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e temporary nature not calling here for allusion. His first divinity was the grass-widow of Moffat, and here Temple had been compelled to remonstrate in spite of all the lover's philandering about her freedom from her husband, who had used her ill. Were she unfaithful, he declares her worthy to be 'pierced with a Corsican dagger,' but in March he has found it too much like a 'settled plan of licentiousness,' discovering her to be an ill-bred rompish girl, debasing his dignity, without refinement, thou

nd Temple to come to him, and 'on that Arthur Seat where our youthful fancies roved abroad shall we take counsel together.' The local divinity we learn is Miss Blair of Adamtown; he has been drinking her health, and aberrations from sobriety and virtue have ensued, but he thought things would be brought to a climax were Temple to visit her. A long letter of commission follows, the envoy is instructed to appear as his old friend, praising him to Miss Blair for his good qualities. Temple is adjured to dwell upon his odd, inconstant, impetuous nature, how he is accustomed to women of intrigue, and he is to ask of the fair one if she does not think the

im she is a jilt, and he is shocked at the risk he has run, a warning for the future to him against 'indulging the least fondness for a Scotch lass.' He has, he feels, a soul of a more Southern frame, and some Englishwoman ought to be sensible of his merit, though the Dutch translator of his Tour, Mademoiselle de Zuyl, has been writing to him. Random talking is his dread, he must guard against it, and Miss Blair revives. 'I must have her learn the harpsichord,' he cries, 'and French; she shall be one of the finest women in the island.' Later on they have had a lo

to be soon dismissed for her frivolity and her infidelity. Then Miss Dick of Prestonfield reigns with solid qualifications-she lacks a fortune, but is fine, young, healthy, and amiable. A visit to Holland, to finally decide on the Mademoiselle's claims, was proposed, but his father, warned in time, would not consent. Temple, too, was against this, and 'Temple thou reasonest well,' he cries, and thinks his abnegation will be a solace to his worthy father on his circuit. Freed n

ess. Bozzy was a convivial knight-errant in what was called 'Saving the ladies.' At clubs and gatherings any member would toast his idol in a bumper, and then another champion would enter his peerless Dulcinea in two bumpers, to be routed by the original toper taking off four. The deepest drinker 'saved his lady,' as the phrase ran; though, says George Thomson speaking of the old concerts in St Cecilia's Hall, at the foot of Niddry's Wynd, which were maintained by noblemen and gentlemen, the bold champion had often considerable difficulty in saving himself from the floor

casion that we may refer some verses that were published by his son Sir Alexander. Chambers thinks they refer to his cousin, but the general belief tends in the direction of the notorious Margaret Caroline Rudd, the associate in later years of the brothers Perreau, who were executed for forgery. In the Life of Johnson we find Boswell, in 1776, expressing to his companion a desire to be introduced to this person, so celebrated for her address and insinuation, and later on he is shewn, on his own confession, to have visited her, 'induced by the fame of her talents and irresistible power o

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ead wife, circulating testimonials to her excellences, to which no doubt he was oblivious in her lifetime. 'They had,' he writes, 'from their earliest years lived in the most intimate and unreserved friendship.' His love of the fair sex has been already mentioned (he had quoted the song of 'the Soapers' in our first chapter), and she was the constant yet prudent and delicate confidante of all his 'egarements du coeur et de l'esprit.' This we may doubt, and the gracefully allusive French quotation reminds us of Mr Pepys' use of that language when

ncome, and eyed with undeserved suspicion by the judge and his second wife as a Mordecai in the gate, penniless and yet supposed to be the cause of Boswell's pecuniary embarrassments and indiscretions. The marriage was deferred till after the Stratford Jubilee, and the newly married pair took up their house in Chessel's Buildings in the Canongate. For a year and a half after his marriage his correspondence with Johnson underwent an entire cessation, and in the August of 1771 General Paoli made a tour in Scotland, which, for a time, called forth the best organizing abilities of his friend. From the London Magazine of the day, in an account contributed by our hero, we learn how Paoli had paid 'a visit to James Boswell, Esq., who was the first gentleman of this country who visited Corsica, and whose writings have made the brave islanders and their general properly known over Europe.' Boswell waited on the exile and the Polish Ambassador at Ramsay's Inn, at the foot of St Mary's Wynd, visiting with them Linlithgow and Carron, 'where

the Kingdom,' coupled with the words employed by Johnson, there can be no doubt that Croker is wrong, and that the host on this occasion was the churlish chief, whose inhospitable ways they were to experience in Skye. He was now near the great honour of his life, admission to that Literary Club, of which, said Sir William Jones, 'I will only say that there is no branch of human knowledge on which some of our members are not capable of giving information.' Never was honour better deserved or better repaid. Without his record the fame of that club would have passed away, surviving at best in some sort of hazy companionship wi

on should be announced. After Johnson had taken the thing in hand there was not much danger, yet poor Bozzy 'sat in a state of anxiety which even the charming conversation of Lady Di Beauclerk could not entirely dissipate.' There he received the tidings of his election, and he hastened to the place of meeting. Burke he met

carce a virtue.' The faithful Bozzy replied, 'They were afraid of you, sir, as it was you who proposed me;' and the doctor was prone to admit that if the one blackball necessary to exclude had been given, they knew they never would have got in another member. Yet even from this rebuff he managed to deftly extract a complim

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med that no notice of this enrolment of General Paoli was entered at th