On the Amorous Disposition of Mr. James Boswell.

"A man who is in love is like a man who has got the toothache; he feels most acute pain, while nobody pities him.-BOSWELL.

Some twenty-five years ago, a number of letters, written by Boswell, were accidentally discovered and after a time were printed. They serve to throw considerable light on his peculiar character, for in them he expresses most unreservedly his ideas on people, on women, on love, on himself-indeed, on everything on which he had ideas. Boswell is one of those people we never think of blaming. He seems as incapable of wrong-doing as a child, and even while we feel a certain and even while we feel a certain sense of annoyance with him, at times, still we cannot condemn him. There is something charming in his folly. But the most striking feature of these letters, I think, lies in the accounts of his love-affairs. And since these accounts seem to me to be not only diverting, but also peculiarly characteristic of the man, I have purposed to dwell on them at some length.

"In the Spring," sings the poet, "a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." Boswell's fancy was fixed on love during the whole twelve-month. His letters, unfortunately, do not begin until he is twenty, so that we are precluded from any view of his real life until that time; but after that age, we can trace, with a good deal of accuracy, the course of his thoughts. In the very first letter we plunge head-long into an account of one of his many attachments. It does not describe one of the important affairs, but it is so characteristically told that I quote the letter in part: "As I have given you fair warning," he says "don't be surprised if your grave, sedate, philosophic friend, who used to carry it so high, and talk with such a composed indifference of the beauteous sex, and whom you used to admonish not to turn an old man too soon-don't be thunderstruck if this same fellow should all at once, subito furore obreptus, commence Don Quixote for his adorable Dulcinea. I have reason to believe she has a very good opinion of me; and indeed a youth of my turn has a better chance to gain the affections of a lady of her character than any other: but my mind is in such an agreeable situation, that being refused would not be so fatal as to drive me to despair, as your hot-brained romantic lovers talk. Oh, Willie; how happy should I be if she consented, some years after this, to make me blest." It is almost unnecessary to say that the 'Dulcinea' did not make him happy "some years after this," as he so ardently desired; and perhaps it is equally useless to add that Boswell forgot her almost immediately.

Boswell offers some startling opinions about marriage, a few pages further on, while writing to a friend who had become engaged. "I am sensible," he remarks philosophically "that everything depends on the light in which we view it, and nothing more so than marriage. If you think of that weariness which must at times hang over every kind of society, those disgusts and vexations which will happen in the intercourse of life, you will be frightened to take upon you the serious charge of the father of a family; but if you think of the comforts of a home, where you are a sort of sovereign, the kind endearment of an amiable woman, who has no wish but to make you happy, then marriage is truly the condition in which true felicity is to be found." This is orthodox enough, but Boswell goes on to add frankly, "I think we may strike a good medium." Just what this means, he proceeds to show by a practical illustration. He has just seduced a married woman, and he tells his friend about her. "In the meantime, my friend," he goes on, "I am happy enough to have a dear infidel; but don't think her unfaithful, I could not love her if she was. There is a baseness in all deceit which my sould is virtuous enough to abhor, and therefore I look with horror on adultery. But my amiable mistress is no longer bound to him who was her husband; he has used her shockingly ill. Is she not then free? She is, it is clear, and no argument can disguise it. She is now mine, and were she to be unfaithful to me, she ought to be pierced with a Corsican poniard." Boswell, had a startling way of putting things. Truly, one is forced to blush for the man. He first seduces a man's wife, and then, because the husband objects to such little attentions, he declares that the poor man, by such objection has used the wife "shockingly ill," and therefore, she is freed from her vows. But unfortunately, true love never runs smooth, even with another man's wife, and Boswell soon had a tiff with his mistress. Their reconciliation he describes as follows: "I held her dear hand; her eyes were full of passion; I took her in my arms; I told her what made me miserable; she was pleased to find it was no worse. We renewed our fondness." Supporting somebody else's wife, however, was expensive-it looked "too much like licentiousness," Boswell complained, and growing tired of her, his conscience began to trouble him. "How strangely do we color our own vices." he writes in horror, "I startle when you talk of keeping another man's wife, yet that was literally my scheme, though imagination represented it just as being fond of a pretty, lively, black little lady, who, to oblige me, stayed in Edinburg, and I very genteelly paid her expenses," This horror of immorality lasted until he had freed himself from the woman. There is no possession on earth so valuable as an india-rubber conscience.

Passing over several such episodes, we come to the real love-affair of his life,-that with a certain Miss Blair. He was in love with her for several years, and she with him, yet when one wanted to marry, the other didn't, so nothing came of it. The beginning of this courtship was most romantic. "She was so good," he says, "as to prevail with her mother to come to Auchinleck, where they stayed four days; and in our romantic groves I adored her like a divinity." I fear that although his courting was carried on in such a poetical way Boswell was not shaped enough on the Greek model to make such wooing a complete artistic success, for he straightway begins to feel that his suit is not prospering, and summons a friend to help him. His friend was to visit the 'divinity' at her home, and plead for him; and Boswell sent him the following "Instructions:" "Set out in the fly on Monday morning. Take tickets for Friday's fly. Eat some cold victuals. Wednesday. Breakfast at 8; return at nine; Thomas will bring you to Adamtown a little after eleven. Send up your name. Give Miss Blair my letter. Salute her and her mother; ask to walk. Talk of my mare, the purse, the chocolate. Tell, you are my very old and intimate friend. Praise me for my good qualities,- you know them; but talk also how odd, how inconstant, how impetuous, how much accustomed to women of intrigue. Ask gravely, Pray don't you imagine there is something of madness in that family? Talk of my various travels-German princes-Voltaire and Rousseau. Observe her well. See, how amiable! Think of me as the great man at Adamtown-quite classical, too.