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Expert Oracle Database Architecture 2nd Edition Oracle
Database Programming 9i 10g and 11g Techniques and
Solutions Thomas Kyte Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Thomas Kyte
ISBN(s): 9781430229469, 1430229462
File Details: PDF, 7.21 MB
Year: 2010
Language: english
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 Expert Oracle
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Oracle Database 9i, 10g, and 11g Programming
Techniques and Solutions
Second Edition

■■■
Thomas Kyte

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Expert Oracle Database Architecture: Oracle Database 9i, 10g, and 11g Programming
Techniques and Solutions, Second Edition
Copyright © 2010 by Thomas Kyte
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Contents at a Glance

■ Chapter 1: Developing Successful Oracle Applications .......................................1

■ Chapter 2: Architecture Overview......................................................................51
■ Chapter 3: Files ..................................................................................................67
■ Chapter 4: Memory Structures.........................................................................121
■ Chapter 5: Oracle Processes............................................................................165
■ Chapter 6: Locking and Latching .....................................................................195
■ Chapter 7: Concurrency and Multi-versioning .................................................243
■ Chapter 8: Transactions...................................................................................267
■ Chapter 9: Redo and Undo................................................................................299
■ Chapter 10: Database Tables ...........................................................................345
■ Chapter 11: Indexes .........................................................................................425
■ Chapter 12: Datatypes......................................................................................493
■ Chapter 13: Partitioning...................................................................................557
■ Chapter 14: Parallel Execution.........................................................................621
■ Chapter 15: Data Loading and Unloading.........................................................657
■ Chapter 16: Data Encryption ............................................................................709
Index.....................................................................................................................751

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 ■ CONTENTS

Contents

Contents at a Glance.................................................................................................v
Foreword ............................................................................................................. xviii
Foreword from the First Edition ............................................................................ xix
About the Author .................................................................................................. xxii
About the Technical Reviewers ........................................................................... xxiii
Acknowledgments ............................................................................................... xxiv
Introduction .......................................................................................................... xxv
Setting Up Your Environment ............................................................................. xxxii

■ Chapter 1: Developing Successful Oracle Applications .......................................1

My Approach....................................................................................................................2
The Black Box Approach..................................................................................................3
How (and How Not) to Develop Database Applications .................................................11
Understanding Oracle Architecture ......................................................................................................12
Understanding Concurrency Control.....................................................................................................21
Multi-Versioning ...................................................................................................................................25
Database Independence? .....................................................................................................................32
How Do I Make It Run Faster? ..............................................................................................................46
The DBA-Developer Relationship..........................................................................................................48
Summary .......................................................................................................................49

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 ■ CONTENTS

■ Chapter 2: Architecture Overview......................................................................51

Defining Database and Instance....................................................................................52
The SGA and Background Processes....................................................................................................58
Connecting to Oracle .....................................................................................................60
Dedicated Server ..................................................................................................................................60
Shared Server.......................................................................................................................................62
Mechanics of Connecting over TCP/IP..................................................................................................63
Summary .......................................................................................................................66

■ Chapter 3: Files ..................................................................................................67

Parameter Files..............................................................................................................68
What Are Parameters?..........................................................................................................................69
Legacy init.ora Parameter Files............................................................................................................73
Server Parameter Files (SPFILEs) ..................................................................................74
Converting to SPFILEs ..........................................................................................................................75
Trace Files .....................................................................................................................82
Requested Trace Files ..........................................................................................................................83
Trace Files Generated in Response to Internal Errors ..........................................................................88
Trace File Wrap-up ...............................................................................................................................93
Alert File ........................................................................................................................93
Data Files.......................................................................................................................96
A Brief Review of File System Mechanisms .........................................................................................96
The Storage Hierarchy in an Oracle Database......................................................................................97
Dictionary-Managed and Locally-Managed Tablespaces...................................................................101
Temp Files ...................................................................................................................103
Control Files.................................................................................................................105
Redo Log Files .............................................................................................................105
Online Redo Log..................................................................................................................................106
Archived Redo Log..............................................................................................................................108
Password Files.............................................................................................................109

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 ■ CONTENTS

Change Tracking File ...................................................................................................113

Flashback Logs............................................................................................................114
Flashback Database ...........................................................................................................................114
Flash Recovery Area...........................................................................................................................115
DMP Files (EXP/IMP Files)............................................................................................116
Data Pump Files...........................................................................................................117
Flat Files ......................................................................................................................120
Summary .....................................................................................................................120

■ Chapter 4: Memory Structures.........................................................................121

The Process Global Area and User Global Area ...........................................................122
Manual PGA Memory Management ....................................................................................................123
Automatic PGA Memory Management................................................................................................129
Choosing Between Manual and Auto Memory Management..............................................................140
PGA and UGA Wrap-up........................................................................................................................142
The System Global Area...............................................................................................142
Fixed SGA ...........................................................................................................................................148
Redo Buffer.........................................................................................................................................148
Block Buffer Cache .............................................................................................................................149
Shared Pool ........................................................................................................................................156
Large Pool...........................................................................................................................................159
Java Pool ............................................................................................................................................160
Streams Pool ......................................................................................................................................160
Automatic SGA Memory Management................................................................................................161
Automatic Memory Management .......................................................................................................162
Summary .....................................................................................................................164

■ Chapter 5: Oracle Processes............................................................................165

Server Processes.........................................................................................................166
Dedicated Server Connections ...........................................................................................................166
Shared Server Connections ................................................................................................................169

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 ■ CONTENTS

Database Resident Connection Pooling (DRCP) ..................................................................................170

Connections vs. Sessions ...................................................................................................................170
Dedicated Server vs. Shared Server vs. DRCP ...................................................................................176
Dedicated/Shared Server Wrap-up.....................................................................................................179
Background Processes ................................................................................................180
Focused Background Processes.........................................................................................................181
Utility Background Processes.............................................................................................................190
Slave Processes...........................................................................................................193
I/O Slaves............................................................................................................................................193
Pnnn: Parallel Query Execution Servers .............................................................................................193
Summary .....................................................................................................................194

■ Chapter 6: Locking and Latching .....................................................................195

What Are Locks?..........................................................................................................195
Locking Issues .............................................................................................................198
Lost Updates.......................................................................................................................................198
Pessimistic Locking............................................................................................................................199
Optimistic Locking ..............................................................................................................................201
Optimistic or Pessimistic Locking?.....................................................................................................207
Blocking..............................................................................................................................................208
Deadlocks ...........................................................................................................................................211
Lock Escalation...................................................................................................................................215
Lock Types...................................................................................................................216
DML Locks ..........................................................................................................................................216
DDL Locks...........................................................................................................................................225
Latches ...............................................................................................................................................230
Mutexes ..............................................................................................................................................240
Manual Locking and User-Defined Locks ...........................................................................................240
Summary .....................................................................................................................241

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 ■ CONTENTS

■ Chapter 7: Concurrency and Multi-versioning .................................................243

What Are Concurrency Controls?.................................................................................243
Transaction Isolation Levels ........................................................................................244
READ UNCOMMITTED..........................................................................................................................246
READ COMMITTED ..............................................................................................................................248
REPEATABLE READ .............................................................................................................................249
SERIALIZABLE .....................................................................................................................................252
READ ONLY .........................................................................................................................................254
Implications of Multi-version Read Consistency..........................................................255
A Common Data Warehousing Technique That Fails..........................................................................255
An Explanation for Higher Than Expected I/O on Hot Tables ..............................................................256
Write Consistency ........................................................................................................259
Consistent Reads and Current Reads .................................................................................................259
Seeing a Restart .................................................................................................................................262
Why Is a Restart Important to Us? ......................................................................................................264
Summary .....................................................................................................................265

■ Chapter 8: Transactions...................................................................................267
Transaction Control Statements ..................................................................................267
Atomicity......................................................................................................................269
Statement-Level Atomicity .................................................................................................................269
Procedure-Level Atomicity .................................................................................................................271
Transaction-Level Atomicity ...............................................................................................................275
DDL and Atomicity ..............................................................................................................................275
Durability .....................................................................................................................275
WRITE Extensions to COMMIT.............................................................................................................276
COMMITS in a Non-Distributed PL/SQL Block ....................................................................................277
Integrity Constraints and Transactions........................................................................279
IMMEDIATE Constraints ......................................................................................................................279
DEFERRABLE Constraints and Cascading Updates.............................................................................280

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 ■ CONTENTS

Bad Transaction Habits................................................................................................284

Committing in a Loop .........................................................................................................................284
Using Autocommit ..............................................................................................................................290
Distributed Transactions..............................................................................................291
Autonomous Transactions ...........................................................................................293
How Autonomous Transactions Work.................................................................................................293
When to Use Autonomous Transactions .............................................................................................295
Summary .....................................................................................................................298

■ Chapter 9: Redo and Undo................................................................................299

What Is Redo?..............................................................................................................300
What Is Undo?..............................................................................................................300
How Redo and Undo Work Together............................................................................304
Example INSERT-UPDATE-DELETE Scenario ......................................................................................304
Commit and Rollback Processing ................................................................................308
What Does a COMMIT Do? ..................................................................................................................308
What Does a ROLLBACK Do? ..............................................................................................................315
Investigating Redo .......................................................................................................316
Measuring Redo..................................................................................................................................316
Can I Turn Off Redo Log Generation? .................................................................................................318
Why Can’t I Allocate a New Log?........................................................................................................321
Block Cleanout....................................................................................................................................323
Log Contention....................................................................................................................................326
Temporary Tables and Redo/Undo .....................................................................................................328
Investigating Undo .......................................................................................................332
What Generates the Most and Least Undo? .......................................................................................332
ORA-01555: snapshot too old Error ....................................................................................................334
Summary .....................................................................................................................344

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 ■ CONTENTS

■ Chapter 10: Database Tables ...........................................................................345

Types of Tables............................................................................................................345
Terminology .................................................................................................................347
Segment .............................................................................................................................................347
Segment Space Management ............................................................................................................350
High-water Mark ................................................................................................................................350
FREELISTS ..........................................................................................................................................352
PCTFREE and PCTUSED ......................................................................................................................356
LOGGING and NOLOGGING ..................................................................................................................359
INITRANS and MAXTRANS ..................................................................................................................359
Heap Organized Tables................................................................................................359
Index Organized Tables ...............................................................................................363
Index Organized Tables Wrap-up .......................................................................................................378
Index Clustered Tables ................................................................................................378
Index Clustered Tables Wrap-up ........................................................................................................386
Hash Clustered Tables .................................................................................................386
Hash Clustered Tables Wrap-up .........................................................................................................394
Sorted Hash Clustered Tables .....................................................................................395
Nested Tables ..............................................................................................................397
Nested Tables Syntax .........................................................................................................................398
Nested Table Storage .........................................................................................................................405
Nested Tables Wrap-up ......................................................................................................................408
Temporary Tables ........................................................................................................409
Temporary Tables Wrap-up ................................................................................................................415
Object Tables ...............................................................................................................416
Object Tables Wrap-up .......................................................................................................................423
Summary .....................................................................................................................423

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 ■ CONTENTS

■ Chapter 11: Indexes .........................................................................................425

An Overview of Oracle Indexes ....................................................................................425
B*Tree Indexes ............................................................................................................427
Index Key Compression ......................................................................................................................430
Reverse Key Indexes ..........................................................................................................................433
Descending Indexes ...........................................................................................................................439
When Should You Use a B*Tree Index? ..............................................................................................441
B*Trees Wrap-up ................................................................................................................................452
Bitmap Indexes ............................................................................................................452
When Should You Use a Bitmap Index?..............................................................................................453
Bitmap Join Indexes ...........................................................................................................................457
Bitmap Indexes Wrap-up ....................................................................................................................459
Function-Based Indexes ..............................................................................................460
Important Implementation Details ......................................................................................................460
A Simple Function-Based Index Example...........................................................................................461
Indexing Only Some of the Rows........................................................................................................470
Implementing Selective Uniqueness ..................................................................................................472
Caveat Regarding ORA-01743 ............................................................................................................472
Function-Based Indexes Wrap-up ......................................................................................................473
Application Domain Indexes ........................................................................................474
Frequently Asked Questions and Myths About Indexes...............................................475
Do Indexes Work on Views? ...............................................................................................................475
Do Nulls and Indexes Work Together?................................................................................................475
Should Foreign Keys Be Indexed? ......................................................................................................477
Why Isn’t My Index Getting Used? ......................................................................................................479
Myth: Space Is Never Reused in an Index ..........................................................................................485
Myth: Most Discriminating Elements Should Be First ........................................................................488
Summary .....................................................................................................................491

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Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
in the London Magazine: 'Whatever respect I may have for the
institution of marriage, and however much I am convinced that it
upon the whole produces rational happiness, I cannot but be of the
opinion that the passion of love has been improperly feigned as
continuing long after the conjugal knot has been tied.' Nor, if Boswell
had continued to love his wife passionately, would he have found it
disagreeable to return to Edinburgh, after visits to London.

But Boswell no doubt wanted to be a faithful husband: 'I can unite

little fondnesses with perfect conjugal love.'15 His idea of fidelity
would seem to involve no kind of restriction upon his natural
inclinations except in so far as that he should appear to be a good
husband in the eyes of the world and particularly of his wife.
However sensible this view may have been, it was not such as
commonly finds favour among the female sex. But he was
undoubtedly in his own view a faithful husband and he had really at
heart the welfare of his wife. 'Upon the whole I do believe,' he says,
'I make her very happy.'16

1: Tour to the Hebrides, September 17.

2: Autobiography, Letters, &c., of Mrs. Piozzi, ii, 124.

3: Perhaps the best evidence of all for this quality is Boswell's habit of
attending executions (mentioned several times in the Life and also in the
Life of Reynolds, by Leslie and Taylor), and his acquaintance with Mrs.
Rudd, a notorious criminal.

4: Life of Johnson, ii, 59. This letter is an admirable instance of Boswell's

affected manner of expressing real feelings.

5: Life of Johnson, ii, 3, note 1.

6: Letters to Temple, p. 126.

7: Boswelliana, p. 186.

8: Life of Johnson, ii, 20.

9: Fitzgerald's Life of Boswell, i, 111.

10: Boswell's authorship proved by Letters to Temple, p. 89.

11: Fitzgerald's Life of Boswell, i, 113.

12: Fitzgerald's Life of Boswell, i, 116.

13: London Magazine, 1, 40.

14: Temple, it appears, was promised payment for his services: 'You shall
have consultation guineas, as an ambassador has his appointments.' This
seems to imply more than the mere travelling expenses which Dr. Rogers
suggests as an explanation.

15: Letters to Temple, p. 159.

16: Ib. p. 137.

 CHAPTER IV
A biography of Boswell, though it might profess to be complete,
could say little about his domestic life. If he has told us very little
about it, there is, however, no reason that we should seek to know
more. It was a very essential part of Boswell that he should have a
wife and family: a wife, because she adds a certain flavour of
respectability and is a definite asset to the social position of a man,
still more perhaps because she increases responsibility and so
intensifies the sensation of importance; a family, because to the man
of estate there must be born an heir. But the mere fact of his being
married was, in a sense, of far less consequence to him than to most
men.

There were two aspects of his life which were dissociated in a

peculiar degree from each other—the life in Scotland, where he
laboured at the Law and was eventually to be Laird of Auchinleck,
and where his home was the basis of operations; and the life in
London, which he visited as often as he was able, to live the gay life
he loved, and to talk to his literary friends, especially to Dr. Johnson.
The pleasure he had in the society of his English friends was far
more to him than another man's recreation or hobby. It occupied
more time, and it was time spent away from his domestic circle and,
for the most part, away from his work. He is never tired of telling of
his love of London.

I had long complained to him [Johnson] that I felt myself

discontented in Scotland, as too narrow a sphere, and that I
wished to make my chief residence in London, the great scene
of ambition, instruction, amusement: a scene which was to me,
 comparatively speaking, a heaven upon earth! Johnson: 'Why,
Sir, I never knew anyone who had such a gust for London as
you have.'

It must be our business then to follow for a little the life of Boswell
among his London friends, to see the relations in which he stood to
them and the progress of his intimacy with Dr. Johnson.

In the 'Life' there are recorded the consecutive visits of Boswell to

England with relation always to Dr. Johnson in particular, but
referring also to other celebrities whom he met, and to his own
pleasures and amusements. The group of men who were in the first
place the friends and admirers of Dr. Johnson, and with whom
Boswell naturally associated so far as he was able, were for the most
part distinguished men in the best literary society, and members of
that club which was started by Johnson and Reynolds in 1762 or
1763. Burke, Beauclerk, Langton, Goldsmith, THE LITERARY CLUB
Hawkins, were original members; Garrick was elected in 1773, as
was Boswell himself. Malone, whose wise help was invaluable to
Boswell in preparing for the press his magnum opus, and who was
its first editor, became a member later.

The pleasure which it gave Boswell to belong to this club of

distinguished men is revealed in his own account of his election. 'The
gentlemen went away to their club, and I was left at Beauclerk's till
the fate of my election should be announced to me. I sat in a state
of anxiety which even the charming conversation of Lady Di
Beauclerk could not entirely dissipate. In a short time I received the
agreeable intelligence that I was chosen. I hastened to the place of
meeting, and was introduced to such a society as can seldom be
found.'

From a conversation reported in the 'Tour to the Hebrides' it would

appear that Boswell was not elected without some difficulty. 'He
[Johnson] told me, "Sir, you got into our club by doing what a man
can do."'
 (Boswell's note on this is: 'This I find is considered as obscure. I
suppose Dr. Johnson meant that I assiduously and earnestly
recommended myself to some of the members, as in a canvass
for an election into Parliament.')

'Several of the members wished to keep you out. Burke told me he

doubted if you were fit for it....' Boswell: 'They were afraid of you,
Sir, as it was you who proposed me.' Johnson: 'Sir, they knew that if
they refused you, they'd probably have never got in another. I'd
have kept them all out.'

Boswell, of course, did not get on equally well with all of Johnson's
friends. Goldsmith especially he seems to have disliked, and at a
later date Mrs. Thrale, Miss Burney and Baretti; we may suppose
that the feeling was mutual, especially after the appearance of the
'Life of Johnson,' in which Boswell made little attempt to conceal his
feelings. With Hawkins, who was chosen to write the official
biography of Johnson, he was eventually to quarrel. But he had
strong supporters in the club. 'Now you are in,' Johnson told him,
'none of them are sorry. Burke says you have so much good humour
naturally, it is scarce a virtue.' Beauclerk too appreciated him.
'Beauclerk was very earnest for you.' His greatest friend of this
coterie besides Dr. Johnson was Sir Joshua Reynolds. Sir Joshua
seems always to have understood and insisted upon the value of
Boswell. He was prepared to take up the cudgels. 'He thaws reserve
wherever he comes and sets the ball of conversation rolling.'1 The
club, whatever else it might think about Boswell, was obliged to
admit that he was excellent company.

There were some, no doubt, who had a high opinion of Boswell's

abilities; it was admitted by everyone THE LONDON CIRCLE that he had
written a good book, and not all, like Gray and Walpole,2 can have
thought that he wrote it by chance. And Boswell too, if not a good
literary critic, was interested in books and able to talk about them.
The opinions to which he gave expression in the 'Life of Johnson'
about various books which came under discussion are often more
appreciative and better supported by reason than the dicta of
Johnson, and he sometimes shows considerable sagacity. His views
about Johnson's own books, and especially his criticism of Johnson's
style and the high estimate he formed of the 'Lives of the Poets,' are
excellent.

But it was far more for his social than for his literary qualities that
Boswell was valued. In the circle of Johnson's admirers he was in a
sense the most important figure; he had a greater admiration than
any other and was rewarded by Johnson with a greater degree of
affection. He came to understand Johnson. Hannah More relates that
she was on one occasion made umpire in a trial of skill between
Garrick and Boswell, which could most nearly imitate Dr. Johnson's
manner.3 'I remember I gave it for Boswell in familiar conversation,
and for Garrick in reciting poetry.' To have beaten Garrick was a
great performance and shows how Boswell must have studied
Johnson. He was, as it were, his chief exploiter. It was he above all
the rest who could make Johnson talk.4 He knew what would
provoke a discussion, and was so reckless of appearing foolish that
he would introduce any subject. He made opportunities for Johnson
to exhibit his powers. The description of how he arranged the
meeting with Wilkes, though more famous almost than any other
passage of the 'Life,' is too important as illustrating the whole
attitude of Boswell to be omitted here. It is not inappropriate to say
that the very name of Wilkes was to Johnson like a red rag to a bull.
He hated what he considered to be a pretentious notoriety, and what
he no doubt talked about as 'this cant of liberty' was the signal for
an outburst of violence in his best manner. Boswell conceived the
idea of bringing these two together, and probably hoped to witness
an incomparable contest. But how was this to be done? 'I was
persuaded that if I had come upon him with a direct proposal, "Sir,
will you dine in company with Jack Wilkes?" he would have flown
into a passion and would probably have answered, "Dine with Jack
Wilkes, Sir! I'd as soon dine with Jack Ketch."' But it was easy to see
the weak point in the Doctor's armour. 'Notwithstanding the high
veneration which I entertained for Dr. Johnson, I was sensible that
he was a little actuated sometimes by contradiction, and by means
of that I hoped I should THE EXPLOITER OF JOHNSON gain my point.'
Boswell, who knows exactly what will provoke his friend, has
thought out beforehand precisely what he shall say, and opens with
a proposal which Johnson is sure to accept. 'Mr. Dilly, Sir, sends me
his respectful compliments, and would be happy if you would do him
the honour to dine with him on Wednesday next along with me, as I
must soon go to Scotland.' Johnson: 'Sir, I am obliged to Mr. Dilly. I
will wait upon him.' The dictator is in a gracious mood, and the
moment favourable to excite a rebuke in defence of that formal
courtesy which he loved to practise. 'Provided, Sir, I suppose,' adds
Boswell, 'that the company which he is to have is agreeable to you.'
The apparent artlessness of the remark in the true Boswellian
fashion, with the exaggerated respect that so often irritated
Johnson, took effect at once. Johnson: 'What do you mean, Sir?
What do you take me for? Do you think I am so ignorant of the
world as to imagine that I am to prescribe to a gentleman what
company he is to have at his table?' An excuse must now be made
which is certain to meet with sledge-hammer reasoning or piercing
sarcasm, and it will then be safe to lead up to the disagreeable
intelligence. 'I beg your pardon, Sir, for wishing to prevent you from
meeting people whom you might not like. Perhaps he may have
some of what he calls his patriotic friends with him.' Johnson: 'Well,
Sir, what then? What care I for his patriotic friends? Poh!' Boswell: 'I
should not be surprised to find Jack Wilkes there.' The possibility
may have been disconcerting, but retreat was now out of the
question. Johnson: 'And if Jack Wilkes should be there, what is that
to me, Sir? My dear friend, let me have no more of this. I am sorry
to be angry with you, but really it is treating me strangely to talk to
me as if I could not meet any company whatever, occasionally.' So
the matter was settled. Boswell asks forgiveness and clinches the
matter: 'Pray forgive me, Sir; I meant well. But you shall meet
whoever comes.' 'Thus,' he tells the reader, with evident satisfaction,
'I secured him.'
The man who could do this was clearly of importance to those who
were interested, even though in a less degree than himself, in Dr.
Johnson. We may suppose that the circle of Johnson's literary friends
welcomed Boswell as much for his peculiar homage to the Doctor as
for his own social talents.

. . . . .
We must now more nearly examine that friendship, which is as much
the concern of our own age as it was of Boswell's. We have
considered already what it was that caused these two men to be
friends; but the meanest picture of Boswell must include some
account of his behaviour towards Johnson; we must review the
progress of their friendship and remark the more characteristic
attitudes of the biographer.

THE COURSE OF FRIENDSHIPIn the pages of the 'Life of Johnson' is

recorded in detail, and almost without reserve, the story of the
relations between these two friends. It is a story full of humour,
telling of all the little peculiarities of a great man, of all the whims
and foibles which we are accustomed to observe in old age and
which we both like and laugh at; but it is the story also of a deep
and anxious affection.

If the course of friendship ran smoothly on the whole for Johnson

and Boswell, as might be expected when one of the two was so well
balanced and so practically wise as the older man, yet, as must
always be the case with people who are not either quite perfect or
quite colourless, there were rough places here and there; and these,
if responsible for no great misery, were, however, the cause of some
unhappiness to both. Boswell, at all events, realised very keenly the
great gulf between them; between his own sensitive, uncertain
nature and Johnson's rude strength. He, probably more than most
men, wanted sympathy, wanted to be understood. With what relief
he speaks from his heart to Temple: 'I have not had such a relief as
this for I don't know how long. I have broke the trammels of
business, and am roving unconfined with my Temple.' It is
unfortunate for Boswell that he expressed himself so extravagantly.
We sympathise with those who are self-contained about sentiment
and particularly about their own sorrows, but we have few kind
feelings for those who exaggerate. And Boswell, because he was
difficult to understand, was more than usually isolated: to Johnson,
at all events, there must have been many matters about which he
could not talk, and he was nettled sometimes by the other's blunt
advice. It was unpleasant to be told by one whom he so much
respected, at the moment of his first serious publication, 'The
Corsican Journal,' to 'empty his head of Corsica which had filled it
too long.' It must have been more than annoying when he had
written to Johnson in a despondent mood (there is no reason to
doubt that he was genuine in despondency) to receive his answer: 'I
had hoped you had got rid of all this hypocrisy of misery. What have
you to do with Liberty and Necessity? Or what more than to hold
your tongue about it? Do not doubt that I shall be most heartily glad
to see you here again, for I love every part about you but your
affectation of distress.'

Much as we must admire the honest wrath of Johnson, and the

desire which he had to cure the affectation of Boswell, we cannot
but regret sometimes that he was not more discriminating. It was
much, no doubt, to be assured of affection, but affection alone could
not take the place of an understanding sympathy; and if this had
come from one whom he so much respected, it would have been
invaluable to Boswell. As it was, he realised that Johnson must
partially disapprove of him, and it was because he knew, and felt
PROOFS OF AFFECTION this disapproval, as much as from any inherent
quality of his temperament, that he so often wanted a proof of
affection.

Whatever may have been their cause—it may have been no more
than the mere need for friendship coupled with the peculiar
unreserve of Boswell's character—the result of these demands was
sometimes to irritate Johnson.

I said to him: 'My dear Sir, we must meet every year, if you
don't quarrel with me.' Johnson: 'Nay, Sir, you are more likely to
quarrel with me than I with you. My regard for you is greater
almost than I have words to express; but I do not choose to be
always repeating it; write it down in the first leaf of your pocket-
book, and never doubt of it again.'

On one occasion Johnson was really angry. Boswell conceived the

idea of making an experiment to test his affection. It was apparently
his custom to write to Johnson upon his return to his family. He
wanted to see what the Doctor would do if he neglected the usual
civility. Johnson, of course, was eventually the first to write; and
Boswell, thus gratified, answered him by a letter which frankly
explained his motives:

I was willing ... to try whether your affection for me would, after
an unusual silence on my part, make you write first. This
afternoon I have had very high satisfaction by receiving your
kind letter of inquiry, for which I most gratefully thank you. I am
doubtful if it was right to make the experiment, though I have
gained by it.

We may forgive Johnson for being annoyed by this letter.

Those who make very large demands upon their friends for a display
of affection are, as a rule, rather tiresome companions; it may
possibly be good to be sensitive, but it is bad to be easily offended,
which is often the case with such people. But if Boswell, like many
who take a decided lead in friendship, required many proofs to make
him believe that it was more than a one-sided affair, he of all men
was the most difficult to offend. We cannot do better than read his
own accounts of his quarrels with Johnson. There is that famous
one, in the first place, of the dinner at Sir Joshua's.
 On Saturday, May 2, I dined with him at Sir Joshua Reynolds',
where there was a very large company, and a great deal of
conversation; but owing to some circumstance which I cannot
now recollect, I have no record of any part of it, except that
there were several people there by no means of the Johnsonian
school; so that less attention was paid to him than usual, which
put him out of humour; and upon some imaginary offence from
me he attacked me with such rudeness, that I was vexed and
angry, because it gave those persons an opportunity of
enlarging upon his supposed ferocity and ill-treatment of his
friends.

We may doubt whether Boswell gives the true reason BOSWELL

BUFFETTED for his vexation. He was able to stand a great deal of
'buffeting' at Dr. Johnson's hands; but it was probably necessary for
him to feel that the company were good-natured in their merriment.
We do not resent that men should laugh at us if they laugh with us
at the same time. It was no doubt the contemptuous and half-
concealed mirth of strangers which Boswell felt to be unbearable.
And if he felt like this we may sympathise with a short period of
sulking. 'I was so much hurt, and had my pride so much roused, that
I kept away from him for a week; and, perhaps, might have kept
away much longer, nay, gone to Scotland without seeing him again,
had not we fortunately met and been reconciled. To such unhappy
chances are human friendships liable.'

The oddest thing of all about Boswell, when we reflect upon the
scenes of his humiliation, is his pride. It is not the least unlikely that,
as he suggests, if circumstances had not ordained otherwise he
would have waited, and waited for a long time, for Johnson to make
advances. It was not merely the pride of the worm in the proverb
which may be roused at the last. The worm would not consciously
go out of his way to incur insulting anger as Boswell did when he
arranged the dinner with Wilkes and on many other occasions.
Boswell's was a pride which was constantly giving him pain and was
capable, when goaded to obstinacy, of going to considerable lengths.
At Sir Joshua Reynolds' dinner he must have suffered acutely. Croker
tells the story of Boswell's discomfiture as it was told to him at
fourth-hand by the Marquess of Wellesley. 'The wits of Queen Anne's
reign were talked of, when Boswell exclaimed, "How delightful it
must have been to have lived in the society of Pope, Swift,
Arbuthnot, Gay, and Bolingbroke! We have no such society in our
days." Sir Joshua answered, "I think, Mr. Boswell, you might be
satisfied with your great friend's conversation." "Nay, Sir, Mr. Boswell
is right," said Johnson, "every man wishes for preferment, and if
Boswell had lived in those days, he would have obtained promotion."
"How so, Sir?" asked Sir Joshua. "Why, Sir," said Johnson, "he would
have had a high place in the Dunciad."' It was a hard blow. How
deep was the wound we cannot tell, because we do not know how it
was said or how received. It is curious at first sight that Boswell
should have been more sulky about this than about many a rough
retort recorded in the 'Life.' It is even more remarkable that he
should have concealed this story of his humiliation while he told
others with perfect frankness. To do so was entirely contrary to his
principle and practice. The idea that 'the several people there by no
means of the Johnsonian school' should read the story, recall the
circumstances and laugh, not good-naturedly but with contempt and
malice, must have overcome for once the biographer's 'sacred love
of truth.' From QUARREL AND RECONCILIATION these facts, in any case, we
may fairly argue that Boswell suffered from his pride as a proud man
must have suffered from the Doctor's rude snubs. It is to Boswell's
credit that he was willing to run the gauntlet and even to bare his
breast for the wound, not only because if he was to have the honour
he must endure the pain, but at least as much because he knew that
it was his vocation to goad the giant into action, to strike and fan
the spark that would ignite the powder. It is to Boswell's credit that
he had a part in the fray: he bled from honourable wounds. But
since men had been so ill-natured as to despise them it was difficult
to display the gashes and the scars; and because from a noble
motive he did what was most difficult and most valuable we must
praise Boswell exceedingly.
It is further to Boswell's credit that, if he winced for a moment under
the sledge-hammer and pouted at the executioner, his natural good-
humour and generosity made reconciliation easy.

On Friday, May 8, I dined with him at Mr. Langton's. I was

reserved and silent, which I suppose he perceived and might
recollect the cause. After dinner, while Mr. Langton was called
out of the room, and 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'. 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: 'Well, I am sorry for it. I'll
make it up to you i' twenty different ways as you please.'

Johnson certainly seems to have made himself most agreeable on

this occasion, and it would have been churlish of Boswell to have
resisted these advances; but nothing could be more truly generous
than the way in which he reminded Johnson of his affection and
respect. Boswell now proceeds to appease his pride by using the
occasion to make a bon mot. 'I said to-day to Sir Joshua, when he
observed that you tossed me sometimes—"I don't care how often or
how high he tosses me, when only friends are present, for then I fall
upon soft ground: but I do not like falling on stones, which is the
case when enemies are present." I think this is a pretty good image,
Sir.' Johnson assents, with unusual courtesy, 'Sir it is one of the
happiest I have ever heard.' And Boswell is now completely satisfied.
The account proceeds by giving Johnson a testimonial for good-
nature and assuring its readers that the best of relations were at
once re-established. 'The truth is, there was no venom in the
wounds he inflicted at any time, unless they were irritated by some
malignant infusion from other hands. We were instantly as cordial
again as ever, and joined HUMILIATION AND ITS REWARD in hearty laugh at
some ludicrous but innocent peculiarities of one of our friends.'

The story of this quarrel, if there were no other evidence, would

show that Boswell endured not a few rebuffs. The fact indeed has
never been challenged. Johnson's method of talking for victory often
took the form of mere rudeness, and Boswell was frequently the
subject of his rough wit. For Boswell it was a question whether the
fun and the interest of making Johnson angry were worth the
sacrifice of dignity involved. In retrospect it always was so, and, at
the moment too, very often. He tells us how, on one occasion, he
had quoted Shakespeare in the course of discussion, and Johnson,
who was angry, had made the characteristic reply, 'Nay, if you are to
bring in gabble I'll talk no more'; it is evident that this was regarded
by him as a successful issue to the argument. Johnson had become
angrier and angrier, and Boswell, far from trying to appease him,
was glad to bring him to a state of entire unreasonableness. He was
conscious of this when he commented with evident pleasure, 'My
readers will decide upon this dispute.'

There is something of the same spirit in the tale which Boswell tells
of the quarrel on the moor during the Tour in the Hebrides. Boswell
towards the end of a day had the not unnatural intention of going on
ahead to make preparations at the inn.

It grew dusky; and we had a very tedious ride for what was
called five miles; but I am sure would measure ten. We had no
conversation. I was riding forward to the inn at Glenelg, on the
opposite shore to Skye, that I might take proper measures,
before Dr. Johnson, who was now advancing in dreary silence,
Hay leading his horse, should arrive. Vass also walked by the
side of his horse, and Joseph followed behind: as therefore he
was thus attended, and seemed to be in deep meditation, I
thought there could be no harm in leaving him for a little while.
Boswell indeed seems to have been particularly thoughtful and even
shows some delicacy in not interrupting Johnson's meditations to tell
him his plan. The sequel must have surprised him very much. 'He
called me back with a tremendous shout, and was really in a passion
with me for leaving him. I told him my intentions, but he was not
satisfied, and said, "Do you know I should as soon have thought of
picking a pocket as doing so?"' This did not annoy Boswell in the
least, though it took place in the presence of their servants; he was
accustomed by this time to the Doctor's moods, and could only be
amused. He replied with a composure which he must have known
would irritate Johnson exceedingly; 'I am diverted with you, Sir.' The
force of the desired explosion may have been underestimated.
'Johnson: "Sir, I could never be diverted with incivility...." His
extraordinary warmth confounded me so much, that I justified
myself but lamely to him. Matters in fact were QUARREL IN THE HEBRIDES
rather more serious than Boswell had supposed, and he must now
make an effort to pacify his companion—but without effect. 'I
resumed the subject of my leaving him on the road, and
endeavoured to defend it better. He still was violent on that head,
and said, "Sir, had you gone on, I was thinking that I should have
returned with you to Edinburgh, and then have parted from you, and
never spoken to you more."' The storm was indeed a bad one that
did not clear up entirely by bedtime. Boswell felt distinctly uneasy in
the volcanic atmosphere; but he easily effected a complete
reconciliation.

Thursday, September 2. I had slept ill. Dr. Johnson's anger had

affected me much. I considered that, without any bad intention,
I might suddenly forfeit his friendship; and was impatient to see
him this morning. I told him how uneasy he had made me by
what he had said, and reminded him of his own remark at
Aberdeen upon old friendships being hastily broken off. He
owned he had spoken in a passion ...; and he added, 'Let's think
no more on't.' Boswell: 'Well then, Sir, I shall be easy.
Remember I am to have fair warning in case of any quarrel. You
are never to spring a mine upon me. It was absurd in me to
 believe you.' Johnson: 'You deserved about as much as to
believe me from night to morning.'

The mixture of amusement and anxiety in Boswell's conduct and the

affectionate and good-humoured reconciliation are all extremely
typical of the relations between these two friends. Johnson indeed
had far too much sense of Boswell's good qualities and value ever to
fall out with him seriously, and it would have been hard to do so.
There was never one real misunderstanding between them up to the
end. Their intercourse, consisting of the visits of Boswell to London
and a number of letters on both sides, had but one break, from
November 1769 to April 1771. Boswell had just been married, and
omitted in 1770 to pay his usual visit to London; he tells us that
there was no coldness on either side, no reason for not writing
beyond the common one of procrastination.

The correspondence of Boswell and Johnson is on the whole of an

irregular nature; there is more than one interval, longer than we
might expect, between two men who were such active friends as
they, in an age when letter-writing was cultivated for its own sake.
Arguing from this fact and considering that he was not present at
Johnson's death-bed, Boswell has been accused of neglecting his
friend at the end of his life. But from the state of mind which he
described much earlier in the London Magazine, we can otherwise
account for these lapses:

To pay a visit or write a letter to a friend does not surely require

much activity. Yet such small exertions have appeared so
laborious to a Hypochondriack, that he has delayed from hour
to hour, so that friendship has grown cold for want of having its
heat continued, for which repeated renewals, however slight,
are necessary; or, perhaps, till death has carried his friend
MEETINGS AND LETTERS beyond the reach of any token of his
kindness, and the regrets which pained him in the course of his
neglect are accumulated and press upon his mind with a weight
of sorrow.5
We may suppose that whenever Boswell for a short time failed in his
careful attention it was through no lack of affection, but rather
through a kind of indolence and want of purpose in the manner of it,
which is far from being uncommon.

The greatest event in this long friendship, and the time which has
left us the fullest record, is the 'Tour to the Hebrides,' in 1773. In
Boswell's journal we see more nearly than elsewhere the relations
between the two friends and the nature of their companionship. In
the foreground is the extreme amiability of Boswell—it was by this
that he was fitted to perform that most difficult office of friendship,
to travel with Dr. Johnson. We may read his own account of himself
at this time:

Think then, of a gentleman of ancient blood, the pride of which

was his predominant passion. He was then in his thirty-third
year, and had been about four years happily married. His
inclination was to be a soldier; but his father, a respectable
judge, had pressed him into the profession of the law. He had
travelled a good deal, and seen many varieties of human life. He
had thought more than anybody supposed, and had a pretty
good stock of general learning and knowledge. He had all Dr.
Johnson's principles, with some degree of relaxation. He had
rather too little, than too much prudence; and, his imagination
being lively, he often said things of which the effect was very
different from the intention. He resembled sometimes

'The best good man, with the worst natur'd muse.'

He cannot deny himself the vanity of finishing with the encomium of

Dr. Johnson, whose friendly partiality to the companion of his 'Tour'
represents him as one 'whose acuteness would help my enquiry, and
whose gaiety of conversation, and civility of manners, are sufficient
to counteract the inconveniences of travel, in countries less
hospitable than we have passed.' Dr. Johnson in a letter to Mrs.
Thrale wrote of him in terms of the highest esteem: 'Boswell will
praise my resolution and perseverance, and I shall in return
celebrate his good humour and perpetual cheerfulness.... It is very
convenient to travel with him, for there is no house where he is not
received with kindness and respect.'6

No one certainly could have been more attentive than Boswell was:
he had a sense of responsibility in being in charge of the great
writer, which made him anxious not only that Johnson should be
welcomed in a fitting manner, but that he himself should appear as a
worthy companion. His deep sense of respect, his desire for approval
and dread of reproof are constantly TRAVELLING COMPANIONS obvious.
This attitude is well illustrated by the account of his carouse in
Corrichatachin:

We were cordial and merry to a high degree, but of what

passed I have no recollection, with any accuracy....

Sunday, September 26. I awaked at noon with a severe

headache. I was much vexed that I should have been guilty of
such a riot, and afraid of a reproof from Dr. Johnson. I thought
it very inconsistent with that conduct which I ought to maintain
as the companion of the Rambler.

The interview, however, was a very pleasant one. Boswell found 'the
Rambler' in his most agreeable mood and was glad to escape the
reproof he had anticipated. 'About one he came into my room and
accosted me, "What, drunk yet?"' His tone of voice was not that of
severe upbraiding; so I was relieved a little. 'Sir,' said I, 'they kept
me up.' He answered, 'No, you kept them up, you drunken dog:'
This he said with a good-humoured English pleasantry.

Boswell, it need hardly be said, was very proud of introducing

Johnson to the men of Scotland: it raised him, as he no doubt
understood, in their esteem, and he took trouble that Johnson
should appear to them in the most favourable light. He had also a
further gratification. He was more than a mere showman. He came
to have proprietary rights in Dr. Johnson. Boswell's joy was the joy
of possession: and he even became jealous. There is a story told by
Miss Burney, of a later date, when Boswell, it must be admitted,
behaved rather badly. A party gathered at Streatham where Johnson
was staying. Boswell arrived to spend the morning. The Doctor's
intimacy with Miss Burney was new to Boswell and the latter now
found that his rights were being infringed. 'A collation was ordered.'

Mr. Boswell [it is related] was preparing to take a seat that he

seemed, by prescription, to consider as his own, next to Dr.
Johnson; but Mr. Seward, who was present, waved his hand for
Mr. Boswell to move farther on, saying, with a smile, 'Mr.
Boswell, that seat is Miss Burney's.'

He stared, amazed: the asserted claimant was new and

unknown to him, and he appeared by no means pleased to
resign his prior rights. But, after looking round for a minute or
two with an important air of demanding the meaning of this
innovation, and receiving no satisfaction, he reluctantly, also
resentfully, got another chair, and placed it at the back of the
shoulder of Dr. Johnson, while this new and unheard-of rival
quietly seated herself as if not hearing what was passing, for
she shrunk from the explanation that she feared might ensue,
as she saw a smile stealing over every countenance, that of Dr.
Johnson himself not excepted, at the discomfiture and surprise
of Mr. Boswell.

We must not forget that Boswell, before everything else, was the
biographer, looking ever with inquisitive eye upon the great man's
movements, marking with BOSWELL OBSERVING zealous care any detail
that might be significant, and appreciating very keenly the humour
of every scene. The furthest point one may suppose that his
curiosity reached, or indeed was able to reach, is recorded in an
account of breakfast at Lochbuy. The comedy arose from an unusual
proposal on the part of Lady Lochbuy as to the provision to be made
for Johnson's entertainment; Boswell encouraged it to see what the
Doctor would do, deriving at the same time much pleasure from the
dispute between the lady and her brother.

She proposed that he should have some cold sheep's head for
breakfast. Sir Allan seemed displeased at his sister's vulgarity,
and wondered how such a thought should come into her head.
From a mischievous love of sport, I took the lady's part; and
very gravely said, 'I think it is but fair to give him an offer of it.
If he does not choose it, he may let it alone.' 'I think so,' said
the lady, looking at her brother with an air of victory. Sir Allan,
finding the matter desperate, strutted about the room and took
snuff. When Dr. Johnson came in she called to him, 'Do you
choose any cold sheep's head, Sir?' 'No, Madam,' said he, with a
tone of surprise and anger. 'It is here, Sir,' said she, supposing
he had refused it to save the trouble of bringing it in. They thus
went on at cross purposes till he confirmed his refusal in a
manner not to be misunderstood.

The malicious experiment of Boswell had the desired conclusion. 'I,'

he says, 'sat quietly by, and enjoyed my success.'

Dr. Johnson was irritated sometimes by Boswell's curiosity. Dr.

Campbell even records that Johnson on one occasion was driven
away by Boswell's continual questions.7 But it would seem that far
more often Johnson found means of protecting himself. Miss Burney
gives an enlightening summary of the prospect in case Johnson
should notice Boswell imitating him.

Dr. Burney thought that Dr. Johnson, who generally treated Mr.
Boswell like a schoolboy, whom, without the smallest ceremony,
he pardoned or rebuked alternately, would so indignantly have
been provoked as to have instantaneously inflicted upon him
some mark of his displeasure. And equally he was persuaded
that Mr. Boswell, however shocked and even inflamed in
receiving it, would soon, from his deep veneration, have
thought it justly incurred, and after a day or two of pouting and
 sullenness would have compromised the matter by one of his
customary simple apologies of 'Pray, Sir, forgive me.' Dr.
Johnson though often irritated by the officious importunity of
Mr. Boswell, was really touched by his attachment.

It was presumably in some degree because he realised that Johnson

was fond of him that Boswell was able to endure his rudeness. It
must be remembered, however, that it was deliberately in most
cases brought upon himself, and there was then no real cause to
take offence. You cannot complain if JOHNSON'S REPROOFS by your own
fault you have made a man angry, whatever he may say—especially
if he is thirty years older than yourself. It is one of Boswell's chief
merits that he was able to see this. He may have been often
annoyed, but he came afterwards to see that it was but the natural
result of his method of treating Johnson—the method which enabled
him to write in the end the immortal 'Life.'

Boswell in the rôle of biographer will claim a more detailed attention

later in this book. It will suffice to say here that the attitude which
he presented in the scene at Lochbuy, and on all those occasions
when he led Johnson to talk or arranged some situation for the sake
of observing his behaviour, is that which is most typical of Boswell,
that by which he was famous, or, as some might have said,
notorious among his contemporaries.

The relations between these two friends which we see so pleasantly

revealed in Boswell's journal of the 'Tour to the Hebrides,' in 1773,
containing as they did all that is best between the old and the
young, remained unimpaired to the death of Johnson in 1784:
Boswell never neglected to pay at least one visit in the year to
England, and preserved to the end his affection, his careful and kind
attention, his pride and respect, and above all his humour and
curiosity. It would be idle to suggest, though it may be difficult to
understand or explain the fact, that his absence from Johnson's
death-bed is significant in any way of a declining interest and
affection.
Boswell himself was feeling ill and melancholy during a considerable
part of the year, and was much upset by Johnson's charges of
affectation: it is easily conceivable that he shrank from the pain of
being present at the death-bed of his friend, and believed too that
his own distress could only irritate the other.8 But, whatever may
have been the cause of his absence, it is impossible, if we consider
his own words about the final parting, to doubt the sincerity of his
affection.9

He asked me whether I would not go with him to his house; I

declined it, from an apprehension that my spirits would sink. We
bade adieu to each other affectionately in the carriage. When he
had got down upon the foot-pavement, he called out, 'Fare you
well,' and without looking back, sprung away with a kind of
pathetic briskness, if I may use the expression, which seemed
to indicate a struggle to conceal uneasiness, and impressed me
with a foreboding of our long, long separation.10

Johnson in one of his last letters said: 'I consider your fidelity and
tenderness as a great part of the comforts which are yet left me';
and Boswell, JOHNSON'S DEATH speaking of his death, says enough
when he says no more than this: 'I trust I shall not be accused of
affectation when I declare that I find myself unable to express all
that I felt upon the loss of such a Guide, Philosopher, and Friend.'

The loss was indeed a severe one for Boswell. He made a friend of
Johnson at the age of twenty-two and was forty-four at the date of
Johnson's death. For more than twenty years he had been
accustomed implicitly to trust the judgment of the older man.

Its mere duration in time is some testimony to the value of the

friendship, the more so when we remember that Boswell when he
died himself was but fifty-five years old. The friend who was the
hero of Boswell's youth, and his constant adviser, saw within the
space of a few years the beginning of his professional life at the
Scotch Bar, the publication of his first serious book, his marriage to
an admirable lady, and his election to the Literary Club; he died but
two years after Boswell had become the Laird of Auchinleck, at a
time when he was showing an increased activity, and before the
political and legal hopes that he indulged had brought about by their
failure the disappointment of his later life.

From the few facts which have been related here something may be
gleaned, if not a complete conception of the part which Johnson
played in Boswell's life. Boswell has revealed himself as a friend and
in particular as the friend of Johnson. So great a devotion is a real
asset in life. Whatever its definite value may be as regards events,
and it is often small, it serves to fix more clearly and fuse together
the intricate moving forms of a land of dreams into a simple
mundane shape. It may be an end in itself. And devotion in Boswell's
case belonged to the essence of his genius. It was an important part
of that abnormal ingredient in him which was to blaze forth in an
imperishable flame.

What Johnson accomplished for Boswell was primarily in the realm

of ideals. The aspirations of Boswell were concentrated by his
admiration. But what was the final result? When Johnson died, the
ship that carried that heavy load of Boswell's hopes was sailing
steadily towards a definite harbour, though not the harbour he
intended to reach: what had Johnson to do with this? Was his the
hand at the helm?—the breath in the sails?

1: Life of Reynolds, ii, p. 12.

2: Letters of Horace Walpole, v, p. 85.

3: Memoirs of Hannah More, i, p. 213.

4: The evidence for what is stated in this sentence and the next is
discussed later under Boswell's biographical qualities.

5: London Magazine, xlvii, 106.

6: Piozzi Letters, i, 198.

7: Campbell's Diary, p. 70.

8: Life of Johnson, iv, pp. 378-80.

9: It must be remembered that Boswell spent nearly two months with

Johnson in this last year. In March he wrote to Dr. Percy about going to
London, 'chiefly to attend upon Dr. Johnson with respectful attention.'
(Nichols, Literary History, vii, p. 302.)

10: Life of Johnson, iv, p. 339.

 CHAPTER V
Biography is by its nature historical and suited to an historical
method. The history of an institution is written in respect of its
functions. The Christian Church, for instance, played a certain part in
the life of society at the end of the fourth century, and another part
when Clement proclaimed a Crusade to all Western Europe. The
historian of the Church may well be expected to hold in view the
later development during the whole course of his inquiry before that
climax; he must analyse the primitive organism, having regard to its
future growth, and explain how it was that those organs grew. The
biographer has similar duties. We commonly consider the lives of
men with reference to a few conspicuous events or remarkable
achievements; and we want to know what were the essential
qualities of the man and how they grew to those results. In Boswell's
case the central theme is single, for he accomplished one thing of
overwhelmingly greater importance than anything else in his life. But
the growth which came to this glorious end was by no means a
simple and serene development. It is concerned with an amazing
war between the conventional and the real, the false and the true.
We have now to investigate more closely the details of that struggle,
and incidentally the effect on Johnson.

Boswell, in the first place, had a number of what may be called

conventional prejudices; he had the common prejudices of the
landed gentleman in the eighteenth century. He was brought up to
believe that he would one day become the Laird of Auchinleck. He
was proud of his family name and ancient lineage; he believed
altogether the conventional idea, that a man was not only in a
higher position and a greater person, but, in some indefinable way,
better from the possession of land. Soil and mansion were not
merely the insignia of the governing class or the boast of blood, but,
further, the supreme expression of an ideal—the commonest
practical ideal of the British people, 'to be as our fathers.' 'Holding
an estate,' says Boswell, in the first of the political letters which he
addressed to his compatriots,1 'transmitted to me through my
ancestors, by charters from a series of kings, the importance of a
charter, the prerogative of a king, impresses my mind with
seriousness and duty; and while animated, I hope, as much as any
man, with genuine feelings of liberty, I shall ever adhere to our
excellent Monarchy, that venerable institution under CONVENTIONAL
PREJUDICES which liberty is best enjoyed.' The truth expressed by
these extravagant words is that Boswell accepted, as a consequence
of having inherited an estate, a certain outfit of principles and
practical objects which was to be worn in the same way that a
parson wears a black coat or a coachman a livery. In politics,
therefore, he was a Monarchist and Tory. Property and the
Constitution, these were his interests.

In the second political letter he shows that he strongly disapproved

of innovation and of change in general; disapproved because he
disliked and mistrusted them as by convention a man of property
ought to do. Reform, however necessary, is never respectable.
Boswell liked an order and formality which should go on for ever
exactly as he knew it. It was for this reason and not from any
æsthetic pleasure that he delighted in the ceremonial of the dinners
in the Inner Temple and in the services which he was wont to attend
in St. Paul's Cathedral each year, if he were able, upon Easter Day.

The same views found expression in a series of essays which Boswell

wrote for the London Magazine. It is in fact in these essays rather
than in his biographical writings that we should look for Boswell's
opinions on general subjects. Comprehensive though the 'Life of
Johnson' is, it necessarily refrains from giving the author's view on
many occasions, and when Boswell speaks for himself he does so
incidentally, and not directly. In the London Magazine he is free, and
consequently the range is wider and the matter more diffuse.

'The Hypochondriack'—for such is the title under which Boswell

wrote—appeared in twenty-seven numbers of the London Magazine
from October, 1777, to December, 1779. The articles are not very
long—three pages of close double-columns is the average length;
but altogether they must contain enough printed matter to fill one
volume of a moderate size in our day. The title explains the attitude
of the writer in the whole series; Boswell wrote as a hypochondriac
to others who suffered as he did from periodical depression, to
divert them, as he said, by good-humour. 'I may, without ever
offending them by excess of gaiety, insensibly communicate to them
that good-humour which, if it does not make life rise to felicity, at
least preserves it from wretchedness.'

It is remarkable that Boswell formed the plan of writing these papers

at an earlier stage of his existence, during the years which he spent
abroad from 1763-5. The tenth of the series was actually written
then and was intended, so he tells us, to be published, in the
London Magazine as Number X of 'The Hypochondriack.' The fact
that it fulfilled its destiny, and that, though written in a rather more
frivolous style, it is in no way out of place, is a testimony, if any
further were needed besides the magnum opus, to the 'THE
HYPOCHONDRIACK' capacity that Boswell had for carrying a literary
project to its due accomplishment.

The qualities required of a biographer, which Boswell had in so

supreme a measure, are not those which necessarily make a good
essayist. But Boswell was by no means contemptible as a writer of
essays. A great thinker he never professed to be, and never could
have become; he had, however, what for his purpose was even more
valuable than profound thought or comprehensive originality—the art
of self-expression. We are obliged to read anything that Boswell
wrote because, by some enchanter's magic, he is there talking to us.
This is not the place to probe the mystery of Orpheus with his lute;
perhaps, in any case, it is better that the mystery should remain for
ever dark; for the charm of Orpheus might be perceptibly less if we
knew its mechanism. And it may be no more than an
accomplishment which, when exercised with particular grace, gives,
in the common way, the capricious illusion of facility. Whatever it be
in the art of letters, Boswell had it. He inevitably produced his effect;
and it is himself. We are made to feel good-humoured and
agreeable; and we wish to leave it at that and trouble our heads no
further. A less easy style will draw our attention to the technique of
words. With Boswell, it is clear midday on the dial, and we have no
desire to bother with the wheels inside.

'The Hypochondriack,' however, is scarcely so gay as one might

expect. Truly this is not the serious business of life; he is out for a
spree. 'The pleasure of writing a short essay,' says the lively
physician of melancholy, 'is like taking a pleasant airing that enlivens
and invigorates by the exercise which it yields, while the design is
gratified in its completion.' Boswell the essayist has not the solemn
responsibility of showing a great example to the world; and he has
no need to be the grave judge. Yet there is a very serious
background to the thoughts of this jolly author. When he chooses a
theme he searches in the depths. Religion, Death and Conscience,
Fear, Truth, Pleasure and Pride, Matrimony and Offspring, Youth and
Age, Pity and Prudence, Excess, Drinking, Flattery, and
Hypochondria itself—such are the subjects with which he sets forth
to divert his fellow-sufferers. And having chosen thus, Boswell
naturally, on many occasions, says earnestly what he sincerely
thinks. He faithfully describes in one place the discomfort of his own
depression:

To be overpowered with languor must make a man very

unhappy. He is tantalized with a thousand ineffectual wishes
which he cannot realise. For as Tantalus is fabled to have been
tormented by the objects of his desire being ever in his near
view, yet ever receding from his touch as he endeavoured to
approach them, the languid Hypochondriack has the sad
 mystification of being disappointed of realising every wish, by
the wretched defect of his own activity. While in that situation
time passes over him only to be loaded with regrets. The
important duties of life, the benevolent offices of friendship are
neglected, though he is sensible that he shall upbraid himself
for that neglect till he is glad to take shelter under cover of
disease.

In this account there is no ill-placed levity and no extravagance such

as we might fear to find. It is a simple and effective account of an
unpleasant experience. The advice which he gives to hypochondriacs
from time to time is similarly grave and sympathetic, and concerned
with defeating the dangers of their state of mind; his view is that the
disease is nearly always curable; he unwillingly admits that there are
cases beyond hope, and condemns pessimistic fatalism:

We should guard against imagining that there is a volcano

within us, a melancholy so dreadful that we can do nothing in
opposition to it.

It would be a mistake to suppose when we read such grave advice

that Boswell had a serious view of himself as the spiritual adviser of
hypochondriacs. His object, as he tells us, was to divert them; and in
that frame of mind no doubt he began to write. He became grave
and even earnest because he had a very strong vein of seriousness.
In the ordinary way of life he was light-hearted enough, and easily
dispensed with his thoughts when they began to be uncomfortable:
but when he had set himself to write from a text he persevered with
his serious reflections and they found expression. He was able to
reach considerable heights; a famous epitaph, when he is writing
upon a motto from Cicero about the duties of Conscience, stirs him
to a noble feeling:

The epitaph upon Sir Christopher Wren in St. Paul's Church, of

which he was the architect, has been justly admired as sublime:
'Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice'; 'Reader, if you
 would see his monument, cast your eyes around you,' so that
the whole Church is made his Mausoleum. In my opinion there
is a similar sublimity about this sentiment, by which a man,
upon the ancient principle of τίμα σεαυτὸυ, 'reverence thyself,'
is taught to expand his mind into a grand theatre of self-
observation.

Occasionally Boswell, on account of this same seriousness, has an

outburst of Johnsonian anger. He tells of a French writer that he
published a book, 'Réflexions sur ceux qui sont morts en
plaisantant,' that he succeeded in collecting a good number of
instances both ancient and modern: 'But I,' says Boswell 'hold all
such extraordinary appearances to be unnatural, affected, and
thoughtless.'

However, when all is said about the gravity of the Hypochondriack,

he is essentially the easy, good-humoured companion he set out to
be. He is often dignified, never indecorous; rarely is he even light-
hearted, for while he supports the cares of this world with smiling
equanimity he leaves the impression that they matter; still more
rarely is he flippant. The effect is never depressing. He is for the
most part a soothing optimist; and if that seem scant praise, be it
remembered that one may resist the optimist's persuasion and yet
fall a victim to the cheerful manners that accompany it. Such is the
attitude of Boswell as an essayist; and, when we consider what he
chose to write about, it is a remarkable performance.

The lightness of touch which was necessary for Boswell's purpose

was obtained partly by anecdote and image. A wide acquaintance
with books evidently supplied Boswell with a store of anecdotes; and
he both selected them well and used them relevantly. One instance,
where Boswell, in an essay about Excess, is speaking of the dangers
of wealth, will suffice to illustrate his method:

The Dutch, who have much sagacity of contrivance in many

respects, have in what they call a 'verbeetering huys' (that is to
 say, a correcting and amending house, a house for making
people better) an admirable method of curing laziness. A fellow
who will not work is put into a large reservoir, which takes him
up to the chin; a cock is then turned so as to let more water run
in upon him, and he is then shown a pump. If he exerts himself
with active force he prevents the water from rising, and
breathes freely; but if he does not ply the pump, the water soon
gets up upon him and he is suffocated. An inundation of wealth
will be equally fatal to a man's happiness, if he does not throw it
off by vigorous exertion. Aurum potabile will choak him; and,
when drowning in Pactolus's streams, it will be no consolation to
him to know that they have golden sands.

Boswell's images, sometimes employed in imitation of Dr. Johnson's

manner, if they are apt to be slightly extravagant, are generally
pointed and help the sense. 'A Dogmatist,' he says, 'is a man that
has got a pair of shoes that fit him exactly well, and therefore he
thinks them so very good that he flies in a passion against those
who cannot wear them.' An image is often used far more gracefully
to bring the argument to a head as in the following admirable
passage:

But old men forget in a wonderful degree their own feelings in

the early part of life, are angry because the young are not as
sedate in the season of effervescence as they are, would have
the fruit where in the course of nature there should be only the
blossom, and complain because another generation has not
been able to ascend the steep of prudence in a fourth part of
the time which they themselves have taken.

These few quotations may suffice to show that Boswell's essays are
worthy of some attention. They can be read with pleasure because
Boswell was both a capable writer and an agreeable man. And,
moreover, Boswell was a good man. It is a somewhat ridiculous
exclamation, because the fact is so striking and so indisputable. One
might dispute the proposition that to write an unrivalled biography a
man must be good: BOSWELL AS ESSAYIST it would probably be a foolish
discussion, for the common sense of mortals refuses to believe that
one who has done a supremely good thing is not himself essentially
good. But to dispute it in the case of Boswell—when we consider
how many hearts he has won, and with how excellent a wooing,
surely that would be preposterous! He was not wholly good more
than other men, nor less than the majority; but he possessed a
quantity of good that might be envied of the best. And this is true,
not of the man only, but of the writer. The test is a very simple one:
the plain fact is that it is impossible to read Boswell without feeling
better. Boswell does not edify in the spiritual fashion of Michael
Angelo or Milton; but he edifies just as truly. With Boswell we never
want to leave the world for something better, but we want to live in
it and enjoy life to the full; and we want especially to love other
men. It is not a small matter that we should feel this: and as we
may feel it in the 'Life of Johnson,' we may feel it also, though in a
less degree, in the essays.

But 'The Hypochondriack' is not to be read for the sake of the

author's opinions, nor even for the arguments by which he supports
them. For Boswell writes from a conventional point of view. His
conclusions are not his very own. He has never been tossed in the
great void and fought long doubtful battles for a sure place to stand
on. His children have not been begotten with pangs, but adopted for
pleasure.

And here we return to the main battle. Boswell was conventional.

But this is by no means a sufficient explanation. Clearly, in some
respects, it is not even true. What then is the range of Boswell's
conventionality and what are its limits?

Beliefs are the result, as a rule, either of tradition, or of emotional

experience, or of mere desire. In a few rare spirits they may be
determined in more intellectual fashion; but Reason is seldom
mistress, and very often she is servant and nurse. By reason, we
seek to justify our prejudices and convictions. With varying degrees
of intellectual dishonesty we make use of reason to reject what we
dislike and nourish what we prefer.

Boswell's case was somewhat uncommon. He was clearly not very

critical. Having once adopted an attitude he marched through life
without looking back. We have seen something of the outlook he
adopted conventionally. He deceived himself, however, far less than
most men of those opinions. And in the effort to believe what he
wished to believe, Boswell used reason in a curiously deliberate
fashion. He accepted the conventional beliefs and standards in an
unconventional manner—not chaotically and aimlessly, but
perceiving what the conventional aim essentially was, and approving
it as a mode of living.

Boswell's philosophy of life, as far as he had a BELIEFS philosophy,

was to have in all (including, that is, the future life of happiness
which he flattered himself that he would be able to enjoy) the
maximum amount of pleasure. Pleasure and happiness, these are
ends in themselves; and except in so far as pleasure must be
restrained for the sake of happiness either in this state of being or in
another—and Boswell can hardly be said to have practised restraint
in any remarkable degree—they are not distinguished. Pleasure he
speaks of as 'not only the aim but the end of our being.' 'To be
happy,' he says, 'as far as mortality and human imperfection allow, is
the wisest study of men.'

In the 'Hypochondriack' essays we see how entirely Boswell's

philosophy of life is a philosophy of comfort. With regard, for
instance, to Love—a subject which, since three papers of 'The
Hypochondriack' are devoted to it, must have been considered
important—though too logical to be entirely conventional, his
doctrine is frankly based upon his view of happiness:

As no disorder of the imagination has produced more evils than

the passion of love, it behoves us to guard ourselves with
caution against its first appearance.
 However coldness or indifference is unpleasant, yet excess of
love or fondness is bad, not only as it is not lasting, but also
because it is disagreeable at the time.

It is in his religious views that we see best this attitude of Boswell.

While his opinions were on the one hand completely conventional,
they yet depended quite consciously upon this doctrine of happiness.

The religious fear which I mean to inculcate, is that reverential

awe for the Most High Ruler of the Universe, mixed with
affectionate gratitude and hope, by which our minds are kept
steady, calm, and placid, at once exalted by the contemplation
of greatness, and warmed by the contemplation of goodness,
while both are contemplated with a reference to ourselves.2

However 'romantic' Boswell may have been in other matters, there is

no shadow of romance in his conception of a Deity. His admiration
for what seems to be merely a superior human being admitted of no
spiritual disquiet. Rather the 'steady, calm, and placid' temper so
produced was to serve as an antidote to hypochondria.

In order to have these comforts which not only relieve but

'delight the soul,' the Hypochondriack must take care to have
the principles of our holy religion firmly established in his mind,
when it is sound and clear, and by the habit and exercise of
piety to strengthen it, so that the flame may live even in the
damp and foul vapour of melancholy.3

Further instructions as to how these comforts are to be enjoyed are

given in the 'Life' where his final view is expressed:

RELIGIOUS VIEWSThis I have learned from a pretty hard course of

experience, and would, from sincere benevolence, impress upon
all who honour this book with a perusal, that until a steady
conviction is obtained that the present life is an imperfect state,
and only a passage to a better, if we comply with the divine
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