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B O Y S E. 



Boyse. the Muses. With this mark of respect to his decea- 

 v' sed lady, Lord Stormont was so highly pleased, that 

 he directed his agent in Edinburgh to give the au- 

 thor a very handsome present. Through the friend- 

 ship of this nobleman, and the Countess of Eglinton, 

 he was introduced to the Duchess of Gordon, a lady 

 whose acquirements and love of literature led her to 

 cultivate a correspondence with the most eminent poets 

 then living. The prospects of Boyse now began to 

 brighten ; his reputation as a poet was establish- 

 ed ; and the warm interest which his illustrious pa- 

 trons took in his welfare, might have raised him to 

 high respectability, had not their kind intentions been 

 frustrated by his own indolence and infatuation. The 

 Duchessof Gordon procured the promise of a situation 

 for him, which would have placed him beyond the 

 reach of indigence, and gave him a letter which he 

 was next day to 4 e l' ver to one f the commissioners 

 of customs at Edinburgh. Unfortunately, however, 

 he happened to be then at some distance From town ; 

 and the day on which he was to have delivered her 

 Grace's recommendatory letter happening to be 

 rainy, Boyse declined exposing himself to the wea- 

 ther, and never waited on the commissioner till the 

 place was given away. The indigence and distress, 

 which were the necessary consequence of such im- 

 , prudence, compelled him to leave Edinburgh, and 

 having communicated to his noble patrons his de- 

 sign of going to London, he received recommenda- 

 tory letters from the Duchess of Gordon to Pope, 

 and to" Lord Chancellor King ; and from Lord Stor- 

 mont to his brother the Solicitor General, afterwards 

 the Earl of Mansfield, and to other persons of rank 

 i'.nd distinction. Pope happened to be from home 

 when Boyse called upon him to deliver her Grace's 

 letter, and the visit was never repeated. Though he 

 himself declared that he waited upon the Lord Chan- 

 cellor, by whom he was well received, and with whom 

 he occasionally dined, the truth of this assertion was 

 doubted by those who knew him best ; for he was so 

 overawed by the glare of rank, that he could scarcely 

 lift his eye in the company of the great, or take any 

 part in their conversation. It is certain that his in- 

 discretion prevented him from enjoying the benefit of 

 his recommendations ; and his miseries soon became 

 o great, as scarcely to be paralleled in the records 

 of literary history. Even those miseries could rouse 

 him to no other exertion than the writing of mendi- 

 cant letters. Respect to the memory of his father 

 induced some of the dissenting clergymen to relieve 

 him with occasional benefactions. Yet never, per- 

 haps, was there a more unworthy object of charity ; 

 for his indolence and indiscretion were even exceeded 

 by his low selfishness and gross sensuality. With the 

 money which he sometimes extorted by a supplicato- 

 ry letter, he would go into a tavern, order an elegant 

 entertainment, drink of the most costly wines, and 

 thus squander all the money which he had received, 

 without a single companion to participate the luxury, 

 and while his wife and child were starving at home. It 

 cannot be wonderedthat his friends, wearied out by his 

 perpetual applications, at length withheld contribu- 

 tions which they found to be so ill bestowed. His 

 wretchedness accordingly became so extreme, that he 

 fcad no clothes in which he could appear abroad ; even 



the sheets on which he lay were sent to the pawnbro- 

 ker; and he was forced to confinehimself to bed with v 

 no other covering than a blanket. His mode of writing 

 in this situation was singular enough: He sat up in 

 bed wrapped in his blanket, through which he had 

 cut a hole large enough to receive his arm, and pla- 

 cing the paper on his knee, scribbled, as well as he 

 could, the verses he was obliged to make. He occa- 

 sionally supplied the want ot a shirt, by tying white 

 slips of paper round his neck ar.d wrists ; and in this 

 plight he appeared abroad with the additional incon- 

 venience of wanting breeches. In this state of mi- 

 sery he continued for several weeks, preserving him- 

 self from absolute starvation by writing verses for the 

 magazines, or procuring occasional benefactions by 

 abject petitions, and the vilest arts of deceit. On 

 one occasion, Dr Johnson collected a sum of 

 money to redeem his clothes from the pawnbroker, 

 and in two days after they were pawned again. He 

 translated well from the French, an employment 

 in which he would have been frequently engaged ; 

 but by the time one sheet was finished) he generally 

 pawned the original : if his employer redeemed it, 

 iinother sheet would be completed, and the book 

 again be pawned ; and this perpetually. After spend- 

 ing some years in this forlorn and contemptible state, 

 he was invjted to Reading, in 1745. by Mr David 

 Hervey, the late proprietor of the Gentleman's Maga- 

 zine, to compile An historical Review of the Transac- 

 tion* of Europe, from the commenccnunt t>f the mar 

 iinth Spain in 1739, io the insurrection in Scotland in 

 1745, milk the proceeding', in Parliament, and the 

 most remarkable domestic occurrences (luring that pe- 

 riod. To which was added, An impartial History of 

 the late Rebellion, interspersed with Characters and 

 Memoirs, and illustrated nith Notes. For this work, 

 which was by no means despicably executed, his ne- 

 cessity obliged him to accept the tr'iling compensa- 

 tion of half-a- guinea a week. About this time he 

 lost his wife, who is described by Cibber as one of 

 the most profligate and abandoned of women ; yet, in 

 a letterto a friend, he affectionately laments her death. 

 After his return from Reading, his behaviour became 

 more decent than formerly, and hopes were enter- 

 tained of his reformation. The liberality of some 

 of his friends had furnished him with a new suit 

 of clothes, and he appeared to pay some regard to 

 his character. He was employed in translating Fe- 

 nelon's Discourse on the existence of Deity, v.hon he 

 fell into a lingering illness, which terminated in his 

 death. During this illness, he had the satisfaction 

 to observe his principal poem, entitled The Deity, 

 recommended by Fielding and Hervey ; the latter of 

 whom, touched by the story of his misfortunes, de- 

 posited two guineas with a friend, to be given to him 

 as his necessities required. For this favour, he ex- 

 pressed his gratitude in a letter to Hervey, in which 

 are strongly marked the humility and contrition of a 

 chastised and penitent transgressor. His whole life, 

 indeed, had been a kind of conflict between his de- 

 praved inclinations, and those religious principles 

 which, in his early youth, had been impressed on hit 

 mind so deeply as never to be effaced. The remorse 

 which he felt towards the close of life, from the re- 

 membrance of his former profligacy, is finely descri- 



Boy 



