Black Dogs and Boswell

Boswell's character is favourite subject for many writers, and he often serves as light relief in many dry texts on the eighteenth century. He does, after all, give us one of the first 'modern' biographies, not to mention plenty of essays, letters and diary entries. Boswell stands at the centre of his writing; his personal experiences, conversations, whims, conquests and failures; his sexual triumphs, tragedies and diseases. All are on display for anyone willing to have a read.

Inevitably then, unlike more distant figures of the age, this raw exposure to another man's mind can be uncomfortable and distasteful. Indeed Boswell frequently comes across as superficial, unable to take criticism and moody. It is a point he is well aware of: 'when we know exactly all a man's views and how he comes to speak and act so and so, we lose any respect for him, though we may love and admire him; at least we lose that kind of distant respect which is very agreeable for us to feel and him to receive.'

Hume by Louis Carrogis, paints the man in
a light hearted and accessible way.

A careful and sympathetic reading of his journal allows us to better understand his less attractive features. Boswell is especially conscious of his frequent swings from states of euphoric optimism to brooding melancholy. 'In the space of a few hours I was a dull and miserable, a clever and a happy mortal, and all without the intervention of any external cause'. 


Boswell's happy conjectures frequently erupt onto the pages. One example should suffice, when one afternoon he 'was very high-spirited and full of ambition.' He longed to be of consequence, and goes about forming plans to return to Scotland to become an advocate. 'By this means I would make money which would enable me to jaunt about wherever I pleased in the vacations. I would have an opportunity of being of much real use, of being of service to my friends by having weight in the country, and would make my father exceedingly happy.'  He prattles on 'that I might have the wit and humour of Sir David Dalrymple, the jollity of Duncan Forbes, the whim of Baron Dalrymple, the show of Baron Maule...' 


Yet like many great thinkers from the period Boswell complains of melancholy moods. Adam Smith suffered these while at Oxford; David Hume seems to have had a severe mental breakdown at a young age; Samuel Johnson lived his life prone to frequently bouts of depression. The causes of each individual case are impossible to pin down. Yet Montesquieu blamed what seemed a peculiarly English phenomenon on the weather; Dr Cheyne blamed the eighteenth-century diet. Boswell would have also been aware of Aristotle's connection between melancholy moods and genius.


Like Hume, Boswell had 'a very severe illness' as a young adult, becoming 'very melancholy' in the process. He imagined he would never shake the state and 'gave myself up as devoted to misery.' He notes that: 'I entertained a most gloomy and odd way of thinking. I was much hurt at being good for nothing in life...Many a struggle was in my mind between melancholy and mirth.' 


Throughout the Journal then, Boswell shifts between this affable foppish front and his moody and emotional self. The solution, once again, is one Boswell shares with David Hume. Action and socialising are the best cures: 

"I and many more speculative men have been thrown into deep and serious thought about matters very little more serious. Yet the mind will take its own way, do what we will. So that we may be rendered uneasy by such cloudy reveries when we have no intention to be in such a humour. The best relief in such a case is mirth and gentle amusement."

Hume, incidentally, noted: 

"Very refined reflections have little or no influence upon us; and yet we do not, and cannot, establish it for a rule that they ought not to have any influence; which implies a manifest contradiction. [But] I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends, and after three or four hours’ amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold and strained and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any further."

Boswell wrote a series of essays, almost as self-therapy, called The Hypochondriack which were designed to turn his low moods into action and chase away the black dog of depression in the process. During one essay he noted, which the writer will second, 'while writing this paper, I have by some gracious influence been insensibly relieved from the distress under which I laboured when I began it.'

Please refrain from analysing in the Cathedral

I recently visited St Paul's and attended the Epiphany Procession. The Cathedral is generally regarded as one of the high points of European Baroque. Yet unlike many buildings of its scale, there is no grand approach; it emerges all at once out of a cluster of tightly packed city houses. Despite its mighty and looming exterior, the inner architectural harmony of the Cathedral serves to relax the pilgrim. The design, by Wren, was heavily influenced by the light forms of continental architecture; at the time the dome was considered slightly too Papish.


What, for me, was initially an excursion for an enquiring mind, turned into something more spiritual. I am not, mind, in any way religious. Yet the music and architecture piety can produce do serve to lighten the soul and give a feeling of renewal and calm. I could, of course, try to analyse these thoughts and probably come to some sort of pseudo-scientific conclusion: harmonious music and space; the effects of singing; the general mood of the congregation. Yet this would be to sully the sense that 'church' made me feel better. 

St Paul's Cathedral by Cannaletto painted in 1754.

Indeed, after far to much learning about eighteenth-century philosophy, I am increasingly seeing the merits in reacting against analysis, numbers and pure reason. Our society is surely reaching a saturation point, culturally and spiritually, with its obsession with figures, graphs and numerical proof. There are scientific formulas for Happiness, Weight Loss and a Good Christmas; Powerpoint presentations, plans and diagrams on 'How to be Good' or 'How to feel Better'. We have somehow managed to pinpoint the Worst Day of the year. Advertising companies use statistics to convince us that our eyelashes can have '4 times more Impact'.


Obviously these should not all taken with the same seriousness as, say, the mathematics behind a medical vaccine. But what about political numbers used to prove an argument? What about the omnipotent question of the Budget Deficit? The danger is that analysis goes beyond being a mere prop for decision making, and becomes in itself the irrefutable answer to a problem. Understandable then, was the reaction of Thomas Carlyle to many of the high ideals of analysis and reason in the eighteenth century. One of the greatest intellectual feats of the century, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, was for Carlyle the beginning of 'the dismal science' of economics. 


Yet the view of the time of Boswell as one of 'Reason' is slightly misguided, and has, like 'Enlightenment', been applied after the fact. It might as well, as many historians have pointed out, been called an age of 'Passion'. Certainly in Boswell we find an impassioned lover, moody writer and angry young man. He is prone to fluctuating emotions, and his 'whims' stand in marked contrast with a rigorous accounting process for his expenditure. 'The pleasure of gratifying a whim is very great. It is known only by those who are whimsical.' Indeed, in an interesting city with no immediate regulated pattern of work, the point is well made; going 'walk about' in London (without a map or direction) is always an interesting experience. 


Furthermore, Boswell's love for women and socialising is the stuff of legend. Even at church, 'In the midst of divine service I was laying plans for having women...I have a warm heart and a vivacious fancy. I am therefore given to love, and also to piety and gratitude to God, and to the most brilliant and showy method of public worship.' On another occasion, his piety is clouded out: ‘I was on honour much disposed to be a Christian. Yet I was rather cold in my devotion. The Duchess of Grafton attracted my eyes rather too much.’ 


Alas, no such talent at this week's service.