But besides being a somewhat light-headed poet, Boswell was anxious to appear as the 'young Buck.' 'The Epistle of a London Buck to his Friend' is the title of one of his publications in the 'Collection of Original Poems.' There is also a confused story of a club he formed in Edinburgh called the 'Soaping Club,' which existed apparently for Bacchanalian purposes; Boswell was the king of the Soapers and wrote some verses about himself: Boswell is pleasant and gay, For frolic by nature designed; He heedlessly rattles away When the company is to his mind. 'This maxim,' he says, 'you may see, We never can have corn without chaff'; So not a bent sixpence cares he, Whether _with_ him, or _at_ him you laugh. Boswell does women adore, And never once means to deceive, He's in love with at least half a score; If they're serious he smiles in his sleeve. He has all the bright fancy of youth, With the judgment of forty and five; In short, to declare the plain truth, There is no better fellow alive. Stories about 'frolic' (to use Boswell's word) are not as a rule very laughable, and we are perhaps too apt to consider them as merely childish and contemptible when they fail to amuse us. The exact atmosphere of the moment which accounts for its merriment is forgotten too often and seldom reproduced, and we are left cold after a recital of such behaviour as we may suppose the Club of Soapers to have indulged in. In Boswell's character there was a large vein of buffoonery which is apt when recounted by anyone but himself to appear stupid enough. But in reality it seems to have contained a true sense of the incongruous, and had at least the success of making people laugh. What an incomparable moment that must have been when Boswell, as one of the audience at Drury Lane theatre, took upon himself to imitate the lowing of a cow! 'I was so successful in this boyish frolic,' he relates, 'that the universal cry of the galleries was: "Encore the cow! Encore the cow!"' There is nothing very brilliant about Boswell's comic verses, but it is curious that those we have quoted should represent the facts so closely: So not a bent sixpence cares he Whether _with_ him or _at_ him you laugh; these lines express exactly the social principle which Boswell adopted. He had no objection to men laughing at his oddities so long as they laughed good-humouredly. He wished to find gaiety in every company, and it is just to say that he brought more than his share of mirth regardless of dignity.