Upon the death of the viscountess Stormont, Mr. Boyse wrote an Elegy, which was very much applauded by her ladyship’s relations.  This Elegy he intitled, The Tears of the Muses, as the deceased lady was a woman of the most refined taste in the sciences, and a great admirer of poetry.  The lord Stormont was so much pleased with this mark of esteem paid to the memory of his lady, that he ordered a very handsome present to be given to Mr. Boyse, by his attorney at Edinburgh.

Though Mr. Boyse’s name was very well known in that city, yet his person was obscure; for as he was altogether unsocial in his temper, he had but few acquaintances, and those of a cast much inferior to himself, and with whom he ought to have been ashamed to associate.  It was some time before he could be found out; and lord Stormont’s kind intentions had been defeated, if an advertisement had not been published in one of their weekly papers, desiring the author of the Tears of the Muses to call at the house of the attorney[1].

The personal obscurity of Mr. Boyse might perhaps not be altogether owing to his habits of gloominess and retirement.  Nothing is more difficult in that city, than to make acquaintances; There are no places where people meet and converse promiscuously:  There is a reservedness and gravity in the manner of the inhabitants, which makes a stranger averse to approach them.  They naturally love solitude; and are very slow in contracting friendships.  They are generous; but it is with a bad grace.  They are strangers to affability, and they maintain a haughtiness and an apparent indifference, which deters a man from courting them.  They may be said to be hospitable, but not complaisant to strangers:  Insincerity and cruelty have no existence amongst them; but if they ought not to be hated, they can never be much loved, for they are incapable of insinuation, and their ignorance of the world makes them unfit for entertaining sensible strangers.  They are public-spirited, but torn to pieces by factions.  A gloominess in religion renders one part of them very barbarous, and an enthusiasm in politics so transports the genteeler part, that they sacrifice to party almost every consideration of tenderness.  Among such a people, a man may long live, little known, and less instructed; for their reservedness renders them uncommunicative, and their excessive haughtiness prevents them from being solicitous of knowledge.

The Scots are far from being a dull nation; they are lovers of pomp and shew; but then there is an eternal stiffness, a kind of affected dignity, which spoils their pleasures.  Hence we have the less reason to wonder that Boyse lived obscurely at Edinburgh.  His extreme carelesness about his dress was a circumstance very inauspicious to a man who lives in that city.  They are such lovers of this kind of decorum, that they will admit of no infringement upon it; and were a man with more wit than Pope, and more philosophy than Newton, to appear at their market place negligent in his apparel, he would be avoided by his acquaintances who would rather risk his displeasure, than the censure of the public, which would not fail to stigmatize them, for assocciating with a man seemingly poor; for they measure poverty, and riches, understanding, or its opposite, by exterior appearance.  They have many virtues, but their not being polished prevents them from shining.