n which, while describing the historian Petrus Cyrnaeus, he at the same
time describes himself. "The fourth book of Petrus Cyrnaeus," he says,
"is entirely taken up with an account of his own wretched vagabond life,
full of strange, whimsical anecdotes. He begins it very gravely:
'Quoniam ad hunc locum perventum est, non alienum videtur de Petri qui
haec scripsit vita et moribus proponere.' 'Since we are come thus far it
will not be amiss to say something of the life and manners of Petrus,
who writeth this history.' He gives a very excellent character of
himself, and, I dare say, a very faithful one. But so minute is his
narration, that he takes care to inform posterity that he was very
irregular in his method of walking, and that he preferred sweet wine to
hard. In short, he was a man of considerable parts, with a great
simplicity and oddity of character."

To the simplicity and oddity of character that Boswell shared with this
learned historian, there was certainly added not a little impudence. It
was an impudence that was lively and amusing; but none the less was it
downright impudence. We are amazed at the audacity with which two young
men ventured to publish to the world the correspondence which had passed
between them when they were scarcely of age. In fact, the earlier
letters were written when Boswell was but twenty. Their justification
only increases their offence. "Curiosity," they say, "is the most
prevalent of all our passions; and the curiosity for reading letters, is
the most prevalent of all kinds of curiosity. Had any man in the three
kingdoms found the following letters, directed, sealed, and adorned with
postmarks,--provided he could have done it honestly--he would have read
every one of them." There is this, however, that makes us always look
with a certain indulgence on Boswell. He never plays the hypocrite. He
likes praise, he likes to be talked about, he likes to know great
people, and he no more cares to conceal his likings than Sancho Panza
cared to conceal his appetite. Three pullets and a couple of geese were
but so much scum, which Don Quixote's squire whipped off to stay his
stomach till dinner-time. By the time Boswell was six-and-twenty he
could boast that he had made the acquaintance of Adam Smith, Robertson,
Hume, Johnson, Goldsmith, Wilkes, Garrick, Horace Walpole, Voltaire,
Rousseau, and Paoli. He had twice at least received a letter from the
Earl of Chatham. But his appetite for knowing