BIB_ID
379974
Accession number
MA 981.78
Creator
Boswell, James, 1740-1795.
Display Date
1789 Nov. 28-30.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan before 1906.
Description
1 item (12 p.) ; 22.4 cm
Notes
Part of a large collection of letters from James Boswell to William Johnson Temple and related correspondence. Letters have been described in individual records; see MA 981 for details.
Provenance
Major William Stone; purchased by Pierpont Morgan from the London dealer J. Pearson & Co. before 1906.
Summary
Describing his state since the death of his wife: "With grief continually at my heart, I have been endeavouring to seek relief in dissipation and in wine, so that my life for some time past has been unworthy of myself, of you, and of all that is valuable in my character and connections ... I cannot express to you, Temple, what I suffer from the loss of my valuable wife and the mother of my children. While she lived, I had no occasion almost to think concerning my family; every particular was thought of by her, better than I could. I am the most helpless of human beings; I am in a state very much that of one in despair"; explaining again that he cannot come to visit Temple because [Edmond] Malone is helping him revise his "Life of Johnson" and he needs to make use of his expertise before Malone leaves for Ireland; writing of the "Life of Johnson," though I shall be uneasily sensible of its many deficiencies, it will certainly be to the world a very valuable and peculiar volume of biography, full of literary and characteristical anecdotes ... told with authenticity and in a lively manner"; saying of himself, "I walk about upon the earth with inward discontent, though I may appear the most cheerful man you meet. I may have many gratifications, but the comfort of life is at an end"; discussing his children at length, especially the question of what to do with his teenage daughters when they have finished at school; providing details of his financial situation; remarking that his son is having a rough time at Eton; explaining that his second son is still living with him but should be boarding somewhere since "he passes his time chiefly with [Boswell's] old housekeeper and [his] footman"; describing a dinner he hosted; mentioning that a number of Dr. [Samuel] Johnson's friends are "having a monument erected to him in Westminster Abbey"; commenting on "the ruffians of France, who are attempting to destroy all order, ecclesiastical and civil."
Catalog link
Department