Mrs. Boswell made a trial of London, but soon returned to Auchinleck. She disapproved her husband’s preference for the English Bar, and feared that the fogs of London would prove injurious to her health. She had been an asthmatic patient, and at the commencement of 1789 the complaint returned in an aggravated form. Writing to Mr. Temple on the 5th March, Boswell expresses himself deeply concerned about his “valuable and affectionate wife,” but he feels that joining her in the country would destroy the completion of the Life of Johnson, and remove him from “the great whirl of the metropolis,” from which he hoped “in time to have a capital prize.” He had visited Ayrshire at the close of 1788, and there prosecuted an active canvass among his supposed friends, the parliamentary freeholders. The visit and its prospective results are thus detailed to Mr. Temple:— “_London, 10th January, 1789._ “As to my canvass in my own county, I started in opposition to a junction between Lord Eglintoun and Sir Adam Fergusson, who were violent opponents, and whose coalition is as odious there as the Great One is to the nation. A few friends and real independent gentlemen early declared for me; three other noble lords, the Earls of Cassilis, Glencairn, and Dumfries, have lately joined and set up a nephew of the Earl of Cassilis: a Mr. John Whitefoord, who as yet stands as I do, will, I understand, make a bargain with this alliance. Supposing he does, the two great parties will be so poised that I shall have it in my power to cast the balance. If they are so piqued that either will rather give the seat to me than be beaten by the other, I may have it. Thus I stand, and I shall be firm. Should Lord Lonsdale give me a seat he would do well, but I have no claim upon him for it. In the matter of the regency he adds that he had ‘almost written one of his very warm popular pamphlets in favour of the Prince;’ but as Lord Lonsdale was ill, and he had no opportunity of learning his sentiments, he had ‘prudently refrained.’ He accuses Pitt of ‘behaving very ill,’ in neglecting him, and denounces Dundas ‘as a sad fellow in his private capacity.’” Boswell returned to Ayrshire in April. Mrs. Boswell had written that she was “wasting away,” and her physician was not hopeful of her improvement. Her husband thus describes her condition to Mr. Temple:[86]—