1803. ] 
decline: the affairs of his eftate for a time 
detained him fromyseviliting London : 
his wonted fits of low-fpirits occafionally 
returned; 2nd his ordinary happinefs 
quickly fettled rather under than above 
the fame mediate level as before. He 
however pleafed himfelf with the profpect 
of going to fettle permanently in London, 
and probably hoped that then indeed 
would his felicity be complete! 
Being ambitious of that celebrity 
which was to be gained by dabbling in 
politics, his keeneft attention was attract- 
ed by thofe minifterial contefts and revo- 
Jutions amidf which the late war with 
America was brought to its clofe. Whe- 
ther from partiality to the name of the 
great Earl of Chatham, or becaule he 
himfelf was perfonally acquainted with 
the prefent Mr. Pitt, Bofaell became a 
zealous partizan ef the young Mivifter ; 
whofe popularity, alas! though then in 
its full and feemingly amaranthine bloem, 
has long fince gone perhaps in queft of the 
maidenhead of Orlando Furiofo’s miftrefs. 
He even at one time wrote fome few fhort 
political letters, by which he. expected to 
ftir up a mighty ferment among the good 
people of Scotland: but is it not faid, 
that maggots will fometimes burrow in 
the fnout of a fow, without exciting in 
the poor animal any fenfe of their prefence? 
He had hopes that Mr. Pitt, with the ge- 
nerous gratitude of a youthful heart; 
would reward his fervices with a place or 
penfion; but Mr. Pitt found it eaiier to 
put him off with a fimple compli- 
mentary-letter. Upon a fubfequent oc- 
cafion he ventured to offer himielf a can- 
didate for the reprefentation of the county 
of Ayr in the Houfe of Commons: but 
other interefts quickly threw him ata dif- 
tance in the competition. I own I think 
it is to be regretted that he did not fuc- 
ceed; for he would perhaps have proved a 
tolerably honeit Member of Parliament ; 
and his flights and his witticiims might 
have ferved toenliven many a dull debate. 
He at length fixed his refidence in Lon- 
don, and offered himf{elf as a candidate 
for bufinefs at the Engiifli bar. His be- 
ginnings were here alfo not unpromifng. 
By the favour of Lord Lon{dale he ob- 
tained the refpe&table appointment of Re- 
corder of Carlifle. He attended the Judges 
in purfuit of bufinefs upon feyeral of their 
circuits. He was fometimes retained to 
_ plead in a Scottifw Appeal. But his ha- 
bits of conviviality, his charaéter for 
flighty gaiety, incompatible with emi- 
nence in bulinefs, the latenefs of the time 
in his life at which he mad¢ the attempt, 
Memoir of Fames Bofwell, Efy. | 55) 
and perhaps alfo his want of perfeverance, 
foon topped him fhort in his career of ju- 
ridical praftice in England as before in 
Scotland. The levities and the flowers 
of literature were for ever tempting him 
to ftray with truant eps from the thorny 
paths of law. ‘The publication of his 
Hebudean Tour too, as I have been 
taught to believe, exhibiting him as the 
minute recorder and retailer of whatever 
carelefs converfations might have paffed 
‘between perfons of any eminence in his 
prefence, excited among his acquaintance 
a general alarm, that tended at once to- 
hurt, in fome fimall degree, his practice 
atthe bar, and to exclude him from fome 
of thofe focial circles in which he had 
been before a familiar and welcome gueft. 
His firft ardour was gradually extinguifh- 
ed: he relinquifhed the hope of becom- 
ing more eminent in Weftminfer-hall, 
than he had been in the Parliament-houfe 
at Edinburgh. He faw, when it was too 
late, that the man who confumes in con- 
viviality, and inthe purfuit of witty and 
fplendid: fociety, thofe prime years of 
youth, in which our permanent habits are 
ufually formed, muft be content to forego 
thofe fucceffes of avarice and ambition, 
which inceffant and nerve-frung indufiry 
in the toils of fudy or bufinefs is alone 
defined by Nature.to command. He 
even retioned the office of Recorder of the 
city of Carlifie, and refolved henceforth 
to court only the prdife of literature, of 
fong-finging, and of collequial {pright- 
linefs. 
It was extremely fortunate for the 
Jovers of literary anecdote, and of the 
memery of Johnion, that he was driven 
to adopt this refolution. Much more 
had hig feelings been gratified by the eager 
curiofity with which all the world bought 
and read his Hebudean Tour, than offend- 
ed by the poetical raillery of Dr. Walcot, 
by the complaints of a violation of the 
ordinary mutual confidence cf men in con- 
vivial antercourfe, or by that ridicule 
which men far weaker than himfelf de- 
lighted to throw out againft the vanity 
and the love of trifles which that book 
betrayed. Having treafured up with won- 
derful diligence che better part of what 
had fallen from his Jate friend Johnfon, 
in many of the converfations in which he 
had excited or liftened to Johnfoa’s wif- 
dom and colloquial eloquence, from the 
commencement.of their acquaintance to 
the period of his friend’s death, he now 
undertook to compofe .a biographical ac- 
count of that wife and good man, in 
which thofe treafured gleanings from his 
4 Bz colloquial 
, 
: 
ee a Se 
Te 
