Considerations of prudence never entered into the heart of this unhappy young roan, who ran from one excess to another, till an indulgent parent was reduced by his means to very great embarrassments. Young Boyse was of all men the farthest removed from a gentleman; he had no graces of person, and fewer still of conversation. To this cause it was perhaps owing, that his wife, naturally of a very volatile sprightly temper, either grew tired of him, or became enamour'd of variety. It was however abundantly certain, that she pursued intrigues with other men; and what is still more surprising, not without the knowledge of her husband, who had either too abject a spirit to resent it; or was bribed by some lucrative advantage, to which, he had a mind mean enough to stoop. Though never were three people of more libertine characters than young Boyse, his wife, and sister-in-law; yet the two ladies wore such a mask of decency before the old gentleman, that his fondness was never abated. He hoped that time and experience would recover his son from his courses of extravagance; and as he was of an unsuspecting temper, he had not the least jealousy of the real conduct of his daughter-in-law, who grew every day in his favour, and continued to blind him, by the seeming decency of her behaviour, and a performance of those acts of piety, he naturally expected from her. But the old gentleman was deceived in his hopes, for time made no alteration in his son. The estate his father possessed in Yorkshire was sold to discharge his debts; and when the old man lay in his last sickness, he was entirely supported by presents from his congregation, and buried at their expence.
We have no farther account of Mr. Boyse, till we find him soon after his father's death at Edinburgh; but from what motives he went there we cannot now discover. At this place his poetical genius raised him many friends, and some patrons of very great eminence. He published a volume of poems in 1731, to which is subjoined The Tablature of Cebes, and a Letter upon Liberty, inserted in the Dublin Journal 1726; and by these he obtained a very great reputation. They are addressed to the countess of Eglington, a lady of distinguished excellencies, and so much celebrated for her beauty, that it would be difficult for the best panegyrist to be too lavish in her praise. This amiable lady was patroness of all men of wit, and very much distinguished Mr. Boyse, while he resided in that country. She was not however exempt from the lot of humanity, and her conspicuous accomplishments were yet chequered with failings: The chief of which was too high a consciousness of her own charms, which inspired a vanity that sometimes betrayed her into errors.
The following short anecdote was frequently related by Mr. Boyse. The countess one day came into the bed chamber of her youngest daughter, then about 13 years old, while she was dressing at her toilet. The countess observing the assiduity with which the young lady wanted to set off her person to the best advantage, asked her, what she would give to be 'as handsome as her mamma?' To which Miss replied; 'As much as your ladyship would give to be as young as me.' This smart repartee which was at once pungent and witty, very sensibly affected the countess; who for the future was less lavish in praise of her own charms.—
Upon the death of the viscountess Stormont, Mr. Boyse wrote an Elegy, which was very much applauded by her ladyship's relations. This Elegy he intitled, The Tears of the Muses, as the deceased lady was a woman of the most refined taste in the sciences, and a great admirer of poetry. The lord Stormont was so much pleased with this mark of esteem paid to the memory of his lady, that he ordered a very handsome present to be given to Mr. Boyse, by his attorney at Edinburgh.
Though Mr. Boyse's name was very well known in that city, yet his person was obscure; for as he was altogether unsocial in his temper, he had but few acquaintances, and those of a cast much inferior to himself, and with whom he ought to have been ashamed to associate. It was some time before he could be found out; and lord Stormont's kind intentions had been defeated, if an advertisement had not been published in one of their weekly papers, desiring the author of the Tears of the Muses to call at the house of the attorney[1].
The personal obscurity of Mr. Boyse might perhaps not be altogether owing to his habits of gloominess and retirement. Nothing is more difficult in that city, than to make acquaintances; There are no places where people meet and converse promiscuously: There is a reservedness and gravity in the manner of the inhabitants, which makes a stranger averse to approach them. They naturally love solitude; and are very slow in contracting friendships. They are generous; but it is with a bad grace. They are strangers to affability, and they maintain a haughtiness and an apparent indifference, which deters a man from courting them. They may be said to be hospitable, but not complaisant to strangers: Insincerity and cruelty have no existence amongst them; but if they ought not to be hated, they can never be much loved, for they are incapable of insinuation, and their ignorance of the world makes them unfit for entertaining sensible strangers. They are public-spirited, but torn to pieces by factions. A gloominess in religion renders one part of them very barbarous, and an enthusiasm in politics so transports the genteeler part, that they sacrifice to party almost every consideration of tenderness. Among such a people, a man may long live, little known, and less instructed; for their reservedness renders them uncommunicative, and their excessive haughtiness prevents them from being solicitous of knowledge.
The Scots are far from being a dull nation; they are lovers of pomp and shew; but then there is an eternal stiffness, a kind of affected dignity, which spoils their pleasures. Hence we have the less reason to wonder that Boyse lived obscurely at Edinburgh. His extreme carelesness about his dress was a circumstance very inauspicious to a man who lives in that city. They are such lovers of this kind of decorum, that they will admit of no infringement upon it; and were a man with more wit than Pope, and more philosophy than Newton, to appear at their market place negligent in his apparel, he would be avoided by his acquaintances who would rather risk his displeasure, than the censure of the public, which would not fail to stigmatize them, for assocciating with a man seemingly poor; for they measure poverty, and riches, understanding, or its opposite, by exterior appearance. They have many virtues, but their not being polished prevents them from shining.
The notice which Lady Eglington and the lord Stormont took of our poet, recommended him likewise to the patronage of the dutchess of Gordon, who was a lady not only distinguished for her taste; but cultivated a correspondence with some of the most eminent poets then living. The dutchess was so zealous in Mr. Boyse's affairs, and so felicitous to raise him above necessity, that she employed her interest in procuring the promise of a place for him. She gave him a letter, which he was next day to deliver to one of the commissioners of the customs at Edinburgh. It happened that he was then some miles distant from the city, and the morning on which he was to have rode to town with her grace's letter of recommendation proved to be rainy. This slender circumstance was enough to discourage Boyse, who never looked beyond the present moment: He declined going to town on account of the rainy weather, and while he let slip the opportunity, the place was bestowed upon another, which the commissioner declared he kept for some time vacant, in expectation of seeing a person recommended by the dutchess of Gordon.
Of a man of this indolence of temper, this sluggish meanness of spirit, the reader cannot be surprised to find the future conduct consist of a continued serious of blunders, for he who had not spirit to prosecute an advantage put in his hands, will neither bear distress with fortitude, nor struggle to surmount it with resolution.
Boyse at last, having defeated all the kind intentions of his patrons towards him, fell into a contempt and poverty, which obliged him to quit Edinburgh, as his creditors began to sollicit the payment of their debts, with an earnestness not to be trifled with. He communicated his design of going to London to the dutchess of Gordon; who having still a very high opinion of his poetical abilities, gave him a letter of recommendation to Mr. Pope, and obtained another for him to Sir Peter King, the lord chancellor of England. Lord Stormont recommended him to the sollicitor-general his brother, and many other persons of the first fashion.