Part 11

“It is hereby,” he adds, “specially provided and declared That in case any of the heirs male of my body who shall succeed to my said lands and estate shall also succeed to a peerage or to any other estate entailed under such conditions as may restrain the heir from carrying my name and arms then and in every such case the person so succeeding to the said peerage or other such entailed estate when he is possessed of my said estate or succeeding to my estate when having right to such peerage or possessed of such other entailed estate shall forfeit all right and title to my said lands and estate and that not only for himself but also for his apparent heir and for all the apparent heirs of such an apparent heir in a direct line downwards whether in a nearer or remoter degree and my said estate shall devolve and belong to the next heir of Taillie though descending of the body of the person excluded or of his apparent heir in the same manner as if the person excluded and all the apparent heirs in the said peerage were naturally dead.”

On Friday, the 15th March, 1776, Boswell arrived in London. Four days thereafter he accompanied Dr. Johnson, first to Oxford and afterwards to Lichfield. At Oxford they had agreeable intercourse with Dr. Wetherell, Master of University College; Dr. Adams, Master of Pembroke College; Dr. Bentham, Professor of Divinity; Mr. Thomas Warton, and Dr. Horne, Bishop of Norwich. _En route_ for Lichfield they paused at Birmingham, to visit Dr. Johnson’s schoolfellow, Mr. Hector. Boswell improved the occasion by visiting, at Soho, Mr. Matthew Boulton, the celebrated mechanician, and partner of James Watt. Finding Mr. Boulton at the head of seven hundred mechanics, he describes him as “an iron chief,” and a “father to his tribe.” At Lichfield he was introduced to Mrs. Lucy Porter, Dr. Johnson’s step-daughter, “an old maid, of simple manners,” living on a fortune of £10,000 bequeathed to her by her brother, a captain in the navy. On Friday, the 29th March, the travellers returned to London.

Good Friday, which fell on the 5th of April, Boswell spent with Dr. Johnson. They worshipped together morning and evening in St. Clement’s Church. On Easter Sunday Boswell attended morning service in St. Paul’s Cathedral, and in the evening accompanied Dr. Johnson to his pew in St. Clement’s.

In the preceding January the brothers Daniel and Robert Perreau were hanged for forgery. They were convicted on the evidence of Margaret Caroline Rudd, who cohabited with one of them, and who, to save her own life, proved informer. This woman possessed uncommon powers of fascination, and it was believed that she had duped the brothers into the crime for which they suffered. Like other great criminals, Mrs. Rudd had acquired a temporary celebrity, and on this account Boswell determined to visit her. He carried out his intention, and confessed himself charmed by Mrs. Rudd’s conversation and manners. Under the plea that he would interest Mrs. Boswell, he made a full record of Mrs. Rudd’s conversation, transmitting the MS. to Mr. Temple, that he and his patron, Lord Lisburne, might “enjoy” its perusal. To his many whims and vagaries in the past Mr. Temple had submitted with more than befitting good nature, but the celebration of Mrs. Rudd was beyond his endurance. He denounced the interview, and the record of it; and Boswell, satisfied that he had been imprudent for once, took back his MS.

Writing to Mr. Temple on the 28th April he remarks that he “must eat commons in the Inner Temple this week and next, to make out another term, that he may still be approximating to the English Bar.” He then proceeds:—

“I don’t know but you have spoken too highly of Gibbon’s book; the Dean of Derry,[60] who is of our club, as well as Gibbon, talks of answering it. I think it is right that as fast as infidel wasps or venomous insects, whether creeping or flying, are hatched, they should be crushed. Murphy says he has read thirty pages of Smith’s ‘Wealth,’ but says he shall read no more. Smith too is now of our club. _It has lost its select merit._ He has gone to Scotland at the request of David Hume, who is said to be dying. General Paoli had a pretty remark when I told him of this: “Ah! je suis fâché qu’il soit détrompé si tôt.”

In a subsequent letter Boswell describes Gibbon as “an ugly, affected, disgusting fellow,” adding, “he poisons our Literary Club to me.” Gibbon was elected a member of the club in March, 1774. With an agreeable presence and elegant manners his conversational powers were of a high order. His religious sentiments being obnoxious to Dr. Johnson led to Boswell’s personal dislike. Dr. Adam Smith was admitted to the club on the 24th December, 1775. He and Dr. Johnson had been at variance, but the quarrel was made up. Doubtless in connection with this controversy Boswell thought meet to censure the philosopher and his work. That a literary club which had added to its membership Edward Gibbon and Adam Smith should thereby have lost “its select merit,” reads strangely, even as a _dictum_ of James Boswell.

Boswell’s personal habits remained much the same. He informed Mr. Temple that his “promise under the solemn yew” had not been “religiously kept.” He had lately given “his word of honour” to General Paoli that “he would not taste fermented liquor for a year.” He adds, “I have kept the promise now about three weeks; I was really growing a drunkard.”

At the end of April Boswell proceeded to Bath, and there joined Dr. Johnson at the residence of the Thrales. He accompanied Dr. Johnson to Bristol, where they inspected the church of St. Mary, Redcliff, and discoursed on the genius and errors of Chatterton. Returning to London, Boswell realized a project on which he had set his heart—that of bringing together Dr. Johnson and Mr. Wilkes. On this subject he writes:—

“My desire of being acquainted with celebrated men of every description had made me much about the same time obtain an introduction to Dr. Samuel Johnson and to John Wilkes, Esq. Two men more different could perhaps not be selected out of all mankind. They had even attacked one another with some asperity in their writings; yet I lived in habits of friendship with both. I could fully relish the excellence of each, for I have ever delighted in that intellectual chemistry which can separate good qualities from evil in the same person.”

Boswell contrived a meeting between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Wilkes by the exercise of considerable craft. Having been invited to meet Mr. Wilkes at the table of Mr. Edward Dilly, he bore a message from that gentleman to Dr. Johnson, requesting him to join the party. In conveying it he played on the Doctor’s “spirit of contradiction.” Having repeated Mr. Dilly’s message without reference to the other guests, the following conversation ensued:—

_Johnson_: “Sir, I am obliged to Mr. Dilly; I will wait upon him.”

_Boswell_: “Provided, sir, I suppose, that the company which he is to have is agreeable to you?”

_Johnson_: “What do you mean, sir? What do you take me for? Do you think I am so ignorant of the world as to imagine that I am to prescribe to a gentleman what company he is to have at his table?”

_Boswell_: “I beg your pardon, sir, for wishing to prevent you from meeting people whom you might not like. Perhaps he may have some of what he calls his patriotic friends with him.”

_Johnson_: “Well, sir, and what then? What care I for his patriotic friends? Poh!”

_Boswell_: “I should not be surprised to find Jack Wilkes there.”

_Johnson_: “And if Jack Wilkes should be there, what is that to me, sir? My dear friend, let us have no more of this. I am sorry to be angry with you, but it is treating me strangely to talk to me as if I could not meet any company whatever occasionally.”[61]

Johnson and Wilkes met not unpleasantly, and Boswell had his triumph. In May he returned to Edinburgh. Before leaving London he repeated to Dr. Johnson his former promise that he would devote a portion of his time to reading. Johnson despatched to him at Edinburgh several boxes of books, thereby relieving his collection of supernumerary volumes, and by placing on the books a marketable value discharging a debt which he owed on the Hebridean journey. After an interval Boswell reported that owing to a renewed attack of melancholy the boxes remained unopened. Johnson in these words administered reproof:

“To hear that you have not opened your boxes of books is very offensive. The examination and arrangement of so many volumes might have afforded you an amusement very seasonable at present, and useful for the whole of life. I am, I confess, very angry that you manage yourself so ill.”

Boswell opened the boxes, and found what he describes as “truly a numerous and miscellaneous stall library thrown together at random.” It was not further disturbed.

Boswell’s melancholy did not proceed from any constitutional disorder. He was involved in debt, and his creditors were importunate. His father was again appealed to, and the liabilities were discharged. Rejoicing in his deliverance he communicated the good news to Dr. Johnson. On the 16th November the Doctor thus conveyed his congratulations:—

“I had great pleasure in hearing that you are at last on good terms with your father. Cultivate his kindness by all honest and manly means. Life is but short: no time can be afforded but for the indulgence of real sorrow, or contest upon questions seriously momentous. Let us not throw away any of our days upon useless resentment, or contend who shall hold out longest in stubborn malignity. It is best not to be angry, and best, in the next place, to be quickly reconciled. May you and your father pass the remainder of your time in reciprocal benevolence!”

In December Mrs. Boswell presented her husband with a second son, who was christened David. A delicate child, he survived only a few months.

Writing to Dr. Johnson on the 8th July, 1777, Boswell claims merit in having refrained from visiting London since the spring of 1776, and proposes that the Doctor should meet him at Carlisle, and from thence complete his tour of the English cathedrals. To this proposal Johnson did not accede, but the friends agreed to meet in September at Ashbourne, in the hospitable residence of Dr. Taylor. At this meeting Boswell intimated his desire to obtain a permanent residence in London as an English barrister. This scheme Dr. Johnson warmly disapproved, and entreated his companion to be satisfied with his prospective advantages as a Scottish landowner.

In his more important legal causes Boswell had recourse to Dr. Johnson’s assistance. At Ashbourne he asked help in a case of importance. Joseph Knight, a negro, having been brought to Jamaica in the usual course of the slave trade, was purchased by a Scottish gentleman in the island, who afterwards returned to Scotland. Soon after his arrival Knight claimed his freedom, and brought an action to enforce it.[62] The case was now pending, and Boswell induced Dr. Johnson to dictate an argument on the negro’s behalf. In recording it he is careful to add that he was personally an upholder of the slave trade. He writes:—

“I record Dr. Johnson’s argument fairly upon this particular case; where, perhaps, he was in the right. But I beg leave to enter my most solemn protest against his general doctrine with respect to the slave trade. For I will resolutely say that his unfavourable notion of it was owing to prejudice and imperfect or false information. The wild and dangerous attempt which has for some time been persisted in to obtain an Act of our Legislature to abolish so very important and necessary a branch of commercial interest must have been crushed at once, had not the insignificance of the zealots, who vainly took the lead in it, made the vast body of planters, merchants, and others, whose immense properties are involved in that trade, reasonably enough suppose that there could be no danger. The encouragement which the attempt has received excites my wonder and indignation; and though some men of superior abilities have supported it, whether from a love of temporary popularity when prosperous, or a love of general mischief when desperate, my opinion is unshaken. To abolish a _status_ which in all ages God has sanctioned and man has continued, would not only be robbery to an innumerable class of our fellow-subjects, but it would be extreme cruelty to the African savages, a portion of whom it saves from massacre, or intolerable bondage in their own country, and introduces into a much happier state of life, especially now when their passage to the West Indies, and their treatment there, is humanely regulated. To abolish that trade would be to—

“——Shut the gates of mercy on mankind.”

The political success of Edmund Burke induced Boswell to indicate his readiness to co-operate with him in regard to the American colonies. To Mr. Burke he wrote as follows:—

“_Edinburgh, March 3, 1778._

“DEAR SIR,—Upon my honour I began a letter to you some time ago, and did not finish it because I imagined you were then near your _apotheosis_, as poor Goldsmith said upon a former occasion, when he thought your party was coming into administration; and being one of your old Barons of Scotland, my pride could not brook the appearance of paying my court to a minister amongst the crowd of interested expectants on his accession. At present I take it for granted that I need be under no such apprehension, and therefore I resume the indulgence of my inclination. This may be perhaps a singular method of beginning a correspondence; and in one sense may not be very complimentative. But I can sincerely assure you, dear sir, that I feel and mean a genuine compliment to Mr. Burke himself. It is generally thought no meanness to solicit the notice and favour of a man in power; and surely it is much less a meanness to endeavour by honest means to have the honour and pleasure of being on an agreeable footing with a man of superior knowledge, abilities, and genius.

“I have to thank you for the obligations which you have already conferred upon me by the welcome which I have, upon repeated occasions, experienced under your roof. When I was last in London you gave me a general invitation, which I value more than a Treasury warrant:—an invitation to ‘the feast of reason,’ and, what I like still more, ‘the flow of soul,’ which you dispense with liberal and elegant abundance, is, in my estimation, a privilege of enjoying certain felicity; and we know that riches and honour are desirable only as means to felicity, and that they often fail of the end.

“Most heartily do I rejoice that our present ministers have at last yielded to conciliation. For amidst all the sanguinary zeal of my countrymen I have professed myself a friend to our fellow-subjects in America, so far as they claim an exemption from being taxed by the representatives of the King’s British subjects. I do not perfectly agree with you; for I deny the Declaratory Act, and I am a warm Tory in its true constitutional sense. I wish I were a commissioner, or one of the secretaries of the commission for the grand treaty. I am to be in London this spring, and if his Majesty should ask me what I would choose, my answer will be, to assist in the compact between Britain and America. May I beg to hear from you, and in the meantime to have my compliments made acceptable to Mrs. Burke?—I am, dear sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

“JAMES BOSWELL.”[63]

On the 18th March Boswell arrived in London, and at once renewed his intercourse with Dr. Johnson. They spent Good Friday together, Boswell accompanying the lexicographer to morning and evening service in St. Clement’s Church. Next evening, while taking tea with him, Boswell severely experienced Dr. Johnson’s resentment. The narrative we present in his own words:—

“We talked of a gentleman (Mr. Langton) who was running out his fortune in London, and I said, ‘We must get him out of it. All his friends must quarrel with him, and that will soon drive him away.’ _Johnson_: ‘Nay, sir, we’ll send you to him; if your company does not drive a man out of his house, nothing will.’ This was a horrible shock, for which there was no visible cause. I afterwards asked him why he had said so harsh a thing. _Johnson_: ‘Because, sir, you made me angry about the Americans.’ _Boswell_: ‘But why did you not take your revenge directly?’ _Johnson_ (_smiling_): ‘Because, sir, I had nothing ready. A man cannot strike till he has his weapons.’ This,” adds Boswell, “was a candid and pleasant confession.”[64]

Dr. Johnson made a second attack a fortnight afterwards, which Boswell endured with less patience. On the 2nd May they met at Sir Joshua Reynolds’. The wits of Queen Anne’s reign were talked of, when Boswell exclaimed, “How delightful it must have been to have lived in the society of Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, Gay, and Bolingbroke! We have no such society in our days.” Sir Joshua answered, “I think, Mr. Boswell, you might be satisfied with your great friend’s conversation.” “Nay, sir, Mr. Boswell is right,” said Johnson, “every man wishes for preferment, and if Boswell had lived in those days he would have obtained promotion.” “How so, sir?” asked Sir Joshua. “Why, sir,” said Johnson, “he would have had a high place in the Dunciad.” Boswell felt so much hurt that, contrary to his custom, he omits the conversation.[65] He refers to the occurrence in these terms:—

“On Saturday, May 2, I dined with him at Sir Joshua Reynolds’s, when there was a very large company, and a great deal of conversation; but owing to some circumstance, which I cannot now recollect, I have no record of any part of it, except that there were several people there by no means of the Johnsonian school, so that less attention was paid to him than usual, which put him out of humour, and upon some imaginary offence from me, he attacked me with such rudeness that I was vexed and angry, because it gave those persons an opportunity of enlarging upon his supposed ferocity, and ill-treatment of his best friends. I was so much hurt, and had my pride so much roused, that I kept away from him for a week, and perhaps might have kept away much longer, nay, gone to Scotland without seeing him again, had we not fortunately met and been reconciled.”

The reconciliation is thus described:—

“On Friday, May 8, I dined with him at Mr. Langton’s. I was reserved and silent, which I supposed he perceived, and might recollect the cause. After dinner, when Mr. Langton was called out of the room and we were by ourselves, he drew his chair near to mine and said, in a tone of conciliating courtesy, ‘Well, how have you done?’ _Boswell_: ‘Sir, you have made me very uneasy by your behaviour to me at Sir Joshua Reynolds’s. You know, my dear sir, no man has a greater respect and affection for you, or would sooner go to the end of the world to serve you. Now to treat me so——’ He insisted that I had interrupted, which I assured him was not the case, and proceeded, ‘But why treat me so before people who neither love you nor me?’ ‘Well, I’m sorry for it. I’ll make it up to you twenty different ways, as you please.’ _Boswell_: ‘I said to-day to Sir Joshua, when he observed that you _tossed_ me sometimes, I don’t care how often or how high he tosses me when only friends are present, for then I fall upon soft ground; but I do not like falling on stones, which is the case when enemies are present. I think this is a pretty good image, sir.’ _Johnson_: ‘Sir, it is one of the happiest I have ever heard.’”

Boswell left London on the 19th of May. On his return to Edinburgh he was seized with an irrepressible longing for an early settlement in London, and forthwith communicated his sentiments to Dr. Johnson. He had the following answer:—

“I wish you would a little correct or restrain your imagination, and imagine that happiness such as life admits may be had at other places as well as London. Without affecting stoicism, it may be said that it is our business to exempt ourselves as much as we can from the power of external things. There is but one solid basis of happiness, and that is, the reasonable hope of a happy futurity. This may be had everywhere. I do not blame your preference of London to other places, for it is really to be preferred if the choice is free; but few have the choice of their place or their manner of life, and mere pleasure ought not to be the prime motive of action.”

In August Mrs. Boswell gave birth to her third son, who was christened James. Dr. Johnson sent suitable congratulations.

In March, 1779, Boswell again repaired to the metropolis. He spent Good Friday with Dr. Johnson, attending him at both diets of worship in St. Clement’s Church. Johnson, he relates, preferred silent meditation during the interval of worship, and for his improvement handed him “Les Pensées de Paschal,” a book which he perused with reverence. On Easter Sunday he worshipped in St. Paul’s, and afterwards dined with Dr. Johnson.

A letter to Mr. Temple, which Boswell commenced at London on the 31st May, and finished at Newcastle on the 8th June, contains the following passages:—