1 00:00:06,660 --> 00:00:10,460 Today, Scotland stands on the edge of the most important 2 00:00:10,460 --> 00:00:16,380 event in her history for 300 years, the vote on whether to end her union 3 00:00:16,380 --> 00:00:21,060 with the rest of the United Kingdom and become, once again, independent. 4 00:00:22,500 --> 00:00:26,340 Through the centuries of Union, Scotland's greatest writers 5 00:00:26,340 --> 00:00:31,180 have struggled with questions of national identity and I've chosen 6 00:00:31,180 --> 00:00:32,940 a handful of the sharpest, 7 00:00:32,940 --> 00:00:35,940 whose voices are still so clear and so resonant. 8 00:00:37,820 --> 00:00:40,900 From a bestselling novelist, who cast an enduring 9 00:00:40,900 --> 00:00:43,700 and seductive spell over popular culture, 10 00:00:43,700 --> 00:00:48,860 selling stories of tartan-clad clans and noble chiefs, 11 00:00:48,860 --> 00:00:52,540 to a rebel poet who fought ferociously 12 00:00:52,540 --> 00:00:56,580 to lay the foundations for a new form of Scottish nationalism. 13 00:00:58,780 --> 00:01:02,060 But in this film I want to begin closer to home, 14 00:01:02,060 --> 00:01:08,100 not with novels or poetry, but with the father of modern journalism. 15 00:01:08,100 --> 00:01:14,460 We are all of us laughable, lovable, and often ridiculous creatures, 16 00:01:14,460 --> 00:01:17,860 and James Boswell writes it like it is. 17 00:01:19,140 --> 00:01:23,780 His self-portrait is unflinching and often unflattering. 18 00:01:25,100 --> 00:01:28,900 He writes what it was like to be a young Scot 19 00:01:28,900 --> 00:01:30,340 in the green years 20 00:01:30,340 --> 00:01:34,340 of the Scottish/English Union like nobody else. 21 00:01:34,340 --> 00:01:36,380 It's James Boswell's life 22 00:01:36,380 --> 00:01:39,300 and work that capture the spirit of the age. 23 00:01:39,300 --> 00:01:41,460 Torn between pride in his noble heritage 24 00:01:41,460 --> 00:01:46,140 and a lusty appreciation of everything the Union had to offer. 25 00:01:50,700 --> 00:01:54,020 And above all, it's his friendship with one of the most famous, 26 00:01:54,020 --> 00:01:58,300 iconic Englishmen of the age, which represents the best that 27 00:01:58,300 --> 00:02:02,740 can happen when a prickly Scot and a proud Englishman work together. 28 00:02:11,100 --> 00:02:12,700 THUNDER RUMBLES 29 00:02:14,980 --> 00:02:20,660 Historians have, for centuries, pored over ancient texts to shed 30 00:02:20,660 --> 00:02:22,980 light upon nations and their people. 31 00:02:24,740 --> 00:02:28,860 "Now I behold the chiefs, in the pride of their former deeds! 32 00:02:30,020 --> 00:02:32,820 "Their souls are kindled at the battles of old, 33 00:02:32,820 --> 00:02:34,780 "at the actions of other times. 34 00:02:36,060 --> 00:02:38,980 "Their eyes are flames of fire. 35 00:02:38,980 --> 00:02:42,020 "They roll in search of the foes of the land. 36 00:02:42,020 --> 00:02:45,180 "Their mighty hands are on their swords. 37 00:02:45,180 --> 00:02:48,540 "Lightning pours from their sides of steel. 38 00:02:48,540 --> 00:02:51,700 "They come like streams from the mountains, 39 00:02:51,700 --> 00:02:54,180 "each rushes roaring from the hill." 40 00:02:59,900 --> 00:03:03,340 These are the words of the great Gaelic bard Ossian, 41 00:03:03,340 --> 00:03:06,860 whose stories of heroes, and heroines, kings and princes 42 00:03:06,860 --> 00:03:11,060 and battles, had been passed down, generation by generation. 43 00:03:12,300 --> 00:03:15,140 Who were the original people of the British Isles? 44 00:03:15,140 --> 00:03:20,060 Forget Stonehenge, forget King Arthur and Camelot, forget all 45 00:03:20,060 --> 00:03:24,260 the English history that is merely game of thrones. The original 46 00:03:24,260 --> 00:03:28,660 people were the Gaels of Scotland, and the poems of Ossian proved it. 47 00:03:36,220 --> 00:03:40,980 Brought to light in the 1760s, these myths and legends allowed 48 00:03:40,980 --> 00:03:44,500 the Scots to hold their heads up high - 49 00:03:44,500 --> 00:03:47,780 ancient, superior, noble. 50 00:03:49,220 --> 00:03:55,180 In fact, Ossian himself was a myth, and the poems were a complete fraud. 51 00:03:55,180 --> 00:03:59,340 They had been invented by a modern writer, James Macpherson, 52 00:03:59,340 --> 00:04:02,780 and they tell us absolutely nothing at all about the real 53 00:04:02,780 --> 00:04:05,500 Scotland of the middle of the 18th century, 54 00:04:05,500 --> 00:04:10,020 just a few decades into its union with England - for that we have 55 00:04:10,020 --> 00:04:13,820 to turn to a very different writer, a friend of Macpherson's, 56 00:04:13,820 --> 00:04:18,260 and a hero of mine, but not perhaps an entirely conventional hero. 57 00:04:20,940 --> 00:04:24,860 James Boswell - the father of modern journalism, 58 00:04:24,860 --> 00:04:29,860 inventor of the literary biography, and a prolific diarist. 59 00:04:29,860 --> 00:04:32,180 He has, however, been quite overlooked 60 00:04:32,180 --> 00:04:34,540 as a Scottish literary giant, 61 00:04:34,540 --> 00:04:38,500 and the reason lies not in his skills as a writer 62 00:04:38,500 --> 00:04:40,860 but because of his most famous subject. 63 00:04:42,500 --> 00:04:45,500 You see, Boswell didn't write about Scottish heroes 64 00:04:45,500 --> 00:04:49,300 but an all-too-real Englishman - 65 00:04:49,300 --> 00:04:51,420 Samuel Johnson, 66 00:04:51,420 --> 00:04:54,860 and the legendary creator of the English Dictionary casts 67 00:04:54,860 --> 00:04:56,860 a very long shadow. 68 00:04:56,860 --> 00:05:00,300 After Shakespeare, Johnson remains the most quoted man 69 00:05:00,300 --> 00:05:02,500 in the English language, 70 00:05:02,500 --> 00:05:06,020 famous for his caustic aphorisms about every part of life. 71 00:05:07,300 --> 00:05:11,260 What people don't so readily recall is that it's Boswell's busy pen 72 00:05:11,260 --> 00:05:12,580 that preserved them for us. 73 00:05:15,140 --> 00:05:16,780 When a man is tired of London, 74 00:05:16,780 --> 00:05:22,660 he is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford. 75 00:05:22,660 --> 00:05:24,940 Sir, I have found you an argument, 76 00:05:24,940 --> 00:05:27,980 I am not obliged to find you an understanding. 77 00:05:27,980 --> 00:05:31,460 Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. 78 00:05:31,460 --> 00:05:33,660 Sir, a woman's preaching... 79 00:05:33,660 --> 00:05:36,260 BOSWELL JOINS IN: is like a dog walking on his hind legs. 80 00:05:36,260 --> 00:05:37,700 It is not done well, 81 00:05:37,700 --> 00:05:40,740 but you are surprised to find it is done at all. 82 00:05:40,740 --> 00:05:44,820 No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money. 83 00:05:46,700 --> 00:05:51,740 So why is James Boswell such a great writer in English prose? 84 00:05:51,740 --> 00:05:55,340 The answer lies in his epic Life Of Dr Johnson. 85 00:05:55,340 --> 00:05:57,220 This is the first edition. 86 00:05:57,220 --> 00:06:00,660 Nothing like this book had ever been written in English before. 87 00:06:00,660 --> 00:06:04,500 We'd had lots of biographies, of course, but they tended to be 88 00:06:04,500 --> 00:06:08,180 rather generalised, windy, moralistic volumes. This is 89 00:06:08,180 --> 00:06:10,620 the first one which tries to give the reader 90 00:06:10,620 --> 00:06:12,420 everything about the subject - 91 00:06:12,420 --> 00:06:16,740 the cadences of his speech, how he dressed, what he looked like, 92 00:06:16,740 --> 00:06:19,700 his little ticks and mannerisms, his table manners. 93 00:06:20,980 --> 00:06:23,220 "When at table, he was totally 94 00:06:23,220 --> 00:06:27,260 "absorbed in the business of the moment. His looks seemed riveted to 95 00:06:27,260 --> 00:06:33,180 "the plate, nor would he, unless when in very high company, say one word, 96 00:06:33,180 --> 00:06:36,660 "or even pay the least attention to what was said by others, 97 00:06:36,660 --> 00:06:41,980 "till he had satisfied his appetite, which was so fierce, and indulged 98 00:06:41,980 --> 00:06:46,220 "with such intenseness, that while in the act of eating, the veins in 99 00:06:46,220 --> 00:06:50,700 "his forehead swelled, and generally a strong perspiration was visible." 100 00:06:53,020 --> 00:06:56,980 To those whose sensations were delicate, this could not but be 101 00:06:56,980 --> 00:07:01,140 disgusting, and it was doubtless not very suitable to the character 102 00:07:01,140 --> 00:07:04,900 of a philosopher, who should be distinguished by self-command. 103 00:07:12,980 --> 00:07:17,220 As a writer, Boswell didn't deal in myths but in real men 104 00:07:17,220 --> 00:07:21,020 and women with real passions and real appetites. 105 00:07:21,020 --> 00:07:24,260 He wanted to record their actual words - 106 00:07:24,260 --> 00:07:27,060 the insults, the anecdotes, the beliefs. 107 00:07:27,060 --> 00:07:30,860 And as a result, if you want to know the pith of the period, 108 00:07:30,860 --> 00:07:32,820 the essence of the times, 109 00:07:32,820 --> 00:07:36,940 you shouldn't go to any great poet or novelist of the period, you need 110 00:07:36,940 --> 00:07:40,940 to go to the diaries, the scribbled journals of wee Jimmy Boswell. 111 00:07:43,220 --> 00:07:46,700 But first it's vital to understand the world in which they were 112 00:07:46,700 --> 00:07:52,020 written - defined by an event that took place 30 years 113 00:07:52,020 --> 00:07:53,980 before Boswell was even born. 114 00:07:57,060 --> 00:08:02,540 In 1707, the streets of Edinburgh were a flurry of pamphleteers, 115 00:08:02,540 --> 00:08:07,980 campaigners, and naked nationalism, as Scotland faced a monumental 116 00:08:07,980 --> 00:08:11,700 vote on the Act of Union with England. 117 00:08:11,700 --> 00:08:16,340 Not a popular vote back then, mind you, no referendum in 1707, 118 00:08:16,340 --> 00:08:19,380 but the choice of a privileged few politicians. 119 00:08:21,460 --> 00:08:24,660 The old Scottish Parliament of nobles and landowners 120 00:08:24,660 --> 00:08:28,740 tore themselves in two over the question of the Union. 121 00:08:28,740 --> 00:08:32,540 Huge feuds, great speeches, massive emotion. 122 00:08:32,540 --> 00:08:35,660 And then, in 1707, 123 00:08:35,660 --> 00:08:39,260 the old Scots Parliament voted itself into oblivion. 124 00:08:41,500 --> 00:08:43,740 Sitting here in the empty chamber, 125 00:08:43,740 --> 00:08:45,420 it's hard not to be swept up 126 00:08:45,420 --> 00:08:48,020 by the mythic significance of that decision - 127 00:08:48,020 --> 00:08:51,460 a noble alliance forged, or a nation lost? 128 00:08:55,860 --> 00:08:58,780 But, like Boswell, I'm more interested in focusing 129 00:08:58,780 --> 00:09:00,500 on the facts. 130 00:09:00,500 --> 00:09:03,540 And for that, I've come to see rare documents 131 00:09:03,540 --> 00:09:06,100 that chart the rocky road to Union. 132 00:09:07,740 --> 00:09:11,060 So what we have here, Andrew, is a volume containing 133 00:09:11,060 --> 00:09:14,620 the minutes of the proceedings in the Scots Parliament, 134 00:09:14,620 --> 00:09:15,980 moment by moment, 135 00:09:15,980 --> 00:09:19,580 debating all the different Articles of Union. 136 00:09:19,580 --> 00:09:23,180 And here you have these very rare examples of the votes 137 00:09:23,180 --> 00:09:25,660 and here you see all the nobility, the barons, 138 00:09:25,660 --> 00:09:29,500 all those people who had a vote, their names are listed here 139 00:09:29,500 --> 00:09:32,060 and whether they voted yes or no, aye or nay. 140 00:09:33,540 --> 00:09:36,180 It's hard to have a view about the Union 141 00:09:36,180 --> 00:09:39,060 until you've really read these very closely. 142 00:09:39,060 --> 00:09:42,180 What's very interesting to me is that this is the practical, 143 00:09:42,180 --> 00:09:44,100 detailed, tough negotiations 144 00:09:44,100 --> 00:09:46,460 that people say would follow a yes vote now. 145 00:09:46,460 --> 00:09:48,980 It's about how do we negotiate these practical details 146 00:09:48,980 --> 00:09:51,820 of living together or living a little bit further apart? 147 00:09:51,820 --> 00:09:54,020 How is it done? Here we are. 148 00:09:54,020 --> 00:09:56,700 Absolutely amazing, Bill, I can't believe I'm actually 149 00:09:56,700 --> 00:10:00,140 reading this stuff. But what we have here, Andrew, in another 150 00:10:00,140 --> 00:10:02,380 volume, is very exciting, 151 00:10:02,380 --> 00:10:06,820 it's a similar collection of the minutes, with other material, 152 00:10:06,820 --> 00:10:08,940 but it's the Boswell copy. 153 00:10:08,940 --> 00:10:10,900 The Boswell family copy, fantastic! 154 00:10:10,900 --> 00:10:13,220 It's the book that Boswell would have 155 00:10:13,220 --> 00:10:16,820 pulled off the shelf in the library to really understand what 156 00:10:16,820 --> 00:10:21,060 this union was about. If you don't know what's happened in the past, 157 00:10:21,060 --> 00:10:25,100 you won't necessarily know how to look forward to the future. 158 00:10:25,100 --> 00:10:29,180 True then, true now - this is not history, this is current affairs. 159 00:10:30,900 --> 00:10:32,500 But it's hard to imagine what, 160 00:10:32,500 --> 00:10:36,620 if any, answers Boswell would have found amongst these dry pages. 161 00:10:36,620 --> 00:10:40,300 While they outline in minute detail what happened, 162 00:10:40,300 --> 00:10:43,620 they offer very little clue as to why. 163 00:10:44,620 --> 00:10:47,900 Unless you know a little of the bigger picture, which is 164 00:10:47,900 --> 00:10:51,540 an even more familiar story, of greedy bankers 165 00:10:51,540 --> 00:10:55,180 and dodgy investments and the risking of other people's money. 166 00:10:57,220 --> 00:11:01,140 A few years before, a scheme to open up a Scottish trading 167 00:11:01,140 --> 00:11:06,020 outpost in Panama, called Darien, attracted huge investment - 168 00:11:06,020 --> 00:11:08,180 it proved disastrous. 169 00:11:10,540 --> 00:11:13,500 The Darien scheme was supposed to be the beginnings 170 00:11:13,500 --> 00:11:17,940 of an independent Scottish empire and a wave of enthusiasm 171 00:11:17,940 --> 00:11:19,900 coursed through the country, 172 00:11:19,900 --> 00:11:23,380 but the scheme was destroyed by three formidable enemies - 173 00:11:23,380 --> 00:11:27,300 the Spanish, disease, and the English. 174 00:11:27,300 --> 00:11:32,380 The failure of Darien cost Scotland a quarter of her entire wealth 175 00:11:32,380 --> 00:11:36,020 almost overnight, and powerfully reinforced the argument at 176 00:11:36,020 --> 00:11:40,860 the time of the Union that Scotland was simply too poor to go it alone. 177 00:11:42,940 --> 00:11:46,460 The Union had, in fact, merely accentuated division... 178 00:11:47,940 --> 00:11:50,260 ..between a desire to go it alone 179 00:11:50,260 --> 00:11:53,460 and the need to somehow make it work together. 180 00:11:55,980 --> 00:12:00,780 But Scotland had long been a country divided - by religion, 181 00:12:00,780 --> 00:12:02,820 by politics and by geography. 182 00:12:05,140 --> 00:12:09,540 It can be clumsily split into two distinct parts. 183 00:12:09,540 --> 00:12:13,180 The Highlands - wild, untamed, and unruly. 184 00:12:16,220 --> 00:12:20,660 And the Lowlands - a place of civilisation, privilege 185 00:12:20,660 --> 00:12:27,100 and education, where, in 1740, James Boswell was born to landed gentry. 186 00:12:28,660 --> 00:12:32,700 Boswell was brought up here on their grounds at Auchinleck. 187 00:12:32,700 --> 00:12:37,180 It's kind of undistinguished rolling farmland with some trees planted by 188 00:12:37,180 --> 00:12:41,420 the family, but right in the middle of it there is plonked down this. 189 00:12:45,100 --> 00:12:49,340 It's like a slice of Jane Austen slap bang in the heart of Ayrshire. 190 00:12:50,620 --> 00:12:54,100 This quintessentially English country house was, in fact, 191 00:12:54,100 --> 00:12:59,700 designed by Boswell's father, Lord Auchinleck, in the late 1750s, 192 00:12:59,700 --> 00:13:02,940 but stands as the perfect monument to the man - 193 00:13:02,940 --> 00:13:05,940 formal, austere, Georgian. 194 00:13:07,500 --> 00:13:10,380 A respected judge and a devout Presbyterian, 195 00:13:10,380 --> 00:13:12,700 he was sober and serious. 196 00:13:14,380 --> 00:13:18,380 His son was the polar opposite in every way. 197 00:13:18,380 --> 00:13:22,060 Boswell's early years were anything but idyllic. 198 00:13:24,540 --> 00:13:28,140 Boswell was a nervous, sickly, lonely child, 199 00:13:28,140 --> 00:13:32,980 haunted by fears of damnation and over-protected by his mother. 200 00:13:32,980 --> 00:13:35,900 Around the age of 17, he seems to have gone through 201 00:13:35,900 --> 00:13:39,540 something like a nervous breakdown, but he emerged from this 202 00:13:39,540 --> 00:13:42,580 with his personality miraculously transformed, 203 00:13:42,580 --> 00:13:46,660 like a gorgeous butterfly emerging from a little green caterpillar. 204 00:13:46,660 --> 00:13:50,500 He was now flamboyant, colourful and gregarious. 205 00:13:51,540 --> 00:13:54,700 By now, he was attending Edinburgh University, where 206 00:13:54,700 --> 00:13:58,420 he enjoyed his first, addictive tastes of freedom. 207 00:14:03,300 --> 00:14:07,460 At the time, the city was the hub of the Scottish Enlightenment. 208 00:14:07,460 --> 00:14:11,940 Home to the greatest economists and philosophers of the age. 209 00:14:11,940 --> 00:14:15,900 Boswell must have been exposed to radical new ideas. 210 00:14:15,900 --> 00:14:18,980 It was here he developed a passion for literature 211 00:14:18,980 --> 00:14:20,460 and the theatre, 212 00:14:20,460 --> 00:14:23,980 hanging out with actresses and arty types. 213 00:14:25,620 --> 00:14:29,020 None of which would have exactly delighted his father, 214 00:14:29,020 --> 00:14:30,540 Lord Auchinleck. 215 00:14:30,540 --> 00:14:34,740 Disappointed fathers and wayward sons - that is an old story, 216 00:14:34,740 --> 00:14:36,460 but this one is a cracker! 217 00:14:36,460 --> 00:14:41,420 The old man is austere, abstemious and self-controlled, 218 00:14:41,420 --> 00:14:44,540 his son not so much. 219 00:14:44,540 --> 00:14:48,180 Now, Lord Auchinleck designed this house himself 220 00:14:48,180 --> 00:14:52,860 and on the front he put a slogan expressly aimed at his son. 221 00:14:52,860 --> 00:14:55,260 What this means is, roughly speaking, 222 00:14:55,260 --> 00:14:57,940 "This may be the back-end of beyond, 223 00:14:57,940 --> 00:15:01,180 "but if you have a sober disposition, 224 00:15:01,180 --> 00:15:03,820 "everything you seek is right here." 225 00:15:03,820 --> 00:15:07,060 Boswell came to love this house later on in his life, but his 226 00:15:07,060 --> 00:15:11,260 early years were spent as a kind of living heckle on that slogan. 227 00:15:11,260 --> 00:15:15,580 "Everything I need is here? Old man, you must be mad!" 228 00:15:17,740 --> 00:15:19,460 The differences between father 229 00:15:19,460 --> 00:15:22,900 and son went right to the heart of the Scottish psyche. 230 00:15:22,900 --> 00:15:26,540 Lord Auchinleck was pro-Union and supported King George 231 00:15:26,540 --> 00:15:28,580 and the Hanoverian dynasty. 232 00:15:28,580 --> 00:15:33,020 His son romanticised Scotland before the Union and admired 233 00:15:33,020 --> 00:15:36,060 the deposed Catholic, King James. 234 00:15:36,060 --> 00:15:38,900 Now, while it may seem odd for the younger man to hanker after 235 00:15:38,900 --> 00:15:40,140 the good old days, 236 00:15:40,140 --> 00:15:43,420 this was all still very much fresh in the memory. 237 00:15:45,060 --> 00:15:47,500 Boswell would have been just five years old 238 00:15:47,500 --> 00:15:50,820 when King James's grandson, Bonnie Prince Charlie, 239 00:15:50,820 --> 00:15:54,740 led the Jacobites against the government forces here at Culloden. 240 00:16:01,700 --> 00:16:03,540 Government casualties were light 241 00:16:03,540 --> 00:16:05,940 but the Highlanders suffered severe losses. 242 00:16:08,620 --> 00:16:12,100 The young prince turned tail and fled. 243 00:16:12,100 --> 00:16:14,700 Those he left behind were butchered. 244 00:16:22,900 --> 00:16:26,660 The biggest casualty of Culloden wouldn't be the Jacobite cause 245 00:16:26,660 --> 00:16:29,620 but the Highland way of life itself. 246 00:16:29,620 --> 00:16:34,180 From now on, Gaelic culture was to be suppressed at all costs. 247 00:16:35,660 --> 00:16:39,220 For a very long time, Culloden was misunderstood as 248 00:16:39,220 --> 00:16:43,500 a straightforward battle between the Scots and the English. 249 00:16:43,500 --> 00:16:44,900 It wasn't. 250 00:16:44,900 --> 00:16:48,860 There were, in fact, plenty of Scots fighting on the government side. 251 00:16:48,860 --> 00:16:52,620 This was really a battle between the old and the new, 252 00:16:52,620 --> 00:16:57,580 between the rising Britain of merchants, lawyers and shopkeepers, 253 00:16:57,580 --> 00:17:02,380 and the old, romantic world of the clans and ancient Gaelic culture. 254 00:17:03,620 --> 00:17:05,300 Scots of Boswell's time were 255 00:17:05,300 --> 00:17:08,580 profoundly confused about the meaning of Culloden. 256 00:17:08,580 --> 00:17:11,380 When Boswell himself was a small boy, he declared that he was 257 00:17:11,380 --> 00:17:14,060 a Jacobite and would pray for King James. 258 00:17:14,060 --> 00:17:16,620 One of his uncles shook his head and said, "No, no, no, 259 00:17:16,620 --> 00:17:19,100 "I will give you this coin if you change your mind 260 00:17:19,100 --> 00:17:21,940 "and pray for King George and the Hanoverians." 261 00:17:21,940 --> 00:17:24,940 Boswell instantly trousered the coin and changed his position, 262 00:17:24,940 --> 00:17:28,220 which tells you a great deal about James Boswell, 263 00:17:28,220 --> 00:17:30,220 and quite a bit about Scotland. 264 00:17:33,380 --> 00:17:37,580 Boswell struggled between his head and his heart, but he ultimately 265 00:17:37,580 --> 00:17:41,420 did what he was told, following his father's path into the law. 266 00:17:42,420 --> 00:17:43,900 Serious study, however, 267 00:17:43,900 --> 00:17:46,460 was never going to be enough to keep his attention. 268 00:17:46,460 --> 00:17:53,180 In 1760, aged 19, he fled to London in search of adventure. 269 00:17:53,180 --> 00:17:56,060 I was all life and joy. 270 00:17:56,060 --> 00:17:59,460 I repeated Cato's soliloquy on the immortality of the soul 271 00:17:59,460 --> 00:18:04,020 and my own soul bounded forth a certain prospect of happy futurity. 272 00:18:04,020 --> 00:18:08,460 I gave three huzzahs, and we went briskly in. 273 00:18:17,660 --> 00:18:22,140 'This is not an unfamiliar story - an ambitious young man leaving 274 00:18:22,140 --> 00:18:25,620 'Scotland behind to make his name amongst the bright lights.' 275 00:18:27,780 --> 00:18:31,540 I love Boswell and I always have done since my mother gave me 276 00:18:31,540 --> 00:18:34,820 a copy of his London journal when I was still very young 277 00:18:34,820 --> 00:18:38,740 and impressionable, and ever since then I've been compelled by 278 00:18:38,740 --> 00:18:42,060 his ambition, by his wild-eyed naivety, 279 00:18:42,060 --> 00:18:44,220 his enthusiasm, and by his courage. 280 00:18:44,220 --> 00:18:48,220 And, of course, I can relate to a man torn between patriotism 281 00:18:48,220 --> 00:18:50,940 and the excitement of the big city - 282 00:18:50,940 --> 00:18:55,580 in our case, between love of Scotland and lust for London. 283 00:19:01,060 --> 00:19:02,700 In the 18th century, 284 00:19:02,700 --> 00:19:05,660 London was overrun with ambitious Scots determined to make 285 00:19:05,660 --> 00:19:10,020 the most of the opportunities the Union had brought them. 286 00:19:10,020 --> 00:19:13,460 But what many of them soon discovered was the accent had to go. 287 00:19:14,900 --> 00:19:19,220 Societies were formed and how-to guides were published, 288 00:19:19,220 --> 00:19:22,740 all aimed at removing the dreaded Scotticism. 289 00:19:24,620 --> 00:19:28,020 Don't say "wee", say "little". 290 00:19:28,020 --> 00:19:31,620 Never say "bairn", say "child". 291 00:19:31,620 --> 00:19:34,340 Don't say a "chest", a coffin. 292 00:19:34,340 --> 00:19:38,260 Don't say "youthy", say "youthful". 293 00:19:38,260 --> 00:19:43,300 Don't say "geck" "gawk" or "gawky", say "a foolish fellow". 294 00:19:43,300 --> 00:19:49,260 Don't say "lug", say "ear", even for those of us who do have big lugs. 295 00:19:49,260 --> 00:19:51,860 It is a very strange thing to do. 296 00:19:51,860 --> 00:19:55,500 Language is intimately involved with our sense of who we are and 297 00:19:55,500 --> 00:20:00,180 here are the pro-Union Scots ripping out from their own throats the old 298 00:20:00,180 --> 00:20:03,380 traditional words of Scotland that had been there for generations. 299 00:20:05,100 --> 00:20:08,660 All this is enough to send a shudder through any proud Scot, 300 00:20:08,660 --> 00:20:13,740 but arguably the biggest betrayal was perpetrated in an attic 301 00:20:13,740 --> 00:20:16,340 right in the heart of London, 302 00:20:16,340 --> 00:20:21,860 where a group of Scotsmen were working for Samuel Johnson on his most ambitious undertaking... 303 00:20:23,100 --> 00:20:25,540 ..an English dictionary. 304 00:20:27,780 --> 00:20:31,420 This rather bare garret is the very room where Johnson's 305 00:20:31,420 --> 00:20:33,460 dictionary was composed, 306 00:20:33,460 --> 00:20:35,540 and while it has to be admitted 307 00:20:35,540 --> 00:20:38,580 that his Scots workers were essentially cheap, 308 00:20:38,580 --> 00:20:42,620 migrant labour, there is a delicious irony in the fact that they 309 00:20:42,620 --> 00:20:48,580 were employed at all by a man whose view of the Scots was so plain. 310 00:20:50,260 --> 00:20:56,060 "Oats, a grain which in England is generally given to horses. 311 00:20:56,060 --> 00:20:59,660 But in Scotland appears to support the people. 312 00:20:59,660 --> 00:21:05,140 The noblest prospect a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that 313 00:21:05,140 --> 00:21:07,220 leads him to England. 314 00:21:07,220 --> 00:21:11,820 Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young. 315 00:21:13,740 --> 00:21:16,980 Johnson was bullish and opinionated. 316 00:21:16,980 --> 00:21:21,740 The arrogance of formalising an entire language epitomised 317 00:21:21,740 --> 00:21:25,620 a man with a supreme confidence in his own ability. 318 00:21:25,620 --> 00:21:28,700 Coupled with a physical presence that ensured he was as imposing 319 00:21:28,700 --> 00:21:32,940 in person as he was in print, he became feared 320 00:21:32,940 --> 00:21:34,820 and revered in equal measure, 321 00:21:34,820 --> 00:21:38,260 the very embodiment of an Englishman. 322 00:21:39,500 --> 00:21:42,540 Young Boswell was happily establishing 323 00:21:42,540 --> 00:21:44,260 an altogether different reputation. 324 00:21:46,260 --> 00:21:49,460 Like most 22-year-olds loose in the big city, 325 00:21:49,460 --> 00:21:53,300 Boswell was here to find himself and have fun. 326 00:21:53,300 --> 00:21:59,380 He wanted the three great gets - get famous, get drunk and get laid. 327 00:22:02,500 --> 00:22:05,500 Fame would come later on, but when it came to the drink 328 00:22:05,500 --> 00:22:08,780 and the women he was triumphantly successful. 329 00:22:08,780 --> 00:22:12,260 We know about his huge alcoholic excesses and hangovers, 330 00:22:12,260 --> 00:22:16,060 and his dirty encounters with prostitutes in London parks, 331 00:22:16,060 --> 00:22:19,940 and the resultant gonorrhoea, because he wrote it all down, 332 00:22:19,940 --> 00:22:23,700 confessions which, in the 21st century would be meaty, 333 00:22:23,700 --> 00:22:26,620 but, in the 18th century, were quite extraordinary. 334 00:22:29,700 --> 00:22:34,620 "I came softly in the room and in a sweet delirium slipped into bed 335 00:22:34,620 --> 00:22:38,220 "and was immediately clasped in her snowy arms 336 00:22:38,220 --> 00:22:41,460 "and pressed to her milky white bosom." 337 00:22:42,860 --> 00:22:47,220 Good heavens! What a loose did we give to amorous dalliance. 338 00:22:47,220 --> 00:22:51,220 The friendly curtain of darkness concealed our blushes. 339 00:22:51,220 --> 00:22:58,340 In a moment, I felt myself animated with the strongest powers of love, 340 00:22:58,340 --> 00:23:04,340 and from my dearest creature's kindness had a most luscious feast. 341 00:23:04,340 --> 00:23:08,980 Proud of my godlike vigour, I resumed the noble game. 342 00:23:08,980 --> 00:23:11,540 I was in full glow of health. 343 00:23:11,540 --> 00:23:15,780 Sobriety had preserved me from effeminacy and weakness 344 00:23:15,780 --> 00:23:19,860 and my bounding blood beat quick and high alarms. 345 00:23:19,860 --> 00:23:24,340 A more voluptuous night I had never enjoyed. 346 00:23:24,340 --> 00:23:28,580 Five times was I fairly lost in supreme rapture. 347 00:23:35,660 --> 00:23:39,580 Clearly Boswell and Johnson lived very different lives in London and 348 00:23:39,580 --> 00:23:44,220 it was, frankly, quite unlikely they would ever have reason to meet. 349 00:23:44,220 --> 00:23:47,340 Boswell wanted to hang out with the in-crowd, 350 00:23:47,340 --> 00:23:49,300 the celebrities of the day. 351 00:23:49,300 --> 00:23:52,940 And 18th century London was very different from London now. 352 00:23:52,940 --> 00:23:56,980 Now if you want to be a celebrity, you have to have a tattoo or 353 00:23:56,980 --> 00:24:01,220 wear a dress with holes in it, then you actually had to achieve 354 00:24:01,220 --> 00:24:04,740 something, write great poems or essays on Shakespeare. 355 00:24:04,740 --> 00:24:08,940 And there was no bigger celebrity than Samuel Johnson. 356 00:24:12,300 --> 00:24:15,700 But even Boswell's puppyish self-confidence was 357 00:24:15,700 --> 00:24:19,220 put to the test when the two men's paths finally crossed. 358 00:24:19,220 --> 00:24:23,020 Here, in what was once a bookshop called Davies, Boswell was 359 00:24:23,020 --> 00:24:26,780 taking tea when Johnson unexpectedly arrived. 360 00:24:31,860 --> 00:24:33,380 I was much agitated 361 00:24:33,380 --> 00:24:36,020 and recollecting his prejudice against the Scotch, 362 00:24:36,020 --> 00:24:39,540 of which I had heard much, I said to Davies, "Don't tell him 363 00:24:39,540 --> 00:24:44,300 "where I come from!" "From Scotland," cried Davies, roguishly. 364 00:24:45,980 --> 00:24:50,180 "Mr Johnson," said I, "I do indeed come from Scotland, 365 00:24:50,180 --> 00:24:52,620 "but I can't help it." 366 00:24:52,620 --> 00:24:55,860 That, sir, I find, is what a very great number of your countrymen 367 00:24:55,860 --> 00:24:57,060 cannot help. 368 00:24:58,580 --> 00:25:00,940 "This stroke stunned me greatly, 369 00:25:00,940 --> 00:25:05,700 "and when we were sat down I found myself not a little embarrassed 370 00:25:05,700 --> 00:25:08,620 "and apprehensive of what might come next." 371 00:25:11,540 --> 00:25:14,020 And what happened next was quite unexpected. 372 00:25:14,020 --> 00:25:18,660 Over the coming weeks, a firm and famous friendship was forged. 373 00:25:18,660 --> 00:25:22,140 Johnson loved vigorous debate and youthful exuberance 374 00:25:22,140 --> 00:25:25,580 and Boswell was more than happy to supply both. 375 00:25:25,580 --> 00:25:29,460 Although it's hard not to feel uneasy at Boswell's haste 376 00:25:29,460 --> 00:25:33,260 in denying his Scottishness to oil up to the great bear. 377 00:25:34,940 --> 00:25:36,980 Reading his diaries it's easy to wonder 378 00:25:36,980 --> 00:25:39,900 if Boswell had forgotten himself altogether. 379 00:25:39,900 --> 00:25:44,380 There's nothing more from the rebel who wanted to break up the Union. 380 00:25:44,380 --> 00:25:48,100 Instead, it's pages and pages of pleasure seeking. 381 00:25:52,660 --> 00:25:55,260 And yet there are moments when Boswell casts 382 00:25:55,260 --> 00:25:59,900 a light on the darker side of being a Scot in the big city, 383 00:25:59,900 --> 00:26:02,420 most searingly exposed one evening 384 00:26:02,420 --> 00:26:05,900 when he was indulging in one of his favourite pastimes. 385 00:26:07,820 --> 00:26:11,820 Just before the curtain rose on a new production of a comic opera 386 00:26:11,820 --> 00:26:14,860 at a Covent Garden theatre, Boswell noticed that two 387 00:26:14,860 --> 00:26:19,020 Highland officers, just back from serving abroad, had arrived. 388 00:26:22,660 --> 00:26:26,300 A mob from the upper gallery roared out, "No Scots! No Scots! 389 00:26:26,300 --> 00:26:29,220 "Out with them!" Hissed and pelted them with apples. 390 00:26:29,220 --> 00:26:35,140 My heart warmed to my countrymen. My Scotch blood boiled with indignation. 391 00:26:35,140 --> 00:26:40,260 I jumped up on the benches and roared out, "Damn you, you rascals!" 392 00:26:40,260 --> 00:26:43,380 Hissed, and was in the greatest rage. 393 00:26:43,380 --> 00:26:46,420 I'm very sure at that time I should have been the most 394 00:26:46,420 --> 00:26:51,300 distinguished of heroes. I hated the English. 395 00:26:51,300 --> 00:26:59,220 I wished from my soul that the Union was broke and that we might give them another battle of Bannockburn! 396 00:27:03,420 --> 00:27:08,420 This was the first time Boswell really let his own feelings show. 397 00:27:08,420 --> 00:27:11,980 He didn't want to end the Union. He was enjoying its fruits 398 00:27:11,980 --> 00:27:16,500 far too much for that, but he was a divided, even a torn, man. 399 00:27:19,940 --> 00:27:23,380 Boswell was acutely aware that he was an outsider. 400 00:27:25,420 --> 00:27:28,460 He struggled to choose between the freedoms of his British future 401 00:27:28,460 --> 00:27:30,460 and the obligations 402 00:27:30,460 --> 00:27:32,500 of his Scottish past. 403 00:27:32,500 --> 00:27:37,540 Finally, in 1763, his father made the decision for him, 404 00:27:37,540 --> 00:27:40,100 when he told his son to stop messing about 405 00:27:40,100 --> 00:27:44,820 and travel to Utrecht in Holland to further his study in the law. 406 00:27:46,540 --> 00:27:50,380 Boswell, deprived of Johnson and the distractions of London, 407 00:27:50,380 --> 00:27:52,420 fell into a deep depression. 408 00:27:54,020 --> 00:27:59,300 He took comfort in an ambitious and surprisingly serious project. 409 00:28:01,780 --> 00:28:04,220 "The Scottish language is being lost every day 410 00:28:04,220 --> 00:28:07,820 "and in a short time will become quite unintelligible. 411 00:28:09,300 --> 00:28:12,540 "It is for that reason that I have undertaken to make a dictionary 412 00:28:12,540 --> 00:28:17,220 "of our tongue through which one will always have the means of learning it, 413 00:28:17,220 --> 00:28:19,140 "like any other dead language." 414 00:28:22,100 --> 00:28:26,100 Tantalisingly, we've only known of the dictionary through 415 00:28:26,100 --> 00:28:28,380 scattered clues in Boswell's writing. 416 00:28:28,380 --> 00:28:31,620 The dictionary itself has never been found until recently, 417 00:28:31,620 --> 00:28:33,300 quite by chance. 418 00:28:33,300 --> 00:28:35,620 Buried among the books 419 00:28:35,620 --> 00:28:38,500 and manuscripts of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, 420 00:28:38,500 --> 00:28:44,020 an enthusiastic researcher came across an unattributed manuscript. 421 00:28:45,660 --> 00:28:48,660 For Boswell, of all people, to write this, 422 00:28:48,660 --> 00:28:52,820 the first ever dictionary of the Scots language, was an act 423 00:28:52,820 --> 00:28:56,580 of perhaps surprising, patriotic assertion at a time when 424 00:28:56,580 --> 00:28:59,620 so many other Scots were trying to lose their own culture, 425 00:28:59,620 --> 00:29:03,100 because the words people use, the language, 426 00:29:03,100 --> 00:29:05,180 is the essence of a people. 427 00:29:05,180 --> 00:29:08,900 This is the dictionary of conversations in streets, 428 00:29:08,900 --> 00:29:12,180 in fields, in villages, between living Scotsmen 429 00:29:12,180 --> 00:29:15,100 and that gives it a kind of directness, a sort of shock 430 00:29:15,100 --> 00:29:18,700 earthiness which perhaps Johnson's dictionary often lacks. 431 00:29:18,700 --> 00:29:22,100 It's full of words like "bubbles" for snot, 432 00:29:22,100 --> 00:29:26,500 and "dowp" for backside, and, above all, "mappin" for "harlot", 433 00:29:26,500 --> 00:29:30,100 a word that Boswell, as we know, needed to use quite frequently. 434 00:29:31,980 --> 00:29:36,060 Boswell was clearly attempting to impress his hero, Samuel Johnson. 435 00:29:36,060 --> 00:29:39,380 But he was also treading on the territory of that other 436 00:29:39,380 --> 00:29:42,220 looming figure in his life, his father. 437 00:29:44,180 --> 00:29:47,460 Lord Auchinleck was a scholar of Scottish language 438 00:29:47,460 --> 00:29:51,820 and yet Boswell never seeks out his help or his advice. 439 00:29:51,820 --> 00:29:55,420 He must have fantasised about the moment he returned home 440 00:29:55,420 --> 00:29:59,260 and finally presented his great achievement. 441 00:29:59,260 --> 00:30:03,860 Frustratingly but predictably, Boswell got distracted. 442 00:30:03,860 --> 00:30:07,780 He abandoned his task in favour of heading off on a Grand Tour 443 00:30:07,780 --> 00:30:11,020 across Europe, ticking off along the way the great 444 00:30:11,020 --> 00:30:14,180 intellectual capitals of Geneva and Rome. 445 00:30:14,180 --> 00:30:18,060 But it would, in fact, be one little island in the Mediterranean 446 00:30:18,060 --> 00:30:20,020 that would inspire him the most. 447 00:30:21,740 --> 00:30:25,860 Corsica - a small, mountainous country with an ancient, 448 00:30:25,860 --> 00:30:31,300 violent and romantic past in thrall to a much larger neighbour. 449 00:30:31,300 --> 00:30:34,740 It's not so difficult to see why Boswell was interested. 450 00:30:34,740 --> 00:30:38,580 What is harder is to understand why its leader, General Paoli, 451 00:30:38,580 --> 00:30:42,860 who is the kind of Che Guevara of the story, falls for Boswell, 452 00:30:42,860 --> 00:30:45,980 of all people, because Boswell is not instantly attractive. 453 00:30:45,980 --> 00:30:49,420 And yet he clearly had something, because time and time again, 454 00:30:49,420 --> 00:30:52,820 famous men and women absolutely go for him. 455 00:30:52,820 --> 00:30:55,460 I think he had a kind of seedy charisma 456 00:30:55,460 --> 00:30:57,500 we can't quite recapture now. 457 00:30:57,500 --> 00:31:01,300 At any rate, Boswell comes back to London and he publishes his journal 458 00:31:01,300 --> 00:31:05,980 of the travels in Corsica and he becomes famous for the first time. 459 00:31:09,940 --> 00:31:13,740 He parades around London, dressed up as a Corsican bandit. 460 00:31:13,740 --> 00:31:16,380 And for most of his life he's not known as the biographer 461 00:31:16,380 --> 00:31:20,300 of Johnson, he's known as Corsica Boswell. 462 00:31:20,300 --> 00:31:22,460 A celebrated figure at last, 463 00:31:22,460 --> 00:31:27,340 translations of his Journal sold widely across Europe. 464 00:31:27,340 --> 00:31:32,220 But if Johnson was impressed, he hid it well in his letters. 465 00:31:32,220 --> 00:31:35,060 I wish you would empty your head of Corsica, 466 00:31:35,060 --> 00:31:39,060 which I think has filled it for rather too long. 467 00:31:39,060 --> 00:31:43,820 But at all events, I shall be glad, very glad, to see you. 468 00:31:46,020 --> 00:31:51,100 I am, sir, yours affectionately, Sam Johnson. 469 00:31:51,100 --> 00:31:53,820 But how can you bid me empty my mind of Corsica? 470 00:31:53,820 --> 00:31:57,380 My noble-minded friend, do you not feel for an oppressed nation 471 00:31:57,380 --> 00:31:59,300 bravely struggling to be free? 472 00:31:59,300 --> 00:32:01,700 Consider fairly what is the case. 473 00:32:01,700 --> 00:32:04,460 The Corsicans never received any kindness from the Genoese. 474 00:32:04,460 --> 00:32:06,420 They never agreed to be subject to them. 475 00:32:06,420 --> 00:32:08,180 They owe them nothing, 476 00:32:08,180 --> 00:32:11,780 and when reduced to an abject state of slavery by force shall they not 477 00:32:11,780 --> 00:32:15,460 rise in the great cause of liberty and break the galling yoke? 478 00:32:17,620 --> 00:32:20,780 Corsica gave Boswell the courage to state words 479 00:32:20,780 --> 00:32:23,780 he would never dare utter in defence of his own country. 480 00:32:25,460 --> 00:32:28,140 Fame and fortune seemed to herald a more serious 481 00:32:28,140 --> 00:32:31,140 and responsible man altogether. 482 00:32:31,140 --> 00:32:34,660 A qualified lawyer in Edinburgh, Boswell even got married 483 00:32:34,660 --> 00:32:36,700 and started a family. 484 00:32:37,820 --> 00:32:40,260 But appearances can be deceptive. 485 00:32:40,260 --> 00:32:44,140 While in Scotland, he played the role of dutiful husband 486 00:32:44,140 --> 00:32:47,780 and father, in England, he was playing a very different part. 487 00:32:58,420 --> 00:33:02,740 Indulging in regular jaunts to London, Boswell was free 488 00:33:02,740 --> 00:33:05,700 to enjoy wine, women, and, of course, 489 00:33:05,700 --> 00:33:09,300 the company of his hero and mentor, Samuel Johnson. 490 00:33:12,020 --> 00:33:14,660 But he wasn't the only Scottish writer making 491 00:33:14,660 --> 00:33:16,620 a splash in the capital. 492 00:33:16,620 --> 00:33:19,260 James Macpherson claimed to have 493 00:33:19,260 --> 00:33:23,460 found and translated the ancient poems of a Gaelic bard called 494 00:33:23,460 --> 00:33:28,140 Ossian, and the publication of these epic tales of heroism caused 495 00:33:28,140 --> 00:33:32,220 a sensation, not just in England but across the continent. 496 00:33:32,220 --> 00:33:37,340 At last, Scottish culture was not something to hide or be suppressed. 497 00:33:39,180 --> 00:33:42,380 Reading them today, it's frankly hard to see why. 498 00:33:42,380 --> 00:33:44,860 They are the most terrible tosh. 499 00:33:44,860 --> 00:33:47,860 Nonetheless, this was the early age of Romanticism 500 00:33:47,860 --> 00:33:50,140 and it appealed to something in the atmosphere, 501 00:33:50,140 --> 00:33:51,540 everyone loved them. 502 00:33:51,540 --> 00:33:54,060 Not everyone, not Samuel Johnson. 503 00:33:54,060 --> 00:33:58,260 Johnson became convinced the poems were a complete fraud 504 00:33:58,260 --> 00:34:00,660 and the trouble with Johnson is once he thought something 505 00:34:00,660 --> 00:34:01,980 he couldn't help saying so. 506 00:34:01,980 --> 00:34:06,620 This, not unnaturally, infuriated James Macpherson, 507 00:34:06,620 --> 00:34:09,460 another big, strong man, six foot three, 508 00:34:09,460 --> 00:34:11,900 and he challenged Johnson to a duel. 509 00:34:11,900 --> 00:34:15,740 Johnson took to carrying a weighted stick with him 510 00:34:15,740 --> 00:34:20,620 at all times for protection but none of this stopped his invective. 511 00:34:20,620 --> 00:34:23,460 I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting 512 00:34:23,460 --> 00:34:26,860 what I think a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian! 513 00:34:26,860 --> 00:34:29,540 What would you have me retract? 514 00:34:29,540 --> 00:34:32,580 I thought your book an imposture. 515 00:34:32,580 --> 00:34:35,140 I think it an imposture still. 516 00:34:37,260 --> 00:34:40,260 Johnson's attitude to the Scots was legendary 517 00:34:40,260 --> 00:34:43,700 and merely inflamed by his feud with Macpherson. 518 00:34:43,700 --> 00:34:46,420 So I think it's even more astonishing to find that 519 00:34:46,420 --> 00:34:49,460 Boswell now set off upon a fresh mission - 520 00:34:49,460 --> 00:34:53,260 he would take Samuel Johnson on a tour of Scotland. 521 00:34:53,260 --> 00:34:57,780 Johnson was not a man easily moved in any sense 522 00:34:57,780 --> 00:35:00,460 and it is a testament to his feelings for Boswell that he 523 00:35:00,460 --> 00:35:02,780 agreed to set out on the journey at all. 524 00:35:02,780 --> 00:35:06,740 This was a bold and risky gamble, to take the most opinionated 525 00:35:06,740 --> 00:35:10,340 and influential Englishman north of the border. 526 00:35:17,900 --> 00:35:21,740 The great journey began here in the relative civilisation 527 00:35:21,740 --> 00:35:23,380 of central Edinburgh. 528 00:35:24,660 --> 00:35:28,500 I say relative, because Edinburgh in the 1770s wasn't 529 00:35:28,500 --> 00:35:31,740 quite as sophisticated as London. 530 00:35:31,740 --> 00:35:35,060 When Johnson arrived he called for lemonade, the waiter brought it, 531 00:35:35,060 --> 00:35:38,060 he said, "I'd like some sugar," the waiter dropped it into the glass 532 00:35:38,060 --> 00:35:41,060 and then mixed it with his extremely dirty finger. 533 00:35:41,060 --> 00:35:45,780 Johnson was appalled and outraged. But worse was to follow. 534 00:35:45,780 --> 00:35:50,380 The Scottish habit at the time was after one had done one's business 535 00:35:50,380 --> 00:35:54,060 to throw the resulting deposit out of a high window 536 00:35:54,060 --> 00:35:56,700 into the street, shouting out "Gardyloo!" 537 00:35:56,700 --> 00:35:59,620 which comes from the French "garde a l'eau", 538 00:35:59,620 --> 00:36:01,740 or "watch out for the water", 539 00:36:01,740 --> 00:36:03,420 and worse. 540 00:36:03,420 --> 00:36:05,620 And the great Dr Johnson was very nearly hit 541 00:36:05,620 --> 00:36:08,420 by a flying Scottish turd. 542 00:36:08,420 --> 00:36:11,300 But Johnson was rarely at a loss for something to say 543 00:36:11,300 --> 00:36:15,980 so he turned to Boswell, and said, "Sir, I smell you in the dark." 544 00:36:20,180 --> 00:36:22,780 All right, not perhaps the most auspicious start 545 00:36:22,780 --> 00:36:27,900 but Boswell was undeterred and headed to the old Parliament Hall. 546 00:36:36,220 --> 00:36:40,180 Always wanting to test him, Boswell brought Johnson here 547 00:36:40,180 --> 00:36:43,620 to the scene of the Scottish Parliament's suicide. 548 00:36:43,620 --> 00:36:47,940 "I here began to indulge old Scottish sentiments and to express 549 00:36:47,940 --> 00:36:52,940 "a warm regret that by our Union with England we were no more. 550 00:36:52,940 --> 00:36:54,980 "Our independent kingdom was lost." 551 00:36:54,980 --> 00:36:57,180 Would the old man soften? 552 00:36:57,180 --> 00:36:59,060 He would not! 553 00:36:59,060 --> 00:37:03,020 "You would have been glad, however, to have had us last war, sir, 554 00:37:03,020 --> 00:37:04,420 "to fight your battles." 555 00:37:04,420 --> 00:37:07,420 "We should have had you for the same price, 556 00:37:07,420 --> 00:37:10,940 "though there had been no Union, as we might have had Swiss or other troops. 557 00:37:10,940 --> 00:37:14,460 "No, no, I shall agree to a separation. 558 00:37:14,460 --> 00:37:16,460 "You have only to go home." 559 00:37:19,420 --> 00:37:22,580 If Edinburgh didn't thaw Johnson's attitude, 560 00:37:22,580 --> 00:37:26,500 the wild north was an even less appealing proposition. 561 00:37:26,500 --> 00:37:30,540 And yet, having journeyed for three weeks all the way to 562 00:37:30,540 --> 00:37:35,220 Inverness, Boswell and Johnson would decide to spend a whole month, 563 00:37:35,220 --> 00:37:39,860 more than a third of their entire tour, on one small island. 564 00:37:52,540 --> 00:37:56,140 Now this is, bizarrely and unforgivably, 565 00:37:56,140 --> 00:38:01,020 my first time on Skye, and it can get a bit wild and woolly. 566 00:38:01,020 --> 00:38:06,100 But you have to imagine Johnson and Boswell doing this on ponies 567 00:38:06,100 --> 00:38:10,740 with old-fashioned clothing, this was a genuinely daunting wilderness. 568 00:38:12,820 --> 00:38:16,300 It was a bit like the first Europeans breaking through 569 00:38:16,300 --> 00:38:18,300 to the American Wild West. 570 00:38:22,540 --> 00:38:26,380 Bleak, beautiful, unforgiving and harsh, 571 00:38:26,380 --> 00:38:29,900 this landscape would have challenged even the fittest traveller, 572 00:38:29,900 --> 00:38:33,260 let alone the 63-year-old Dr Johnson. 573 00:38:35,020 --> 00:38:39,180 And to make matters worse, they chose to travel in September. 574 00:38:39,180 --> 00:38:40,380 THUNDER ROLLS 575 00:38:44,380 --> 00:38:49,020 Their first experiences of local hospitality were mixed - 576 00:38:49,020 --> 00:38:53,540 at best, charmingly rustic, at worst, primitive, 577 00:38:53,540 --> 00:38:56,460 not helped by the torrential rain. 578 00:38:58,500 --> 00:39:02,140 However, after a week, the clouds began to lift and they were able to 579 00:39:02,140 --> 00:39:04,740 sail across to the Isle of Raasay. 580 00:39:04,740 --> 00:39:06,820 At last, fortune shined on them. 581 00:39:09,900 --> 00:39:13,820 Boswell and Johnson enjoyed a wonderful four days of drinking 582 00:39:13,820 --> 00:39:18,380 and dancing, topped off with an invitation from the clan chief 583 00:39:18,380 --> 00:39:23,060 of the MacLeods to come and join him at his castle at Dunvegan. 584 00:39:23,060 --> 00:39:27,740 No surprise perhaps that while Johnson rested his weary feet, 585 00:39:27,740 --> 00:39:29,140 Boswell found the energy 586 00:39:29,140 --> 00:39:30,860 to climb the nearest mountain 587 00:39:30,860 --> 00:39:32,180 and dance a jig! 588 00:39:36,460 --> 00:39:38,300 Back on Skye, Boswell 589 00:39:38,300 --> 00:39:42,620 and Johnson chose to take the long route to Dunvegan Castle. 590 00:39:42,620 --> 00:39:45,220 There was an even more eminent appointment 591 00:39:45,220 --> 00:39:47,420 they were determined to keep, 592 00:39:47,420 --> 00:39:49,900 to meet Flora MacDonald - 593 00:39:49,900 --> 00:39:55,340 a woman who has become mythologised in Scottish culture, 594 00:39:55,340 --> 00:39:57,860 and even then was a living legend. 595 00:40:00,060 --> 00:40:03,940 20 years earlier, she'd risked life and limb to harbour 596 00:40:03,940 --> 00:40:08,180 Bonnie Prince Charlie, disguising him as her maidservant 597 00:40:08,180 --> 00:40:09,740 to get him out of Scotland. 598 00:40:13,180 --> 00:40:17,860 To see Dr Samuel Johnson, great champion of the English Tories, 599 00:40:17,860 --> 00:40:22,340 salute Miss Flora MacDonald in the Isle of Skye was a striking sight. 600 00:40:26,900 --> 00:40:30,580 We were entertained with the usual hospitality by Mr MacDonald 601 00:40:30,580 --> 00:40:33,140 and his lady, Flora MacDonald, 602 00:40:33,140 --> 00:40:36,660 a name that will be mentioned in history 603 00:40:36,660 --> 00:40:41,460 and if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour. 604 00:40:44,060 --> 00:40:47,580 Boswell was almost skipping with delight at introducing 605 00:40:47,580 --> 00:40:50,260 the old English Tory to the Jacobite heroine, 606 00:40:50,260 --> 00:40:55,300 and Johnson was suitably impressed, not just by her soft features and 607 00:40:55,300 --> 00:41:00,020 demeanour, but by the courage and loyalty she had shown to her prince. 608 00:41:00,020 --> 00:41:04,140 Unlike the mythic poems of Ossian, this was a genuine modern 609 00:41:04,140 --> 00:41:06,340 story of Highland heroism. 610 00:41:09,700 --> 00:41:12,540 For all the mythology that surrounded her, 611 00:41:12,540 --> 00:41:16,220 the circumstances that Flora found herself in were all too real. 612 00:41:18,860 --> 00:41:23,740 The Highlands were an economy and a culture in decline 613 00:41:23,740 --> 00:41:27,340 and it would be less than a year before Flora MacDonald herself 614 00:41:27,340 --> 00:41:29,620 would emigrate to America. 615 00:41:33,380 --> 00:41:36,180 The destruction of the old Highland way of life was caused by 616 00:41:36,180 --> 00:41:38,980 two things coming together at the same time. 617 00:41:38,980 --> 00:41:41,620 On the one hand, the repression after Culloden, 618 00:41:41,620 --> 00:41:45,420 and that was real and bloodthirsty and hugely destructive 619 00:41:45,420 --> 00:41:47,140 of the Gaelic culture. 620 00:41:47,140 --> 00:41:49,420 But there were also big economic forces. 621 00:41:49,420 --> 00:41:53,140 The owners of the glens and the hills discovered that it 622 00:41:53,140 --> 00:41:57,020 was much cheaper and easier to have sheep rather than stroppy people. 623 00:41:57,020 --> 00:42:00,980 And at the same time the opening up of America gave the people 624 00:42:00,980 --> 00:42:03,140 here a reason to hope for a better life. 625 00:42:08,220 --> 00:42:12,020 Leaving Flora behind them, Boswell and Johnson continued 626 00:42:12,020 --> 00:42:15,780 on their journey to Dunvegan, across particularly tough terrain. 627 00:42:22,540 --> 00:42:26,020 "We passed through a wild moor, in many places so soft that we 628 00:42:26,020 --> 00:42:29,500 "were obliged to walk, which was very fatiguing to Dr Johnson. 629 00:42:32,580 --> 00:42:36,660 "Once he had advanced on horseback to a very bad step. There was 630 00:42:36,660 --> 00:42:38,700 "a steep declivity on his left to which he was 631 00:42:38,700 --> 00:42:42,140 "so near that there was no room for him to dismount in the usual way. 632 00:42:42,140 --> 00:42:44,180 "He tried to alight on the other side, 633 00:42:44,180 --> 00:42:46,820 "as if he had been a young buck indeed, 634 00:42:46,820 --> 00:42:49,940 "but in the attempt he fell at his length upon the ground." 635 00:42:53,100 --> 00:42:57,380 So, it was with some relief that they finally saw the austere 636 00:42:57,380 --> 00:43:00,820 and exposed building jutting out from the rocks. 637 00:43:02,980 --> 00:43:06,780 And even more so when they breached the castle walls. 638 00:43:20,260 --> 00:43:24,580 Now, the house may have changed but the effect has not. 639 00:43:24,580 --> 00:43:29,460 This was an unexpected haven of sophistication and geniality, 640 00:43:29,460 --> 00:43:34,820 with good food, a cracking library, and gracious company. 641 00:43:34,820 --> 00:43:37,580 Rising out of the moorland and the rain, 642 00:43:37,580 --> 00:43:41,620 this was a little bubble of friendship and society. 643 00:43:43,100 --> 00:43:48,100 Johnson and Boswell decided to stay in Dunvegan for a whole week 644 00:43:48,100 --> 00:43:52,220 and during that time a miracle happened. 645 00:43:52,220 --> 00:43:53,980 BAGPIPES PLAY 646 00:43:56,060 --> 00:43:58,300 "We had the music of the bagpipe every day 647 00:43:58,300 --> 00:44:00,100 "at Armidale, Dunvegan and Col. 648 00:44:03,500 --> 00:44:07,820 "Dr Johnson appeared fond of it and used often to stand for some time 649 00:44:07,820 --> 00:44:10,260 "with his ear close to the great drone." 650 00:44:12,580 --> 00:44:17,620 Samuel Johnson was quite deaf, but he had loved it here, it was a kind 651 00:44:17,620 --> 00:44:21,820 of paradise for him and he couldn't bear that he had to go home. 652 00:44:24,300 --> 00:44:26,940 "The kind treatment which I have found wherever I go 653 00:44:26,940 --> 00:44:29,580 "makes me leave with some heaviness of heart 654 00:44:29,580 --> 00:44:32,620 "an island which I am not likely to see again. 655 00:44:32,620 --> 00:44:36,300 "Lady MacLeod and the young ladies have, with their hospitality and 656 00:44:36,300 --> 00:44:39,620 "politeness, made an impression on my mind 657 00:44:39,620 --> 00:44:41,620 "which will not easily be effaced. 658 00:44:41,620 --> 00:44:46,860 "Be pleased to tell them that I remember them with great kindness and great respect. 659 00:44:46,860 --> 00:44:50,860 "I am, sir, your most obliged and humble servant, Sam Johnson." 660 00:44:50,860 --> 00:44:53,900 It's a remarkable letter, it's sort of splodged slightly. 661 00:44:53,900 --> 00:44:56,500 Possibly because he wrote it in the rain, or possibly because 662 00:44:56,500 --> 00:44:59,140 it's been pored over ever since by the family, we're not sure. 663 00:44:59,140 --> 00:45:00,260 I love the idea of them 664 00:45:00,260 --> 00:45:03,300 sitting there in the rain and just about making the words visible. 665 00:45:03,300 --> 00:45:06,380 Now we know that Johnson was a romantic about these things 666 00:45:06,380 --> 00:45:08,580 and he wanted your family to stay firmly rooted 667 00:45:08,580 --> 00:45:10,820 to their rock in Dunvegan, not to move. 668 00:45:10,820 --> 00:45:12,780 They weren't quite so keen, were they? 669 00:45:12,780 --> 00:45:15,740 I don't think so, I think for Dr Johnson it was romantic, 670 00:45:15,740 --> 00:45:18,340 I think for poor Lady MacLeod it was very difficult. 671 00:45:18,340 --> 00:45:20,940 I think she didn't buy Johnson's argument that it was 672 00:45:20,940 --> 00:45:24,660 given by the four corners of the earth or the heavens to achieve 673 00:45:24,660 --> 00:45:26,260 and they must never ever quit the rock. 674 00:45:26,260 --> 00:45:28,900 I think she said, "That's OK for you to say, you live in London." 675 00:45:28,900 --> 00:45:31,540 She was quite a woman, there's a beautiful painting of her, 676 00:45:31,540 --> 00:45:33,420 but she was the one that entranced Johnson. 677 00:45:33,420 --> 00:45:35,740 What's interesting for me is that, you know, 678 00:45:35,740 --> 00:45:38,500 with portraits they're inanimate objects and having this 679 00:45:38,500 --> 00:45:41,140 incredible snapshot with Boswell's diary showing a little bit 680 00:45:41,140 --> 00:45:43,740 of Dr Johnson and the dialogue between him and my family, 681 00:45:43,740 --> 00:45:45,340 it really brings them to life, 682 00:45:45,340 --> 00:45:47,380 and it's just lovely to hear their voices. 683 00:45:51,020 --> 00:45:54,660 "At Dunvegan I had tasted lotus, 684 00:45:54,660 --> 00:45:57,700 "and was in danger of forgetting that I was ever to depart." 685 00:45:59,580 --> 00:46:03,820 Johnson had clearly fallen for the romantic drama of Highland life, 686 00:46:03,820 --> 00:46:08,060 he even fantasised about staying far longer. 687 00:46:09,660 --> 00:46:13,940 "There is a beautiful little island in the Loch of Dunvegan, called Isay. 688 00:46:13,940 --> 00:46:17,460 "MacLeod said he would give it to Dr Johnson, on condition 689 00:46:17,460 --> 00:46:21,460 "of him residing on it three months in the year, nay one month. 690 00:46:21,460 --> 00:46:25,260 "Dr Johnson was highly amused with the fancy. 691 00:46:26,780 --> 00:46:28,980 "He talked a great deal of this island." 692 00:46:31,660 --> 00:46:35,100 It became a light, childish dream for Samuel Johnson. 693 00:46:35,100 --> 00:46:38,700 He dreamed of building a house here and fortifying it with cannon 694 00:46:38,700 --> 00:46:41,740 and sallying out and attacking other islands. 695 00:46:41,740 --> 00:46:45,980 His enemies always called him "Ursa Major", the Great Bear. 696 00:46:45,980 --> 00:46:49,740 And I think it's perfectly possible to imagine the bear himself 697 00:46:49,740 --> 00:46:52,660 capering with delight on his own little kingdom. 698 00:46:54,020 --> 00:46:57,100 It's cold and it's breezy and he'd have felt queasy 699 00:46:57,100 --> 00:47:00,180 but the great Samuel Johnson nearly ruled Isay. 700 00:47:03,380 --> 00:47:06,060 The archetypal Englishman his very own laird? 701 00:47:06,060 --> 00:47:08,580 Boswell must have been flushed with success, 702 00:47:08,580 --> 00:47:10,860 but the tour was far from over. 703 00:47:10,860 --> 00:47:15,900 There remained one person Boswell felt duty-bound to introduce. 704 00:47:18,380 --> 00:47:21,700 The pair finally headed south, to Auchinleck. 705 00:47:23,300 --> 00:47:27,300 Here the two paternal forces in Boswell's life were to collide. 706 00:47:27,300 --> 00:47:31,220 Boswell was uncharacteristically nervous. 707 00:47:31,220 --> 00:47:34,820 He begged Johnson to avoid topics that would cause an argument.. 708 00:47:36,100 --> 00:47:39,100 ..and Johnson promised he would, of course, avoid subjects 709 00:47:39,100 --> 00:47:41,140 that would be disagreeable. 710 00:47:43,420 --> 00:47:46,380 That was a promise that Johnson couldn't have honoured even if 711 00:47:46,380 --> 00:47:47,940 he'd wanted to. 712 00:47:47,940 --> 00:47:50,180 Modern opinion is that his many tics 713 00:47:50,180 --> 00:47:53,740 and spasms were symptoms of Tourette's syndrome. 714 00:47:53,740 --> 00:47:56,140 Effectively, he couldn't help himself. 715 00:47:56,140 --> 00:47:57,820 But here in this library, 716 00:47:57,820 --> 00:48:01,660 day after day, he did his best to rein himself in. 717 00:48:01,660 --> 00:48:04,900 Until, right at the end, it all went catastrophically wrong. 718 00:48:07,540 --> 00:48:10,580 "If I recollect right, the contest began 719 00:48:10,580 --> 00:48:13,300 "while my father was showing him his collection of medals 720 00:48:13,300 --> 00:48:18,060 "and Oliver Cromwell's coin unfortunately introduced Charles I and Toryism. 721 00:48:19,380 --> 00:48:23,420 "They became exceedingly warm, and violent, and I was very much 722 00:48:23,420 --> 00:48:27,060 "distressed by being present at such an altercation between the two men, 723 00:48:27,060 --> 00:48:31,100 "both of whom I reverenced, yet I durst not interfere." 724 00:48:36,740 --> 00:48:40,020 It would certainly be very unbecoming in me to exhibit 725 00:48:40,020 --> 00:48:43,740 my honoured father, and my respected friend, as intellectual gladiators, 726 00:48:43,740 --> 00:48:45,940 for the entertainment of the public. 727 00:48:45,940 --> 00:48:49,780 Therefore, I suppress what would, I dare say, 728 00:48:49,780 --> 00:48:53,460 make an interesting scene in this dramatic sketch, 729 00:48:53,460 --> 00:48:58,420 this account of the transit of Johnson over the Caledonian hemisphere. 730 00:48:58,420 --> 00:49:04,340 Now this is really weird because Boswell never self-censors. 731 00:49:04,340 --> 00:49:07,860 There is nothing about his most embarrassing and shameful encounters 732 00:49:07,860 --> 00:49:12,660 with prostitutes, or his gonorrhoea, or his bowel problems, that he 733 00:49:12,660 --> 00:49:16,180 won't write down, which is why he is such an interesting writer. 734 00:49:16,180 --> 00:49:19,420 But on this occasion, probably for the first and only time, 735 00:49:19,420 --> 00:49:22,100 he shuts the door on us. 736 00:49:22,100 --> 00:49:24,260 There's something about the confrontation 737 00:49:24,260 --> 00:49:26,300 between the revered Samuel Johnson 738 00:49:26,300 --> 00:49:31,300 and his own admired father which is simply too painful to write down. 739 00:49:31,300 --> 00:49:35,900 One gets the sense that there are cracks or fissures running through 740 00:49:35,900 --> 00:49:41,100 Boswell's personality and he simply can't bear to let us peer into them. 741 00:49:45,500 --> 00:49:49,700 Despite the unfortunate clash, Boswell's gamble had paid off. 742 00:49:49,700 --> 00:49:54,620 The tour had achieved the seemingly impossible and shown Johnson 743 00:49:54,620 --> 00:49:59,780 a Scotland of nobility, beauty, culture and hospitality. 744 00:50:01,620 --> 00:50:03,820 He said to me often, that the time he 745 00:50:03,820 --> 00:50:07,820 spent in this tour was the pleasantest part of his life, 746 00:50:07,820 --> 00:50:12,140 and he asked me if I would lose the recollection of it for 500 pounds. 747 00:50:12,140 --> 00:50:15,060 I answered I would not, 748 00:50:15,060 --> 00:50:18,300 and he applauded my setting such 749 00:50:18,300 --> 00:50:21,580 a value on an accession of new images in my mind. 750 00:50:24,460 --> 00:50:28,300 Now, you might take Boswell's words with a pinch of salt, 751 00:50:28,300 --> 00:50:32,420 so let's judge Samuel Johnson on his actions, not on words. 752 00:50:32,420 --> 00:50:36,220 When he goes down to London again, the first thing that Johnson does 753 00:50:36,220 --> 00:50:41,980 is promote vigorously the widespread distribution of the Bible in Gaelic. 754 00:50:41,980 --> 00:50:44,140 And thanks to Johnson, it's the Bible, 755 00:50:44,140 --> 00:50:46,260 not the spurious poems of Ossian, 756 00:50:46,260 --> 00:50:48,580 that's become the most important book 757 00:50:48,580 --> 00:50:49,860 in the Scottish Highlands. 758 00:50:49,860 --> 00:50:54,460 A great gift to the Scottish people from that alleged 759 00:50:54,460 --> 00:50:57,300 Scotophobe, Samuel Johnson. 760 00:51:00,700 --> 00:51:04,820 A decade after the tour, Johnson died, aged 75. 761 00:51:07,660 --> 00:51:09,980 Still reeling from the shock, 762 00:51:09,980 --> 00:51:14,180 the very next day Boswell was petitioned to write the life of his dear friend. 763 00:51:18,060 --> 00:51:21,940 Finally, he stuck to a task, and it was published to great acclaim. 764 00:51:23,140 --> 00:51:27,820 Widely regarded today as the greatest work of 18th century English prose, 765 00:51:27,820 --> 00:51:33,500 it ensured Samuel Johnson would go on to become a cultural colossus. 766 00:51:35,060 --> 00:51:38,740 But in death, as in life, this was far from a partnership of equals. 767 00:51:40,220 --> 00:51:44,340 Samuel Johnson was buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, 768 00:51:44,340 --> 00:51:47,660 though, gallingly, just a few feet from the great Ossian 769 00:51:47,660 --> 00:51:50,100 fraudster, James Macpherson. 770 00:51:54,180 --> 00:51:58,900 But it is in St Paul's Cathedral where the grumpy, garrulous, 771 00:51:58,900 --> 00:52:02,020 greedy Englishman cuts the most impressive figure. 772 00:52:05,980 --> 00:52:08,340 So grand and impressive that, frankly, 773 00:52:08,340 --> 00:52:11,900 it's hard to recognise him as the same man. 774 00:52:13,780 --> 00:52:18,540 It was actually James Boswell who campaigned and raised the money for 775 00:52:18,540 --> 00:52:21,380 this magnificent statue which makes 776 00:52:21,380 --> 00:52:23,980 Sam Johnson look like a Roman boxer - 777 00:52:23,980 --> 00:52:28,180 the man of letters as a beefy, meaty hero, 778 00:52:28,180 --> 00:52:31,300 and even today people from all around the world 779 00:52:31,300 --> 00:52:33,620 pass by to pay homage. 780 00:52:33,620 --> 00:52:37,860 So how, you may ask yourself, was James Boswell remembered? 781 00:52:41,580 --> 00:52:46,620 Surely I am a man of genius. I deserve to be taken notice of. 782 00:52:46,620 --> 00:52:50,140 Oh, that my grandchildren might read this character of me. 783 00:52:50,140 --> 00:52:54,020 James Boswell, a most amiable man. 784 00:52:54,020 --> 00:52:58,020 He improved and beautified his paternal estate of Auchinleck, 785 00:52:58,020 --> 00:53:00,860 made a distinguished figure in parliament, 786 00:53:00,860 --> 00:53:04,500 had the honour to command a regiment of footguards, 787 00:53:04,500 --> 00:53:08,740 and was one of the brightest wits in the court of George III. 788 00:53:10,220 --> 00:53:11,180 SUDDEN CLICK 789 00:53:12,420 --> 00:53:15,100 It didn't turn out quite as Boswell had imagined. 790 00:53:16,420 --> 00:53:19,300 He became neither a soldier nor an MP. 791 00:53:20,980 --> 00:53:25,620 In fact, poor Boswell died in 1795, aged 54, 792 00:53:25,620 --> 00:53:30,460 of a urinary tract infection probably caused by gonorrhoea. 793 00:53:35,020 --> 00:53:37,820 His body was laid to rest back in Scotland, 794 00:53:37,820 --> 00:53:40,180 in the churchyard of Auchinleck. 795 00:53:40,180 --> 00:53:42,820 You'd miss it if you didn't know where to look. 796 00:53:42,820 --> 00:53:48,140 There are no statues here, no crowds, not even a plaque. 797 00:53:53,580 --> 00:53:56,740 So, James, it's a bit derelict, it's a bit damp, 798 00:53:56,740 --> 00:53:58,340 where exactly are we? 799 00:53:58,340 --> 00:54:01,460 We're standing in the Boswell family mausoleum 800 00:54:01,460 --> 00:54:03,220 in Auchinleck churchyard 801 00:54:03,220 --> 00:54:06,940 and it is normally bolted and barred from everybody 802 00:54:06,940 --> 00:54:09,700 and rarely entered. 803 00:54:09,700 --> 00:54:11,900 It's almost as if Scotland doesn't really want to 804 00:54:11,900 --> 00:54:13,140 remember James Boswell. 805 00:54:13,140 --> 00:54:14,820 Where is the man himself? 806 00:54:14,820 --> 00:54:17,860 Well, we're, I have to say, standing almost above him 807 00:54:17,860 --> 00:54:20,740 because he's buried beneath this trap door. 808 00:54:22,300 --> 00:54:24,700 It's like the scene from Hamlet, Hamlet's ghost. 809 00:54:24,700 --> 00:54:25,660 It is indeed. 810 00:54:27,220 --> 00:54:28,660 Oh, my God! 811 00:54:30,020 --> 00:54:33,140 God, it's a dark and a gloomy sight. 812 00:54:41,540 --> 00:54:44,820 "JB". There he is. 813 00:54:44,820 --> 00:54:47,900 So this is literally a comedown. 814 00:54:47,900 --> 00:54:52,260 The last burying place of a man who has been scandalously 815 00:54:52,260 --> 00:54:54,780 overlooked in his own Scotland. 816 00:54:54,780 --> 00:54:56,580 Poor Bozzy. 817 00:54:56,580 --> 00:54:59,100 And this, you know, is just not right. 818 00:54:59,100 --> 00:55:02,500 There are the mortal remains of one of the greatest journalists 819 00:55:02,500 --> 00:55:06,980 who ever lived, the man who invented the modern literary biography. 820 00:55:06,980 --> 00:55:10,740 He should be surrounded by the most extraordinary baroque building 821 00:55:10,740 --> 00:55:14,660 you've ever seen, full of noise and dancing and laughter and the 822 00:55:14,660 --> 00:55:16,940 clinking and breaking of glasses. 823 00:55:16,940 --> 00:55:19,660 Not the silence, not the rain! 824 00:55:26,620 --> 00:55:30,900 But times are changing, and Boswell is stepping out of the shadows. 825 00:55:33,020 --> 00:55:35,140 Until a century ago, Boswell's achievement 826 00:55:35,140 --> 00:55:38,500 remained very much his Life Of Johnson. 827 00:55:38,500 --> 00:55:42,780 His diaries remained under lock and key, a shameful family secret. 828 00:55:42,780 --> 00:55:46,620 But finally a persistent professor from Yale University 829 00:55:46,620 --> 00:55:50,980 secured their publication and they soon jostled Churchill's 830 00:55:50,980 --> 00:55:53,860 memoirs at the very top of the bestsellers' lists. 831 00:55:57,380 --> 00:56:02,020 Today, Boswell enthusiasts can pilgrimage to the family estate 832 00:56:02,020 --> 00:56:04,820 to attend an annual book festival. 833 00:56:04,820 --> 00:56:07,860 You can even stay in the house. 834 00:56:10,140 --> 00:56:13,820 The empty rooms are overrun by arty types. 835 00:56:13,820 --> 00:56:18,860 Boswell would have been so pleased - his father, I think, less so. 836 00:56:21,620 --> 00:56:26,420 Not only did he pioneer the whole modern field of literary biography with that Life Of Johnson. 837 00:56:26,420 --> 00:56:29,260 You open up any newspaper with bestseller lists 838 00:56:29,260 --> 00:56:32,340 and there will be biographies in that list somewhere, 839 00:56:32,340 --> 00:56:35,300 and quite probably biographies of writers, which is 840 00:56:35,300 --> 00:56:38,180 a strange thing when you think about it, because what do writers do? 841 00:56:38,180 --> 00:56:41,620 Nothing. They sit around and write, what could be interesting about this? 842 00:56:43,700 --> 00:56:46,540 It's slightly intimidating. I've got up today 843 00:56:46,540 --> 00:56:50,660 and here I am sitting at an old desk in Boswell's own business room, 844 00:56:50,660 --> 00:56:54,340 the very room, probably, where he wrote some of his great diary. 845 00:56:54,340 --> 00:56:55,700 I write a diary as well, 846 00:56:55,700 --> 00:56:58,780 I write a diary every day and have done for many, many years. 847 00:56:58,780 --> 00:57:00,820 It's a kind of idiotic schoolboy diary, 848 00:57:00,820 --> 00:57:04,260 "Got up, sun shining, had eggs for breakfast, very tasty" - 849 00:57:04,260 --> 00:57:07,260 that kind of diary. I ask myself why I'm writing it. 850 00:57:07,260 --> 00:57:10,700 I think it's a kind of act of kind of mental hygiene, 851 00:57:10,700 --> 00:57:12,940 a sort of throat-clearing every day, a tic, 852 00:57:12,940 --> 00:57:15,700 a habit, and also, of course, outrageous vanity. 853 00:57:15,700 --> 00:57:17,820 I guess Boswell thought a bit the same, 854 00:57:17,820 --> 00:57:20,660 a lot of his diary is his reflections on how much he's 855 00:57:20,660 --> 00:57:23,540 messed up his life, how much he's had to drink, how much he's 856 00:57:23,540 --> 00:57:26,100 had to eat, which is why, of course, it's still so readable. 857 00:57:31,020 --> 00:57:36,980 Confused, inconsistent, passionate and pragmatic by turns, his is 858 00:57:36,980 --> 00:57:41,900 not a heroic story, but James Boswell laid himself bare - 859 00:57:41,900 --> 00:57:46,740 a real man constantly searching for his place inside the Union. 860 00:57:48,260 --> 00:57:52,180 If he'd never come to London, he'd never have found his life's 861 00:57:52,180 --> 00:57:54,980 great subject, and if he'd never met Johnson, 862 00:57:54,980 --> 00:57:59,100 then Johnson would have seemed a thinner, duller man today. 863 00:58:00,660 --> 00:58:05,660 So, less Boswell without Johnson, and less Johnson without Boswell. 864 00:58:05,660 --> 00:58:09,380 This is perhaps the prime example in literature of two men, 865 00:58:09,380 --> 00:58:13,100 the Scot and the Englishman, who achieved far more together 866 00:58:13,100 --> 00:58:15,860 than they would ever have done had they never met. 867 00:58:19,340 --> 00:58:22,660 In the next programme, a Scottish writer will prove, 868 00:58:22,660 --> 00:58:26,380 once and for all, that if you really want to be remembered you don't 869 00:58:26,380 --> 00:58:30,860 get bogged down by murky facts, you tell a cracking tale! 870 00:58:32,140 --> 00:58:36,060 Walter Scott created a seductive and enduring myth of tartan 871 00:58:36,060 --> 00:58:40,260 and chieftains, which remains, for better or worse, 872 00:58:40,260 --> 00:58:44,100 the most recognisable face of Scottish identity.