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Updated: June 16, 2025
Since the man's work fails to account for his leadership and influence, we examine his personality; and here everything is interesting. Because of a few oft-quoted passages from Boswell's biography, Johnson appears to us as an eccentric bear, who amuses us by his growlings and clumsy antics.
On the important evening Boswell dined at Beauclerk's with his proposer and some other members. The talk turned upon Goldsmith's merits; and Johnson not only defended his poetry, but preferred him as a historian to Robertson. Such a judgment could be explained in Boswell's opinion by nothing but Johnson's dislike to the Scotch.
"I inherited," said Johnson, "a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober." Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 16, 1773. See ante, i. 65, and post, Sept. 20, 1777. Pr. and Med. p. 155. Pr. and Med. p. 158. He continues: 'I passed the afternoon with such calm gladness of mind as it is very long since I felt before. His good nights must have been rare indeed.
Goldsmith immediately carried the war into Boswell's own quarters, and pinned him with the question, "what he would do if affronted?" The pliant Boswell, who for the moment had the fear of the general rather than of Johnson before his eyes, replied, "he should think it necessary to fight." "Why, then, that solves the question," replied Goldsmith.
Boswell's desires, from his own account, seem to have been limited to reading Shakspeare in the other world, whether with or without his commentators, he has left us to guess; and Newton probably pined for the sight of those distant stars whose light has not yet reached us.
Boswell's request, and confer with you on the means of relieving my languid state, I am very desirous to avoid the appearance of asking money upon false pretences.
Croker, who knew him, says that 'he was very convivial, and in other respects like his father though altogether on a smaller scale. He edited a new edition of Malone's Shakespeare. He died in 1822. Croker's Boswell, p. 620. See Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 30, 1773. Ib. Nov. 1. Regius Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church.
Boswell boasted that he had "Johnsonized the land," and that he had shown Johnson in his book as no man had ever been shown in a book before; and the boast is after a hundred years seen to be a literal statement of fact. But after all Boswell did not make Johnson's reputation. On the contrary, it was Johnson's name that sold Boswell's book.
See ante, May 12, 1775. No doubt her Miscellanies. Ante, ii. 25. See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 22. Johnson is the most common English formation of the Sirname from John; Johnston the Scotch. My illustrious friend observed that many North Britons pronounced his name in their own way. Johnson did not hear well, bawled out to him, "Are you of the Johnstons of Glencro, or of Ardnamurchan?"
E.J. Payne, in his edition of Burke's Select Works, i. xxxviii, says: 'Most writers have constantly beside them some favourite classical author from whom they endeavour to take their prevailing tone. Burke, according to Butler, always had a "ragged Delphin Virgil" not far from his elbow. See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 21, note. According to Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'Mr.
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