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CHAPTER IX

JOURNAL-KEEPING AND JOURNAL-PUBLISHING

How did Boswell take his notes? Did he take them on the spot, or did he write them up afterwards? Are we to think of him as sitting about the drawing-rooms of the eighteenth century, scratching away like a stenographer? Such questions, I think, the reader of the "Life of Johnson' is always asking himself. They are natural, but are not entirely easy to answer.

In the first place, most of the prima-facie evidence is lost. The notes on which the books were based have, in general, perished. In his will Boswell made the following provision for the publication of the materials preserved in the "cabinet” at Auchinleck: "I hereby leave to the said Sir William Forbes, the Reverend Mr. Temple and Edmond Malone, Esquire, all my manuscripts of my own composition, and all my letters from various persons, to be published for the benefit of my younger children, as they shall decide, that is to say, they are to have a discretionary power to publish more or less."

The three executors seem to have lacked interest or initiative. They never met. All that we know

of their rather shocking neglect of duty is derived from the remarks of the Reverend Dr. Rogers, one of the earlier biographers of Boswell, who appears to have had access to some private family information. He says: "The three persons nominated as literary executors did not meet, and the entire business of the trust was administered by Sir William Forbes, Bart., who appointed as his law-agent, Robert Boswell, Writer to the Signet, cousin-german of the deceased. By that gentleman's advice, Boswell's manuscripts were left to the disposal of his family; and it is believed that the whole were immediately destroyed." Comment on such action would be superfluous.

Two of the journals, at least, escaped the flames. One was the so-called Commonplace Book, from which quotations have been often drawn in these essays, and the other was one of the journals used in the composition of the "Life of Johnson." The manuscript of the former I have never seen; it is, perhaps, lost. It was published in 1874, and has long been familiar to scholars. The original must have been either a note-book, in which entries were made at widely-separated intervals, or, perhaps, a series of loose sheets kept together in a portfolio. Although the order of the entries is strangely confused, there is some semblance of sequence. The earliest anecdotes belong to the year 1763, and the

latest date recorded is 1785. It covers, therefore, the most interesting period of Boswell's life.

It is clear that the book was not one of those intended for publication, or even regarded as material to be written up for publication. But it is no less significant and valuable, since it affords us a strictly personal view. It is, in truth, what it has generally been called-a commonplace book, from which, on occasion, the author might draw an anecdote or a mot.

The other note-book is of a very different kind. It is, as has been said, one of the journals used in writing the "Life of Johnson." It was filled up at two different periods. In the first place, it contains, set down in chronological order, the facts in Johnson's boyhood and life at Oxford that Boswell had been able to learn from Miss Porter, Johnson's step-daughter, Dr. Adams, Mr. Hector, and others, during a visit to Ashbourne, Lichfield, and Oxford in March, 1776. This entry is continuous and chronological, covering Johnson's life down to his departure for London. An anecdote from Dr. Percy is added; and then, in the month of April, after the return to London, notes on Johnson's relations with Tom Hervey, contributed by Beauclerk, and Langton's account of Johnson's dispute with Dr. Barnard, Dean of Derry. All this, it will be noticed, is material that had been

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Facsimile of a page from Boswell's Note-book, 1776,

showing material later used in the Life

communicated to Boswell by friends of Johnson. Thus far the note-book is not the record of Johnson's conversation as heard by Boswell. It consists of data which will be of use to Boswell in writing those periods of Johnson's life of which he has not had personal knowledge.

But the most interesting feature of this notebook remains to be mentioned. In September of the following year, Boswell made another visit to Ashbourne, where Johnson was visiting his friend, Dr. Taylor, and carried this same note-book with him, partly in order to correct or amplify what he had recorded in the previous year, and partly to note anything of importance that Johnson might say. When writing in the previous year, he had left half a page blank for future correction; and now, in 1777, he fills up some of this space. In the example reproduced on page 195, the note written lengthwise of the sheet has to do with an earlier page than the one shown in the cut. The correction is so elaborate that it has been continued from page to page.

By a happy chance, Boswell also used this notebook - as he had certainly not originally intended to do to record a conversation which he had with Johnson one evening at Ashbourne; and thus we are provided with one example - the sole surviving one of the notes which Boswell used for one

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