Greetings all,
I just found this site and have already placed it in my zotero collection. As the Ahnold says, I'll be back. I've long been a Boswell fan, ever since I read about the discovery of his Journals in Richard Altick's The Scholar Adventurers.
But more to the point, I recall reading, in graduate school many years back, an essay by Boswell where he lays out anb argument for one being able to account for taste, for good and bad. I don't recall if this was a stand alone essay, a passage from his Journals perhaps, or from Johnson. If anyone knows and can point me in the right direction, I'd be grateful.
James Boswell died in 1795 believing he had touched and kissed a cache of Shakespeare's original letters and papers discovered by a Mr. Ireland. His friend, Edmond Malone, publicly exposed the lot as a forgery just a year later.
I suspect you may be thinking about a passage from the Life of Johnson. Boswell and General Paoli paid Johnson a visit on Easter Sunday, 1772 and Boswell related their discussion about taste as follows:
Talking on the subject of taste in the arts, he [Johnson] said, that difference of taste was, in truth, difference in skill. BOSWELL. "But, Sir, is there not a quality called taste, which consists merely in perception or in liking; for instance, we find people differ much as to what is the best style of English composition. Some think Swift's the best; others prefer a fuller and grander way of writing." JOHNSON. "Sir, yuou must first define what you mean by style, before you can judge who has a good taste in style, and who has a bad. The two classes of persons whom you have mentioned, don't differ as to good and bad. They both agree that Swift has a good neat style; but one loves a neat style, another loves a style of more splendour. In like manner, one loves a plain coat, another loves a laced coat; but neither will deny that each is good in its kind."
Boswell may have touched upon the subject in one of his Hypocondriack essays as well, but I seem to have misplaced my copy of Bailey's edition of the complete essays, so I can't check it just now.
Best wishes,
Thomas, webmaster at jamesboswell.info
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