Boswell Was No Mere Reporter

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12549, 11 September 1926, Page 12

Boswell Was No Mere Reporter

THE Notebook adds very little to our knowledge of the facts. But it has a certain interest and importance which make it more than a more curiosity. In the first place it abundantly justifies Boswell’s claim to have spared no pains to asoertain the truth. The marginal and interlinear corrections and additions in this manuscript prove that he was indeed willing “'to run half over London in order to fix a date correctly; which, when I had accomplished, I well knew would obtain me no praise, though a failure would have been to my discredit.” ....

Secondly, the Notebook shows that Boswell was not merely content to transcribe his memoranda. He was not afraid to he an artist, and to let his knowledge and genius “Johnsonise” what was necessarily raw material. It has hardly been realised how great a license he permitted himself in this, the most important, part of bis task. But it has been pointed out that same of the Johnsonian memoranda, made hy Boswell in the manuscript miscellany which he called Boswelliana, seem to have been freely rehandled for use in the Life. Perhaps the most remarkable example is the account of Johnson’s -strictures upon Sheridan —“old Sherry”—

and his attempts to improve elocution. Ridiouling these efforts, on the ground that “the cause hears no proportion to the effect,,” Johnson, according to Boswelliana, used two similes: “He is like a man attempting to stride the English Channel”; and “it is setting up a candle at Whitechapel to give light at Westminster.” In the Life the two similes are thrown into one. Showing a light is preferred to striding, doubtless as being more apposite. But the picture of the Channel caught Boswell’s eye, and he boldly transferred it. “Sir," it is burning a farthing .candle at Dover to show light at Calais.”

It is possible, of course that Johnson, who was not afraid of repeating himself, said all three but it is more probable that the third is a product of Boswell’s art. In these matters Aristotle tells us a convincing impossibility is to be preferred to an unconvincing possibility. Boswell was not a stenographer, and it is prudent to remember what he gives us is not always—perhaps is not very often—■ ipsissima \erba. But we are glad that he gave play to his fancy. Boswell’s Johnson is, often enough literally too good to be true, but we mav be confident that he is more Johnsonian than any other Johnson. —R. B. Adam in preface to “Boswell’s Note Book.”