He endeavoured to stimulate the statesmen of his own country to advocate their cause ; and he had, on this occasion, the honour of a very interesting in. terview with Lord Chatham. One particular of this conversation which he has recorded, does equal ho nour to the liberality of the character by whom it was said, and to the great man of whom it was spoken. It may be said of Paoli, as the Car dinal de Retz said of the great Montrose, C'est ?I des ces hommes qu'on ne trouve plus que dans les Vies de Plutarque. The celebrated Douglas cause was at this time the subject of general discussion. Bos well, who had warmly adopted that opinion which was afterwards established by the decision of the first tribunal in Europe,justly thought that the great body of readers would scarcely endure the labour of extracting the real merits of the case from the volu. minous mass of papers which had been printpd on that question, and lie therefore compressed them into a pamphlet, entitled, The Essence of the Douglas Cause, which had a considerable share in procuring for Mr Douglas the extensive popularity which a knowledge of his claims enabled him to obtain. In 1768, finding that the public were not a little anxious to learn the narration of him, " whom, (as Johnson expressed it,) a wise ,and noble curiosity had led where perhaps no native of this country ever was be fore," he published his Account 21' Corsica, with Me. Inoirs of' General Paoli. On the appearance of this work, he was again gratified by an encomium from Johnson's pen. " Your history is like other his tories ; butyour journal is in a very high degree cu., rious and delightful.****You express images which operated strongly upon yourself, and you have im pressed them with great force upon your readers. I. know not whether I could name any narrative by which curiosity is better excited, or better gratified. This book has been translated. into the German, Dutch, Italian, and French languages ; and his name by it has nearly acquired as much celebrity.on. the continent, as his admirable biographical work has procured for him at home.
In 1769, Mr Boswell was married to his cousin, Miss Margaret Montgomery. His union with this truly amiable - and accomplished woman proved a source of felicity to him for.many years ; but he was doomed to suffer the affliction of losing her in June 1789. Dr Johnson had long formed the plan of visiting the Hebrides of Scotland in company with his friend, and. in 1773, though at an advanced pe riod of life, he put that plan in execution. They have both published an• account of their journey. In 1782 Lord Auchinleck•died, and his son succeeded to the family estate in Ayrshire. The coalition ministry having been driven • from power in 1783, for an at tempt which Mr Boswell was convinced would have been subversive of the constitution, he published a pamphlet on the subject, entitled, A Letter to the People ?f' Scotland, which produced considerable sensation, and for which he was complimented by Mr Pitt. But he was no party man ; for, in the fol lowing year, a plan having been in. agitation to re form the court of session, by the compendious mode of cutting off one-third of the number.of the judges, Mr Boswell again embarked in politics, in opposition to the very minis`lry whom he had zealously support ed before, when he thought them in the right, and, A Second Letter to the People of Scotland, he remon strated warmly against the measure, which was af terwards withdrawn. In 1781, he met with a severe affliction in the death of his illustrious friend Dr Johnson, who died on the 13th of December of that year. Mr Boswell, during his residence in Scotland, had no inconsiderable practice at the bar, and enjoy ed the intimate acquaintance of the most celebrated among his countrymen, of Lord Kaimes, Lord Hailes, Dr Robertson, Dr Blair, and Mr Beattie, be sides a numerous circle of other persons, distinguish ed for their rank, talents, and virtues ; but his love for London, and its wide and varied scene of life imbibed in his youth, and which gained strength as he grew older, determined hint at last to settle with his family in the metropolis, which he did in 1786, having a short time before been called to the English bar. In 1785, he published his Journal
of a Tour to the Hebrides, which not only forms a striking part of his delineation of Johnson, but is re plete with interesting information on various topics. There has no where appeared so lively or so affect ing an account of the difficulties and escape of the grandson of James II. after the battle of Culloden. From this time he was for some years most assiduously employed in preparing his great biographical work for the press. At last his Life of Dr Johnson appeared in 1790, in 2 vols 4to. Of this work the public expecta tion was high, and it was amply gratified. Never be fore had the world seen so full, so faithful, and so cor rect a representation of an eminent man. Those who had been unacquainted with Johnson were now intro duced into his society, and enjoyed " the feast of rea son" as much as if they had conversed with him for years. Those who had known him found their know ledge so agreeably renovated, and so enlarged, that many of them confessed, that they had a more vivid idea of Johnson's character and colloquial powers from Mr Boswell's narrative, than their own experience, even in actual intercourse with him, could have sup plied. This work, however, did not escape criti cism : Some objected to the minuteness of rela tion, and the introduction of petty details ; but it should be recollected, that circumstances which, se parately taken, are of little moment, when united to gether go to constitute a full and lively resemblance, instead of that meagre ,outline which biographers in general are content to display. Others maintained, that Johnson's virtues were such, that no mention should have been made of his failings ; but to this,it may be observed, that the mode they recommend would have been contrary to that strict regard for truth which Johnson himself always inculcated in works of this nature ; and, secondly, that this plan would have defeated it own purpose. The world was' already in possession of the writings of Sir John Hawkins and Mrs Piozzi. Had Mr Boswell confined himself to the exemplification of his great friend's virtues alone, the unfair and false exaggerations of the others would have been considered as the real reverse of the pic ture. He did better : By a candid, unvarnished ex hibition of the whole truth, he clearly proved that his faults, when compared with his excellencies, were at dust in the balance. Others there were who, un able to deny the merit of the work, attempted, with feeble effect, to tear the laurels from the brow of the, author. It required no great power of mind, they observed, to record the brilliant sayings of others. Nothing can be more ignorant than this remark. There is no faculty more rare. " FeW people," said a celebrated wit, " can carry a bon mot : It cannot then be easy to carry as many as will fill two quarto volumes." But, in fact, it is a false representation of the Life of Johnson, to describe it as merely a collection of good sayings. Valuable as it is in that respect, it is far from being the whole of its merit. It contains an exquisite delineation of character, con veyed throughout with dramatic vivacity, and proves the writer, as has been truly observed, to have had a picturesque imagination, and a turn for poetry as well as humour. It is remarkable that, notwith standing his enthusiastic admiration of Johnson, he is free, from all attempt at imitation, and has never transfused " the long majestic march" of the great moralist's language into his own style, which, though frequently enlivened by a happy vein of imagery, is uniformly simple and unaffected.