Grampian Club > Boswelliana

MEJIOIR OF JAMES BOSWELL. 73
liked you as well as I do Aucliinleck." There had been
repeated meetings and lengthy conversations, but Boswell could
not extract a promise, and knew not what to think. He begs
that Mr. Temple will consult with his wife, and thereupon
advise him. Towards the close of his letter he writes, " Amidst
all this love I have been wild as ever. . . . To-morrow I
shall be happy with my devotions. . . . Could you assist
me to keep up my real dignity among the illiterate race of Scots
lawyers ? "
To Mr. Temple he writes from Edinburgh on the 8th February,
1768:—
"All is over between Miss Blair and me. 1 have delayed
writing till I could give you some final account. About a fort-
night alter she went to the country a report went that she was
going to be married to Sir Alexander Gilmour, Member of
Parliament for Mid-Lothian, a young man about thirty, who
has £1,600 a year of estate, was formerly an officer in the
Guards, and is now one of the clerks of the Board of Green
Cloth, a thousand a year — in short, a noble match, though a
man of expense, and obliged to lead a London life. After the
fair agreement between her and me, which I gave you in my
last, I had a title to know the truth. I wrote to her seriously,
and told her if she did not write me an answer I should believe
the report to be true. After three days I concluded from her
silence that she was at least engaged. I endeavoured to laugh
off my passion, and I got Sir Alexander Gilmour to frank a letter
to her, which I wrote in a pleasant strain, and amused myself
with the whim ; still, however, I was not absolutely certain, as
her conduct has been so prudent all along."
To ask a gentleman to frank a letter for him addressed to a
young lady of whom they were rival lovers was an act of eccen-
tricity befitting Boswell only. In the letter above quoted he
proceeds to inform Mr. Temple that the heiress having come to