Download File

BOSWELL'S LETTERS 77
the sheer truth of the self-revelation ; and
they may even conjecture that some of his
performances, which have been lightly attributed
to dull self-complacency or a defective
sense of proportion, are more probably the
effects of a whimsical and fantastic mind
through which ran possibly a queer
strain of
madness. Be that as it may, we now select
for quotation a few characteristic passages,
leaving the reader to decide for himself when
and how far Boswell is laughing at " Bozzy."
The correspondence with Temple, a fellowstudent
at Edinburgh, began in 1758, when
Boswell was eighteen ; for the first eight
years, however, he was too busy making
acquaintance with Johnson, travelling on the
Continent, and conducting his famous Corsican
adventure, to be a very prolific letter-writer.
In 1766 he settled down in Edinburgh to the
law, which he found intolerably dreary, and
a love-affair, which he found too exciting.
" The dear infidel," as he called her, besides
being another man's wife, seems to have
been an extravagant and disreputable young
woman :
"In a former part of this letter I have
talked a great deal of my sweet little mistress ;
I am, however, uneasy about her. Furnishing
a house and maintaining her with a maid will