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Updated: June 29, 2025
What strange things he has to tell you, what a noble candour he shows! He turns out his mind as carelessly as a boy turns out his pockets, and gives you the run of his whole estate. You may wander everywhere, and never see a board warning you to keep off the grass or reminding you that you are a trespasser. And Bozzy.
"O Boswell, Bozzy, Bruce, whate'er thy name, Thou mighty shark for anecdote and fame; Thou jackal, leading lion Johnson forth, To eat M'Pherson 'midst his native north; To frighten grave professors with his roar, And shake the Hebrides from shore to shore. * "Bless'd be thy labors, most adventurous Bozzy, Bold rival of Sir John and Dame Piozzi; Heavens! with what laurels shall thy head be crown'd!
There is no greater figure, no more familiar face in our literature than 'the old man eloquent'; and as the inseparable companion 'held in my heart of hearts, whose fidelity and tenderness I consider as a great part of the comforts which are yet left to me, rises the figure of his biographer, the Bozzy no more of countless follies and fatuities, but Boswell, the prince of biographers, the inheritor of unfulfilled renown, now become, like his hero himself, an ancient.
But had the son chosen to be quite candid here, we should see how just a cause the father had for his displeasure. In the spring of 1774, he had written to Johnson suggesting a run up to London, expressing the peculiar satisfaction which he felt in celebrating Easter at St Paul's, which to his fancy was like going up to Jerusalem at the feast of the Passover. The doctor was wisely deaf to this subtle appeal. 'Edinburgh, said he, 'is not yet exhausted, and reminded him that his wife, having permitted him last year to ramble, had now a claim upon him at home, while to come to Iona or to Jerusalem could not be necessary, though useful. Next year, however, Boswell was in London, 'quite in my old humour, as he tells Temple, arguing with him for concubinage and the plurality of the patriarchs, from all which we may see that the plea urged to Johnson for the visit was to be taken in a lax sense by Boswell, who made his chief excuse out of some business at the bar of the House over an election petition in Clackmannan. He waited on Temple in Devon and shocked his host by his inebriety, but 'under a solemn yew tree' he had vowed reformation. But his return to town, if it 'exalted him in piety' at St Paul's, seems to have led but to fresh dissipation. He hints at 'Asiatic multiplicity, but this is only when he has taken too much claret. The good resolutions at Iona and the influence of the ruins had passed away, the trip is extended to two months, and he frets irritably over his old friend Henry Dundas's election as King's Advocate, 'to be sure he has strong parts, but he is a coarse unlettered dog. Harry Dundas at least was never found philandering as we find Bozzy on this occasion, where the mixture of religion and flirtation is so confusing. 'After breakfasting with Paoli, he writes before leaving for the north, 'and worshipping at St Paul's, I dined tête-
In order to show how this enterprise was looked upon and talked of very commonly by the majority of men in those times, we will extract the following passage from Boswell's Life of Johnson, in which Bozzy thus enters his solemn protest: "The wild and dangerous attempt, which has for some time been persisted in, to obtain an act of our legislature to abolish so very important and necessary a branch of commercial interest, must have been crushed at once, had not the insignificance of the zealots, who vainly took the lead in it, made the vast body of planters, merchants, and others, whose immense properties are involved in that trade, reasonably enough suppose that there could be no danger.
On one occasion the doctor detected Boswell, or Bozzy, as he called him, eavesdropping behind his chair, as he was conversing with Miss Burney at Mr. Thrale's table. "What are you doing there, sir?" cried he, turning round angrily, and clapping his hand upon his knee. "Go to the table, sir." Boswell obeyed with an air of affright and submission, which raised a smile on every face.
His father called on Archibald, Duke of Argyll, an old campaigner with Marlborough. 'My Lord, said the Duke, 'I like your son; this boy must not be shot at for three shillings and sixpence a day. This scene reads like a pre-arranged affair calculated to flatter the erratic Bozzy out of his warlike schemes, for which it is clear he was never fitted.
Boswell's Life of Johnson is immortal: though we do not rank "Bozzy" as a hero or a genius. Hume's History of England is a classic: though it can hardly be said to be an adequate account of our country. Few books have ever exercised so amazing an influence as Rousseau's Social Contract; yet the loosest mind of to-day can perceive its sophistry.
Bozzy pleaded his immortal soul. Whereupon Sir John observed with warmth that anyone possessing a particle of gentlemanly spirit would sooner be damned to all eternity than give his relations so much trouble as Bozzy was giving his!" "The application is not clear," said Mrs. Friedland.
Pitt had been brought in by this nobleman for the pocket-borough of Appleby, and Bozzy had hopes of a Parliamentary introduction that way.
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