Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

CHAPTER XXXII

JAMES BOSWELL

THE character of James Boswell has often been subjected to an undeserved depreciation.

To follow a great man about and record his doings and sayings has by some been represented as an undignified occupation for a man of parts; and a little of the flunkey and something of the snob have been attributed to this prince of biographers.

But Boswell himself has anticipated, and with spirit confuted, this criticism of the great work of his life :

"It may be objected by some persons, as it has been by one of my friends, that he who has the power of thus exhibiting an exact transcript of conversations is not a desirable member of society. I repeat the answer which I made to that friend: Few, very few, need be afraid that their sayings will be recorded. Can it be imagined that I would take the trouble to gather what grows on every hedge, because I have collected such fruits as the Nonpareil and the Bon Chretien ? '

[ocr errors]

On the other hand, how useful is such a faculty if well exercised.

"To it we owe all of those interesting apothegms and memorabilia of the ancients, which Plutarch, Xenophon, and Valerius Maximus, have transmuted to us.

"To it we owe all those instructive and entertaining collections which the French made under the title of Ana, affixed to some celebrated name. To it we owe the table talk of Selden, the conversations between Ben Jonson and Drummond of Hawthornden, Spence's Anecdotes of Pope, and other valuable remains in our language. How de

lighted should we have been, if thus introduced into the company of Shakespeare and Dryden, of whom we know scarcely anything but their writings!

"What pleasure would it have given us, to have known their petty habits, their characteristick manners, their modes of composition, and their genuine opinions of preceding writers, and of their contemporaries!

66

All these are now irrecoverable.

"Considering how many of the strongest and most brilliant effusions of exalted intellect must have been lost, how much it is to be regretted that all men of distinguished wisdom and wit have not been attended by friends of taste enough to relish, and abilities enough to register their conversation.

"They whose inferiour exertions are recorded as serving to explain or illustrate the sayings of such men, may be proud of being thus associated and having their names carried down to posterity, by being appended to an illustrious character."

It should always be remembered that Boswell was a youth of twenty-three when he first attached himself to Johnson, then in his fifty-third year. And in all cultivated and refined societies, for young men to reverence, and sit at the feet of, the really great luminaries of their times has ever been regarded as an amiable attitude gracefully becoming to generous youth. Also the habit and fashion of the times conceded to rank a deference that has now largely disappeared. This is ingenuously displayed in The Vicar of Wakefield. A greater equality is now claimed and admitted among all classes of people. But in the time of Boswell rank was the symbol of a recognised elevation and superiority in society; and the whole atmosphere of English life was permeated with reverence for it.

Even in the truthful pictures of the times of Jane Austen's novels, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the young ladies in the ball-room quiver with excitement on the entrance of the second cousin

of a baronet. Wherever, therefore, Boswell reveals something of his prostration before the nobility of his day, he is but conforming to the general attitude of his times; and in selecting the old bookseller's son as the object of his supreme devotion, he must be acquitted of a too exclusive adoration of the titled classes.

Manifestly Boswell was conscious of possessing in an ample measure the capacities and qualities fitted for the task to which he devoted himself with such faithful assiduity. As a delineator of character Boswell is supreme. And as a writer of English prose he is no bungler.

The last three pages of the great Life of Johnson present to us a vision of the great doctor, so full of vitality and penetration as to leave us almost with the impression that we have seen and known him with our very senses.

But throughout the whole book we are constantly presented with records of sayings and events that are now, and will be for ever, infinitely precious.

He tells us of Burke going to see Johnson in his last illness, and, finding others there already, saying to him, “I am afraid Sir, such a number of us may be oppressive to you.' 'No, Sir (said Johnson), it is not so; and I must be in a wretched state indeed when your company would not be a delight to me.' Mr Burke, in a tremulous voice, expressive of being very tenderly affected, replied,' My dear Sir, you have always been too good to me.' Immediately afterwards he went away. This was the last circumstance in the acquaintance of these two eminent men."

This is the work of the perfect biographer. He presents to us the simple little scene in all its moving verity, and leaves it with us with no comment. He closes the great life of his venerated friend with this consummate taste and art, thus :

"On Monday, the 13th of December, the day on which he died, a Miss Morris, daughter to a particular friend of his,

called, and said to Francis (the doctor's servant) that she begged to be permitted to see the doctor; that she might earnestly request him to give her his blessing.

"Francis went into his room, followed by the young lady, and delivered the message. The doctor turned himself in his bed, and said, ' God bless you, my dear!' "These were the last words he spoke.

[ocr errors]

Thus Boswell lets him pass from the world, with a benediction upon his lips.

CHAPTER XXXIII

COLERIDGE

It was easier to garner and record the crisp and pungent aphorisms of Johnson than to carry home and set down in cold caligraphy the inspired eloquence of Coleridge. The sustained and ethereal rhapsodies of "the wrapt one of the godlike forehead" would entrance, but could not be recalled by, those who heard them.

"I have heard Coleridge," said Christopher North. "That man is entitled to speak till Doomsday—or rather the genius within him-for he is inspired. Wind him up and away he goes, discoursing most excellent music, without a discord, full, ample, inexhaustible, serious, and divine!"

Carlyle, himself a fine talker, was perhaps unwilling to become only a listener, and complains that under Coleridge's monologue "you swam and fluttered in the mistiest, wide, unintelligible deluge of things, for most part in a rather profitless uncomfortable manner. Yet he adds, "Glorious islets, too, I have seen rise out of the haze”; and admits that "He distinguished himself to all that ever heard him as, at least, the most surprising talker extant in this world."

[ocr errors]

The Table Talk, which was what his nephew succeeded in carrying away and recording of Coleridge's discourse, gives no indication of those wonderful outpourings that amazed mankind.

They are gone and perished like the leaves of

« VorigeDoorgaan »