Bosola

“ Exeunt [all except the CARDINAL] . CARDINAL. The reason why I would not suffer these About my brother, is, because at midnight I may with better privacy convey Julia's body to her own lodging. O, my conscience! I would pray now; but the devil takes away my heart For having any confidence in prayer. About this hour I appointed Bosola To fetch the body. When he hath serv'd my turn, He dies. Exit. [Enter BOSOLA] BOSOLA. Ha! 'twas the cardinal's voice; I heard him name Bosola and my death. Listen; I hear one's footing. [Enter FERDINAND] FERDINAND. Strangling is a very quiet death. BOSOLA. [Aside.] ”

“ Enter Bosola with a Guard.
Duch.
O, they are very welcome:
When Fortunes wheele, is over-charg'd with Princes,
The waight makes it move swift. I wonld have my ruine
Be sudden: I am your adventure, am I not. ”

“ Say, then, my corruption Grew out of horse-dung: I am your creature. FERDINAND. Away! [Exit.] BOSOLA. Let good men, for good deeds, covet good fame, Since place and riches oft are bribes of shame. Sometimes the devil doth preach. [Exit.] [Scene III] [17] [Enter FERDINAND, DUCHESS, CARDINAL, and CARIOLA] CARDINAL. We are to part from you; and your own discretion Must now be your director. FERDINAND. You are a widow: You know already what man is; and therefore Let not youth, high promotion, eloquence—— CARDINAL. No, Nor anything without the addition, honour, Sway your high blood. ”

“ Boswell's Life of Johnson was not published till 1791; but the controversy kindled by the Tour to the Hebrides and the Anecdotes, raged fiercely enough to fix general attention and afford ample scope for ridicule: "The Bozzi &c. subjects," writes Hannah More 286 in April 1786, "are not exhausted, though everybody seems heartily sick of them. Everybody, however, conspires not to let them drop. That, the Cagliostro, and the Cardinal's necklace, spoil all conversation, and destroyed a very good evening at Mr. Pepys' last night." ”

“ A man cannot know modes of life as well in Minorca as in London; but he may study mathematicks as well in Minorca.' BOSWELL. 'I don't know, Sir: if you had remained ten years in the Isle of Col, you would not have been the man that you now are.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, if I had been there from fifteen to twenty-five; but not if from twenty-five to thirty-five.' BOSWELL. 'I own, Sir, the spirits which I have in London make me do every thing with more readiness and vigour. ”

“ For all his love of a post-chaise, Johnson was happiest in London. "You yourself, Sir," said Boswell when they were in the Hebrides "have never seen, till now, any thing but your native island." "Johnson. 'But, Sir, by seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can shew.' Boswell. 'You have not seen Pekin.' Johnson. 'What is Pekin? Ten thousand Londoners would drive all the people of Pekin: they would drive them like deer.'"
The town, he said, was his element. ”

“ Our means of knowledge of James Boswell are derived mainly from himself; he is his own incriminator. In addition to the life there is the Corsican tour, the Hebrides tour, the letters to Erskine and to Temple, and a few insignificant occasional publications in the shape of letters to the people of Scotland, etc. With these before him it is impossible for any biographer to approach Bozzy in a devotional attitude; he was all Carlyle calls him. ”

“ All gods be with you and my fine son.
"And with you, Bosambo, husband and lord," she said calmly; "for if this is Sandi's palaver it is good."
He left her, and sent for his fighting headman, the one-eyed Tembidini, strong in loyalty.
"I shall take one war canoe to the lower river," said Bosambo. "See to this: fifty fighting men follow me, and you shall raise the country and bring me an army to the place where the Isisi River turns twice like a dying snake." ”

“ Hearts are caught in the rebound, and Bozzy had solaced his loss of the belle Irlandaise with the sympathy of his fellow-traveller. Having let his fancies roam so far abroad as Siena and Holland, the lover had now returned like the bird at evening to the nest from which it flew. She had no fortune, and 'the penniless lass wi' the lang pedigree,' related as she was to the Eglintoun branch and other high families, had not in the eyes of his father the landed qualifications of Miss Blair, whose property lay so convenient for the extension of the Boswell acres. ”

“ Boswell's marvellous Life has made J.'s bodily appearance, dress, and manners more familiar to posterity than those of any other man—the large, unwieldy form, the face seamed with scrofula, the purblind eyes, the spasmodic movements, the sonorous voice, even the brown suit, metal buttons, black worsted stockings, and bushy wig, the conversation so full of matter, strength, sense, wit, and prejudice, superior in force and sparkle to the sounding, but often wearisome periods of his written style. ”

“ We had a pleasing conviction of the commodiousness of civilisation, and heartily laughed at the ravings of those absurd visionaries who have attempted to persuade us of the superior advantages of a state of nature." With these visionaries Boswell himself sometimes sided. The people of Otaheite especially had won his admiration. "No, Sir;" said Johnson to him on one such occasion: "You are not to talk such paradox; let me have no more on't. It cannot entertain, far less can it instruct." "Don't cant in defence of savages," he said, on another occasion. ”

“ Dr Johnson said, if M'Leod would let it be known that he had such a place for naughty ladies, he might make it a very profitable island. We had, in the course of our tour, heard of St Kilda poetry. Dr Johnson observed, 'it must be very poor, because they have very few images.' BOSWELL. 'There may be a poetical genius shewn in combining these, and in making poetry of them.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, a man cannot make fire but in proportion as he has fuel. He cannot coin guineas but in proportion as he has gold.' At tea he talked of his intending to go to Italy in 1775. ”

“ After dinner when ... we were by ourselves, he drew his chair near to mine, and said, in a tone of conciliating courtesy, 'Well, how have you done?' Boswell. 'Sir, you have made me very uneasy by your behaviour to me when we were last at Sir Joshua Reynolds's. You know, my dear Sir, no man has a greater respect and affection for you, or would sooner go to the end of the world to serve you. Now to treat me so—.' He insisted that I had interrupted him, which I assured him was not the case; and proceeded—'But why treat me so before people who neither love you nor me?' Johnson. ”

“ Johnson and I walked arm-in-arm up the High street," says Boswell, "to my house in James's Court: it was a dusky night: I could not prevent his being assailed by the evening effluvia of Edinburgh. As we marched slowly along he grumbled in my ear, 'I smell you in the dark.'"
Mrs. Boswell had never seen Johnson before, and was by no means charmed with him, as Johnson was not slow to discover. In a matrimonial aside she whispered to her husband, "I have seen many a bear led by a man, but I never before saw a man led by a bear." ”

“ Eld; and, to my no small surprize, found him to be a Staffordshire Whig [965] , a being which I did not believe had existed.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, there are rascals in all countries.' BOSWELL. 'Eld said, a Tory was a creature generated between a non-juring parson and one's grandmother.' JOHNSON. 'And I have always said, the first Whig was the Devil [966] .' BOSWELL. 'He certainly was, Sir. The Devil was impatient of subordination; he was the first who resisted power:—
"Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven [967] ."'
At General Paoli's were Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. ”

“ Boswell broke a lance or two with me for the benefit of those present; but there was no man there of a calibre to awaken my interest, no opposing material of a surface rough enough to rub a spark from me. We returned in a chaise, and Boswell appeared so elated that I asked him the reason of his high spirits. Boswell: “Well, sir, I have rarely enjoyed conversation so much.” Johnson: “Words were uttered, even to weariness, but I heard no conversation.” Boswell: “Why, sir, they hung on your every utterance.” ”

“ His lordship was drest in a rustick suit, and wore a little round hat; he told us, we now saw him as Farmer Burnett, and we should have his family dinner, a farmer's dinner. He said, 'I should not have forgiven Mr Boswell, had he not brought you here, Dr Johnson.' He produced a very long stalk of corn, as a specimen of his crop, and said, 'You see here the loetas segetes.' He added, that Virgil seemed to be as enthusiastick a farmer as he, and was certainly a practical one. JOHNSON. 'It does not always follow, my lord, that a man who has written a good poem on an art, has practised it. ”

“ I had felt a return of spleen during my stay at Armidale, and had it not been that I had Dr Johnson to contemplate, I should have sunk into dejection; but his firmness supported me. I looked at him, as a man whose head is turning giddy at sea looks at a rock, or any fixed object. I wondered at his tranquillity. He said, 'Sir, when a man retires into an island, he is to turn his thoughts intirely to another world. He has done with this.' BOSWELL. 'It appears to me, sir, to be very difficult to unite a due attention to this world, and that which is to come ”

“ A silence followed on Temple's departure from the divinity. Boswell dreaded a certain nabob, 'a man of copper,' as his rival. Then he believed the fair offended by his own Spanish stateliness and gravity; and again a letter, 'written with all the warmth of Italian affection,' restores the signora to the first place, from which she is deposed by a note from Miss Blair, explaining that his letter had been delayed a week at the Ayr post-office. ”

“ To be sure they will not be disappointed of the popular "Bozzy," ridiculous, vain, and a little vulgar, something of a snob, of a sycophant even, with an undignified zeal for notoriety and an imperfect moral sense; but beside him they will find another Boswell, the friend of Hume and Johnson, with his passion for excellence, generous nature, good understanding, and genius for observation—a man by no means to be despised. ”

“ Two of Boswell’s tenants were James and William Murdoch. They and their forefathers had possessed their farms for many generations. [814] Perhaps not only the Life of Boswell, but illumination by gas takes its rise from Auchinleck.
The village consists mainly of one long street of solidly-built stone houses; the older ones thatched and often white-washed, the modern ones slated. At the back are good gardens well stocked with fruit trees. Bare feet are far more common here than in the Highlands or Hebrides. All the children, with scarcely an exception, and many of the women, go bare-footed. ”

“ At another dinner-party on Sunday, April 1, 1781, when Boswell was present,
"Mrs Thrale gave high praise to Mr Dudley Long, (now North) . Johnson. 'Nay, my dear lady, don't talk so. Mr Long's character is very short [30] . It is nothing. He fills a chair. He is a man of [Pg 122] genteel appearance, and that is all. I know nobody who blasts by praise as you do: for whenever there is exaggerated praise, every body is set against a character.... By the same principle, your malice defeats itself; for your censure is too violent. ”

“ In the company of Macaulay Boswell "had dreaded that a whole evening would be heavy. However," he adds, "Mr. Grant, an intelligent and well-bred minister in the neighbourhood, was there, and assisted us by his conversation." His grandson is Colonel Grant, who shares with Captain Speke the glory of having discovered the sources of the Nile. It was indeed an unusual gathering that August evening in the parlour of the quiet manse—Johnson, the first of talkers, Boswell, the first of biographers, the great-uncle of our famous historian, and the grandfather of our famous discoverer. ”

“ Johnson: “Do so, sir.” Boswell: “And yet, dear sir, if you consider, there appears nothing very singular in the course which I pursued. What gentleman of quality can say he has never been the worse for good wine? And who is there would wish so to declare even if he could?” Johnson: “This is not regret for an offence, but rather a rebellious attempt to palliate it.” Boswell: “Then I will never drink wine again if you so advise me.” Johnson: “Sir, this is the puerile irresponsibility of a babbling infant. Yet, if years be the standard by which we estimate your age, you are no longer a child. ”

“ Across whose legs?"
"Yours," replied Boswell. "Just take your caddy up, place him across your knees, and spank him with your brassey. Spank isn't a good golf term, but it is good enough for the average caddy; in fact, it will do him good."
"Go on," said I, with a mental resolve to adopt his prescription.
"Well," said Boswell, "Munchausen, having received an imaginary challenge from an imaginary opponent, accepted. He went out to the links with an imaginary ball, an imaginary bagful of fanciful clubs, and licked the imaginary life out of the colonel." ”

“ No wonder Bozzy’s relatives got tired of his last hobby, his very subject himself got tired. “Sir,” said the sage, “you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.” Yet Bozzy knew what he was about when he stuck to his one topic. After his idol was gone, what was there for him but the bottle? It was one of the earliest recollections of Lord Jeffrey that he had assisted as a boy in putting the biographer to bed in a state of absolute unconsciousness. Next morning Boswell was told of the service rendered: he clapped the lad on the head, and complacently congratulated him. ”

“ A lofty oak will not bend like a supple willow.
He told me afterwards, he liked firmness in an old man, and was pleased to see Mr. M'Lean so orthodox. 'At his age, it is too late for a man to be asking himself questions as to his belief [784] .' We rode to the northern part of the island, where we saw the ruins of a church or chapel [785] . We then proceeded to a place called Grissipol, or the rough Pool.
At Grissipol we found a good farm house, belonging to the Laird of Col, and possessed by Mr. M'Sweyn. On the beach here there is a singular variety of curious stones. ”