Appendix I

Scheme of living written at the White Lyon Inn Waterlane, Fleetstreet[,] the morning after my arrival in London 1762.¹

My Allowance from My Father is £25 every six weeks; in all £200 a year. To support the rank of a Gentleman with this is difficult: Yet I hope to do it in the following manner. A genteel lodging in a good part of the town, is absolutely necessary. These are very dear. None proper for me, can be had under two guineas, or a guinea & a half. But if I take it for a year, I think I may have it for £50.

As a man who is known to be at large upon the town and to have no home where he can dine, is exposed to the sollicitations of expensive company; I would by all means have a regular place to dine at. If the house in which I lodge is convenient for that, so much the better. If not, I must go somewhere else. I would chuse to make a Bargain with a good decent family who have every day a tollerable dinner & who should make no difference on my account that I might dine there when I had no other place & for each time that I dined pay them 1s. 6d. or if they would not chuse that, I would pay them just 1s. a day. I should endeavour to make myself as little troublesom & as agreable as possible. The whole charge of this article may be £18. I would chuse to breakfast in my own room. I would have a teachest in which I would lock up my tea & Sugar. The Maid would bring me in so much bread every morning & so much butter a week. I would have seldom any body to breakfast with me, and when they came it should be by invitation: And I would sometimes breakfast abroad. I reckon breakfast may be £9.

I would only have a fire in my dining room and that for seven months a year which may be 20s. a month. In all for the year £7.

I would burn wax candles. They have a finer light, and I can lock them up without offence; having those for immediate use allways in a stand in my room I reckon this may be £6.

I would have a suit of clean linnens every day; which may be 4d. a day[.] I shall call it for the year £7. I would have my hair drest every day; or pretty often which may come to £6.

I must have my Shoes wiped at least once a day and sometimes oftener. I reckon this for the year £1.

To be well drest is another essential Article, as it is open to every body to observe that. I allow for Cloaths £50.

Stockings & shoes I reckon for the year £10.

The whole of my necessary Expence is as follows

By this calculation I have just £43 left for coach-hire[,] diversion & the Tavern which I will find a very slight allowance. However I hope to conform my method of living to my circumstances. They may grow better in time.

If I get a Commission in the Guards I shall then have about £90 a year more which will make me pretty easy.

There is one circumstance a little hard upon me, which is that I have encroached upon this quarter’s allowance by my journey to town; the Expence of which comes to £11[.] I must endeavour to get my Father to pay this. I hope Doctor Pringle his great friend will think it reasonable, & will asist me. If I cannot get that, I must live private for the first six weeks & endeavour to save it. In short I will find myself hard put to it to live as I could wish without exceeding my allowance. But I am determined not to contract a Shilling of debt; & as My Father has now made me my own master: I shall be upon honour to do well.

NOTES

1.     Scheme of … 1762: Boswell wrote this heading at a later point, and misremembered his inn, which was the Black Lion, where he stayed the night of 19 November 1762. This (highly optimistic) scheme was probably in fact drawn up at Andrew Douglas’s home, where he moved the next day, and where ‘We calculated my Expenses’ (journal, 20 Nov. 1762).

2.     £157: The total should have been £164, as Boswell conflated his calculations for Washing and Hairdressing