BOSWELL, bilew61, JAMES (1740-95). An English lawyer and writer celebrated as the biog rapher of Dr. Samuel Johnson. Ile was born October 29, 1740, in Edinburgh, where his father, who had the title of Lord Auchinleek, from the name of his property in Ayrshire, was one of the judges of the Court of Session. He was in tended by his father for the law. lie studied first in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and afterwards at the University of Utrecht, where he went in 1763. When in London in that year, May 16, he made the acquaintance of Johnson, an event of decisive importance for his whole sub sequent life. The acquaintance was earnestl,s sought by himself, and originated in his ar dent admiration of Johnson's writings, lie spent one winter in Utrecht, and then pro ceeded on a tour through Germany, Switzer land, and Italy, and visited Corsica with a letter of introduction from Rousseau td Paoli, with whom he contracted a warm and lasting friend ship. He enthusiastically adopted the cause of Corsican independence; and after his returr to Scot land, published leis of Corsica 11768), which was speedily translated into scv eras languages. Boswell became a member of the Faculty of Advocates in 1766. hut never devoted himself with earnestness to the law. lti 1773 he was admitted into the Literary Club. insti tuted by Johnson, of which Burke, Goldsmith, Reynolds, and Garrick were members. From this time he made it his principal business to note down the sayings and doings of Johnson, with NV110111 he associated on most intimate terms, and whom he accompanied on his tour to Scot land and the Hebrides in 1773. It has been
estimated that, taken all together, Boswell met Johnson on 276 days. Boswell was married in 1769 to his cousin. Slamiret Montgomerie, by whom he had several children. After Johnson's death, in 1784. he employed himself in arranging the materials which Ile had collected for his long-contemplated biography. Ilis Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides appeared in 1785; his Life of Samuel Johnson. 2 vols., in 1791. Both have gone through many editions. Boswell has been emphatically styled by Macaulay 'the first of biographers.' His work is indeed full of de tails, and these are such as exhibit character. and are arranged in the most interesting man ner. He conceals neither his own faults nor those of Johnson, but presents a picture of which the truthfulness is too vivid to be questioned: and Johnson is, unquestionably, better known by the pages crf Boswell than by any of his own writings. Boswell died in London, Slay 19, 1795. Besides the works already mentioned. he was the author of several productions of great interest to the curious. In 1857 appeared a posthumous volume of Letters of Ja112CS Haswell, addressed to the W. .1. Temple, from the Original MSS., in which the gay, insouciant character of the man very strongly appears. The sketches of Boswell by Macaulay and Carlyle are famous. Consult: Rogers, Bos•elliana (Lon don, 1874) ; and Fitzgerald, Life (London.1891). For the best edition of The Life of Johnson, con sult Hill (Oxford. 1887).