Boswells Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica | Page 4

pullets and a couple of geese
were but so much scum, which Don Quixote's squire whipped off to

stay his stomach till dinner-time. By the time Boswell was
six-and-twenty he could boast that he had made the acquaintance of
Adam Smith, Robertson, Hume, Johnson, Goldsmith, Wilkes, Garrick,
Horace Walpole, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Paoli. He had twice at least
received a letter from the Earl of Chatham. But his appetite for
knowing great men could never be satisfied. These might stay his
stomach for a while, but more would be presently wanted. At the time
when he published this volume of Letters he seems to have had some
foresight into his future life. "I am thinking," he says, "of the intimacies
which I shall form with the learned and ingenious in every science, and
of the many amusing literary anecdotes which I shall pick up." When
fame did come upon him by his book on Corsica, no one could have
relished it more. "I am really the great man now," he writes to his
friend Temple. "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 the moment I go
abroad again, which will be 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."
In the preface to the third edition, he says,--"When I first ventured to
send my book into the world, I fairly owned an ardent desire for literary
fame. I have obtained my desire: and whatever clouds may overcast my
days, I can now walk here among the rocks and woods of my ancestors,
with an agreeable consciousness that I have done something worthy." It
was about this time that, writing to the great Earl of Chatham, he
said--"I can labour hard; I feel myself coming forward, and I hope to be
useful to my country. Could your Lordship find time to honour me now
and then with a letter? I have been told how favourably your Lordship
has spoken of me. To correspond with a Paoli and a Chatham, is
enough to keep a young man ever ardent in the pursuit of virtuous
fame."[5]

[Footnote 5: "Chatham Correspondence," vol. iii., p. 246.]
A few months before his account of Corsica was published, he had
fixed upon the date of its publication as the period when he should
steadily begin that pursuit of virtuous fame, which now was to be
secured by correspondence with a Paoli and a Chatham. "I am always
for fixing some period," he wrote, "for my perfection, as far as possible.
Let it be when my account of Corsica is published; I shall then have a
character which I must support." Unhappily the time for his perfection
was again and again put off. Johnson, in speaking of Derrick,
said--"Derrick may do very well, as long as he can outrun his character;
but the moment his character gets up with him, it is all over." With
Boswell, just the opposite was the case. He soon acquired a character--a
character which he was bound to support. But he could never get up
with it. The friend of Paoli, the friend of Johnson, was, unhappily,
given to drink. The gay spirits and lively health of youth supported him
for a while; but, even in these early days, he was too often troubled
with that depression of spirit which follows on a debauch. But, as time
passed on, and the habit grew stronger upon him, his health began to
give way, and his cheerfulness of mind to desert him. He lived but four
years after the publication of his great work.
In the preface to the second edition of the "Life of Johnson" he shows
his delight in his fame. "There are some men, I believe, who have, or
think they have, a very small share of vanity. Such may speak of their
literary fame in a decorous state of diffidence. But I confess that I am
so formed by nature and by habit, that to restrain the effusion of delight
on having obtained such fame, to me would be truly painful. Why, then,
should I suppress it? Why, 'out of the abundance of the heart,' should I
not speak?" This preface bears the date of July 1, 1793.