WHEN Goldsmith was one day asked, "Who is this Scotch cur at Johnson's heels?" the author of The Good-Natured Man characteristically answered: "You are too severe. He is not a cur; he is only a bur. Tom Davies flung him at Johnson in sport, and he has the faculty of sticking." The correction and the definition showed that the Irishman had not unfairly estimated the character of James Boswell, who was not easily shaken off, once he had attached himself in any quarter. It was the knowledge of this which caused Walpole to shut his doors to the pertinacious Scot, when besieged by him. "He forced himself upon me," wrote Walpole to Gray, "in spite of my teeth and my doors, and I see has given a foolish account of all he could pick up from me. He then took an antipathy to me on Rousseau's account, abused me in the newspapers, and expected Rousseau to do so, too; but as he came to see me no more, I forgave all the rest. I see now he is a little sick of Rousseau, himself, but I hope it will not cure him of his anger to me; however, his book will amuse you." The book was the Journal of a Tour to Corsica, then just published; and Gray, in reply to Walpole, said that it proved what he had always maintained: "that any fool may write a most valuable book by chance, if he will only tell what he heard and said with veracity." Although Boswell had strong claims to the epithet used by Gray, something more than added veracity was needed to write two of the most remarkable and most readable works of the eighteenth century; for that is what this volatile Scot has done.

1

Without indorsing Gray's opinion that the Journal was a most valuable work,

1 "When Boswell published his Account of Corsica," said the Rev. N. Nicholls, "I found Mr. Gray reading it. With this,' said he, 'I

we can see that it was adumbrative of the marvelous biography which appeared a quarter of a century later, and which has for over a hundred years been the wonder and delight of myriad readers. The success has never been repeated. The man and the book are unique.

"Folly," says Sainte-Beuve, "a spice of folly, if joined to some degree of talent, has become an instrument of success; and the cultivation to their utmost of the special gifts which he possessed was the secret of Boswell's phenomenal success. "I certainly have the art," he says in a letter to his friend Temple, " of making the most of what I have."

There was nothing of the element of chance about his writing the Life of Johnson; it was a deliberate and longcherished plan, which he never once lost sight of. Johnson, having triumphed over poverty and misery, and their certain companion, neglect, was rapidly rising into renown, and with unerring instinct Boswell divined the fame which would be his in going down to posterity as the friend and biographer of the "literary Colossus." With that end in view, he did not rest satisfied until he had made the "big man," as Goldsmith called him, his warm friend. He endured all Johnson's rough ways and shortness of temper, as well as the not infrequent snubs which his hero worship brought; studying him all the while with a searching closeness which not the smallest peculiarity escaped, for as a literary artist he knew the value and importance of trifles. "He concentrated his whole attention upon his idol," Fanny Burney tells us, "not even answering questions from others. When Johnson spoke, his eyes

am much pleased, because I see the author is too foolish to have invented it.'"'

goggled with eagerness; he leant his ear almost on the doctor's shoulder; his mouth dropped open to catch every syllable, and he seemed to listen even to Johnson's breathings as though they had some mystical significance."

It was through having his attention almost always alert that he was enabled to give us those vivid pictures which make his book a veritable literary cinematograph; for in truth his pages may be said to live; with a few simple but subtle strokes the living scene is dramatically brought before us, and we can almost fancy that we hear the loud voice of Johnson and the sonorous tones of Burke, that we see the quaint figure of Goldsmith and the sedate deportment of Gibbon.

We see his ex

Of the kind of man Boswell was he himself has given us the most abundant evidence. His pages are autobiographic in their self-delineation. traordinary want of tact; his amazing folly, egotism, self-obtrusion, and excessive freedom of manners; his want of self-respect, amounting almost to selfdebasement (he did not hesitate to liken himself to a dog); his conceit, vanity, absurd pomposity, and serene self-complacency. He was easily enamored, and was no Moslem when the wine was circulating; for he frequently succumbed to the material good things, and admits that he was unable to recollect the intellectual good things that flowed around him. These faults and frailties were visible to every one, and were readily availed of by his enemies during his life, and by his critics after his death; but what was not quite so obvious was the undeniable fact that he was endowed with rare talents allied to a special and unique faculty, combining the taste to relish and the ability to record brilliant conversation.

His genuine love of letters was united to a perfect mania for literary society and for talking with literary men, which is the subject of an amusing reference in

a letter from David Hume to the Comtesse de Boufflers: "He [Boswell] is very good-humoured, very agreeable, and very mad. . . . You remember the story of Terentia, who was first married to Cicero, then to Sallust, and at last, in her old age, married a young nobleman, who imagined that she must possess some secret which would convey to him eloquence and genius." "Very agreeable, very good-humoured," that is the impression he always gave, into whatever society he went; and he was always in society; he could not have lived without excitement of some kind.

"There is a fine fame in being distinguished in London, were it only in literary society as I am." Thus he wrote to his lifelong friend the Rev. William Johnson Temple, to whom he unbosomed himself to an amazing extent. They corresponded from the time they left the University of Glasgow until Boswell's death, and it would be difficult to point to a more complete laying bare of a man's innermost nature than is to be found in these letters, which were first published forty-two years ago. A great poet said of some of his verses that they "May bind a book, may line a box,

May serve to curl a maiden's locks," and Boswell's letters to Temple were like to have shared a similar or more ignoble fate; for mere accident rescued them from a small shop in Boulogne, where they were about to be used as wrapping paper.

"How much, methinks, I could despise this man!"

But notwithstanding all that has been said against him, follies are about the gravest charge that can be brought against poor Boswell. Much that is to his credit these letters bring to light, abundant good nature, true friendship, anxious solicitude for his wife, and his desire and care that his sons and daughters should be well educated. There is also evidence of some common sense, but not sufficient to warrant his saying that he was "a very sensible, good sort of man." In the letter in which this occurs he tells Temple, "You may depend upon it that very soon my follies will be at an end, and I shall turn out an admirable member of society." Poor Boswell! these assurances are frequent, only to be followed by his deploring that circumstances proved too much for him.

His tenderness under criticism is rather amusingly shown by his asking Temple to communicate to him all he hears about his Account of Corsica, but he adds: "Conceal from me all censure. I would not however dislike to hear impartial corrections. Perhaps Mr. Gray may say something to you of it." Gray did say something of it, as we have seen, but it was to Walpole, and Boswell's ears were spared the hearing it.

When he went courting Miss Blair, with whom he fancied himself madly in love, he told Temple: "I am dressed in green and gold. I have my chaise, in which I sit alone like Mr. Gray, and Thomas rides by me in a claret-coloured suit with a silver-laced hat."

In the summer of 1769 he visited Ireland, and, it is said, penned this account of his doings which appeared in the Public Advertiser :

"James Boswell, Esqr., having now visited Ireland, he dined with his Grace the Duke of Leinster, at his seat at Carton; he went also, by special invitation, to visit the Lord Lieutenant at his country seat at Leixlip, to which he was con

"I am really the great man now. I have had David Hume in the forenoon, and Mr. Johnson in the afternoon of the same day, visiting me. Sir John Pringle, Dr. Franklin, and some more company, dined with me to-day; and Mr. Johnson and General Oglethorpe one day, Mr. Garrick alone another, and David Hume and some more literati another, dine with me next week. I give admirable dinners and good claret; and in a day or two I set up my chariot. This is enjoying the fruit of my labours, and appearing like the friend of Paoli. ... David Hume came on purpose the other day to tell me that the Duke of Bedford was very fond of my book and had recommended it to the Duchess. David is really amiable."

"has

The natural result of all this folly was that he found himself "a good deal in debt" before the end of the year. He made acquaintances as readily as he got into debt. "No man," he says, been more successful in making acquaintance easily than I have been: I even bring people quickly on to a degree of cordiality. I am a quick fire, but I know not if I last sufficiently, though surely, my dear Temple, there is always a warm place for you. With many people I have compared myself to a taper, which can light up a great and lasting fire though itself is soon extinguished."

And on another occasion he writes: "Am I not fortunate in having something about me that interests most people at first sight in my favour?"

presented, after that witless question had cut its way in and out. He felt pretty much as though a thrombus diked up the question's passage at the base of his brain, and held it there for one convulsive, black second, -“What you got against me?" He had only the repressive training of the dissecting room and the operating theatre to thank for the fact that he could stumble on blindly, thrombus or no thrombus. He began to beat his hands together softly and to talk rapidly, in the way he had when he wished he did n't have to talk at all: :

"What I got against you, Shore, is your symptoms. I wish I could unsay what I've said, or put a little sweetening in it, but I can't do it. The last time I talked with you in my own office in Penangton I got afraid that Lahn and Carey had your case down about right, and now I know it. At least I know that lump on your wrist is too near to being a spindle-celled sarcoma for you to fool away any more time on neat little compresses and quiet little rest cures; the thing for you now is a sharp little knife. If you don't take that thing in time, — and the time 's now, — you might as well shut up that real estate office of yours at once and be done with it. All the real estate you'll need will be a bunch six feet long by two wide "— Henderson stopped abruptly, unable to get the right hold on this line of talk; the things he usually said to people whose lives were in danger and whom his knife might save were not coming to his mind readily, and were not fitting the situation when they did come. The jokes on which he was accustomed to ride his patients into an easy familiarity with danger seemed unable to bear the weight of the big man in front of him.

Henderson did not look at the woman, but he got a sensation that she understood, and that she was doing what she could to make it easier on him when she said: "Hardin, the time's gone by for talking; the time 's going by for act

ing.

You must stop this foolishness. The operation itself might be much more serious: you have as good a chance as anybody to rally from it." She pushed him back into a chair, and stood over him with a strong, maternal protection, for all he was so big and stalwart, and she was so straight and slender. “He has as good a chance as anybody, has n't he?" She looked at Henderson with the earnest concentration in her eyes that was always in them, like unused, expectant lightning, when she looked squarely at him.

"In some ways he has," answered Henderson, and wondered what she thought he meant by that.

She was urging on the man in the chair again, as though she had not heard Henderson: "Say you will risk the operation, — say you will.”

Her husband buried his face against her, and gave up the fight with an awkward, gigantic helplessness. “Why need I, when you're saying it, boss? You hear, don't you, Henderson? I'm to risk it." The woman pulled quickly away from him, with an expression of relief that remained perplexed, and the big man rose to his feet. "But there's one thing I want your lily-white hand on, Henderson," he continued banteringly.

do

"You got to promise that you'll every bit of the work yourself." Through his banter ran the important, well-fed man's jealousy about himself. Now that it was coming to the pinch, he plainly did n't like the idea of being subjected to handling and analysis that would be purely scientific, purely impersonal; he even had a superstitious feeling that such a dry valuation of life was likely to invoke death. His personality had always meant a great deal to him, and he shrank outspokenly from being viewed as material instead of as Hardin Shore, rich, fate - conquering. "Life means a heap to me," he went on insistently, "and I ain't putting it into the hands of anybody but the chap I can

trust, the chap that knows what and how much I have to live for," — he held out his hand toward the woman, but she stood quietly back beyond his reach, smiling at him, "and I'm going to put the whole business into your hands, Henderson. I'm going to be yours to bind or to loose, as you will and can. Understand? Will you do the work yourself?"

Henderson turned nervously from the unreasoning sentiment of patient toward physician which, in its helpless emotionalism, so saddles a man with responsibility. He shook his head vehemently. 66 No, no!" he said. "Let Lahn operate. He's the one. He's the very best here. Why, Shore, I'm only a country surgeon, at most. Let Lahn. I can't do it — I can't operate on you take life into my hands your want to

- I can't I don't

"All right, sir," the other man held up his afflicted hand by way of unpromising emphasis,-"all right. You see, don't you, Lynn? Shows how much he believes in it. You won't operate, eh? All right. One thing for sure, nobody else shall."

The woman put her hand on Henderson's arm. "What do you mean by hesitating now?" she asked impetuously. "What do you mean? Why, we trust you. You can trust yourself. It's the only way. You must trust yourself. I'm not afraid. Hardin is n't. Should you be? Why, I've had so much trouble to get him even to consider it. He never would have, if it had n't been for you. He believes in you. Every fibre of chance he has hangs from you."

Henderson looked down at her grimly. "You know I like responsibility," he said. "Pile it on." Then, with a violent splintering of his thought, he cried wildly: "I tell you I'm afraid of myself! His life means too much, to you, to himself, to hundreds of people to me"

"I can't help that," she persisted, as

ardent as he.

way.

"You've got to go all the You can't refuse, you can't turn back now; you dare not." The same tragic mixture of pleading and command was in her voice again, making her half admonitory angel, half tearful woman, and her face was becoming so tense that her husband came quickly to the rescue with his ready capacity for forging a finish to anything which he had thought worth beginning.

"Henderson, I may have a spindleshanked sarcoma in my hand, but you've got one in your head. "T is n't normal for a surgeon to have to be coaxed to operate. Responsibility nothing! I'll take the responsibility. Will you oper ate?"

"Oh yes, yes," said Henderson wearily.

He was deliberately talking and laughing himself out of his first hysterical antipathy to the operation into his usual orderly good nature. His big, powerful shoulders had squared back, and the danger he was about to brave was passing from a great potential tragedy - the tragedy of risking life when life means wealth, power, happiness into the flat, every-day fact that he was going to be operated on, going to take some chloroform, and going to get off the operating table and go about his business again.

"Now the question is, when?" he asked next, with the peremptory manner of a man who is accustomed to run his affairs on schedule time.

The woman looked at Henderson smilingly. "It's fine to have him good at last, is n't it?" she said. "Better not give him time to undergo any sea change. I suppose you want to get back to Penangton, too, just as soon as you can ?" Henderson furrowed a long, straight