sible to stick to any course of reading that he might lay out for himself. His mind was eager and curious, rather than progressive. He resided, for brief periods, at Edinburgh University and at Glasgow University, but in both places his social instincts defeated anything like an orderly education. He had, it is true, more learning, liberal and professional, than his critics and biographers have been willing to allow him; but his passion for companionship kept him always on the rove. At one time he attached himself to Sir David Dalrymple; at another time, to a company of actors. He knew no rest until he found his rest in Johnson.

And who shall say that he was wrong? After all possible perfection of systems and courses of study and methods of instruction, liberal education remains a personal relationship. Who would not barter the methods of all the schools for a conversation with Socrates? Boswell's relations with Johnson, in which he found, not merely wit and instruction, but stimulus to achievement and the awakening of powers within himself which he had never realised, are a vindication of that instinct within him which drove him to seek out the society of men of letters. To assert that Boswell found in such society the fulfillment of the intellectual life of which he had dreamed is not to say

that every bluestocking and moonstruck young philosopher can do the same. The distinctive feature in Boswell is the capacity for realising and using the richness of the life to which he was admitted. For this, as we shall see later, he was

specially qualified.

Another force which tended to keep him from priggishness was a naïveté the equal of which it would be difficult to discover. Pepys's was no larger, though it was more natural; Rousseau's was no larger, though it was less comic. Perhaps no better illustration of it can be given than the inscription which he himself wrote in a copy of a book called "The Government of the Tongue," "Presented to me by my worthy freind, Bennet Langton, Esq: of Langton, as a Book by which I might be much improved, viz. by the Government of the Tongue. He gave me the Book and hoped I would read that treatise; but said no more. I have expressed in words what I beleive was his meaning. It was a delicate admonition." A naïve person, I suppose, is one who, being profoundly interested in his own personality, makes the unwarranted assumption that other people are similarly interested in it. A few sentences from an early letter to Sir David Dalrymple, regarding the approaching sojourn in Utrecht, are, it seems to me, a classical example of naïveté : ·

James Boswell "London 1779.

Presented to me by my worthy freind Berrel Range Eog. of Langton, as a th by which I might be much improved o by The Government of the Tongue. He gave me the Book and Roped I would read that treative but said no moré I have exprefoed in words what I beleive was his mea: ring. It was a deti :cate admonition

Boswell's Inscription in his copy of "The Government of the Tongue"

My great object is to attain a proper conduct in life. How sad will it be, if I turn no better than I am. I have much vivacity, which leads me to dissipation and folly. This, I think, I can restrain. But I will be moderate, and not aim at a stiff sageness and buckram correctness. I must, however, own to you that I have at bottom a melancholy cast; which dissipation relieves by making me thoughtless, and therefore, an easier, though a more contemptible animal. I dread a return of this malady. I am always apprehensive of it. Pray tell me if Utrecht be a place of a dull and severe cast, or if it be a place of decency and chearfull politeness? Tell me, too, if years do not strengthen the mind, and make it less susceptible of being hurt? and if having a rational object will not keep up my spirits?

There are those who find in such an utterly frank revelation of what is going on in a human breast something quite captivating. They learn to laugh at it without sneering at it. So, we may imagine, did Sir David. When Madame du Deffand read the "Tour to Corsica," she declared herself (to Horace Walpole, of all people), “extrêmement contente"; and elsewhere, "J'aime l'auteur à la folie; son cœur est excellent, son âme est pleine de vertus; je vais être en garde à ne pas laisser voir l'engouement que j'ai de son ouvrage." The blind sibyl of the Parisian salons, who had spent her life with sophistication, knew well the value of naïveté - and the wisdom of concealing it.

man.

Of the melancholy which Boswell describes to Sir David, and which he links with his dissipation, something must be said, if only for the reason that Boswell himself said so much of it. He perpetually insisted that he was, at bottom, a melancholy The fear of it was ever present in his mind; it darkened his youth, and it shrouded his latter days in misery. He described its symptoms to all his friends, and made pathetic appeals to them to help him get the better of it. All this, not unnaturally, bored his friends exceedingly, for friends do not care to hear of your blues and your forebodings. It may be the duty of friends to help you bear your burden, but if you wish to retain them, it is best to bear it yourself without help. Perhaps Boswell's friends would have been more indulgent if the victim's melancholy had not taken flight immediately upon their arrival, whereupon they kindly assumed that his woes were imaginary. Perhaps they were. But what misery is more dreadful than that which resides in the imagination alone? Are not the insane so afflicted?

Again, it is true that Boswell's melancholy was of that strikingly familiar kind which descends upon us just as we approach some period of protracted work. His spirits always revived at the prospect of a holiday. In a word, our Boswell was lazy. But this is not an end of the matter. If