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BOSWELL'S LETTERS^
Athenaum BoswELL*s letters enjoy the advantage of
Feb. 1909 a mySterious history. They were written
between 1758 and 1795, not without a view
to publication, but were lost for more than
fifty years. At Boulogne in 1850 Major Stone,
of the East India Company, had the fortunate
curiosity to examine a scrap of paper in which
was wrapped some small purchase ; it turned
out to be a letter signed by James Boswell,
and was traced to the store of an itinerant
paper-vendor, where the letters published in
1856 were discovered. The anonymous editor
of this issue is conjectured with good reason,
as we think by Mr. Seccombe, who introduces
the volume, to have been a Philip
Francis of the Middle Temple who became
later Sir Philip of the Supreme Consular Court
of the Levant ; but this matter also is obscure.
The strangest mystery of all, however, is that
these interesting, entertaining, in fact delightful
letters, though on their first appearance
" Letters of James Boswell to the Rev. W. J. Temple."
(Sidgwick and Jackson.)
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