rised poems by Blacklock, Beattie, and others, and a second volume
was issued by Erskine as editor in 1762. To it Boswell contributed
nearly thirty pieces along with Home, the author of _Douglas_,
Macpherson of _Ossian_ fame or notoriety, John Maclaurin and others. The
merits of the volume are beneath notice, and Boswell's contributions of
Odes, Epigrams, Letters, Epistles, are of the traditional character; but
_An Epistle from a London Buck to his Friend_ must have been read by his
father with regret, and by his mother of 'almost unexampled piety and
goodness' with shame. There is only one poem that calls for attention,
the _Evening Walk in the Abbey Church of Holyrood House_, the original,
perhaps, of Fergusson's lament on the state of neglect of the then
deserted mansion of royalty, where

'the thistle springs
In domicile of ancient Kings,
Without a patriot to regret
Our palace and our ancient state.'

A third volume was announced for publication 'about eighteen months
hence,' but the public had enough of this coagulated jargon as Carlyle
would have styled it, and critics and readers are spared the task of its
consideration.

Yet all this time he was in the enjoyment of the best company that
Edinburgh could afford; he was admitted a member of the Select Society,
and his circle embraced such men as Lord Somerville, Lord Hailes, Dr
Blair, Kames, Robertson, Hume, Home, Jupiter Carlyle and others. 'Lord
Auchinleck,' he quaintly adds, 'took the trouble himself to give him a
regular course of instruction in law, a circumstance of singular
benefit, and of which Mr Boswell has ever expressed a strong and
grateful sense.' But his sense was not such as to restrain him from a
mock-heroic correspondence with Andrew Erskine, brother of the Earl of
Kellie. Erskine must have been possessed of some parts, for he was the
correspondent of Burns and was intimate with George Thomson the
composer, yet we can fancy the consternation of the old judge when this
farrago of the new humour was published in London in 1763. Writing from
his father's house, he thus begins:--'Dear Erskine, no ceremony I
beseech you! Give me your hand. How is my honest Captain Andrew? How
goes it with the elegant Lady A----? the lovely, sighing Lady J----? and
how, oh how, does that glorious luminary Lady B---- do? you see I retain
my usual volatility. The Boswells, you know, came over from Normandy
with William the Conqueror; and some o