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James Boswell (1740-1795) | |
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Scottish lawyer, essayist, known for his two-volume biography THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D (1791), published seven years after the death of its subject. Boswell met Samuel Johnson in May 1763 in Davies's London bookshop and the two became fast friends. He recorded in detail Johnson's words and activities in a relatively short period. Later the historian Thomas Macaulay (1800-1859) called Boswell's worship of Dr. Johnson "Lues Boswelliana, or disease of admiration." "We cannot tell the precise moment when a friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindness there is at last one which makes the heart run over." (from The Life of Samuel Johnson) James Boswell was born in Edinburgh the son of Alexander Boswell, Lord Auchinleck, who was a judge in the supreme courts of Scotland. Boswell's mother, Euphemia Erskine, was descended from a minor branch of Scottish royalty. His family had had for two-and-a-half centuries as its seat the estate of Auchinleck in Ayrshire. Near the new mansion were the ruins of the Old Castle, which he eagerly showed to Johnson and other friends. Much of his life Boswell was plagued by his mother's suffocating Calvinism and his father's coldness. At the age of 17, he had a nervous breakdown.For a long period he was so afraid of ghost that he could not sleep alone. In one of his journals Boswell wrote: "I do not recollect having had any other valuable principle impressed upon me by my father except a strict regard for truth, which he impressed upon my mind by a hearty beating at an early age when I lied, and then talking of the dishonour of lying." He attended the University of Edinburgh (1753-1753), where he studied arts and law. He was already keeping a journal and writing poems when he was 18. At 19 he made his first visit to London and a few years later, on his second visit, Boswell met Dr. Johnson. In 1759 Boswell's father send him to the University of Glasgow to separate his son from an actress. Boswell ran away to London and embraced Roman Catholicism, planning to become a monk. He returned to Edinburgh and in 1763 he started to study law in Holland. After one term, he left for a tour of Europe, meeting the French intellectuals Jean Jacques Rousseau, of whom he wrote a biographical sketch, and Voltaire. Rousseau, who suffered from health problems, informed Boswell that he has to use a catheter to control his bladder. While on a journey from Paris to London, the exhausted Boswell wrote that he was seduced in coach and inn 13 times by Rousseau's mistress Thérèse Le Vasseur. Moving back to Scotland in 1766, Boswell was admitted to the bar and practised law in Edinburgh for 20 years. Boswell had a phenomenal memory, he loved gossip, good conversation, liquor, travel, and he was a natural writer. From 1760s onwards, he had wrote anonymously various pamphlets and verses. Moreover, throughout his life he was a passionate diarist. In 1768 Boswell published AN ACCOUNT OF CORSICA, based on his journey. The book was a defence of Corsica's abortive struggle for freedom against the republic of Genoa. Rousseau had earlier sparked Boswell's zeal for the cause of Corsican liberty and he had established a friendship with General Paoli. In 1769 Boswell appeared at the Shakespeare Jubilee in Corsican dress. Boswell wanted to become known as a great lover. He told about his adventures to his friends, William Temple and John Johnston, and once claimed that he had made love five times in a single evening. He was well-known among prostitutes in London's St. James Park – his sexuality was compulsive and he copulated after watching public hangings, a favorite pastime, and after personal bereavements. Over a period of 30 years he contracted gonorrhea 17 times. In a poem about himself Boswell wrote: "Boswell is pleasant and gay, / For frolic by nature designed; / He heedlessly rattles away / When company is to his mind." He was very disappointed when Catherine Blair, an heiress, rejected him and married a cousin, Sir William Maxwell. Boswell wrote to William Temple: "The heiress is a good Scots lass. But I must have an English woman. My mind is now twice as enlarged as it has been for some months. You cannot say how fine a woman I may marry, perhaps a Howard or some other of the noblest in the kingdom." In 1769 Boswell married Margaret Montgomerie, his cousin; they had seven children. Though his visits to London were restricted to the vacations of the Court of Session, Boswell kept up his contacts with Johnson, and was elected to the Literary Club in 1773. The members included some of the most famous men of the time. With Johnson, who described Boswell as 'the best travelling companion in the world', the friends made their celebrated tour of Scotland and the Hebrides. "A page of my Journal is like a cake of portable soup. A little may be diffused into a considerable portion." (from Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides) Between the years 1777 and 1783 Boswell wrote for The London Magazine a series of essays on such subjects as drinking, diaries, and hypochondria. After Johnson's death in 1784, Boswell published THE JOURNAL OF A TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES (1785), which has been compared to a picaresque adventure, where Johnson is Don Quixote and Boswell has the role of Sancho Panza. Boswell moved to London, and although he was admitted to the English bar, he concentrated on the writing of The Life of Samuel Johnson. It took years to gather material – letters, memoirs, interviews – and sort, select, and edit it. The book was finally published in May 1791 and hailed by the public as a great work. Boswell's remaining years were mainly unhappy, and he no longer had a clear course for his life. His pursuit of a political career was unsuccessful, and he suffered from fits of depression and hypochondria. His wife had moved back to Scotland and after the publication of The Life of Samuel Johnson the tendency to belittle its author intensified. Boswell died in London on May 19, 1795. According to a literary anecdote the first governor-general of British India, Warren Hastings (1732-1818), was asked what he thought of the Life of Samuel Johnson. "Sir," he replied, "it's the dirtiest book in my library." Hastings himself was impeached for corruption in his administration. Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson is perhaps the greatest biography in the English language. Boswell made notes on the spot during Johnson's conversation and he questioned Johnson's friends, transforming details into a lifelike portrait. In this work Boswell was aided by Edmund Malone (1741-1812), an Irish literary critic and Shakespearean scholar, who went over the final draft of Johnson's biography. By flattering, cunning questions, and demeaning himself, Boswell provoked Johnson into giving his best, making him talk. Without diminishing the stature of Johnson, Boswell is now considered not only a faithful recorder of an exceptional personality, but the creator of a masterpiece. For further reading: Dr Johnson och James Boswell: en bok om engelskt liv och lynne by Yrjö Hirn (1922); Boswell by C.C. Abbott (1946); James Boswell by P. A.W. Collins (1956); The Impossible Friendship by M. Hyde (1973); Boswell's Creative Gloom by A. Ingham (1982); Boswell's Literary Art: An Annotated Bibliography of Critical Studies, 1900-1985 by Hamilton E. Cochrane (1992); Boswellian Studies: A Bibliography by Anthony E. Brown (1992); Catalogue of the Papers of James Boswell at Yale University: Research Edition, ed. by Marion S. Pottle, et al (1993); Johnson and Boswell in Scotland: A Journey to the Hebrides, ed. by Pat Rogers, et al (1993); Boswell: Citizen of the World, Man of Letters, ed. by Irma S. Lustig (1995); James Boswell: Psychological Interpretations. ed. by Donald J. Newman (1995); All the Sweets of Being: A Life of James Boswell by Roger Hutchinson (1996); A Life of James Boswell by Peter Martin (2000); Boswell's Presumptuous Task by Adam Sisman (2001) - Place to visit in London: Dr. Johnson House, 17 Gough Square, where Johnson lived and wrote his Dictionary. Houses memorablia and manuscripts. Selected writings:
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