had seen the best work of the best men in the kingdom since 1640. Perhaps his feelings on this point were soothed by the traveller in the coach, a Miss Silverton, an 'amiable creature who has been in France. I can unite little fondnesses with perfect conjugal love.' Alas for poor Peggie Montgomerie, 'of the ancient house of Eglintoun,' blamed by his father for not bridling the follies of his son, waiting, doubtless, anxiously for the present to the second wife of his father as a means of peace-offering! Then the secret leaks out that the father had refused Boswell's plan of being allowed L400 a year and the trial of fortune at the London bar. His debts of L1000 had been paid, and his allowance of L300 threatened with the reduction of a third. The promise under the old yew had not been kept; the one bottle of hock as a statutory limit had been exceeded, he had been 'not drunk, but was intoxicated,'--a subtle point for bacchanalian casuists, and very ill next day. He lays it on the drunken habits of the country which, he says, are very bad, and with the recollection of Burns' temptations in Dumfries we may admit that they were. His father, too, was now about to entail his estate, and Bozzy's predilection for feudal principles and heirs male brought things to a deadlock. He appealed to Lord Hailes, who admitted conscience and self formed a strong plea when found on different sides. Finally, after the judge had inserted in the deed his precautions against 'a weak, foolish and extravagant person,' the estate was entailed on Boswell. 'My father,' he tells Temple, 'is so different from me. We _divaricate_ so much, as Dr Johnson said. He has a method of treating me which makes me feel like a timid boy, which to _Boswell_ (comprehending all that my character does in my own imagination and in that of a wonderful number of mankind) is intolerable. It requires the utmost exertion of practical philosophy to keep myself quiet; but it has cost me drinking a considerable quantity of strong beer to dull my faculties.' The picture of the son drinking himself down to the level of the father is truly inimitable!