JAMES BOSWELL

FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES

_The following Volumes are now ready:_--

THOMAS CARLYLE. By Hector C. Macpherson. ALLAN RAMSAY. By Oliphant Smeaton. HUGH MILLER. By W. Keith Leask. JOHN KNOX. By A. Taylor Innes. ROBERT BURNS. By Gabriel Setoun. THE BALLADISTS. By John Geddie. RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor Herkless. SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By Eve Blantyre Simpson. THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor W. Garden Blaikie. JAMES BOSWELL. By W. Keith Leask.

[Illustration:

JAMES BOSWELL

BY W KEITH LEASK

FAMOUS .SCOTS. .SERIES.

PUBLISHED BY OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER. EDINBURGH AND LONDON

]

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The designs and ornaments of this volume are by Mr Joseph Brown, and the printing from the press of Messrs Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh.

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~To~

GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL, D.C.L.; M.A. Pembroke (Johnson's) College, Oxford;

CHIEF OF JOHNSON SCHOLARS AND EDITORS; AND HIMSELF MOST "CLUBABLE" OF MEN.

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PREFACE

The literature of the Johnsonian period has assumed, in spite of the lexicographer's own dislike of that adjective, prodigious dimensions. After the critical labours of Malone, Murphy, Croker, J. B. Nichols, Macaulay, Carlyle, Rogers, Fitzgerald, Dr Hill and others, it may appear hazardous to venture upon such a well-ploughed field where the pitfalls are so numerous and the materials so scattered. I cannot, however, refrain from the expression of the belief that in this biography of Boswell will be found something that is new to professed students of the period, and much to the class of general readers that may lead them to reconsider the verdict at which they may have arrived from the brilliant but totally misleading essay by Lord Macaulay. At least, the writer cherishes the hope that it will materially add to the correct understanding and the enjoyment of Boswell's great work, _the Life of Johnson_.

My best thanks are due to J. Pearson & Co., 5 Pall Mall Place, London, for the use of unpublished letters by Boswell and of his boyish common-place book. And if "our Boswell" could indulge an honest pride in availing himself of a dedication to Sir Joshua Reynolds, as to a person of the first eminence in his department, so may I entertain the same feeling in inscribing this sketch to Dr Hill who, amid the pressure of other Johnson labours, has yet found time to revise the proof sheets of my book.

W. K. L.

_ABERDEEN, December 1896._

CONTENTS

PAGE

CHAPTER I

EARLY DAYS--MEETS JOHNSON--1740-63 9

CHAPTER II

THE CONTINENT--CORSICA--1763-66 35

Table of contents (by pages)

• 1: James Boswell by W. Keith Leask
• 2: With the spelling of their name as Bosville
• 3: With the title of Lord Auchinleck
• 4: And by Harry the Ninth Bozzy
• 5: It reveals at once the historic Boswell
• 6: All his life Bozzy affected the company of players
• 7: He produced the Cub at Newmarket
• 8: Old Edinburgh was nothing if not convivial
• 9: When he calls this same Colquet his friend
• 10: He thus begins 'Dear Erskine
• 11: Or to get Bute impeached in six months
• 12: Boswell boldly repaired to Johnson
• 13: Whose family was now in straitened circumstances
• 14: Had given prelections in Leyden
• 15: The family of the Envoy was now at Spa
• 16: When we discuss the love affairs of Boswell
• 17: Bozzy was in consequence viewed as 'a very close young man
• 18: ' said Paoli in his broken English
• 19: He declared his feelings to Paoli
• 20: Six weeks he had been in Corsica
• 21: Bozzy declared to be the Covent Garden
• 22: ' This has lingered as a memento of Bozzy in Corsica
• 23: In February of 1767 he is 'coming into great employment
• 24: Paoli had sent him a long letter of sixteen pages
• 25: And Archibald Steuart or Douglas
• 26: Hume was not satisfied of the legitimacy of the pursuer
• 27: All I mean that relates to Paoli
• 28: ' Bozzy no doubt had seen the carnival abroad
• 29: In the character of a Corsican
• 30: Paoli escaped to a ruinous convent on the shore
• 31: Daughter of the late DAVID MONTGOMERY of Lainshaw
• 32: Boswell dreaded a certain nabob
• 33: Informed the public that 'James Boswell
• 34: Resolved to see Larghan Clanbrassil no more
• 35: We learn how Paoli had paid 'a visit to James Boswell
• 36: Boswell shews ever a curious depreciation of Goldsmith
• 37: To which he had removed from the Canongate
• 38: Nor to Adam Smith across the Forth to Kirkcaldy
• 39: A companion vignette of himself is added by Boswell
• 40: And the cheerfulness of Boswell
• 41: There is of Lord Auchinleck and accommodation was provided
• 42: And buttoning himself up in his greatcoat he lay down
• 43: They proceeded to Corrichatachin
• 44: Corri had a brandy bottle and glass with him
• 45: One of the ministers of Inverary
• 46: She knew too much of Mr Boswell
• 47: But the honours lay with Lord Auchinleck
• 48: Or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona
• 49: While to come to Iona or to Jerusalem could not be necessary
• 50: ' the estate was entailed on Boswell
• 51: Bozzy had been writing a series of articles
• 52: Had not been expected by Boswell
• 53: On the distinction between Whig and Tory
• 54: Mr Boswell last night adhaesit pavimento
• 55: Of mines and boroughs Lonsdale stands possessed
• 56: ' adds the complacent autobiographer
• 57: Bozzy differed respectfully but firmly from the doctor
• 58: His meeting with Johnson eight and twenty years before
• 59: Who was apparently a friend of Boswell
• 60: ' He is for ever questioning Johnson upon purgatory
• 61: If James Boswell was not like Goldsmith
• 62: Biographers have as consciously studied the proprieties
• 63: Would be justly suspected of disingenuousness
• 64: But Boswell writes like a gentleman
• 65: Has made capital use of Boswell
• 66: Johnson Why do you wish that
• 67: He assigns to Terence a Horatian line and
• 68: An edition of Johnson's Poems
• 69: 'inflated with the Johnsonian ether
• 70: Of Johnson Boswell might have said