“The state of my affairs is very disagreeable; but be not afraid of your £200, as you may depend upon its being repaid. My rent-roll is above £1,600; but deducting annuities, interest of debts, and expenses absolutely necessary at Auchinleck, I have but about £850 to spend. I reckon my five children at £500 a year. You see what remains for myself.”... “I am this year to make one trial of the Lord Chancellor. In short, I cast about everywhere. I do not see the smallest opening in Westminster Hall; but I like the scene, though I have attended only one day this last term, being eager to get my ‘Life of Johnson’ finished. And the delusion that practice may come at any time (which is certainly true) still possesses me.” He adds, “I have given up my house, and taken good chambers in the Inner Temple, to have the appearance of a lawyer. O Temple! Temple! is this realizing any of the towering hopes which have so often been the subject of our conversation and letters? Yet I live much with a great man, who, upon any day that his fancy shall be so inclined, may obtain for me an office which would make me independent.” Boswell could cherish no reasonable hope of professional advancement, save through the patronage of Lord Lonsdale. And the recent escapade at Lowther Castle might have shown him that sentiments of respect were unassociated with his lordship’s friendship. What he could not perceive in August, 1789, was made sufficiently plain in the following June. The narrative must be presented in his own words. Writing from Carlisle to Mr. Temple on the 21st June, 1790, he proceeds:—