her good qualities, will have no reason to complain of their lot.' That Mrs. Boswell had in abundance the matronly virtues is sufficiently clear. She had besides considerable intellectual gifts. Boswell calls her, 'A lady of admirable good sense and quickness of understanding'; he kept a common-place book, 'Uxoriana,' to preserve her witty sayings, and after her death regretted her 'admirable conversation.' From her own expressed opinion of her husband's friendship with Dr. Johnson we are obliged to think well of her intelligence: it was a female opinion, as Boswell remarks, with something of resentment for the intrusion of this uncomfortable guest: 'His irregular hours and uncouth habits, such as turning the candles with their heads downwards, when they did not burn bright enough, and letting the wax drop upon the carpet, could not but be disagreeable to a lady.' And no doubt she failed to appreciate the devotion of Boswell to this ungainly and unpleasing animal. But her observation, in the manner of the times, is admirably pointed: 'I have seen many a bear led by a man, but I never before saw a man led by a bear.' The marriage took place in the autumn of 1769; Boswell was then twenty-nine years of age. The situation is summed up in his own remarks in the _London Magazine_ for April 1781: After having for many years cherished a system of marrying for money, I at last totally departed from it, and married for love. But the truth was that I had not been careful enough to weed my mind; for while I cultivated the plant of interest, love all the time grew up along with it and fairly got the better. Naturally somewhat singular, independent of any additions which affectation and vanity may perhaps have made, I resolved to have a more pleasing species of marriage than common, and bargained with my bride that I should not be bound to live with her longer than I really inclined; and that whenever I tired of her domestic society, I should be at liberty to give it up. That Boswell was always fond of his wife is clear enough. 'Eleven years have elapsed and I have never yet wanted to take advantage of my stipulated privilege.' He never speaks of her without affection, and was deeply distressed by her death in 1789. But for how long he continued to love her fervently it is difficult to tell; not, one would suppose, for a great length of time, or he could hardly have written in the _London Magazine_: 'Whatever respect I may have for the institution of marriage, and however much I am convinced that it upon the whole produces rational happiness, I cannot but be of the opinion that the passion of love has been improperly feigned as continuing long after the conjugal knot has been tied.' Nor, if Boswell had continued to love his wife passionately, would he have found it disagreeable to return to Edinburgh, after visits to London.