BOSWELL, James, Esq. of Auchinleck, in the county of Ayr, whose life of Dr Samuel Johnson entitles him to a place among those who have contributed to the great stock of intellectual wealth, was the eldest son of Alexander Boswell, styled Lord Auchinleck, one of the judges of the supreme courts of session and justiciary in Scotland. He was born in the year 1740, and, having received the rudiments of his education, partly in his father’s house, and partly at Mr Mundell’s school in Edinburgh, successively prosecuted his studies at the universities of that city and of Glasgow. He was destined by his father for the Scottish bar; a pursuit with which his own inclinations did not much accord, and instead of which he would gladly have substituted one of greater activity and enterprise. His father’s wishes, however, and his own sense of filial duty, prevailed; and, as the study of civil law at one of the foreign universities was then included in the most liberal plan of education for a [7:5:27]Scottish advocate, it was determined that Mr Boswell should repair for that purpose to Utrecht, with a permission, before his return, to make the tour of Europe.

Already, however, those traits of character might be observed which gave a peculiar direction to his afterlife. He was very early ambitious of being admitted into the society and friendship of men distinguished by talent and public estimation, more especially those of eminence in the literary world; and his natural urbanity, as well as gaiety of disposition, rendered it no difficult matter to gratify his propensity. While at the university of Glasgow, he had formed a particular intimacy with Mr Temple, the friend of Gray, afterwards vicar of St Gluvias in Cornwall; and he was known to many of the conspicuous characters at that time in Scotland, among others, to Lord Kames, Lord Hailes, Dr Robertson, and Dr Beattie. But the most remarkable acquisition which he made of this kind was his acquaintance with Dr Johnson, which commenced in 1763, and was destined to prove at once the principal era in his own life, and the means of adding not a little to the fame of the philosopher.

Mr Boswell had visited London for the first time in 1760, when he accidentally became acquainted with Derrick, afterwards King Derrick, as the master of ceremonies at Bath was then fantastically titled, and by him was initiated into the arcana of London life. In 1763 he proceeded to Utrecht. Having passed a year at that university, he travelled into Germany and Switzerland, was entertained by Voltaire at his castle of Ferney, and conversed with Rousseau in the solitudes of Neufchatel. He continued his route to Italy; but, led by his natural enthusiasm, forsook the common lines of travel, and passed over to Corsica, which, after a contest of more than thirty years, was still struggling for independence with the republic of Genoa. He thus describes his feelings while he approached the island: “As long as I can remember anything, I had heard of the malcontents of Corsica: it was a curious thought that I was just going to see them.” Rousseau had given him a letter of introduction to the romantic Paoli; and his tide was suddenly at the full. In the small court of this simple but dignified chieftain he found everything to gratify his taste for the virtuous and sublime in natural character. He became a favourite, too, in his turn; was caressed by the islanders, admitted at all times to the society of their leader, and not only witnessed the movements of their political machinery, but appeared to be himself an actor in the scene. Of his visit to this island he published a narrative on his return to Scotland, entitled An Account of Corsica, with Memoirs of General Pasquale de Paoli, printed at Glasgow in 1768. This book was translated into the Dutch, German, French, and Italian languages. He likewise printed, in the following year, a collection of British Essays in favour of the Brave Corsicans; and made such attempts as he could to interest the British government in favour of that people, before they were finally crushed by the pressure of the French arms. His acquaintance and friendship with General Paoli were afterwards renewed in London, when that chief, having escaped with difficulty from his native isle, found an asylum in the British dominions.

From Corsica Mr Boswell repaired to Paris; and, returning to Scotland in 1766, he was admitted to the bar. Soon after, he published a pamphlet, under the title of Essence of thx Douglas Cause; written while that great suit was depending in the Court of Session, with a view to excite the public interest in favour of Mr Douglas. In 1769 he was married to Miss Montgomery, daughter of David Montgomery, Esq.; an accomplished lady, in whose society he enjoyed every domestic happiness.^[1. He had a family by her of two sons and three daughters. Mrs Boswell died in 1790. ]

In the year 1773 Mr Boswell was admitted into the Literary Club, which then met at the Turk’s Head in Gerard Street, Soho, and of which Dr Johnson had been an original member. Here he had the pleasure of associating with Burke, Goldsmith, Reynolds, Garrick, and other eminent persons.

Dr Johnson had long projected a tour to the Hebrides; and Mr Boswell at last prevailed upon him, in the course of this year, 1773, to put the plan in execution, and became the companion of his journey from Edinburgh. During this excursion, they saw whatever was most remarkable in the Western Highlands and Isles; and here Mr Boswell was again at large in his natural element. Conscious of the advantages which he enjoyed, and aware of their value, he improved every opportunity of knowledge and remark, and has preserved a faithful record of all. His feelings were like those which Dante ascribes to the pilgrim, who, having paid his vows,
" Long gazes on the holy fane, and thinks
How he shall paint it when he reaches home.”

Both travellers gave to the world an account of this tour. Mr Boswell’s Journal was published in 1785. In the course of this work he has given a simple and very interesting narrative of some minute circumstances attending the escape of Prince Charles Edward after the battle of Culloden, collected from the information of persons on the spot, and privy to his concealment; particularly from the celebrated Flora Macdonald, whom they visited at Kingsburgh, in Sky, and from Malcolm Macleod, who had been the faithful and intelligent companion of the Wanderer’s flight.

Lord Auchinleck died in 1782; and, a few years after (1786), Mr Boswell, giving up his law pursuits at Edinburgh, removed with his family to London, towards which, as a great emporium of literature and theatre of varied life, his inclinations had always tended. He had recently before been called to the English bar. He did not, however, prosecute the profession, but gave himself up to his natural bent for society and letters. After Dr Johnson’s death, in 1784, he was occupied for several years in collecting and arranging, with indefatigable diligence, the materials for a narrative, which he had long projected, of that eminent man’s life.^[2. Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, 2 vols. 4to. London, 1791. ]

Besides the. works which have been already mentioned, he was the author of two Letters addressed to the People of Scotland; being his only productions of a political character. In the first of these, which was published in 1784, he appeared as an advocate for the new administration, then recently formed. The second Letter, written in 1785, was a strenuous appeal against a measure brought forward under the sanction of the same ministry, for effecting a reform in the Court of Session in Scotland, by reducing the number of the Judges.

Mr Boswell died on the 19th June 1795. In his private character, he was loved by his friends, as well as a favourite in the circles of social life; and, if his attachments were often suddenly formed, they were not less durable on this account. Whatever he has written is favourable to virtue; and, during a course of living which naturally dissipates the mind, his moral principles remained entire, and his religious faith unshaken. “Few men,” says his friend Sir William Forbes, in a letter published in his Life of Dr Beattie, “possessed a stronger sense of piety, or more fervent devotion—perhaps not always sufficient to regulate his imagination, or direct his conduct, yet still genuine, [7:5:28]and founded both in his understanding and his heart.” His talents would probably have been rated higher if they had not been obscured by certain eccentricities of character; yet his writings bear sufficient testimony to his natural abilities, and to the delicacy as well as aptness of his intellectual touch. He has described himself as being of a temperament inclined to melancholy; but in society he was remarkable for the gaiety of his disposition, and his life was full of activity and stir. Tobe distinguished was his ruling passion, and he indulged it freely. He sought those whom the world, on whatever account, held in honour; and he was desirous of being known as one with whom they assorted, and who possessed their friendship. He was fond of his pedigree and family connections, and he aspired after literary fame. While some of these propensities have been common to the great and good in every age, others, it must be confessed, are more frequently harboured than avowed. Mr Boswell adopted the latter and more unusual course.^[3. “Egotism and vanity,” says he, in his Letter published in 1785, “are the indigenous plants of my mind: they distinguish it. I may prune their luxuriancy, but I must not entirely clear it of them: for then I should be no longer as I am and perhaps there might be something not so good.” ] He fairly owned his passion, and, if not thus secured from attack, had all those advantages, at least, which are gained by meeting an enemy in the field. But, in reality, he has dealt so openly, and with such candour, on every occasion which touches himself as well as others, that he wins not only our forgiveness,but our affection, and maintains, by ingenuousness and complete truth of character, a kind of superiority over any person who should feel desirous of assailing him. Nor was evidence of a substantial sort wanting to show the independence of his mind. For, however attached to individuals of extensive influence, and however ambitious of exalted patronage, he was neither an instrument of party nor a server of the time. What he gave in attention he received back in kindness; and, while he associated with the learned and the philosophical, he contributed his share to the general stock of enjoyment. Of Dr Johnson’s sincere attachment to him there are many and unequivocal proofs in their correspondence.

But it is not on account of his private character, or of a certain domestic celebrity which he enjoyed during his life, that he is to be distinguished in a work of this kind. We commemorate him as an author, and particularly as a writer of biography. Here he is almost an inventor; he has at least carried this species of composition to a degree of accuracy and detail formerly unattempted. Other writers, as the Abbé de Sade in L∙s Memoirs of Petrarch, and Mason in his Life of Gray, had conducted the course of their narratives partly by means of original letters. But Mr Boswell has, more than any preceding biographer, made use of all the varied means by which such a history admits of being dramatized. He paints the whole man, presents the incidents of his life in their actual order of succession, and preserves him as it were entire; fulfilling in the history of the moral, what Bacon has assigned to philosophy as her genuine work in that of the natural, world, faithfully to return its accents and reflect its image, not to add any thing of her own, but to iterate only and repeat.

The plan of keeping a Miscellaneous Journal had been recommended to him by Dr Johnson on their first acquaintance; and he appears very early to have followed it, as far as writing down what was remarkable in the conversation of those whom he admired. From his frequent allusions to the discourses of Selden, commonly called his Table Talk, as preserved by Lilward, it is probable that he had the example of that work in his view; and by long use he acquired a great facility in this process. Of his first publication, containing an account of Corsica, the Journal of his residence with General Paoli is by far the most interesting part. It is a sketch remarkable for life and natural colouring; and is one of those productions which, though enhanced by their occasion, do not depend on this circumstance alone for the attraction which they possess. In his Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, he pushed to a still greater extent, and even beyond its just limits, his favourite style of writing. Carried away by his natural enthusiasm, and delighting “to pour out all himself, like old Montaigne,” he indulged in a more ample and unqualified disclosure, both of his own sentiments and of the opinions of others, than is consistent with a salutary prudence, or necessary for the purposes of instruction. Of this he himself became sensible on cooler reflection, and not only acknowledged it with candour, but, in his subsequent and more laboured compositions, profited by the general opinion, and imposed a greater restraint upon his pen.

For the task of writing Johnson’s life he was in many respects peculiarly qualified. He had lived in habits of intimacy with the sage for a period of twenty years, had early conceived the plan of such a work, and received from Johnson himself, to,whom his intention was known, many particulars of his early life and personal history. As the writer was thus furnished for his undertaking, so there has seldom been a more fertile or interesting subject for the biographer. Johnson was not a mere scholar, “deep versed in books, and shallow in himself,” nor was he one of those unprofitable misers who hoard without expending. He was a general and a minute observer, and, while he possessed in a degree seldom equalled “the strenuous use of profitable thought,” his talent for communicating knowledge was more remarkable even than the large capacity of his mind, or the accumulation of his learning.

According to Baker’s character of King James, in that passage which Mr Boswell happily prefixed to his Journal, “he was of an admirable pregnancy of wit, and that pregnancy much improved by continual study from his childhood, by which he had gotten such a promptness in expressing his mind, that his extemporal speeches were little inferior to his premeditated writings. Many, no doubt, had read as much, and perhaps more than he, but scarce ever any concocted his reading into judgment as he did.” Johnson’s conversation, accordingly, is the matter and substance of the book; and, as the philosopher did not, in the midst of his studies, forget to cultivate his friends, nor gave up the advantages and comfort of society, there was in his discourse a range and diversity of subject not often found in combination with classical knowledge and habits of profound thinking. Nor does this work exhibit a series merely of witty and sententious sayings: it is interspersed alike with miscellaneous narrative and criticism; and, which constitutes its principal feature, it contains a mass of opinions on subjects of a more common nature, where the powers of reasoning and illustration are applied to familiar topics, and the ordinary occurrences of life. Valuable as a deposit of literary anecdote, it is still more so as a collection of ethical discourses, to which its popular form gives a singular currency and effect; so that there are few books extant where the religious and social duties, as well as the love of science, in its largest acceptation, are impressed more agreeably, or with greater force, upon the mind.

Among the many circumstances which have conspired to heighten our interest in this narrative, is the exhibition which it affords of illustrious characters in different [7:5:29]walks of life. The period was distinguished by an unusual measure of genius and talent; and we are not only introduced to the closet of the philosopher, but carried with him also into assemblages of the brilliant and the wise, with whom he associated. The tone of this society, moreover, is highly pleasing, and in harmony with our best principles and feelings; in which respect it is impossible to avoid contrasting it with those more boasted Parisian societies during the same period, which were supposed to be the centre of French literature and wit, as they are displayed to us by some of the chief actors in that scene.^[4. Particularly in the Correspondence of the Barũn de Grimm, and the Memoirs of Marmonteì. ] Mr Boswell’s work has not yet, indeed, acquired all its interest; the period is still too recent; but, to estimate its value in after-times, we have only to consider what we ourselves should have gained if such a volume had been preserved to us from the rolls of ancient life.

In the great attainments of a biographer, which are the truth and minuteness of his relation, Mr Boswell has been eminently successful. If, in this species of writing, an author is exempted from the formality, as well as comprehensive research, necessary in the higher classes of historical composition, it is well known that he has his peculiar difficulties to encounter; difficulties, too, which are the greatest where, by his intimate knowledge of the subject, he is best qualified for the task of writing. Nor does the partiality to which he is himself exposed constitute his only danger; since he is no less apt to be led away by the expectation of gratifying his readers. We are fond of seeing the picture of character completed according to our fancy, and, whatever be the feeling which has commenced, we are impatient of any interruption to its train. In the case of those whom we respect and love, the disappointment is doubly ungrateful; we dislike being told of their fraiLies, because we are unwilling to believe that they were Kail. But such is not the colour nor the tissue of human characters; and the artist who would represent them truly, must do perpetual violence to his inclination. The fidelity of Mr Boswell’s portrait may be ascribed, in a great measure, to the form and method of his composition. Had he given us only the results of his observation, the effort at impartiality could scarcely have been preserved; but he has presented us with the whole materials as he found them, and allows us to work them up for ourselves.

In the other distinguishing quality of a biographical work, namely, the minuteness of its information, he is so little deficient, that his observance of this requisite has been converted into an accusation against him. And it is certain, as already observed, that, in his early productions particularly, he left some room for such a charge; and that, while his veracity and candour were unimpeached, his prudence was not on all occasions equally conspicuous. Yet it must be remembered that the great use of biography is to bring instruction home; to give us examples, not of individual actionsand conduct merely, but of that conduct as displayed in the common paths of. life. The history of nations is too often a species of heroical romance. Its lessons are, at all events, of a different nature from those now in question; and its moral is far too remote to answer the necessities of individuals. General precepts, again, when delivered without the aid of story, commonly fail to produce their effect, either because they fail to excite attention, or because the power of applying them to particular cases remains as difficult as before. Nor do works of fiction, however excellent, and even where the scene is laid as it were at home, and the characters are those of a private station, leave any very permanent impressions on the mind. They do not carry with them a sufficient presence and authority; for the writer’s first object is not to instruct, but to please; and, above all, they want that great requisite, truth, for which, in the time of need, all others are abandoned and forgotten. A manual of instruction for human conduct, which, instead of being couched in general maxims, or calculated for situations of unusual occurrence, should descend to particular cases, and to the ordinary emergencies of private life, would certainly be one of the most valuable presents which philosophy could offer to the bulk of mankind. Biography makes the nearest approach towards the compilation of such a code; and, as a commentary on moral duties, it is, when faithfully executed, invaluable. But it is so in proportion only to the closeness of the resemblance and the exactness of the detail. Minuteness, therefore, is the characteristic and soul of biographical writing, if its proper uses are considered.

That such a plan of delineation may be carried to excess, indeed, is undeniable. He who is accustomed to set down whatever he sees and hears, may become indiscriminate in his choice, and forget the value of his store in the pleasure of collecting it. To ascertain the just medium in this respect, is one of the many things for which rules are ineffectual. A sound judgment alone can determine the limits. As to the license of publication, the biographer is under one common restraint with authors of every class. He violates the due boundary if he introduces into his work what is injurious to virtue, or if he discloses, for the purposes of general information merely, any thing which may probably affect the interests or wound the minds of the living. When that period has arrived which secures against dangers of the latter description, even individual characters become, to a certain extent, the property of mankind at large, and may be employed as a vehicle for instruction, if exhibited with fidelity. On this score Mr Boswell, notwithstanding his natural promptness and want of reserve, has, in his latest and principal work at least, given little ground for animadversion. His habitual quickness of feeling and liveliness of fancy appear to have been corrected, where others were concerned, by his love of justice, and a general benevolence of mind.

With regard to his style of writing, a progressive improvement in it may be discovered through his different productions. It is in general well suited to his matter, is animated and easy where he is himself the narrator, and bears evident marks of being true to the original, where, as commonly happens, he is a reporter merely. On the whole, whatever blemishes maybe found in it as a literary composition, his Life of Johnson is a very valuable work, fraught with information at once useful and picasing. There are few books which present learning in a more attractive'form; and few where the seeds of knowledge are scattered more profusely.

See the Gentleman s Magazine; Chalmers’s edition of the Biographical Dictionary, 1812; and the writings of Mr Boswell, passim. (o. o.)