finest thing in England. He goes through the political and religious and social motions of conforming with the age, and works quite a bit of ardor into his conformity. He calls himself a Tory, a Christian and a gentleman, and he keeps up appearances as well as he can when he isn't drunk. But his gentility, his Christianity and his Toryism are garments which he has got at the tailor's, like his suit of imperial blue with the rose-colored lining. At heart, one is tempted to say, the man is a rationalist, a free-thinking deist, a "child of nature," and far better qualified for discipleship to Rousseau than to Johnson.
If one were bent on proving Boswell a hollow sham and a contemptible hypocrite one could find abundant evidence in his outpourings to Temple.
After innumerable previous affairs of the heart and of the flesh he does marry a cousin and beget three daughters and two sons, to perpetuate his ancient race. He thinks an ancient race is a good thing and ought to be preserved—if it can be done without interfering with more interesting occupations. But he doesn't even consider settling down after his marriage to be a country gentleman. He leaves his "valuable" wife—his constantly recurring epithet for her—to manage his estate and the children in the country. He is glad to pay her an occasional visit, but he is also glad that she doesn't care to live in town. For his part, he candidly recognizes that he is "too many, as the phrase is, for one woman, and a certain transient connection I am persuaded does not interfere with that attachment which a man has for a wife and which I have as much as any man that ever lived, though some of my qualifications are not valued by her, as they have been by other women—aye, and well educated women, too."
