Typical, but you know, Boswell has the last laugh. Macauly presented him as a spineless idiot who by sheer accident wrote one good book (the "Life of Johnson"). Come the 20th century, the publication of Boswell's "London Journal" was heralded as possibly the most exciting literary discovery of said century, each subsequent volume was pounced on, and he's still available in print (and every other form) both through the journals and the life of Johnson whereas most people have no idea who Macauly was.
Also, (P)Russian Pete in Boswell's place would presumably have gotten himself strangled before ever leaving Edinburgh. Not to mention that - based on the limited amound of things I know about him - he didn't have Boswell's most important quality, the curiosity about the world around him which made Boswell such a readable diarist and writer in general.
The Grand Duke Peter, her nephew, who now ascended the Russian throne, was not merely free from the prejudices which his aunt had entertained against Frederick, but was a worshiper, a servile imitator, a Boswell, of the great king.
LOLOLOLOL oh boy that is indeed a diss of Boswell!
Heh, I must admit I have read the Lays of Ancient Rome and I haven't read Boswell. (though I intend to! you guys keep giving me more on my reading list, though!) Though to be fair I had heard of Boswell long before I heard of Macaulay.
Oh, Macaulay has the dubious honor of, I quote, being "the one person who had probably done the most damage to Boswell's personal reputation as a result of comments made in a review of Croker's annotated edition of Life of Johnson (1831)" at least until the 20th century and its reevaluation of Boswell as a writer not least due to the diaries getting published. Mind you, Boswell already had some defenders in the 19th century as well, including one T. Davis, who has a go at Macaulay in his 1878 book "Boswell again" and argues thusly:
All who are acquainted with the writings of Lord Macaulay, must be aware that he is more distinguished by skill than candour. He certainly shows the dexterity of an advocate, but not the impartiality of a critic; and for special pleading, Westminster Hall could scarcely produce his equal. He shows a great inclination to exaggerate facts. His geese are all swans. For instance, Boswell relates that on one occasion he "observed that Johnson poured a quantity of wine into a glass and swallowed it greedily." Macaulay says, that "when he drank wine, he drank it greedily, and in large tumblers." As if it had been his habit to do so. Boswell says that "Johnson ate voraciously." But this is too prosaic for his Lordship, who embellishes it thus: "He tore his dinner like a famished wolf." Johnson merely records in his diary, "On Good Friday I took in the afternoon some coffee and buttered bun." Macaulay tells us, "He has gravely noted down that he once committed the sin of drinking coffee on Good Friday." Boswell had a few nicknames. But Macaulay says, "He was always earning some ridiculous nickname, and then binding it as a crown upon him." Johnson had three, or at the most four, persons under his roof, some of whom were neither old nor wretched. Macaulay says, "He turned his house into a place of refuge for a crowd of wretched old creatures." The attentive reader of his works will detect many other flagrant examples of a like character."
But by and large, the Victorians agreed with Macaulay that Boswell was an undignified silly sycophant with not nearly enough morals who somehow managed to endear himself to many interesting people and somehow wrote a great book. Among other things, Adam Sisman's "Boswell's Presumptuous Task: the Making of the Life of Johnson" makes mincemeat of that. To quote a reviewer:
In this magnificent work Mr Sisman describes the making of that greatest of all biographies, Boswell's Life of Dr Johnson. To his contemporaries the task that Boswell had taken on was presumptuous indeed - to record the life of the greatest literary man of his age, while being dismissed himself as a frivolous and reprobate dilettante incapable of any serious activity. Well, the world knows that Bozzy succeeded in confounding his critics, but the tragic irony of his predicament was that he succeeded too well. While hailing the book as a masterpiece, the current and future literary establishment dismissed Boswell's own role as little more than that of a stenographer. Macaulay's damning essay on Boswell formed the opinion held by too many people for far too long. The true story of Boswell's genius became well known to scholars in the 20th century; with this book, Mr Sisman brings the story to a wider audience. It is a remarkable portait of Boswell's love for Johnson and the great struggles he endured to bring his hero to life in the pages of his biography. Battling drink, debauchery, depression and his own self-destructive nature, Boswell managed to pull off the one great sustained piece of effort of his life. In his book Johnson was brought to life once again, an image so convincing that it took over 150 years for people to discern the art behind the apparent ingenuousness of Boswell's technique. Sisman does a good job of showing how the Johnson of the Life was as much a product of Boswell's gift as the historical record. His final chapter on the gradual unearthing of the Boswell papers in the 20th century provides an exciting ending and his writing is clear and compelling. "Boswell's Presumptuous Task" is nothing short of a triumph.
Johnson merely records in his diary, "On Good Friday I took in the afternoon some coffee and buttered bun." Macaulay tells us, "He has gravely noted down that he once committed the sin of drinking coffee on Good Friday."
These were all hilarious, but this was the one that made me laugh out loud :D
Yes, one thing I've learned from salon and checking out various letters and memoirs is that it's rather hard to write memoirs or journals that are -- well, it's like when you were talking recently about that sort of interest and ability to write interestingly of everything that's going on around you, and other people, and not about yourself (or at least not just about yourself). It's one of those things that I think seems like it should be trivially easy to do, and yet it's pretty rare to actually be able to do it.
I've been reading memoirs, diaries and letters since a few decades, and that's indeed one of the recurring red threads. Whether or not a memoir is interesting is not always related whether person writing it is fascinating. Observational skills and writing ability trump that any time. (My most startling example of this was when I read Marlene Dietrich's memoirs. Which were incredibly dull. Which Marlene Dietrich really really wasn't. Nor does she come across thusly in anyone else's book, whether contemporary to her or written after the fact. And good lord, did she lead an interesting life and met interesting people. But the memoirs? Eh.
That is indeed shocking to me that they would be boring!
(But Richard Burton's aren't boring, from the excerpts you gave us! Though that also proves your point, because it's fascinating how he tells the stories and observes them more so than the actual facts of the stories, though those are also fascinating!)
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Re: Macaulay - Miscellanea
Also, (P)Russian Pete in Boswell's place would presumably have gotten himself strangled before ever leaving Edinburgh. Not to mention that - based on the limited amound of things I know about him - he didn't have Boswell's most important quality, the curiosity about the world around him which made Boswell such a readable diarist and writer in general.
Re: Macaulay - Miscellanea
Also, (P)Russian Pete in Boswell's place would presumably have gotten himself strangled before ever leaving Edinburgh.
Hahaha. Getting strangled within six months is kind of his specialty.
But now I'm imagining him helping touch up the signs on the inns, and arguing about which portrait looks most like his Dulcinea. :P
Re: Macaulay - Miscellanea
LOLOLOLOL oh boy that is indeed a diss of Boswell!
Heh, I must admit I have read the Lays of Ancient Rome and I haven't read Boswell. (though I intend to! you guys keep giving me more on my reading list, though!) Though to be fair I had heard of Boswell long before I heard of Macaulay.
Re: Macaulay - Miscellanea
All who are acquainted with the writings of Lord Macaulay, must be aware that he is more distinguished by skill than candour. He certainly shows the dexterity of an advocate, but not the impartiality of a critic; and for special pleading, Westminster Hall could scarcely produce his equal. He shows a great inclination to exaggerate facts. His geese are all swans. For instance, Boswell relates that on one occasion he "observed that Johnson poured a quantity of wine into a glass and swallowed it greedily." Macaulay says, that "when he drank wine, he drank it greedily, and in large tumblers." As if it had been his habit to do so. Boswell says that "Johnson ate voraciously." But this is too prosaic for his Lordship, who embellishes it thus: "He tore his dinner like a famished wolf." Johnson merely records in his diary, "On Good Friday I took in the afternoon some coffee and buttered bun." Macaulay tells us, "He has gravely noted down that he once committed the sin of drinking coffee on Good Friday." Boswell had a few nicknames. But Macaulay says, "He was always earning some ridiculous nickname, and then binding it as a crown upon him." Johnson had three, or at the most four, persons under his roof, some of whom were neither old nor wretched. Macaulay says, "He turned his house into a place of refuge for a crowd of wretched old creatures." The attentive reader of his works will detect many other flagrant examples of a like character."
But by and large, the Victorians agreed with Macaulay that Boswell was an undignified silly sycophant with not nearly enough morals who somehow managed to endear himself to many interesting people and somehow wrote a great book. Among other things, Adam Sisman's "Boswell's Presumptuous Task: the Making of the Life of Johnson" makes mincemeat of that. To quote a reviewer:
In this magnificent work Mr Sisman describes the making of that greatest of all biographies, Boswell's Life of Dr Johnson. To his contemporaries the task that Boswell had taken on was presumptuous indeed - to record the life of the greatest literary man of his age, while being dismissed himself as a frivolous and reprobate dilettante incapable of any serious activity. Well, the world knows that Bozzy succeeded in confounding his critics, but the tragic irony of his predicament was that he succeeded too well. While hailing the book as a masterpiece, the current and future literary establishment dismissed Boswell's own role as little more than that of a stenographer. Macaulay's damning essay on Boswell formed the opinion held by too many people for far too long. The true story of Boswell's genius became well known to scholars in the 20th century; with this book, Mr Sisman brings the story to a wider audience. It is a remarkable portait of Boswell's love for Johnson and the great struggles he endured to bring his hero to life in the pages of his biography. Battling drink, debauchery, depression and his own self-destructive nature, Boswell managed to pull off the one great sustained piece of effort of his life. In his book Johnson was brought to life once again, an image so convincing that it took over 150 years for people to discern the art behind the apparent ingenuousness of Boswell's technique. Sisman does a good job of showing how the Johnson of the Life was as much a product of Boswell's gift as the historical record. His final chapter on the gradual unearthing of the Boswell papers in the 20th century provides an exciting ending and his writing is clear and compelling. "Boswell's Presumptuous Task" is nothing short of a triumph.
Re: Macaulay - Miscellanea
These were all hilarious, but this was the one that made me laugh out loud :D
Yes, one thing I've learned from salon and checking out various letters and memoirs is that it's rather hard to write memoirs or journals that are -- well, it's like when you were talking recently about that sort of interest and ability to write interestingly of everything that's going on around you, and other people, and not about yourself (or at least not just about yourself). It's one of those things that I think seems like it should be trivially easy to do, and yet it's pretty rare to actually be able to do it.
Re: Macaulay - Miscellanea
I've been reading memoirs, diaries and letters since a few decades, and that's indeed one of the recurring red threads. Whether or not a memoir is interesting is not always related whether person writing it is fascinating. Observational skills and writing ability trump that any time. (My most startling example of this was when I read Marlene Dietrich's memoirs. Which were incredibly dull. Which Marlene Dietrich really really wasn't. Nor does she come across thusly in anyone else's book, whether contemporary to her or written after the fact. And good lord, did she lead an interesting life and met interesting people. But the memoirs? Eh.
Re: Macaulay - Miscellanea
(But Richard Burton's aren't boring, from the excerpts you gave us! Though that also proves your point, because it's fascinating how he tells the stories and observes them more so than the actual facts of the stories, though those are also fascinating!)