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Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica

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Title: Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica

Author: James Boswell

Editor: George Birkbeck Norman Hill


        
Release date: January 4, 2007 [eBook #20263]

Language: English

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Credits: E-text prepared by Clare Boothby, Linda Cantoni, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team


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E-text prepared by Clare Boothby, Linda Cantoni, and the Project Gutenberg
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Transcriber's note:

   Inconsistencies and idiosyncrasies of spelling, punctuation,
   hyphenation, capitalization, and use of diacriticals are preserved
   as they appear in the original text.





BOSWELL'S

CORRESPONDENCE

WITH THE HONOURABLE

ANDREW ERSKINE

AND HIS

JOURNAL OF A TOUR TO CORSICA

(Reprinted from the Original Editions)

Edited

With a Preface, Introduction, and Notes

by

GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL, D.C.L.

Author of "Dr. Johnson: His Friends and His Critics."







London:
Thos. De La Rue & Co.
1879

Printed by
Thomas De La Rue and Co., Bunhill Row,
London.




CONTENTS.


PREFACE                                                              i

LETTERS BETWEEN THE HONOURABLE ANDREW ERSKINE
  AND JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.                                            3

INTRODUCTION TO THE JOURNAL OF A TOUR TO CORSICA                   101

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION                                       125

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION                                       135

THE JOURNAL OF A TOUR TO CORSICA                                   137

APPENDIX                                                           239




BOSWELL AND ERSKINE'S LETTERS.




PREFACE.


Boswell did not bring out his "Life of Johnson" till he was past his
fiftieth year. His "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides" had appeared more
than five years earlier. While it is on these two books that his fame
rests, yet to the men of his generation he was chiefly known for his
work on Corsica and for his friendship with Paoli. His admiration for
Johnson he had certainly proclaimed far and wide. He had long been off,
in the words of his father, "wi' the land-louping scoundrel of a
Corsican, and had pinned himself to a dominie--an auld dominie who
keeped a schule and cau'd it an acaadamy." Nevertheless it was to
Corsica and its heroic chief that he owed the position that he
undoubtedly held among men of letters. He was Corsica Boswell and Paoli
Boswell long before he became famous as Johnson Boswell.

It has been shown elsewhere[1] what a spirited thing it was in this
young Scotchman to make his way into an island, the interior of which no
traveller from this country had ever before visited. The Mediterranean
still swarmed with Turkish corsairs, while Corsica itself was in a very
unsettled condition. It had been computed that, till Paoli took the rule
and held it with a firm hand, the state had lost no less than 800
subjects every year by assassination. Boswell, as he tells us in his
Journal, had been warned by an officer of rank in the British Navy, who
had visited several of the ports, of the risk he ran to his life in
going among these "barbarians." Moreover a state of hostility existed
between the Corsicans and the Republic of Genoa--which, the year before
Boswell's visit, had obtained the assistance of France. The interior of
the island was still held by Paoli, but many of the seaport towns were
garrisoned by the French and the Genoese. At the time of Boswell's visit
war was not being actively carried on, for the French commander had been
instructed merely to secure these points, and not to undertake offensive
operations against the natives. From the Journal that Boswell gives, we
see that when once he had landed he ran no risks; but it is not every
young man who, when out on his travels, leaves the safe and beaten round
to go into a country that is almost unknown, and to prove to others that
there also safety is to be found. With good reason did Johnson write to
him--"Come home and expect such welcome as is due to him whom a wise and
noble curiosity has led where perhaps no native of this country ever was
before." With scarcely less reason did Paoli say, "A man come from
Corsica will be like a man come from the Antipodes."

[Footnote 1: "Dr. Johnson: His Friends and His Critics." By George
Birkbeck Hill, D.C.L. Smith, Elder & Co.]

How strongly his journey and his narrative touched the hearts of people
at home may still be read in Mrs. Barbauld's fine lines on Corsica:--

     "Such were the working thoughts which swelled the breast
     Of generous Boswell; when with nobler aim
     And views beyond the narrow beaten track
     By trivial fancy trod, he turned his course
     From polished Gallia's soft delicious vales,
     From the grey reliques of imperial Rome,
     From her long galleries of laureled stone,
     Her chiseled heroes and her marble gods,
     Whose dumb majestic pomp yet awes the world,
     To animated forms of patriot zeal;
     Warm in the living majesty of virtue;
     Elate with fearless spirit; firm; resolved;
     By fortune nor subdued; nor awed by power."[2]

[Footnote 2: "Mrs. Barbauld's Poems," vol. i., p. 2. It is certainly
strange that Boswell, so far as I know, nowhere quotes these lines. He
was not wont to let the world remain in ignorance of any compliment that
had been paid him. I fear that he was rather ashamed at finding himself
praised by a writer who was not only a woman, but also was the wife of
"a little presbyterian parson who kept an infant boarding school."]

Gray was moved greatly by the account given of Paoli. "He is a man," he
wrote, "born two thousand years after his time." Horace Walpole had
written to beg him to read the book. "What relates to Paoli," he said,
"will amuse you much." What merely amused Walpole "moved" Gray
"strangely." It moved others besides him. Subscriptions were raised for
the Corsicans, and money and arms were sent to them from this country.
Boswell writes to tell his friend Temple--"I have hopes that our
Government will interfere. In the meantime, by a private subscription in
Scotland, I am sending this week £700 worth of ordnance." Other
subscriptions were forwarded which Paoli, as is told in a letter from
him published in the "Gentleman's Magazine,"[3] "applied to the support
of the families of those patriots who, abhorring a foreign yoke, have
abandoned their houses and estates in that part of the country held by
the enemy, and have retired to join our army."

[Footnote 3: "Gentleman's Magazine," vol. xxxix., p. 214.]

Boswell's work met with a rapid sale. The copyright he sold to Dilly for
one hundred guineas. The publisher must have made no small gain by the
bargain, for a third edition was called for within a year. "My book,"
writes Boswell, "has amazing celebrity: Lord Lyttelton, Mr. Walpole,
Mrs. Macaulay, Mr. Garrick have all written me noble letters about it."
With his Lordship's letter he was so much delighted that in the third
edition he obtained leave to use it to "enrich" his book. Johnson
pronounced his Journal in a very high degree curious and delightful. It
is surprising that a work which thus delighted Johnson, moved Gray
strangely, and amused Horace Walpole, can now be met with only in old
libraries and on the shelves of a dealer in second-hand books. I doubt
whether a new edition has been published in the last hundred years. It
is still more surprising when we remember that it is the work of an
author who has written a book "that is likely to be read as long as the
English exists, either as a living or as a dead language." The
explanation of this, I take it, is to be found in the distinction that
Johnson draws between Boswell's Account of Corsica, which forms more
than two-thirds of the whole book, and the Journal of his Tour. His
history, he said, was like other histories. It was copied from books.
His Journal rose out of his own experience and observation. His history
was read, and perhaps read with eagerness, because at the time when it
appeared there was a strong interest felt in the Corsicans. In despair
of maintaining their independence, they had been willing to place
themselves and their island entirely under the protection of Great
Britain. The offer had been refused, but they still hoped for our
assistance. Not a few Englishmen felt with Lord Lyttelton when he
wrote--"I wish with you that our Government had shown more respect for
Corsican liberty, and I think it disgraces our nation that we do not
live in good friendship with a brave people engaged in the noblest of
all contests, a contest against tyranny." But in such a contest as this
Corsica was before long to play a different part. Scarcely four years
after Boswell from some distant hill "had a fine view of Ajaccio and its
environs," that town was rendered famous by the birth of Napoleon
Buonaparte.

With whatever skill Boswell's history had been compiled it could not
have lived. There were not, indeed, the materials out of which a history
that should last could have been formed. The whole island boasted of but
one printing press and one bookseller's shop. The feuds and wars of the
wild islanders might have lived in the songs of the poet, but were
little fit for the purposes of the historian. He who attempts to write
the history of such a people is almost forced to accept tradition for
fact, and to believe in their Arthurs and their Tells. The Corsicans
are, indeed, from time to time found in one or other of the great tracks
of European history. As Boswell says, their island had belonged to the
Phoenicians, the Etruscans, the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Goths,
and the Saracens. It had been conquered by France, and had been made a
gift from that kingdom to the Pope. It had been given by the Pope to the
Pisans, and from them had passed to the Republic of Genoa. It had
undergone strange and rapid revolutions, but they were those common
revolutions that befall a wild race that lives in the midst of powerful
neighbours.

Boswell, unsurpassed though he is as a biographer, admirable as he is as
a writer of a Journal, yet had little of the stuff out of which an
historian is made. His compilation is a creditable performance for a
young man who had but lately returned home from his travels. It
certainly adds nothing to the reputation of the author of the "Life of
Johnson." But while it lies overwhelmed with deserved neglect, it ought
not to drag down with it the Journal of his Tour. That portion of the
work is lively, is interesting, and is brief. It can be read with
pleasure now, as it was read with pleasure when it first appeared. But,
besides this, it is interesting to us as the early work of a writer
whose mind has been a puzzle to men of letters. Even should we accept
Macaulay's judgment on Boswell, and despise him as he despises him, yet
it must surely be worth while to examine closely the early writings of
an author, who has, "in an important department of literature,
immeasurably surpassed such writers as Tacitus, Clarendon, Alfieri, and
his own idol Johnson."[4] This Journal is like the youthful sketch of
some great artist. It exhibits the merits which, later on,
distinguished, in so high a degree the mature writer.

[Footnote 4: "Macaulay's Essays," vol. i., p. 377.]

Together with the "Journal of a Tour to Corsica," I am reprinting a
volume of letters that passed between Boswell and his friend The
Honourable Andrew Erskine. Lively and amusing though they often are,
yet I should not have proposed to republish them did not they throw
almost as much light on Boswell's character as the Journal throws light
on his powers as a writer. In his account of Corsica, there is a passage
in which, while describing the historian Petrus Cyrnaeus, he at the same
time describes himself. "The fourth book of Petrus Cyrnaeus," he says,
"is entirely taken up with an account of his own wretched vagabond life,
full of strange, whimsical anecdotes. He begins it very gravely:
'Quoniam ad hunc locum perventum est, non alienum videtur de Petri qui
haec scripsit vita et moribus proponere.' 'Since we are come thus far it
will not be amiss to say something of the life and manners of Petrus,
who writeth this history.' He gives a very excellent character of
himself, and, I dare say, a very faithful one. But so minute is his
narration, that he takes care to inform posterity that he was very
irregular in his method of walking, and that he preferred sweet wine to
hard. In short, he was a man of considerable parts, with a great
simplicity and oddity of character."

To the simplicity and oddity of character that Boswell shared with this
learned historian, there was certainly added not a little impudence. It
was an impudence that was lively and amusing; but none the less was it
downright impudence. We are amazed at the audacity with which two young
men ventured to publish to the world the correspondence which had passed
between them when they were scarcely of age. In fact, the earlier
letters were written when Boswell was but twenty. Their justification
only increases their offence. "Curiosity," they say, "is the most
prevalent of all our passions; and the curiosity for reading letters, is
the most prevalent of all kinds of curiosity. Had any man in the three
kingdoms found the following letters, directed, sealed, and adorned with
postmarks,--provided he could have done it honestly--he would have read
every one of them." There is this, however, that makes us always look
with a certain indulgence on Boswell. He never plays the hypocrite. He
likes praise, he likes to be talked about, he likes to know great
people, and he no more cares to conceal his likings than Sancho Panza
cared to conceal his appetite. Three pullets and a couple of geese were
but so much scum, which Don Quixote's squire whipped off to stay his
stomach till dinner-time. By the time Boswell was six-and-twenty he
could boast that he had made the acquaintance of Adam Smith, Robertson,
Hume, Johnson, Goldsmith, Wilkes, Garrick, Horace Walpole, Voltaire,
Rousseau, and Paoli. He had twice at least received a letter from the
Earl of Chatham. But his appetite for knowing great men could never be
satisfied. These might stay his stomach for a while, but more would be
presently wanted. At the time when he published this volume of Letters
he seems to have had some foresight into his future life. "I am
thinking," he says, "of the intimacies which I shall form with the
learned and ingenious in every science, and of the many amusing literary
anecdotes which I shall pick up." When fame did come upon him by his
book on Corsica, no one could have relished it more. "I am really the
_great man_ now," he writes to his friend Temple. "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_ another,
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.... 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 preface to the third edition, he says,--"When I first ventured to
send my book 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." It was about this time that, writing to the great Earl of
Chatham, he said--"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 a
Chatham, is enough to keep a young man ever ardent in the pursuit of
virtuous fame."[5]

[Footnote 5: "Chatham Correspondence," vol. iii., p. 246.]

A few months before his account of Corsica was published, he had fixed
upon the date of its publication as the period when he should steadily
begin that pursuit of virtuous fame, which now was to be secured by
correspondence with a Paoli and a Chatham. "I am always for fixing some
period," he wrote, "for my perfection, as far as possible. Let it be
when my account of Corsica is published; I shall then have a character
which I must support." Unhappily the time for his perfection was again
and again put off. Johnson, in speaking of Derrick, said--"Derrick may
do very well, as long as he can outrun his character; but the moment his
character gets up with him, it is all over." With Boswell, just the
opposite was the case. He soon acquired a character--a character which
he was bound to support. But he could never get up with it. The friend
of Paoli, the friend of Johnson, was, unhappily, given to drink. The gay
spirits and lively health of youth supported him for a while; but, even
in these early days, he was too often troubled with that depression of
spirit which follows on a debauch. But, as time passed on, and the habit
grew stronger upon him, his health began to give way, and his
cheerfulness of mind to desert him. He lived but four years after the
publication of his great work.

In the preface to the second edition of the "Life of Johnson" he shows
his delight in his fame. "There are some men, I believe, who have, or
think they have, a very small share of vanity. Such may speak of their
literary fame in a decorous state of diffidence. But I confess that I am
so formed by nature and by habit, that to restrain the effusion of
delight on having obtained such fame, to me would be truly painful. Why,
then, should I suppress it? Why, 'out of the abundance of the heart,'
should I not speak?" This preface bears the date of July 1, 1793. Only
ten days earlier he had written to tell Temple how he had been drinking,
and had been robbed. "The robbery is only of a few shillings; but the
cut on my head and bruises on my arms were sad things, and confined me
to bed in pain, and fever, and helplessness, as a child, many days....
This shall be a crisis in my life: I trust I shall henceforth be a
sober, regular man. Indeed, my indulgence in wine has, of late years
especially, been excessive.... Your suggestion as to my being carried
off in a state of intoxication, is awful. I thank you for it, my dear
friend. It impressed me much, I assure you." It was too late in life to
form resolutions. A year later he was again "resolved anew to be upon
his guard." In the May of 1795, he died, after an illness of great
suffering. To him might be applied some of the lines which the great
poet who lived so near him wrote as his own epitaph:--

     "He keenly felt the friendly glow,
                 And softer flame;
     But thoughtless follies laid him low,
                 And stain'd his name."

Boswell had, indeed, but little of that "prudent, cautious,
self-control," which, as Burns tells us, "is wisdom's root." It is a sad
thought that at the very same time the two most famous writers that
Ayrshire can boast, men whose homes were but a few miles apart, were at
the same time drinking themselves to death. Burns outlived Boswell
little more than a year.

Boswell was fifty-four years old when he died. Greatly as he relished
wine, he relished fame still more. He had worked hard for fame, and he
had fairly earned it; but in its full flush his intemperance swept him
away. There can be little question that his first triumph in the field
of letters, his book on Corsica brought him far greater pleasure than
his "Life of Johnson," by which his name will live. Perhaps the happiest
day in his life was when, at the Shakespeare Jubilee, he entered the
amphitheatre in the dress of a Corsican chief. "On the front of his cap
was embroidered, in gold letters, "_Viva la Libertà_," and on the side
of it was a handsome blue feather and cockade, so that it had an elegant
as well as a warlike appearance." "So soon as he came into the room,"
says the account in the "London Magazine," written, no doubt, by
himself, "he drew universal attention." The applause that his "Life of
Johnson" brought him was, no doubt, far greater, but then, as I have
said, his health was breaking, and his fine spirits were impaired. He
who would know Boswell at his happiest--when he was, as Hume described
him, very good humoured, very agreeable, and very mad, must read his
volume of Letters, and the Journals of his Tours to Corsica and the
Hebrides.




LETTERS

BETWEEN

THE HONOURABLE

ANDREW ERSKINE,

AND

JAMES BOSWELL, Esq;


LONDON:
Printed by SAMUEL CHANDLER;
For W. FLEXNEY, near Gray's-Inn-Gate, Holborn.
MDCCLXIII.




ADVERTISEMENT.


Curiosity is the most prevalent of all our passions; and the curiosity
for reading letters, is the most prevalent of all kinds of curiosity.
Had any man in the three Kingdoms found the following letters, directed,
sealed, and adorned with postmarks,--provided he could have done it
honestly--he would have read every one of them; or, had they been
ushered into the world, from Mr. Flexney's shop, in that manner, they
would have been bought up with the greatest avidity. As they really once
had all the advantages of concealment, we hope their present more
conspicuous form will not tend to diminish their merit. They have made
ourselves laugh; we hope they will have the same effect upon other
people.




LETTERS.


      [In a Memoir of James Boswell,[6] by the Rev. Charles Rogers,
      a short account is given of the Hon. Andrew Erskine,
      Boswell's correspondent. He was the youngest son of
      Alexander, fifth Earl of Kellie. He served in the army for
      some years. After his retirement he settled at Edinburgh.
      "His habits were regular, but he indulged occasionally at
      cards, and was partial to the game of whist. Having sustained
      a serious loss at his favourite pastime, he became frantic,
      and threw himself into the Forth and perished." Burns,
      writing to his friend Thomson, October, 1793, says--"Your
      last letter, my dear Thomson, was indeed laden with heavy
      news. Alas, poor Erskine! The recollection that he was a
      coadjutor in your publication has, till now, scared me from
      writing to you, or turning my thoughts on composing for you."
      "He was," adds Dr. Rogers, "of a tall, portly form, and to
      the last wore gaiters and a flapped vest." By this last
      description Dr. Rogers's readers may be pleasantly reminded
      of an anecdote that is given for the first time, I believe,
      in his book. "Dr. Johnson used to laugh at a passage in
      Carte's 'Life of the Duke of Ormond,' where he gravely
      observed that 'he was always in full dress when he went to
      Court; too many being in the practice of going thither with
      double lapells.'" As poor Erskine "wore to the last his
      gaiters and a flapped vest," no doubt he had them on when he
      drowned himself.--ED.]

[Footnote 6: "Boswelliana: The Commonplace Book of James Boswell." With
a Memoir and Annotations, by the Rev. Charles Rogers, LL.D. London:
Printed for the Grampian Club, 1874.]

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER I.

Auchinleck, Aug. 25, 1761.

Dear ERSKINE,--No ceremony, I beseech you. Give me your hand. How is my
honest Captain Andrew? How goes it with the elegant gentle Lady A----?
the lovely sighing Lady J----? and how, O how does that glorious
luminary Lady B---- do? You see I retain my usual volatility. The
Boswells, you know, came over from Normandy, with William the Conqueror,
and some of us possess the spirit of our ancestors the French. I do for
one. A pleasant spirit it is. _Vive la Bagatelle_, is the maxim. A light
heart may bid defiance to fortune. And yet, Erskine, I must tell you,
that I have been a little pensive of late, amorously pensive, and
disposed to read Shenstone's Pastoral on Absence, the tenderness and
simplicity of which I greatly admire. A man who is in love is like a man
who has got the tooth-ache, he feels most acute pain while nobody pities
him. In that situation am I at present: but well do I know that I will
not be long so. So much for inconstancy. As this is my first epistle to
you, it cannot in decency be a long one. Pray write to me soon. Your
letters, I prophecy, will entertain me not a little; and will besides be
extremely serviceable in many important respects. They will supply me
with oil to my lamps, grease to my wheels, and blacking to my shoes.
They will furnish me with strings to my fiddle, lashes to my whip,
lining to my breeches, and buttons to my coat. They will make charming
spurs, excellent knee buckles, and inimitable watch-keys. In short,
while they last I shall neither want breakfast, dinner, nor supper. I
shall keep a couple of horses, and I shall sleep upon a bed of down. I
shall be in France this year, and in Spain the next; with many other
particulars too tedious to mention. You may take me in a metaphorical
sense; but I would rather choose to be understood literally.

I am

Your most affectionate friend,

JAMES BOSWELL.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER II.

Kelly, Sept. 11, 1761.

     HAIL! mighty Boswell! at thy awful name
     The fainting muse relumes her sinking flame.
     Behold how high the tow'ring blaze aspires,
     While fancy's waving pinions fan my fires!
     Swells the full song? it swells alone from thee;
     Some spark of thy bright genius kindles me!
     "But softly, Sir," I hear you cry,
     "This wild bombast is rather dry:
     I hate your d----n'd insipid song,
     That sullen stalks in lines so long;
     Come, give us short ones like to Butler,
     Or, like our friend Auchinleck[7] the cutler."
     A Poet, Sir, whose fame is to support,
     Must ne'er write verses tripping pert and short:
     Who ever saw a judge himself disgrace,
     By trotting to the bench with hasty pace?
     I swear, dear Sir, you're really in the wrong;
     To make a line that's good, I say, James, make it long.

[Footnote 7: Pronounced "Affleck."--ED.]

You see, Sir, I have quite the best of the argument; and indeed I was
determined not to give it up, till you acknowledged yourself vanquished;
so to verse I go again, tooth and nail.

       How well you talk of glory and the guards,
     Of fighting heroes, and their great rewards!
     Our eyes behold you glow with martial flame,
     Our ears attend the never-ceasing theme.
     Fast from your tongue the rousing accents flow,
     And horror darkens on your sable brow!
     We hear the thunder of the rolling war,
     And see red vict'ry shouting from her car!

       You kindly took me up, an awkward cub,
     And introduced me to the Soaping-Club;[8]
     Where ev'ry Tuesday eve our ears are blest
     With genuine humour, and with genuine jest:
     The voice of mirth ascends the list'ning sky,
     While, "soap his own beard, every man," you cry.
     Say, who could e'er indulge a yawn or nap,
     When Barclay roars forth snip, and Bainbridge snap?[9]
     Tell me how I your favours may return;
     With thankfulness and gratitude I burn.
     I've one advice, oh! take it I implore!
     Search out America's untrodden shore;
     There seek some vast Savannah rude and wild,
     Where Europe's sons of slaughter never smil'd,
     With fiend-like arts, insidious to betray
     The sooty natives as a lawful prey.
     At you th' astonish'd savages shall stare,
     And hail you as a God, and call you fair:
     Your blooming beauty shall unrivall'd shine,
     And Captain Andrew's whiteness yield to thine.[10]

[Footnote 8: The Soaping-Club--a Club in Edinburgh, the motto of which
was, "Every Man soap his own Beard;" or, "Every Man indulge his own
Humour." Their game was that facetious one, Snip, Snap, Snorum.]

[Footnote 9: Barclay and Bainbridge, two members of this Club.]

[Footnote 10: "And Captain Andrew's whiteness, &c." The writers of these
Letters, instead of being rivals in wit, were rivals in complexion.]

In reality, I'm under vast obligations to you. It was you who first made
me thoroughly sensible (indeed I very readily believed it) of the
excellencies of my own Poetry; and about that time, I made two wonderful
discoveries, to wit, that you was a sensible man, and that I was a good
poet; discoveries which I dare say are yet doubted by some incredulous
people. Boswell, I shall not praise your letter, because I know you have
an aversion at being thought a genius, or a wit. The reluctance with
which you always repeat your Cub,[11] and the gravity of countenance
which you always assume upon that occasion, are convincing proofs of
this assertion. You hate flattery, too, but in spite of your teeth I
must tell you, that you are the best Poet, and the most humorous
letter-writer I know; and that you have a finer complexion, and dance
better than any man of my acquaintance. For my part, I actually think
you would make an excellent champion at the approaching coronation.[12]
What though malevolent critics may say you are too little, yet you are a
Briareus in comparison of Tydeus the hero of Statius's Thebais; and if
he was not a warrior, then am I, Andrew Erskine, Lieutenant in the 71st
regiment, blind of one eye, hump-backed, and lame in both legs. We all
tired so much of the Highlands, that we had not been there three weeks
before we all came away again. Lady B---- is gone a-visiting, and the
rest of us are come to Kelly. It was most unaccountable in me to leave
New-Tarbat; for nowhere will you meet with such fine ingredients for
poetical description. However, we are all going back again when Mr.
M---- comes from London; so some time in October you may expect a most
cordial invitation. This is all at present (according to the simple but
eloquent expression of the vulgar) from your sincere friend,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

[Footnote 11: In March, 1762, Boswell published "The Cub at Newmarket: a
Tale." (Dodsley).--ED.]

[Footnote 12: George III. was crowned on September 22nd, of this
year.--ED.]

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER III.

Auchinleck, Sept. 14, 1761.

       Dear Captain Andrew! Poet of renown!
     Whether the chairmen of Edina's town
     You curious draw, and make 'em justly speak,
     To use a vulgar phrase, _as clean's a leek_;
     Or smart Epistles, Fables, Songs you write,
     All put together handsome trim and tight;
     Or when your sweetly plaintive muse does sigh,
     And elegiac strains you happy try;
     Or when in ode sublime your genius soars,
     Which guineas brings to Donaldson by scores;
     Accept the thanks of ME, as quick as sage,
     Accept sincerest thanks for ev'ry page,
     For ev'ry page?--for ev'ry single line
     Of your rich letter aided by the Nine.[13]

[Footnote 13: The rest of Boswell's verses--more than a hundred in
number--the reader will thank me for omitting.--ED.]

       *       *       *       *       *

You are now so heartily tired, that it would be absolutely barbarous to
stun your ears any longer; only give me leave to tell you in one good
round sentence, that your prose is admirable, and that I am just now (at
three o'clock in the morning) sitting over the poor pale remnant of a
once glorious blazing fire, and feasting upon it, till I am all in a
_Lather_.

I cannot stop yet. Allow me a few more words. I live here in a remote
corner of an old ruinous house, where my ancestors have been very
jovial. What a solemn idea rushes on my mind! They are all gone; I must
follow. Well, and what then? Let me shift about to another subject. The
best I can think of is a sound sleep. So good night, and believe me,

Yours,

JAMES BOSWELL.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER IV.

Auchinleck, Oct. 10, 1761.

Dear ERSKINE,--Had Philip of Macedon been saddle-sick with riding up and
down the country after his unruly son Alexander, and been waiting in
extreme pain, till the surgeon of the next village brought him emollient
relief, he could not have been more impatient than I am for a return to
my last letter. I thought, indeed, that my firing so great a gun, would
have produced a speedy and a suitable echo, and I had no doubt of at
least being paid the interest of a sum so very large. I now give you
fair warning, that if something is not speedily done in this affair, I
shall be obliged to take very disagreeable methods. From this way of
talking, I begin to fancy myself a Schoolmaster; a character next to
that of a giant, most terrible to tender minds. Don't think to escape
the rod. Don't think your dignity as a poet will save you from it. I
make no question, but what that acrimonious pedagogue George Buchanan
has often applied it to his pupil, and he you know was a poet and a king
into the bargain. I have been reading the Rosciad. You see my very
studies have tended towards flagellation. Upon my word Churchill[14]
does scourge with a vengeance; I should not like to come under his
discipline. He is certainly a very able writer. He has great power of
numbers.

[Footnote 14: Churchill's "Rosciad" had been published in March of this
year.--ED.]

"In manly tides of verse he rolls along."[15]

[Footnote 15:

     "In manly tides of sense they roll'd along."

     --"The Rosciad."--ED.]

I desire, Erskine, once again, that you may write without delay,
otherwise, I shall no longer be

Your affectionate friend,

JAMES BOSWELL.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER V.

Kelly, Nov. 1, 1761.

Dear BOSWELL,--If you could conceive the many twitches of conscience I
have felt upon your account, the agitations, the compunctions, the
remorses, you would certainly forgive me. However, I was beginning to
turn callous against all suggestions of writing to you, when your last
letter arrived, which like the day of judgment, made my transgressions
stare me full in the face. Indolence and unwearied stupidity have been
my constant companions this many a day; and that amiable couple, above
all things in the world detest letter-writing. Besides, I heard you was
just going to be married, and as a poet, I durst not approach you
without an Epithalamium, and an Epithalamium was a thing, which at that
time I could not compass. It was all in vain, that Cupid and Hymen, Juno
and Luna, offered their assistance; I had no sort of employment for
them.

When you and I walked twice round the meadow upon the subject of
matrimony, I little thought that my difference in opinion from you,
would have brought on your marriage so soon; for I can attribute it to
no other cause: From this I learn that contradiction is of use in
society; and I shall take care to encourage that humour, or rather
spirit, in myself. As this is the first marriage I ever made, I expect
great congratulations, especially from you.

I have been busy furbishing up some old pieces for Donaldson's[16]
second volume: I exceed in quantity, twenty Eustace Budgels, according
to your epistle. Pray what is become of the Cub? Is Dodsley to sell you
for a shilling, or not? I have written one or two new things, an Ode to
Pity, and an Epistle to the great Donaldson, which is to be printed: The
subject was promising, but I made nothing of it. I must give over
poetry, and copy epistles out of that elegant treatise the Complete
Letter-Writer. D---- is gone to London, his parting advice to his sister
was, to keep the key of the coals herself; so I suppose he intends to
keep up his fire, this winter, in parliament, and not to go over the
coals with the ministry.

[Footnote 16: Donaldson, an Edinburgh bookseller, was bringing out a
collection of Original Poems, by the Rev. Mr. Blacklock, and other
Scotch gentlemen. Erskine was the editor.--ED.]

Lady A---- and I set out for New-Tarbat to-morrow. Could you come? Let
nothing but wedlock detain you. Oh, Boswell! the soporific effluvia of a
hearty dinner cloud all my faculties. I'm as dull as the tolling in of
the eighth-hour bell, or a neighbour in the country, that pays you an
annual visit. At this present moment, I'm astonished how anybody can be
clever; and your letter in heroic verse seems more amazing to me than if
the King of Britain was to send an express for me, to dance a hornpipe
before him, or the King of Prussia was to declare in a manifesto, that I
was the occasion of the present war. I detest the invention of writing;
and nothing could reconcile me to it, but that I can assure you at this
distance, that I am yours sincerely,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

There's a genteel conclusion for you. When you come to Edinburgh, I'll
settle an unintermitting correspondence with you.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER VI.

Edinburgh, Nov. 17, 1761.

Dear ERSKINE,--Much much concern does it give me, to find that you have
been in such bad spirits as your last most grievously indicates. I
believe we great geniuses are all a little subject to the sorcery of
that whimsical demon the spleen, which indeed we cannot complain of,
considering what power of enchantment we ourselves possess, by the sweet
magic of our flowing numbers. I would recommend to you to read Mr.
Green's[17] excellent poem upon that subject. He will dispel the clouds
and enliven you immediately. Or if that should not do, you may have
recourse to Xenophon's method, which was boiling potatoes, and pelting
the cats with them, an infallible receipt to promote risibility.

[Footnote 17: Matthew Green (1696-1737). Author of "The Spleen."--ED.]

So you too have listened to the report of my marriage, and must forsooth
display a pretty vein of jocularity upon the mournful occasion. Did you
really believe it? If you did, you will never be able to astonish me
with any thing else that is wonderful in your creed, for I shall reckon
your judgment at least three stanzas worse than formerly.

In the name of every thing that is upside down, what could the people
mean by marrying me? If they had boiled me into portable soup, or
hammered me into horse-shoes, I should not have been greatly surprised.
A man who has so deeply pondered on the wonders daily presented to our
view, and who has experienced so many vicissitudes of fortune, as I have
done, can easily make allowance for stranger things than these. But I
own their matrimonial system exceeds my comprehension.

Happy is it for the world that this affair did not take place. An event
so prodigious must have been attended with very alarming consequences.
For my own part, I tremble when I think of it. Damocles, Nero, and
Richard the Third, would have appeared amiable princes in comparison of
me. Wherever I went I should have carried horror and devastation,
sparing neither sex nor age. All, all should have been sacrificed to my
relentless cruelty. Donaldson is busy printing his second volume. I have
mustered up a few verses for him, some old, some new. I will not boast
of _them_. But I'll tell you one thing; the volume will be pretty free
from typographical errors: I have the honour to correct the
proof-sheets. My Cub is now with Dodsley. I fancy he will soon make his
appearance in public. I long to see him in his Pall-Mall[18] habit:
Though I'm afraid he will look a little awkward. Write to me often. You
shall have the best answers I can give you.

I remain, yours,

JAMES BOSWELL.

[Footnote 18: Dodsley's shop was in Pall Mall.--ED.]

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER VII.

New-Tarbat, Nov. 23, 1761.

Dear BOSWELL,--As we never hear that Demosthenes could broil
beef-steaks, or Cicero poach eggs, we may safely conclude, that these
gentlemen understood nothing of cookery. In like manner it may be
concluded, that you, James Boswell, and I Andrew Erskine, cannot write
serious epistles. This, as Mr. Tristram[19] says, I deny; for this
letter of mine shall contain the quintessence of solidity; it shall be a
piece of boiled beef and cabbage, a roasted goose, and a boiled leg of
pork and greens: in one word, it shall contain advice; sage and mature
advice. Oh! James Boswell! take care and don't break your neck; pray
don't fracture your skull, and be very cautious in your manner of
tumbling down precipices: beware of falling into coal-pits, and don't
drown yourself in every pool you meet with. Having thus warned you of
the most material dangers which your youth and inexperience will be
ready to lead you into, I now proceed to others less momentary indeed,
but very necessary to be strictly observed. Go not near the
Soaping-Club, never mention Drury-lane Playhouse; be attentive to those
Pinchbeck buckles which fortune has so graciously given you, of which I
am afraid you're hardly fond enough; never wash your face, but above all
forswear Poetry: from experience I can assure you, and this letter may
serve as a proof, that a man may be as dull in prose as in verse; and as
dullness is what we aim at, prose is the easiest of the two. Oh! my
friend! profit by these my instructions; think that you see me studying
for your advantage, my reverend locks over-shadowing my paper, my hands
trembling, and my tongue hanging out, a figure of esteem, affection and
veneration. By Heavens! Boswell! I love you more--But this, I think, may
be more conveniently expressed in rhyme

     More than a herd of swine a kennel muddy,
     More than a brilliant belle polemic study,
     More than fat Falstaff lov'd a cup of sack,
     More than a guilty criminal the rack,
     More than attorneys love by cheats to thrive,
     And more than witches to be burnt alive.

[Footnote 19: The first two volumes of Tristram Shandy were published
towards the end of 1759.--ED.]

I begin to be afraid that we shall not see you here this winter; which
will be a great loss to you. If ever you travel into foreign parts, as
Machiavel used to say, everybody abroad will require a description of
New-Tarbat[20] from you. That you may not appear totally ridiculous and
absurd, I shall send you some little account of it. Imagine then to
yourself what Thomson would call an interminable plain,[21] interspersed
in a lovely manner with beautiful green hills. The Seasons here are only
shifted by Summer and Spring. Winter with his fur cap and his cat-skin
gloves, was never seen in this charming retreat. The Castle is of Gothic
structure, awful and lofty: there are fifty bed-chambers in it, with
halls, saloons, and galleries without number. Mr. M----'s father, who
was a man of infinite humour, caused a magnificent lake to be made, just
before the entry of the house. His diversion was to peep out of his
window, and see the people who came to visit him, skipping through
it;--for there was no other passage--then he used to put on such huge
fires to dry their clothes, that there was no bearing them. He used to
declare, that he never thought a man good company till he was half
drown'd and half burnt; but if in any part of his life he had narrowly
escaped hanging (a thing not uncommon in the Highlands) he would
perfectly doat upon him, and whenever the story was told him, he was
ready to choke himself. But to return. Everything here is in the grand
and sublime style. But, alas! some envious magician, with his d----d
enchantments, has destroyed all these beauties. By his potent art, the
house with so many bed-chambers in it, cannot conveniently lodge above a
dozen people. The room which I am writing in, just now, is in reality a
handsome parlour of twenty feet by sixteen; though in my eyes, and to
all outward appearance, it seems a garret of six feet by four. The
magnificent lake is a dirty puddle; the lovely plain, a rude wild
country cover'd with the most astonishing high black mountains: the
inhabitants, the most amiable race under the sun, appear now to be the
ugliest, and look as if they were over-run with the itch. Their delicate
limbs, adorned with the finest silk stockings, are now bare, and very
dirty; but to describe all the transformations would take up more paper
than Lady B---- from whom I had this, would choose to give me. My own
metamorphosis is indeed so extraordinary, that I must make you
acquainted with it. You know I am really very thick and short,
prodigiously talkative and wonderfully impudent. Now I am thin and tall,
strangely silent, and very bashful. If these things continue, who is
safe? Even you, Boswell, may feel a change. Your fair and transparent
complexion may turn black and oily; your person little and squat; and
who knows but you may eternally rave about the King of Great Britain's
guards;[22] a species of madness, from which good Lord deliver us!

[Footnote 20: New-Tarbat, a wild seat in the western Highlands of
Scotland, surrounded with mountains.]

[Footnote 21:

     "Far smoking o'er the interminable plain."

     --Thomson's "Seasons."--Spring.--ED.]

[Footnote 22: Boswell in a letter to his friend Temple, dated May 1st
1761, had thus described himself. "A young fellow whose happiness was
always centred in London, ... who had got his mind filled with the most
gay ideas--getting into the Guards, being about Court, enjoying the
happiness of the _beau monde_, and the company of men of genius,
&c."--ED.]

I have often wondered, Boswell, that a man of your taste in music,
cannot play upon the Jew's harp; there are some of us here that touch it
very melodiously, I can tell you. Corelli's solo of _Maggie Lauder_, and
Pergolesi's sonata of _The Carle he came o'er the Craft_, are
excellently adapted to that instrument; let me advise you to learn it.
The first cost is but three halfpence, and they last a long time. I have
composed the following ode upon it, which exceeds Pindar as much as the
Jew's harp does the organ.

     ODE UPON A JEW'S HARP.

     I.

     SWEET instrument! which fix'd in yellow teeth,
       So clear so sprightly and so gay is found,
     Whether you breathe along the shore of Leith,
       Or Lowmond's lofty cliffs thy strains resound;
     Struck by a taper finger's gentle tip,
     Ah softly in our ears thy pleasing murmurs slip!

     II.

     Where'er thy lively music's found,
     All are jumping, dancing round:
     Ev'n trusty William lifts a leg,
     And capers like sixteen with Peg;
     Both old and young confess thy pow'rful sway,
     They skip like madmen and they frisk away.

     III.

     Rous'd by the magic of the charming air,
       The yawning dogs forego their heavy slumbers;
     The ladies listen on the narrow stair,
       And Captain Andrew straight forgets his numbers.
         Cats and mice give o'er their battling,
         Pewter plates on shelves are rattling;
     But falling down the noise my lady hears,
     Whose scolding drowns the trump more tuneful than the spheres!

Having thus, Boswell, written you a most entertaining letter, with which
you are highly pleased; to your great grief I give over in these or the
like words, your affectionate friend,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER VIII.

Edinburgh, Dec. 2, 1761.

Dear ERSKINE,--Notwithstanding of your affecting elegy on the death of
two pigs, I am just now returned from eating a most excellent one with
the most magnificent Donaldson. I wish you would explain to me the
reason of my being so very hard-hearted as to discover no manner of
reluctance at that innocent animal's being brought to table well
roasted. I will confess to you, my friend, that I fed upon it with no
small alacrity--neither do I feel any pangs of remorse for having so
done. The reason perhaps lies so deep as to elude our keenest
penetration;--at the same time give me leave to offer my conjecture,
which you may have by a little transmutation of a vulgar adage, in such
manner as to obtain at one and the same time (so to speak) not only a
strong reason for my alleged inhumanity, but also an apparent pun, and
a seeming paradox; all which you have for the small and easy charge of
saying, The belly has no bowels.

I do assure you the imperial sovereign of Pope's head, Caledonian
Dodsley, Scottish Baskerville, and captain general of collective bards,
entertained us most sumptuously; I question much if captain Erskine
himself ever fared better; although I was the only author in the
company, which I own surprised me not a little. Donaldson is undoubtedly
a gentleman perfectly skilled in the art of insinuation. His dinners are
the most eloquent addresses imaginable. For my own part, I am never a
sharer in one of his copious repasts, but I feel my heart warm to the
landlord, and spontaneously conceive this expressive soliloquy,--Upon my
word I must give him another hundred lines.

Now, my dear Captain, tell me how is it with you, after reading this?
With what feeling are you most strongly possessed? But as this depends a
good deal upon the time of the day at which you receive my epistle, I
shall make no farther inquiry.

Thus, Sir, have I unbosomed the big exultation which possessed me upon
occasion of what some of the fathers would call _splendidum prandium_;
Englished thus, a splendid dinner.

Are not you all this time very much astonished, nay, somewhat piqued,
that I have as yet made no mention of your last, notwithstanding of the
wonderful enchantments which you relate, the sagacious advices which you
give, and the ode to a Jew's harp, which you add. Forgive me, good
Captain. Blame Donaldson. Write to me whenever you have any thing that
you wish to say, and believe me,

Yours,

JAMES BOSWELL.

P.S. Are not you very proud of your Ode to Midnight? Lord K---- calls it
the best Poem in the English language. But it will not be long so. For
in imitation of it I have written an Ode to Gluttony, of which take two
stanzas.

     I.

       HAIL Gluttony! O let me eat
     Immensely at thy awful board,
       On which to serve the stomach meet,
     What art and nature can afford.
         I'll furious cram, devoid of fear,
         Let but the roast and boil'd appear;
         Let me but see a smoking dish,
         I care not whether fowl or fish;
     Then rush ye floods of ale adown my throat,
     And in my belly make the victuals float!

     II.

       And yet why trust a greasy cook?
     Or give to meat the time of play?
       While ev'ry trout gulps down a hook,
     And poor dumb beasts harsh butchers slay?
         Why seek the dull, sauce-smelling gloom,
         Of the beef-haunted dining room;
         Where D----r gives to every guest
         With lib'ral hand whate'er is best;
     While you in vain th' insurance must invoke
     To give security you shall not choke?

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER IX.

New-Tarbat, Dec. 3, 1761.

Dear BOSWELL,

         EV'N now intent upon thy Ode,
           I plunge my knife into the beef,
         Which, when a cow--as is the mode--
           Was _lifted_ by a Highland thief.
         Ah! spare him, spare him, circuit Lords!
         Ah hang him not in hempen cords;
         Ah save him in his morn of youth
         From the damp-breathing, dark[23] tolbooth,
     Lest when condemn'd and hung in clanking chains,
     His body moulder down white-bleached with winter rains!

[Footnote 23: Tolbooth Prison.]

But let not me intermeddle with your province; to parody the ode to
midnight, could only be thought of and executed by the mirth-moving,
humour-hunting, raillery-raising James Boswell. You must send me the
rest of your Gluttony by the return of the post, even though it should
prove the night of the Beard-soaping Club. Did you ever suspect me of
believing your marriage? No, I always said from the beginning, there was
nothing in it; I can bring twenty witnesses to prove it, who shall be
nameless; indeed if you had been married, I don't know but the same
gentlemen might have been prevailed upon to vouch for me that I
frequently declared my firm persuasion of it; these kind of witnesses
have multiplied greatly of late years, to the eternal credit of many a
person's surprising sagacity; but if you want to see this subject
pursued and treated with accuracy, peruse Doctor Woodward's Treatise of
Fossils, particularly his remarks upon the touchstone.

I am glad to hear you are returned to town, and once more near that seat
of learning and genius Mr. Alexander Donaldson's shop. You tell me you
are promoted to be his corrector of the press; I wish you also had the
office of correcting his children, which they very much want; the eldest
son, when I was there, never failed to play at taw all the time, and my
queue used frequently to be pulled about; you know, upon account of its
length it is very liable to these sort of attacks; I am thinking to cut
it off, for I never yet met with a child that could keep his hands from
it: and here I can't forbear telling you, that if ever you marry and
have children, our acquaintance ceases from that moment, unless you
breed them up after the manner of the great Scriblerus, and unless they
be suckled with soft verse, and weaned with criticism.

Write me when the volume will be published, and what sort of figure you
think it will make, particularly how James Boswell and Andrew Erskine
will appear; I know you will mix your opinion with a good deal of
partial praise, as you are one of those extraordinary authors that have
a love for their own works, and also one of those still more
extraordinary ones that can flatter another. I find fault with one or
two things in your letters; I could wish you wrote in a smaller hand,
and that when you end a sentence in the beginning of a line, you would
begin the next sentence in the same line.

Dear Boswell, go to Donaldson and tell him he is a most inhuman
miscreant, and deserves, as he is a Printer, to be pressed to death;
then thunder in his ear that he has not sent Captain Erskine his
Critical Review.

Lady B---- entreats that you would come here and spend the Christmas
holidays; she has sent for two Highland bards to entertain you, and I
have a wash-ball and a stick of pomatum much at your service: we are
all, thank God, in general pretty clear of the Itch just now, and most
of us not near so lousy as we used to be, so I think you may venture. I
received your letter ten days after the date, though it only came from
Edinburgh; I had wrote you one some little time before, directed to the
Parliament-Close, have you got it? That you may never want Odes of mine
to parody, I enclose you one to Fear,[24] nothing like it you will
observe since the time of Pindar.

[Footnote 24: This Ode is not worth reprinting.--ED.]

And now, my dear dear Boswell, I conclude, having, as I hope for mercy,
not one word more to say, which I believe is often the case of many an
enormous genius.

Farewell. Yours, &c.,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER X.

Edinburgh, Dec. 8, 1761.

Dear ERSKINE,--It is a very strange thing, that I James Boswell, Esq.,
"who am happily possessed of a facility of manners,"--(to use the very
words of Mr. Professor Smith,[25] which upon honour were addressed to
me. I can produce the Letter in which they are to be found) I say it is
a very strange thing that I should ever be at a loss how to express
myself; and yet at this moment of my existence, that is really the case.
May Lady B---- say unto me, "Boswell, I detest thee," if I am not in
downright earnest.

[Footnote 25: Adam Smith. Boswell had attended his classes on Moral
Philosophy, when a student in the University of Glasgow.--ED.]

Mankind are such a perverse race of beings, that they never fail to lay
hold of every circumstance tending to their own praise, while they let
slip every circumstance tending to their censure. To illustrate this by
a recent example, you see I accurately remember Mr. Smith's beautiful, I
shall even grant you just compliment, but have quite forgot his severe
criticism on a sentence so clumsily formed, as to require an _I say_ to
keep it together; which I myself candidly think much resembles a pair of
ill-mended breeches.

Having a mind, Erskine, to open a sluice of happiness upon you, I must
inform you that I have lately got you an immensity of applause from men
of the greatest taste. You know I read rather better than any man in
Britain; so that your works had a very uncommon advantage. I was pleased
at the praise which you received. I was vain of having such a
correspondent. I thought I did not envy you a bit, and yet, I don't
know, I felt somehow, as if I could like to thresh you pretty heartily:
however, I have one comfort, in thinking that all this praise would not
have availed you a single curl of Sir Cloudesley Shovel's periwig,[26]
had not I generously reported it to you: so that in reality you are
obliged to me for it.

[Footnote 26: "Sir Cloudesley Shovel's monument has very often given me
great offence: instead of the brave, rough English Admiral, which was
the distinguishing character of that plain, gallant man, he is
represented on his tomb by the figure of a beau, dressed in a long
periwig, and reposing himself upon velvet cushions under a canopy of
state."--The "Spectator," No. 26.--ED.]

The second volume of the Poems will not be published till January.
Captain Erskine will make a very good figure. Boswell a decent one.

Lady B---- intreats me to come and pass the Christmas holidays with her:
guess, O guess! what transport I felt at reading that. I did not know
how to contain my elevation of spirits. I thought myself one of the
greatest geniuses in Europe. I thought I could write all sorts of books,
and work at all handicraft trades. I imagined that I had fourscore
millions of money out at interest, and that I should actually be chosen
Pope at the next election. I obtest you, my friend, in the warmest
spirit of love to return to her Ladyship my most sincere thanks, and
tell her that when the planets permit us to meet, she herself shall
judge how richly I can express my gratitude.

Although I am a good deal of a Don Quixote, yet I feel myself averse to
so long a journey. Believe me, I am as sweetly indolent as any genius in
all his Majesty's dominions, so that for my own incitement I must
propose the following scheme. You Captain Andrew shall, upon Monday the
28th day of this present month, set out from New-Tarbat in Mr. M----'s
chaise, and meet me at Glasgow, that evening. Next day shall we both in
friendly guise get into the said chaise, and drive with velocity to your
present habitation, where I shall remain till the Monday sennight; on
which day I shall be in like manner accompanied back to Glasgow, from
thence to make my way as well as I can, to the Scottish metropolis. I
have told the story of my scheme rather awkwardly; but it will have its
advantages; I shall have a couple of days more of your classical
company, and somewhat less to pay, which to a Poet is no slender
consideration.

I shall chaise it the whole way. Thanks to the man who first invented
that comfortable method of journeying. Had it not been for that, I dare
say both you and I would have circumscribed our travels within a very
few miles. For my own part, I think to dress myself in a great-coat and
boots, and get astride a horse's back, and be jolted through the mire,
perhaps in wind and rain, is a punishment too severe for all the
offences which I can charge myself with. Indeed I have a mortal
antipathy at riding, and that was the true reason for my refusing a
regiment of dragoons which the King of Prussia offered me at the
beginning of this war. I know indeed the Marischal Duke de Belleisle in
his Political Testament,[27] has endeavoured to persuade the world that
it was owing to my having a private amour with a Lady of distinction in
the Austrian court, but that minister was too deeply immersed in
state-intrigues, to know much about those of a more tender nature. The
tumultuous hurry of business and ambition, left no room in his mind for
the delicious delicacy of sentiment and passion, so very essential to a
man of gallantry.

[Footnote 27: "Avez-vous lu le _Testament politique du Maréchal de
Belle-Isle_? C'est un ex-capucin de Rouen, nommé jadis Maubert, fripon,
espion, escroc, menteur et ivrogne, ayant tous les talens de moinerie,
qui a composé cet impertinent ouvrage."--Voltaire, Nov. 27, 1761.--ED.]

I think, Erskine, in this scheme of mine, I am playing a very sure game,
for you must either indulge me in every article which I have mentioned,
or entertain me with a plentiful dish of well drest apologies. I beg it
of you, however, don't put yourself to any inconvenience; indeed I might
have saved myself the trouble of making this request, for you are that
kind of man that I believe you would not put yourself to an
inconvenience to be made a Lieutenant-General. Pray shall we not see you
here this winter at all? You ought to come and eat the fruit of your
labours. I remain your most affectionate friend,

JAMES BOSWELL.

I shall rouse Donaldson as you desire. I shall rouse him like a peal of
thunder.

I wonder what you will all think of this proposal of mine for delivering
myself in Folio. Ten days make a period, as I use to say. They bear some
proportion to the whole of life. Write instantly.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XI.[28]

[Footnote 28: This Letter was occasioned by seeing an Ode to Tragedy,
written by a Gentleman of Scotland, and dedicated to James Boswell,
Esq., advertised in the Edinburgh Newspapers. It afterwards appeared
that the Ode was written by Mr. Boswell himself.]

New-Tarbat, Dec. 13, 1761.

Dear BOSWELL,--An Ode to Tragedy by a gentleman of Scotland, and
dedicated to you! had there been only one spark of curiosity in my whole
composition, this would have raised it to a flame equal to the general
conflagration. May G----d d----n me, as Lord Peter says,[29] if the edge of
my appetite to know what it can be about, is not as keen as the best
razor ever used by a member of the Soaping-Club. Go to Donaldson, demand
from him two of my franks, and send it me even before the first post:
write me, O write me! what sort of man this author is, where he was
born, how he was brought up, and with what sort of diet he has been
principally fed; tell me his genealogy, like Mr. M----; how many miles
he has travelled in post-chaises, like Colonel R----; tell me what he
eats, like a cook; what he drinks, like a wine-merchant; what shoes he
wears, like a shoe-maker; in what manner his mother was delivered of
him, like a man-midwife; and how his room is furnished, like an
upholsterer; but if you happen to find it difficult to utter all this in
terms befitting Mr. M----, Colonel R----, a cook, a wine-merchant, a
shoemaker, a man-midwife, and an upholsterer, Oh! tell it me all in your
own manner, and in your own incomparable style.

[Footnote 29: In the "Tale of a Tub."--ED.]

Your scheme, Boswell, has met with--but the thoughts of this Ode-writing
gentleman of Scotland again come across me,--I must now ask, like the
Spectator,[30] is he fat or lean, tall or short, does he use spectacles?
what is the length of his walking-stick? has he a landed estate? has he
a good coal-work?--Lord! Lord! what a melancholy thing it is to live
twenty miles from a post-town! why am I not in Edinburgh? why am I not
chained to Donaldson's shop?

[Footnote 30: "I have observed that a reader seldom peruses a book with
pleasure, till he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair
man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor, with
other particulars of the like nature that conduce very much to the right
understanding of an author."--"The Spectator," No. 1.--ED.]

I received both your letters yesterday, for we send to the Post-house
but once a week: I need not tell you how I liked them; were I to
acquaint you with that, you would consecrate the pen with which they
were written, and deify the inkhorn: I think the outside of one of them
was adorned with the greatest quantity of good sealing-wax I ever saw,
and my brother A---- and Lady A----, both of whom have a notable
comprehension of these sort of things, agree with me in this my opinion.

Your Ode to Gluttony[31] is altogether excellent; the descriptions are
so lively, that mistaking the paper on which they were written, for a
piece of bread and butter spread with marmalade, I fairly swallowed the
whole composition, and I find my stomach increased three-fold since that
time; I declare it to be the most admirable whet in the world, superior
to a solan goose, or white wine and bitters; it ought to be hung up in
every cook's shop in the three kingdoms, engraved on pillars in all
market places, and pasted in all rooms in all taverns.

[Footnote 31: He refers to the continuation of this Ode, which I have
omitted in the present Edition.--ED.]

You seem to doubt in your first letter, if ever Captain Erskine was
better entertained by the great Donaldson, than you was lately; banish
that opinion, tell it not in Gath; nor publish it in Askalon; repeat it
not in John's Coffee-house, neither whisper it in the Abbey of
Holyrood-House; no, I shall never forget the fowls and oyster sauce
which bedecked the board: fat were the fowls, and the oysters of the
true pandour or croat kind; then the apple pie with raisins, and the
mutton with cauliflower, can never be erased from my remembrance; I may
forget my native country, my dear brothers and sisters, my poetry, my
art of making love, and even you, O Boswell! but these things I can
never forget; the impression is too deep, too well imprinted ever to be
effaced; I may turn Turk or Hottentot, I may be hanged for stealing a
bag to adorn my hair, I may ravish all sorts of virgins, young and old,
I may court the fattest Wapping landlady, but these things I can never
forget; I may be sick and in prison, I may be deaf, dumb, and may lose
my memory, but these things I can never forget.

And now, Boswell, I am to acquaint you, that your proposal is received
with the utmost joy and festivity, and the scheme, if I live till
to-morrow fortnight, will be put in execution. The New-Tarbat chaise
will arrive at Glasgow on Monday evening the 28th of December, drove by
William. Captain Andrew's slim personage will slip out, he will enquire
for James Boswell, Esq.; he will be shewn into the room where he is
sitting before a large fire, the evening being cold, raptures and poetry
will ensue, and every man will soap his own beard; every other article
of the proposals will be executed as faithfully as this; but to speak
very seriously, you must be true to your appointment, and come with the
utmost regularity upon the Monday; think of my emotions at Græme's, if
you should not come; view my melancholy posture; hark! I rave like Lady
Wishfort,[32] no Boswell yet, Boswell's a lost thing. I must receive a
letter from you before I set out, telling me whether you keep true to
your resolution, and pray send me the Ode to Tragedy: I beg you'll bring
me out in your pocket my Critical Review, which you may desire Donaldson
to give you; but above all, employ Donaldson to get me a copy of
Fingal,[33] which tell him I'll pay him for; I long to see it.

[Footnote 32: In "The Way of the World," by Congreve.--ED.]

[Footnote 33: The first volume of Macpherson's "Fingal" was published
this winter.--ED.]

There are some things lately published in London, which I would be glad
to have, particularly a Spousal Hymn on the marriage of the King and
Queen, and an Elegy on viewing a ruined Pile of Buildings; see what you
can do for me; I know you will not take it ill to be busied a little for
that greatest of all Poets Captain Andrew.

The sluice of happiness you have let in upon me, has quite overflowed
the shallows of my understanding; at this moment I am determined to
write more and print more than any man in the kingdom, except the great
Dr. Hill, who writes a Folio every month, a Quarto every fortnight, an
Octavo every week, and a Duodecimo every day.[34] Hogarth has
humourously represented a brawny porter almost sinking to the ground
under a huge load of his works. I am too lazy just now to copy out an
Ode to Indolence, which I have lately written; besides, it's fitting I
reserve something for you to peruse when we meet, for upon these
occasions an exchange of Poems ought to be as regular as an exchange of
prisoners between two nations at war. Believe me, dear Boswell, to be
yours sincerely,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

[Footnote 34: "Would you believe, what I know is fact, that Dr. Hill
earned fifteen guineas a week by working for wholesale dealers? He was
at once employed on six voluminous works of Botany, Husbandry, &c.,
published weekly."--Horace Walpole, date of Jan. 3, 1761.--ED.]

P.S.--Pray write me before I set out for Glasgow.--The Ode to Tragedy,
by a gentleman of Scotland, good now! wonderful!

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XII.

Edinburgh, Saturday, Dec. 14, 1761.

Dear ERSKINE,--If my scheme takes, you must alter it. Thursday the 24th
must be the day of our meeting, as I am obliged to return hither on
Saturday the 2nd of January. This is really a curious way of employing
you; however, you will gain something by it; you will acquire a
particular exactness in knowing the days of the month, a science too
much neglected in these degenerate days, but a science which was
cultivated with a glorious ardour in Greece and Rome, and was no doubt
the cause of their flourishing so much in every respect.

I am yours sincerely,

JAMES BOSWELL.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XIII.

Edinburgh, Dec. 17, 1761.

Dear ERSKINE,--Had you but hinted a method of conveyance sooner than by
the first post, sooner should the Ode to Tragedy have saluted your
longing eyes.

At length it comes! it comes! Hark! with what lofty music do the spheres
proclaim its triumphal entry into the majestic edifice at Tarbat! Behold
the family gathered around it in a sort of quadrangular figure! Heavens!
what a picture of curiosity! what a group of eager expectants! They show
their teeth, they rub their hands, they kick the floor! But who is this
the fire of whose look flames infinitely beyond the rest? It is Captain
Andrew! It is! it is! ye Gods! he seizes! he opens! he reads! Let us
leave him. I can no more. It would stretch the strings too far to
proceed. You must know I purposely neglected to send the Ode myself, and
likewise prevented Donaldson from sending it immediately when it was
published, in order to give full play to your impatience. I considered
what amazing effects it must produce upon Captain Erskine, to find in
one advertisement, An Ode to Tragedy--A Gentleman of Scotland--Alexander
Donaldson--and James Boswell, Esq. How far my conjecture was just, your
last letter does most amply testify.

The author of the Ode to Tragedy, is a most excellent man: he is of an
ancient family in the west of Scotland, upon which he values himself not
a little. At his nativity there appeared omens of his future greatness.
His parts are bright, and his education has been good. He has travelled
in post-chaises, miles without number. He is fond of seeing much of the
world. He eats of every good dish, especially apple-pie. He drinks old
hock. He has a very fine temper. He is somewhat of an humorist, and a
little tinctured with pride. He has a good manly countenance, and he
owns himself to be amorous. He has infinite vivacity, yet is observed at
times to have a melancholy cast. He is rather fat than lean, rather
short than tall, rather young than old. His shoes are neatly made, and
he never wears spectacles. The length of his walking-stick is not as yet
ascertained; but we hope soon to favour the republic of letters with a
solution of this difficulty, as several able mathematicians are employed
in its investigation, and for that purpose have posted themselves at
different given points in the Cannongate, so that when the gentleman
saunters down to the Abbey of Holyrood-house, in order to think on
ancient days, on King James the Fifth, and on Queen Mary, they may
compute its altitude above the street, according to the rules of
geometry.

I hope you have received a line from me fixing Thursday the 24th, as the
day of our meeting. I exult in the prospect of felicity that is before
us. Fingal and your Critical Review shall accompany me. I will not
anticipate your pleasure in reading the Highland bard; only take my word
for it, he will make you feel that you have a soul. I shall remember
your other commissions. Continue to trust me till you find me negligent.

I beg it of you, for once, be a Frenchman, and in the character of
Boswell, kneel, supplicate, worship Lady B----. I remain, your
affectionate Friend,

JAMES BOSWELL.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XIV.

New-Tarbat, Dec. 16, 1761.

Dear BOSWELL,--Swift as pen can scratch, or ink can flow, as floods can
rush, or winds can blow, which you'll observe is a very pretty rhyme, I
sit down on a chair which has really a very bad bottom, being made of
wood, and answer your epistle which I received this moment; it is dated
on Saturday the 14th, which was really the 12th, according to the
computation of the best chronologists: this is a blunder which Sir Isaac
Newton would never have excused; but I a man no less great, forgive it
from my soul; and I here declare, that I will never upbraid you with it
in any company or conversation, even though that conversation should
turn upon the quickest and most pleasant method of swallowing oysters,
when you know I might very naturally introduce it.

I confess it is singularly silly in me to turn the page in this manner,
and that I should have followed your example, or rather ensample, as
some great judges of style usually write it. I see by the newspapers,
that Fingal is to be published at Edinburgh in a few days, pray bring it
with you.

I will undoubtedly meet you at Glasgow on the 24th day of the month,
being exactly that day which precedes Christmas, as was ingeniously
observed by Mr. Sheridan in his fourth Lecture;[35] and I hear he is
going to publish a whole volume of discoveries all as notable as this,
which I imagine will exceed his lectures greatly.

[Footnote 35: "Course of Lectures on Elocution," by Thomas Sheridan,
M.A. London, 1762.--ED.]

Pray now be faithful to this appointment, and so I commit this letter to
the guidance of Providence, hoping that it will not miscarry, or fail of
being duly delivered.

Believe me yours sincerely,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XV.

New-Tarbat, Jan. 10, 1762.

Dear BOSWELL,--The storms of night descended, the winds rolled along the
clouds with all their ghosts, around the rock the dark waves burst, and
shewed their flaming bosoms, loud rushed the blast through the leafless
oaks, and the voice of the spirit of the mountains was heard in our
halls; it was Saturday, when lo! at once the postman came, mighty was
his striding in the kitchen, and strong was his voice for ale. In
short, I have as yet received no letter from you, and great is my wonder
and astonishment, even Donaldson has not sent me my Critical Review;
would to God he had one rap from Fingal's sword of Luno.

I feel myself at this present moment capable of writing a letter which
would delight you, but I am determined not to do it, and this is the
severe punishment of your neglect, I withhold the treasures of my wit
and humour from you, a perfect Golconda mine of Diamonds.

I have been enjoying since you left me, the most exquisite
entertainment, in the perusal of the noble works of Ossian, the greatest
poet, in my opinion, that ever composed, and who exceeds Homer, Virgil,
and Milton. He transports us by the grandeur of his sublime, or by some
sudden start of tenderness he melts us into distress: Who can read,
without the warmest emotions, the pathetic complaints of the venerable
old bard, when he laments his blindness, and the death of his friends?
But how are we animated when the memory of former years comes rushing on
his mind, and the light of the song rises in his soul. It is quite
impossible to express my admiration of his Poems; at particular passages
I felt my whole frame trembling with ecstasy; but if I was to describe
all my thoughts, you would think me absolutely mad. The beautiful
wildness of his fancy is inexpressibly agreeable to the imagination; for
instance, the mournful sound from the untouched harp when a hero is
going to fall, or the awful appearances of his ghosts and spirits.

Notwithstanding all these beauties, we shall still continue pedants,
and Homer and Virgil will be read and quoted, when Ossian shall be
totally forgot; this, without the gift of prophecy, I can foresee; much
could I enlarge upon this subject, but this must not be a long letter.
Believe me

Yours sincerely,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XVI.

Edinburgh, Jan. 11, 1762.

Dear ERSKINE,--Instead of endeavouring to excuse myself for neglecting
so long to write, I shall present you with some original conjectures of
my own, upon the way and manner in which you have been affected upon
this present occasion. And here I must premise, that in so doing I shall
not follow the formal and orderly method of Bishop Latimer, in his
sermons before King Edward the Sixth; but, on the contrary, shall adopt
the easy, desultory style of one whom at present I shall not venture to
name, but leave that to some future ingenious commentator on the
epistolary correspondence of the Hon. Andrew Erskine and James Boswell,
Esq.

Either you have been sunk into a frigid state of listless indifference,
and gone whistling up and down the room upon a fife, and murmuring at
intervals, while you took breath; let him do as he likes, let him please
himself; yes, yes, let him soap his own beard. Or you have felt the
most delicate pangs of afflicted sensibility, and uttered tender tales
of woe in softly plaintive numbers.

     The savage bard returns no humorous line,
       No Tragic Ode now sooths my soul to rest;
     In vain I fly to Lady B----'s wine,
       Nor can a hearty supper make me blest.

Or you have burned, raged, and fried like the thrice-amorous swain in
the renowned English translation of Voi Amante, and perhaps thundered
forth all the Anathemas which Tristram Shandy has borrowed from the
church of Rome, and transferred to poor Obadiah.

By this time, the storm is blown over. This merry letter has made you
grin, and show every expression of laughter. You are now in very good
humour, and are in all human probability saying to yourself, My good
friend Boswell, is a most excellent correspondent. It is true he is
indolent, and _dissipated_, as the celebrated Parson Brown,[36] of
Carlisle says, and he frequently is a little negligent: but when he does
write, ye Gods! how he does write! in short, to sing him his own
inimitable song, "There is no better fellow alive."

I remain

Yours sincerely,

JAMES BOSWELL.

[Footnote 36: Dr. John Brown, the author of "An Estimate of the Manners
and Principles of the Times."--ED.]

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XVII.

New-Tarbat, Jan. 20, 1762.

Dear BOSWELL,--It is a kind of maxim, or rule in life, never to begin a
thing without having an eye towards the conclusion; certainly this rule
was never better observed than in your last letter, in which indeed I am
apt to think you kept the conclusion rather too much in view, or perhaps
you forgot the beginning altogether, which is not unfrequently the case
with you; but you do these things with so little compunction, that I
shall very soon cease to forgive you, and answer you in the same manner.
It is to be feared, that the dissolution of our correspondence will
immediately follow, or dwindle into half a page of your text hand, which
I always looked upon as a detestable invention: if all this that I dread
happens, we shall then cease to be reckoned men of LETTERS.

I find it recorded in the history of the eastern Roman Empire, that it
was the custom whenever the inhabitants of Constantinople mutinied for
want of bread, to whip all the bakers through the city, which always
appeased the populace; in like manner, Boswell, I having dreamt a few
nights ago, that I had whipt you severely, find my wrath and resentment
very much mollified; not so much indeed I confess, as if I had really
had the pleasure of actually correcting you, but however I am pretty
well satisfied. You was quite mistaken as to the manner I bore your
silence; I only thought it was a little droll.

Donaldson tells me, that he wants thirty or forty pages to complete his
volume; pray don't let him insert any nonsense to fill it up, but try
John Home[37] and John R----, who I hear is a very good poet; you may
also hint the thing to Mr. N----, and to my brother, Lord K----, who has
some excellent poems by him.

[Footnote 37: The author of "Douglas."--ED.]

Since I saw you, I received a letter from Mr. D----; it is filled with
encomiums upon you: he says there is a great deal of humility in your
vanity, a great deal of tallness in your shortness, and a great deal of
whiteness in your black complexion. He says there is a great deal of
poetry in your prose, and a great deal of prose in your poetry. He says,
that as to your late publication, there is a great deal of Ode in your
dedication, and a great deal of dedication in your Ode; it would amaze
you to see how D---- keeps up this see-saw, which you'll remark has
prodigious wit in it. He says there is a great deal of coat in your
waistcoat, and a great deal of waistcoat in your coat; that there is a
great deal of liveliness in your stupidity, and a great deal of
stupidity in your liveliness; but to write you all he says, would
require rather more fire in my grate, than there is at present; and my
fingers would undoubtedly be numbed, for there is a great deal of snow
in this frost, and a great deal of frost in this snow: in short, upon
this occasion he writes like a Christian and a Poet, and a Physician and
an Orator, and a Jew.

Pray, Boswell, tell me particularly in your first letter, how Fingal has
been received; that book will serve me as a criterion, to discover the
taste of the present age. Boswell, imitate me in your writing; observe
how closely the lines are joined, how near the words are written to one
another, and how small the letters are formed; I am praiseworthy in this
particular. Adieu. Yours sincerely,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XVIII.

Edinburgh, Jan. 22, 1762.

Dear ERSKINE,--I would not for all the books in Donaldson's shop that
our correspondence should cease. Rather, much rather would I trot a
horse in the hottest day in summer, between Fort George and Aberdeen;
rather, much rather would I hold the office of him who every returning
noon plays upon the music-bells of the good town of Edinburgh;[38] and
rather, much rather would I be condemned to pass the next seven years of
my life, as a spiritless student at the college of Glasgow.

[Footnote 38: "All the people of business at Edinburgh, and even the
genteel company may be seen standing in crowds every day, from one to
two in the afternoon, in the open street.... The company are entertained
with a variety of tunes, played upon a set of bells, fixed in a steeple
hard by. As these bells are well toned, and the musician, who has a
salary from the city for playing upon them with keys, is no bad
performer, the entertainment is really agreeable, and very striking to
the ears of a stranger."--"Humphry Clinker," vol. ii., p. 223.--ED.]

Let our wit, my friend, continue to shine in a succession of brilliant
sparkles. Let there be no more distance between each flash of vivacity,
but what is necessary for giving time to observe its splendid radiance.
I hope I shall never again approach so near the clod of clay. I hope the
fire of my genius shall never again be so long in kindling, or so much
covered up with the dross of stupidity.

I have desired Donaldson to cause his correspondent at London, to send
a copy of the first volume of his collection to each of the Reviews,
that is to say, to Hamilton[39] and Griffiths, with whose names the
slate-blue covers of these awful oracles of criticism are inscribed.

[Footnote 39: Hamilton was the proprietor of "The Critical Review." Its
first editor was Smollett. Griffiths was the proprietor of "The Monthly
Review." Goldsmith worked for him for some time. Griffiths was fool
enough to venture, with the aid of his wife, to correct Goldsmith's
compositions.--See Forster's "Life of Goldsmith."--ED.]

Donaldson has yet about thirty-six pages of the second Volume to print.
I have given him two hundred lines more. He is a loadstone of prodigious
power, and attracts all my poetic needles. The Volume will be out next
week; the different pieces of which it is composed are, to be sure, not
all of equal merit. But is not that the case in every miscellaneous
collection, even in that excellent one published by Mr. Dodsley? The
truth is, that a volume printed in a small type exhausts an infinite
quantity of _copy_ (to talk technically) so that we must not be
over-nice in our choice, nor think every man in our ranks below size,
who does not come up to the elevated standard of Captain Andrew.

D----'s encomiums have rendered my humility still prouder; they are
indeed superb, and worthy of an opposer of the German war. I suppose
they have not lost a bit of beef by their long journey, and I should
imagine that the Highland air has agreed well with them, and that they
have agreed well with the Highland air. They occasioned much laughter in
my heart, and much heart in my laughter.

They have at last given over marrying me; so that I am going about like
a horse wanting a halter, ready to be bridled and saddled by the first
person who is so very fortunate as to lay hold of me. A simile not to be
found in any author ancient or modern.

We had a splendid ball at the Abbey of Holyrood-house, on the Queen's
birthday, given by Colonel Graeme. I exhibited my existence in a minuet,
and as I was dressed in a full chocolate suit, and wore my most solemn
countenance, I looked as you used to tell me, like the fifth act of a
deep Tragedy. Lord K---- danced with Miss C----, by the fire of whose
eyes, his melodious lordship's heart is at present in a state of
combustion. Such is the declaration which he makes in loud whispers many
a time and oft.

Our friend H---- S---- is in town this winter. He is a most surprising
old fellow. I am told he is some years past sixty; and yet he has all
the vivacity and frolic, and whim of the sprightliest youth. He
continues to rank all mankind under the general denomination of Gilbert.
He patrols the streets at midnight as much as ever, and beats with as
much vigour the town-guard drum; nor is his affection for the company of
blind fiddlers, in the least abated.

Fingal has been very warmly received at London. A second edition of it
is just now come out. The public taste you will allow is good at
present: long may it last. Long may the voice of the venerable bard be
heard with unaffected pleasure.

I see your regiment is ordered for England. I hope you will be allowed
to recruit, or have leave of absence, as it would be very severe upon
you to be moved from your present situation.

If you will number the lines in our pages, you will find I have
twenty-three, whereas you have only eighteen.

I enclose you the sorrowful lamentation of a stabler called Hutchison,
who, on Wednesday last was whipt through this town, for forcing away a
young man as a recruit, and beating him unmercifully. The said
lamentation you will find is in verse; and although sold for a single
penny, is a work of remarkable merit. The exordium is a passionate
address to Captains all; amongst whom, who can more properly be reckoned
than Captain Andrew?

I remain your sincere friend,

JAMES BOSWELL.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XIX.

Morpeth, Feb. 7th, 1762.

Dear BOSWELL,--And lo I am at Morpeth, after meeting with every accident
that could possibly happen to a man in a post-chaise, overturns,
breaking of springs, dropping of wheels, and sticking in roads, though
with four horses. We imagine we are to remain in this town some time.
Upon looking over my poems, in the second volume, I find several errors;
I'm afraid you have not corrected the press so violently as you boasted.

Perhaps, Boswell, this will be the worst and the shortest letter I ever
wrote to you; I'm writing in an inn, and half-a-dozen people in the
room; but when I'm settled in lodgings of my own, expect epistles in the
usual style. I think you two or three times have treated me as I treat
you now, so

I remain your most humble servant,

And affectionate friend,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

P.S.--Never was there such a tame subjected performance as this.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XX.

Morpeth, Feb. 8, 1762.

Dear BOSWELL,--I beg you will get a copy of the second volume of the
Poems, and send me it by the man who brings you this; let it be a neat
one, well-bound: pray tell me what people say of the book. Your
currant-jelly is good, has a delicious flavour, and tastes much of the
fruit, as my aunts say. I did not make out all the names in your
Race-Ballad cleverly.

I am still in the way I was, when I wrote you last, in a public-house,
and pestered with noise: I have not above six ideas at present, and none
of them fit for a letter. Dear Boswell, farewell! pray for my recovery
from this lethargy of spirits and sense which has seized me.

Yours, &c.

ANDREW ERSKINE.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XXI.

Edinburgh, Feb. 16, 1762.

Dear ERSKINE,--To see your brother ---- at Morpeth, will, I dare say,
surprise you as much as it did me, to find him here. In short, nothing
will serve him but a sight of the British capital, although he is
already much better acquainted with it than either you or I.

What has at present instigated him I own I am puzzled to discover: but I
solemnly and merrily declare, that I never yet saw anybody so
excessively enamoured of London. The effects of this violent passion are
deeply impressed upon every feature in his countenance, his nose not
excepted, which is absolutely most surprising. His body is tossed and
shaken like one afflicted with the hot fit of an ague, or the severest
paroxysms of convulsion. Then as to his mind, it is altogether
distempered. He is perpetually declaiming on the magnificence, the
liberty, and the pleasure, which reigns in the imperial British
metropolis. He swears, that in that glorious place alone we can enjoy
life. He says, there is no breathing beyond St. James's; and he affirms,
that the air of that delicious spot is celestial. He says, there is no
wit except at the Bedford; no military genius but at George's; no wine
but at the Star and Garter; no turbot except at the Tilt-Yard. He
asserts, that there are no clothes made beyond the liberties of
Westminster; and he firmly holds Cheapside to be the sole mart of
stockings. It would fill up two-thirds of a quarto volume to enumerate
the various extravagant exclamations into which he breaks out. He
declares that for his own part, he will never go to church except to St.
Paul's, nor to a lady's private lodgings, except in the neighbourhood of
Soho-square.

I beg it of you, my friend, be very attentive to him; observe his
appearance and behaviour with the greatest accuracy, so that between us
we may be able to have a pretty just notion of this wonderful affair,
and may faithfully draw up his case to be read before the Royal Society,
and transmitted to posterity in these curious annals the Philosophical
Transactions.

I have sent you the second volume, which Donaldson begs leave to present
you with, in consideration of your being one of those who bear the brunt
of the day. He has also done me the same honour. No plain shop copy; no,
no, elegantly bound and gilt.

Adieu, yours sincerely,

JAMES BOSWELL.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XXII.

Morpeth, March 2, 1762.

Oh, BOSWELL! if you found yourself in the middle of the Firth of Forth,
and the sea fast up-springing through every leak, after the skipper had
remonstrated, in the most warm manner, against proceeding to cross the
water; or if, like me, you found yourself in the midst of a sentence,
without knowing how to end it, you could not feel more pain than I do at
this instant: in short, I have had a very excellent letter of yours in
my left waistcoat-pocket this fortnight; is that letter answered? you
say: Oh! let the reply to this question be buried in the bottom of the
Red Sea, where I hope no future army will ever disturb it; or let it be
inserted in the third volume of Donaldson's Collection, where it will
never be found, as the book will never be opened. What would I not do to
gain your pardon? I would even swear that black was white; that's to
say, I would praise the fairness of your complexion.

By that smile which irradiates your countenance, like a gleam of the
moon through the black clouds of the south; by the melting of that
pomatum which gives your hair a gloss, like the first beaming of a new
suit of regimentals on an assembly night, when twenty fiddlers sweat; by
the grandeur of your pinchbeck buckles; by the solemnity of your small
nose; by the blue expended in washing your shirts; by the rotundity of
your Bath great-coat; by the well-polished key of your portmanteau; by
the tag of your shoe; by the tongue of your buckle; by your tailor's
bill; by the last kiss of Miss C----; by the first guinea you ever had
in your possession; and chiefly by all the nonsense you have just read,
let the kneeling Captain find favour in your eyes, and then, my Ode to
Goodnature shall be inscribed to you, while your Ode to Ingratitude
(which, I suppose, is finished) shall be burnt.

I was, as you imagine, very much surprised to see A---- here; I noted
him, according to your direction, with a critical eye; like a gentleman
in a line which you may remember I made on the Castle-hill, he seemed to
have taken the Tower of London for his bride; every feature and every
limb was changed wonderfully; his nose resembled Westminster-Bridge; his
cheeks were like Bloomsbury-Square; his high forehead like
Constitution-Hill; his chin like China-Row; his tongue and his teeth
looked like Almack's in Pall-Mall; his lips like the Shakespeare's Head;
his fists like Hockley-in-the-Hole; his ears like the Opera-House; his
eyes like a harlequin entertainment; his stomach was like Craven-Street;
his chest like the trunk-maker's in the corner of St. Paul's-Church-yard;
the calf of his leg like Leadenhall-market; his pulse like the
Green-market in Covent-Garden; his neck like Tyburn; and his gait like
Newgate; his navel like Fleet-street; and his lungs and his bladder were
like Blowbladder-street: everything about him seemed metamorphosed; he
had moulded his hat into the form of the Mansion-House; some guineas
which he had, looked like the 'Change; but it would be tedious to relate
every particular; however, I must not let his conversation be forgot,
though it was much of a piece with that you so humorously relate: he
swore to me he never saw a rag fit for a gentleman to wear, but in
Rag-fair; he said there was no scolding but at Billingsgate; and he
avowed there were no bad poets but in Grub-street; I could not stand
that, I bid him call to remembrance an acquaintance of his who lived in
the Parliament-Close, and also a relation of his who formerly resided in
Campbell's Land; he smiled, and confessed these were really very bad
poets, but that he was not convinced for all that; upon this, to put
the matter out of all dispute, I offered to lend him the first and
second volumes of Donaldson's Collection. At that very moment the
hostler informed him the chaise was ready, and he still remains ignorant
where the worst poets in the world are. Tell me how our second volume is
received; I was much pleased with N----'s lines; how did he get them
inserted? I intend writing a criticism upon the volume, and upon your
writings in particular, so tremble.

Dear Boswell, farewell,

Yours most affectionately,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

P.S.--I hope you'll write to me soon.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XXIII.

Edinburgh, March 9, 1762.

Dear ERSKINE,--Can a man walk up the Cowgate after a heavy rain without
dirtying his shoes? I might have said the soles of his shoes:--and,
indeed, to put the matter beyond dispute, I would yet have you to
understand me so; for although nothing is so common as to use a part for
the whole; yet if you should be out of humour with a bad dinner, a bad
lodging, an ill-dressed shirt, or an ill-printed book, you might be
disposed to cavil, and object, that in critical precision of language,
(supposing a man to walk slow) he could not be said to have dirtied his
shoes, no more than a boarding-school girl, who has cut her finger in
paring an apple, could be said to have mangled her carcase.

But to proceed; can a man make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land from the
Island of Great Britain, without the aid of navigation? Can a man walk
in the Mall at noon, carrying his breeches upon an enormous long pole,
without being laughed at? Can a man of acknowledged ignorance and
stupidity, write a tragedy superior to Hamlet? or a genteel comedy
superior to the Careless Husband?[40] I need not wait for an answer. No
word but no, will do: it is self-evident. No more, my friend, can he who
is lost in dissipation, write a letter. I am at present so
circumstanced; accept this short line in answer to your last, and write
very soon to

Your affectionate Friend,

JAMES BOSWELL.

[Footnote 40: By Colley Cibber. "Who upon earth has written such perfect
comedies (as Molière)? for the 'Careless Husband' is but one."--Horace
Walpole, Aug. 29, 1785.--ED.]

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XXIV.

New-Tarbat, April 15, 1762.

Dear BOSWELL,--The sun which rose on Wednesday last, with his first
beams beheld you set out for Auchinleck, but he did not see me arrive in
Edinburgh; however, he was good-natured enough to lend a little light to
the moon, by the help of which, about twelve at night I landed at Peter
Ramsay's: the thoughts of seeing you next day kept up my spirits,
during a stage of seventeen miles. William he snored; I called upon you,
after being refreshed with soft slumbers, in which my guardian genius
did not inform me of your absence: but oh! when the maid told me you was
gone, what were my emotions! she beholding me affected in a most supreme
degree, tried to administer comfort to me, and plainly told me, that you
would be very sorry you had missed me, this delivered in an elegant
manner, soothed me prodigiously.

I began writing this at Graham's in Glasgow, but was interrupted by a
jowl of Salmon; every thing there reminded me of you. I was in the same
room you and I were in, you seemed placed before me, your face beamed a
black ray upon me.

I am now at New-Tarbat, once more returned to the scenes of calm
retirement, and placid meditation, as Mr. Samuel Johnson says in the
Idler.[41] We all wish to have you here, and we all agree in thinking
that there is nothing to hinder you to come.

[Footnote 41: "I am now, as I could wish every man of wisdom and virtue
to be, in the regions of calm content and placid meditation."--"The
Idler," No. 71.--ED.]

I must beg your pardon seriously for not writing to you, but I was
really in such bad spirits, and such ill temper, at that cursed place
Morpeth, that it was impossible; but I assure you I will make up
terribly. I am recruiting again; I believe our regiment won't go abroad
this summer. I was glad to see by the London newspapers, that Mr. Robert
Dodsley had at last published your Cub: Mr. H---- showed me a very
severe Epigram that somebody in London had written upon it. You know it
is natural to take a lick at a Cub. Pray come to us. I cannot all at
once come into the way of letter-writing again, so I must conclude,

Dear Boswell,

Your affectionate friend,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XXV.

Auchinleck, April 22, 1762.

Dear ERSKINE,--This is a strange world that we live in. Things turn out
in a very odd manner. Every day produces something more wonderful than
another. Earthquakes, murders, conflagrations, inundations, jubilees,
operas, marriages, and pestilence, unite to make mortal men gape and
stare. But your last letter and mine being wrote on the same day,
astonishes me still more than all these things put together.

This is the most unaccountable rhodomontade that I ever uttered. I am
really dull at present, and my affectation to be clever, is exceedingly
awkward. My manner resembles that of a footman who has got an ensign's
commission, or a kept mistress who is made a wife.

I have not at any time been more insipid, more muddy, and more
standing-water like than I am just now. The country is my aversion. It
renders me quite torpid. Were you here just now, you would behold your
vivacious friend a most stupid exhibition. It is very surprising that
the country should affect me so; whether it be that the scenes to be met
with there, fall infinitely short of my ideas of pastoral simplicity; or
that I have acquired so strong a relish for the variety and hurry of a
town life, as to languish in the stillness of retirement; or that the
atmosphere is too moist and heavy, I shall not determine.

I have now pretty good hopes of getting soon into the guards, that gay
scene of life of which I have been so long and so violently enamoured.
Surely this will cause you to rejoice.

I have lately had the pleasure and the pride of receiving a most
brilliant epistle from Lady B----. It excels Captain Andrew's letters by
many degrees. I have picked as many diamonds out of it, as to make me a
complete set of buckles; I have turned so much of it into brocade
waistcoats, and so much into a very rich suit of embroidered
horse-furniture. I know how unequal I am to the task of answering it;
nevertheless present her Ladyship with the inclosed. It may amuse her a
little. It is better to have two shillings in the pound, than nothing at
all.

I was really shocked at the lethargy of our correspondence. Let it now
be renovated with increase of spirit, so that I may not only subscribe
myself your sincere friend, but your witty companion,

JAMES BOSWELL.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XXVI.

New-Tarbat, May 1, 1762.

     Well then, my friend, you leave the bar,
     Resolv'd on drums, on dress, and war,
     While fancy paints in liveliest hues,
     Swords, sashes, shoulder-knots, reviews,
     You quit the study of the laws,
     And show a blade in Britain's cause,
     Of length to throw into a trance,
     The frighten'd kings of Spain and France!
     A hat of fiercest cock is sought,
     And your cockade's already bought,
     While on your coat there beams a lace,
     That might a captain-general grace!

       For me, who never show admir'd,
     Or very long ago was tir'd,
     I can with face unmov'd behold,
     A scarlet suit with glittering gold;
     And tho' a son of war and strife,
     Detest the listless languid life;
     Then coolly, Sir, I say repent,
     And in derision hold a tent;
     Leave not the sweet poetic band,
     To scold recruits, and pore on Bland,[42]
     Our military books won't charm ye,
     Not even th' enchanting list o' th' army.

       Trust me, 'twill be a foolish sight,
     To see you facing to the right;
     And then, of all your sense bereft,
     Returning back unto the left;
     Alas! what transport can you feel,
     In turning round on either heel?
     Much sooner would I choose indeed,
     To see you standing on your head;
     Or with your breeches off to rub
     Foul clothes, and dance within a tub.

[Footnote 42: Humphrey Bland, author of "Military Discipline," (1727).
He served under the Duke of Marlborough. Was present also at the battles
of Dettingen and Fontenoy. Became colonel of the Second Dragoon
Guards.--ED.]

Besides, my dear Boswell, we find in all history ancient and modern,
lawyers are very apt to run away. Demosthenes the Greek, writer to the
signet, who managed the great suit against Philip of Macedon, fairly
scoured off, I think, at the battle of Cheronea; and Cicero, the Roman
advocate is universally accused of cowardice. I am not indeed ignorant
that some of your ancestors behaved well at Flodden;[43] but as they
lost the day, I think the omen but bad, and as they were killed, I think
that makes the omen still worse; however, perhaps you don't think so,
and I allow that argument to be very convincing, and rather more
conclusive, than if you had said, "I don't know that."

[Footnote 43: "Thomas Boswell obtained from James IV., as a signal mark
of royal favour, the estate of Auchinleck. He was slain at
Flodden."--"Memoir of James Boswell," by Rev. C. Rogers, p. 3.--ED.]

You complain much of the country, and you assign various reasons for
disliking it; among others, you imagine the atmosphere too moist and
heavy; I agree with you in that opinion, all the black clouds in the sky
are continually pressing upon you, for as the proverb says, Like draws
to like. Believe me, I have sometimes taken you at a distance, for the
pillar of smoke which used to accompany the Israelites out of Egypt; it
would be impossible to tell how many things I have taken you for at
different times; sometimes I have taken you for the witches' cauldron in
Macbeth; this resemblance was in some degree warranted by your figure
and shape; sometimes for an enormous ink-bottle; sometimes for a funeral
procession; now and then for a chimney sweeper, and not unfrequently for
a black-pudding. For my part, Boswell, I must confess I am fond of the
country to a degree; things there are not so artificially disguised as
in towns, real sentiments are discovered, and the passions play
naturally and without restraint. As for example, it was only in the
country I could have found out Lady J----'s particular attachment to the
tune of _Appie Mac-Nab_; in the town, no doubt, she would have pretended
a great liking for Voi Amante; in the town, I never would have seen Lady
B---- go out armed for fear of the Turkey-cock, which is her daily
practice here, and leaves room for numberless reflections: she cannot
eat Turkeys when roasted or boiled; and she dreads them when alive so
much, that she displays every forenoon a cudgel to them, fitted by its
size to strike terror into a bull, or a butting cow. What can her
keeping of Turkeys be owing to? Assuredly to vanity, which is of such an
insinuating nature, that we are apt very often to meet it where we least
expect it; I have seen it in an old shoe, in a dirty shirt, in a long
nose, a crooked leg, and a red face. So much it seemed good for me to
say upon the subject of vanity, supporting by the most irrefragable
arguments, the doctrine of Solomon.

We had a visit from Mr. C---- of S---- here this morning; he came in a
chaise drawn by four bay horses; I am certain of the number, you may
draw what inference you please from this intelligence, I give you only a
simple narration of the fact. I am surprised you say nothing of my
proposal of your coming here, and still more that you say nothing of
your Cub. Why don't you send me a copy? We were all so much entertained
with your letter to Lady B----, that I was really seized with a qualm of
envy; we regard it as one of those efforts of genius, which are only
produced by a fine flow of spirits, a beautiful day, and a good pen.

I pray you, Boswell, note well this sheet of paper, its size is
magnificent: If Lady B---- was possessed of such an extent of plain
ground, she would undoubtedly throw it into a lawn, and plant it with
clumps of trees, she would vary it with fish-ponds, and render it rural
with flocks; here, where I am writing, might a cow feed; here might be
an arbour; here, perhaps, might you recline at full length; by the edge
of this stream might the Captain walk, and in this corner, might Lady
B---- give orders to her shepherds. I am drawn in the most irresistible
manner to conclude, by the external impulse of the cloth's being laid,
and by the internal impulse of being hungry. Believe me, Boswell, to be
in the most unconscionable manner, your affectionate friend,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

P.S.--I send you franks, which return filled with the utmost wit and
humour.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XXVII.

Auchinleck, May 4, 1762.

     For military operation[44]
     I have a wondrous inclination;
     Ev'n when a boy, with cheerful glee,
     The red-coats march I used to see;
     With joy beheld the corporals drill,
     The men upon the Castle-hill;
     And at the sound of drum and fife,
     Felt an unusual flow of life.
     Besides, my honest friend, you know
     I am a little of a beau.
     I'm sure, my friend need not be told,
     That Boswell's hat was edg'd with gold;
     And that a shining bit of lace,
     My brownish-colour'd suit did grace;
     And that mankind my hair might see,
     Powder'd at least two days in three.
     My pinchbeck buckles are admir'd
     By all who are with taste inspir'd.
     Trophies of Gallic pride appear,
     The crown to every Frenchman dear,
     And the enchanting fleur de lis,
     The flower of flowers you must agree;
     While for variety's sweet sake,
     And witty Charles's tale to wake,
     The curious artist interweaves
     A twisted bunch of oaken leaves.

       Tell me, dear Erskine, should not I
     My favourite path of fortune try?
     Our life, my friend, is very short,
     A little while is all we've for't;
     And he is blest who can beguile,
     With what he likes, that little while.

[Footnote 44: I have omitted the first eighty lines of this poem.--ED.]

My fondness for the guards must appear very strange to you, who have a
rooted antipathy at the glare of scarlet. But I must inform you, that
there is a city called London, for which I have as violent an affection
as the most romantic lover ever had for his mistress. There a man may
indeed soap his own beard, and enjoy whatever is to be had in this
transitory state of things. Every agreeable whim may be freely indulged
without censure. I hope, however, you will not impute my living in
England, to the same cause for which Hamlet was advised to go there;
because the people were all as mad as himself.

I long much for another of our long conversations on a fine forenoon,
after breakfast, while the sun sheds light and gladness around us.
Believe me,

Yours sincerely,

JAMES BOSWELL.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XXVIII.

Auchinleck, May 8, 1762.

Dear ERSKINE,--I should have wondered very much, had I been told of Lady
J----'s particular attachment to the tune of _Appie Mac-nab_, two months
ago: but I must inform you, that a few days before I left Edinburgh,
having occasion to look into the advocates' library, I there chanced to
turn up an old Roman song-book, and, to my great surprise, met with the
individual air of _Appie Mac-nab_, which I discovered to be part of an
original Patrician cantata on the daughter of the famous Appius, set for
the _Tibiæ sinistræ_. In a manuscript marginal note, it is said to have
been composed by Tigellius the famous musician, whose death and
character Horace takes occasion to entertain and instruct us with, in
the second satire of his first Book. You see, therefore, that Lady
J----'s taste for Italian music, cannot be called in question; and
indeed, I think her liking _Appie Mac-nab_, is a very strong proof of
it, as she certainly could not know its original. The Roman song-book, a
very great curiosity, was brought from Rome some hundred years ago, by
father Macdonald, an old popish priest, who left it as a legacy to the
Duke of Gordon. It is probable, that some musician in the North of
Scotland, has transcribed the Appian cantata from it, and giving its
principal air a Scottish turn, and adapting proper words to it, has
produced the vulgar ballad of _Appie Mac-nab_.

Lady B----'s terror for the Turkey-cock, diverts me extremely. Did they
but come to an engagement, how noble must it be! The idea makes a strong
impression on my fancy. I shall certainly write something astonishing
upon it.

This charming weather has reconciled me to the country. It enlivens me
exceedingly. I am cheerful and happy. I have been wandering by myself,
all this forenoon, through the sweetest place in the world. The sunshine
is mild, the breeze is gentle, my mind is peaceful. I am indulging the
most agreeable reveries imaginable. I am thinking of the brilliant
scenes of happiness, which I shall enjoy as an officer of the guards.
How I shall be acquainted with all the grandeur of a court, and all the
elegance of dress and diversions; become a favourite of ministers of
state, and the adoration of ladies of quality, beauty, and fortune! How
many parties of pleasure shall I have in town! How many fine jaunts to
the noble seats of dukes, lords, and members of parliament in the
country! I am thinking of the perfect knowledge which I shall acquire of
men and manners, of the intimacies which I shall have the honour to
form with the learned and ingenious in every science, and of the many
amusing literary anecdotes which I shall pick up. I am thinking of
making the tour of Europe, and feasting on the delicious prospects of
Italy and France; of feeling all the transports of a bard at Rome, and
writing noble poems on the banks of the Tiber. I am thinking of the
distinguished honours which I shall receive at every foreign court, and
of what infinite service I shall be to all my countrymen upon their
travels. I am thinking of returning to England, of getting into the
house of commons, of speaking still better than Mr. Pitt, and of being
made principal secretary of state. I am thinking of having a regiment of
guards, and of making a glorious stand against an invasion by the
Spaniards. I am thinking how I shall marry a lady of the highest
distinction, with a fortune of a hundred thousand pounds. I am thinking
of my flourishing family of children; how my sons shall be men of sense
and spirit, and my daughters women of beauty, and every amiable
perfection. I am thinking of the prodigious respect which I shall
receive, of the splendid books which will be dedicated to me, and the
statues which will be erected to my immortal honour.

I am thinking that my mind is too delicate, and my feelings too fine for
the rough bustle of life; I am therefore thinking that I shall steal
silently and unperceived through the world; that I shall pass the winter
in London, much in the same way that the Spectator describes himself to
have done; and in summer, shall live sometimes here at home; sometimes
in such a pleasing retirement as Mrs. Row beautifully paints in her
letters moral and entertaining.[45] I like that book much. I read it
when I was very young, and I am persuaded, that it contributed to
improve my tender imagination. I am thinking that I shall feel my frame
too delicate for the British Climate. I am thinking that I shall go and
live in one of the most pleasant provincial towns in the South of
France, where I shall be blest with constant felicity. This is a scheme
to which I could give vast praise, were I near the beginning of my
letter; but as that is very far from being the case, I must reserve it
for a future epistle.

[Footnote 45: "Letters, Moral and Entertaining, in Prose and Verse," by
Elizabeth Rowe.--ED.]

I am glad to find you are so anxious to hear about the Cub at Newmarket,
Love me, love my Cub. However, I can tell you nothing about him. Dodsley
has not yet sent me a copy.

Derrick,[46] a London author, whom you have heard me mention, has sent
me his versifications of the battle of Lora, and some of the Erse
fragments. If you want to see them, let me have some franks.

[Footnote 46: "Pray, Sir," said Mr. Morgann to Johnson, "whether do you
reckon Derrick or Smart the best poet?" Johnson at once felt himself
roused; and answered, "Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency
between a louse and a flea." Boswell's "Life of Johnson." Date of March
30th, 1783.--ED.]

I shall be at Dumfries soon, where I hope to see my friend Johnston. We
will talk much of old Scotch history, and the memory of former years
will warm our hearts. We will also talk of Captain Andrew, with whom we
have passed many a pleasant hour. Johnston is a very worthy fellow: I
may safely say so; for I have lived in intimacy with him more years than
the Egyptian famine lasted.

And now, O most renowned of Captains! having fairly written myself out
of pen, ink, and paper, I conclude with my usual epithet, of

Your affectionate friend,

JAMES BOSWELL.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XXIX.

New-Tarbat, May 13, 1762.

Dear BOSWELL,--Your first epistle being of a length which modern letters
seldom attain to, surprised me very much; but at the sight of your
second, consisting of such an exuberant number of sheets, I was no less
amazed than if I had wakened at three o'clock in the morning, and found
myself fast clasped in the arms of the empress Queen; or if I had found
myself at the mouth of the river Nile, half-eaten by a crocodile; or if
I had found myself ascending the fatal ladder in the Grass-market at
Edinburgh, and Mr. Alexander Donaldson the hangman. To confess a truth,
I imagine your funds for letter-writing are quite inexhaustible; and
that the fire of your fancy, like the coal at Newcastle, will never be
burnt out; indeed, I look upon you in the light of an old stocking, in
which we have no sooner mended one hole, than out starts another; or I
think you are like a fertile woman, who is hardly delivered of one
child, before slap she is five months gone with a second. I need not
tell you your letters are entertaining; I might as well acquaint King
George the Third, that he is sovereign of Great Britain, or gravely
disclose to my servant, that his name is William. It is superfluous to
inform people of what it is impossible they should not know.

You think you have a knack of story-telling, but there you must yield to
me, if you hearken attentively to what I am about to disclose, you will
be convinced; it is a tale, my dear Boswell, which whether we consider
the turnings and windings of fortune, or the sadness of the catastrophe,
is delightful and improving.--You demand of me, Sir, a faithful recital
of the events which have distinguished my life. Though the remembrance
of every misfortune which can depress human nature, must be painful; yet
the commands of such a revered friend as James Boswell must be obeyed;
and Oh, Sir! if you find any of my actions blamable, impute them to
destiny, and if you find any of them commendable, impute them to my good
sense. I am about fifty years of age, grief makes me look as if I was
fourscore; thirty years ago I was a great deal younger; and about twenty
years before that, I was just born; as I find nothing remarkable in my
life, before that event, I shall date my history from that period; some
omens happened at my birth: Mr. Oman at Leith was married at that time;
this was thought very portentous; the very day my mother was brought to
bed of me, the cat was delivered of three kittens; but the world was
soon bereaved of them by death, and I had not the pleasure of passing
my infancy with such amiable companions; this was my first misfortune,
and no subsequent one ever touched me more nearly; delightful innocents!
methinks, I still see them playing with their tails, and galloping after
corks; with what a becoming gravity did they wash their faces! how
melodious was their purring! From them I derived any little taste I have
for music; I composed an Ode upon their death; as it was my first
attempt in poetry, I write it for your perusal; you will perceive the
marks of genius in the first production of MY TENDER IMAGINATION; and
you will shed a tear of applause and sorrow, on the remains of those
animals, so dear to the premature years of your mourning and lamenting
friend.

     ODE

     ON THE DEATH OF THREE KITTENS.

     STROPHE.

     Attend, ye watchful cats,
       Attend the ever lamentable strain;
     For cruel death, most kind to rats,
       Has kill'd the sweetest of the kitten-train.

     ANTISTROPHE.

       How pleas'd did I survey,
     Your beauteous whiskers as they daily grew,
       I mark'd your eyes that beam'd so grey,
     But little thought that nine lives were too few.

     EPODE.

                   It was delight to see
                   My lovely kittens three,
     When after corks through all the room they flew,
     When oft in gamesome guise they did their tails pursue.
           When thro' the house,
           You hardly, hardly, heard a mouse;
           And every rat lay snug and still,
           And quiet as a thief in mill;
           But cursed death has with a blow,
           Laid all my hopes low, low, low, low:
     Had that foul fiend the least compassion known;
     I should not now lament my beauteous kittens gone.

You have often wondered what made me such a miserable spectacle; grief
for the death of my kittens, has wrought the most wonderful effects upon
me; grief has drawn my teeth, pulled out my hair, hollowed my eyes, bent
my back, crooked my legs, and marked my face with the small-pox; but I
give over this subject, seeing it will have too great a hold of your
tender imagination: I find myself too much agitated with melancholy to
proceed any longer in my life to-day; the weather also is extremely bad,
and a thousand mournful ideas rush into my mind; I am totally
overpowered with them; I will now disburden myself to you, and set down
each sad thought as it occurs.

I am thinking how I will never get a clean shirt to my back; how my coat
will always be out at the elbows; and how I never will get my breeches
to stay up. I am thinking how I will be married to a shrew of a wife,
who will beat me every evening and morning, and sometimes in the middle
of the day. I am thinking what a d----d w---- she will be, and how my
children will be most of them hanged, and whipped through towns, and
burnt in the hand. I am thinking of what execrable poems I will write;
and how I will be thrown into prison for debt; and how I will never get
out again; and how nobody will pity me. I am thinking how hungry I will
be; and how little I will get to eat; and how I'll long for a piece of
roast-beef; and how they'll bring me a rotten turnip. And I am thinking
how I will take a consumption, and waste away inch by inch; and how I'll
grow very fat and unwieldy, and won't be able to stir out of my chair.
And I am thinking how I'll be roasted by the Portuguese inquisition; and
how I'll be impaled by the Turks; and how I'll be eaten by Cannibals;
and how I'll be drowned on a voyage to the East Indies; and how I'll be
robbed and murdered by a highwayman; and how I'll lose my senses; and
how very mad I'll be; and how my body will be thrown out to dogs to
devour; and how I'll be hanged, drawn, and quartered; and how my friend
Boswell will neglect me; and how I'll be despised by the whole world;
and how I will meet with ten thousand misfortunes worse than the loss of
my kittens.

Thus have I, in a brief manner, related a few of the calamities which,
in the present disposition of my mind, appear so dreadful; I could have
enlarged the catalogue, but your heart is too susceptible of pity, and I
will not shock you altogether. You will doubtless remark the great
inequality of our fortunes. In your last letter, you was the happiest
man I was ever acquainted with; I wish it may last, and that your
children may have as much merit as you imagine; I only hope you won't
plan a marriage with any of mine, their dispositions will be so unlike,
that it must prove unhappy.

Pray send me Derrick's versifications, which though they are undoubtedly
very bad, I shall be glad to see, as sometimes people take a pleasure in
beholding a man hanged. And now, Boswell, I am going to end my letter,
which being very short, I know will please you, as you will think you
have gained a complete victory over the captain, seeing that you are
several sheets a-head of me; but times may alter, and when I resume my
adventures, you will find yourself sorely defeated; believe me,

Yours sincerely,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XXX.

New-Tarbat, May 25, 1762.

Dear BOSWELL,--It has been said, that few people succeed both in poetry
and prose. Homer's prose essay on the gun-powder-plot, is reckoned by
all critics inferior to the Iliad; and Warburton's rhyming satire on the
methodists is allowed by all to be superior to his prosaical notes on
Pope's works. Let it be mine to unite the excellencies both of prose and
verse in my inimitable epistles. From this day, my prose shall have a
smack of verse, and my verse have a smack of prose. I'll give you a
specimen of both--My servant addresses me in these words, very often--

     The roll is butter'd, and the kettle boil'd,
     Your honour's newest coat with grease is soil'd;
     In your best breeches glares a mighty hole,
     Your wash-ball and pomatum, Sir, are stole.
     Your tailor, Sir, must payment have, that's plain,
     He call'd to-day, and said he'd call again.

There's prosaic poetry; now for poetic prose--Universal genius is a wide
and diffused stream that waters the country and makes it agreeable; 'tis
true, it cannot receive ships of any burden, therefore it is of no solid
advantage, yet is it very amusing. Gondolas and painted barges float
upon its surface, the country gentleman forms it into ponds, and it is
spouted out of the mouths of various statues; it strays through the
finest fields, and its banks nourish the most blooming flowers. Let me
sport with this stream of science, wind along the vale, and glide
through the trees, foam down the mountain, and sparkle in the sunny ray;
but let me avoid the deep, nor lose myself in the vast profound, and
grant that I may never be pent in the bottom of a dreary cave, or be so
unfortunate as to stagnate in some unwholesome marsh. Limited genius is
a pump-well, very useful in all the common occurrences of life, the
water drawn from it is of service to the maids in washing their aprons;
it boils beef, and it scours the stairs; it is poured into the
tea-kettles of the ladies, and into the punch-bowls of the gentlemen.

Having thus given you, in the most clear and distinct manner, my
sentiments of genius, I proceed to give you my opinion of the ancient
and modern writers; a subject, you must confess, very aptly and
naturally introduced. I am going to be very serious, you will trace a
resemblance between me and Sir William Temple,[47] or perhaps David
Hume, Esq.

[Footnote 47: Temple wrote "An Essay upon Ancient and Modern
Learning."--ED.]

A modern writer must content himself with gleaning a few thoughts here
and there, and binding them together without order or regularity, that
the variety may please; the ancients have reaped the full of the
harvest, and killed the noblest of the game: in vain do we beat about
the once plenteous fields, the dews are exhaled, no scent remains. How
glorious was the fate of the early writers![48] born in the infancy of
letters; their task was to reject thoughts more than to seek after them,
and to select out of a number, the most shining, the most striking, and
the most susceptible of ornament. The poet saw in his walks every
pleasing object of nature undescribed; his heart danced with the gale,
and his spirits shone with the invigorating sun, his works breathed
nothing but rapture and enthusiasm. Love then spoke with its genuine
voice, the breast was melted down with woe, the whole soul was dissolved
into pity with its tender complaints; free from the conceits and
quibbles which, since that time, have rendered the very name of it
ridiculous; real passion heaved the sigh; real passion uttered the most
prevailing language. Music too reigned in its full force; that soft
deluding art, whose pathetic strains so gently steal into our very
souls, and involve us in the sweetest confusion; or whose animating
strains fire us even to madness: how has the shore of Greece echoed with
the wildest sounds; the delicious warblings of the Lyre charmed and
astonished every ear. The blaze of rhetoric then burst forth; the
ancients sought not by false thoughts, and glittering diction, to
captivate the ear, but by manly and energetic modes of expression, to
rule the heart and sway the passions.

[Footnote 48: "The most ancient poets are considered as the best ...
whether the first writers took possession of the most striking objects
for description, and the most probable occurrences for fiction, and left
nothing to those that followed them but transcription of the same
events, and new combinations of the same images."--"Rasselas," chapter
x.--ED.]

There, Boswell, there are periods for you. Did you not imagine that you
was reading "The Rambler" of Mr. Samuel Johnson; or that Mr. Thomas
Sheridan[49] himself was resounding the praises of the ancients, and his
own art? I shall now finish this letter without the least blaze of
rhetoric, and with no very manly or energetic mode of expression, assure
you, that I am,

Yours sincerely,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

[Footnote 49: Thomas Sheridan, the father of R.B. Sheridan, was about
this time lecturing on Oratory. "He knows that I laugh at his oratory,"
Johnson once said to Boswell.--ED.]

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XXXI.

Auchinleck, June 1, 1762.

At length, O Erskine! Lady B---- and the Turkey-cock are sung in strains
sublime. I have finished an ode. Receive it with reverence.[50] It is
one of the greatest productions of the human mind. Just that sort of
composition which we form an awful and ravishing conception of, in those
divine moments, when the soul (to use a bold metaphor) is in full blow,
and soaring fancy reaches its utmost heights. Could it but be really
personified--it would be like Saul of old, taller than any of the
people, and were it to be guilty of a capital crime, it could not enjoy
one of the greatest privileges of a British subject, to be tried by its
Peers.

[Footnote 50: The Ode is not worth reprinting.--ED.]

I am sure that my ode is great. Mr. James Bruce the gardener, my
faithful counsellor and very excellent companion, declares it is quite
to his mind. He stood by me while I took my portrait of the cock, from a
large one which struts upon the green. I shall be in Edinburgh in a few
days; for which reason, I remain your affectionate friend,

JAMES BOSWELL.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XXXII.

New-Tarbat, June 5, 1762.

Dear BOSWELL,--The first idea of our correspondence was not yours; for,
many months before you addressed me, I wrote you the following letter at
Fort George, where you may remember our acquaintance commenced. You'll
observe that some of the stanzas[51] are parodies on Gray's Elegy in a
Church-yard, I use the liberty to mark them. I stood too much in awe of
you, to send it when it was written, and I am too much at my ease now,
to be withheld any longer from presenting you with it.

I am, Sir,

With the greatest respect and esteem,

Your most obedient,

And most humble servant,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

[Footnote 51: These stanzas are nearly as bad as Boswell's Ode, and,
like it, are not worth reprinting.--ED.]

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XXXIII.

Auchinleck, June 9, 1762.

Dear ERSKINE,--At this delightful season of the year, when everything is
cheerful and gay, when the groves are all rich with leaves, the gardens
with flowers, and the orchards with blossoms, one would think it almost
impossible to be unhappy; yet such is my hard fate at present, that
instead of relishing the beautiful appearance of nature, instead of
participating the universal joy, I rather look upon it with aversion, as
it exhibits a strong contrast to the cloudy darkness of my mind, and so
gives me a more dismal view of my own situation. Fancy, capricious fancy
will allow me to see nothing but shade. How strange is it to think, that
I who lately abounded in bliss, should now be the slave of black
melancholy! How unaccountable does it appear to the reasoning mind that
this change should be produced without any visible cause. However, since
I have been seized with _the pale cast of thought_, I know not how, I
comfort myself, that I shall get free of it as whimsically. You must
excuse this piece of serious sententiousness; for it has relieved me;
and you may look upon it as much the same with coughing before one
begins to sing, or deliver anything in public, in order that the voice
may be as clear as possible.

The death of your kittens, my dear Erskine! affected me very much. I
could wish that you would form it into a tragedy, as the story is
extremely pathetic, and could not fail greatly to interest the tender
passions. If you have any doubts as to the propriety of their being
three in number, I beg it of you to reflect that the immortal
Shakespeare has introduced three daughters into his tragedy of King
Lear, which has often drawn tears from the eyes of multitudes. The same
author has likewise begun his tragedy of Macbeth with three witches; and
Mr. Alexander Donaldson has resolved, that his collection of original
poems by Scotch gentlemen, shall consist of three volumes, and no more.

I don't know, indeed, but your affecting tale might better suit the
intention of an opera, especially when we consider the musical genius of
the feline race: were a sufficient number of these animals put under the
tuition of proper masters, nobody can tell what an astonishing chorus
might be produced. If this proposal shall be embraced, I make no doubt
of its being the wonder of all Europe, and I remain,

Yours, as usual,

JAMES BOSWELL.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XXXIV.

New-Tarbat, June 14, 1762.

AND are YOU gloomy! oh James Boswell! has your flow of spirits
evaporated, and left nothing but the black dregs of melancholy behind?
has the smile of cheerfulness left your countenance? and is the laugh of
gaiety no more? oh woeful condition! oh wretched friend! but in this
situation you are dear to me; for lately my disposition was exactly
similar to yours. No conversation pleased me; no books could fix my
attention; I could write no letters, and I despised my own poems. Tell
me how you was affected; could you speak any? could you fix your
thoughts upon anything but the dreary way you was in? and would not the
sight of me have made you very miserable? I have lately had the
epidemical distemper; I don't mean poverty, but that cold which they
call the influenza, and which made its first appearance in London;[52]
whether it came to Scotland in the wagon, or travelled with a companion
in a post-chaise, is quite uncertain.

[Footnote 52: "The time is wonderfully sickly; nothing but sore-throats,
colds, and fevers." Horace Walpole, in a letter to George Montagu, April
29, 1762.--ED.]

Derrick's versifications are infamously bad; what think you of the
Reviewers commending such an execrable performance? I have a fancy to
write an ironical criticism upon it, and praise all the worst lines,
which you shall send to Derrick, as the real sentiments of a gentleman
of your acquaintance on reading his work. For want of something else to
entertain you, I begin my criticism immediately.--To versify poetical
prose has been found a very difficult task. Dr. Young and Mr. Langhorne,
in their paraphrases upon the Bible (which Lord Bolingbroke tells us, is
an excellent book) have succeeded but indifferently: I therefore took up
Mr. Samuel Derrick's versifications from Fingal, with little expectation
of being entertained; but let no man judge of a book till at least he
reads the title page; for lo! Mr. Samuel Derrick has adorned his with a
very apt and uncommon quotation, from a good old poet called Virgil. I
am much pleased with the candour so conspicuous in the short
advertisement to the public, in which Mr. Derrick seems very willing to
run snacks in reputation with Mr. MacPherson, which will greatly rejoice
that gentleman, who cannot justly boast of so extensive a fame as Mr.
Samuel Derrick. The dedication is very elegant, though, I am apt to
think, the author has neither praised Lord Pomfret nor himself enough;
two worthy people, who, in my opinion, deserve it. But at last, we come
to the poems themselves: and here I might indulge myself in warm and
indiscriminate applause; but let it be my ambition to trace Mr. Derrick
step by step through his wonderful work; let me pry both into the
kitchen and dining-room of his genius, to use the comparison of the
great Mr. Boyle. The first lines, or the exordium of the battle of Lora,
are calmly sublime, and refined with simplicity. In the eighth line, our
author gives the epithet of posting to the wind, which is very
beautiful: however, to make it natural, it ought to be applied, in
poetical justice, to that wind which wafts a packet-boat. I had almost
forgot, the sixth line says, "the voice of songs, a tuneful voice I
hear." Now, I should be glad to know, whether these same songs be a man
or a woman. Lines 23 and 24.

     "In secret round they glanc'd their kindled eyes,
     Their indignation spoke in bursting sighs."

It seems to me improbable, that a pair of kindled eyes could glance in
secret; and I cannot think that sighs are the language of indignation.
Lines 57, 58, 59.

     "So on the settled sea blue mists arise,
     In vapory volumes darkening to the skies,
     They glitter in the sun."

These mists that glitter and are dark at the same time, are very
extraordinary, and the contrast is lovely and new. Line 67th
begins--"His post is terror."--This is a post, that, I believe, none of
our members of Parliament would accept. Lines 175, 176,

     "An hundred steeds he gives that own the rein,
     Never a swifter race devour'd the plain."

Devoured the plain! if this is not sublime, then am I no critic;
however, its lucky for the landed interest, that the breed of those
horses is lost; they might do very well, I confess, in the Highlands of
Scotland; but a dozen of them turned loose near Salisbury would be
inconceivably hurtful. I'm tired of this stuff; if you think it worth
the while you may end it and send it to Derrick; but let your part be
better than mine, or it won't do. "Grief for thy loss drank all my
vitals dry"--I laughed heartily at that line.

In this letter I have bestowed my dulness[53] freely upon you; you have
had my wit, and you must take my stupidity into the bargain; as when we
go to the market, we purchase bones as well as beef; and when we marry
an heiress, we are obliged to take the woman as well as the money; and
when we buy Donaldson's collection, we pay as dear for the poems of Mr.
Lauchlan MacPherson, as we do for those written by the incomparable
Captain Andrew.

[Footnote 53: "If I were as tedious as a king, I could find it in my
heart to bestow it all of your worship."--"Much Ado about Nothing." Act
iii., scene 5.--ED.]

You are in Edinburgh, I imagine, by this time, if the information of Mr.
Alexander Donaldson may be depended upon. I shall be in town one night
soon on my way to Kelly, for the H----s of D---- threaten an invasion
upon this peaceful abode. Farewell.

Yours sincerely,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XXXV.

Edinburgh, June 19, 1762.

Dear ERSKINE,--You have upon many occasions made rather too free with my
person, upon which I have often told you that I principally value
myself. I feel a strong inclination to retaliate. I have great
opportunity, and I will not resist it. Your figure, Erskine, is
amazingly uncouth. The length of your body bears no manner of proportion
to its breadth, and far less does its breadth bear to its length. If we
consider you one way, you are the tallest, and if we consider you
another way, you are the thickest man alive. The crookedness of your
back is terrible; but it is nothing in comparison of the frightful
distortions of your countenance. What monsters have you been the cause
of bringing into the world! not only the wives of sergeants and
corporals of the 71st regiment, but the unhappy women in every town
where you was quartered, by looking at you have conceived in horror.
Natural defects should be spared; but I must not omit the large holes in
your ears, and the deep marks of the iron on your hands. I hope you will
allow these to be artificial. Nature nails no man's ears to the
pillory. Nature burns no man in the hand. As I have a very sincere
friendship for you, I cannot help giving you my best advice with regard
to your future schemes of life. I would beseech you to lay aside all
your chimerical projects, which have made you so absurd. You know very
well, when you went upon the stage at Kingston in Jamaica, how
shamefully you exposed yourself, and what disgrace and vexation you
brought upon all your friends. You must remember what sort of treatment
you met with, when you went and offered yourself to be one of the
fathers of the inquisition at Macerata, in the room of Mr. Archibald
Bower;[54] a project which could enter into the head of no man who was
not utterly destitute of common sense.

[Footnote 54: The author of the "History of the Popes." He had been a
professor in the University of Macerata, and a Counsellor of the
Inquisition. He became a Protestant, and died in England.--ED.]

You tell me, that your intention at present is, to take orders in the
Church of England; and you hope I will approve of your plan: but I must
tell you honestly, that this is a most ridiculous hair-brained conceit.
Before you can be qualified for the smallest living, you must study nine
years at Oxford; you must eat at a moderate computation, threescore of
fat beeves, and upwards of two hundred sheep; you must consume a
thousand stone of bread, and swallow ninety hogsheads of porter. You
flatter yourself with being highly promoted, because you are an Earl's
brother, and a man of genius. But, my dear friend, I beg it of you to
consider, how little these advantages have already availed you. The
army was as good a scene for you to rise in as the church can be; and
yet you are only a lieutenant in a very young regiment.

I seriously think, that your most rational scheme should be, to turn
inn-keeper upon some of the great roads: you might have an elegant sign
painted of Apollo and the Muses, and entertainment for men and horses,
by THE HONOURABLE ANDREW ERSKINE, would be something very unusual, and
could not fail to bring numbers of people to your house. You would by
this means have a life of most pleasing indolence, and would never want
a variety of company, as you would constantly dine and sup with your
guests. Men of fashion would be glad to receive you as their equal; and
men of no fashion would be proud to sit at table with one who had any
pretension to nobility. I hope the honest concern which I shew for your
real welfare, will convince you how much I am,

My dear Sir,

Your most affectionate friend,

JAMES BOSWELL.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XXXVI.

Kelly, July 5, 1762.

Dear BOSWELL,--Vanity has, in all former ages, been reckoned the
characteristic of poets; in our time, I think they are more particularly
distinguished by modesty; I have carefully perused their works, and I
have never once found them throwing out either thought, sentiment, or
reflection of their own; convincing proof of their humility; they seem
all to allow that the ancients, and some few of the earlier moderns,
were much better writers than themselves; therefore they beg, borrow,
and steal from them, without the smallest mercy or hesitation. In some
things, however, they are quite original; their margins and prices are
larger than any ever known before; and they advertise their pieces much
oftener in the newspapers than any of their predecessors. You compliment
me highly on my elegies, and tell me that I have even dared to be
original now and then; and you ask me very seriously, how I come to be
so well acquainted with the tender passion of love.--Ah, Sir, how
deceitful are appearances! under a forbidding aspect and uncouth form, I
conceal the soul of an Oroondates, a soul that thrills with the most
sensible emotions at the sight of beauty. Love easily finds access where
the mind is naturally inclined to melancholy; we foster the pleasing
delusion, it grows up with our frame, and becomes a part of our being;
long have I laboured under the influence of that passion; long vented my
grief in unavailing sighs. Besides, your thin meagre man is always the
most violent lover; a thousand delusions enter his paper-skull, which
the man of guts never dreams of. In vain does Cupid shoot his arrows at
the plump existence, who is entrenched in a solid wall of fat: they are
buried like shrimps in melted butter; as eggs are preserved by
mutton-tallow, from rottenness and putrefaction, so he, by his grease,
is preserved from love. Pleased with his pipe, he sits and smokes in
his elbow-chair; totally unknown to him is the ardent passion that
actuates the sentimental soul: alas! unhappy man! he never indulged in
the pleasing reverie which inspires the spindle-shanked lover, as he
strays through nodding forest by gliding stream; if he marries, he
chooses a companion fat as himself; they lie together, and most musical
is their snore, they melt like two pounds of butter in one plate in a
sunshiny-day.

Pray, Boswell, remember me kindly to honest Johnston. Let me know if his
trees are growing well, at his paternal estate of Grange; if he is as
fond of Melvil's Memoirs[55] as he used to be; and if he continues to
stretch himself in the sun upon the mountains near Edinburgh.

I ever am,

Yours most affectionately,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

[Footnote 55: Sir James Melville. Born 1535, died 1607. His "Memoirs"
were published in 1683.--ED.]

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XXXVII.

Kelly, July 6, 1762.

Dear BOSWELL,--Nothing happened during my journey; I arrived in Aberdeen
on Thursday last; the town is really neater, cleaner, and better than
you would imagine; but the country around is dismal; long gloomy moors,
and the extended ocean, are the only prospects that present themselves;
the whole region seems as if made in direct opposition to descriptive
poetry. You meet here with none of the lengthened meads, sunny vales
and dashing streams, that brighten in the raptured poet's eye; however,
as I believe you have been here, I shall trouble you with no farther
descriptions.

Never was parting more tender than that of mine with George Robertson
the postilion, and the Kelly chaise at Dundee water-side; we formed as
dolorous a trio as then existed upon the face of this valley of tears.
Oh George! Oh! Erskine! were the cries that echoed across the waves, and
along the mountains.

     Tears trickled down the rugged boatman's face,
     An unpaid freight he thought no harder case;
     The seals no longer sported in the sea,
     While ev'ry bell rung mournful in Dundee,
     Huge ploughmen wept, and stranger still, 'tis said,
     So strong is sympathy, that asses bray'd.

Farewell, lovely George, I roared out, and oh! if you should happen to
be dry, for such is the nature of sorrow, take this shilling, and spend
it in the sugared ale, or the wind-expelling dram: with sweet reluctance
he put forth his milk-white hand, cold with clammy sweat, and with a
faltering voice, feebly thanked me. Oh! I shall never forget my emotions
when he drove from me, and the chaise lessened in my view; now it
whirled sublime along the mountain's edge; now, I scarcely saw the head
of George nodding in the vale. Thus, on the summit of a craggy cliff,
which high overlooks the resounding waves, Jean, Susan, or Nell, sees in
a boat her lovely sailor, who has been torn from her arms by a cruel
press-gang; now it climbs the highest seas; now it is buried between
two billows, and vanishes from her sight. Weep not, sweet maid, he shall
return loaded with honours; a gold watch shall grace each fob, a pair of
silver buckles shall shine resplendent upon his shoes, and a silk
handkerchief shall be tied around his neck, which soon shall cover thy
snowy bosom.

When the chaise was totally lost, and my breast was distracted with a
thousand different passions; all of a sudden I broke out into the
following soliloquy.--Surely, surely mortal man is a chaise: now
trailing through the heavy sand of indolence, anon jolted to death upon
the rough road of discontent; and shortly after sunk in the deep rut of
low spirits; now galloping on the post-road of expectation, and
immediately after, trotting on the stony one of disappointment; but the
days of our driving soon cease, our shafts break, our leather rots, and
we tumble into a hole.

Adieu, yours,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XXXVIII.

Kelly, July 7, 1762.

Dear BOSWELL,--I imagined, that by ceasing to write to you for some
time, I should be able to lay up a stock of materials, enough to
astonish you, and that, like a river damm'd up, when let loose, I should
flow on with unusual rapidity; or like a man, who has not beat his wife
for a fortnight, I should cudgel you with my wit for hours together;
but I find the contrary of all this is the case; I resemble a person
long absent from his native country, of which he has formed a thousand
endearing ideas, and to which he at last returns; but alas! he beholds
with sorrowful eyes, everything changed for the worse; the town where he
was born, which used to have two snows[56] and three sloops trading to
all parts of the known world, is not now master of two fishing-boats;
the steeple of the church, where he used to sleep in his youth, is rent
with lightning; and the girl on whom he had placed his early affections,
has had three bastard children, and is just going to be delivered of a
fourth; or I resemble a man who has had a fine waistcoat lying long in
the very bottom of a chest, which he is determined shall be put on at
the hunter's ball; but woe's me, the lace is tarnished, and the moths
have devoured it in a melancholy manner; these few similies may serve to
shew, that this letter has little chance of being a good one; yet they
don't make the affair certain. Prince Ferdinand beat the French at
Minden; Sheridan, in his lectures, sometimes spoke sense; and John Home
wrote one good play.[57] I have read Lord Kames's Elements,[58] and
agree very heartily with the opinion of the Critical Reviewers; however,
I could often have wished, that his Lordship had been less obscure, or
that I had had more penetration; he praises the Mourning Bride
excessively, which, nevertheless, I can not help thinking a very
indifferent play; the plot wild and improbable, and the language
infinitely too high and swelling.[59] It is curious to see the opinions
of the Reviewers concerning you and me; they take you for a poor
distressed gentleman, writing for bread, and me for a very impudent
Irishman; whereas you are heir to a thousand a year, and I am one of the
most bashful Scotchmen that ever appeared! I confess, indeed, my
bashfulness does not appear in my works, for them I print in the most
impudent manner; being exceeded in that respect by nobody but James
Boswell, Esq.

Yours, &c., ANDREW ERSKINE.

[Footnote 56: A snow (Low-German, snau; High-German, schnau) is a small
vessel with beaked or snout-like bows, according to Wedgewood. But more
probably it takes its name from the triangular shape of its
sails.--Schnauzegel, a trysail.--ED.]

[Footnote 57: "As we sat over our tea, Mr. Home's tragedy of Douglas was
mentioned. I put Dr. Johnson in mind that once, in a coffee-house at
Oxford, he called to old Mr. Sheridan, 'how came you, Sir, to give Home
a gold medal for writing that foolish play?'" Boswell's "Tour to the
Hebrides." Date of October 26, 1773.--ED.]

[Footnote 58: "The Elements of Criticism," by Henry Home, Lord Kames.
"Sir," said Johnson, "this book is a pretty essay and deserves to be
held in some estimation though much of it is chimerical!" Boswell's
"Life of Johnson." Date of May 16, 1763.--ED.]

[Footnote 59: "In this play there is more bustle than sentiment; the
plot is busy and intricate, and the events take hold on the attention;
but, except a very few passages, we are rather amused with noise, and
perplexed with stratagem, than entertained with any true delineation of
natural characters."--Johnson's "Lives of the Poets."--ED.]

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XXXIX.

Kames, October 19, 1762.

Dear ERSKINE,--In my own name, and in the name of Lord Kames, I desire
to see you here immediately. I have been reading the "Elements of
Criticism." You and the Reviewers have pronounced enough of serious
panegyric on that book. In my opinion, it has the good properties of all
the four elements. It has the solidity of earth, the pureness of air,
the glow of fire, and the clearness of water. The language is excellent,
and sometimes rises to so noble a pitch, that I exclaim, in imitation of
Zanga in the Revenge,[60]

     "I like this roaring of the Elements."

[Footnote 60: "The Revenge," a tragedy, by Edward Young, author of
"Night Thoughts."--ED.]

If this does not bring you, nothing will; and so, Sir, I continue,

Yours as usual,

JAMES BOSWELL.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XL.

Kelly, October 28, 1762.

Dear BOSWELL,--How shall I begin? what species of apology shall I make?
the truth is, I really could not write, my spirits have been depressed
so unaccountably. I have had whole mountains of lead pressing me down:
you would have thought that five Dutchmen had been riding on my back,
ever since I saw you; or that I had been covered with ten thousand
folios of controversial divinity; you would have imagined that I was
crammed in the most dense part of a plumb-pudding, or steeped in a
hogshead of thick English Port. Heavens! is it possible, that a man of
some fame for joking, possessed of no unlaughable talent in punning, and
endued with no contemptible degree of liveliness in letter-writing,
should all of a sudden have become more impenetrably stupid than a
Hottentot legislator, or a moderator of the general assembly of the Kirk
of Scotland. By that smile which enlivens your black countenance, like a
farthing candle in a dark cellar, I perceive I am pardoned; indeed I
expected no less; for, I believe, if a sword was to run you through the
body, or a rope was to hang you, you would forget and forgive: you are
at Kames just now, very happy, I suppose; your letter seems to come from
a man in excellent spirits; I am very unequal at present to the task of
writing an answer to it, but I was resolved to delay no longer, lest you
should think I neglected you wilfully; a thought, I'm sure, you never
shall have occasion to entertain of me, though the mist of dulness
should for ever obscure and envelope my fancy and imagination. I cannot
think of coming to Kames, yet I am sufficiently thankful for the
invitation; my lowness would have a very bad effect in a cheerful
society; it would be like a dead march in the midst of a hornpipe, or a
mournful elegy in a collection of epigrams.

Farewell. Yours, &c.,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XLI.

Parliament-Close, Nov. 10, 1762.

Dear ERSKINE,--All I have now to say, is to inform you, that I shall set
out for London on Monday next, and to beg that you may not leave
Edinburgh before that time.

My letters have often been carried to you over rising mountains and
rolling seas. This pursues a simpler track, and under the tuition of a
cadie,[61] is transmitted from the Parliament-Close to the Canongate.
Thus it is with human affairs; all is fluctuating, all is changing.
Believe me,

Yours, &c.

JAMES BOSWELL.

[Footnote 61: "There is at Edinburgh a society or corporation of
errand-boys, called 'cawdies,' who ply in the streets at night with
paper lanthorns, and are very serviceable in carrying messages."--"Humphry
Clinker," vol. ii., p. 240.--ED.]

       *       *       *       *       *

LETTER XLII.

London, Nov. 20, 1762.

Dear ERSKINE,--What sort of a letter shall I now write to you? Shall I
cram it from top to bottom with tables of compound interest? with
anecdotes of Queen Anne's wars? with excerpts from Robertson's history?
or with long stories translated from Olaus Wormius?[62]

[Footnote 62: A distinguished Danish historian and antiquary, "Known in
the history of anatomy by the bones of the skull named after him _ossa
Wormiana_."--ED.]

To pass four-and-twenty hours agreeably was still my favourite plan. I
think at present that the mere contemplation of this amazing bustle of
existence, is enough to make my four-and-twenty go merrily round. I went
last night to Covent-Garden; and saw Woodward play Captain Bobadil;[63]
he is a very lively performer; but a little extravagant: I was too late
for getting into Drury-Lane, where Garrick played King Lear. That
inimitable actor is in as full glory as ever; like genuine wine, he
improves by age, and possesses the steady and continued admiration even
of the inconstant English.[64]

[Footnote 63: In Ben Jonson's "Every Man in his Humour." This was
thought to be Woodward's masterpiece.--ED.]

[Footnote 64: This is scarcely correct. Garrick's popularity was, at
this time, falling off, and his theatre did not fill. "The profits of
the following season," says Davies, "fell very short to those of the
preceding years." At the close of the season he went abroad, and was
away for nearly two years. In Rogers's "Table Talk," it is
recorded--"Before his going abroad, Garrick's attraction had much
decreased; Sir W.W. Pepys said that the pit was often almost empty. But,
on his return to England, people were mad about seeing him." His
popularity did not wane a second time.--ED.]

I don't know what to say to you about myself: if I can get into the
Guards, it will please me much; if not, I can't help it. Perhaps you may
hear of my turning Templar, and perhaps ranger of some of his Majesty's
parks. It is not impossible but I may catch a little true poetic
inspiration, and have my works splendidly printed at Strawberry-hill,
under the benign influence of the Honourable Horace Walpole.[65] You and
I, Erskine, are, to be sure, somewhat vain. We have some reason too. The
Reviewers gave great applause to your Odes to Indolence and Impudence;
and they called my poems "agreeable light pieces," which was the very
character I wished for. Had they said less, I should not have been
satisfied; and had they said more, I should have thought it a burlesque.

[Footnote 65: Walpole always expressed the greatest contempt for
Boswell. In one of his letters he says that "he is the ape of most of
Johnson's faults, without a grain of his sense." In another letter he
writes about "a jackanapes who has lately made a noise here, one
Boswell, by anecdotes of Dr. Johnson." Improbable though it was that
Boswell should catch a little true poetic inspiration, it was still more
improbable that he should ever have a single one of his works printed at
The Strawberry Press.--ED.]

What a fine animated prospect of life now spreads before me! Be assured,
that my genius will be highly improved, and please yourself with the
hopes of receiving letters still more entertaining. I ever am,

Your affectionate friend,

JAMES BOSWELL.




THE JOURNAL

OF

A TOUR

TO

CORSICA.




INTRODUCTION.


The following sketch of the Corsican War of Independence may, perhaps,
enable the reader better to follow Boswell in his narrative, and in his
description of Paoli's character. I have founded it chiefly on Boswell's
own account, though I have, at the same time consulted other
authorities. As an historical writer, in theory at least, he would
scarcely satisfy the exact school of historians that has sprung up since
his day. "I confess I am not," he says in his second chapter, "for
humouring an inordinate avidity for positive evidence." He is speaking,
however, about the origin of nations, and not about the wars of Corsica,
which he describes at some length.

From about the beginning of the fourteenth century Corsica had belonged
to the Republic of Genoa. The islanders had proved restive under the
yoke of their hard masters, and more than once had risen in revolt. The
Government of the Republic was, indeed, the worst of despotisms. A
succession of infamous Governors--men who came to Corsica poor, and,
after their two years of office, returned to Genoa rich--had cruelly
oppressed the people. By their ill-gotten wealth, and by their interest
in the Senate, they were able on their return to secure themselves
against any inquiry into their conduct. The foreign trade of the
islanders was almost ruined by a law which appointed Genoa as the sole
port to which their products could be exported. The Corsicans, like many
other mountaineers, had always been too much given up to private feuds.
But it was charged against their Genoese masters, that, in their dread
of union among their subjects, they themselves fomented dissentions. It
was asserted in a petition presented to the King of France in 1738,
that, under the last sixteen Governors, no less than 26,000 Corsicans
had died by the hands of the assassin.

In the legal proceedings that followed on these deeds of bloodshed, the
Genoese judges found their profit. Condemnation was often followed by
confiscation of the criminal's estates; acquittal had often been
preceded by a heavy bribe to the judge. Multitudes were condemned to the
galleys on frivolous charges in the hope that they would purchase their
freedom at a high price. The law was even worse than the judges. A man
could be condemned to the galleys or to death on secret information,
without being once confronted with his accusers, without undergoing any
examination, without the observance of any formality of any kind in the
sentence that was passed on him. The judge could either acquit the
greatest criminal, or condemn a man of stainless character "_ex
informata conscientia_, on the information of his own conscience, of
which he was not obliged to give any account." He could at any time stop
the course of justice, "by saying '_Non procedatur_, let there be no
process;' which could easily be cloaked under the pretence of some
defect in point of form." When this atrocious law was at last abolished,
Montesquieu wrote, "On a vu souvent des peuples demander des priviléges;
ici le souverain accorde le droit de toutes les nations." No wonder that
Horace Walpole exclaimed more than twenty years before Boswell's book
was published, "I hate the Genoese; they make a commonwealth the most
devilish of all tyrannies!"

In 1729 the people rose once more against their rulers. It was the case
of Wat Tyler over again. A tax-gatherer demanded a small sum--it was but
about fivepence--of a poor old woman. Small as it was, she had not
wherewithal to pay. He abused her, and seized some of her furniture. She
raised an outcry. Her neighbours came flocking in and took her part. The
tax-gatherer used threats, and was answered with a volley of stones.
Troops were sent to support him in the execution of his office, and the
people, in their turn, flew to their weapons. The revolt spread, and
soon the whole island was in arms. The Genoese, as vassals of the
Empire, sought the aid of their sovereign lord, the Emperor Charles the
Sixth, who sent a strong body of troops to the island. The Corsicans
were unable to resist, and "laid down their arms, upon condition that a
treaty should be made between them and the Genoese, having for guarantee
the Emperor." Hostages were sent by the islanders, to whom the Republic
was inclined to show but scant respect. In fact, the Emperor's consent
to their execution had been almost obtained, when the Prince of
Wirtemberg, the commander of the imperial forces in Corsica, sent an
express to Vienna, "with a very strong letter, representing how much the
honour of Cæsar would suffer, should he consent to the death of those
who had surrendered themselves upon the faith of his sacred protection."
The great Prince Eugene also spoke out, and for this time, Cæsar's
honour--at all events, all that was left of it--was saved.

The suspension of hostilities was but short; for neither was the cruelty
of the Genoese, nor the hatred of the Corsicans easily confined within
the limits of a treaty. "There is not," writes Boswell, "a Corsican
child who can procure a little gun-powder, but he immediately sets fire
to it, huzzas at the explosion, and, as if he had blown up the enemy,
calls out, 'Ecco i Genovesi; there go the Genoese!'" In 1734, the whole
island once more was in the flames of an insurrection. Giafferi and
Giacinto Paoli, the father of the famous Pascal Paoli, were chosen as
leaders. The Genoese hired Swiss mercenaries. They thought that against
soldiers, brought up amidst the Alps, as these had been, the mountains
of Corsica would provide no shelter for freedom. But the Swiss "soon saw
that they had made a bad bargain, and that they gave the Genoese too
much blood for their money." When at Lucerne we gaze at the noble
monument set up by Switzerland in memory of her sons who were massacred
in Paris, it is well at times to remember how the Swiss lion was at the
hire of the very jackals of the world.

Genoa next published an indemnity to all her assassins and outlaws, on
condition that they should fight for the Republic, in Corsica. "The
robbers and assassins of Genoa," writes Boswell, "are no inconsiderable
proportion of her people. These wretches flocked together from all
quarters, and were formed into twelve companies." The Corsican chiefs
called a general assembly, in which "On donna la Corse à la Vierge
Marie, qui ne parut pas accepter cette couronne."[66] They were not,
however, to be left long without a king, for the following year one of
the strangest adventurers whom the world has ever seen made a bid for
the crown. He promised the islanders the support of the great powers,
and, with their aid, he undertook, if he were made king, to clear
Corsica of her enemies. Men whose fortunes are well-nigh desperate, are
of easy faith, and the conditions of this poor German Baron were
accepted.

[Footnote 66: Voltaire, "Précis du Siècle de Louis XV.," chapter xl.]

His name was Theodore. He was Baron Neuhof, in the county of La Marc, in
Westphalia. Horace Walpole, who had seen him, describes him as "a
comely, middle-sized man, very reserved, and affecting much dignity."
Boswell says that "he was a man of abilities and address." He had served
in the French army, and, later on, had travelled through Spain, Italy,
England, and Holland, ever in search of some new adventure. He had
passed over to Tunis, and, under pretence of conquering Corsica for that
power, had obtained a supply of money and arms. In a ship of ten guns
furnished by the Bey, but carrying the English flag, which Theodore had
the impudence to raise, he sailed to Leghorn. There he sold the ship,
and despatched his offers to the Corsican leaders.

He quickly passed over to the island. This was in the spring of 1736.
"He was a man of a very stately appearance, and the Turkish dress which
he wore, added to the dignity of his mien.... He had his guards, and his
officers of state. He conferred titles of honour, and he struck money,
both of silver and copper. There was such a curiosity over all Europe to
have King Theodore's coins, that his silver coins were sold at four
zechins each; and when the genuine ones were exhausted, imitations of
them were made at Naples, and, like the imitations of antiques, were
bought up at a high price, and carefully preserved in the cabinets of
the virtuosi." He boasted of the immense treasures he had brought with
him, and, as a proof, he scattered among the people fifty sequins in
small coins of a debased or worn out currency. "Il donna des souliers de
bon cuir, magnificence ignorée en Corse." He blockaded the seaport towns
that were in the occupation of the Genoese. "He used to be sometimes at
one siege, sometimes at another, standing with a telescope in his hand,
as if he spied the assistance which he said he expected" from his
allies, the other monarchs of Europe. Couriers, who had been despatched
by himself, were constantly arriving from Leghorn, bringing him
despatches, as he pretended, from the great powers. The Genoese set a
price on his head. He replied in a manifesto, with all the calmness and
dignity of an injured monarch.

At the end of eight months, he "perceived that the people began to cool
in their affections towards him, and he therefore wisely determined to
leave them for a little, and try his fortune again upon the continent."
He went to Amsterdam, where he was thrown into prison for debt. But even
in prison he made fresh dupes. He induced some merchants, particularly
Jews, to pay his debts, and to furnish him with a ship, arms, and
provisions. He undertook in return, that they, and they alone, should
carry on the whole foreign trade of Corsica. When he reached the island
he did not venture to land; but contented himself with disembarking his
stores, and with putting to death the supercargo, "that he might not
have any trouble from demands being made upon him." In the end he
retired to London. "I believe I told you that King Theodore is here,"
wrote Horace Walpole in 1749, to Sir Horace Mann, our Envoy at Florence.
"I am to drink coffee with him to-morrow at Lady Schaub's."

The rest of the story of this adventurer is so strange that, though it
scarcely bears on Corsica, I shall venture to continue it. In the summer
of the next year Walpole writes to his friend, "I believe I told you
that one of your sovereigns, and an intimate friend of yours, King
Theodore, is in the King's Bench prison." The unfortunate monarch
languished there for some years. Walpole, with a kindliness which was
natural to him, raised a subscription for his majesty. He advocated his
cause in a paper in "The World," with the motto _Date obolum Belisario_.
But he wrote to his former correspondent, "His majesty's character is so
bad, that it only raised fifty pounds; and though that was so much above
his desert, it was so much below his expectation, that he sent a
solicitor to threaten the printer with a prosecution for having taken so
much liberty with his name--take notice, too, that he had accepted the
money! Dodsley, you may believe, laughed at the lawyer; but that does
not lessen the dirty knavery.... I have done with countenancing kings."
After he had remained in prison more than six years, "he took the
benefit of the Act of Insolvency, and went to the Old Bailey for that
purpose: in order to it, the person applying gives up all his effects to
his creditors: his Majesty was asked what effects he had? He replied
'Nothing but the kingdom of Corsica;' and it was actually registered for
the benefit of his creditors. As soon as Theodore was at liberty, he
took a chair and went to the Portuguese Minister, but did not find him
at home; not having sixpence to pay, he prevailed on the chairmen to
carry him to a tailor he knew in Soho, whom he prevailed upon to harbour
him; but he fell sick the next day, and died in three more." Walpole
set up a stone in St. Ann's Churchyard, Soho, in memory of his majesty,
with the following inscription:--

     Near this place is interred
     Theodore, King of Corsica;
     Who died in this parish, Dec. 11, 1756,
     Immediately after leaving the King's Bench Prison,
     By the benefit of the Act of Insolvency:
     In consequence of which, he registered
     His Kingdom of Corsica
     For the use of his Creditors.

     The Grave, great teacher, to a level brings,
     Heroes and beggars, galley-slaves and kings.
     But Theodore this moral learn'd, ere dead;
     Fate pour'd its lessons on his living head,
     Bestow'd a kingdom and denied him bread.

Disappointed though they were in their king, the Corsicans nevertheless
carried on the war with spirit. They would, no doubt, have soon freed
the whole island, had not the French come to the help of their
oppressors. It was in vain that the islanders sent a memorial to the
King of France. "If," said their spokesman to Louis XV., "your sovereign
commands force us to yield to Genoa, well then, let us drink this bitter
cup to the health of the most Christian king, and die." The king and
the emperor acting together drew up articles of peace which seemed fair
enough; but, as a preliminary, the Corsicans were to be disarmed. To
this they refused to yield. Their leaders "published a spirited
manifesto to their countrymen, concluding it with the noble sentiment of
Judas Maccabeus: 'Melius est mori in bello quam videre mala gentis
nostrae. It is better for us to die in battle than to behold the
calamities of our people.'" The French dispatched an expedition to the
assistance of the Genoese which utterly failed. The following year
(1739) a more formidable expedition was sent under an able commander,
the Marquis de Maillebois. He divided his forces into two bodies.
Marching through the heart of the country each army carried devastation
in its path. "He cut down the standing corn," writes Boswell, "the
vines, the olives, set fire to the villages, and spread terror and
desolation in every quarter. He hanged numbers of monks and others who
were keenest in the revolt, and at the same time published, wherever he
went, his terms of capitulation." In a few weeks, all but the wildest
parts of the island were reduced. By the end of the next year there was
not a single patriot left in arms.

In 1741 broke out the war of the Austrian Succession, and the French
troops, which were needed elsewhere, were recalled. Once more the island
rose; even young boys took the field. The Genoese were driven into the
fortified towns. The Corsican leader Gaffori was besieging the Castle of
Corte, when the defenders, making a sudden sally, seized his infant son,
whom his nurse had thoughtlessly carried too near the walls. "The
General," says Boswell, in language which strikes us as most odd,
though, to the men of his time, it sounded perhaps natural enough,
"showed a decent concern at this unhappy accident, which struck a damp
into the whole army. The Genoese," he goes on to say, "thought they
could have Gaffori upon their own terms, since they were possessed of so
dear a pledge. When he advanced to make some cannon play, they held up
his son, directly over that part of the wall against which his artillery
was levelled. The Corsicans stopped, and began to draw back; but
Gaffori, with the resolution of a Roman, stood at their head, and
ordered them to continue the fire." The child escaped and lived to tell
Boswell this curious story.

In 1745, England "not, as if from herself, but as complying with the
request of her ally, the king of Sardinia," sent a squadron of ships to
the assistance of the Corsicans. They came before Bastia on November
18th--three days, as it is worth while noticing, after the town of
Carlisle had surrendered to the forces of the Young Pretender. "There
was but little wind blowing, and the men of war had to be towed up by
the long boats. The fortress of Bastia let fly first, and made a
terrible fire, particularly against the commodore's ship, whose flag was
beat down three times, and her main and mizen masts broke. The Commodore
being exasperated immediately ordered the Castle to be cannonaded and
bombarded, which was continued near two hours with extraordinary fury,
when part of the wall was seen to tumble down."[67] The place
surrendered in a few days to the Corsicans. In the following year the
patriots sent envoys to the English ambassador at Turin with proposals
that Corsica should put herself entirely under the protection of Great
Britain. No definite answer was given. In 1748 some English troops were
landed in the island, but on the conclusion of the peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle they were withdrawn, and the Corsicans and Genoese were
again left to fight out their own battles.

[Footnote 67: "The Gentleman's Magazine," vol. xv., p. 628.]

Five years later (1753) Gaffori, who had long held the office of sole
general of the island, was carried off by assassination. "The
murderers," says Boswell, "were set on by the Republic. At least, it is
a fact that some of these wretches have still a miserable pension to
support them, in the territory of Genoa." His place was filled by Pascal
Paoli, the son of the old Corsican leader, who ever since the French
invasion had lived with his boy in retirement at Naples. When the young
man was sent for by his countrymen, his old father, "hoary and gray with
years, fell on his neck and kissed him, gave him his blessing, and with
a broken feeble voice, encouraged him in the undertaking on which he was
entering: 'My son,' said he, 'I may, possibly, never see you more; but
in my mind I shall ever be present with you. Your design is a great and
a noble one; and I doubt not, but God will bless you in it.'"

Paoli's task was full of difficulties. In "the affairs of Corsica, he
found the utmost disorder and confusion. There was no subordination, no
discipline, no money, hardly any arms and ammunition; and, what was
worse than all, little union among the people. He immediately began to
remedy these defects. His persuasion and example had wonderful force. In
a short time he drove the Genoese to the remotest corners of the
island.... He, in a manner, new-modelled the government upon the
soundest principles of democratical rule, which was always his favourite
idea." He carried a law by which assassination was made capital on
whatever pretence it had been committed. He set about establishing
schools in every village, and he founded a University at Corte. Boswell
writing to Temple in 1767 says, "I have received an elegant letter from
the University of Corte, and also an extract of an oration pronounced
this year at the opening of the University, in which oration I am
celebrated in a manner which does me the greatest honour."

But the jealousy of France was again excited, and again she sent troops
to the island. This was in 1764, nine years after Paoli had received the
supreme command. Rousseau, full of indignation at this monstrous
proceeding, thus expressed himself in a letter to a friend, "Il faut
avouer que vos François, sont un peuple bien servile, bien vendu à la
tyrannie, bien cruel, et bien acharné sur les malheureux. S'ils savoient
un homme libre à l'autre bout du monde, je crois qu'ils iroient pour le
seul plaisir de l'exterminer. It must be owned that your countrymen, the
French, are a very servile nation, wholly sold to tyranny, exceedingly
cruel and relentless in persecuting the unhappy. If they knew of a free
man at the other end of the world I believe they would go thither for
the mere pleasure of extirpating him." The French did not act on the
offensive. They merely garrisoned certain towns, and professed to limit
their occupation to the space of four years. It was in the second year
of their occupation (1765) that Boswell visited the island.

At the end of the four years the Republic of Genoa ceded Corsica to the
crown of France. In the cession there was a pretence of a reservation
with which it is needless to trouble the reader. "Genoa," writes
Voltaire, "made a good bargain, and France made a better." "Il restait à
savoir," he added, "si les hommes ont le droit de vendre d'autres
hommes, mais c'est une question qu'on n'examina jamais dans aucun
traité." Negociations were opened with Paoli, but there was no common
ground between the free chief of a free people and the despot who wished
to enslave them. Paoli might have looked for high honours and rewards
had he consented to enter the French service. He had the far greater and
purer glory of resisting a King of France for nearly a whole year. No
foreign power came to his aid. "A few Englishmen alone," wrote Voltaire,
"full of love for that liberty which he upheld, sent him some money and
arms." His troops were badly armed. Their muskets were not even
furnished with bayonets. Their courage went some way to make up for
their want of proper weapons. In one battle they piled up in front of
them a rampart of their dead, and behind this bloody pile they loaded
their pieces before they began their retreat.

But against the disciplined forces that France could bring, all
resistance was in vain. "Poor brave Paoli!" wrote Horace Walpole, "but
he is not disgraced. We, that have sat still and seen him overwhelmed,
must answer it to history. Nay, the Mediterranean will taunt us in the
very next war." Walpole wrote this letter but two months before the
birth of Buonaparte. Had England, who has joined in many a worthless
quarrel, struck in for the Corsicans, what a change might have been made
in the history of the world! If Buonaparte had never been a citizen of
France the name of Napoleon might be unknown. Paoli escaped in an
English ship, and settled in England. Walpole met him one day at Court.
"I could not believe it," he wrote, "when I was told who he was....
Nobody sure ever had an air so little foreign!... The simplicity of his
whole appearance had not given me the slightest suspicion of anything
remarkable in him."

Paoli remained in England, an honoured guest, for thirty years. In 1789
Mirabeau moved, in the National Assembly, the recall of all the Corsican
patriots. Paoli went to Paris, where "he was received with enthusiastic
veneration. The Assembly and the Royal Family contended which should
show him most distinction." The king made him lieutenant-general and
military commandant in Corsica. "He used the powers entrusted to him
with great wisdom and moderation." The rapid changes that swept over
France did not leave him untouched. He was denounced in the Convention
and "was summoned to attend for the purpose of standing on his defence.
He declined the journey on account of his age." A large part of his
countrymen stood by him, and in an assembly appointed him
general-in-chief, and president of the council of government. The
Convention sent an expedition to arrest him. Buonaparte happened at the
time to be in Corsica, on leave of absence from his regiment. He and
Paoli had been on friendly terms, indeed they were distantly related,
but Buonaparte did not hesitate for a moment which side to take. He
commanded the French troops in an attack on his native town. Paoli's
party proved the stronger, and Napoleon Buonaparte and his brother
Lucien were banished. The Corsicans sought the aid of the English who,
in the year 1794, landed, five regiments strong, in the island. A
deputation went to London to offer the Crown of Corsica to the King of
Great Britain. The offer was accepted, but contrary to the hopes and the
expectations of the islanders, not Paoli, but Sir Gilbert Eliot was made
Viceroy. The great patriot then found that he could best serve his
country by leaving it. For about two years Corsica remained part of the
British Empire; but in 1796 the English were forced to abandon it. Paoli
returned to England, where he passed the rest of his years. He died in
1807 at the age of eighty-two. His monument is in Westminster Abbey.




AN

ACCOUNT

OF

CORSICA,

THE JOURNAL OF A TOUR

TO THAT ISLAND;

AND MEMOIRS OF

PASCAL PAOLI.


BY JAMES BOSWELL, Esq;

ILLUSTRATED with a New and Accurate MAP OF CORSICA.


      Non enim propter gloriam, divitias aut honores pugnamus, sed
      propter libertatem solummodo, quam nemo bonus nisi simul cum
      vita amittit.

      Lit. Comit. et Baron. Scotiae ad Pap. A.D. 1320.


GLASGOW,
PRINTED BY ROBERT AND ANDREW FOULIS FOR
EDWARD AND CHARLES DILLY IN THE POULTRY, LONDON;
MDCCLXVIII.




DEDICATION

TO

PASCAL PAOLI,

GENERAL OF

THE CORSICANS.


SIR,--Dedications are for most part the offerings of interested
servility, or the effusions of partial zeal; enumerating the virtues of
men in whom no virtues can be found, or predicting greatness to those
who afterwards pass their days in unambitious indolence, and die leaving
no memorial of their existence, but a dedication, in which all their
merit is confessedly future, and which time has turned into a silent
reproach.

He who has any experience of mankind, will be cautious to whom he
dedicates. Publickly to bestow praise on merit of which the publick is
not sensible, or to raise flattering expectations which are never
fulfilled, must sink the character of an authour, and make him appear a
cringing parasite, or a fond enthusiast.

I am under no apprehensions of that nature, when I inscribe this book to
Pascal Paoli. Your virtues, Sir, are universally acknowledged; they
dignify the pages which I venture to present to you; and it is my
singular felicity that my book is the voucher of its dedication.

In thus addressing you, my intention is not to attempt your panegyrick.
That may in some measure be collected from my imperfect labours. But I
wish to express to the world, the admiration and gratitude with which
you have inspired me.

This, Sir, is all the return that I can make for the many favours which
you have deigned to confer upon me. I intreat you to receive it as a
testimony of my disposition. I regret that I have neither power nor
interest to enable me to render any essential service to you and to the
brave Corsicans. I can only assure you of the most fervent wishes of a
private gentleman. I have the honour to be, with all respect and
affection,

Sir,

Your ever devoted

obliged humble servant

JAMES BOSWELL.

Auchinleck, Ayrshire,
  29 October,[68] 1767.

[Footnote 68: Boswell's birthday. The preface to the third edition also
bears the date of his birthday.--ED.]




PREFACE.


No apology shall be made for presenting the world with An Account of
Corsica. It has been for some time expected from me; and I own that the
ardour of publick curiosity has both encouraged and intimidated me. On
my return from visiting Corsica, I found people wherever I went,
desirous to hear what I could tell them concerning that island and its
inhabitants. Unwilling to repeat my tale to every company, I thought it
best to promise a book which should speak for me.

But I would not take upon me to do this till I consulted with the
General of the nation. I therefore informed him of my design. His answer
is perhaps too flattering for me to publish: but I must beg leave to
give it as the licence and sanction of this work.

Paoli was pleased to write to me thus; "Nothing can be more generous
than your design to publish the observations which you have made upon
Corsica. You have seen its natural situation, you have been able to
study the manners of its inhabitants, and to see intimately the maxims
of their government, of which you know the constitution. This people
with an enthusiasm of gratitude, will unite their applause with that of
undeceived Europe."

       *       *       *       *       *

It is amazing that an island so considerable, and in which such noble
things have been doing, should be so imperfectly known. Even the
succession of chiefs has been unperceived; and because we have read of
Paoli being at the head of the Corsicans many years back, and Paoli
still appears at their head, the command has been supposed all this time
in the person of the same man. Hence all our newspapers have confounded
the gallant Pascal Paoli in the vigour of manhood, with the venerable
chief his deceased father, Giacinto Paoli. Nay the same errour has found
its way into the page of the historian; for Dr. Smollet when mentioning
Paoli at the siege of Furiani a few years ago, says he was then past
fourscore.

I would in the first place return my most humble thanks to Pascal Paoli,
for the various communications with which he has been pleased to favour
me; and as I have related his remarkable sayings, I declare upon honour,
that I have neither added nor diminished; nay so scrupulous have I been,
that I would not make the smallest variation even when my friends
thought it would be an improvement. I know with how much pleasure we
read what is perfectly authentick.

Count Rivarola[69] was so good as to return me full and distinct answers
to a variety of queries which I sent him with regard to many particulars
concerning Corsica. I am much indebted to him for this, and
particularly so, from the obliging manner in which he did it.

[Footnote 69: The Sardinian Consul in Corsica. See page 142.--ED.]

The reverend Mr. Burnaby, chaplain to the British factory at Leghorn,
made a tour to Corsica in 1766, at the same time with the honourable and
reverend Mr. Hervey, now bishop of Cloyne.[70] Mr. Burnaby was absent
from Leghorn when I was there, so I had not the pleasure of being
personally known to him. But he with great politeness of his own accord,
sent me a copy of the Journal which he made of what he observed in
Corsica. I had the satisfaction to find that we agreed in every thing
which both of us had considered. But I found in his Journal,
observations on several things which I had omitted; and several things
which I had remarked, I found set in a clearer light. As Mr. Burnaby was
so obliging as to allow me to make what use I pleased of his Journal, I
have freely interwoven it into my work.

[Footnote 70: The son of Pope's Lord Hervey. He succeeded in 1779 to the
Earldom of Bristol.--ED.]

I acknowledge my obligations to my esteemed friend John Dick Esquire,
his Britannick Majesty's Consul at Leghorn, to Signor Gian Quilico Casa
Bianca, to the learned Greek physician Signor Stefanopoli, to Colonel
Buttafoco,[71] and to the Abbé Rostini. These gentlemen have all
contributed their aid in erecting my little monument to liberty.

[Footnote 71: Colonel Buttafoco was one of Rousseau's correspondents. At
the time of the French Revolution he was elected Deputy from Corsica to
the National Assembly. He was most violently attacked by Napoleon
Buonaparte in a letter dated "From my closet at Milleli, 23rd January,
Year 2." The letter thus begins:--"From Bonifacio to Cape Corso, from
Ajaccio to Bastia, there is one chorus of imprecations against you." The
writer goes on to say, "Your countrymen, to whom you are an object of
horror, will enlighten France as to your character. The wealth, the
pensions, the fruits of your treasons, will be taken from you.... O
Lameth! O Robespierre! O Petion! O Volney! O Mirabeau! O Barnave! O
Bailly! O La Fayette! this is the man who dares to seat himself by your
side!"--Scott's "Life of Napoleon Buonaparte," vol. ix., Appendix
I.--ED.]

I am also to thank an ingenious gentleman who has favoured me with the
translations of Seneca's Epigrams. I made application for this favour,
in the "London Chronicle;" and to the honour of literature, I found her
votaries very liberal. Several translations were sent, of which I took
the liberty to prefer those which had the signature of Patricius, and
which were improved by another ingenious correspondent under the
signature of Plebeius. By a subsequent application I begged that
Patricius would let me know to whom I was obliged for what I considered
as a great ornament to my book. He has complied with my request; and I
beg leave in this publick manner, to acknowledge that I am indebted for
those translations to Thomas Day Esquire,[72] of Berkshire, a gentleman
whose situation in life is genteel, and his fortune affluent. I must add
that although his verses have not only the fire of youth, but the
maturity and correctness of age, Mr. Day is no more than nineteen.

[Footnote 72: This is, I believe the author of "Sandford and Merton,"
who was born in 1748, and was nineteen years old at the date of the
dedication of Boswell's work. His father had died when Day was a year
old, and had left him a fortune of £1,200 a year.--ED.]

Nor can I omit to express my sense of the candour and politeness with
which Sir James Steuart received the remark which I have ventured to
make in opposition to a passage concerning the Corsicans, in his
"Inquiry into the principles of Political Oeconomy."

I have submitted my book to the revisal of several gentlemen who honour
me with their regard, and I am sensible how much it is improved by their
corrections. It is therefore my duty to return thanks to the reverend
Mr. Wyvill rectour of Black Notely in Essex, and to my old and most
intimate friend the reverend Mr. Temple[73] rectour of Mamhead in
Devonshire. I am also obliged to My Lord Monboddo for many judicious
remarks, which his thorough acquaintance with ancient learning enabled
him to make. But I am principally indebted to the indulgence and
friendly attention of My Lord Hailes, who under the name of Sir David
Dalrymple,[74] has been long known to the world as an able Antiquarian,
and an elegant and humourous Essayist; to whom the world has no fault
but that he does not give them more of his own writings, when they value
them so highly.[75]

[Footnote 73: See "Letters of James Boswell addressed to the Rev. W.J.
Temple."--Bentley, London, 1857.--ED.]

[Footnote 74: It is the custom in Scotland to give the Judges of the
Court of Session the title of Lords by the names of their estates. Thus
Mr. Burnett is Lord Monboddo, and Sir David Dalrymple is Lord Hailes.]

[Footnote 75: "Johnson this evening drank a bumper to Sir David
Dalrymple, 'as a man of worth, a scholar, and a wit. I have,' said he,
'never heard of him, except from you; but let him know my opinion of
him: for as he does not show himself much in the world, he should have
the praise of the few who hear of him.'"--Boswell's "Johnson." Date of
July 20, 1763.--ED.]

I would however have it understood, that although I received the
corrections of my friends with deference, I have not always agreed with
them. An authour should be glad to hear every candid remark. But I look
upon a man as unworthy to write, who has not force of mind to determine
for himself. I mention this, that the judgement of the friends I have
named may not be considered as connected with every passage in this
book.

Writing a book I have found to be like building a house. A man forms a
plan and collects materials. He thinks he has enough to raise a large
and stately edifice; but after he has arranged, compacted and polished,
his work turns out to be a very small performance. The authour, however,
like the builder, knows how much labour his work has cost him; and
therefore estimates it at a much higher rate than other people think it
deserves.

I have endeavoured to avoid an ostentatious display of learning. By the
idle and the frivolous indeed, any appearance of learning is called
pedantry. But as I do not write for such readers, I pay no regard to
their censures. Those by whom I wish to be judged, will I hope, approve
of my adding dignity to Corsica, by shewing its consideration among the
ancients, and will not be displeased to find my page sometimes
embellished with a seasonable quotation from the Classicks. The
translations are ascribed to their proper authours. What are not so
ascribed are my own.

It may be necessary to say something in defence of my orthography. Of
late 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[76]
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. An 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 wish 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.[77]

[Footnote 76: "ADAMS.--But, Sir, how can you do this in three years?
JOHNSON.--Sir, I have no doubt that I can do it in three years.
ADAMS.--But the French Academy, which consists of forty members, took
forty years to compile their Dictionary. JOHNSON.--Sir, thus it is. This
is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As
three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a
Frenchman."--Boswell's "Johnson." Date of 1748.--ED.]

[Footnote 77: I have not dared to disregard Boswell's request. His
orthography is retained.--ED.]

He who publishes a book, affecting not to be an authour, and professing
an indifference for literary fame, may possibly impose upon many people
such an idea of his consequence as he wishes may be received. For my
part, I should 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 superiour
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.[78]

[Footnote 78: "The rational pride of an author may be offended, rather
than flattered, by vague, indiscriminate praise; but he cannot, he
should not, be indifferent to the fair testimonies of private and public
esteem. Even his moral sympathy may be gratified by the idea, that now,
in the present hour, he is imparting some degree of amusement or
knowledge to his friends in a distant land; that one day his mind will
be familiar to the grand-children of those who are yet unborn."--"Memoirs
of my Life and Writings," by Edward Gibbon, vol. i., p. 273.

"Do thou teach me not only to foresee but to enjoy, nay even to feed on
future praise

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