Mr. Boston's published writings are very numerous, and to them much of the intelligence and theological acquirements which distinguished the Scottish peasantry at the end of the last and beginning of the present century are to be ascribed. Those now best known are his "Body of Divinity;" his "Crook in the Lot;" and his "Fourfold State of Man." A copy of this last book was at one time to be found in almost every cottage in Scotland, and it is now impossible to specify the number of editions through which it has passed. All his works are intensely Calvinistic, with nothing in their style to commend them save their perspicuity and terseness. They are nevertheless highly judicious, contain just exhibitions of divine truth, close and pungent appeals to the conscience, and will be read by Calvinists with pleasure and profit. The best edition is that edited by the Rev. Samuel M'Millan, Aberdeen, in 12 vols. 8vo, and published by T. Tegg, London, 1853.—W. M'K.
BOSWELL, Sir Alexander, Bart., eldest son of James Boswell, the biographer of Samuel Johnson, was born October 9, 1775, and succeeded to the paternal estate of Auchinleck, Ayrshire, on the death of his father in 1795. He was possessed of excellent abilities, and attained considerable success in the composition of humorous and satirical songs. He published anonymously in 1803 a small volume, entitled "Songs, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect." This was followed by "The Spirit of Tintoe, or Johnnie Bell and the Kelpie;" "Edinburgh, or the Ancient Royalty," which contains some curious reminiscences of the manners of the citizens of Edinburgh during the eighteenth century; "Sir Allan;" "Skeldon Haughs, or the Sow is Flitted;" "The Woo Creel, or the Bull of Bashan;" "The Tyrant's Fail," a poem on the battle of Waterloo; and "Clan Alpine's Vow," founded on the horrible murder of Drummond-Ernich by the Macgregors, referred to in Sir Walter Scott's Legend of Montrose. The greater part of these poems have fallen into oblivion; but some of Sir Alexander's humorous songs, such as "Auld Gudeman, ye're a drucken carle," "Jenny's Bawbee," and "Jenny dang the Weaver," have secured a permanent place in the lyrical poetry of Scotland. Boswell had a decided taste for antiquarian pursuits, which was fostered by his possession of a valuable family collection of old manuscripts and books, among which was the celebrated romance of Sir Tristram, published by Sir Walter Scott in 1804. Sir Alexander established a private printing-press at Auchinleck, from which issued a blackletter facsimile of the very rare disputation between John Knox and Quinten Kennedy, the abbot of Crossraguel, at Maybole in 1562, the original of which was found in the Auchinleck library. In 1821 Sir Alexander was created a baronet, an honour which had long been the chief object of his ambition. Political strife ran high at this period, and as member for the county of Ayr, and a writer of pungent satirical verses, he took a prominent part in supporting the government and assailing its opponents. He contributed several jeux d'esprit to a notorious Edinburgh newspaper, called the Beacon, and, after its suppression, to another journal of the same character which appeared in Glasgow, under the name of the Sentinel. Some of these poetical contributions, containing coarse and virulent attacks upon James Stuart, Esq. of Duncarn, were traced to their author, and led to a duel between him and Mr. Stuart, March 26, 1822, near the village of Auchtertool in Fife. Sir Alexander was mortally wounded in this unhappy affair, and died next day at Balmuto, the ancient seat of the family of Boswell. Mr. Stuart was tried for this offence before the high court of justiciary, but unanimously acquitted. "Boswell was able and literary," says Lord Cockburn, "and when in the humour of being quiet, he was agreeable and kind; but in general he was boisterous and overbearing, and addicted to coarse personal ridicule. With many respectable friends his natural place was at the head of a jovial board, when every one laughed at his exhaustless spirits, but each trembled lest he should be the subject of the next story or song. It is curious that it was he who introduced, or at least took charge of, and carried the act which abolished our two old Scotch statutes against fighting a duel or sending a challenge; by the former of which the mere fighting without any result was punishable with death. This was his solitary piece of legislation."—J. T.
BOSWELL, James, was born at Edinburgh in 1740, and was the only son of Alexander Boswell, Esq., advocate, who, upon being made a lord of session in 1754, assumed the title of Lord Auchinleck (or Affleck), from his family estate in Ayrshire. The Boswells, or Bosvilles, are said to have been originally an English family established in the West Riding of Yorkshire. They first settled in Scotland in the fifteenth century, on the estate of Balmuto in Fife, which one of them obtained by marriage with the daughter of a Sir John Glen. Affleck, forfeited by the Afflecks of that Ilk, was acquired not long after. Boswell's mother was a Miss Erskine, a descendant of the earls of Mar.
The young man was intended by his father for his own profession, but he was himself in no haste to enter upon the serious business of life. After studying both at Edinburgh and Glasgow he made in 1760 his first visit to London; in 1762 appeared as one of the contributors to a collection of original poems by Scottish gentlemen, published that year at Edinburgh; in 1763 astonished the world by a singular volume which he sent to the press, consisting of a correspondence upon all sorts of subjects, public and private, which had passed between himself and his friend, the Hon. Andrew Erskine (brother of Thomas, the musical earl of Kellie); and in 1763, after making the acquaintance of Dr. Johnson as he passed through London, set out on a continental tour, in the course of which, after passing a winter at Utrecht, where he attended the law classes, he travelled over great part of the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and France, and having sought out, and introduced himself to many of the chief celebrities of the time—among others to both Voltaire and Rousseau—finished by attaching himself with extraordinary ardour to the famous chief of the Corsican insurgents. General Paoli, whom he had gone to Corsica to make acquaintance with. He did not return home till 1766, and he passed as advocate in July of that year. At this date, and for some time after, he was commonly known by the name of Paoli Boswell. He seems to have at first proposed to follow his profession, and he made a fair commencement by the publication of a pamphlet, entitled "The Essence of the Douglas Cause," in defence of the claimant who called himself the son of Lady Jane Douglas, and who was ultimately recognized as such by the decision of the house of lords. But his heart was still in quite another subject. His next publication was "An Account of Corsica, with memoirs of General Paoli," which appeared in Glasgow in 1768, and that was followed the next year by a volume, printed at London, of "British Essays in favour of the brave Corsicans, by several hands." In this year, 1769, also, he married.
His only other professional publication was a report, in 1774, of the speeches of the lords of session in a cause in which he had been engaged as counsel—the well-known one, involving the question of literary property, in which Donaldson and other Edinburgh printers and publishers were defendants. Nothing else is stated to have been produced by him about this period, except a series of papers, entitled "The Hypochondriac," which he contributed to the London Magazine from 1777 to 1782. He had already lost all taste for Scottish law, and for everything Scottish; and in 1782, on succeeding to the family estate by the death of his father, he transferred himself to London, and made preparations for being called to the English bar. Not, however, probably, that he had any serious intention of having much more to do with the law of either country. For a time he appears to have looked to politics as a field that would suit him better. In 1784 and 1785 he published two political letters to the people of Scotland; the first in support of the new minister, Pitt; the second against the proposition for diminishing the number of the lords of session. This ambition led him also to make various attempts to get into parliament, and was not finally quenched till his defeat at the general election in 1790, after an expensive contest, when he stood for the county of Ayr.
But what has immortalized Boswell is his connection with Samuel Johnson. They first met, as has been stated, in 1763. In 1773 they made their tour together to the Western Islands. Johnson died in 1784, and the next year Boswell gave to the world his journal of their tour to the Hebrides, in an octavo volume published in Edinburgh. It is the richest and most reckless portion of his Johnsonian revelations, and is the more remarkable as having been in great part read in the manuscript by the sage himself. His great work, "The Life of Johnson," followed in 1790, in two volumes, 4to., published at London. He died on the 19th of May, 1795, leaving, besides three daughters, two sons, of whom the eldest was Sir Alexander Boswell, who fell in the memorable duel fought with the late Mr. James Stuart of Duncarn, Fifeshire, in 1822; the younger,
