Boswell the Biographer. George Mallory

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СКАЧАТЬ appeal of Nature, were alike unknown to him; and he never acquired the technical skill which was the merit of the best poets of the age. The 'Ode' is neither better nor worse than might be expected from a wholly misdirected literary talent; it could have been written by almost anyone who had read a certain quantity of English verse.

      The 'Elegy' also was intended to express a serious vein. It would be an error to suppose that Boswell meant to be satirical; but he evidently saw that he might be laughed at as extravagant, and published it without alteration, introducing some prefatory letters to ridicule its sentimentality.

      In 1762 he published, apparently at his own expense, 'The Cub at Newmarket, a tale.' This, as he states in the preface, is the story told in doggerel verse of his visit to the Jockey Club at Newmarket. He had been taken there when in London by Lord Eglinton, and was discovered in the coffee-room while in the act of composing. The Cub at Newmarket is, of course, himself. Lord Eglinton afterwards introduced him to the Duke of York, to whom Boswell, not unwillingly we may suppose, read out his poem. It THE YOUNG LITTÉRATEUR must have been a triumphant moment for the young author, and he felt obliged to preserve the memory of it by asking and obtaining leave to dedicate the poem to his Royal Highness—he desired, as he explains in the preface, 'to let the world know that this same Cub has been laughed at by the Duke of York, has been read to his Royal Highness by the genius himself, and warmed by the immediate beams of his kind indulgence.' The humorous poem is not remarkably funny; one stanza which describes himself is perhaps worthy to be quoted:

      He was not of the iron Race,

      Which sometimes Caledonia grace,

      Though he to combat could advance—

      Plumpness shone in his countenance;

      And Belly prominent declar'd

      That he for Beef and Pudding car'd;

      He had a large and pond'rous head,

      That seemed to be composed of lead;

      From which hung down such stiff, lank hair,

      As might the crows in Autumn scare.

      But besides being a somewhat light-headed poet, Boswell was anxious to appear as the 'young Buck.' 'The Epistle of a London Buck to his Friend' is the title of one of his publications in the 'Collection of Original Poems.' There is also a confused story of a club he formed in Edinburgh called the 'Soaping Club,' which existed apparently for Bacchanalian purposes; Boswell was the king of the Soapers and wrote some verses about himself:

      

      Boswell is pleasant and gay,

      For frolic by nature designed;

      He heedlessly rattles away

      When the company is to his mind.

      'This maxim,' he says, 'you may see,

      We never can have corn without chaff';

      So not a bent sixpence cares he,

      Whether with him, or at him you laugh.

      Boswell does women adore,

      And never once means to deceive,

      He's in love with at least half a score;

      If they're serious he smiles in his sleeve.

      He has all the bright fancy of youth,

      With the judgment of forty and five;

      In short, to declare the plain truth,

      There is no better fellow alive.

      Stories about 'frolic' (to use Boswell's word) are not as a rule very laughable, and we are perhaps too apt to consider them as merely childish and contemptible when they fail to amuse us. The exact atmosphere of the moment which accounts for its merriment is forgotten too often and seldom reproduced, and we are left cold after a recital of such behaviour as we may suppose the Club of Soapers to have indulged in. In Boswell's character there was a large vein of buffoonery which is apt when recounted by anyone but himself to appear stupid enough. But in reality it seems to have contained a true sense of the incongruous, and had at least the success of making people laugh. What an incomparable moment that must have been when Boswell, as one of the audience GAY BEHAVIOUR at Drury Lane theatre, took upon himself to imitate the lowing of a cow! 'I was so successful in this boyish frolic,' he relates, 'that the universal cry of the galleries was: "Encore the cow! Encore the cow!"'

      There is nothing very brilliant about Boswell's comic verses, but it is curious that those we have quoted should represent the facts so closely:

      So not a bent sixpence cares he

      Whether with him or at him you laugh;

      these lines express exactly the social principle which Boswell adopted. He had no objection to men laughing at his oddities so long as they laughed good-humouredly.

      He wished to find gaiety in every company, and it is just to say that he brought more than his share of mirth regardless of dignity.

      There are many other instances of these self-portraits, anonymous sometimes, but easily to be recognised. We can hardly do better than illustrate Boswell's life by his own words about himself, because upon this subject he found it necessary, when he had anything to say, to say it truthfully. In another early literary venture, the correspondence between Erskine and Boswell, which these two young gentlemen published, there is a letter of Boswell's containing an account of the author of the 'Ode to Tragedy,' which he had published anonymously; he thus describes himself:

      

      The author of the 'Ode to Tragedy,' is a most excellent man: he is of an ancient family in the West of Scotland, upon which he values himself not a little. At his nativity there appeared omens of his future greatness; his parts are bright, and his education has been good; he has travelled in postchaises miles without number; he is fond of seeing much of the world; he eats of every good dish, especially apple-pie; he drinks old hock; he has a very fine temper; he is somewhat of a humourist, and a little tinctured with pride; he has a good, manly countenance, and he owns himself to be amorous; he has infinite vivacity, yet is observed at times to have a melancholy cast; he is rather fat than lean, rather short than tall, rather young than old; his shoes are neatly made, and he never wears spectacles.

      The 'Letters between the Honourable Andrew Erskine and James Boswell, Esq.' are the most remarkable in some ways of these early literary ventures. The letters were evidently written from the first with a view to publication. They are completely frivolous, but attempt to be satirical and amusing. Boswell and Erskine wish to appear as two young men of society who are budding poets and have brilliant wit. They hoped, perhaps, to take the world by storm like the Admirable Crichton and his friend Aldus. The result, if far from brilliant, is certainly clever and amusing.

      The rôle which Boswell played in this theatrical performance may be illustrated by some passages of his own letters. He was before everything else the knight of chivalry—a chivalry which was occupied LETTERS TO ERSKINE exclusively with an excess of romantic attachment and an adoring worship of female charm. Boswell in real life was extravagant enough, we may suppose, in his homage to women; but his performance can have hardly reached the standard set up in the letters to Erskine:

      Lady СКАЧАТЬ