“You would observe,” he writes, “some stupid lines on Mr. Burke in the ‘Oracle’ by Mr. Boswell. I instantly wrote to Mr. Burke, expressing my indignation at such impertinence, and had next morning a most obliging answer. Sir William Scott told me I could have no legal redress. So I went civilly to Bell, and he promised to mention handsomely that James Boswell, Esq., was not the author of the lines. The note, however, on the subject, was a second impertinence. But I can do nothing. I wish Fox, in his bill upon libels, would make a heavy penalty the consequence of forging any person’s name to any composition, which in reality such a trick amounts to.”
Four days after conveying to Mr. Malone the tidings of his his deliverance from pecuniary troubles, Boswell condoles with his friend, in his lottery ticket having drawn a blank, since had a prize turned up, he would have expected the accommodation of a loan! He proceeds:—
“As it is, I shall, as I wrote to you, be enabled to weather my difficulties for some time; but I am still in great anxiety about the sale of my book. I find so many people shake their heads at the two quartos and two guineas. Courtenay is clear that I should sound Robinson and accept of a thousand guineas, if he will give that sum. Meantime, the title-page must be made as good as may be. It appears to me that mentioning his studies, works, conversations, and letters, is not sufficient; and I would suggest comprehending an account, in chronological order, of his studies, works, friendships, acquaintances, and other particulars; his conversation with eminent men; a series of his letters to various persons; also several original pieces of his compositions never before published. The whole, &c. You will probably be able to assist me in expressing my idea and arranging the parts. In the advertisement I intend to mention the letter to Lord Chesterfield, and perhaps the interview with the King, and the names of the correspondents, in alphabetical order.... Do you know that my bad spirits are returned upon me to a certain degree; and such is the sickly fondness for change of place, and imagination of relief, that I sometimes think you are happier by being in Dublin, than one is in this great metropolis, where hardly any man cares for another. I am persuaded I should relish your Irish dinners very much. I have at length got chambers in the Temple, in the very staircase where Johnson lived, and when my magnum opus is fairly launched, then shall I make a trial.”
In his letter to Mr. Temple of the 2nd April, Boswell refers to his forthcoming work in these terms:—
“My ‘Life of Johnson’ is at last drawing to a close. I am correcting the last sheet.... I really hope to publish it on the 25th current.... I am at present in such bad spirits that I have every fear concerning it—that I may get no profit, nay, may lose—that the public may be disappointed, and think that I have done it poorly—that I may make many enemies, and even have quarrels. But, perhaps, the very reverse of all this may happen.”
Boswell adds in reference to his professional aspirations:—
“When my book is launched I shall, if I am alone and in tolerable health and spirits, have some furniture put into my chambers in the Temple, and force myself to sit there some hours a day, and to attend regularly in Westminster Hall. The chambers cost me £20 yearly, and I may reckon furniture and a lad to attend them occasionally £20 more. I doubt whether I shall get fees equal to the expense.”
On the 19th April, Boswell thus wrote to his friend Mr. Dempster:—
“We must not entirely lose sight of one another, or rather, we must not suffer ‘out of sight out of mind’ to be applicable to two such old friends, who have always lived pleasantly together, though of principles directly opposite.... I some time ago resigned my Recordership of Carlisle. I perceived that no advantage would accrue from it. I could satisfy you in conversation that I was right. The melancholy event of losing my valuable wife will, I fear, never allow me to have real comfort. You cannot imagine how it hangs upon my spirits; yet I can talk and write, and, in short, force myself to a wonderful degree. I enclose you a poem which I have published upon a subject on which I never heard your sentiments, but I could lay my life you are one of the pretty theorists; however, you will have candour enough to allow that I have worked well. I have a good house in Great Portland Street. My two eldest daughters live with me; my youngest is at a boarding-school at Chelsea; my eldest son is at Eton; my second at Westminster. I am sadly straitened in my circumstances; I can but exist as to expense; but they are so good to me here that I have a full share of the metropolitan advantages.