The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [907]
117. Ibid., p. 606.
118. Ibid., p. 1141.
119. Ibid., pp. 57, 42. Boswell records Johnson’s belief that he inherited this melancholic disposition from his father, Michael Johnson, and that in consequence he was ‘mad all his life, at least not sober’ (ibid., p. 25); cf. also p. 235.
120. As it was in the mental world, so it was for Johnson in the physical: ‘for though indolence and procrastination were inherent in his constitution, whenever he made an exertion he did more than any one else’ (ibid., p. 30).
121. Ibid., p. 43. Cf. Johnson’s reply to William Seward’s surprise that irreligious people existed: ‘Sir, you need not wonder at this, when you consider how large a proportion of almost every man’s life is passed without thinking of it. I myself was for some years totally regardless of religion. It had dropped out of my mind. It was at an early part of my life. Sickness brought it back, and I hope I have never lost it since’ (ibid., p. 882).
122. Ibid., p. 929; cf. also pp. 313–14.
123. Ibid., p. 215; cf. ‘There are few people to whom I take so much to as you’ (p. 237).
124. Doctrine of the Trinity: ibid., pp. 396-7. Predestination and theodicy: ibid., p. 313. Roman Catholicism: ibid., p. 314; though note the strongly Protestant character of his deathbed comments on religion (ibid., p. 997).
125. On Johnson’s informal legal education, see ibid., p. 530. For his attempt to follow a legal career, see ibid., p. 78. For his irritation in later life at being told (‘when it is too late’) that he might have been a great lawyer, see ibid., pp. 690–91. Johnson employed his legal knowledge when he collaborated with the Vinerian Professor of English Law at Oxford, Sir Robert Chambers, on the latter’s A Course of Lectures on the English Law (delivered 1767–73; first published 1986): see Thomas M. Curley, Sir Robert Chambers: Law, Literature, and Empire in the Age of Johnson (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), pp. 42–127. For evidence of the accuracy of Johnson’s legal knowledge, see for example Life of Johnson, below, pp. 224-5 (a correct explanation of the principle that the king can do no wrong), and ibid., pp. 364-7 (a discussion of a point of Scottish law). Cf. also Johnson’s correction of Charles I’s opinion on why he could not be a lawyer, which throws a keen sidelight on the attractions of legal pleading for Johnson (ibid., p. 374).
126. For accounts of the history of the Boswell papers and of the drama of their discovery, see David Buchanan, The Treasure of Auchinleck: The Story of the Boswell Papers (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974) and Frederick Pottle, Pride and Negligence: The History of the Boswell Papers (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982).
127. Waingrow’s edition of the Correspondence includes a ‘Chronology of the Making of the Life’ (Waingrow, ed., Correspondence &c., pp. xlix-lxix).
128. Ibid., p. 61.
129. Boswell on the Grand Tour: Italy, Corsica and France, 1765–1766, ed. F. Brady and Frederick A. Pottle (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1955), p. 106. In 1768 Boswell suggested to Johnson the possibility of publishing his letters after his death (Life of Johnson, below, p. 293).
130. Life of Johnson, below, p. 19.
131. Boswell for the Defence, 1769—1774, ed. W. K. Wimsatt and Frederick A. Pottle (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959), p. 86. Note also the comment in a letter to Garrick of 10 September 1772: ‘If I survive Mr. Johnson, I shall publish a Life of him, for which I have a store of materials’ (The Correspondence of James Boswell with David Garrick, Edmund Burke, and Edmond Malone, ed. P. S. Baker et al. (London: Heinemann, 1986), p. 45.
132. Life of Johnson, below, p. 349. Cf. the later, similar comment for 11 April 1773: ‘I again solicited him to communicate to me the particulars of his early life. He said, “You shall have them all for twopence. I hope you shall know a great deal more of me before you write my Life.” He mentioned to me this day many circumstances, which I wrote down when I went home, and have interwoven in the former part of this narrative’ (ibid., p. 375).
133. Boswell’s Journal of A