.

Kelly, October 28, 1762.

Dear BOSWELL,--How shall I begin? what species of apology shall I make?
the truth is, I really could not write, my spirits have been depressed
so unaccountably. I have had whole mountains of lead pressing me down:
you would have thought that five Dutchmen had been riding on my back,
ever since I saw you; or that I had been covered with ten thousand
folios of controversial divinity; you would have imagined that I was
crammed in the most dense part of a plumb-pudding, or steeped in a
hogshead of thick English Port. Heavens! is it possible, that a man of
some fame for joking, possessed of no unlaughable talent in punning, and
endued with no contemptible degree of liveliness in letter-writing,
should all of a sudden have become more impenetrably stupid than a
Hottentot legislator, or a moderator of the general assembly of the Kirk
of Scotland. By that smile which enlivens your black countenance, like a
farthing candle in a dark cellar, I perceive I am pardoned; indeed I
expected no less; for, I believe, if a sword was to run you through the
body, or a rope was to hang you, you would forget and forgive: you are
at Kames just now, very happy, I suppose; your letter seems to come from
a man in excellent spirits; I am very unequal at present to the task of
writing an answer to it, but I was resolved to delay no longer, lest you
should think I neglected you wilfully; a thought, I'm sure, you never
shall have occasion to entertain of me, though the mist of dulness
should for ever obscure and envelope my fancy and imagination. I cannot
think of coming to Kames, yet I am sufficiently thankful for the
invitation; my lowness would have a very bad effect in a cheerful
society; it would be like a dead march in the midst of a hornpipe, or a
mournful elegy in a collection of epigrams.

Farewell. Yours, &c.,

ANDREW ERSKINE.

* * * * *

LETTER XLI.

Parliament-Close, Nov. 10, 1762.

Dear ERSKINE,--All I have now to say, is to inform you, that I shall set
out for London on Monday next, and to beg that you may not leave
Edinburgh before that time.

My letters have often been carried to you over rising mountains and
rolling seas. This pursues a simpler track, and under the tuition of a
cadie,[61] is transmitted from the Parliament-Close to the Canongate.
Thus it is with human affairs; all is fluctuating, all is changing.
Believe me,

Yours, &c.

JAMES BOSWELL.

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