Democrat and sentinel. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1853-1866, 1858-03-31
ANALYSIS OF BOSWELL,

- The history of the fame of James
Boswell has had somewhat ductuatIng
course In his own day, it stood low enough;
for, although liked for his convivial pleasan-
try and buoyant animal spirits, his habits,
folbles, and follies of all sorts, were such. and
so we'll known. as to deny him general res
pect. He was bit of sycophant, more
than a bit of dIunkard the vainest OF the
vain the most superstitions of men fun o.
silly prejudices characterized, too, by GER
tain ntuiSeries of conduct which would have
been loathscme, had not the folly Of the man
made them appear ludicrous; and all this
was counterbalanced by no very eminent tai
ents, or requirements, or genius. SO soon,
however, as his Life of johnson" appeared,
its interest, and its dramatic skill were SO
great, and the amount of information and OF
compact recorded sense and wit from its he
ro's lips was so prodigious, that most people
forgot their prejudice at the giver in their
gratitude for the gift. The book was hailed
with rapture, and Boswell would have been
crowned with very rich laures, had it not
been for his untimely death. Some thirty or
forty years after his departure, his memory
was assailed in the most contemptuous style
by Macauley, in the Edinburg Review; his
foibles anG faults were exaggerated his mer-
its as biographer were, indeed fully admit
ted, but all other talents and accomplishments
were denied him. The article in which this
attack appeared was one of its authors raci-
est illusions, and, indeed. read like portion
of Boswelps "Johnson," in its unmitigated
cleverness and vein Of lively sarcasm. Its
anin,us, however. at Boswell, was evident,
and somewhat lessened the effect. He SEEM
ed to hate him with perfect hatred, as we'll
as to despise him with supreme scorn both
feelings being disproportioned, alike in kind
and in degree, to the dement's of the object,
who, as ''nobody's enemy but his own"
scarcely deserved such savage hatred, and
who should have evaded contempt by the
frankness, now of penitcnce, and now of boas-
ting bonhon,ie, with which he reveals all his
own follies, -frivolities and faults. The liter
airy world accordingly felt, in general, that
the attack was overdone, and were prepared
to welcome rejoinder, which speedily arri-
we'd, in the shape of a paper in FIaser's Mag
azine, from the pen of Carlyle. 1t seemed
rather singular quarter whence Bozzy's
help arose; for, although Carlyle was known
20 be great admirer of johnson. yet few were
prepared to find in him the panegyrist of his
bear-leader Yet this seems to have sprung
from total misapprehension Of Carlyles ma
ture Whatever he may be now, he began
enthusiastic, and even excessive worshipper
of heroisln and genius. No one can read his
early essays-such as his papers on Burns,
Goethe, Jean Paul Richter, and Edward Ir-
ving-without feeling convinced that his wor-
ship of certain men was enormous, and that
he regarded these heroes not in the light OF
sympathy, but of prostratlon not as his
equals, but as his superiors. He seems ulti-
mately to have altered somewhat his point of
view, partly, perhaps, because he has now
"set up for himself" and partly because ex-
perience, and the dlsenchanting glance Of
chagrin and melancholy, have darkened the
glory of his early idols. Like that Shepherd
in Virgil, be ''has become acquainted with
Love. and found him an inhabitant of rocks
and that much of the beauty surrounding him
was lent by imagination. Ere this process,
however, had begun, it was natural for hin
to sympathize with and to praise his fellow
hero worshipper, Boswell man. indeed
whose chief claim to immortality lies in hi