550 
which even exceeded that with which 
Johnfon’s beck had been bought and read. 
It was filled chiefly with the detail of 
Johnfon’s converfation and minuteft acts 
curing the journey. It added alfo lights, 
ades, drapery, and colouring, to that 
great portrait of the Scottith Highlands, 
which Johnfon had drawn with a pencil 
carelefs cf al] but the primary and effen- 
tial proporticns and the grandeft effects : 
3t had in it too much of goffiping colio- 
guial tattle, and betrayed in the mind of 
3ts writer a filly pronenefs to gawky admi- 
ration of trifles which none but a weak 
mind canadmire. It fhewed Bofwell to 
have acquired new acutenefs of difcern- 
ment, and new fores of knowledge, fince 
he wrote his Account cf Corfica ; but it 
at the fame time proved him to have bufed 
himfelf about trifles, till trifling was almoft 
all the bufinefs of which he was capable :- 
It evincea the truth of Johnfon’s obferva- 
tion of him, “that he wanted bottom !”’ 
From the zra of this famed Hebudean 
excurion till the time of his father’s 
death, Bofwell’s life ran on in its ufual 
tenor, undiftinguifhed by any remarkable 
change in its circumfances or habits.— 
He continued to make frequent vifits to 
London, to linger as long as poffible upon 
every vifit, amidft the fafcinating fociety 
to which his prefence was there acceptavle, 
to leave it upon every occafion of his re- 
turn to Scotland with the reluctance and 
depreffion of one driven into exile from a 
{cene of pure unmingled joy. To the bu- 
finefs Of the Scottifh bar, to that career 
for ambition which was open befere him 
in Scotland, tothe company, the fcenery, 
the amufements of his native country, he _ 
became continually more indifterent.— 
Seeing men of lefs fhewy talents, but 
more diligent application to bufinels, out- 
ftrip him in fuccefs as counfellors and 
pleaders, he could not regard without 
an indignation which moved him to quit 
the competition, that taftelefs undifcern- 
ing flupidity which could prefer them to 
him. Finding his allowance from his fa- 
ther, to which the addition from the pro- 
ts of his bufinefs was not confiderable, 
to be fcarcely fufficient for both the fuit- 
able {upport of his family and his own 
perfonal expences, he became in vain fo- 
licitous to obtain a farther fupply from 
the emoluments of fome place under Go- 
vernment. Naturally ambitious to ob- 
tain admiffion into that convivial Literary 
Society in which Jobnfon and Reynolds 
united fome of their feleét friends for the 
good purpofes of dining and talking cc- 
calionally together, he fucceeded in this 
Memoir of ‘James Bofwell, Efq. 
[ July 2, 
objeé of his wifhes through the powerful re- 
commendation cf Johnion. Ready tofwear 
efier Johnfon in almoft every thing elfe, 
he ventured, however, to differ in opinion 
from his great friend on the fubjeét of the 
American war; and in this inftance feru- 
pled not to prefer to the ftern tory-logic 
of Juhnfon the more generous whiggifla 
deciamation of Burke. But in truth 
Bofwell’s political principles feem to have 
been a medley of toryilm and whiggifm 
not very harmonioufly intermingled. He 
had been educated among ftaunch Whigs 5 
he had converfed net a little with Jaco- 
bites and Tories: he always adopted his 
principles of belief and aétion, not from_ 
deep philofophical invefligation, but from 
the authorities of the moft eminent per- 
fons with whom he was wont to converfe ; 
from every one fomewhat: and in regard 
to many things, therefore, he was ftill as 
heartily a Tory as even Jobnfon could pof- 
fibly defire. During all this while, Bof- 
well, if fometimes a little negligent as a 
fon, a bufbind, ora father, was, how- 
ever, blamelefs!y kind-hearted in all thefe © 
relations, and anxious to fulfl aright their 
refpeftive duties. His religious fenfibi- 
lity became continually more delicate and 
jult; and the impreffions of piety upon 
his heart became ‘till deeper and more ha- 
bitually vivid. His moral wifdom, and 
his knowledge of life and manners, were 
at the fame time confiderably enlarged.— 
But fill he ftudied little ; he taught the 
world te regard him as incapable of the 
fedate habits of bufinefs; he acquired the 
charaéter of a giddy flutterer on the ftage 
of life; while he became the acquainiance 
and the convivial companion of almoft 
every one, he loft the power of command- 
ing the fubftantial friendfhip of all but a 
very few. His predilection for London 
determined him at length entirely to relin- 
quifh the Scottifh bar for the Englith bar, 
and he entered himfelf as a ftudent at the 
Temple. . 
Lerd Auchinleck foon after died, and 
James, as his eldeit fon, fucceeded to the 
poflefion of the family-eftates. He might ~ 
perhaps expect to find himfelf now affluent, 
independent, and happy. But the rents 
of the eftate exceeded not fifteen hundred 
pounds a year ; a jointure to his mother- 
in-law was to be paid out of this income; _ 
James himfeif was but a life-renter, en- 
joying the produce, but bound up by a 
{trict entail from impairing the capital ; 
for a little he found the change in his con- 
dition not unpicafant; but his revenue 
was foon experienced to be inadequate to 
his wifhes. Mrs. Bofweil’s health began 
vas 4 
. 
