Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 1.djvu/136

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
BOYD.
125

volence which his scanty and precarious income was ill suited to supply; and before he had been a year in London, he was involved in pecuniary entanglements, from ,which, alas! he was not at any period of his life to be entirely released." But the same magnanimity which induced him to expend what he did not possess, led him to despise the inconveniencies resulting from such conduct. His creditors, it seems, became impatient; but he retained his tranquillity, determined to keep bis temper, although he should lose his liberty. This habitual thoughtlessness, his biographer gallantly insinuates, rendered him a distinguished favourite among the ladies; nor was he insensible of their admiration, as he returned the compliment by marrying a Miss Morphy, a young lady worthy of his super-human qualifications; and, as the merest trifle about truly great characters is interesting, his biographer informs us, the courtship lasted a year and some weeks. By this marriage his circumstances were rendered somewhat easier, as Miss Morphy's amiable qualities and good sense, restrained that "inborn generosity and exquisite sensibility" which he was possessed of in so eminent a degree. He, however, suffered many relapses, and "frequently plunged himself into difficulties to save the credit or relieve the distresses of the man he loved." His friends, however, began to think it was high time this period of capacious philanthropy should come to a full stop, he was therefore recommended to his countryman, Lord Macartney, and on his lordship's nomination to the government of Madras, he appointed Boyd his second secretary. He sailed accordingly with the embassy, and arrived at Madras in the autumn of 1781. After undergoing several vicissitudes, he went for a few months to Calcutta, where "his talents, wit, and humour, together with the superlative sprightliness of his convivial qualities will be long remembered with pleasure." In February 1794, he advertised proposals for publishing, by subscrip-