To ask a gentleman to frank a letter for him addressed to a young lady of whom they were rival lovers was an act of eccentricity befitting Boswell only. In the letter above quoted he proceeds to inform Mr. Temple that the heiress having come to town, he began to apprehend that her affections were engaged by a Mr. Fullerton, whom he describes as his “old rival, the nabob.” So he procured the nabob’s acquaintance, and they called on the heiress together. She received them courteously, but with greater than wonted reserve. Boswell was determined to know the worst. He entertained Mr. Fullerton to supper at the house of a relative, and the same evening took him to a tavern and warmed him “with old claret.” As anticipated, Mr. Fullerton became very communicative, admitting that he had been assiduous in attending Miss Blair, but had received no suitable encouragement. He and Boswell remained together long after midnight, and before separating agreed that each on the morrow should visit the heiress, and make proposals to her. Boswell made sure to reach first, as he went to breakfast; he proposed, and was refused. The nabob called on Miss Blair an hour or two afterwards, and was overpowered with her coldness. “Now that all is over,” Boswell sums up, “I see many faults in her which I did not see before.... I am, however, resolved to look out for a good wife either here or in England.... The heiress is a good Scots lass, but I must have an Englishwoman. You cannot say how fine a woman I may marry. Perhaps a Howard, or some other of the noblest in the kingdom.” Finally, to assure his correspondent that he was not distracted by rejection or disappointed hope, he embodied in his communication the following somewhat splenetic verses at the expense of the “princess:”— “Although I be an honest laird, In person rather strong and brawny, For me the heiress never cared, For she would have the knight Sir Sawney.[44] “And when with ardent vows I swore, Loud as Sir Jonathan Trelawney, The heiress showed me to the door, And said she’d have the knight Sir Sawney. “She told me, with a scornful look, I was as ugly as a tawny; For she a better fish could hook, The rich and gallant knight Sir Sawney.” In his next letter to Mr. Temple, dated London, 24th March, Boswell expresses his joy that he is rid of Miss Blair, and informs him that he and “a charming Dutchwoman” have renewed correspondence. Under the name of Zelide she is frequently mentioned in his previous letters; he had formed her acquaintance at Utrecht. Zelide is commended as fair, lively, sensible, and accomplished; and is so deeply attached to the writer that he feels he cannot be unhappy with her. By having translated into French his work on Corsica she has shown a just appreciation of his literary tastes.