th such protection as a British
Captain's letter could give him against Barbary Corsairs, he sailed
from Leghorn to Corsica in September 1765. His account of the island
and of his tour there, published in 1768, is still very good reading.
He soon made his way to the palace where Paoli was residing, with whom
he at first felt himself in a presence more awe-inspiring than that of
princes, but ventured after a while upon a compliment to the Corsicans.
"Sir, I am upon my travels, and have lately visited Rome. I am come
from seeing the ruins of one brave and free people: I now see the rise
of another." The good sense of Paoli declined any parallel between
Rome and his own little people, but he soon received Boswell into his
intimacy and spent some hours alone with him almost every day. One
fine answer of his, uniting the scholar and the patriot, is worth
quoting. Boswell asked him how he, who confessed to his love of
society and particularly of the society of learned and cultivated men,
could be content to pass his life in an island where no such advantages
were to be had; to which Paoli replied at once--

"Vincit amor patriae laudumque immensa cupido."

{79}

Well might Boswell wish to have a statue of him taken at that moment.
Even Virgilian quotation has seldom been put to nobler use. Like all
the great men of the eighteenth century, Paoli was an enthusiast for
the ancients. "A young man who would form his mind to glory," he told
Boswell, "must not read modern memoirs; _ma Plutarcho, ma Tito Livio_."
His own mind was formed not only to glory, but also to what so often
fails to go with glory, to justice and moderation. Nothing is more
remarkable in the conversations with him recorded by Boswell than his
good sense and fairness of mind in speaking of the Genoese. Even in
the excitement of Corsica, Boswell did not forget Johnson. He says
that he quoted specimens of Johnson's wisdom to Paoli, who "translated
them to the Corsican heroes with Italian energy"; and, as he had
written to his master "from the tomb of Melanchthon sacred to learning
and piety," so he also wrote to him "from the palace of Pascal Paoli
sacred to wisdom and liberty." Boswell was received with great honour
in Corsica, no doubt partly because he was very naturally supposed to
have some mission from the British Government. He left the island in
December and arrived in London in February 1766, when his intimacy with
Johnson was at once resu