n people. The room which I am writing in, just now, is in reality a
handsome parlour of twenty feet by sixteen; though in my eyes, and to
all outward appearance, it seems a garret of six feet by four. The
magnificent lake is a dirty puddle; the lovely plain, a rude wild
country cover'd with the most astonishing high black mountains: the
inhabitants, the most amiable race under the sun, appear now to be the
ugliest, and look as if they were over-run with the itch. Their delicate
limbs, adorned with the finest silk stockings, are now bare, and very
dirty; but to describe all the transformations would take up more paper
than Lady B---- from whom I had this, would choose to give me. My own
metamorphosis is indeed so extraordinary, that I must make you
acquainted with it. You know I am really very thick and short,
prodigiously talkative and wonderfully impudent. Now I am thin and tall,
strangely silent, and very bashful. If these things continue, who is
safe? Even you, Boswell, may feel a change. Your fair and transparent
complexion may turn black and oily; your person little and squat; and
who knows but you may eternally rave about the King of Great Britain's
guards;[22] a species of madness, from which good Lord deliver us!

[Footnote 20: New-Tarbat, a wild seat in the western Highlands of
Scotland, surrounded with mountains.]

[Footnote 21:

"Far smoking o'er the interminable plain."

--Thomson's "Seasons."--Spring.--ED.]

[Footnote 22: Boswell in a letter to his friend Temple, dated May 1st
1761, had thus described himself. "A young fellow whose happiness was
always centred in London, ... who had got his mind filled with the most
gay ideas--getting into the Guards, being about Court, enjoying the
happiness of the _beau monde_, and the company of men of genius,
&c."--ED.]

I have often wondered, Boswell, that a man of your taste in music,
cannot play upon the Jew's harp; there are some of us here that touch it
very melodiously, I can tell you. Corelli's solo of _Maggie Lauder_, and
Pergolesi's sonata of _The Carle he came o'er the Craft_, are
excellently adapted to that instrument; let me advise you to learn it.
The first cost is but three halfpence, and they last a long time. I have
composed the following ode upon it, which exceeds Pindar as much as the
Jew's harp does the organ.

ODE UPON A JEW'S HARP.

I.

SWEET instrument! which fix'd in yellow teeth,
So clear so sprightly a