great men could never be
satisfied. These might stay his stomach for a while, but more would be
presently wanted. At the time when he published this volume of Letters
he seems to have had some foresight into his future life. "I am
thinking," he says, "of the intimacies which I shall form with the
learned and ingenious in every science, and of the many amusing literary
anecdotes which I shall pick up." When fame did come upon him by his
book on Corsica, no one could have relished it more. "I am really the
_great man_ now," he writes to his friend Temple. "I have had David Hume
in the forenoon, and Mr. Johnson in the afternoon of the same day
visiting me. Sir John Pringle, Dr. Franklin, and some more company dined
with me to-day; and Mr. Johnson and General Oglethorpe one day, Mr.
Garrick alone another, and David Hume and some more _literati_ another,
dine with me next week. I give admirable dinners and good claret; and
the moment I go abroad again, which will be in a day or two, I set up my
chariot. This is enjoying the fruit of my labours, and appearing like
the friend of Paoli.... David Hume came on purpose the other day to tell
me that the Duke of Bedford was very fond of my book, and had
recommended it to the Duchess."

In the preface to the third edition, he says,--"When I first ventured to
send my book into the world, I fairly owned an ardent desire for
literary fame. I have obtained my desire: and whatever clouds may
overcast my days, I can now walk here among the rocks and woods of my
ancestors, with an agreeable consciousness that I have done something
worthy." It was about this time that, writing to the great Earl of
Chatham, he said--"I can labour hard; I feel myself coming forward, and
I hope to be useful to my country. Could your Lordship find time to
honour me now and then with a letter? I have been told how favourably
your Lordship has spoken of me. To correspond with a Paoli and a
Chatham, is enough to keep a young man ever ardent in the pursuit of
virtuous fame."[5]

[Footnote 5: "Chatham Correspondence," vol. iii., p. 246.]

A few months before his account of Corsica was published, he had fixed
upon the date of its publication as the period when he should steadily
begin that pursuit of virtuous fame, which now was to be secured by
correspondence with a Paoli and a Chatham. "I am always for fixing some
period," he wrote, "for my perfection, as far as possible. Let it be
when my account of Corsica is