Boswell the Biographer. George Mallory
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father who was a violent Whig and used to attack his son for being a Tory, upbraiding him with being deficient in noble sentiments of liberty, while at the same time he made this son live under his roof in such bondage as he was not only afraid to stir from home without leave like a child, but durst scarcely open his mouth in his father's presence. This was sad living.
The problem of youth is one of selection. Not many of us accept for ourselves the whole of our inheritance. Of the influences of our early years there are some which we reject; and the judgments which we make about the problems that affected us when young, differ as a rule from those about other questions which come upon us only in maturer years. In youth we must either love or hate—there is no indifference; and so in youth very often are formed the prejudices of a lifetime. Thus it was with Boswell. It was inevitable that the inflexible, hard-headed old judge, and the gay, clever son, should agree very ill. The latter contrived to be in many ways the exact antithesis of his father, and he had the courage of his opinions. It is remarkable, when we think of the violence of the old Whig's political views, that in 1745 Boswell 'wore a white cockade and prayed for King James.' The advances of an uncle it is true were able to purchase his political sympathies, and for the EARLY YEARS AND HOME LIFE sum of one shilling Boswell became a Whig. But it is more decorous, at the age of five, to side with one's father without the persuasion of a silver bribe, especially upon a question of so great importance as the choice of a sovereign. For his tutor, Mr. Dunn, James seems to have retained no startling degree of affection or even of respect; for it was he who 'discovered a narrowness of information concerning the dignitaries of the Church of England. He talked before Dr. Johnson of fat bishops and drowsy deans, and in short seemed to believe the illiberal and profane scoffings of professed satirists or vulgar railers'; and so brought upon himself the admirable rebuke: 'Sir, you know no more of our Church than a Hottentot.'
In the uncongenial atmosphere of home Boswell learnt, no doubt, to dislike instruction and to mistrust what he was told about the way to live, about manners in the old use of the word. There is, however, the trace of a pious mother's influence in the respect which Boswell always showed for religion and for principles. To know what he thought right or wrong was always of importance to him, however slight the relation to his practice of these moral decisions. It is possible indeed that he could never have been better than a tyro in the art of living: but the close-fettered days of this unfortunate childhood must be partly responsible for the fact.
When the term of his education at home was accomplished, Boswell very properly went to school at Edinburgh. We have reason to complain, if we may complain at all, that we can know nothing of Boswell's school life. It is idle to conjecture what it was like. We may only suppose that school was to him a place of comparative freedom, and that to his schoolfellows his presence there was a valuable source of merriment, and perhaps also an occasion of maliciousness.
From school Boswell went by a natural sequence to Edinburgh University: he was barely seventeen years old when the change took place. It was at Edinburgh University, at Hunter's Greek class, that Boswell met his lifelong friend William Temple.
Temple is distinguished as the grandfather of an archbishop. Beyond this his life has no considerable distinction; and beyond the fact that he was Boswell's friend it has no peculiar interest. His eminence in the immediate affairs of this world may be rightly judged from the unembellished statement that, after his ordination in 1766, he remained a country parson, first at Mamhead, near Exeter, and later at St. Gluvias, in Cornwall, for his entire life. It is a curiously undecorated career for one who obtained so large a measure not merely of Boswell's friendship, but of his admiration.
A sad mischance has denied us at least the gratification WILLIAM TEMPLE of curiosity by hiding from our view, and perhaps destroying, the letters of Temple to Boswell; those qualities which attracted the youthful biographer, and completely won his confidence, are no doubt exposed therein; but we may not see. Boswell's own letters however reveal something of his correspondent's character. Temple in the first place—and this perhaps is the most important fact—was literary. He was evidently a far better scholar than Boswell, and knew more about books. He was a writer too in a small way. He published several unpretentious volumes. They have no particular interest that demands our attention, but one of them, 'An Essay on the Clergy, &c.,' 'by some divine mischance,' as Mr. Seccombe puts it, 'materially aided his prospects.' Temple's ability seems rather to have been that of a critic. In the letters that he wrote to Boswell he pronounced his views about books and authors: Boswell esteemed his opinions highly, and there was a proposal, apparently fruitless, that these passages should be collected into a book. It would be wrong to assume from Boswell's optimistic remarks that Temple was really capable of writing anything valuable. But his opinion was in one instance at least supported by eminent men of letters. Boswell quoted in a periodical an appreciation of Gray which Temple wrote at the time of that poet's death; Mason thought this so good that he inserted it in his 'Life of Gray'; and Dr. Johnson afterwards included the same passage in the 'Lives of the Poets.'
Temple, as we see, is not entitled to the fame of Letters; but it is important to realise, since he was the greatest friend both of the young and the old Boswell, that though he had not the qualities that deserve success, and had not the good fortune that may bring it by chance, he had, however, a certain distinction.
There are other reasons for Boswell's preference. If neither Temple nor Boswell was a successful man, yet they both desired success in a quite extraordinary degree, and in the early days of their friendship at Edinburgh this was a strong link. They perceived, no doubt, that they were unlike the majority of students, and concluded they were better than the rest. They looked forward to brilliant careers and elegant fame, to the respect of princes and the friendship of the ingenious. Boswell lived for the greater part of his life in a palace of boyish dreams where Wishes became Destiny, and it is fair to suppose that Temple at the Scottish University shared this luxury of anticipation. He, too, could look back to the Edinburgh days and consider if he were becoming 'the great man, as we used to say.' And in later life the link held firm; for neither of them was 'the great man' in the sense that he intended. If they were companions in hopeful optimism when young, they were equally FRIENDSHIP FOR TEMPLE companions at a maturer age in the discontent and despair of unrealised ambition.
It might be supposed that any friend of Boswell would play the part of the strong man. He might not have the capacity of Dr. Johnson for sweeping away cobwebs and for discouraging complaint, but one would expect to find him upon the same platform. Temple, however, did not take this attitude. On the contrary it was Boswell who encouraged Temple. Not once but many times we find in the letters that Temple has told the tale of his evil fortune in tones of despondency, and Boswell tries to present the circumstances in a more favourable light. Boswell perhaps did not do this very well. Neither the cheerfulness of optimism nor the consolation of philosophy is sufficient for the occasion; and it may be doubted whether the philosophy advocated by Boswell was anything more than an affectation of indifference. But it does him credit that he should have made the attempt to console, and at the same time displays the weakness of Temple's character. Certainly this was not the kind of man to exert a strong influence. Boswell seems to have regarded him in the light of a father confessor with whom a certain ceremony is to be performed, and is reproved and forgiven by a natural sequence, which adds nothing but pleasure to the agreeable duty of confession. Temple expostulates in the rôle of parson when the conduct of his friend is particularly damnable; it is possible there shall be a 'blaze hereafter,' and one must at least be on the safe side. So Boswell no doubt understood it. The mild reproofs of his clerical friend never for a moment deterred him either from doing or from telling of his deed. He came to expect and even to like them. 'Admonish me, but forgive me,' he says after a particularly detailed account of his amours; and at a later date, in an expression which seems to epitomise the relations of the pastor and his erring sheep, 'Your soft admonitions,' he writes, 'would at any time calm the tempests of my soul.'
It is clear that Boswell had no moral respect for Temple; it was not in search of guidance that he told stories of his profligacy, but simply because he liked to tell them. Boswell, as his friend remarked, mounted the hobby-horse of his own temperament; this was his perennial and unfailing interest, and the irrepressible delight which he had in his own feelings and performances found an outlet in the 'Letters to Temple' and in many