an auld dominie, that keepit a schule, and ca'd it an academy!" By the death of Lord Auchinleck, in 1782, Boswell was at length freed from what he had always felt to be a most painful restraint, and at the same time became possessed of his paternal estate.
Boswell's mode of life, his social indulgences, and his frequent desertion of business for the sake of London literary society, tended greatly to embarrass his circumstances; and he was induced to try if they could be repaired by exertions in the world of politics. In 1784, when the people were in a state of most alarming excitement in consequence of Mr Fox's India Bill, and the elevation of Mr Pitt, he wrote a pamphlet, entitled, "A Letter to the People of Scotland, on the Present State of the Nation." Of this work Dr Johnson has thus pronounced his approbation:—"I am very much of your opinion, and, like you, feel great indignation at the style in which the King is every day treated. Your paper contains very considerable knowledge of history and of the constitution, very properly produced and applied." The author endeavoured, by means of this pamphlet, to obtain the favourable notice of Mr Pitt; but we are informed that, though the youthful minister honoured the work with his approbation, both on this occasion, and on several others, his efforts to procure an introduction to political life were attended with a mortifying want of success. He was, nevertheless, induced to appear once more as a pamphleteer in 1785, when he published a second "Letter to the People of Scotland," though upon an humbler theme, namely, "on the alarming attempt to infringe the articles of Union, and introducing a most pernicious innovation, by diminishing the numbers of the Lords of Session." This proposal had been brought forward in the House of Commons; the salaries of the judges were to be raised, and, that the expense might not fall upon the country, their number was to be reduced to ten. Boswell (to use a modern phrase) immediately commenced a vehement agitation in Scotland, to oppose the bill; and among other measures which he took for exciting public attention, published this letter. His chief argument was, that the number of the judges was established immutably by the act of union; an act which entered into the very constitution of parliament itself, and how then could parliament touch it? He also showed that the number of fifteen, which Buchanan had pronounced too small to form a free or liberal institution, was little enough to avoid the character of a tyrannical junto. He further argued the case in the following absurd, but characteristic terms:—"Is a court of ten the same with a court of fifteen? Is a two-legged animal the same with a four-legged animal? I know nobody who will gravely defend that proposition, except one grotesque philosopher, whom ludicrous fable represents as going about avowing his hunger, and wagging his tail, fain to become cannibal, and eat his deceased brethren." The agitation prevailed, and the court remained as it had been, for another generation.
Boswell, whose practice at the Scottish bar was never very great, had long wished to remove to the English, in order that he might live entirely in London. His father's reluctance, however, had hitherto prevented him. Now that the old gentleman was dead, he found it possible to follow his inclination, and accordingly he began, from time to time, to keep his terms at the Inner Temple. His resolution was thus sanctioned by a letter to him from Dr Johnson, which exhibits at once a cautious and encouraging view of the mode of life he proposed to enter upon:—
"I remember, and entreat you to remember, that virtus est vitium fugere; the first approach to riches is security from poverty. The condition upon which you have my consent to settle in London, is that your expense never exceeds your annual income. Fixing this basis of security, you cannot be hurt, and
