The Life of Samuel Johnson

by James Boswell

  Mr. Boswell has been collecting materials for this work for more than twenty years, during which he was honoured with the intimate friendship of Dr. Johnson; to whose memory he is ambitious to erect a literary monument, worthy of so great an authour, and so excellent a man. Dr. Johnson was well informed of his design, and obligingly communicated to him several curious particulars. With these will be interwoven the most authentick accounts that can be obtained from those who knew him best; many sketches of his conversation on a multiplicity of subjects, with various persons, some of them the most eminent of the age; a great number of letters from him at different periods, and several original pieces dictated by him to Mr. Boswell, distinguished by that peculiar energy, which marked every emanation of his mind.136

  As it was calculated to do, this announcement raised public expectations. In January 1792 James Abercrombie mentioned to Boswell how he had been ‘most anxiously expecting’ the Life of Johnson ever since ‘your promise of it at the end of your Tour to the Hebrides, printed in 1785’.137

  It is one thing to raise public expectation; quite another to satisfy it. Having decided to write a life of Johnson, how did Boswell collect his materials? Occasional obiter dicta within the book itself give us clues – for instance this explanation of the indifferent quality of Boswell’s account of Johnson in the early period of their friendship:

  Let me here apologize for the imperfect manner in which I am obliged to exhibit Johnson’s conversation at this period. In the early part of my acquaintance with him, I was so wrapt in admiration of his extraordinary colloquial talents, and so little accustomed to his peculiar mode of expression, that I found it extremely difficult to recollect and record his conversation with its genuine vigour and vivacity. In progress of time, when my mind was, as it were, strongly impregnated with the Johnsonian æther, I could, with much more facility and exactness, carry in my memory and commit to paper the exuberant variety of his wisdom and wit.138

  Boswell’s attentiveness to Johnson occasionally exposed him to comment, as we can see from Dr Burney’s description of his manner: ‘His eyes goggled with eagerness; he leant his ear almost on the shoulder of the Doctor; and his mouth dropt open to catch every syllable that might be uttered: nay, he seemed not only to dread losing a word, but to be anxious not to miss a breathing; as if hoping from it, latently, or mystically, some information.’139 Burney’s amused puzzlement was however not the only response Boswell’s conduct provoked. Others such as Mrs Piozzi saw it not as eccentricity, but as an affront to society: ‘There is something so ill-bred, and so inclining to treachery in this conduct, that were it commonly adopted, all confidence would soon be exiled from society, and a conversation assembly-room would become tremendous as a court of justice.’140

  Boswell’s journals contain many examples of notes taken down at or close to the time which subsequently were written up in the text of the Life, and we have already considered one example of this process when we compared the journal account of the first meeting between Boswell and Johnson with the account as printed in the Life. But the original and worked-up accounts of a less momentous occasion, chosen literally at random, will serve to demonstrate how Boswell’s notes were transformed into the narrative of the Life. Here is the journal entry for 9 April 1773:

  This morning being Good Friday, I went in good frame to Mr. Johnson’s. Frank [Francis Barber, Johnson’s black servant] said there was nobody with him but Dr. Levett. I never knew till now that Levett had that title, or rather took it. We had good tea and good cakes, I think cross-buns. I then accompanied Mr. Johnson to St. Clement’s Church in the Strand. He was solemn and devout. I went home with him after. We did not dine on this venerable fast. He read to himself the Greek New Testament. I looked at several books, particularly Laud’s Life by —.141

  And here is the corresponding passage in the Life:

  On the 9th of April, being Good Friday, I breakfasted with him on tea and cross-buns; Doctor Levet, as Frank called him, making the tea. He carried me with him to the church of St. Clement Danes, where he had his seat; and his behaviour was, as I had imaged to myself, solemnly devout. I never shall forget the tremulous earnestness with which he pronounced the awful petition in the Litany: ‘In the hour of death, and at the day of judgement, good Lord deliver us.’

  We went to church both in the morning and evening. In the interval between the two services we did not dine; but he read in the Greek New Testament, and I turned over several of his books.142

  Comparison reveals a general tendency towards polish and integration, and confirms one’s impression of Boswell as a voluptuary of writing. The staccato syntax of the journal entry is worked up into more elaborate sentences. The more refined technique of implication (the Life’s quietly pooh-poohing ‘Doctor Levet, as Frank called him’) supplants mere statement (the journal’s more openly disbelieving ‘I never knew till now that Levett had that title, or rather took it’). That syntactical and strategic impasto is accompanied by an enrichment of point of view. In the finished account the perspective of the observer is incorporated into the overall effect, as we see when the journal’s simple assertion that ‘He was solemn and devout’ undergoes enhancement into the Life’s ‘his behaviour was, as I had imaged to myself, solemnly devout’ – a revision which overlays the raw perception of Johnson’s religious devotion with the film of that parallel devotion which was Boswell’s persistent and imaginative contemplation of Johnson himself. Most striking of all, however, is the introduction into the Life of a vibrant detail not present in the journal: ‘I never shall forget the tremulous earnestness with which he pronounced the awful petition in the Litany: “In the hour of death, and at the day of judgement, good Lord deliver us.”’ Is this a real memory of Johnson’s behaviour on that day in 1773, which somehow failed to be recorded in the journal? Is it an accurate memory of Johnson’s behaviour on another occasion, which Boswell has inserted into the account in the Life of the events of 9 April 1773 in order to heighten it? Or is it rather a glimpse of an ideal Johnson, the Johnson whom Boswell elsewhere paints as gripped by fears of damnation, which was forged by that process of repeated tacking between memory and imagination to which Boswell refers when he found that Johnson’s actual demeanour in St Clement Danes – at least as he recollected it when he came to write it up for the Life – matched how he had ‘imaged’ it to himself in advance of the event?143 In this, is it like that other, less obtrusive, detail in the account in the Life for which the journal gives no warrant, namely the assertion that it was Levet who made the tea that Good Friday, and whose pretensions to the title of ‘Doctor’ were thus quietly placed by his performance of that menial task? In both Levet’s tea-making and Johnson’s ‘tremulous earnestness’ are we confronted with Boswell remembering as factual something which his imagination dictated to him, after the event, as possessing a truth deeper than that of circumstance?144

  So the text of the Life, even when it may seem guileless, is far from any simple transcription of what happened to occur. For one thing, as we have already seen, Boswell was active in creating the reality he subsequently described. In this he may have picked up tips from an older friend of Johnson’s, Miss Williams, whom Boswell found ‘agreeable in conversation; for she had a variety of literature, and expressed herself well; but her peculiar value was the intimacy in which she had long lived with Johnson, by which she was well acquainted with his habits, and knew how to lead him on to talk’.145 It was a task for which, given Johnson’s dislike of being exhibited, it was ‘often necessary to employ some address’.146 The account of their conversation on 28 March 1772 shows very clearly the variety of forms which this address could assume. Address was certainly called for, since the subject of their talk was one upon which Johnson was notoriously inflammable, namely what happens to us after death:

  I again visited him at night. Finding him in a very good humour, I ventured to lead him to the subject of our situation in a future state, having much curiosity to know his notions on
that point. Johnson. ‘Why, Sir, the happiness of an unembodied spirit will consist in a consciousness of the favour of God, in the contemplation of truth, and in the possession of felicitating ideas.’ BOSWELL. ‘But, Sir, is there any harm in our forming to ourselves conjectures as to the particulars of our happiness, though the scripture has said but very little on the subject? “We know not what we shall be.”’ JOHNSON. ‘Sir, there is no harm. What philosophy suggests to us on this topick is probable: what scripture tells us is certain. Dr. Henry More has carried it as far as philosophy can. You may buy both his theological and philosophical works in two volumes folio, for about eight shillings.’ BOSWELL. ‘One of the most pleasing thoughts is, that we shall see our friends again.’ JOHNSON. ‘Yes, Sir; but you must consider, that when we are become purely rational, many of our friendships will be cut off. Many friendships are formed by a community of sensual pleasures: all these will be cut off. We form many friendships with bad men, because they have agreeable qualities, and they can be useful to us; but, after death, they can no longer be of use to us. We form many friendships by mistake, imagining people to be different from what they really are. After death, we shall see every one in a true light. Then, Sir, they talk of our meeting our relations: but then all relationship is dissolved; and we shall have no regard for one person more than another, but for their real value. However, we shall either have the satisfaction of meeting our friends, or be satisfied without meeting them.’ BOSWELL. ‘Yet, Sir, we see in scripture, that Dives still retained an anxious concern about his brethren.’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, we must either suppose that passage to be metaphorical, or hold with many divines, and all the Purgatorians, that departed souls do not all at once arrive at the utmost perfection of which they are capable.’ BOSWELL. ‘I think, Sir, that is a very rational supposition.’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, yes, Sir; but we do not know it is a true one. There is no harm in believing it: but you must not compel others to make it an article of faith; for it is not revealed.’ BOSWELL. ‘Do you think, Sir, it is wrong in a man who holds the doctrine of purgatory, to pray for the souls of his deceased friends?’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, no, Sir.’ BOSWELL. ‘I have been told, that in the Liturgy of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, there was a form of prayer for the dead.’ JOHNSON. ‘Sir, it is not in the liturgy which Laud framed for the Episcopal Church of Scotland: if there is a liturgy older than that, I should be glad to see it.’ BOSWELL. ‘As to our employment in a future state, the sacred writings say little. The Revelation, however, of St. John gives us many ideas, and particularly mentions musick.’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, ideas must be given you by means of something which you know: and as to musick, there are some philosophers and divines who have maintained that we shall not be spiritualized to such a degree, but that something of matter, very much refined, will remain. In that case, musick may make a part of our future felicity.’147

  An obvious aspect of Boswell’s address in this exchange is the variety of conversational roles he has in his repertoire, and his adroitness in assuming them: the hesitant querier (‘But, Sir, is there any harm…’); the supportive reinforcer (‘One of the most pleasing thoughts is…’); the troubled doubter (‘Yet, Sir, we see in scripture…’); the robust endorser (I think, Sir, that is a very rational supposition’); the anxious seeker after comfort (‘Do you think, Sir, it is wrong…’); finally, the helpful supplier of apposite information (I have been told…’). The adroitness is partly a question of Boswell’s sensitivity to Johnson’s replies: any trace of testiness immediately prompts the adoption of a submissive role, whereas complaisance or relaxed expatiation on Johnson’s part is the signal for Boswell to move away from the postures of deference, to begin a new incursion, and open up a new line of exploration of the great man’s mind. Conversation conducted on this basis is partly like dancing, partly like fencing. In the ‘Advertisement’ to the first edition, Boswell refers to the ‘labour and anxious attention with which I have collected and arranged the materials of which these volumes are composed’.148 He might have said ‘collected, arranged and half-created…’

  Yet the Life does not comprise simply Boswell’s recollections of Johnson. It also digests within itself the collected impressions and anecdotes of a number of Johnson’s other friends, usually placed not so much with an eye to strict chronology (despite what Edmond Malone says in the ‘Advertisement’ to the third edition about Boswell endeavouring ‘uniformly to observe’ chronological order),149 but rather to fill in those areas where Boswell’s own material was, for whatever reason, thin. So, in the section of the Life dealing with September 1783, when Boswell was in Scotland and consequently apart from Johnson, Boswell inserted ‘a few particulars concerning him [Johnson], with which I have been favoured by one of his friends’ – in fact William Bowles, with whom Johnson had stayed the previous month.150 In a similar way, when Boswell failed to meet Johnson at all in 1780, he chose that moment in the narrative of the Life to insert an ample collection of Johnsonian sayings supplied by Bennet Langton; and when the same lack of contact had occurred in 1770, ‘without any coldness on either side, but merely from procrastination, continued from day to day’ as Boswell explains, he inserted at that point in the narrative of the Life the Johnsonian Collectanea of Dr Maxwell.151 The incorporation of this related but also foreign material not only amplifies and reinforces the Life:152 it contributes strongly to the distinctive experience of reading it provides.

  We have commented on the elaboration of Boswell’s narrative. However, the narrative is far from polished, if by that metaphor for literary style we wish to imply a kind of writing completely purged of unevenness. The Life proclaims and seeks out unevenness, whether it be the inclusion of un-Boswellian material, or the different kind of unevenness which resulted from Boswell’s less than perfect commitment to the biographer’s task:

  For some time after this day I did not see him very often, and of the conversation which I did enjoy, I am sorry to find I have preserved but little. I was at this time engaged in a variety of other matters, which required exertion and assiduity, and necessarily occupied almost all my time.153

  A pleasing unevenness, too, arises from the incorporation of different kinds of literary material into the Life: letters, opinions, conversations, dramatizations of the more important encounters.154 The Life has in part the character of a florilegium of Johnsoniana, which both brings about a transfer of life to writing and yet also refrains from any pretence that this transfer is or can be anything more than partial.155 As with any anthology, its virtue is inseparable from – indeed, is precisely a product of – its selectivity.

  The eschewal of mechanical regularity in the Life is thus a consequence of deliberate choice on Boswell’s part, and is an expression of the work’s implicit biographical theory. At the very outset, Boswell reminded his reader of Johnson’s own interest in the genre of biography:

  Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited. But although he at different times, in a desultory manner, committed to writing many particulars of the progress of his mind and fortunes, he never had persevering diligence enough to form them into a regular composition. Of these memorials a few have been preserved; but the greater part was consigned by him to the flames, a few days before his death.156

  The ‘opinion’ of Johnson’s to which Boswell refers is to be found in Idler 84 (1759), in which Johnson elevates autobiography (although he does not call it that) above biography, on grounds of its probably superior veracity.157 The preference is advanced explicitly in terms of comparison between the two forms of life-writing:

  Those relations are… commonly of most value in which the writer tells his own story. He that recounts the life of another, commonly
dwells most upon conspicuous events, lessens the familiarity of his tale to increase its dignity, shews his favourite at a distance decorated and magnified like the ancient actors in their tragick dress, and endeavours to hide the man that he may produce a hero.158

  Boswell’s practice in the Life can be read as an implicit reproof of this Johnsonian suspicion of biography, since he welcomes the quotidian into his narrative and displays his subject in the most intimate circumstances. For Boswell, the route to appreciating Johnson’s heroism lies directly through his common humanity: it is not to be found by detouring round it. For this reason, it is difficult to accept at face value the praise Boswell bestows on the hypothetical autobiography which Johnson did not get round to writing: ‘had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.’ Difficult because the crafted discontinuities and asperities of Boswell’s narrative aim at vivacity of impact more than they do at clarity and elegance; and, most importantly, difficult because Boswell’s object is not to embalm, but spectrally to revive.159 So there is a trace of triumphant ressentiment when Boswell notes the abortion of this hypothetical Johnsonian autobiography. His own work, albeit produced on a different plan, at least exists.

  What was that plan? Boswell confessed that he had been influenced by William Mason’s Memoirs of Thomas Gray, which had been published in 1775.160 It was a model which, at least as Boswell understood it, prescribed the intermittent self-effacement of the biographer: