“I am within a short walk of Mr. Malone, who revises my ‘Life of Johnson’ with me. We have not yet gone over quite a half of it, but it is at last fairly in the press. I intended to have printed it upon what is called an English letter, which would have made it look better; but upon calculation it would have made two quarto volumes, and two quarto volumes for one life would have appeared exorbitant, though in truth it is a view of much of the literature, and many of the literary men of Great Britain for more than half a century. I have therefore taken a smaller type, called Pica, and even upon that I am afraid its bulk will be very large. It is curious to observe how a printer calculates; he arranges a number of pages, and the words in them at different parts of the ‘copy’ (as the MS. is called), and so finds the number of words. Mine here are four hundred and one thousand six hundred. Does not this frighten you. By printing a page the number of words it holds is discovered; and by dividing the sum-total of words by that number we get the number of pages. Mine will be eight hundred. I think it will be, without exception, the most entertaining book you ever read. I cannot be done with printing before the end of August.”
In excellent terms with himself, and rejoicing in his literary aptitude, he thus addresses Mr. Temple on the 13th February:—
“I dine in a different company almost every day, at least scarcely ever twice running in the same company, so that I have fresh accessions of ideas. I drink with Lord Lonsdale one day; the next I am quiet in Malone’s elegant study revising my Life of Johnson, of which I have high expectations, both as to fame and profit. I surely have the art of writing agreeably. The Lord Chancellor[94] told me he had read every word of my Hebridean Journal; he could not help it.”
On the 4th December Boswell addressed Mr. Malone:[95]—
“The magnum opus advances. I have revised p. 216. The additions which I have received are a Spanish quotation from Mr. Cambridge, an account of Johnson at Warley Camp from Mr. Langton, and Johnson’s letters to Mr. Hastings—three in all,—one of them long and admirable; but what sets the diamonds in pure gold of Ophir is a letter from Mr. Hastings to me, illustrating them and their writer. I had this day the honour of a long visit from the late Governor-General of India. There is to be no more impeachment. But you will see his character nobly vindicated, depend upon this.”
Though still ambitious of professional advancement, Boswell began to dread the merriment of the Circuit mess, promoted too frequently at his personal cost. On the plea of saving £50, and “avoiding rough, unpleasant company,” he informed Mr. Temple in February, 1789, that he would omit the spring Northern Circuit. In August he communicated to the same correspondent that he had proceeded to Lord Lonsdale’s with the intention of joining the autumn Circuit at Carlisle; but that considering his “late severe loss,” and “the rough scenes of the roaring, bantering society of lawyers,” he preferred to remain at Lowther Castle. At the castle he was subjected to a practical jest, which as an annoying incident he thus describes to Mr. Temple:—
“A strange accident happened; the house at Lowther was so crowded that I and two other gentlemen were laid in one room. On Thursday morning my wig was missing; a strict search was made, all in vain. I was obliged to go all day in my night-cap, and absent myself from a party of ladies and gentlemen who went and dined with the Earl on the banks of the lake,—a piece of amusement which I was glad to shun, as well as a dance which they had at night. But I was in a ludicrous situation. I suspected a wanton trick which some people think witty; but I thought it very ill-timed to one in my situation. Next morning the Earl and a colonel, who I thought might have concealed my wig, declared to me, upon honour they did not know where it was; and the conjecture was that a clergyman who was in the room with me, and had packed up his portmanteau in a great hurry to set out in the morning early, might have put it up among his things. This is very improbable; but I could not long remain an object of laughter, so I went twenty-five miles to Carlisle on Tuesday, and luckily got a wig there fitted for me in a few hours.”
On the 13th October Boswell informed Mr. Temple that on lately visiting Lowther Castle he received back his wig. “The way in which it was lost,” he adds, “will remain as secret as the author of Junius.”