Personal data
James Rose
ca.
Born 1737  
aft.
Died 1794  

Son of James Rose of Brea (1699-1762) and his wife Margaret Rose, dau of James Rose of Broadley.1 M.A. from the University of Aberdeen, and later a student at Glasgow. Ordained Deacon in 1768 and Priest in 1769.2

Private tutor of English and Greek in Utrecht (1763-64, at the least)

Rose was Boswell's most intimate acquaintance during his time in Utrecht, 1763-64. He is first mentioned on October 1, 1763, and appears frequently until April 6, 1764, when he left Utrecht, apparently for England where George Dempster met him soon thereafter.3

On January 16, 1767, Boswell - who at the time had an affair with a Mrs Dodds - wrote in his journal that "You was torn with passion, or, as Rose used to say, your gloom fixed on love as its object." The reference is probably to James Rose.

  • 1Boswell tells us, that Rose was a first cousin of Hugh Rose (1705-1772), 17th of Kilravock. Unfortunately, their common grandfather had at least 9 children, making the identification initially seem difficult. However, if we make an educated guess, that only the male descendants continued the family name, possible candidates for Rose's parents are James Rose of Brea (1699-1762) and his wife Margaret Rose, dau of James Rose of Broadley. The 15th of Kilravock had 2 other sons, but both of them seems to have been born after 1730, making it highly improbable that they could have a grown-up son in Utrecht in 1763. Also, in a note in Boswell: The Early Years, Pottle mentions that his colleague Prof. Robert Warnock had found evidence that Rose was, in fact, James Rose, son of James and Margaret mentioned above. The evidence for this identification, according to Pottle, is to be published in the relevant research edition of the Yale papers, which, unfortunately, doesn't seem to appear anytime soon.
  • 2The Earlier Years, p. 492
  • 3[BIH]. p. 263 - letter from Dempster to Boswell
Boswell in Holland 1763-64

Unless otherwise noted, the source for a dated quotation of Boswell's is generally the corresponding volume of the Yale Trade Editions of Boswell's journals.