My Attempt to Read Boswell’s Biography of Johnson

November 2021
I bought the book, read the part of the introduction, the small part, on Boswell’s meeting Johnson whose negative response later turned to friendship. A good start.

December 2021
You’ve already seen my problem. Too little time and too much book. Well, forward brave readers. Only 548 pages plus the remainder of the introduction past vii. Perhaps vi.

December 2021
I have reached page 3, the dedication by Joshua Reynolds.
Boswell, according to the introduction, has collected anecdotes on Samuel Johnson as the latter’s friend and confidant.
Am I my own Boswell as my poems have no secrets save polite omissions.

December 2021
I’ve entombed Boswell on my nightstand to read before I fall asleep each night. I will share with you, gentle reader, the tidbits of wit I’m able to glean.
This should be fun.

December 2021
OK, a dedication not by but to J. Reynolds and the possible source of the plu-perfect tense. Boswell is something of a gadfly; the point being the dedication is to with-holding that which might seem too cutting though thereby some might miss a gratification of their funny bone.
Boswell says it better.
And, if you have a good guide, you should listen.

December 2021
Boswell describes Johnson’s early education at two schools noting how the scholar learned at one from the master and at the other from the school. Amazing detail in the account and thorough. At 17 Johnson left school for home where for two years he read a variety of classical books in his father’s library. He then entered Oxford. . About page 22, I fell asleep.

December 2021
Boswell tracks Johnson’s early rise in London as a writer. One could live in London in 1738 for thirty pounds a year if frugal. Spending hours in pubs conversing with gentlemen of wit and knowledge seeking literary opportunities. Johnson seems never to have met a man he did not feel offended by at some point. By page 36 Johnson is married to a woman twice his age and weight. More on London after I wake up tomorrow.

BOSWELL
December 2021
Between 1739 and 1748 Boswell tracks Johnson’s tracks on literary and political topics. Boswell notes Johnson either suffered from convulsions or alternately indulged in wild gesticulations to emphasize some point. In either case this made Johnson unfit as a School Master.
By 1747 Johnson had begun his Dictionary. Whenever I was questioned as to my spelling of some word my defense was I refer to Johnson’s Dictionary. I was quite shameless about such things. Gentle reader, page 60 and goodnight.

BOSWELL
December 2021
Johnson’s works were published in journals like the Rambler intended to both instruct and amuse. Not always successfully at either. A sort of good old boys Latin club.
His dictionary writing lasted years, late 1740s into the 1750s. Boswell calls it drudgery. During this time two of Johnson’s friends knocked on his door in the middle of the night. Johnson poker in hand to confront ruffians found his two friends who asked him to join them in a ramble. He agreed. They wandered into Covent Market where Johnson attempted to help carry the produce but was not much help. The trio had punch at a tavern then breakfast with Johnson complaining one of the trio sat with a table of young ladies. Not a literary conversation Johnson complained of the errant breakfast friend.
Then I imagine they all made their way home to sleep. On page 70 the same thought occurred to me.

Moo
December 2021
By 1754 Johnson finished his Dictionary and publicly his contempt for Lord Chesterfield. Boswell notes Johnson’s quip he thought Lord Chesterfield a lord among wits but then discovered Chesterfield was only a wit among Lords.
Boswell notes the Dictionary had several flaws confusing Windward and Leeward. When Johnson was asked about his mistake in terms of horse anatomy, his reply was the fault was his own ignorance. By 1754 he was awarded a Master of Arts from Oxford though Boswell calls him Dr. Johnson.
Boswell notes how few friends of Johnson were alive to appreciate the Dictionary that reflected Johnson’s erudition and wit.
1756 and Johnson is damning the Roman commonwealth’s greed while defending tea as a superior beverage.
Boswell’s little anecdotes carry Johnson by page 86 up to 1763
a notable year which will require some deep concentration viz Lord Morpheus.

BOSWELL
December 2021
Boswell begins with the rift between Johnson and Sheridan. Boswell slowly grasps how lucky he has been not to have Johnson break off their friendship given Boswell’s open, u restrained opinions. Johnson notes the immensity of London is not in the architecture but in the expanding number of habitations in the smaller courts and back streets.
Johnson confessed to Boswell his habit of going out about four and not returning home until two. Boswell is enthralled at the literary world of wit on both literature and writing that Johnson opens to him. Boswell trails Johnson like a suckerfish on a shark eager for literary anecdotes. After an evening at the Turk’s Head coffee shop, Boswell got a reprimand from Johnson over the latter’s defense of the Church of England. But Boswell always managed to flip back into Johnson’s good graces. Perhaps Boswell’s sincere admiration of Johnson was the key.
However, it’s late, page 137 is only half-read, and I’m sleepy.

BOSWELL
December 2021
Boswell observes that Johnson could abstain from food or alcohol but could not moderate either. Johnson allowed Miss Williams Ams, a woman of good character, to live in his lodgings for many years. She was blind from cataracts. She knew how to get Johnson to open up and talk, a skill Boswell mastered. Boswell relates the names and interactions with Johnson of all the literary figures of mid 18th century England and western culture. By 1765 on page 156, Boswell notes Dr. Goldsmith’s observation that though Johnson had the size, gait and roughness of a bear, no man had a more tender heart. I note it is late so, gentle reader, goodnight.
PS The book on Boswell’s Johnson I am reading is old but never read as each time I turn a page the top of two pages must be separated at two or three places like a wrapped present. Pop, pop-pop! Quite delightful in a tactile sense.

BOSWELL
December 2021
In 1769 Johnson was named Professor of Ancient Literature in London. Boswell recounts events by a sing-song back and forth of his conversations with Johnson noting tea or pubs and the literary stars present. The topics of conversation ranged from is there beauty without utility to Johnson’s current revision of his Dictionary. Johnson called Fielding a blockhead for his low comedy characters which Boswell refuted. And so on about an endless list of items. A lifetime of delightful conversations about literature, writers, politics, and poets.
Johnson favored the expulsion of several Methodists from Oxford for praying out loud and seeking converts on which Goldsmith disagreed. Dr. Goldsmith and Johnson talked many times on many topics with Boswell noting particulars. Johnson said London was the best place for a man’s mind. We reach page 253 having survived the tour of Scotland, the Irish question, and Boswell’s view that as regards Scotland, Johnson was not a typical Englishman as his prejudice on Scotland was of the head rather than the heart.
And so, gentle reader, goodnight.

BOSWELL
December 2021
In the mid 1770s, Boswell relates Johnson’s rambles about England and son in France where Johnson chose to speak Latin rather than imperfect French. While Johnson noted the Few rich lived very well, the many lived very poorly.
A description of Johnson in Paris noted he dressed just as he did in London. Brown coat and pants, black stockings and plain shirt. An astonishing sight for a literary figure of renown.
In London, Johnson defended Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations despite Smith never having been in trade. Boswell includes numerous letters by and to Johnson plus endless table conversations all about the literary events in London.
I have read tonight past midnight into 1777 all the way to page 362 but have found America mentioned only once. Johnson did not choose to discuss that reference. The war in America is almost totally ignored in favor of topics such as is marriage better for men or women and the importance of dining well.
And so, good night.

BOSWELL
December 2021
After an evening of heated conversation, Boswell worries he has kept Johnson up too late for a man of 69. Johnson responds not so and declares he could go all night for a lively discussion.
How similar even today. On some ship’s bar or corner cafe past midnight held merely by one’s interest in a table conversation too delightful to miss.
Johnson deplores the slave trade, which Boswell defended as well as slavery. Breakfast, lunch, supper, and on into the night topics came and went with no grudges or grumps given or taken between the two. Whereas others in the conversations were judged and found wanting, such as Johnson’s claim that Dr. Goldsmith talked only for fame, making him unpleasant.
Boswell notes Johnson’s unusual digression into relations between the sexes attributing imagination and fancy as the nub of the problem.
The two friends both like Hogarth’s work Midnight Conversations.
Johnson, asked about some Irish causeway, declared it worth seeing but not worth going to see. Decades of witty words never failing to delight all and recorded by Boswell, who grasped the value of Johnson’s life in literary London.
By 1783, still no mention of the war in America, Boswell is ready on page 467 to list Johnson’s sayings though I am not prepared to enter as it is time for me to review online quips and news. And so, gentle reader, goodnight.

BOSWELL
December 2021
Gentle reader, you have patiently waited for Johnson’s quips, but they are mostly a matter of he said He (Johnson) said.
All right, all right, an example: Boswell says he wants to be in Parliament, so Johnson replies it is too expensive and inconvenient.
As usual, Johnson is right.
Boswell takes us into 1784 as the last year of Johnson’s life pointing out no mental nor intellectual decline. The same witty conversation continued.
And now we get to it.
On a coach ride to Oxford Boswell and Johnson fell into conversation with a lady who mentioned she was the wife of a member of the American Congress. Johnson did not hear her.
Boswell warned her not to bring up the American subject as it made Johnson very violent against Americans. The American independence treaty having been signed in 1783 this explains the silence in Boswell’s account of any mention of the American Revolution.
Instead, they discussed knotting. Though, this may have been a little joke by Johnson by way of the Gordian knot. She noted Johnson’s every sentence was an essay.
In Oxford the two friends talked of death and life and any topic to which the table conversation turned.
Boswell did not comprehend Johnson’s lifelong fear of going insane. Nor did he grasp Johnson’s fear of death. Boswell’s high regard for Johnson blinded him.
Boswell notes how the intellectual community of London visited the dying Johnson who made peace with each of them.
Johnson died in December, 1784.
Boswell was right to chronicle the great man’s life and accomplishments. Johnson was good company to keep.
So, what is the lesson?
We have learned of a friendship of two gentlemen in 18th century London. One English, the other a Scott. Johnson once noted that Boswell was as little like a Scott as Johnson himself was little like a typical Englishman. Both were what men strive to be: honest friends and gentlemen.
History with most of the bark on.
The End.