The problem of youth is one of selection. Not many of us accept for ourselves the whole of our inheritance. Of the influences of our early years there are some which we reject; and the judgments which we make about the problems that affected us when young, differ as a rule from those about other questions which come upon us only in maturer years. In youth we must either love or hate--there is no indifference; and so in youth very often are formed the prejudices of a lifetime. Thus it was with Boswell. It was inevitable that the inflexible, hard-headed old judge, and the gay, clever son, should agree very ill. The latter contrived to be in many ways the exact antithesis of his father, and he had the courage of his opinions. It is remarkable, when we think of the violence of the old Whig's political views, that in 1745 Boswell 'wore a white cockade and prayed for King James.' The advances of an uncle it is true were able to purchase his political sympathies, and for the sum of one shilling Boswell became a Whig. But it is more decorous, at the age of five, to side with one's father without the persuasion of a silver bribe, especially upon a question of so great importance as the choice of a sovereign. For his tutor, Mr. Dunn, James seems to have retained no startling degree of affection or even of respect; for it was he who 'discovered a narrowness of information concerning the dignitaries of the Church of England. He talked before Dr. Johnson of fat bishops and drowsy deans, and in short seemed to believe the illiberal and profane scoffings of professed satirists or vulgar railers'; and so brought upon himself the admirable rebuke: 'Sir, you know no more of our Church than a Hottentot.' In the uncongenial atmosphere of home Boswell learnt, no doubt, to dislike instruction and to mistrust what he was told about the way to live, about manners in the old use of the word. There is, however, the trace of a pious mother's influence in the respect which Boswell always showed for religion and for principles. To know what he thought right or wrong was always of importance to him, however slight the relation to his practice of these moral decisions. It is possible indeed that he could never have been better than a tyro in the art of living: but the close-fettered days of this unfortunate childhood must be partly responsible for the fact. When the term of his education at home was accomplished, Boswell very properly went to school at Edinburgh. We have reason to complain, if we may complain at all, that we can know nothing of Boswell's school life. It is idle to conjecture what it was like. We may only suppose that school was to him a place of comparative freedom, and that to his schoolfellows his presence there was a valuable source of merriment, and perhaps also an occasion of maliciousness.