Boswell indeed was very fond of writing humorous verse.[35] The instinct in him was the natural result of his animal spirits; the need to be laughing, which he felt so strongly at most times when he was not depressed and melancholy, fixed upon the smallest objects as suitable for his wit, and he was satisfied only by some form of expression. The reason that he collected in his commonplace-book a number of 'good things,' as he would call them, is not so much that he was proud of his own sayings (for those of others are also treasured) or that he wished to preserve them for posterity, though both these feelings were present, as that his huge enjoyment of anything witty must be recorded to be satisfied.
It is remarkable, when we recollect what a large sense of humour he had, that many of his verses and of his jokes should be so dull and colourless. But the faculty for appreciating what is amusing is very different from the capacity for originating it. It is HUMOROUS VERSE the difference between humour and wit. The latter involves the power of expression; and a man may as easily be full of humour, without making a joke, as he may be by nature a poet without ever writing a line of good poetry. Boswell had some wit, but not very much—far less than anyone would imagine merely from reading the 'Life' or the 'Tour.' His position perhaps is not unlike that of several poets who have written some stanzas and stray lines of a rare beauty, and are none the less poets because they have written also much that seems quite unpoetical.
A specimen of Boswell's humorous verse is printed in the 'Life.' He had dined one evening at Lord Montrose's and afterwards went to Miss Monckton's, where 'a great number of persons of the first rank' were assembled, in a state of improper elevation. 'Next day,' says Boswell, 'I endeavoured to give what had happened the most ingenious turn I could, by the following verses:
Not that with th' excellent Montrose
I had the happiness to dine;
Not that I late from table rose,
From Graham's wit, from generous wine.
It was not these alone which led
On sacred manners to encroach;
And made me feel what most I dread,