Boswell resolved closely to watch his opportunity. His letter to Mr. Temple of the 2nd April, 1791, contains the following:— “I am to dine with Sir William Scott, the King’s Advocate, at the Commons to-morrow, and shall have a serious consultation with him, as he has always encouraged me. It is to be a family party, where I am to meet Miss Bagnal (his lady’s sister) who may probably have six or seven hundred a year. She is about seven and twenty, and he tells me lively and gay—a Ranelagh girl—but of excellent principles, insomuch that she reads prayers to the servants in her father’s family every Sunday evening. ‘Let me see such a woman,’ cried I; and accordingly I am to see her. She has refused young and fine gentlemen. ‘Bravo,’ cried I, ‘we see then what her taste is.’ Here then I am, my Temple, my flattering self! A scheme—an adventure seizes my fancy. Perhaps I may not like her; and what should I do with such a companion, unless she should really take a particular liking to me, which is surely not probable; and, as I am conscious of my distempered mind, could I _honestly_ persuade her to unite her fate with mine. As to my daughters, did I see a rational prospect of so good a scheme, I should not neglect it on their account, though I should certainly be liberal to them.” Miss Bagnal’s name does not reappear. But he informs Mr. Temple on the 22nd of August that his matrimonial plans were still active:— “You must know,” he writes, “I have had several matrimonial schemes of late. I shall amuse you with them from Auchinleck. One was Miss Milles, daughter of the late Dean of Exeter, a most agreeable woman ‘_d’un certain âge_,’ and with a fortune of £10,000; she has left town for the summer. It was no small circumstance that she said to me, ‘Mr. Temple is a charming man.’” The progress of Boswell’s _magnum opus_ has been traced to the 4th December, 1790. On the 12th of that month the author wrote to Mr. Temple:— “My work has met with a delay for a little while—not a whole day, however—by an unaccountable neglect in having paper enough in readiness. I have now before me p. 256. My utmost wish is to come forth on Shrove Tuesday (8th March).” Mr. Malone was now in Ireland, and Boswell, in reporting to him the progress of his undertaking, also communicated the miserable details of his private embarrassments. In a letter to Mr. Malone, dated the 18th January, 1791, he writes thus:—