Odd this day
Well, if it’s 19 January, that must mean… YES! It’s 261 years since the 22-year-old James Boswell discovered, during his second stay in London, that he had the clap for the third time. (There would be at least 16 other occasions in the following 32 years.)
The evening was passed most cheerfully. When I got home, though, then came sorrow. Too, too plain was Signor Gonorrhoea.
The first signs had appeared the day before. Not that that had put him off his evening’s entertainment…
I this day began to feel an unaccountable alarm of unexpected evil: a little heat in the members of my body sacred to Cupid... But then I had run no risks. I had been with no woman but Louisa; and sure she could not have such a thing. Away then with such idle fears, such groundless, uneasy apprehensions! When I came to Louisa’s, I felt myself stout and well, and most courageously did I plunge into the fount of love, and had vast pleasure as I enjoyed her as an actress who had played many a fine lady’s part.
(This whole post should probably come with a content warning: unfiltered thoughts of a randy, 18th century, old goat.)
It seems, from a look at his diaries, that he was telling the truth about his fidelity to Louisa (an actress whose real name was Anne Lewis). He had been exclusively hers, at least for a few weeks, but this was, let’s say, untypical behaviour.
His diary records regular sexual encounters with numerous prostitutes, and the ensuing bouts of painful venereal infections. In fact, he contracted venereal disease from his very first sexual encounter. To give an idea of his sexual activities: between the ages of 20 and 29, he slept with three married gentlewomen, four actresses, managed a fling with Rousseau’s mistress, kept three mistresses and had connections with at least 60 streetwalkers. His sexual appetite was uncommonly large and his friends tended to regard his frequent infections as something of a joke.
That’s from:
And… oh dear, this particular dalliance had started so well. In December 1762, he “called several times for a handsome actress of Covent Garden Theatre” and by 17th, was in the throes of passion. Well, kind of.
I engaged in this amour just with a view of convenient pleasure but the god of pleasing anguish now seriously seized my breast. I felt the fine delirium of love.
On 22nd, he “beseeched her”. On Boxing Day, “I told her my passion in the warmest terms. I told her that my happiness absolutely depended upon her”, but she “said that we should take time to consider of it”.
It turned out she was worried about her landlady interrupting. The next day, the landlady is at church, but: disaster! “I was not inspired by Venus.” Louisa was understanding:
People cannot always command their spirits
On 3 January, there was some more begging. On 4th, she agreed to an assignation if he could find a venue. Finally, on Wednesday 12th, she met him “in the Piazzas of Covent Garden”, and he felt himself “able and undaunted to engage in the wars of the Paphian Queen” (Paphos being the mythical birthplace of the goddess of love on the island of Cyprus).
…and if you think that’s over the top…
I came softly into the room, and in a sweet delirium slipped into bed and was immediately clasped in her snowy arms and pressed to her milk-white bosom. Good heavens, what a loose did we give to amorous dalliance! The friendly curtain of darkness concealed our blushes. In a moment I felt myself animated with the strongest powers of love, and, from my dearest creature’s kindness, had a most luscious feast. Proud of my godlike vigour, I soon resumed the noble game. I was in full glow of health. Sobriety had preserved me from effeminacy and weakness, and my bounding blood beat quick and high alarms. A more voluptuous night I never enjoyed. Five times was I fairly lost in supreme rapture.
Five times?
I digress. On Sunday 16th, having got what he wanted, Mr Boswell’s affections somewhat unsurprisingly went the way of many men’s
I then went to Louisa and was permitted the rites of love with great complacency; yet I felt my passion for Louisa much gone.
He saw “an affectation about her which disgusted me”, apparently, but the very next day…
I this day again had full fruition of her charms. I still, though, found that the warm enthusiasm of love was over.
Then his symptoms started. By Thursday 20th, he knew who to blame.
What! thought I, can this beautiful, this sensible, and this agreeable woman be so sadly defiled? Can corruption lodge beneath so fair a form? No, it is impossible. I have just got a gleet by irritating the parts too much with excessive venery. And yet these damned twinges, that scalding heat, and that deep-tinged loathsome matter are the strongest proofs of an infection. But she certainly must think that I would soon discover her falsehood. But perhaps she was ignorant of her being ill. A pretty conjecture indeed! No, she could not be ignorant. Yes, yes, she intended to make the most of me.
A ‘gleet’? Why, yes, I can help you there:
Gleet, noun (glēt): a chronic inflammation (such as gonorrhoea) of a bodily orifice usually accompanied by an abnormal discharge; also: the discharge itself
You really are most welcome.
His friend Douglas, a doctor, “upon examining the parts, declared I had got an evident infection and that the woman who gave it me could not but know of it.”
Thus ended my intrigue with the fair Louisa, which I flattered myself so much with, and from which I expected at least a winter’s safe copulation. It is indeed very hard. I cannot say, like young fellows who get themselves clapped in a bawdy-house, that I will take better care again. For I really did take care. However, since I am fairly trapped, let me make the best of it. I have not got it from imprudence. It is merely the chance of war.
Oh, Boswell. You old romantic, you. Two days later, he told his diary — much as men with colds do today — that
A distemper of this kind is more dreadful to me than most people. I am of a warm constitution: a complexion, as physicians say, exceedingly amorous, and therefore suck in the poison more deeply.
By February, things had begun to abate, but…
By 10 May, though, he was definitely feeling better
Mind you, “in armour complete” means wearing a condom (which would have been linen or ‘skin’ — animal bladder or intestine “softened by treatment with sulphur and lye”) so perhaps he’d learnt something.
