Grampian Club > Boswelliana

I
MEMOIR OF JAMES BOSWELL. 189
Record the praise he purchased, let his nanae
]\Iount on the wings of literary fame,
And to his honour say, — ' Here Boswell lies,
Whose pleasing pen adorned the good and wise,
Whose memory do\vn the stream of time shall flow
Far as famed Johnson's or Paoli's go ! '"
Eobert Boswell's proposal was not entertained, and the
preceding epitaph was found among his papers after his own
decease many years subsequently. By his descendants the
memory of Johnson's biographer has not been honoured, yet the
tamily of Boswell, with a pedigree dating from the Conquest,
cannot point to a more distinguished kinsman.
The marriage of persons nearly related by blood is apt to
engender cerebral weakness in the offspring. The first-born of
cousins-german, James Boswell suffered from an imperfect and
morbid organization. Mr. Carlyle's analysis of his mental condi-
tion we cordially accept, "The highest [quality], writes Mr. Carlyle
lay side by side with the lowest, not morally combined with
it and spiritually transfiguring it, but tumbling in half-mechani-
cal juxtaposition with it ; and from time to time, as the mad
alternative chanced, irradiating it, or eclipsed by it." Around
his intellectual nature hovered a dark cloud, while there was
light within; the cloud was malformation or disease, but the
morbid element did not extinguish the internal fire. Boswell's
perceptive power was of the highest order ; he could retain
and reproduce scenes and conversations with the naturalness
of reality. A literary Pre-Eaffaelite, his observation was acute
in proportion as his reflective powers waned or slept; what he
saw and heard he set forth forcibly and without embellishment.
The assertion of Lord Macaulay that the " Life of Johnson "
was due to the author's weakness requires no serious refutation.
Boswell produced the best biography in the language, because