Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 05.djvu/441

 London and some interviews with Johnson, proceeded to Scotland, where his mother was just dead. He was admitted advocate 26 July 1766, and resolved to set to work seriously. His head, indeed, was full of Corsica, and, though Johnson advised him not to write a history, he resolved to turn his experience to account. His father's position brought him, it seems (Letters to Temple, p. 95), some legal business, and in March 1767 he announces that he has made eight guineas. He tried to attract notice by publishing in November 1767 a pamphlet on the famous Douglas case. Boswell considered that he had rendered a service to the claimant, Archibald Douglas ; explained upon that ground the coolness with which he was treated by the Duchess of Argyll on his visit to Inverary with Johnson; and seems to have appeared as counsel in the last litigation before the House of Lords in 1778 (Letter to Johnson, 26 Feb. 1778). In 1767 he was also employed upon writing his ‘Account of Corsica.’ He sold it to Dilly for one hundred guineas (Letters to Temple, p. 103), and it appeared in the spring of 1768. The book consists of a commonplace historical account of Corsica, followed by a short and very lively description of his tour. A second edition followed in a few months, and a third in 1769. In the spring of 1769 he also published a volume of ‘Essays in favour of the brave Corsicans.' The tour excited a good deal of not altogether flattering interest. Johnson, indeed, did not give his opinion till directly charged with unkindness for his silence by the author. He then said (9 Sept. 1769) that the history was ‘like other histories,' but the journal ‘in a very high degree delightful and curious.’ Walpole (who says that Boswell ‘forced himself upon me in spite of my teeth’) and Gray laughed over it, Gray saying that the journal was ‘a dialogue between a green goose and a hero.‘ Boswell asked Temple for an introduction to Gray, but the poet apparently escaped. Already acquainted with Voltaire, Rousscau, Paoli, Johnson, Goldsmith, Hume, Wilkes, and other eminent men, Boswell had tried to make his Corsican experience a stepping-stone to acquaintance with English statesmen. He called upon Chatham in Corsican costume to plead the cause of Paoli (‘Johnsoniana’ in Boswell, No. 6758); he was elated by a note from the statesman in February 1766; and some months later Chatham wrote him a letter of three pages applauding his generous warmth. On 8 April 1767 he tells Lord Chatham that he has communicated the contents of this letter to Paoli, and asks ‘ Could your lordship find time to honour me now and then with a letter? To correspond with a Paoli and with a Chatham is enough to keep a young man ever ardent in the pursuit of virtuous fame’ (Chatham Correspondence, iii. 159, 244). On the publication of his book Boswell went to London to enjoy his fame. ‘I am really the great man now,’ he exclaims to Temple (14 May 1768); he bugs of his good dinners, of the great men who share them, and declares that he is about to set up his chariot. The pressure of such engagements probably explains the brevity of his account of Johnson in this visit. Boswell was indeed distracted by other interests. His appetite for enjoyment was excessive and not delicate. He lost money at play, though not, it would seem, to a serious extent (Letters to Temple, p. 153). He indulged in occasional drinking bouts, and in spite of vows, virtuous resolutions, and a promise made to Temple ‘under a solemn yew tree' (Letters to Temple, pp. 199, 209), he never overcame the weakness. In 1776 he tells Temple that he was ‘really growing a drunkard,’ and that Paoli had made him promise total abstinence for a year (Letters to Temple, p. 233). At this period love was more potent than wine. In February 1767 he begins a letter to Temple, who had just taken orders, by some edifying reflections upon his friend’s sacred profession and exhortations to marriage. He proceeds to explain that he cannot himself marry during his father's lifetime, and that he ‘looks with horror on adultery.' He has, however, taken a house for a ‘sweet little mistress' who has been deserted by her husband and three children; who is ‘ill-bred’ and ‘rompish,‘ and of doubtful fidelity, but handsome and lively. This entanglement lasted till the end of 1768 (Letters to Temple, p. 162). It is not surprising to find that Boswell was ’a good deal in debt’ (ib.) Meanwhile the statement that he cannot marry is the prologue to an intricate history of half a dozen matrimonial speculations, which occupy all the energy not devoted to law, literature, or dissipation. There are references to an ‘Italian angel,' apparently of Siena, who writes a letter which makes him cry (Letters to Temple, pp. 85, 95, 102). He has for a time thoughts of a Dutch lady called Zelide (probably the Mlle. de Zuyl of ‘Boswelliana'), whom he had known at Utrecht. In March 1767 he is thinking of a Miss Bosville in Yorkshire. She, however, is supplanted by a Miss Blair, a ‘neighbouring princess,’ with a landed estate of 200l. or 300l. a year, and whose alliance is favoured by his father. Throughout 1767 this flirtation goes on, with quarrels and reconciliations. In June