Chapter V: Preface (3)

“Sir,—I have the honour to receive your most obliging letter, and can with difficulty restrain myself from paying you compliments on the very genteel manner in which you are pleased to treat me. But I come from a people among whom even the lowest arts of insinuation are unknown. However you may, by political circumstances, be in one view a simple individual, yet, sir, Mr. Pitt will always be the prime minister of the brave, the secretary of freedom and of spirit; and I hope that I may with propriety talk to him of the views of the illustrious Paoli. Be that as it may, I shall very much value the honour of being admitted to your acquaintance.

“I am, &c.,
JAMES BOSWELL.”[39]

Informed of his mother’s death, Boswell left London for Auchinleck. His father was pleased to find him somewhat less volatile, and quite reconciled to the legal profession. On the 26th July he was admitted advocate. His “Thesis on Civil Law,” published at his admission, he transmitted to Dr. Johnson, who criticised it with severity; he, however, heartily commended his resolution to obey his father, and seriously to occupy himself with business. His proposal to write a history of Corsica Dr. Johnson objected to. “You have,” he wrote, “no materials which others have not, or may have. You have, somehow or other, warmed your imagination. I wish there were some cure, like the lover’s leap, for all heads of which some single idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular possession. Mind your own affairs, and leave the Corsicans to theirs.”

Aware of Boswell’s tendency to form resolutions, which he afterwards departed from, Dr. Johnson entreated him to abandon his practice of vow-making. To a letter from the lexicographer on this subject Boswell made the following answer:—

“_Auchinleck, 6th November, 1766._

“Might I venture to differ from you with regard to the utility of vows? I am sensible that it may be very dangerous to make vows rashly, and without a due consideration. But I cannot help thinking that they may often be of great advantage to one of a variable judgment and irregular inclinations. I always remember a passage in one of your letters to our Italian friend, Baretti; where, talking of the monastic life, you say you do not wonder that serious men should put themselves under the protection of a religious order, when they have found how unable they are to take care of themselves. For my own part, without affecting to be a Socrates, I am sure I have a more than ordinary struggle to maintain with the Evil Principle; and all the methods I can devise are little enough to keep me tolerably steady in the paths of rectitude.”

In February, 1767, Boswell conveyed his congratulations to Mr. Temple on his being admitted to priest’s orders, and instituted Rector of Mamhead. The following remarks with which his congratulations were accompanied would have reflected credit on Dr. Johnson:—

“I am sincerely happy that you are at length the Reverend Mr. Temple. I view the profession of a clergyman in an amiable and respectable light. Don’t be moved by declamations against ecclesiastical history, as if that could blacken the sacred order. I confess that it is not in ecclesiastical history that we find the most agreeable account of divines: their politics, their ambition, and their cruelty are there displayed; but remember, Temple, you are there reading the vices of only political divines,—of such individuals as in so numerous a body have been very unworthy members of the Church, and should have rather been employed in the rudest secular concerns. But if you would judge fairly of the priests of Jesus, you must consider how many of the distressed they have comforted, how many of the wicked they have reclaimed, how many of the good they have improved; consider the lives of thousands of worthy pious divines who have been a blessing to their parishes. This is just, Temple. You say the truths of morality are written in the hearts of all men, and they find it their interest to practise them. My dear friend, will you believe a specious moral essayist against your own experience? Don’t you in the very same letter complain of the wickedness of those around you? Don’t you talk of the tares in society? My friend, it is your office to labour cheerfully in the vineyard, and, if possible, to leave not a tare in Mamhead.

* * * * *

“In a word, my dear Temple, be a good clergyman, and you will be happy both here and hereafter.”

Boswell proceeds to advise his friend to marry a suitable wife, and expresses a regret that he himself cannot wed so long as his father lives. Having administered these virtuous counsels, he intimates that he has involved himself in an illicit amour—or, as he expresses it, that he is attached to “a dear infidel.” The person so described was a married woman, who had separated from her husband. Boswell had met her in the autumn of 1765 at Moffat Spa, where he had been sojourning with his friend Mr. Johnston, of Grange, a Dumfriesshire landowner. He had brought her to Edinburgh, and she was now maintained at his expense. In mitigation of his conduct in associating with her, he thus expatiates to Mr. Temple:—

“Don’t think her unfaithful; I could not love her if she was. There is baseness in all deceit which my soul is virtuous enough to abhor, and therefore I look with horror on adultery. But my amiable mistress is no longer bound to him who was her husband: he has used her shockingly ill; he has deserted her; he lives with another. Is she not then free? She is, it is clear, and no arguments can disguise it. She is now mine; and were she to be unfaithful to me, she ought to be pierced with a Corsican poniard; but I believe she loves me sincerely. She has done everything to please me: she is perfectly generous, and would not hear of any present.”

The first part of Boswell’s letter embracing these incongruous details is dated “1st February,” and occupies seven folio pages. With temporary discretion the writer hesitated to send off so strange a communication; at length, on the 28th of the month, he resumed his narrative, which after another interval was concluded on the 4th March, and thereupon despatched. Respecting his unhappy amour he writes:—

“I have talked a great deal of my sweet little mistress; I am, however, uneasy about her. Furnishing a house and maintaining her with a maid will cost me a great deal of money, and it is too like marriage, or too much a settled plan of licentiousness; but what can I do? I have already taken the house, and the lady has agreed to go in at Whitsuntide; I cannot in honour draw back.... Now am I tormented because my charmer has formerly loved others. Besides, she is ill-bred, quite a rompish girl. She debases my dignity; she has no refinement, but she is very handsome and very lively. What is it to me that she has formerly loved? so have I. I am positive that since I first courted her at Moffat she has been constant to me; she is kind, she is generous. What shall I do? I wish I could get off; and yet how awkward would it be!... What is to be thought of this life, my friend? Hear the story of my last three days. After tormenting myself with reflecting on my charmer’s former loves, and ruminating on parting with her, I went to her. I could not conceal my being distressed. I told her I was very unhappy, but I would not tell her why. She took this very seriously, and was so much affected that she went next morning and gave up her house. I went in the afternoon and secured the house, and then drank tea with her. She was much agitated; she said she was determined to go and board herself in the north of England, and that I used her very ill. I expostulated with her; I was sometimes inclined to let her go, and sometimes my heart was like to burst within me. I held her dear hand; her eyes were full of passion; I told her what made me miserable; she was pleased to find it was nothing worse. She had imagined I was suspicious of her fidelity, and she thought that very ungenerous in reconsidering her behaviour. She said I should not mind her faults before I knew her, since her conduct was now more circumspect. She owned that she loved me more than she had ever done her husband. All was well again.”

Boswell went out, and the same evening got drunk, and committed gross follies. On the 30th March he wrote to Mr. Temple from Auchinleck. He informed him that as his Circe had gone to Moffat, he has “had time to think coolly,” and to call up “that reason which he had so often contradicted.” He proceeds:—

“Johnston, an old friend of mine, a writer in Edinburgh, but too much of an indolent philosopher to have great business, being rather a worthy country gentleman, with a paternal estate of £100 a year, was much distressed with my unhappy passion. He was at Moffat when it first began, and he marked the advance of the fever. It was he who assured me, upon his honour, that my fair one had a very bad character, and gave me some instances which made my lovesick heart recoil. He had some influence with me, but my brother David had more. To him I discovered my weakness, my slavery, and begged his advice. He gave it me like a man. I gloried in him. I roused all my spirit, and at last I was myself again. I immediately wrote her a letter, of which I enclose the scroll for your perusal. She and I have always corresponded in such a manner that no mischief could come of it, for we supposed a Miss——, to whom all my amorous vows were paid.... I have not yet got her answer: what will it be, think you? I shall judge of her character from it. I shall see if she is abandoned or virtuous; I mean both in a degree; I shall at any rate be free. What a snare have I escaped! Do you remember Ulysses and Circe?—

‘Sub domina meretrice vixisset turpis et excors.’

“My life is one of the most romantic that I believe either you or I really know of, and yet I am a very sensible, good sort of man. What is the meaning of this, Temple? You may depend upon it that very soon my follies will be at an end, and I shall turn out an admirable member of society. Now that I have given my mind the turn, I am totally emancipated from my charmer, as much as from the gardener’s daughter who now puts on my fire and performs menial offices like any other wench, and yet just this time twelvemonth I was so madly in love as to think of marrying her. Should not this be an everlasting lesson to me?... How strangely do we colour over our vices! I startle when you talk of keeping another man’s wife, yet that was literally my scheme, though imagination represented it just as being fond of a pretty, lovely, black little lady, who to oblige me stayed in Edinburgh, and I very genteelly paid her expenses.”

From several letters to Mr. Temple at subsequent dates, it appears that Boswell’s discreditable amour was protracted for some time longer. In the same letter he invited his friend’s counsel respecting certain matrimonial projects on which he had embarked.

Amidst his dissipations and follies Boswell was not altogether idle. To Mr. Temple he reported, in March, that he had at the Bar earned sixty-five guineas during the winter, and that his employment was steadily on the increase. He stated that Mr. Hume augured favourably of his work on Corsica; that Rousseau had quarrelled with him as he had done with Hume; that Dr. Gregory had sought his acquaintance, and that he had received a long letter from General Paoli, and one of three pages from Lord Chatham.

To Lord Chatham Boswell replied in characteristic fashion:—

“_Auchinleck, April 8th, 1767._

“I have communicated to General Paoli the contents of your lordship’s letter, and I am persuaded he will think as I do.... Your lordship applauds my ‘generous warmth for so striking a character as the able chief.’ Indeed, my lord, I have the happiness of being able to contemplate with supreme delight those distinguished spirits by which God is sometimes pleased to honour humanity, and as I have no personal favour to ask of your lordship, I will tell you, with the confidence of one who does not fear to be thought a flatterer, that your character, my lord, has filled many of my best hours with that noble admiration which a disinterested soul can enjoy in the bower of philosophy.”

After informing his correspondent that he is about to publish an account of Corsica, he proceeds:—

“As for myself, to please a worthy and respected father, one of our Scots judges, I studied law, and am now fairly entered to the bar. I begin to like it; I can labour hard, I feel myself coming forward, and I hope to be useful to my country. Could your lordship find time to honour me now and then with a letter?

“I have been told how favourably your lordship has spoken of me. To correspond with a Paoli and with a Chatham is enough to keep a young man ever ardent in the pursuit of virtuous fame.”

The cool egotism which prompted Boswell, an undistinguished youth, to beg an occasional letter from an illustrious and veteran statesman is without a parallel in biography. At Edinburgh, notwithstanding his obvious eccentricity, he enjoyed a kind of literary _status_. As a patron of histrionic art he led a considerable section of the Edinburgh youth; and we have already related, that at the request of Ross, the player, he composed the prologue spoken at the opening of the Edinburgh theatre in December, 1767. By an act of indiscretion he nearly crushed the institution he had helped to rear. He brought on the Edinburgh stage a comedy entitled “The Coquettes,” to oblige Lady Houston, by whom it was composed. On the third performance it was condemned as a bad translation of one of Corneille’s worst plays. Lady Houston was sister of Lord Cathcart, one of Boswell’s friends, and creditably enough he was content to bear the censure of producing the piece rather than expose the foolish gentlewoman who had placed it in his hands.

In his letter to Mr. Temple of the 30th March, 1767, he reports concerning his forthcoming venture—“I am now seriously engaged in my account of Corsica; it elevates my soul, and makes me _spernere humum_. I shall have it finished by June.” Through Mr. Hume he endeavoured to secure Mr. Andrew Millar as publisher; but negotiations being unsatisfactory, he sold his MS. for 100 guineas to Messrs. Edward and Charles Dilly, booksellers in the Poultry. In an ordinary octavo the work appeared in the spring of 1768, with the title, “An Account of Corsica: the Journal of a Tour to that Island, and Memoirs of Pascal Paoli, by James Boswell, Esq.” It was dedicated, in flattering terms, to Paoli; but the peculiarities of the writer were more apparent in his preface. He there indicates his peculiar system of orthography. “Of late,” he writes, “it has become the fashion to render our language more neat and trim by leaving out k after c, and u in the last syllable of words which used to end in our. The illustrious Mr. Samuel Johnson, who has alone executed in England what was the task of whole academies in other countries, has been careful in his dictionary to preserve the k as a mark of Saxon original. He has for most part, too, been careful to preserve the u, but he has also omitted it in several words. I have retained the k, and have taken upon me to follow a general rule with regard to words ending in our. Wherever a word originally Latin has been transmitted to us through the medium of the French I have written it with the characteristical u. Our attention to this may appear trivial, but I own I am one of those who are curious in the formation of language in its various modes; and therefore, with that, the affinity of English with other tongues may not be forgotten. If this work should at any future period be reprinted, I hope that care will be taken of my orthography.”

Pursuant to his system, Boswell indulged the satisfaction of writing _authour_ for author, and _tremenduous_ for a word known only as tremendous. He closed his preface by intimating his literary aspirations:—

“I should,” he writes, “be proud to be known as an authour, and I have an ardent ambition for literary fame; for of all possessions I should imagine literary fame to be the most valuable. A man who has been able to furnish a book which has been approved by the world has established himself as a respectable character in distant society, without any danger of having that character lessened by the observation of his weaknesses. To preserve an uniform dignity among those who see us every day is hardly possible, and to aim at it must put us under the fetters of a perpetual restraint. The authour of an approved book may allow his natural disposition an easy play, and yet indulge the pride of superior genius when he considers that by those who know him only as an authour he never ceases to be respected. Such an authour, when in his hours of gloom and discontent, may have the consolation to think that his writings are at that very time giving pleasure to numbers, and such an authour may cherish the hope of being remembered after death, which has been a great object to the noblest minds in all ages. Whether I may merit any portion of literary fame the public will judge. Whatever my ambition may be, I trust that my confidence is not too great, nor my hopes too sanguine.”

Though subjected to some ridicule, owing to the extreme egotism of the writer, the Corsican Journey was well received. A second edition was called for within a few months. Boswell proceeded to London to enjoy an anticipated ovation. When he arrived Dr. Johnson was on a visit at Oxford, but Boswell by letter solicited his commendation. Contrary to his hopes he received this laconic answer—“I wish you would empty your head of Corsica, which I think has filled it rather too long.” From Dr. Johnson such a reproof was intolerable. Boswell at once despatched the following reply:—

“How can you bid me empty my head of Corsica? My noble-minded friend, do you not feel for an oppressed nation bravely struggling to be free? Consider fairly what is the case. The Corsicans never received any kindness from the Genoese. They never agreed to be subject to them. They owe them nothing, and when reduced to an abject state of slavery by force, shall they not rise in the great cause of liberty, and break the galling yoke? And shall not every liberal soul be warm for them? Empty my head of Corsica! Empty it of honour, empty it of humanity, empty it of friendship, empty it of piety. No! while I live, Corsica and the cause of the brave islanders shall ever employ much of my attention, shall ever interest me in the sincerest manner.”

Though Dr. Johnson imparted no praise, Boswell, on account of his book, met with considerable attention. To Mr. Temple he wrote on the 14th May,—

“I am really the great man now. I have had David Hume in the forenoon, and Mr. Johnson in the afternoon of the same day visiting me. Sir John Pringle, Dr. Franklin, and some more company, dined with me to-day; and Mr. Johnson and General Oglethorpe one day, Mr. Garrick alone another, and David Hume and some more _literati_, dine with me next week. I give admirable dinners and good claret; and the moment I go abroad again, which will be in a day or two, I set up my chariot. This is enjoying the fruit of my labours, and appearing like the friend of Paoli. By-the-bye, the Earl of Pembroke and Captain Meadows are just setting out for Corsica, and I have the honour of introducing them by letter to the General. David Hume came on purpose the other day to tell me that the Duke of Bedford was very fond of my book, and had recommended it to the Duchess.”

In the beginning of 1769 Boswell issued under the publishing auspices of Messrs. Dilly, a duodecimo volume entitled “British Essays in favour of the brave Corsicans”—a work which was followed by the third edition of his work on Corsica. In a preface to this edition, dated at Auchinleck, 29th October, 1768, he thus disposes of his critics:—“To those who have imagined themselves very witty in sneering at me for being a Christian, I would recommend the serious study of theology; and I hope they will attain to the same comfort that I have in the belief of a revelation by which a Saviour is proclaimed to the world, and ‘life and immortality are clearly brought to light.’” He closes by congratulating himself on having obtained literary reputation.

“May I be permitted to say,” he writes, “that the success of this book has exceeded my warmest hopes. When I first ventured to send it into the world I fairly owned an ardent desire for literary fame. I have obtained my desire; and whatever clouds may overcast my days, I can now walk here among the rocks and woods of my ancestors with an agreeable consciousness that I have done something worthy.”

Complacently as he had expressed himself, Boswell was ill at ease, for though his book sold, and was generally approved, Dr. Johnson remained silent. After enduring the affront for eighteen months, he at length, in September, 1769, addressed a letter to the lexicographer, charging him with unkindness. In these terms Dr. Johnson rebutted the accusation:—

“Why do you charge me with unkindness? I have omitted nothing that could do you good or give you pleasure, unless it be that I have forborne to tell you my opinion of your ‘Account of Corsica.’ I believe my opinion, if you think well of my judgment, might have given you pleasure; but when it is considered how much vanity is excited by praise, I am not sure that it would have done you good. Your history is like other histories, but your journal is in a very high degree curious and delightful. There is between the history and the journal that difference which there will always be found between notions borrowed from without and notions generated within. Your history was copied from books; your journal rose out of your own experience and observation. You express images which operated strongly upon yourself, and you have impressed them with great force upon your readers. I know not whether I could name any narrative by which curiosity is better excited or better gratified.”

These words from Dr. Johnson made Boswell happy. The Doctor’s opinion as to the interest of the work mainly depending on the narrative of the writer’s own experiences was shared generally. Respecting Boswell and his performance, Mr. Walpole, in a letter to the poet Gray, dated 18th February, 1768, thus expresses himself:—“Pray read the new account of Corsica; what relates to Paoli will amuse you much. There is a deal about the island and its dimensions that one does not care a straw for. The author, Boswell, is a strange being, and, like Cambridge,[40] has a rage for knowing anybody that was ever talked of. He forced himself upon me in spite of my teeth and my doors, and I see has given a foolish account of all he could pick up from me about King Theodore. He then took an antipathy to me on Rousseau’s account, abused me in the newspapers, and expected Rousseau to do so too; but as he came to see me no more, I forgave all the rest. I see he is now a little sick of Rousseau himself, but I hope it will not cure him of his anger to me; however, his book will amuse you.”

This is caustic enough. Gray’s reply is equally in praise of Boswell’s Journal and condemnatory of its author:—[41]

“_Pembroke College, February 25, 1768._

“Mr. Boswell’s book I was going to recommend to you when I received your letter. It has pleased and moved me strangely—all (I mean) that relates to Paoli.... The pamphlet proves what I have always maintained, that any fool may write a most valuable book by chance, if he will only tell us what he heard and said with veracity. Of Mr. Boswell’s truth I have not the least suspicion, because I am sure he could invent nothing of the kind. The title of this part of his work is a dialogue between a Green Goose and a Hero.”[42]

Inflated with his success as an author, and his supposed popularity as the friend of the Corsicans and of Paoli, Boswell, on his return to Edinburgh in the summer of 1768, began to eschew his legal duties and spend his evenings at the gambling-table. To this practice he had been formerly addicted, but he had temporarily renounced it, on the counsel of Mr. Sheridan. In August, 1768, he reported to Mr. Temple that “he found the fever still lurking in his veins,” and so indulged his propensity. During the previous autumn he had experienced his father’s resentment for his encouragement of theatricals and constant talk about Paoli. In reference to his father’s displeasure he thus communicated with Mr. Temple in September, 1767:—

“How unaccountable is it that my father and I should be so ill together! He is a man of sense and a man of worth; but from some unhappy turn in his disposition he is much dissatisfied with a son whom you know. I write to him with warmth, with an honest pride, wishing that he should think of me as I am; but my letters shock him, and every expression in them is interpreted unfavourably. To give you an instance, I send you a letter I had from him a few days ago. How galling is it to the friend of Paoli to be treated so! I have answered him in my own style. I will be myself.... Temple, would you not like such a son? would you not feel a glow of parental joy? I know you would; and yet my worthy father writes to me in the manner you see, with that Scots strength of sarcasm which is peculiar to a North Briton. But he is offended with that fire which you and I cherish as the essence of our souls; and how can I make him happy? Am I bound to do so at the expense, not of this or the other agreeable wish, but at the expense of myself? The time was when such a letter from my father as the one I enclose would have depressed; but I am now firm, and as my revered friend Mr. Samuel Johnson used to say, I feel the privileges of an independent human being. However, it is hard that I cannot have the pious satisfaction of being well with my father.”

To lose the paternal favour was perilous; so Boswell’s next literary performance was of a professional character. When he commenced practice as an advocate, society in Edinburgh and in the country generally was much agitated in connection with the Douglas case. The question at issue was whether Mr. Archibald Douglas was the real heir to the estates of Douglas, the succession otherwise devolving on the Duke of Hamilton. The Lady Jane Douglas was twice married. By her first union, which subsisted for many years she had no children; she married secondly Mr. Stewart, afterwards Sir John Stewart, Bart., of Grandtully, an aged gentleman in feeble health, and by this marriage, as was alleged, gave birth to twin sons in her fifty-first year. Lady Jane long resided in France; her alleged _accouchement_ took place in the house of a Madame le Brun, in Paris, and it was asserted that the children which she claimed as her sons were purchased from a Parisian rope-dancer. The younger of the two boys died in childhood, and on the death of the Duke of Douglas his Grace’s estates were claimed by Archibald, the elder son. The validity of his claim was disputed, and the evidence adduced on both sides occupies several quarto volumes. In the Court of Session the claimant’s birth was pronounced supposititious, on the casting vote of the Lord President Dundas. On appeal that decision was reversed by the House of Lords, Lord Camden, the Chancellor, alleging that “a more ample and positive proof of the child’s being the son of a mother never appeared in a court of justice.”

While the Douglas case was exciting its utmost interest, Boswell became a keen supporter of the claimant, Mr. Archibald Douglas; and in November, 1767, produced a pamphlet entitled “The Essence of the Douglas Cause.” This _brochure_ was issued in reply to a small publication entitled “Considerations on the Douglas Cause,” but failed to excite any general attention. The author, however, cherished the belief that he had been of essential service to Mr. Douglas, and accordingly requested that his name might be added to the list of counsel retained on his behalf.

Boswell, we have seen, had begun to think of matrimony. In that direction his thoughts were sufficiently persistent, though in respect to the object of affection singularly variable. On the 30th March, 1767, he thus addressed Mr. Temple:—

“What say you to my marrying? I intend, next autumn, to visit Miss Bosville in Yorkshire; but I fear, my lot being cast in Scotland, that beauty would not be content. She is, however, grave; I shall see. There is a young lady in the neighbourhood here who has an estate of her own between two and three hundred a year, just eighteen, a genteel person, an agreeable face, of a good family, sensible, good-tempered, cheerful, pious. You know my grand object is the ancient family of Auchinleck—a venerable and noble principle. How would it do to conclude an alliance with the neighbouring princess, and add her lands to our dominions? I should at once have a very pretty little estate, a good house, and a sweet place. My father is very fond of her: it would make him perfectly happy: he gives me hints in this way:—‘I wish you had her,’—‘No bad scheme this; I think it a very good one.’ But I will not be in a hurry; there is plenty of time.”

Writing to Mr. Temple on the 12th June, Boswell omits all reference to Miss Bosville, but extols “the young lady in his neighbourhood” as a kind of goddess.

“The lady in my neighbourhood,” he writes, “is the finest woman I have ever seen. I went and visited her, and she was so good as to prevail with her mother to come to Auchinleck, where they stayed four days, and in our romantic groves I adored her like a divinity. I have already given you her character. My father is very desirous I should marry her; all my relations, all my neighbours, approve of it. She looked quite at home in the house of Auchinleck. Her picture would be an ornament to the gallery. Her children would be all Boswells and Temples, and as fine women as these are excellent men. And now my friend, my best adviser, comes to hear me talk of her and to fix my wavering mind.”

In his next letter to Mr. Temple, Boswell reveals that his “angelic princess” is “Miss Blair, of Adamtown,” adding that on the preceding Tuesday he had got inebriated in drinking her health, and in that condition had committed miserable follies. He proceeds:—

“You must resolve to visit my goddess. You are a stranger, and may do a romantic thing. You shall have consultation guineas, as an ambassador has his appointments. You see how I use you. In short, between us two, all rules and all maxims are suspended. Pray prepare yourself for this adventure; we shall settle it, I hope; I cannot go with you, though. You are to see our country for a jaunt upon my recommendation.”

Boswell was practical for once. In assuring his reverend friend that he would have his “consultation guineas” he meant that his travelling costs would be defrayed should he consent to visit Ayrshire, and recommend him to Miss Blair. The proposal was acceded to. Mr. Temple agreed to proceed on his mission at once on being furnished with the needful instructions. Before the end of July he was in Scotland, provided with an itinerary, from which we extract the following:—

“_Wednesday._—Thomas[43] will bring you to Adamtown a little after eleven. Send up your name; if possible, put up your horses there, they can have cut grass; if not, Thomas will take them to Mountain, a place a mile off, and come back and wait at dinner. Give Miss Blair my letter. Salute her and her mother; ask to walk. See the place fully; think what improvements should be made. Talk of my mare, the purse, the chocolate. Tell them you are my very old and intimate friend. Praise me for my good qualities, you know them; but talk also how odd, how inconstant, how impetuous, how much accustomed to women of intrigue. Ask gravely, ‘Pray don’t you imagine there is something of madness in that family?’ Talk of my various travels, German princes, Voltaire and Rousseau. Talk of my father, my strong desire to have my own house. Observe her well. See how amiable! Judge if she would be happy with your friend. Think of me as the great man at Adamtown—quite classical, too! Study the mother. Remember well what passes. Stay tea. At six order horses and go to New Mills, two miles from Loudoun; but if they press you stay all night, do it. Be a man of as much ease as possible. Consider what a romantic expedition you are on; take notes; perhaps you now fix me for life.”

Instructions more extraordinary were never before delivered by lovesick swain to the friend of his suit. That friend was to inform the lady of his affections that he was “much accustomed to women of intrigue;” that he was “odd,” “inconstant,” and “impetuous;” and he was even to hint that there was madness in his family. That Boswell should have brought his friend 500 miles so to describe him to the lady of his affections is not the least remarkable feature of his strange career. Mr. Temple, it is hoped, was more discreet than his client.

On his return to Mamhead Mr. Temple married a gentlewoman who brought him a fortune of £1,300. Boswell wrote to Miss Blair, thanking her for her attention to his friend, but the lady was silent. Her suitor became perplexed; he feared that a certain nabob had “struck in,” or that Temple “had told her his faults too honestly.” At length, after he had endured the miseries of “a feverish disorder, the lady relented, and sent him a most agreeable letter.” She made an excuse that a letter of his had been delayed at the Ayr post office; but he had written several. On the 28th August he again communicates with Mr. Temple. He assumes the designation of a sovereign prince, and holds the clergyman as his ambassador.

“Are you not happy,” he writes, “to find that all is well between the Prince of Auchinleck and his fair neighbouring princess? In short, sir, I am one of the most fortunate men in the world. As Miss Blair is my great object at present, and you are a principal minister in forwarding the alliance, I enclose you the latest papers on the subject. You will find the letter I wrote her when ill, where you will see a Scots word _roving_, from the French _rêver_, as if to dream awake. I put it down as a good English word, not having looked in Johnson. You will next find the lady’s answer, then a long letter from me, which required an extraordinary degree of good sense and temper to answer it with an agreeable propriety; then her answer, which exceeds my highest expectations. Read these papers in their order, and let me have your excellency’s opinion. Am I not now as well as I can be? What condescension! what a desire to please! She studies my disposition, and resolves to be cautious, &c. Adorable woman! Don’t you think I had better not write again till I see her? I shall go west in a fortnight, but I can hardly restrain myself from writing to her in transport. I will go to Adamtown and stay a week. I will have no disguise; we shall see each other fairly. We are both independent; we have no temptation to marry but to make each other happy. Let us be sure if that would be the consequence.”

On the 5th of November Boswell writes to Mr. Temple from Adamtown:—

“MY DEAR TEMPLE,—The pleasure of your countenance in reading the date of this letter is before me at this moment.... In short, I am sitting in the room with my princess, who is at this moment a finer woman than ever she appeared to me before. But, my valuable friend, be not too certain of your Boswell’s felicity, for indeed he has little of it at present.... For ten days I was in a fever, but at last I broke the enchantment. However, I could not be too sullen in my pride; I wrote to her from Auchinleck, and wished her joy, &c.; she answered me, with the same ease as ever, that I had no occasion. I then wrote her a strange sultanish letter, very cold and very formal, and did not go to see her for near three weeks....

“But the princess and I have not yet made up our quarrel; she talks lightly of it. I am resolved to have a serious conversation with her to-morrow morning. If she can still remain indifferent as to what has given me much pain, she is not the woman I thought her, and from to-morrow morning shall I be severed from her as a lover. I shall just bring myself, I hope, to a good easy tranquillity. If she feels as I wish her to do, I shall adore her while my blood is warm.”

After an interval of three days Boswell again communicated with Mr. Temple:—

“_Auchinleck, Sunday, 8th November, 1767._

“I wrote you from Adamtown, and told you how it was with the princess and me. Next morning I told her that I had complained to you that she would not make up our last quarrel, but she did not appear in the least inclined to own herself in the wrong. I confess that, between pride and love, I was unable to speak to her but in a very awkward manner. I came home on Friday; yesterday I was extremely uneasy. That I might give her a fair opportunity, I sent her a letter, of which I enclose you a copy. Could the proud Boswell say more than you will see there? In the evening I got her answer; it was written with an art and indifference astonishing from so young a lady:—‘I have not yet found out that I was to blame. If you have been uneasy on my account, I am indeed sorry for it; I should be sorry to give any person uneasiness, far more one whose cousin and friend I shall always be.’...

“In short, Temple, she is cunning, and sees my weakness. But I now see her; and though I cannot but suffer severely, I from this moment resolve to think no more of her. I send you the copy of a note which goes to her to-morrow morning. Wish me joy, my good friend, of having discovered the snake before too late. I should have been ruined had I made such a woman my wife. Luckily for me, a neighbour who came to Auchinleck last night told me that he had heard three people at Ayr agree in abusing her as a jilt. What a risk have I run! However, as there is still a possibility that all this may be mistake and malice, I shall behave to her in a very respectful manner, and shall never say a word against her but to you. After this I shall be upon my guard against ever indulging the least fondness for a Scotch lass. I am a soul of a more southern frame. I may, perhaps, be fortunate enough to find an Englishwoman who will be sensible of my merit, and will study to please my singular humour.”

Subsequent letters from Boswell to Mr. Temple contain these passages:—“Upon my soul, the madness of which I have a strong degree in my composition is at present so heightened by love that I am absolutely deprived of judgment.... One great fault of mine is talking at random; I will guard against it.” Referring to the object of his hopes at Adamtown, he writes:—“I will consecrate myself to her for ever. I must have her to learn the harpsichord and French; she shall be one of the first women in the island.” “Temple, I ventured to seize her hand. She is really the finest woman to me I ever saw.”

To Mr. Temple, on the 24th December, he wrote thus:—

“In my last I told you that after I had resolved to give up with the Princess for ever, I resolved first to see her. I was so lucky as to have a very agreeable interview, and was convinced by her that she was not to blame. This happened on a Thursday; that evening her cousin and most intimate friend, the Duchess of Gordon, came to town. Next day I was at the concert with them, and afterwards supped at Lord Kames’s. The Princess appeared distant and reserved. I could hardly believe that it was the same woman with whom I had been quite gay the day before; I was then uneasy. Next evening I was at the play with them: it was ‘Othello.’ I sat close behind the Princess, and at the most affecting scenes I pressed my hand upon her waist; she was in tears, and rather leaned to me. The jealous Moor described my very soul.”

Boswell subjoins a dialogue between “the Princess” and himself. “You are very fond of Auchinleck,” said Boswell in his pleading. “I confess I am,” responded the lady; “I wish I liked you as well as I do Auchinleck.” There had been repeated meetings and lengthy conversations, but Boswell could not extract a promise, and knew not what to think. He begs that Mr. Temple will consult with his wife, and thereupon advise him. Towards the close of his letter he writes, “Amidst all this love I have been wild as ever.... To-morrow I shall be happy with my devotions.... Could you assist me to keep up my real dignity among the illiterate race of Scots lawyers?”

To Mr. Temple he writes from Edinburgh on the 8th February, 1768:—

“All is over between Miss Blair and me. I have delayed writing till I could give you some final account. About a fortnight after she went to the country a report went that she was going to be married to Sir Alexander Gilmour, Member of Parliament for Mid-Lothian, a young man about thirty, who has £1,600 a year of estate, was formerly an officer in the Guards, and is now one of the clerks of the Board of Green Cloth, a thousand a year—in short, a noble match, though a man of expense, and obliged to lead a London life. After the fair agreement between her and me, which I gave you in my last, I had a title to know the truth. I wrote to her seriously, and told her if she did not write me an answer I should believe the report to be true. After three days I concluded from her silence that she was at least engaged. I endeavoured to laugh off my passion, and I got Sir Alexander Gilmour to frank a letter to her, which I wrote in a pleasant strain, and amused myself with the whim; still, however, I was not absolutely certain, as her conduct has been so prudent all along.”

To ask a gentleman to frank a letter for him addressed to a young lady of whom they were rival lovers was an act of eccentricity befitting Boswell only. In the letter above quoted he proceeds to inform Mr. Temple that the heiress having come to town, he began to apprehend that her affections were engaged by a Mr. Fullerton, whom he describes as his “old rival, the nabob.” So he procured the nabob’s acquaintance, and they called on the heiress together. She received them courteously, but with greater than wonted reserve. Boswell was determined to know the worst. He entertained Mr. Fullerton to supper at the house of a relative, and the same evening took him to a tavern and warmed him “with old claret.” As anticipated, Mr. Fullerton became very communicative, admitting that he had been assiduous in attending Miss Blair, but had received no suitable encouragement. He and Boswell remained together long after midnight, and before separating agreed that each on the morrow should visit the heiress, and make proposals to her. Boswell made sure to reach first, as he went to breakfast; he proposed, and was refused. The nabob called on Miss Blair an hour or two afterwards, and was overpowered with her coldness.

“Now that all is over,” Boswell sums up, “I see many faults in her which I did not see before.... I am, however, resolved to look out for a good wife either here or in England.... The heiress is a good Scots lass, but I must have an Englishwoman. You cannot say how fine a woman I may marry. Perhaps a Howard, or some other of the noblest in the kingdom.”

Finally, to assure his correspondent that he was not distracted by rejection or disappointed hope, he embodied in his communication the following somewhat splenetic verses at the expense of the “princess:”—

“Although I be an honest laird,
In person rather strong and brawny,
For me the heiress never cared,
For she would have the knight Sir Sawney.[44]

“And when with ardent vows I swore,
Loud as Sir Jonathan Trelawney,
The heiress showed me to the door,
And said she’d have the knight Sir Sawney.

“She told me, with a scornful look,
I was as ugly as a tawny;
For she a better fish could hook,
The rich and gallant knight Sir Sawney.”

In his next letter to Mr. Temple, dated London, 24th March, Boswell expresses his joy that he is rid of Miss Blair, and informs him that he and “a charming Dutchwoman” have renewed correspondence. Under the name of Zelide she is frequently mentioned in his previous letters; he had formed her acquaintance at Utrecht. Zelide is commended as fair, lively, sensible, and accomplished; and is so deeply attached to the writer that he feels he cannot be unhappy with her. By having translated into French his work on Corsica she has shown a just appreciation of his literary tastes.

Contrary to his usual habit, Boswell on this occasion consulted both his father and his friend. Zelide, he said, was “willing to meet him without any engagement;” but his counsellors were unwilling that any meeting should be held. Writing to Mr. Temple on the 16th April he admits that Zelide had faults, but time, he thinks, may have altered her for the better, as it had in some measure altered himself. However, he was willing, in deference to his advisers, to renounce Zelide. In a postscript he asks Mr. Temple’s opinion of Miss Dick,[45] “with whom he dined agreeably.” He describes her as “fine, healthy, young, and amiable,” though lacking “a good fortune.” He acknowledges that he had many wanton passions, “and had lately been wild as ever.” He is much disappointed that his correspondent, to whom he had previously offered a visit, had no spare bed: he will visit him after all, and “they will sit up all night together.”

On the 26th April he informs Mr. Temple that Zelide is not yet given up. He had received a letter from her, “full of good sense and tenderness,” and he had asked his father to allow him to visit her at Utrecht. “How do we know,” he proceeds, “but she is an inestimable prize? Surely it is worth while to go to Holland to see a fair conclusion, one way or other, of what has hovered in my mind for years. I have written to her and told her all my perplexity; I have put in the plainest light what conduct I actually require of her, and what my father will require. I have bid her be my wife at present, and comfort me with a letter, in which she shall show at once her wisdom, her spirit, and her regard for me. You shall see it. I tell you, man, she knows me and values me as you do.” Boswell adds that he has been suffering from a distemper induced by social indulgence, and vows that he “shall never again behave in a manner so unworthy the friend of Paoli.”

Disappointment still ruled. In a letter, dated 14th May, Boswell informs Mr. Temple that he had received a letter from Zelide. Most gently had he referred to her “levity and infidel notions,” and she had proved a “termagant and scorched him.” He had assured his father that Mademoiselle would not suit him as a wife; she, however, might be “a good correspondent.”

Unaccepted as a lover, Zelide declined becoming a correspondent; she was soon forgotten. Mr. Temple was opposed to Miss Dick, and Boswell, though he disapproved his friend’s opinion, began to look elsewhere. After two months,[46] he writes to Mamhead, that he had found another mistress—a certain Mary Anne, an Irish beauty. He congratulates himself on having escaped “the insensible Miss B. and the furious Zelide,” and “rejoices in the finest creature that ever was formed, _la belle Irlandaise_.” “Imagine to yourself, Temple,” he adds, “a young lady just sixteen, formed like a Grecian nymph, with the sweetest countenance, full of sensibility, accomplished, with a Dublin education, always half the year in the north of Ireland, her father a councillor-at-law, with the estate of £1,000 a year, and above £10,000 in ready money; her mother a sensible, well-bred woman; she the darling of her parents, and no other child but her sister.” He adds, “Upon my honour I never was so much in love; I never was before in a situation to which there was not some objection, but here every flower is united, and not a thorn to be found.... What a fortunate fellow am I! What a variety of adventures in all countries! I was allowed to walk a great deal with Miss——; I repeated my fervent passion to her again and again; she was pleased, and I could swear that her little heart beat. I carved the first letter of her name on a tree; I cut off a lock of her hair, _male pertinax_. She promised not to forget me, nor to marry a lord before March.... This is the most agreeable passion I ever felt; sixteen, innocence, and gaiety make me quite a Sicilian swain. Before I left London I made a vow in St. Paul’s church that I would not allow myself ... for six months. I am hitherto firm to my vow, and already feel myself a superior being.... In short, Maria has me without any rival.”