false one as
it proved--had reached him that the divinity was to be married to Sir
Alexander Gilmour, M.P. for Midlothian. He gets friendly with the nabob,
warms him with old claret, and bewails with him their hapless devotion.
They agree to propose in turn, and, being in turn rejected, he feels
sure that 'a Howard, or some other of the noblest in the kingdom' is to
be his fate. The Dutch translator again holds the field, to be soon
dismissed for her frivolity and her infidelity. Then Miss Dick of
Prestonfield reigns with solid qualifications--she lacks a fortune, but
is fine, young, healthy, and amiable. A visit to Holland, to finally
decide on the Mademoiselle's claims, was proposed, but his father,
warned in time, would not consent. Temple, too, was against this, and
'Temple thou reasonest well,' he cries, and thinks his abnegation will
be a solace to his worthy father on his circuit. Freed now from Miss
Blair and the Dutch divinity, he is devoted to _la belle Irlandaise_,
'just sixteen, with the sweetest countenance and a Dublin education.'
Never till now had he been so truly in love; every flower is united, and
she is a rose without a thorn. Her name 'Mary Anne' he has carved upon a
tree, and cutting off a lock of her hair she had promised Bozzy not to
marry a lord before March, or forget him. 'Sixteen,' he says; 'innocence
and gaiety make me quite a Sicilian swain.'

His book had dissipated his professional energies, and he had even taken
to gaming. Incidentally we learn that he had lost more than he could
pay, and that Mr Sheridan had advanced enough to clear him, on a promise
that he should not engage in play for three years. Mary Anne has added
to his complications by her forgetfulness, and the local candidate Miss
Blair reappears. Favoured as she was by his father, it would have been
easy to bring things to a climax, but on her mother's part there was
some not unnatural coldness over his indiscreet talk about his love of
the heiress. Bozzy was a convivial knight-errant in what was called
'Saving the ladies.' At clubs and gatherings any member would toast his
idol in a bumper, and then another champion would enter his peerless
Dulcinea in two bumpers, to be routed by the original toper taking off
four. The deepest drinker 'saved his lady,' as the phrase ran; though,
says George Thomson speaking of the old concerts in St Cecilia's Hall,
at the foot of Niddry's Wynd, which were maintained by noblemen and
gentleme