f us possess the spirit of our
ancestors, the French. I do, for one. A pleasant spirit it is. _Vive la
bagatelle_ is the maxim. A light heart may bid defiance to fortune.'
Again the old man would find 'Allow me a few more words. I live here in
a remote corner of an old ruinous house, where my ancestors have been
very jovial. What a solemn idea rushes on my mind! They are all gone: I
must follow. Well, and what then? Let me shift about to another subject.
The best I can think of is a sound sleep; so good-night.' In fact, like
Sir Fretful Plagiary in the _Critic_, Bozzy was so covetous of
popularity that he would rather be abused than be not mentioned at all.
Little augury, too, of success at the bar could his father find in the
following portrait of his son: 'the author of the _Ode to Tragedy_ is a
most excellent man; he is of an ancient family in the west of Scotland,
upon which he values himself not a little. At his nativity there
appeared omens of his future greatness; his parts are bright, and his
education has been good; he has travelled in post-chaises miles without
number; he is fond of seeing much of the world; he eats of every good
dish, especially apple pie; he drinks old hock; he has a very fine
temper; he is somewhat of a humourist, and a little tinctured with
pride; he has a good, manly countenance, and he owns himself to be
amorous; he has infinite vivacity; yet is at times observed to have a
melancholy cast.'

Nothing but the most obtuse vanity could ever have induced Bozzy to
publish all this. 'Curiosity,' he declares in the preface, '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 addressed,
with post-marks--provided he could have done so honestly--he would have
read every one of them.' There is the true Boswell in this
characteristic confession, the Boswell that read in the private diaries
of Johnson, and, with an eye to biographical materials, had admitted an
impulse to carry them off, and never see him more. 'Why, sir,' said the
doctor, 'I do not think you could have helped it.'

After this it was no wonder that his father was induced to allow his
return to London, 'Where a man may soap his own beard, and enjoy
whatever is to be had in this transitory state of things, and every
agreeable whim may be indulged without censure.' The Duke of