ble of making this request, for you are that
kind of man that I believe you would not put yourself to an
inconvenience to be made a Lieutenant-General. Pray shall we not see you
here this winter at all? You ought to come and eat the fruit of your
labours. I remain your most affectionate friend,

JAMES BOSWELL.

I shall rouse Donaldson as you desire. I shall rouse him like a peal of
thunder.

I wonder what you will all think of this proposal of mine for delivering
myself in Folio. Ten days make a period, as I use to say. They bear some
proportion to the whole of life. Write instantly.

* * * * *

LETTER XI.[28]

[Footnote 28: This Letter was occasioned by seeing an Ode to Tragedy,
written by a Gentleman of Scotland, and dedicated to James Boswell,
Esq., advertised in the Edinburgh Newspapers. It afterwards appeared
that the Ode was written by Mr. Boswell himself.]

New-Tarbat, Dec. 13, 1761.

Dear BOSWELL,--An Ode to Tragedy by a gentleman of Scotland, and
dedicated to you! had there been only one spark of curiosity in my whole
composition, this would have raised it to a flame equal to the general
conflagration. May G----d d----n me, as Lord Peter says,[29] if the edge of
my appetite to know what it can be about, is not as keen as the best
razor ever used by a member of the Soaping-Club. Go to Donaldson, demand
from him two of my franks, and send it me even before the first post:
write me, O write me! what sort of man this author is, where he was
born, how he was brought up, and with what sort of diet he has been
principally fed; tell me his genealogy, like Mr. M----; how many miles
he has travelled in post-chaises, like Colonel R----; tell me what he
eats, like a cook; what he drinks, like a wine-merchant; what shoes he
wears, like a shoe-maker; in what manner his mother was delivered of
him, like a man-midwife; and how his room is furnished, like an
upholsterer; but if you happen to find it difficult to utter all this in
terms befitting Mr. M----, Colonel R----, a cook, a wine-merchant, a
shoemaker, a man-midwife, and an upholsterer, Oh! tell it me all in your
own manner, and in your own incomparable style.

[Footnote 29: In the "Tale of a Tub."--ED.]

Your scheme, Boswell, has met with--but the thoughts of this Ode-writing
gentleman of Scotland again come across me,--I must now ask, like the
Spectator,[30] is he fat or lean, tall or short, does he use spectacles?
what is the