ART. IX.-Letters of James Boswell, addressed to the Rev. W. J. Temple. Now first published from the original MSS. With an Introduction and Notes. Bentley. 1857.

Ir was the practice of the most popular historian of antiquity to institute comparisons betwixt certain of his rival heroes; but the biographic annals of mankind afford far more curious parallels than any which adorn the elaborate page of Plutarch. It would call for the exercise of some ingenuity to find any but the most external features of resemblance in the lives of Agis and Cleomenes, of Sylla and Lysander. There is more or less coincidence in the tenor of their fortunes or the style of their ambition; but in the minor traits of individual character, in that personal idiosyncrasy which combines and graduates the subsisting elements of strength and of weakness, of wisdom and of folly, there is no striking and prevailing likeness in any of these heroic pairs. The men of Plutarch are cast in one large mould. They want that variety, and perhaps that imperfection, of character, which is requisite to furnish instances either of contrast or comparison. Even where they differ from the general type, it is only as members of the same family; and we detect their identity as we distinguish the features of a Claudius or a Julius in the heads of the twelve Cæsars. But the civilization of the Christian world, and especially of the Teutonic and Celtic races, is marked by a bolder individuality of genius. As modern art has opened up the province of the picturesque, so modern life abounds in varied and contrasted characters; and it is this very circumstance which makes our biographic parallels more rare indeed, but also more curious and complete. And to these comparisons the pleasures of contrast are not wanting; for every point of coincidence is fraught with some quality of difference.

We have been led into this train of remark by a perusal of the volume now before us, which frequently recalls the pages of another book, and vividly sets before the reader's mind the picture of two choice Arcadians. The name and character of Boswell have, no doubt, often suggested those of Samuel Pepys ; but the publication of these familiar letters makes the association quite infallible; for they exhibit the resemblance in its most striking form, and, at the same time, extend it to a thousand particulars. We now know that the amusing diarist of the seventeenth century revived in the person of Johnson's faithful henchman and biographer, the jest and wonder of the eighteenth. The likeness is fortuitous as well as characteristical. circumstance which enables us to complete the parallel of these

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two worthies, itself suggests a singular coincidence of fortune. The posthumous fame of Pepys and of Boswell have been equally affected by a similar accident, an accident not favourable to the personal character of either, but largely conducive to the popularity of both. No wonder both are welcome to the world of readers. A giddy public is admitted into the secret confidence of these choice spirits, and finds it most exquisite fun; for rarely is so thorough an exposure made of those lighter follies which provide the farce and interlude of human life. This secret confidence is precisely of the most entertaining kind,— the fullest and the freest possible; consisting of incidents and thoughts which only a fool would commit to any, which no one else would have power or occasion to confide, and which even he will only whisper to his friend, or chuckle to himself. But the pen is a dangerous medium of such indulgences. Though Folly should break its hour-glass, and write only in the scattered sand, who shall provide that Time, which wantonly destroys so much, will not as wantonly preserve this little, harden the frail tablet into rock, and leave it in the museum of Posterity? So at least it has fared with the confidence of Pepys and of Boswell. Both were shrewd men, and were able to hide something of their weaknesses from contemporary eyes; but each, forsooth, must write himself down an ass. The one must sniggle over his ticklish delinquencies in the privacy of a journal kept in cipher; and the other must needs confess to an old college chum, now settling into the sober walks of clerical and married life; and many years after the writers' death, when Pepys is quite forgotten and Boswell almost forgiven, the diary of the one is carefully deciphered, and the letters of the other suddenly discovered. Of course both are published without scruple or delay,—for no man is entitled to the immunities of private character sixty years after his death; the claims of truth and of society survive, and supersede mere individual rights: our follies can find sanctuary only in a new-made grave; and every record that is suffered to remain above ground to challenge the curiosity of another generation, is justly forfeit in the interest of mankind. Let the beaus and gossips of our day look to it! For our two leaky friends the warning is somewhat late. They have nothing more to offer or withhold. We know them from the lowest note to the top of their compass. We have made a parlourwindow book out of their 'trivial fond records,' and find it to be most exquisite fooling. We could not be more thoroughly provided if each of us had a jester of his own. Certain it is that Yorick was a fool to Samuel Pepys. He might tumble to amuse the Majesty of unburied Denmark, barbarian as he was; but what is that to keeping the wide table of Christendom on a roar? No proofs of his genius are extant; his wit is a misera

ble tradition, vouched only by a mad Prince and stupid gravedigger; he died and made no sign; he is quite chapfallen; the grin remains, but the joke has long subsided. Not so with our incomparable friend. The merriment we draw from him is fresh and lively. His exit from the scene was only in order to a transformation. Fortune has sent him smartly back, and his future is a brilliant and perpetual harlequinade. The pen with which he ciphered' is changed into a wand: he smites upon our wall with it, and old London re-appears. It is now Whitehall-and Pepys, in the manner as he lived, is seen to admire at the beauty of Castlemaine or the dancing of Monmouth; the House of Lords-and deceitful Pepys throngs in with the faithful Commons, stands behind the King's chair, and hears the merry Monarch read from his lap a speech which he finds it difficult to spell; Vauxhall-and it is still Pepys, sporting with Knip or Mercer; a domestic interior-and the same old beau grows furious to see his lady in white wig, in fact ready to burst with anger;' a church-and our gallant sidles up to take the hand of a pretty lady, but retreats on finding it armed with a pin; a street—and the worthy man indulges an honest blush because the nose of his companion is unreasonably red! Who is not glad to remember, that where there is any shame there is yet some virtue?

But Mr. Boswell waits to be introduced, and we have yet to state with more distinctness his claim to come into such pleasant company. It is briefly this. Like Pepys he displays about an equal amount of talent and buffoonery in his life-performance; and while the first-named quality raised him above the vulgar throng of men, the latter set him just as much below. Arcades ambo, they stand the co-heritors of the most equivocal renown: the wise man gives them an alternate meed of admiration and contempt; and the veriest booby will gird at them with an inward and grateful sense of his superior parts. But what makes the resemblance more striking, is the fact that both were affected with the same personal weaknesses, to wit, the inordinate love of pleasure, and an irrepressible love of approbation. They both waded in a wide and shallow sea of vanity,-and both were lost, not so much in overwhelming vice, as by their dreary distance from the shores of virtue.

It is of no use denying the ability of either. Why should the world go back a hundred years to find a coxcomb? The fact is, that no such character, pure and simple, is able to arrest and fix the public mind. A man must be something more than a fool before he can amuse even the lighter hours of the good and wise. Pepys was Secretary to the Admiralty in the reigns of Charles II. and James II., and beyond doubt he had much

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capacity as a man of business. There is some hint of his carrying retrenchment and reforms into that department; but it is certain that his dexterity in keeping the public accounts was more than the average of official life presented. But Pepys was not merely useful in affairs; he was a patron of the arts, and a man of superior culture. He made a collection of books and pictures which to this day testifies to his scholarship and liberal tastes.

Boswell's reputation as a man of parts rests upon different and better grounds. It is not from history or tradition, but from his own literary works, that we derive a knowledge of his powers. With rare exception it is customary still to underrate them. We must not allow either the failings or the follies of this man to lead us into a disparagement of his rare ability. Whatever may be the value of literary talents, they were possessed by Boswell in an eminent degree. He certainly did not write one of the best of books because he was one of the weakest of men, as some critics would have us to believe. He wrote it by virtue of peculiar gifts, and not at the prompting of a superstitious reverence, not by the aid of a feminine garrulity. His great performance derives none of its substantial merit from his folly or his vanity,-his pedantic habit of moralizing, or his inveterate love of pleasure. These, no doubt, are the most amusing traits discovered in his familiar correspondence; but how little could such qualities contribute to a biography deserving of the name and character and times of Johnson! Nor was our author particularly indebted to his opportunities. We do not underrate the great subject and the brilliant accessories which offered themselves to his delineating pen; but we say confidently that an equal occasion had often passed by, either wholly unimproved, or turned to miserably small account, for want of a master able to appreciate and to seize the whole. The fact is, that Boswell entertained from the first a just conception of the nature and method of the work he undertook; better still, he realized his object with a rare felicity, carrying out his purpose to the last with equal perseverance, skill, and courage. His judgment and constancy may be traced in every page of his immortal work; but sometimes it more directly challenges our attention. I cannot,' says he, on one occasion, allow any fragment whatever that floats in my memory concerning the great subject of this biography to be lost. Though a small particular may appear trifling to some, it will be relished by others; while every little spark adds something to the general blaze; and to please the true candid warm admirers of Johnson, and in any degree increase the splendour of his reputation, I bid defiance to the shafts of ridicule, and even of malignity.'

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Boswell and Johnson.

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then proceeds to relate, with becoming gravity, how the great moralist amused himself one morning after breakfast; how, being in Dr. Taylor's grounds, he used a long pole to force some clumps of trees and other rubbish over a waterfall; how at length a large dead cat baffled the toiling sage, who presently threw down the pole to Boswell, saying, 'Come, you shall take it now; and how the faithful henchman, being 'fresh' as well as faithful, soon made the cat tumble over the cascade.' We say, Brave Boswell as well as 'fresh,' and wise as well as brave! We accept with gratitude thy picture of the burly moralist, working with all his body and rolling with incomparable laughter and the world shall learn that thou, too, hadst something to achieve even when the mighty failed; that in virtue of elastic youth and genius thou didst hurl a dead cat down the stream, and left Ulysses standing convulsed upon its bank, a picture, at the least, for evermore!

It is the first great praise of Boswell that he attached himself to such a master. In this fact, too, we recognise the leading paradox of his career. The more intimately we come to know the character of Boswell,-his vanity, frivolity, and sensuality,the more does the wonder of his hero-worship grow upon us. It is no very rare thing to meet with a Scotchman who prefers London to Edinburgh; and not unfrequently we may have seen a man about town afflicted with a literary turn, or haunted by way of conscience with a reverence for moral greatness; but the question remains, What attracted this poor butterfly and parasite to the burly, rough-grained moralist and threadbare scholar of Fleet Street? The love of splendour and éclat which possessed the soul of Boswell might have led us to think that only meretricious qualities, and only the most popular reputation, would have had any charm for him; but the fact is otherwise. To Paoli, the hero of his day, our author paid indeed assiduous court, and fluttered with evident delight in the beams of his glory; but his true allegiance was paid to Johnson, and that when Johnson was very far from reaching the commanding height of reputation which he finally attained. It is only just to Boswell that this genuine life-long devotion, for ever unexplained as it may be, should be set over against a multitude of his weaknesses and follies. We accept it as the testimony of his better genius to the dignity of human life, and acknowledge once for all that his appreciation of virtue, wisdom, and sobriety, was at least equal to his instinct of foppery, and his inordinate love of pleasure.

It is curious to observe the influence of Johnson upon the literary style of his admirer. A certain elegant and lively freedom belongs to Boswell's proper manner, but long intimacy