ks that his fame
rests, yet to the men of his generation he was chiefly known for his
work on Corsica and for his friendship with Paoli. His admiration for
Johnson he had certainly proclaimed far and wide. He had long been off,
in the words of his father, "wi' the land-louping scoundrel of a
Corsican, and had pinned himself to a dominie--an auld dominie who
keeped a schule and cau'd it an acaadamy." Nevertheless it was to
Corsica and its heroic chief that he owed the position that he
undoubtedly held among men of letters. He was Corsica Boswell and Paoli
Boswell long before he became famous as Johnson Boswell.

It has been shown elsewhere[1] what a spirited thing it was in this
young Scotchman to make his way into an island, the interior of which no
traveller from this country had ever before visited. The Mediterranean
still swarmed with Turkish corsairs, while Corsica itself was in a very
unsettled condition. It had been computed that, till Paoli took the rule
and held it with a firm hand, the state had lost no less than 800
subjects every year by assassination. Boswell, as he tells us in his
Journal, had been warned by an officer of rank in the British Navy, who
had visited several of the ports, of the risk he ran to his life in
going among these "barbarians." Moreover a state of hostility existed
between the Corsicans and the Republic of Genoa--which, the year before
Boswell's visit, had obtained the assistance of France. The interior of
the island was still held by Paoli, but many of the seaport towns were
garrisoned by the French and the Genoese. At the time of Boswell's visit
war was not being actively carried on, for the French commander had been
instructed merely to secure these points, and not to undertake offensive
operations against the natives. From the Journal that Boswell gives, we
see that when once he had landed he ran no risks; but it is not every
young man who, when out on his travels, leaves the safe and beaten round
to go into a country that is almost unknown, and to prove to others that
there also safety is to be found. With good reason did Johnson write to
him--"Come home and expect such welcome as is due to him whom a wise and
noble curiosity has led where perhaps no native of this country ever was
before." With scarcely less reason did Paoli say, "A man come from
Corsica will be like a man come from the Antipodes."

[Footnote 1: "Dr. Johnson: His Friends and His Critics." By George
Birkbeck Hill