bunch of oaken leaves.

Tell me, dear Erskine, should not I
My favourite path of fortune try?
Our life, my friend, is very short,
A little while is all we've for't;
And he is blest who can beguile,
With what he likes, that little while.

[Footnote 44: I have omitted the first eighty lines of this poem.--ED.]

My fondness for the guards must appear very strange to you, who have a
rooted antipathy at the glare of scarlet. But I must inform you, that
there is a city called London, for which I have as violent an affection
as the most romantic lover ever had for his mistress. There a man may
indeed soap his own beard, and enjoy whatever is to be had in this
transitory state of things. Every agreeable whim may be freely indulged
without censure. I hope, however, you will not impute my living in
England, to the same cause for which Hamlet was advised to go there;
because the people were all as mad as himself.

I long much for another of our long conversations on a fine forenoon,
after breakfast, while the sun sheds light and gladness around us.
Believe me,

Yours sincerely,

JAMES BOSWELL.

* * * * *

LETTER XXVIII.

Auchinleck, May 8, 1762.

Dear ERSKINE,--I should have wondered very much, had I been told of Lady
J----'s particular attachment to the tune of _Appie Mac-nab_, two months
ago: but I must inform you, that a few days before I left Edinburgh,
having occasion to look into the advocates' library, I there chanced to
turn up an old Roman song-book, and, to my great surprise, met with the
individual air of _Appie Mac-nab_, which I discovered to be part of an
original Patrician cantata on the daughter of the famous Appius, set for
the _Tibiae sinistrae_. In a manuscript marginal note, it is said to have
been composed by Tigellius the famous musician, whose death and
character Horace takes occasion to entertain and instruct us with, in
the second satire of his first Book. You see, therefore, that Lady
J----'s taste for Italian music, cannot be called in question; and
indeed, I think her liking _Appie Mac-nab_, is a very strong proof of
it, as she certainly could not know its original. The Roman song-book, a
very great curiosity, was brought from Rome some hundred years ago, by
father Macdonald, an old popish priest, who left it as a legacy to the
Duke of Gordon. It is probable, that some musician in the North of
Scotland, has transcribed the App