relates to Paoli," he said, "will amuse you much." What merely amused Walpole "moved" Gray "strangely." It moved others besides him. Subscriptions were raised for the Corsicans, and money and arms were sent to them from this country. Boswell writes to tell his friend Temple-"I have hopes that our Government will interfere. In the meantime, by a private subscription in Scotland, I am sending this week £700 worth of ordnance." Other subscriptions were forwarded which Paoli, as is told in a letter from him published in the "Gentleman's Magazine,"*" applied to the support of the families of those patriots who, abhorring a foreign yoke, have abandoned their houses and estates in that part of the country held by the enemy, and have retired to join our army."

Boswell's work met with a rapid sale. The copyright he sold to Dilly for one hundred guineas. The publisher must have made no small gain by the bargain, for a third edition was called for within a year. "My book," writes Boswell, "has amazing celebrity: Lord Lyttelton, Mr. Walpole, Mrs. Macaulay, Mr. Garrick have all written me noble letters about it." With his Lordship's letter he was so much delighted that in the third edition he obtained leave to use it to "enrich" his book. Johnson pronounced his Journal in a very high degree curious and delightful. It is surprising that a work which

* "Gentleman's Magazine," vol. xxxix., p. 214.

like other histories.

thus delighted Johnson, moved Gray strangely, and amused Horace Walpole, can now be met with only in old libraries and on the shelves of a dealer in second-hand books. I doubt whether a new edition has been published in the last hundred years. It is still more surprising when we remember that it is the work of an author who has written a book "that is likely to be read as long as the English exists, either as a living or as a dead language." The explanation of this, I take it, is to be found in the distinction that Johnson draws between Boswell's Account of Corsica, which forms more than two-thirds of the whole book, and the Journal of his Tour. His history, he said, was It was copied from books. His Journal rose out of his own experience and observation. His history was read, and perhaps read with eagerness, because at the time when it appeared there was a strong interest felt in the Corsicans. In despair of maintaining their independence, they had been willing to place themselves and their island entirely under the protection of Great Britain. The offer had been refused, but they still hoped for our assistance Not a few Englishmen felt with Lord Lyttelton when he wrote "I wish with you that our Government had shown more respect for Corsican liberty, and I think it disgraces our nation that we do not live in good friendship with a brave people engaged in the

noblest of all contests, a contest against tyranny." But in such a contest as this Corsica was before long to play a different part. Scarcely four years after Boswell from some distant hill "had a fine view of Ajaccio and its environs," that town was rendered famous by the birth of Napoleon Buonaparte.

With whatever skill Boswell's history had been compiled it could not have lived. There were not, indeed, the materials out of which a history that should last could have been formed. The whole island boasted of but one printing press and one bookseller's shop. The feuds and wars of the wild islanders might have lived in the songs of the poet, but were little fit for the purposes of the historian. He who attempts to write the history of such a people is almost forced to accept tradition for fact, and to believe in their Arthurs and their Tells. The Corsicans are, indeed, from time to time found in one or other of the great tracks of European history. As Boswell says, their island had belonged to the Phoenicians, the Etruscans, the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Goths, and the Saracens. It had been conquered by France, and had been made a gift from that kingdom to the Pope. It had been given by the Pope to the Pisans, and from them had passed to the Republic of Genoa. It had undergone strange and rapid revolutions, but they were those common revolutions that befall a wild race that lives in the midst of powerful neighbours.

Boswell, unsurpassed though he is as a biographer, admirable as he is as a writer of a Journal, yet had little of the stuff out of which an historian is made. His compilation is a creditable performance for a young man who had but lately returned home from his travels. It certainly adds nothing to the reputation of the author of the "Life of Johnson." But while it lies overwhelmed with deserved neglect, it ought not to drag down with it the Journal of his Tour. That portion of the work is lively, is interesting, and is brief. It can be read with pleasure now, as it was read with pleasure when it first appeared. But, besides this, it is interesting to us as the early work of a writer whose mind has been a puzzle to men of letters. Even should we accept Macaulay's judgment on Boswell, and despise him as he despises him, yet it must surely be worth while to examine closely the early writings of an author, who has, "in an important department of literature, immeasurably surpassed such writers as Tacitus, Clarendon, Alfieri, and his own idol Johnson."* This Journal is like the youthful sketch of some great artist. It exhibits the merits which, later on, distinguished, in so high a degree the mature writer.

Together with the " Journal of a Tour to Corsica," I am reprinting a volume of letters that passed between Boswell and his friend The Honourable

Andrew Erskine. Lively and amusing though they often are, yet I should not have proposed to republish them did not they throw almost as much light on Boswell's character as the Journal throws light on his powers as a writer. In his account of Corsica, there is a passage in which, while describing the historian Petrus Cyrnaeus, he at the same time describes himself. "The fourth book of Petrus Cyrnaeus," he says, "is entirely taken up with an account of his own wretched vagabond life, full of strange, whimsical anecdotes. He begins it very gravely: 'Quoniam ad hunc locum perventum est, non alienum videtur de Petri qui haec scripsit vita et moribus proponere.' 'Since we are come thus far it will not be amiss to say something of the life and manners of Petrus, who writeth this history.' He gives a very excellent character of himself, and, I dare say, a very faithful one. minute is his narration, that he takes care to inform posterity that he was very irregular in his method of walking, and that he preferred sweet wine to hard. In short, he was a man of considerable parts, with a great simplicity and oddity of character."

But so

To the simplicity and oddity of character that Boswell shared with this learned historian, there was certainly added not a little impudence. It was an impudence that was lively and amusing; but none the less was it downright impudence. We