pressible curiosity regarding this person, sailed to Corsica in autumn, 1765, and introduced himself to Paoli at his palace by means of a letter from Rousseau. He was received with much distinction and kindness, and noted down a good deal of the very striking conversation of the Corsican chief. After a residence of some weeks in the island, during which he made himself acquainted with all its natural and moral features, he returned through France, and arrived in London, February, 1766, his journey being hastened by intelligence of the death of his mother. Dr. Johnson received him, as he passed through London, with renewed kindness and friendship.

Boswell now returned to Scotland, and, agreeably to the treaty formed with Lord Auchinleck, entered (July 26, 1766) as a member of the faculty of advocates. His temper, however, was still too volatile for the studious pursuit of the law, and he did not make that progress in his profession which might have been expected from the numerous advantages with which he commenced. The Douglas cause was at this time pending, and Boswell, who was a warm partisan of the young claimant, published (November, 1767) a pamphlet entitled The Essence of the Douglas Cause, in answer to one entitled Considerations on the Douglas Cause, in which a strenuous effort had been made to prove the claimant an impostor. It is said that Mr. Boswell's exertions on this occasion were of material service in exciting a popular prepossession in favour of the doubtful heir. This, however, was the most remarkable appearance made by Mr. Boswell as a lawyer, if it can be called so.

His Corsican tour and the friendship of Paoli had made a deep impression on Boswell's mind. He conceived that he had seen and made himself acquainted with what had been seen and known by few; and he was perpetually talking of the islanders and their chief. This mania, which was rather perhaps to be attributed to his vain desire of showing himself off in connection with a subject of popular talk than any appreciation of the noble character of the Corsican struggle, at length obtained him the nickname of Paoli, or Paoli-Boswell. Resolving that the world at large should participate in what he knew of Corsica, he published, in the spring of 1768, his account of that island, which was printed in 8vo by the celebrated brothers Foulis at Glasgow, and was well received. The sketches of the island and its inhabitants are lively and amusing; and his memoir of Paoli, which follows the account of the island, is a spirited narrative of patriotic deeds and sufferings. The work was translated into the German, Dutch, French, and Italian languages, and everywhere infected its readers with its own enthusiastic feeling in behalf of the oppressed islanders. Dr. Johnson thus expressed himself regarding it:-"Your journal is curious and delightful; I know not whether I could name any narrative by which curiosity is better excited or better gratified." On the other hand, Johnson joined the rest of the world in thinking that the author indulged too much personally in his enthusiasm upon the subject, and advised him, in a letter dated March 23, 1768, to "empty his head of Corsica." Boswell was so vain of his book as to pay a visit to London in the spring court vacation, chiefly for the purpose of seeking Dr. Johnson's approbation more at large.

In the following winter a patent was obtained, for the first time, by Ross, the manager of the Edinburgh theatre; but, nevertheless, a violent opposition was still maintained against this public amusement by the more rigid portion of the citizens. Ross, being anxious to appease his enemies, solicited Boswell to write a prologue for the opening of the house,

which request was readily complied with. The verses were, as Lord Mansfield characterized them, witty and conciliating; and their effect, being aided by friends properly placed in different parts of the house, was instantaneous and most triumphant; the tide of opposition was turned, the loudest plaudits were given, and Ross at once entered upon a very prosperous career.

In 1769 Boswell paid a visit to Ireland, where he spent six or seven weeks, chiefly at Dublin, and enjoyed the society of Lord Charlemont, Dr. Leland, Mr. Flood, Dr. Macbride, and other eminent persons of that kingdom, not forgetting the celebrated George Falconer, the friend of Swift and Chesterfield. Viscount, afterwards Marquis Townshend, was then lord-lieutenant, and the congeniality of their dispositions united them in the closest friendship. He enjoyed a great advantage in the union of one of his female cousins to Mr. Sibthorpe, of the county of Down, a gentleman of high influence, who was the means of introducing him into much good society. Another female cousin, Miss Margaret Montgomery, daughter of Mr. Montgomery of Lainshaw, accompanied him on the expedition, and not only added to his satisfaction by her own delightful company, but caused him to be received with much kindness by her numerous and respectable relations. This jaunt was the means of converting Boswell from a resolution which he appears to have formed to live a single life. He experienced so much pleasure from the conversation of Miss Montgomery, that he was tempted to seek her society for life in a matrimonial engagement. He had resolved, he said, never to marry-had always protested, at least, that a large fortune would be indispensable. He was now, however, impressed with so high an opinion of her particular merit, that he would waive that consideration altogether, provided she would waive his faults also, and accept him for better for worse. Miss Montgomery, who was really an eligible match, being related to the noble family of Eglintoune, while her father laid claim to the dormant peerage of Lyle, acceeded to his proposal with corresponding frankness; and it was determined that they should be married at the end of the year, after he should have paid one parting visit to London.

Before this visit was paid, Mr. Boswell was gra tified in the highest degree by the arrival of General Paoli, who, having been forced to abandon his native island, in consequence of the French invasion, had sought that refuge on the shores of Britain which has never yet been refused to the unfortunate of any country. In autumn, 1769, General Paoli visited Scotland and Boswell; an account of his progress through the country, with Boswell in his train, is given in the Scots Magazine of the time. Both on this occasion and on his subsequent visit to London, Boswell attended the exiled patriot with an obsequious fidelity, arising no doubt as much from his desire of appearing in the company of a noted character, as from gratitude for former favours of a similar kind. Among other persons to whom he introduced his Corsican friend, was Dr. Johnson, an entirely opposite being in destiny and character, but who, nevertheless, was at some pains to converse with the unfortunate stranger-Boswell acting as interpreter. It would be curious to know in what light Paoli, who was a high-minded man, beheld his eccentric ciceroné.

During the time of his visit to London, September, 1769, the jubilee took place at Stratford, to celebrate the birth of Shakspeare. As nearly all the literary, and many of the fashionable persons of the day were collected at this solemnity, Boswell entered

1785, when he published a second Letter to the People of Scotland, though upon an humbler theme, namely, "On the alarming attempt to infringe the articles of union, and introducing a most pernicious innovation, by diminishing the numbers of the lords of session." This proposal had been brought forward in the House of Commons; the salaries of the judges were to be raised, and, that the expense might not fall upon the country, their number was to be reduced to ten. Boswell (to use a modern phrase) immediately commenced a vehement agitation in Scotland, to oppose the bill; and among other measures which he took for exciting public attention, published this letter. His chief argument was, that the number of the judges was established immutably by the act of union; an act which entered into the very constitution of parliament itself, and how then could parliament touch it? The agitation prevailed, and the court remained as it had been, for another generation.

Boswell, whose practice at the Scottish bar was never very great, had long wished to remove to the English, in order that he might live entirely in London. His father's reluctance, however, had hitherto prevented him. Now that the old gentleman was dead, he found it possible to follow his inclination, and accordingly he began, from time to time, to keep his terms at the Inner Temple. At Hilary term, 1786, he was called to the English | bar, and in the ensuing winter removed his family to London. His first professional effort is said to have been of a somewhat ominous character. A few of the idlers of Westminster Hall, conspiring to quiz poor Bozzy, as he was familiarly called, made up an imaginary case, full of all kinds of absurdities, which they caused to be presented to him for his opinion. He, taking all for real, returned a bonafide note of judgment, which, while it almost killed his friends with laughter, covered himself with ineffaceable ridicule.

It is to be regretted that this decisive step in life was not adopted by Boswell at an earlier period, as thereby he might have rendered his Life of Johnson still more valuable than it is. Johnson having died upwards of a year before his removal, it was a step of little importance in a literary point of view; nor did it turn out much better in respect of professional profit.

So early as 1781, when Mr. Burke was in power, that great man had endeavoured to procure an extension of the government patronage towards Boswell. "We must do something for you," he said, "for our own sakes," and recommended him to General Conway for a vacant place, by a letter in which his character was drawn in glowing colours. The place was not obtained; but Boswell declared that he valued the letter more. He was now enabled, by the interest of Lord Lowther, to obtain the situation of recorder of Carlisle. Finding this recordership, at so great a distance from London, attended with many inconveniences, Boswell, after holding it for about two years, resigned it.

wise man will, upon sober reflection, envy a situation which he feels he could not enjoy. My friend my 'Mecenas atavis edite regibus'-Lord Mountstuart flattered me once very highly without intending it. 'I would do anything for you,' he said, but bring you into parliament, for I could not be sure but you would oppose me in something the very next day.' His lordship judged well. Though I should consider, with much attention, the opinion of such a friend before taking my resolution, most certainly I should oppose him in any measure which I was satisfied ought to be opposed. I cannot exist with pleasure, if I have not an honest independence of mind and of conduct; for, though no man loves good eating and drinking better than I do, I prefer the broiled blade-bone of mutton and humble port of 'downright Shippen,' to all the luxury of all the statesmen who play the political game all through."

He offered himself, however, as a candidate for Ayrshire, at the general election of 1790; but was defeated by the interest of the minister, which was exerted for a more pliant partisan. On this and all other proper occasions, he made no scruple to avow himself a Tory and a royalist; saying, however, in the words of his pamphlet just quoted, "I can drink, I can laugh, I can converse, in perfect good humour, with Whigs, with Republicans, with Dissenters, with Moravians, with Jews-they can do me no harm-my mind is made up-my principles are fixed-but I would vote with Tories, and pray with a dean and chapter."

If his success at the bar and in the political world was not very splendid, he consoled himself, so far as his own fancy was to be consoled, by the grateful task of preparing for the press his magnum opusthe life of Dr. Johnson. This work appeared in 1791, in two volumes quarto, and was received with an avidity suitable to its entertaining and valuable character. Besides a most minute narrative of the literary and domestic life of Johnson, it contained notes of all the remarkable expressions which the sage had ever uttered in Mr. Boswell's presence, besides some similar records from other hands, and an immense store of original letters. As decidedly the most faithful biographical portraiture in existence, and referring to one of the most illustrious names in literature, it is unquestionably the first book of its class; and not only so, but there is no other biographical work at all approaching to it in merit. While this is the praise deserved by the work, it happens, rather uncommonly, that no similar degree of ap probation can be extended to the writer. Though a great work, it is only so by accident, or rather through the persevering assiduity of the author in a course which no man fit to produce a designedly great work could have submitted to. It is only great by a multiplication and agglomeration of little efforts. The preparation of a second edition of the life of Dr. Johnson was the last literary performance of Boswell, who died, May 19, 1795, at his house in Great Poland Street, London, in the 55th year of his age; having been previously ill for five weeks of a disorder which had commenced as an intermitting fever. He was buried at the family seat of Auchinleck.

time, subjected to just ridicule for his total want of that natural dignity by which men of the world

secure and maintain the respect of their fellowcreatures in the daily business of life. He wanted this to such a degree, that even those relations whose respect was most necessary, according to the laws of nature, could scarcely extend it; and from the same cause his intellectual exertions, instead of shedding a lustre upon his name, have proved rather a kind of blot in his pedigree. His unmanly obsequiousness to great men-even though some of these were great only by the respect due to talent-his simpleton drollery-his degrading employment as a chronicler of private conversations-his mean tastes, among which was the disgusting one of a fondness for seeing executions—and the half folly, half vanity, with which he could tell the most delicate things, personal to himself and his family, in print-have altogether conspired to give him rather notoriety than true fame, and, though perhaps leaving him affection, deprive him entirely of respect. It was a remarkable point in the character of such a man, that, with powers of entertainment almost equal to Shakspeare's description of Yorick, he was subject to grievous fits of melancholy in private. One of his works, not noticed in the preceding narrative, was a series of papers under the title of The Hypochondriac, which appeared in the London Magazine for 1782, and were intended to embody the varied feelings of a man subject to that distemper.

BOSWELL, ALEXANDER and JAMES, sons of the preceding. It has been remarked, as creditable to the memory of James VI., that he educated two sons, who were, both in point of personal and intellectual character, much above the standard of ordinary men. The same remark will apply to the biographer of Johnson, who, whatever may be thought of his own character, reared two sons who stood forth afterwards as a credit to his parental care. A wish to educate his children in the best manner, was one of the ruling passions of this extraordinary litterateur in his latter years. He placed both his sons at Westminster School, and afterwards in the university of Oxford, at an expense which appears to have been not altogether justified by his own circumstances.

ALEXANDER BOSWELL, who was born October 9, 1775, succeeded his father in the possession of the family estate. He was distinguished as a spirited and amiable country gentleman, and also as a literary antiquary of no inconsiderable erudition. Perhaps his taste, in the latter capacity, was greatly fostered by the possession of an excellent collection of old manuscripts and books, which was gathered together by his ancestors, and has acquired the well-known title of the "AUCHINLECK LIBRARY." From the stores of this collection, in 1804, Sir Walter Scott published the romance of Sir Tristram, which is judged by its learned editor to be the earliest specimen of poetry by a Scottish writer now in existence. Besides this invaluable present to the literary world, the Auchinleck Library furnished, in 1812, the black letter original of a disputation held between John Knox and Quentin Kennedy at Maybole in 1562, which was printed at the time by Knox himself, but had latterly become so scarce that hardly another copy, besides that in the Auchinleck Library, was known to exist. Mr. Boswell was at the expense of printing a fac-simile edition of this curiosity, which was accepted by the learned as a very valuable contribution to our stock of historical literature. The taste of Alexander Boswell was of a much manlier and more sterling character than that of his father; and instead of being alternately the active and passive cause of amusement to his friends, he

shone exclusively in the former capacity. He possessed, indeed, a great fund of volatile talent, and, in particular, a most pungent vein of satire, which, while it occasionally inspired fear and dislike in those who were liable to become its objects, produced no admiration which was not also accompanied by respect. At an early period of his life, some of his poetical jeux d'esprit occasionally made a slight turmoil in that circle of Scottish society in which he moved. He sometimes also exercised his pen in that kind of familiar vernacular poetry which Burns again brought into fashion; and in the department of song-writing he certainly met with considerable success. A small volume, entitled, Songs chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, was published by him, anonymously, in 1803, with the motto, "Nulla venenato litera mixta joco," a motto which it would have been well for him if he had never forgot. In a brief note on the second folio of this little work, he mentioned that he was induced to lay these trivial compositions in an authentic shape before the public, because corrupted copies had previously made their appearance. The truth is, some of his songs had already acquired a wide acceptation in public life, and were almost as familiar as those of Burns.1 The volume also contains some English compositions, which still retain a popularity such as "Taste Life's Glad Moments," which, he tells us, he translated at Leipsig, in 1795, from the German song, "Freu't euch des Libens." Mr. Boswell also appears, from various compositions in this little volume, to have had a turn for writing popular Irish songs. One or two of his attempts in that style are replete with the grotesque character of the nation.2

In 1810 Mr. Boswell published a small volume under the title, Edinburgh, or the Ancient Royalty, a Sketch of former Manners, by Simon Gray. It is a kind of city eclogue, in which a farmer, who knew the town in a past age, is supposed to converse regarding its modern changes, with a city friend. It contains some highly curious memorials of the simple manners which obtained in Edinburgh, before

1 We may instance, "Auld Gudeman, ye're a Drucken Carle," Jenny's Bawbee," and "Jenny Dang the Weaver."

It is hardly worth while to say more of a few fugitive lyrics; but yet we cannot help pointing out a remarkably beautiful antithesis, in one styled "The Old Chieftain to his Sons:"

"The auld will speak, the young maun hear,
Be canty, but be gude and leal;
Your ain ills aye hae heart to bear,
Anither's aye hae heart to feel."

In another he thus ludicrously adverts, in a fictitious character, to the changes which modern manners, rather than time, have produced upon the external and internal economy of the Scottish capital:

Hech! what a change hae we now in this town!
A' now are braw lads, the lasses a' glancin';
Folk maun be dizzy gaun aye in this roun',

For deil a hae't 's done now but feastin' and dancin'.
Gowd's no that scanty in ilk siller pock,

Whan ilka bit laddie maun hae his bit staigie;
But I kent the day when there was na a Jock,
But trotted about upon honest shanks-naigie.
Little was stown then, and less gaed to waste,
Barely a mullin for mice or for rattens;
The thrifty gudewife to the flesh-market paced,
Her equipage a'—just a gude pair o' pattens.
Folk were as gude then, and friends were as leal;
Though coaches were scant, wi' their cattle a' cantrin';
Right aire we were tell't by the housemaid or chiel,
'Sir, an' ye please, here's yer lass and a lantern.'
The town may be cloutit and pieced till it meets,
A' neebours benorth and besouth without haltin';
Brigs may be biggit ower lums and ower streets,
The Nor-Loch itsel' heaped as heigh as the Calton.
But whar is true friendship, and whar will you see
A' that is gude, honest, modest, and thrifty?
Tak' gray hairs and wrinkles, and hirple wi' me,
And think on the seventeen-hundred and fifty.