I hope, Maria, you'll forgive;
While I invoke the powers above,
That henceforth I may wiser live.
Certainly this is amusing in some degree, and amusing too in an original way; but much of it is mere rhyming without any sort of wit. Boswell could be as banal as anyone. An ode ('Horatian Ode,' he calls it) to Charles Dilly, which is chiefly concerned with one Dr. Lettsom, frequently the host of both Boswell and Dilly, exhibits the author of humorous verse at his worst; it will be enough to quote one stanza:
And guests has he in ev'ry degree
Of decent estimation.
His liberal mind holds all mankind,
As an extended nation.
Boswell's mots are of a common eighteenth-century type. The turn of phrase admired by both Johnson and Boswell and most of their contemporaries JOKES IN 'BOSWELLIANA' was the image. In 'Boswelliana' is a story of Boswell's introduction to Scotch lawyers: 'Boswell had a great aversion to the law, but forced himself to enter upon that laborious profession in compliance with the anxious desire of his father, for whom he had the greatest regard. After putting on the gown he said with great good humour to his brother advocates, 'Gentlemen, I am prest into the service here; but I have observed that a prest man, either by sea or land, after a little time does just as well as a volunteer.'
That is Boswell at his best.