BIB_ID
379878
Accession number
MA 981.62
Creator
Boswell, James, 1740-1795.
Display Date
1779 May 3-8.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan before 1906.
Description
1 item (8 p.) ; 23.1 cm
Notes
Part of a large collection of letters from James Boswell to William Johnson Temple and related correspondence. Letters have been described in individual records; see MA 981 for details.
The letter is incomplete.
These may be two separate letters, but it seems more likely that the two sheets were written as one letter since the first sheet lacks a closing and the second sheet opens without a salutation.
The letter is incomplete.
These may be two separate letters, but it seems more likely that the two sheets were written as one letter since the first sheet lacks a closing and the second sheet opens without a salutation.
Provenance
Major William Stone; purchased by Pierpont Morgan from the London dealer J. Pearson & Co. before 1906.
Summary
Reporting that he was confined to bed by an ingrown toenail; noting that he is going to see his father tomorrow at his wife's recommendation; saying, "although my father is in no immediate danger, his indisposition is such that I ought to be with him"; commenting on Temple's finances; mentioning [Samuel] Johnson, Lord Hailes [David Dalrymple], and [Edmund] Burke; writing en route to Scotland from Southill, where he is staying with Charles and John Dilly; remarking that "Edward Dilly is fast a-dying"; describing his journey to Newcastle: "an agreeable young widow nursed me, and supported my lame foot on her knee. Am I not fortunate in having something about me that interests most people at first sight in my favour?"; commenting on [Robert] Lowth's "Isaiah"; discussing Sir Alexander Dick's desire to publish "the first book of a British Georgic"; speaking critically of [Edward] Gibbon: "he is an ugly, affected, disgusting fellow, and poisons our literary club to me."
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