This is a question I've recently posted in a site dedicated to James Boswell (Samuel Johnson's famous biographer - I hadn't realised just how good his writing is). The following is actually a combination of two posts, but I've had no answers so far. Here goes:

I am interested in what, if any, connection Boswell might have had with music - did he play an instrument? I'm trying to find out as much as I can about his musical activities (if there were any) and related interests. He writes in his Hebridean journal about singing a verse of a song in Erse, but that seems to be more focused on his abilities in the language (or the determination of a lady to teach him some) than the music itself. There are assorted other references to music, but I've seen nothing that indicates he played it himself.
 
I'm asking this question because there's a tune in the Gow Collection (c.1796 though it could also be later) which is supposedly "composed & communicated by Mr James Boswell" and another one in the John French Collection (1801) titled "Mr James Boswell's Jig". These are both Scottish sources, more or less contemporaneous with JB's lifespan, so I was wondering if they could have come from the Boswell, or else his son (for whom I can't find any hard evidence or references either).

But I've seen nothing substantial so far. It's always possible that the jig-playing James Boswell is someone else entirely: Publishers of that period were certainly not above being ambiguous when crediting their music if the contributor had the same name as a famous person - it helped them to sell more books. Normally they gave no attributions at all in these old collections, so to have something flagged as being composed and communicated by a specific individual is unusual, and smacks a little of advertising.

But it's beginning to look less and less likely that Johnson's Boswell is the originator of these pieces. Surely when he was discussing the playing of musical instruments with Johnson, he'd have made some mention of his own experience in that field? Or some scholar would have commented on it by now? I'm going to keep looking anyway, and will be grateful for any findings.

I still have this nagging half-memory of reading somewhere about Boswell playing a (?) violin, though this may be a mis-conflation with something else. Stranger still, when I asked my partner Michael (no mean historian himself) about it, he said he had the same impression. Folie à deux, perhaps? Any help out there? Thanks!