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Boswell's Denominational Dilemma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Mary Margaret Stewart
Mary Margaret Stewart*
Affiliation:
Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, Penn.
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Extract

“Those who remark their religious experiences are generally looked on with Ridicule;” wrote James Boswell, “but very unreasonably, for they are experimental philosophers upon the most important subject.” No one can read BoswelPs Life of Johnson or any of the Boswell Journals and letters without recognizing the vital place religious thought held in his life, for he was a man who did remark his religious experiences with interest and without embarrassment. An outline of his religious life demonstrates the profound revolutions and constant turmoil of his religious thought and indicates the lasting impression religion made on the man James Boswell.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 76 , Issue 5 , December 1961 , pp. 503 - 511
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1961

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References

Note 1 in page 503 James Boswell, The Private Papers of James Boswell from Malahide Castle, ed. Geoffrey Scott and Frederick A. Pottle (Privately Printed, 1928–34), xii, 154. Quoted by permission of Yale Univ. and the McGraw-Hill Book Co. All parenthetical volume and page references in the text will be to this work; in the notes I shall cite the work as B.P. plus volume and page.

Note 2 in page 504 James Boswell, Boswell on the Grand Tour: Italy, Corsica, and France 1765–1766, ed. Frank Brady and Frederick A. Pottle (New York, 1955), p. 65—hereafter cited as Grand Tour II. Quoted by permission of Yale Univ. and the McGraw-Hill Book Co.

Note 3 in page 504 James Boswell, Boswell on the Grand Tour: Germany and Switzerland 1764, ed. Frederick A. Pottle (New York, 1953), p. 242. Quoted by permission of Yale Univ. and the McGraw-Hill Book Co.

Note 4 in page 504 Grand Tour II, p. 57.

Note 5 in page 504 Ibid., p. 66.

Note 6 in page 504 The ringing of the bells, calling the child Boswell to church, remained a symbol of the terror invoked by the church service and the gloom of Sunday. Thus, in Utrecht the ringing of the bells from the great tower each hour—playing dreary psalm tunes—plunged him into melancholy. Later, from Rome, he wrote John Johnston: “I shall not enter into particulars, but leave you to imagine all the wild ideas which your gloomy fancy can suggest on the wettest Sunday, while the bell is ringing for the Tolbooth Kirk.” Grand Tour II, pp. 77–78.

Note 7 in page 504 A History of Worship in the Church of Scotland (Glasgow, 1951), p. 165.

Note 8 in page 504 Ibid., p. 140.

Note 9 in page 505 Scotch preachers were notorious for their delivery; an Englishman remarked, after having visited Scotland in 1754, that “Their manner of preaching is with a whine, which they call the Sough.” “Some Account of Scotland, and the Manners of the Inhabitants,” Gentleman's Magazine, xxiv (1754), 370.

Note 19 in page 505 “Affairs in Scotland,” Scots Magazine, xix (1757), 260.

Note 11 in page 505 “A Description of the City of Edinburgh,” Gentleman's Magazine, xv (Supp., 1745), 684.

Note 12 in page 505 James Boswell, Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D., ed. Frederick A. Pottle and Charles H. Bennett (New York, 1936), p. 24. Quoted by permission of Yale Univ. and the McGraw-Hill Book Co.

Note 13 in page 506 Ibid., p. 86, n. 4.

Note 14 in page 506 James Boswell, Boswell's London Journal 1762–1763, ed. Frederick A. Pottle (New York, 1950), p. 231. Quoted by permission of Yale Univ. and the McGraw-Hill Book Co.

Note 16 in page 506 James Boswell, Boswell in Holland 1763–1764, ed. Frederick A. Pottle (New York, 1952), p. 316. Quoted by permission of Yale Univ. and the McGraw-Hill Book Co.

Note 16 in page 507 The Confession of Faith; the Larger and Shorter Catechism, with Scriptural-Proofs at Large: Together with the Sum of Saving Knowledge, Covenants, National and Solemn League; Duties, Directories for Public and Family Worship; Form of Church Government, etc., of Publick Authority in the Church of Scotland (Philadelphia, 1829), pp. 38 and 39.

Note 17 in page 507 Ibid., p. 71.

Note 18 in page 507 George Birkbeck Hill, ed., Boswell's Life of Johnson, revised and enlarged by L. F. Powell (Oxford, 1934), rv, 71—hereafter cited as Life.

Note 19 in page 508 Confession of Faith, pp. 73–78.

Note 20 in page 508 After hearing John Young, a solicitor, preach on election and predestination in a Glassite meeting house on Sunday, 21 May 1780, Boswell mused: “I could not but reflect with some uneasiness on the state of uncertainty which all men of all religions must be in as to their happiness after death; since, whether it depends on election or on pious merit, we cannot know with confidence that we are of the blessed number. I comfort myself with the notion that in progress of time there will be Universal felicity.” B.P., xiv, 83–84.

Note 21 in page 508 Confession of Faith, p. 56.

Note 22 in page 508 Ibid., pp. 52–55.

Note 23 in page 509 When in Scotland, Johnson refused to go hear Dr. Robertson, whom he personally liked, preach. “I will hear him, (said he), if he will get up into a tree and preach; but I will not give a sanction, by my presence, to a Presbyterian assembly” (Life, v, 121). Thus, at Auchinleck, when Boswell and his father went to public worship in their parish church, Johnson refused to accompany them (ibid., v, 384). Boswell, like Johnson, had certain political prejudices against the Presbyterians. As a faithful supporter of monarchy, Boswell observed the fast on 30 January in commemoration of the death of Charles I. In 1780, this holiday fell on a Sunday; and Boswell wrote: “I was drest in good time and walked out with intention to go to the newchurch. But in the street it occurred to me that I would not go and join with presbyterians on the 30th of January” (B.P., xiv, 33).

Note 24 in page 510 Life, ii, 104–105.

Note 25 in page 510 In Inchkenneth on his Tour to the Hebrides, Boswell wandered out into the night one evening after devotions. Here he prayed, and in the midst of his pious effusions “the sanctity of venerable Columbus filled” his imagination. He later confessed in his Journal: “I considered that to ask the intercession of a departed saint was at least innocent, and might be of service. I indulged my inclination to what is called superstitious prayer. I said, ‘Sanete Columbe, ora pro me. O Columbus, thou venerable Saint, as we have all the reason that can be to believe that thou art in heaven, I beseech thee to pray GOD that I may attain to everlasting felicity’.” Tour to the Hebrides, p. 317.

Note 26 in page 511 Chauncey Brewster Tinker, ed., Letters of James Boswell (Oxford, 1924), ii, 297.

Note 27 in page 511 Life, i, 470.