Boswell, James

(1740-1795)

   The son of Lord Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck, of Ayrshire, he studied at Edinburgh, Glasgow and Holland and practiced law in Scotland and England. He achieved literary fame with Account of Corsica (1768). He formed a friendship with Samuel Johnson; Johnson and he toured Scotland which, in 1785, resulted in his Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson. The Life of Samuel Johnson was published in 1791, by which time Boswell was suffering from alcoholism, gambling addiction, and venereal disease. Although he was not a great poet, his main works are: Ode to Tragedy, 1761. Elegy Upon the Death of a Young Lady, 1761. Contributions to Collections of Original Poems by Mr. Blacklock and Other Scotch Gentlemen, Vol. II, 1762. The first lines of three of his untitled poems read: "Five winter days at Mannheim shall I be / Here am I, sitting in a German inn / Ye who with fortune ever are at strife."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. Encyclopedia of Britain. Bamber Gascoigne. London, Macmillan, 1994. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The Oxford Book of Travel Verse. Kevin Holland-Crossley, ed. Oxford University Press, 1986. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.