United States or Liberia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In his younger days he had been a beau, and his affectation of red heels to his shoes and of red stockings, when brought under the notice of his son by a friend, so affected Bozzy that he could hardly sit on his chair for laughing.
Nothing is more striking than the contrast between the hitherto reckless Bozzy and the easy assurance and composure with which he faces Johnson, sits up with the sage, sups at the Mitre, leads the conversation, and apparently holds his own in the discussions.
It may also be observed, that Goldsmith was sometimes content to be treated with an easy familiarity, but, upon occasions, would be consequential and important. An instance of this occurred in a small particular. Johnson had a way of contracting the names of his friends; as Beauclerk, Beau; Boswell, Bozzy; Langton, Lanky; Murphy, Mur; Sheridan, Sherry.
But he keeps open a door through which he effects his escape. Carlyle sees in Bozzy 'the old reverent feeling of discipleship, in a word, hero-worship.
Hearts are caught in the rebound, and Bozzy had solaced his loss of the belle Irlandaise with the sympathy of his fellow-traveller. Having let his fancies roam so far abroad as Siena and Holland, the lover had now returned like the bird at evening to the nest from which it flew.
After Johnson had taken the thing in hand there was not much danger, yet poor Bozzy 'sat in a state of anxiety which even the charming conversation of Lady Di Beauclerk could not entirely dissipate. There he received the tidings of his election, and he hastened to the place of meeting.
Bozzy, at all events, was determined to make a bold bid for fame. Nothing like this had occurred, as an opening, during all his tour. The dangers of the plan were fully known to him, and the possibility was laid before his eyes of capture at the hands of the Barbary corsairs and a term of imprisonment at Algiers.
The ruins of ecclesiastical magnificence would seem to have touched a hidden chord in Boswell's past, for we find him on the road talking of the 'Roman Catholick faith, and leading his companion on transubstantiation; but this, being 'an awful subject, I did not then press Dr Johnson upon it. Montrose was reached, and at the inn the waiter was called 'rascal' by the Rambler for putting sugar into the lemonade with his fingers, to the delight of Bozzy who rallied him into quietness by the assurance that the landlord was an Englishman.
I have at last finished my Lives, and have laid up for you a load of copy , all out of order, so that it will amuse you a long time to set it right. Come to me, my dear Bozzy, and let us be as happy as we can. We will go again to the Mitre, and talk old times over. I am, dear Sir, Yours affectionately, 'SAM. JOHNSON. March, 14, 1781.
Boswell for his song was encored six times, till the cold features of the minister were seen to relax in a smile, amid the general roar of plaudits and laughter! After this 'state ballad, a copy of which was last seen at Lord Houghton's sale, Bozzy and a friend, in a state of high glee, returned to their lodgings, shouting all the way The Grocer of London!
Word Of The Day