after another. 'There's nae hope for Jamie, mon,' he said to a friend. 'Jamie is gaen clean gyte. … Whose tail do you think he has pinned himself to now, mon?' Here the old judge summoned up a sneer of most sovereign contempt. 'A dominie, mon—an auld dominie; he keeped a schule and cau'd it an acaadamy.'
The Laird, as is evident from the account in the 'Tour to the Hebrides' of Johnson's visit to Boswell's home, held his opinions with that conviction which admits of no discussion. A story of him is related by Scott that when challenged by Johnson to explain the utility of Cromwell's career, he very curtly remarked: 'God, Doctor, he gart kings ken they had a lith1 in their neck.'
Boswell seems to have summed up the situation at home when he wrote in the London Magazine for 1781:
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