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“Inner Temple,

28th July, 1763.

My dear Temple,

I have now fixed to-morrow se’nnight, Friday, the 5th of August, for the day of my departure; and on Saturday, the 6th, I shall be upon the Channel. Alas, my friend! let me disclose my weakness to you. My departure fills me with a kind of gloom that quite overshadows my mind. I could almost weep to think of leaving dear London and the calm retirement of the Inner Temple. I am now launching into the wide world, and am to be long at a distance from my dear Temple, whose kind and amiable counsel never failed to soothe my dejected mind. You may see I am somewhat melancholy; pray comfort me. This is very effeminate and very young, but I cannot help it. My time is fixed, and I will go; I have taken my resolution, and you shall see that I can keep to it. I enclose you a friendly dissertation, which you may read at your leisure; it will show how much stronger my mind was last night only. I am just going to meet Mr. Johnson at the ‘Turk’s Head.’”

The meeting with Johnson in the “Turk’s Head” coffee-house is duly chronicled in the “Life.” Boswell expressed himself as resolved on proceeding to Utrecht, and asked for advice.

“Come,” said Johnson, “let us make a day of it; let us go down to Greenwich and dine, and talk of it fully, so that I shall say,—

‘On Thames’s bank in silent thought we stood,

Where Greenwich smiles upon the silver flood.’”[30]

The friends proceeded to Greenwich on Saturday, the 30th. They inspected the hospital, walked in the park, and returning to London by the river, closed the day’s excursion by supping together at the “Turk’s Head.” During the evening Boswell entertained his Mentor by expatiating on the history of his House, and the extent and importance of the family estate. By Johnson no allusion was made to the ostensible purpose of the meeting; it was enough that on a day of the week when Boswell was likely to meet with bad counsellors, he and his purse were protected from their embrace. The friends met on Sunday. On Tuesday they were both morning and evening together. On Wednesday evening they supped at the “Turk’s Head,” when Johnson renewed his promise to start with his friend for Harwich early on Friday morning.

As Boswell was for a considerable period to be left to his own control, Sir David Dalrymple sent him a letter of advice, along with some commissions to be executed in course of his tour. To Sir David’s letter Boswell on the 2nd August made the following answer:—

“My scepticism was not owing to thinking wrong, but to not thinking at all. It is a matter of great moment to keep a sense of religion constantly impressed upon our minds. If that divine guest does not occupy part of the space, vain intruders will; and when once they have got in it is difficult to get them out again. I shall remember your commission about the Greek Lyrics. I shall hear what the librarian says, and I shall make diligent search myself. As to the MSS. of Anacreon, Mr. Johnson says he doubts much if there be such a thing at Leyden.”

Of no settled convictions, Boswell was, under his protestations of orthodoxy, considerably tinged with Dempster’s scepticism. Sir David Dalrymple, who had formerly sought to rescue him from the Scylla of credulity, was now attempting his deliverance from the Charybdis of doubt. Boswell on the 3rd August communicated with Mr. Temple:—

“To-morrow morning, at five o’clock, I set out upon my travels. I am much hurried with putting all my things in order. I have left some parcels in one of the drawers, which I beg you will keep for me till I return. I have been a great deal with Mr. Johnson of late, and (would you believe it?) his friendship for me is so great that he insists on seeing me sail, and has actually taken a place in the coach to accompany me to Harwich.”

In the “Life of Johnson” the narrative is continued:—

“On Friday, August 5, we set out early in the morning in the Harwich stage-coach. A fat elderly gentlewoman and a young Dutchman seemed the most inclined among us to conversation. At the inn where we dined, the gentlewoman said that she had done her best to educate her children; and particularly that she had never suffered them to be a moment idle. Johnson: ‘I wish madam, you would educate me too; for I have been an idle fellow all my life.’ ‘I am sure, sir,’ said she, ‘you have not been idle.’ Johnson: ‘Nay, madam, it is very true; and that gentleman there,’ pointing to me, ‘has been idle. He was idle at Edinburgh. His father sent him to Glasgow, where he continued to be idle. He then came to London, where he has been very idle; and now he is going to Utrecht, where he will be as idle as ever.’ I asked him privately how he could expose me so. Johnson: ‘Pooh! pooh!’ said he; ‘they know nothing about you, and will think of it no more.’ ... Next day we got to Harwich to dinner; and my passage in the packet-boat to Helvoetsluys being secured, and my baggage put on board, we dined at an inn by ourselves.... We went and looked at the church, and having gone into it, and walked up to the altar, Johnson, whose piety was constant and fervent, sent me to my knees, saying, ‘Now that you are going to leave your native country, recommend yourself to the protection of your Creator and Redeemer.’ ... My revered friend walked down with me to the beach, where we embraced and parted with tenderness, and engaged to correspond by letters. I said, ‘I hope, sir, you will not forget me in my absence.’ Johnson: ‘Nay, sir, it is more likely that you should forget me than that I should forget you.’ As the vessel put out to sea I kept my eyes upon him for a considerable time, while he remained rolling his majestic frame in his usual manner; and at last I perceived him walk back into the town, and he disappeared.”

On the 8th December Dr. Johnson addressed to Boswell his first letter. He entreated him to study civil law as his father had advised, and the ancient languages, as he had personally resolved upon. He then proceeds to depict his friend’s weaknesses in these forcible terms:—

“You know a gentleman, who when first he set his foot in the gay world, as he prepared himself to whirl in the vortex of pleasure, imagined a total indifference and universal negligence to be the most agreeable concomitants of youth, and the strongest indication of an easy temper and a quick apprehension. Vacant to every object, and sensible of every impulse, he thought that an appearance of diligence would deduct something from the reputation of genius, and hoped that he should appear to attain, amidst all the ease of carelessness, and all the tumult of diversion, that knowledge and those accomplishments which mortals of the common fabric obtain only by mute abstraction and solitary drudgery. He tried this scheme of life awhile, was made weary of it by his sense and his virtue; he then wished to return to his studies, and finding long habits of idleness and pleasure harder to be cured than he expected, still wishing to retain his claim to some extraordinary prerogatives, resolved the common consequences of irregularity into an unalterable decree of destiny, and concluded that nature had originally formed him incapable of rational enjoyment. Let all such fancies, illusive and destructive, be banished henceforward from your thoughts for ever. Resolve and keep your resolution; choose, and pursue your choice. If you spend this day in study, you will find yourself still more able to study to-morrow; not that you are to expect that you shall at once obtain a complete victory.”

Johnson had commended his friend for keeping a journal.[31] He concludes his letter by expressing a hope that he is “enriching his journal with many observations upon the country” in which he was residing.

At Utrecht Boswell obtained the friendship of M. Trotz, the learned civilian, whose prelections on civil law he attended for some months. He also became intimate with the Rev. William Brown, pastor of the English congregation at Utrecht, subsequently Professor of Church History at St. Andrews. Anecdotes related by M. Trotz and Mr. Brown are preserved in Boswell’s Commonplace-book.

Lord Auchinleck had designed that his son should prosecute his studies at Utrecht for two years. The proposal was not a hopeful one, and it was not realized. Before his first term was completed, Boswell longed for the pleasures of travel: as the term closed he hastened into the country. He visited Leyden and other noted localities in the Netherlands, and passed into Germany. He reached Berlin in July, where he delivered a letter of introduction to Mr., afterwards Sir Andrew Mitchell, British Ambassador at the Prussian Court. By this accomplished gentleman he was well received and hospitably entertained. From Berlin he wrote a letter to his father, expatiating on the advantages of travel, and entreating that such a remittance might be sent him as would carry him into Switzerland, and from thence into Italy. Pending his father’s answer, he visited the duchies of Hanover and Brunswick. Returning to Berlin on the 27th of August he found a letter from his father, strongly disapproving his proposal for a lengthened tour, and allowing him only the indulgence of visiting France before resuming his legal studies at Utrecht. Mortified by his father’s decision, and the severely peremptory character of his letter, he thought of waiting on Mr. Mitchell to entreat his aid and intervention. The ambassador was from home; he had gone with his family to Spa, where he was still to remain some weeks. Procuring his address, Boswell sent him a lengthened communication, which owing to its peculiar manner we present without abridgment:—

“You may believe, sir, that I was a good deal surprised to hear, upon my return to Berlin, that onze Gezant[32] was gone. There was indeed a surmise at Brunswick that you intended to return to England this season. I was asked if it was true, and very innocently affirmed that there was nothing in it. I find however, that when a man leaves a Minister at a foreign Court but for a fortnight, he is not sure of finding him upon his return. Your departure is a good deal unlucky for me, not only as it deprives me of conversation which gave me uncommon pleasure, and invariably accustomed me to rational thinking and honourable sentiment, but because I now particularly stand in need of your prudent and kind counsel with respect to my travels. I have had another letter from my father, in which he continues of opinion that travelling is of very little use, and may do a great deal of harm. I shall not repeat what I have formerly said of my father’s particular character; I say particular, for rarely will you find a man of so excellent a frame of body, and so noble a mind as to have passed through life with uniform propriety of conduct.[33] For my own part, I own that I am not such a favourite of nature. Think not that I intend to plead machinery, and escape from the censure due to the faults which I have committed. I only would have you consider that judgment is a natural gift as well as imagination, and force of mind is in a great measure independent of our endeavours: think of me as I am, and pronounce accordingly.

“I esteem and love my father, and I am determined to do what is in my power to make him easy and happy; but you will allow that I may endeavour to make him happy and at the same time not be too hard upon myself. I must use you so much with the freedom of a friend as to tell you that, with the vivacity which you allowed me, I have a melancholy disposition. To escape from the gloom of dark speculation, I have made excursions into the fields of amusement, perhaps of folly. I have found that amusement and folly are beneath me, and that without some laudable pursuit my life must be insipid and wearisome. I therefore took the resolution of leaving London, and settled myself for the winter at Utrecht, where I recovered my inclination for study and rational thinking. I then laid my account with travelling for a couple of years, but I found my father’s views to be entirely different. You saw the letter which I wrote him from this, and I flatter myself that you approved of it. I cannot expect his answer for some weeks; in the meantime he tells me that he would not oppose my passing another winter at Utrecht, so that he does not grudge the time which I ask. As for the money, I should think for one year a little extraordinary expense is not thrown away, when it is also to be considered that what I spend now I shall not have some years hence. My father seems much against my going to Italy, but gives me leave to go from there and pass some months in Paris. I own that the words of the apostle Paul, “I must see Rome,” are strongly borne in upon my mind; it would give me infinite pleasure; it would give me talk for a lifetime, and I should go home to Auchinleck with serene contentment. I am no libertine, and have a moral certainty of suffering no harm in Italy; I can also assure you that I shall be as moderate as possible in my expenses. I do not intend to travel as Mi Lord Anglois, but merely as a scholar and a man of elegant curiosity, and I am told that in that character I may live in Italy very reasonably. I obviate your objection of my being obliged to live like others, by assuring you that I have none of that second-rate ambition which actuates most young men of fortune upon their travels. After passing four months on classic ground, I would come through France, and go home, as I said to my father, uti conviva satur.

“Now, sir, tell me fairly if I am unreasonable. Upon my honour I cannot think that I am. I give you my word that my father’s inclinations shall be as inviolable laws to his son; but don’t you think that I may just remonstrate before I consider an act as passed? Don’t you think that, rather than go home contrary to what I much desire, and cannot help thinking very proper,—don’t you think it worth while to humour me so far as to allow me my year and a reasonable sum, after which I return clear and contented, without any pretence for my stormy disposition to murmur at? I would beg, sir, that you may write to my father your opinion as to this matter, and put it in the light that you think it deserves. In the meantime I can see little advantage to be had at Berlin. I shall, however, remain here a fortnight, after which I intend passing by Mannheim, and one or two more of the German Courts, to Geneva; I am then at the point from which I may either steer to Italy or to France. I shall see Voltaire. I shall also see Switzerland and Rousseau; these two men are to me greater objects than most statues or pictures. I take this opportunity to assure the loved and respected friend of my father that I am serenely happy at having obtained his acquaintance. I would hope that I shall not be found unworthy of his regard, and I wish very honestly for an opportunity of showing my real esteem for such a character as I could draw to any one else but to himself.”[34]

In a postscript Boswell begged an early reply. His letter, somewhat Johnsonian in style, actually reflected some of Dr. Johnson’s sentiments respecting himself, in the letter received at Utrecht. It was sufficiently candid to induce friendship, and not more ambitious than the ardour of youth might have excused or justified. But Mr. Mitchell had no desire to arbitrate between father and son in a matter with which he was personally unconcerned. He contented himself with administering to the young traveller a lecture on filial obedience, and declined all further negotiation. Lord Auchinleck meanwhile relented without further pressure, assented to the Italian project, and sent the necessary funds. To the Ambassador Boswell addressed a letter from Geneva on the 26th December; it commenced in a style sufficiently exultant:—

“I thank you for your letter from Spa, although it gave me no great encouragement in my scheme of going to Italy. You tell me gravely to follow the plan which my father prescribed, whatever it may be, and in doing so I shall certainly act most wisely. I forgive you this, for I say just the same to young people when I advise. To enter into detail of the little circumstances which compose the felicity of another, is what a man of any genius can hardly submit to. We therefore give a good, wholesome, general counsel; and he who consults us thinks a little, and then endeavours to take his own way as well as he can. I have, however, the happiness to inform you that my father has consented that I shall go to Italy. Upon my soul, I am grateful to the most worthy of men: it will be hard if we are not well together, for I love him with the strongest affection. If I find that I cannot succeed in my own plans in such a way as to convince my father that I am in the right, I shall do my utmost to fulfil the plan beyond which he cannot think to look. You may suppose what my ideas are, for they are of your old acquaintances. One thing I am sure of, and by the undisguised honour of a man of probity I swear, shall chiefly influence me—a regard to the happiness of him to whom I owe so much, Believe me I have a soul.”

Had Boswell concluded his letter at this point he might have merited some praise for snubbing the ambassador who had lectured him on filial duty. But he goes on to entreat Mr. Mitchell’s influence on behalf of the father and brother of his friend Mr. Temple. The father he describes as formerly an officer in the Customs, who had forfeited his appointment by becoming insolvent. The son, Master Robert, is now a lieutenant on half-pay. Through Mr. Mitchell he desires a Government post for the one, and full pay for the other. He assures the ambassador that excepting his Sovereign he is “the only man in Britain” he would ask a favour of. “If you can aid me,” he adds, “you will most truly oblige a worthy fellow, for such I am.” To this second communication the ambassador vouchsafed no answer.

Through a part of Germany Boswell was accompanied by the Earl Marischal, who ordinarily resided at Berlin, and who had, during a recent visit to Scotland, formed the acquaintance of Lord Auchinleck. With introductions from his lordship he visited Voltaire at Ferney, and Rousseau in the wilds of Neufchatel. It is to be regretted that he did not record his conversations with these celebrated persons. Crossing the Alps, he visited the principal towns of Italy. He spent some time in Italy with Lord Mountstuart, eldest son of the Earl of Bute. To this nobleman he dedicated his thesis when he was called to the Bar.

The inhabitants of Corsica were at this time engaged against the Genoese in their memorable struggle for liberty, and Pascal Paoli, their patriotic leader, had become celebrated over Europe. To Boswell he had been warmly commended by Rousseau, who had corresponded with the Corsicans respecting the formation of their laws. Boswell hinted to Rousseau that he might proceed to Corsica, and when in April, 1765, he reached Rome, he addressed a letter to the philosopher, begging an introduction to Paoli. Not receiving a reply, he wrote to Rousseau a second time, informing him that should he withhold the introduction sought for “he should certainly go without it, and probably be hanged as a spy.”[35] On his arrival at Florence, in August, he received a letter from “the wild philosopher,” recommending him first to Mr. Buttafoco, Captain of the Royal Italian Regiment at Viscovado, and in his absence to General Paoli. At Leghorn he procured from Count Rivarola, the Sardinian Consul, a special letter to Paoli and other leading persons at Corsica.

Arriving in the island, Boswell was courteously received by Signor Antonetti, to whom he presented a letter from Count Rivarola. After entertaining him at his house, Antonetti facilitated his progress to the town of Sollacarò, the headquarters of Paoli. On his route Boswell heard that in the castle of Corte were detained three murderers, a woman and two men; he gratified his curiosity by conversing with them. At his request the executioner was also presented to him.

Reaching Sollacarò, Boswell was brought into the presence of Paoli, to whom he handed his credentials. Paoli received him with reserve, but afterwards became friendly. To the general he described himself in these terms:—“With a mind naturally inclined to melancholy, and a keen desire of inquiry, I have intensely applied myself to metaphysical researches, and reasoned beyond my depth on such subjects as it is not given to man to know. I have rendered my mind a comera (sic) obscura; in the very heat of youth I felt the non est tanti, the omnia vanitas of one who has exhausted all the sweets of his being, and is weary with dull repetition. I told him that I had almost become for ever incapable of taking a part in active life.”[36]

Paoli introduced Boswell to his nobility, who severally honoured him with visits. He was one day mounted on Paoli’s horse, with its rich garniture of crimson velvet and gold lace. In journeying he was attended by the general’s guards, an honour from which he “enjoyed a sort of luxury of noble sentiment.” From Paoli’s palace at Corte, the capital of Corsica, he addressed a letter to Dr. Johnson, which he describes as “full of generous enthusiasm.” Having related what he had done and seen, he summed up; “I dare to call this a spirited tour; I dare to challenge your approbation.”[37]

From Corsica Boswell communicated to Rousseau, now in France, the details of his visit to Paoli, and on his reaching Paris received the philosopher’s commands to bring with him into England, whither he had preceded him, the notorious companion of his household, Therése La Vasseur. Boswell accepted the mission, and accompanied Rousseau’s mistress from Paris to London. In reference to his intended progress, Mr. Hume, at whose instance Rousseau proceeded to England, thus communicated with his ingenious correspondent, the Countess de Bouflers:—

“12th of January, 1766.

“A letter has come open to me from Guy, the bookseller, by which I learn that Mademoiselle[38] sets out first in company with a friend of mine, a young gentleman very good-humoured, very agreeable, and very mad. He visited Rousseau in his mountains, who gave him a recommendation to Paoli, the King of Corsica; where this gentleman, whose name is Boswell, went last summer in search of adventures. He has such a rage for literature, that I dread some event fatal to our friend’s honour. For 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.”

At Paris, in the house of Mr. Waters, an English banker, Boswell found a letter from Dr. Johnson, dated the 14th January. It proceeded thus:—

“Be assured for the present, that nothing has lessened either the esteem or love with which I dismissed you at Harwich. Both have been increased by all that I have been told of you by yourself or others, and when you return, you will return to an unaltered and, I hope, unalterable friend.

“All that you have to fear from me is the vexation of disappointing me. No man loves to frustrate expectations which have been formed in his favour; and the pleasure which I promise myself from your journals and remarks is so great, that perhaps no degree of attention or discernment will be sufficient to afford it.

“Come home, however, and take your chance. I long to see you and to hear you, and hope that we shall not be so long separated again. Come home, and expect such welcome as is due to him whom a wise and noble curiosity has led where perhaps, no native of this country ever was before.

******

“As your father’s liberality has indulged you with so long a ramble, I doubt not but that you will think his sickness, or even his desire to see you, a sufficient reason for hastening your return. The longer we live, and the more we think, the higher value we learn to put on the friendship and tenderness of parents and friends. Parents we can have but once; and he promises himself too much who enters life with the expectation of finding many friends. Upon some motive I hope that you will be here soon, and am willing to think that it will be an inducement to your return that it is sincerely desired by, dear sir, your affectionate humble servant,

“Sam Johnson.”

Boswell reached London in the beginning of February, and at once visited Dr. Johnson at his house in Johnson’s Court. Received with much cordiality, he proceeded to entertain the lexicographer with Voltaire’s opinions of some of the English poets. In the evening the friends supped together at the Mitre Tavern, when Boswell learnt, for the first time, that Johnson had become practically an abstainer. On Saturday, the 15th February, Boswell and Johnson again met at the “Mitre,” the former being accompanied by his friend Mr. Temple. Boswell spoke of Rousseau, and said he had met with Mr. Wilkes in Italy, and had enjoyed his society. Johnson denounced both the philosopher and the politician in his severest manner.

In the course of their conversation General Paoli had remarked to Boswell that he might inform the members of his court that the Corsicans were worthy of greater support than they had hitherto received. Boswell construed the remark into a request, and, before he left the island, commissioned a Corsican dress in which he might, to members of the English Cabinet, plead the cause of Paoli. In this costume he waited on several members of Government, and some noted politicians. From Mr. Walpole he experienced a courteous reception. Mr. Pitt wrote him a short letter, which, in the hope of producing a correspondence between him and the minister, he acknowledged as follows:—

“St. James’ Street, Feb. 19, 1766.

“Sir,—I have the honour to receive your most obliging letter, and can with difficulty restrain myself from paying you compliments on the very genteel manner in which you are pleased to treat me. But I come from a people among whom even the lowest arts of insinuation are unknown. However you may, by political circumstances, be in one view a simple individual, yet, sir, Mr. Pitt will always be the prime minister of the brave, the secretary of freedom and of spirit; and I hope that I may with propriety talk to him of the views of the illustrious Paoli. Be that as it may, I shall very much value the honour of being admitted to your acquaintance.

“I am, &c.,

James Boswell.”[39]

Informed of his mother’s death, Boswell left London for Auchinleck. His father was pleased to find him somewhat less volatile, and quite reconciled to the legal profession. On the 26th July he was admitted advocate. His “Thesis on Civil Law,” published at his admission, he transmitted to Dr. Johnson, who criticised it with severity; he, however, heartily commended his resolution to obey his father, and seriously to occupy himself with business. His proposal to write a history of Corsica Dr. Johnson objected to. “You have,” he wrote, “no materials which others have not, or may have. You have, somehow or other, warmed your imagination. I wish there were some cure, like the lover’s leap, for all heads of which some single idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular possession. Mind your own affairs, and leave the Corsicans to theirs.”

Aware of Boswell’s tendency to form resolutions, which he afterwards departed from, Dr. Johnson entreated him to abandon his practice of vow-making. To a letter from the lexicographer on this subject Boswell made the following answer:—

“Auchinleck, 6th November, 1766.

“Might I venture to differ from you with regard to the utility of vows? I am sensible that it may be very dangerous to make vows rashly, and without a due consideration. But I cannot help thinking that they may often be of great advantage to one of a variable judgment and irregular inclinations. I always remember a passage in one of your letters to our Italian friend, Baretti; where, talking of the monastic life, you say you do not wonder that serious men should put themselves under the protection of a religious order, when they have found how unable they are to take care of themselves. For my own part, without affecting to be a Socrates, I am sure I have a more than ordinary struggle to maintain with the Evil Principle; and all the methods I can devise are little enough to keep me tolerably steady in the paths of rectitude.”

In February, 1767, Boswell conveyed his congratulations to Mr. Temple on his being admitted to priest’s orders, and instituted Rector of Mamhead. The following remarks with which his congratulations were accompanied would have reflected credit on Dr. Johnson:—

“I am sincerely happy that you are at length the Reverend Mr. Temple. I view the profession of a clergyman in an amiable and respectable light. Don’t be moved by declamations against ecclesiastical history, as if that could blacken the sacred order. I confess that it is not in ecclesiastical history that we find the most agreeable account of divines: their politics, their ambition, and their cruelty are there displayed; but remember, Temple, you are there reading the vices of only political divines,—of such individuals as in so numerous a body have been very unworthy members of the Church, and should have rather been employed in the rudest secular concerns. But if you would judge fairly of the priests of Jesus, you must consider how many of the distressed they have comforted, how many of the wicked they have reclaimed, how many of the good they have improved; consider the lives of thousands of worthy pious divines who have been a blessing to their parishes. This is just, Temple. You say the truths of morality are written in the hearts of all men, and they find it their interest to practise them. My dear friend, will you believe a specious moral essayist against your own experience? Don’t you in the very same letter complain of the wickedness of those around you? Don’t you talk of the tares in society? My friend, it is your office to labour cheerfully in the vineyard, and, if possible, to leave not a tare in Mamhead.

*****

“In a word, my dear Temple, be a good clergyman, and you will be happy both here and hereafter.”

Boswell proceeds to advise his friend to marry a suitable wife, and expresses a regret that he himself cannot wed so long as his father lives. Having administered these virtuous counsels, he intimates that he has involved himself in an illicit amour—or, as he expresses it, that he is attached to “a dear infidel.” The person so described was a married woman, who had separated from her husband. Boswell had met her in the autumn of 1765 at Moffat Spa, where he had been sojourning with his friend Mr. Johnston, of Grange, a Dumfriesshire landowner. He had brought her to Edinburgh, and she was now maintained at his expense. In mitigation of his conduct in associating with her, he thus expatiates to Mr. Temple:—

“Don’t think her unfaithful; I could not love her if she was. There is baseness in all deceit which my soul is virtuous enough to abhor, and therefore I look with horror on adultery. But my amiable mistress is no longer bound to him who was her husband: he has used her shockingly ill; he has deserted her; he lives with another. Is she not then free? She is, it is clear, and no arguments can disguise it. She is now mine; and were she to be unfaithful to me, she ought to be pierced with a Corsican poniard; but I believe she loves me sincerely. She has done everything to please me: she is perfectly generous, and would not hear of any present.”

The first part of Boswell’s letter embracing these incongruous details is dated “1st February,” and occupies seven folio pages. With temporary discretion the writer hesitated to send off so strange a communication; at length, on the 28th of the month, he resumed his narrative, which after another interval was concluded on the 4th March, and thereupon despatched. Respecting his unhappy amour he writes:—

“I have talked a great deal of my sweet little mistress; I am, however, uneasy about her. Furnishing a house and maintaining her with a maid will cost me a great deal of money, and it is too like marriage, or too much a settled plan of licentiousness; but what can I do? I have already taken the house, and the lady has agreed to go in at Whitsuntide; I cannot in honour draw back.... Now am I tormented because my charmer has formerly loved others. Besides, she is ill-bred, quite a rompish girl. She debases my dignity; she has no refinement, but she is very handsome and very lively. What is it to me that she has formerly loved? so have I. I am positive that since I first courted her at Moffat she has been constant to me; she is kind, she is generous. What shall I do? I wish I could get off; and yet how awkward would it be!... What is to be thought of this life, my friend? Hear the story of my last three days. After tormenting myself with reflecting on my charmer’s former loves, and ruminating on parting with her, I went to her. I could not conceal my being distressed. I told her I was very unhappy, but I would not tell her why. She took this very seriously, and was so much affected that she went next morning and gave up her house. I went in the afternoon and secured the house, and then drank tea with her. She was much agitated; she said she was determined to go and board herself in the north of England, and that I used her very ill. I expostulated with her; I was sometimes inclined to let her go, and sometimes my heart was like to burst within me. I held her dear hand; her eyes were full of passion; I told her what made me miserable; she was pleased to find it was nothing worse. She had imagined I was suspicious of her fidelity, and she thought that very ungenerous in reconsidering her behaviour. She said I should not mind her faults before I knew her, since her conduct was now more circumspect. She owned that she loved me more than she had ever done her husband. All was well again.”

Boswell went out, and the same evening got drunk, and committed gross follies. On the 30th March he wrote to Mr. Temple from Auchinleck. He informed him that as his Circe had gone to Moffat, he has “had time to think coolly,” and to call up “that reason which he had so often contradicted.” He proceeds:—

“Johnston, an old friend of mine, a writer in Edinburgh, but too much of an indolent philosopher to have great business, being rather a worthy country gentleman, with a paternal estate of £100 a year, was much distressed with my unhappy passion. He was at Moffat when it first began, and he marked the advance of the fever. It was he who assured me, upon his honour, that my fair one had a very bad character, and gave me some instances which made my lovesick heart recoil. He had some influence with me, but my brother David had more. To him I discovered my weakness, my slavery, and begged his advice. He gave it me like a man. I gloried in him. I roused all my spirit, and at last I was myself again. I immediately wrote her a letter, of which I enclose the scroll for your perusal. She and I have always corresponded in such a manner that no mischief could come of it, for we supposed a Miss——, to whom all my amorous vows were paid.... I have not yet got her answer: what will it be, think you? I shall judge of her character from it. I shall see if she is abandoned or virtuous; I mean both in a degree; I shall at any rate be free. What a snare have I escaped! Do you remember Ulysses and Circe?—

‘Sub domina meretrice vixisset turpis et excors.’

“My life is one of the most romantic that I believe either you or I really know of, and yet I am a very sensible, good sort of man. What is the meaning of this, Temple? You may depend upon it that very soon my follies will be at an end, and I shall turn out an admirable member of society. Now that I have given my mind the turn, I am totally emancipated from my charmer, as much as from the gardener’s daughter who now puts on my fire and performs menial offices like any other wench, and yet just this time twelvemonth I was so madly in love as to think of marrying her. Should not this be an everlasting lesson to me?... How strangely do we colour over our vices! I startle when you talk of keeping another man’s wife, yet that was literally my scheme, though imagination represented it just as being fond of a pretty, lovely, black little lady, who to oblige me stayed in Edinburgh, and I very genteelly paid her expenses.”

From several letters to Mr. Temple at subsequent dates, it appears that Boswell’s discreditable amour was protracted for some time longer. In the same letter he invited his friend’s counsel respecting certain matrimonial projects on which he had embarked.

Amidst his dissipations and follies Boswell was not altogether idle. To Mr. Temple he reported, in March, that he had at the Bar earned sixty-five guineas during the winter, and that his employment was steadily on the increase. He stated that Mr. Hume augured favourably of his work on Corsica; that Rousseau had quarrelled with him as he had done with Hume; that Dr. Gregory had sought his acquaintance, and that he had received a long letter from General Paoli, and one of three pages from Lord Chatham.

To Lord Chatham Boswell replied in characteristic fashion:—

“Auchinleck, April 8th, 1767.

“I have communicated to General Paoli the contents of your lordship’s letter, and I am persuaded he will think as I do.... Your lordship applauds my ‘generous warmth for so striking a character as the able chief.’ Indeed, my lord, I have the happiness of being able to contemplate with supreme delight those distinguished spirits by which God is sometimes pleased to honour humanity, and as I have no personal favour to ask of your lordship, I will tell you, with the confidence of one who does not fear to be thought a flatterer, that your character, my lord, has filled many of my best hours with that noble admiration which a disinterested soul can enjoy in the bower of philosophy.”

After informing his correspondent that he is about to publish an account of Corsica, he proceeds:—

“As for myself, to please a worthy and respected father, one of our Scots judges, I studied law, and am now fairly entered to the bar. I begin to like it; I can labour hard, I feel myself coming forward, and I hope to be useful to my country. Could your lordship find time to honour me now and then with a letter?

“I have been told how favourably your lordship has spoken of me. To correspond with a Paoli and with a Chatham is enough to keep a young man ever ardent in the pursuit of virtuous fame.”

The cool egotism which prompted Boswell, an undistinguished youth, to beg an occasional letter from an illustrious and veteran statesman is without a parallel in biography. At Edinburgh, notwithstanding his obvious eccentricity, he enjoyed a kind of literary status. As a patron of histrionic art he led a considerable section of the Edinburgh youth; and we have already related, that at the request of Ross, the player, he composed the prologue spoken at the opening of the Edinburgh theatre in December, 1767. By an act of indiscretion he nearly crushed the institution he had helped to rear. He brought on the Edinburgh stage a comedy entitled “The Coquettes,” to oblige Lady Houston, by whom it was composed. On the third performance it was condemned as a bad translation of one of Corneille’s worst plays. Lady Houston was sister of Lord Cathcart, one of Boswell’s friends, and creditably enough he was content to bear the censure of producing the piece rather than expose the foolish gentlewoman who had placed it in his hands.

In his letter to Mr. Temple of the 30th March, 1767, he reports concerning his forthcoming venture—“I am now seriously engaged in my account of Corsica; it elevates my soul, and makes me spernere humum. I shall have it finished by June.” Through Mr. Hume he endeavoured to secure Mr. Andrew Millar as publisher; but negotiations being unsatisfactory, he sold his MS. for 100 guineas to Messrs. Edward and Charles Dilly, booksellers in the Poultry. In an ordinary octavo the work appeared in the spring of 1768, with the title, “An Account of Corsica: the Journal of a Tour to that Island, and Memoirs of Pascal Paoli, by James Boswell, Esq.” It was dedicated, in flattering terms, to Paoli; but the peculiarities of the writer were more apparent in his preface. He there indicates his peculiar system of orthography. “Of late,” he writes, “it has become the fashion to render our language more neat and trim by leaving out k after c, and u in the last syllable of words which used to end in our. The illustrious Mr. Samuel Johnson, who has alone executed in England what was the task of whole academies in other countries, has been careful in his dictionary to preserve the k as a mark of Saxon original. He has for most part, too, been careful to preserve the u, but he has also omitted it in several words. I have retained the k, and have taken upon me to follow a general rule with regard to words ending in our. Wherever a word originally Latin has been transmitted to us through the medium of the French I have written it with the characteristical u. Our attention to this may appear trivial, but I own I am one of those who are curious in the formation of language in its various modes; and therefore, with that, the affinity of English with other tongues may not be forgotten. If this work should at any future period be reprinted, I hope that care will be taken of my orthography.”

Pursuant to his system, Boswell indulged the satisfaction of writing authour for author, and tremenduous for a word known only as tremendous. He closed his preface by intimating his literary aspirations:—

“I should,” he writes, “be proud to be known as an authour, and I have an ardent ambition for literary fame; for of all possessions I should imagine literary fame to be the most valuable. A man who has been able to furnish a book which has been approved by the world has established himself as a respectable character in distant society, without any danger of having that character lessened by the observation of his weaknesses. To preserve an uniform dignity among those who see us every day is hardly possible, and to aim at it must put us under the fetters of a perpetual restraint. The authour of an approved book may allow his natural disposition an easy play, and yet indulge the pride of superior genius when he considers that by those who know him only as an authour he never ceases to be respected. Such an authour, when in his hours of gloom and discontent, may have the consolation to think that his writings are at that very time giving pleasure to numbers, and such an authour may cherish the hope of being remembered after death, which has been a great object to the noblest minds in all ages. Whether I may merit any portion of literary fame the public will judge. Whatever my ambition may be, I trust that my confidence is not too great, nor my hopes too sanguine.”

Though subjected to some ridicule, owing to the extreme egotism of the writer, the Corsican Journey was well received. A second edition was called for within a few months. Boswell proceeded to London to enjoy an anticipated ovation. When he arrived Dr. Johnson was on a visit at Oxford, but Boswell by letter solicited his commendation. Contrary to his hopes he received this laconic answer—“I wish you would empty your head of Corsica, which I think has filled it rather too long.” From Dr. Johnson such a reproof was intolerable. Boswell at once despatched the following reply:—

“How can you bid me empty my head of Corsica? My noble-minded friend, do you not feel for an oppressed nation bravely struggling to be free? Consider fairly what is the case. The Corsicans never received any kindness from the Genoese. They never agreed to be subject to them. They owe them nothing, and when reduced to an abject state of slavery by force, shall they not rise in the great cause of liberty, and break the galling yoke? And shall not every liberal soul be warm for them? Empty my head of Corsica! Empty it of honour, empty it of humanity, empty it of friendship, empty it of piety. No! while I live, Corsica and the cause of the brave islanders shall ever employ much of my attention, shall ever interest me in the sincerest manner.”

Though Dr. Johnson imparted no praise, Boswell, on account of his book, met with considerable attention. To Mr. Temple he wrote on the 14th May,—

“I am really the great man now. I have had David Hume in the forenoon, and Mr. Johnson in the afternoon of the same day visiting me. Sir John Pringle, Dr. Franklin, and some more company, dined with me to-day; and Mr. Johnson and General Oglethorpe one day, Mr. Garrick alone another, and David Hume and some more literati, dine with me next week. I give admirable dinners and good claret; and the moment I go abroad again, which will be in a day or two, I set up my chariot. This is enjoying the fruit of my labours, and appearing like the friend of Paoli. By-the-bye, the Earl of Pembroke and Captain Meadows are just setting out for Corsica, and I have the honour of introducing them by letter to the General. David Hume came on purpose the other day to tell me that the Duke of Bedford was very fond of my book, and had recommended it to the Duchess.”

In the beginning of 1769 Boswell issued under the publishing auspices of Messrs. Dilly, a duodecimo volume entitled “British Essays in favour of the brave Corsicans”—a work which was followed by the third edition of his work on Corsica. In a preface to this edition, dated at Auchinleck, 29th October, 1768, he thus disposes of his critics:—“To those who have imagined themselves very witty in sneering at me for being a Christian, I would recommend the serious study of theology; and I hope they will attain to the same comfort that I have in the belief of a revelation by which a Saviour is proclaimed to the world, and ‘life and immortality are clearly brought to light.’” He closes by congratulating himself on having obtained literary reputation.

“May I be permitted to say,” he writes, “that the success of this book has exceeded my warmest hopes. When I first ventured to send it into the world I fairly owned an ardent desire for literary fame. I have obtained my desire; and whatever clouds may overcast my days, I can now walk here among the rocks and woods of my ancestors with an agreeable consciousness that I have done something worthy.”

Complacently as he had expressed himself, Boswell was ill at ease, for though his book sold, and was generally approved, Dr. Johnson remained silent. After enduring the affront for eighteen months, he at length, in September, 1769, addressed a letter to the lexicographer, charging him with unkindness. In these terms Dr. Johnson rebutted the accusation:—

“Why do you charge me with unkindness? I have omitted nothing that could do you good or give you pleasure, unless it be that I have forborne to tell you my opinion of your ‘Account of Corsica.’ I believe my opinion, if you think well of my judgment, might have given you pleasure; but when it is considered how much vanity is excited by praise, I am not sure that it would have done you good. Your history is like other histories, but your journal is in a very high degree curious and delightful. There is between the history and the journal that difference which there will always be found between notions borrowed from without and notions generated within. Your history was copied from books; your journal rose out of your own experience and observation. You express images which operated strongly upon yourself, and you have impressed them with great force upon your readers. I know not whether I could name any narrative by which curiosity is better excited or better gratified.”

These words from Dr. Johnson made Boswell happy. The Doctor’s opinion as to the interest of the work mainly depending on the narrative of the writer’s own experiences was shared generally. Respecting Boswell and his performance, Mr. Walpole, in a letter to the poet Gray, dated 18th February, 1768, thus expresses himself:—“Pray read the new account of Corsica; what relates to Paoli will amuse you much. There is a deal about the island and its dimensions that one does not care a straw for. The author, Boswell, is a strange being, and, like Cambridge,[40] has a rage for knowing anybody that was ever talked of. He forced himself upon me in spite of my teeth and my doors, and I see has given a foolish account of all he could pick up from me about King Theodore. He then took an antipathy to me on Rousseau’s account, abused me in the newspapers, and expected Rousseau to do so too; but as he came to see me no more, I forgave all the rest. I see he is now a little sick of Rousseau himself, but I hope it will not cure him of his anger to me; however, his book will amuse you.”

This is caustic enough. Gray’s reply is equally in praise of Boswell’s Journal and condemnatory of its author:—[41]