The subject of matrimony seems often to have occupied the thoughts of Boswell. At times the appeal of unmarried life was strong. 'The bachelor has a carelessness of disposition which pleases everybody, and everybody thinks him a sort of common good--a feather which flies about and lights now here, now there.' But the ideal of a winged good which was to float about thus amiably gave way at times to a more sedate view of living. 'If you think of the comforts of a home, where you are a sort of sovereign, the kind endearments of an amiable woman, who has no wish but to make you happy, the amusement of seeing your children grow up from infancy to manhood, and the pleasing pride of being the father of brave and learned men, all which may be the case--then marriage is truly the condition in which true felicity is to be found.' In the absence, however, of a felicity which could add so much comfort and pleasure and so small a burden of responsibility to his life, Boswell was happy enough, he proceeds to relate, to have a '_dear infidel_.' That there was no infidelity on the part of this 'charmer' Boswell is able to affirm, while he does not deny that she has a husband; but though, as he says, 'imagination represented it just as being fond of a pretty, lively, black little lady, who, to oblige me, stayed in Edinburgh, and I very genteelly paid her expenses,' he was glad no doubt that circumstances permitted him to arrange his pleasures without hypocrisy.
The course of his amour was not destined to run very smoothly. The ardour of Boswell for the deserted or deserting lady was intermittent and expensive; it was difficult to be rid of her because the tendernesses of a farewell upset the unstable balance of Boswell's susceptibility; 'I was sometimes resolved to let her go, and sometimes my heart was like to burst within me. I took her dear hand; her eyes were full of passion, I took her in my arms.' The dramatic moment is too much for the best-laid plans, and Boswell was grateful, as he well might be, to find himself free after two months. 'I am totally emancipated from my charmer, as much as from the gardener's daughter who now puts on my fire and performs menial offices like any other wench.' The affair with the gardener's daughter is unfortunately not related. She is mentioned only this once where Boswell tells us that a year before this date (March 30, 1767), he had been 'so madly in love as to think of marrying her.' Two other ladies are mentioned in the same letter, Miss Bosville and Miss Blair. He thought of the former, who was his cousin, as a convenient match, but the suit does not appear to have been prosecuted with much vigour. She was kept, as it were, in the second line of battle to fill up a gap when an object of devotion was required. There is another name of the same kind, Zelide, a Dutch lady whom he met at Utrecht and who appears upon the scene periodically. Boswell several times threatened to marry her. How many affairs there were of this class it is difficult to estimate. Exact information on the subject would be valuable as enabling us to adjust the proportion of these matters. From isolated remarks referring to women not elsewhere mentioned, such as 'My Italian angel is constant,' we might suppose that Boswell conducted his amours on the magnificent scale of Solomon. But this can hardly have been the case.