ed the hardy air of Corsica to brace me, after the delights of
Tuscany,' an enigmatical turn of expression upon which light is thrown
later, when we discuss the love affairs of Boswell, by a reference to a
dark-eyed 'signora' on whom the tender traveller had glanced. At Leghorn
he was within one day's sail of Corsica.

Pascal Paoli was the Garibaldi of his day. When his father in 1738 had
been driven from the island by the French, he had retired with him to
Naples where he entered a military college and followed the profession
of arms. The way was paved for his return by the disturbances in the
island in 1755, and so successful was he in his guerilla warfare as
general against the Genoese, the owners of Corsica, that they were
speedily driven to sue for peace. It was in a sort of lull in the storm
of hostilities that our traveller made his unexpected appearance, and
the adroit way in which he managed to lay his plans of action and to
carry them out with such complete success calls for our admiration. In
his _Tour_ he simply says that 'having resolved to pass some years
abroad (this is excellent, after his letter to Sir Andrew) for my
instruction and entertainment, I conceived a design of visiting the
Island of Corsica. I wished for something more than just the common
course of what is called the tour of Europe, and Corsica occurred to me
as a place where nobody else had been.' It may have been suggested to
him by Rousseau, who had been engaged in some vague scheme of
philandering philanthropy by which the wild philosopher was to play the
Solon and the Lycurgus of the distressed islanders, and establish a
fresh code of laws upon the basis of his new fraternity, but with which
'this steady patriot of the world alone,' as Canning styles him, 'the
friend of every country but his own,' managed to mix in a much more
practical way some not very honourable, if characteristic, intrigues for
the surrender of the island to France.

Bozzy, at all events, was determined to make a bold bid for fame.
Nothing like this had occurred, as an opening, during all his tour. The
dangers of the plan were fully known to him, and the possibility was
laid before his eyes of capture at the hands of the Barbary corsairs and
a term of imprisonment at Algiers. Our adventurer waited on the
commodore in command of the British squadron in the bay of Leghorn, and
he was provided with a passport, the value of which against the
threatened dangers does not