He often adopted the rôle of the wise counsellor. His letters to Temple are full of excellent advice. It is always hard to be quite certain that Boswell is serious, but it is probable that he was sincere enough in this. He was ready always with sympathy and kind actions for his friend, and we may conjecture that besides wishing to appear wise beyond his years he thought that Temple could best be served by the commonplace advice of the old to the young.
But it is pre-eminently as the promising young littérateur that we see Boswell in these years. He became acquainted with many interesting people, who were attracted, no doubt, by a clever young man, fond of literature and appearing less ignorant than most young men. Lord Hailes, Lord Kames, and Dr. Robertson were numbered among his friends. Even Hume took notice of him: 'We talk a great deal of genius, fine learning, improving in our style, &c., but I am afraid solid learning is much wore out. Mr. Hume, I think, is a very proper person for a young man to cultivate an acquaintance with.' Boswell was not eighteen when he wrote these words. They OTHER EARLY FRIENDSHIPS suggest an amusing picture of a clever and conceited young genius. He was admitted in 1761 to the Select Society, a distinguished group of men who represented the best learning of Edinburgh—a high compliment this, both to his brains and to his social qualities.
Among Boswell's friends of the aristocracy of letters were several younger men. Charles Dilly, the publisher, who was afterwards host at the famous dinner when Dr. Johnson met Jack Wilkes, was a native of Edinburgh; and George Dempster, who became M.P. for the burghs of Fife and Forfar in 1762, was, like Boswell, a member of the Select Society; it was he who afterwards appeared as the disciple of Hume and Rousseau, and of whom Johnson said, 'I have not met with any man for a long time who has given me such general displeasure.'
A greater friend than either of these, and one who had far more influence in forming the literary tastes of Boswell, was the Honourable Andrew Erskine. This lively young gentleman was both soldier and writer. His interest in literature was not of a very creative order: he edited, however, in 1760 and 1761, two volumes of a 'Collection of Original Poems by the Rev. Mr. Blacklock and other Scotch Gentlemen,' to which both he and Boswell contributed; in 1764, he published a farce in two acts, and in 1773 he issued a poem of twenty-two quarto pages intended 'to expose the false taste for florid description which prevails in modern poetry.' He appears to have had considerable discrimination; he was an early admirer of the poet Burns, and Burns, in a letter to a friend, praises some of Erskine's songs; an eminent publisher describes him as having 'an excellent taste in the fine arts.' Such a man may well have had influence with Boswell, and the two became associated in several small literary ventures.
The early tastes and tendencies of Boswell in literary matters are connected with several influences of a different nature. There was always a strong instinct of rebellion in Boswell, and with him it found expression in sympathy for those whom the world rejected. Some of his friends among those who sought favour of the Muses were therefore less successful and less respectable than the distinguished members of the Select Society, the learned and the grave.
Several of these friends were connected in various ways with the stage. Acting was not supported as an art in Edinburgh, nor countenanced as a profession, at the time when Boswell was an undergraduate at the University. But he came in contact with a Mr. Love who, it would seem, was the first to encourage his sympathy with the drama. Mr. Love had been connected at one time with Drury Lane Theatre; fortune cannot have favoured him greatly, since he left London for Edinburgh; and there after fruitless attempts to practise private theatricals he became a teacher of elocution. It was in this last capacity that Boswell met him.
The lessons of Mr. Love were apparently of some MR. LOVE use to Boswell; for Dr. Johnson said in commendation of his English accent, 'Sir, your pronunciation is not offensive'; and Miss Burney too speaks approvingly. Mr. Love became the great friend of Boswell after Temple had proceeded to the University of Cambridge. He is mentioned in the first of the 'Letters to Temple' as the only other confidant of Boswell in a matter of the heart; and in the next letter he is called his 'second-best friend.' Boswell says of him: 'He has not only good taste, genius and learning, but a good heart.' He must in any case have been a man of singular virtue, for it was he who persuaded Boswell to keep a diary. 'I went along with my father to the Northern Circuit and was so happy as to be in the same chaise as Sir David Dalrymple the whole way. I kept an exact journal, at the particular desire of my friend Mr. Love, and sent it to him in sheets every post.' So was the habit of 'memorandising' begun. Boswell was destined no doubt to form that habit; it was the most vital factor in his method of biography; and it was besides a complete expression in itself of that inner secret which, by a magic touch, was to marshal the soul of a glorious man before the eyes of us all. The wheel of Fate might have turned ever so little differently for Boswell and altered the whole course of his mortal existence; but if it were still to be Boswell, there must still have been the tablets; and his title to immortality would have been secured by these alone. And yet, though the tablets are Boswell's by indubitable birthright, we may allow ourselves a pious exclamation at the name of Mr. Love.
When Boswell went to Glasgow he made friends with another actor in depressed circumstances. 'The merchants of Glasgow,' Dr. Rogers tells us, 'tolerated theatrical representations, obtaining on their boards such talent as their provincial situation could afford.' Boswell evidently took an interest in the Glasgow theatre. One of those who sought a livelihood there was a certain Francis Gentleman, a native of Ireland, and originally an officer in the army. 'This amiable gentleman sold his commission in the hope of obtaining fame and opulence as a dramatic author.' He obtained neither, and became an actor; and so he qualified to be the friend of Boswell, who entertained him, and 'encouraged him to publish an edition of Southern's "Tragedy of Oroonoco."' To Boswell it must have been a double pleasure to play the patron and to read the dedication of the volume addressed to himself. Mr. Gentleman thought well of the man who had befriended him, and the dedication ends thus:
But where, with honest pleasure, she can find