“Before this time you have been informed of my having had a most miserable return of bad spirits. Not only have I had a total distaste of life, but have been perpetually gnawed by a kind of mental fever. It is really shocking that human nature is liable to such inexplicable distress. Oh, my friend, what can I do? * * * Your observation in a former letter, as to time being measured not only by days and years, but by an advancement in life, is new and striking, and is brought home to us both, especially to me, who have obtained no advancement whatever; but let me not harass you with my complaints.”
In his next letter to Mr. Temple, written on the 2nd of April, Boswell further expatiates on his melancholy. He writes:—
“Your kindness to me fairly makes me shed tears. Alas! I fear that my constitutional melancholy, which returns in such dismal fits, and is now aggravated by the loss of my valuable wife, must prevent me from any permanent felicity in this life. I snatch gratifications, but have no comfort, at least very little; yet your encouraging letters make me think at times that I may yet, by God’s blessing, attain to a portion of happiness, such as philosophy and religion concur in assuring us that this state of progressive being allows. I get bad rest in the night, and then I brood over all my complaints, the sickly mind which I have had from my early years—the disappointment of my hopes of success in life—the irrevocable separation between me and that excellent woman, who was my cousin, my friend and my wife; the embarrassment of my affairs—the disadvantage to my children in having so wretched a father—nay, the want of absolute certainty of being happy after death, the sure prospect of which is frightful.”
Within a few months after sustaining that bereavement, which he still deplored, Boswell contemplated the repair of his shattered fortunes by contracting a second marriage. While in the North he wrote Mr. Temple in July, 1790. “I got such accounts of the lady of fortune, whose reputation you heard something of, that I was quite determined to make no advances. Whether I shall take any such step I doubt much. The loss I have experienced is perpetually recurring.”
Boswell resolved closely to watch his opportunity. His letter to Mr. Temple of the 2nd April, 1791, contains the following:—
“I am to dine with Sir William Scott, the King’s Advocate, at the Commons to-morrow, and shall have a serious consultation with him, as he has always encouraged me. It is to be a family party, where I am to meet Miss Bagnal (his lady’s sister) who may probably have six or seven hundred a year. She is about seven and twenty, and he tells me lively and gay—a Ranelagh girl—but of excellent principles, insomuch that she reads prayers to the servants in her father’s family every Sunday evening. ‘Let me see such a woman,’ cried I; and accordingly I am to see her. She has refused young and fine gentlemen. ‘Bravo,’ cried I, ‘we see then what her taste is.’ Here then I am, my Temple, my flattering self! A scheme—an adventure seizes my fancy. Perhaps I may not like her; and what should I do with such a companion, unless she should really take a particular liking to me, which is surely not probable; and, as I am conscious of my distempered mind, could I honestly persuade her to unite her fate with mine. As to my daughters, did I see a rational prospect of so good a scheme, I should not neglect it on their account, though I should certainly be liberal to them.”
Miss Bagnal’s name does not reappear. But he informs Mr. Temple on the 22nd of August that his matrimonial plans were still active:—
“You must know,” he writes, “I have had several matrimonial schemes of late. I shall amuse you with them from Auchinleck. One was Miss Milles, daughter of the late Dean of Exeter, a most agreeable woman ‘d’un certain âge,’ and with a fortune of £10,000; she has left town for the summer. It was no small circumstance that she said to me, ‘Mr. Temple is a charming man.’”
The progress of Boswell’s magnum opus has been traced to the 4th December, 1790. On the 12th of that month the author wrote to Mr. Temple:—