It has been 180 years since Lord Macaulay published his damning description of James Boswell in his review of the Croker edition of the Life of Johnson. I am glad to observe, however, that public perception of Boswell has changed a good deal since then.
On October 29, 2011,on the 271st anniversary of James Boswell's birth, a memorial stone in his honour was revealed at Makars' Court in Edinburgh.
During the 17th century Moffat began to grow from a small village into a popular spa town. The sulphurous waters of Moffat Spa were believed to have healing properties.
The town today is well preserved and many remnants of the 19th century spa town remains.
Boswell stayed for weeks at Moffat at various times of his life, including once in his teens and also after his return from his "grand tour" of Europe in 1766 "to wash off a few scurvy spots which the warmer climates of Europe had brought out on my skin", as he put it in a letter to his friend William Temple (letter of May 17, 1766, printed in Boswell in Search of a Wife).
"We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed", reads one of the most oft-quoted passages from Boswell's Life of Johnson.
For the first time in years, a new significant finding of Boswell material has been made, with the discovery at the Bodleian library of Boswell's own 39 page draft for a dictionary of the Scots language, containing about 800 Scots words and phrases.
The Boswell Museum and Mausoleum Trust has announced the inaugural Boswell Book Festival which is to take place on the grounds of Auchinleck House on May 20 - 22, 2011.
Tonight sees the opening of a new play, A Dish of Tea with Doctor Johnson, based on writings of James Boswell.
This Christmas on TV you can watch Rory McGrath, Dara O’Briain and Griff Rhys-Jones go in Boswell and Johnson's footsteps on a ten-day tour through the Scottish Highlands all the way out to the Hebrides.
The first episode will be shown on BBC 2 on December 27, 2010, at 8.00 pm. The second episode will be shown on December 30 at 8:00 pm.
Today is biographer's day, the 247th anniversary of James Boswell and Samuel Johnson's first meeting, which took place on this day in 1763 at Thomas Davies' bookshop near Covent Garden, London.
