James Boswell — Background and Themes

A Biography of Corrections

Leask's preface frames the book as a corrective to Macaulay's portrait of Boswell. He writes that he hopes to 'materially add to the correct understanding and the enjoyment of Boswell's great work.' The biography is thus not a neutral chronicle but an argument: that Boswell deserves reconsideration. Leask draws on unpublished letters and a 'boyish common-place book' to offer evidence beyond the familiar anecdotes. The dedication to Dr. Hill, who 'revised the proof sheets,' underscores the scholarly apparatus behind this revisionist project. Readers should note that Leask is writing in 1896, when Boswell's reputation was still recovering from Macaulay's damning caricature.

Edinburgh's Nocturnal Realities

Leask reconstructs Johnson's 1773 visit to Edinburgh with sensory precision. At ten o'clock, the 'beat of the city drums' sounded, and 'gardy loo' cries preceded the emptying of chamber pots onto the street. Leask quotes Boswell's wish that Johnson had been 'less gifted with the sense of smell.' The scene is drawn from Captain Burt's earlier account of a 'caddie' scouting ahead with cries of 'haud your han'.' Leask also notes that Boswell's house in James's Court had been occupied by David Hume three years earlier—a fact Boswell was 'reticent about,' given his disapproval of Hume's irreligion. The biography thus embeds Johnson's visit in a layered urban history, contrasting the philosopher's former study with the 'little infantine noise' of Boswell's daughter Veronica.

Lord Auchinleck's Dismissive Voice

Leask preserves the elder Boswell's contemptuous verdict on Johnson: 'a dominie, an auld dominie; he keepit a schule and ca'ad it an acaadamy.' The taunt, delivered in Scots dialect, targets Johnson's failed school at Edial near Lichfield. Leask glosses that 'no more bitter taunt could have been levelled against Johnson,' and connects it to the heritors' provision for Ruddiman and Michael Bruce. The passage reveals a family tension that Leask uses to dramatize Boswell's choice of mentor. Lord Auchinleck had already despaired of his son's attachment to Paoli; now Johnson was 'the land-louping scoundrel of a Corsican's' tail. The biography thus uses direct quotation to expose the social and intellectual rifts that shaped Boswell's career.

Leask's biography is best read alongside the Life of Johnson and Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. The author assumes familiarity with those works and with Macaulay's essay. Pay attention to the footnotes and the unpublished letters Leask cites; they are the book's original contribution. The preface's dedication to Dr. Hill also hints at the ongoing scholarly conversation about Boswell's reliability as a biographer.