you may be very much advanced. The loss of your Scottish business, which is all you can lose, is not to be reckoned any equivalent to the hopes and possibilities that open here upon you. If you succeed, the question of prudence is at an end; any body will think that done right which ends happily; and though your expectations, of which I would not advise you to talk too much, should not be totally answered, you can hardly fail to get friends who will do for you all that your present situation allows you to hope; and if, after a few years, you should return to Scotland, you will return with a mind supplied by various conversations and many opportunities of inquiry, with much knowledge and materials for reflection and instruction."
At Hilary Term, 1786, he was called to the English bar, and in the ensuing winter removed his family to London. His first professional effort is said to have been of a somewhat ominous character. A few of the idlers of Westminster Hall, conspiring to quiz poor Bozzy, as he was familiarly called, made up an imaginary case, full of all kinds of absurdities, which they caused to be presented to him for his opinion. He, taking all for real, returned a bona-fide note of judgment, which, while it almost killed his friends with laughter, covered himself with ineffaceable ridicule.
It is to be regretted that this decisive step in life was not adopted by Boswell at an earlier period, as thereby he might have rendered his Life of Johnson still more valuable than it is. Johnson having died upwards of a year before his removal, it was a step of little importance in a literary point of view; nor did it turn out much better in respect of professional profit.
So early as 1781, when Mr Burke was in power, that great man had endeavoured to procure an extension of the government patronage towards Boswell. "We must do something for you," he said, "for our own sakes," and recommended him to General Conway for a vacant place, by a letter, in which his character was drawn in glowing colours. The place was not obtained; but Boswell declared that he valued the letter more. He was now enabled, by the interest of Lord Lowther, to obtain the situation of Recorder of Carlisle; a circumstance which produced the following
WORDS TO BE SET FOR A RECORDER.
Boswell once flamed with patriot zeal,
His bow was never bent;
Now he no public wrongs can feel
Till Lowther nods assent.
To seize the throne while faction tries
And would the Prince command,
The Tory Boswell coolly cries,
My King's in Westmoreland.
The latter verse is an allusion to the famous Regency question; while, in the former, Boswell is reminded of his zealous exertions in behalf of monarchy in the pamphlet on the India Bill. It happening soon after that Dr John Douglas, a fellow-countryman of Boswell's, was made Bishop of Carlisle, a new and happier epigram appeared:
Of old, ere wise concord united this isle,
Our neighbours of Scotland were foes at Carlisle;
But now what a change have we here on the Border,
When Douglas is Bishop and Boswell Recorder!
Finding this recordership, at so great a distance from London, attended with many inconveniences, Boswell, after holding it for about two years, resigned it.
It was well known at this time that he was very anxious to get into parliament;
