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Paoli was given to the world, Boswell conceived the plan of soliciting articles on Corsica from his friends and acquaintances, and issuing a volume on behalf of the islanders. "British Essays in favour of the Brave Corsicans" appeared in 1769, the very year of Paoli's defeat by the French, to whom the Genoese had finally sold the storm-vexed island. In September of this year, Paoli landed in England. Walpole, who hated Paoli and Boswell (and, indeed, almost everyone else), wrote in his "Memoirs of the Reign of George III,” “Paoli's character had been so advantageously exaggerated by Mr. Boswell's enthusiastic and entertaining account of him that the Opposition were ready to incorporate him in the list of popular tribunes. In that same category Walpole, too, had been willing to place him until he had the audacity to fight against the French. From that time on he became to Walpole a contemptible person, worthy of no better epithets than an "unheroic fugitive" and a dirty fellow."

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Paoli's reception in England, whither he fled after his defeat, was, however, flattering in the extreme. Boswell's account of it (here printed for the first time) is found in a letter to Sir Alexander Dick:

Our illustrious chief has been received here with the greatest honour. The King desired to see him pri

BRITISH ESSAYS

IN FAVOUR OF THE

BRAVE CORSICANS:

BY

SEVERAL HAND S.

COLLECTED AND PUBLISHED

BY JAMES BOSWELL, Esq:

In medium mors omnis abit, perit obruta virtus,
Nos in confpicua fociis, hoftique carina
Conftituere Dei, Præbebunt æquora teftes,
Præbebunt terræ, fummis dabit insula saxis.

LUCAN.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR EDWARD AND CHARLES DILLY,

IN THE POULTRY.

MDCCLXIX.

vately at the Queen's palace, where he went accordingly, and was a long time alone with his Majesty, who expressed himself in the most agreable manner as to Corsica.

I must tell you an anecdote which you will like. The King said, "I have read Boswell's book, which is well written [scritto con spirito]. May I depend upon it as an authentic account?" The General answered, "Your Majesty may be assured that every thing in that book is true, except the compliments which Mr. Boswell has been pleased to pay to his friend."

As for the later relations of Boswell and Paoli, are they not written in the "Life of Johnson"? If there be truth in that record, Paoli's affection for his eccentric young friend never wavered; it was apparently never necessary for Boswell to humour Paoli, and there were no storms of passion to endure, such as mark the more famous association of Boswell's life. For many years until, indeed, Boswell came to reside in London in 1786

General Paoli's house in South Audley Street was his headquarters during his London holiday. And who can doubt that, despite repeated fits of gloom, his presence there was grateful; for he came always as a harbinger of social joys, a bringer of new things, a perpetual enemy of inertia and sameTo the sons and daughters of respectability his presence was no doubt an offence; but to his friends, who had learned to love him for his very

ness.

oddities, his presence was a promise of gaiety and social converse, the very "nights and suppers of the gods" once more, brightening the workaday world.

CHAPTER VI

IN LOVE

Perhaps in Vanity Fair there are no better satires than letters... Vows, love, promises, confidences, gratitude, how queerly they read after a while! There ought to be a law in Vanity Fair ordering the destruction of every written document (except receipted tradesmen's bills) after a certain brief and proper interval. - THACKERAY.

IN all the varied business of living there is perhaps no matter which must be conducted more strictly according to rule and precedent than the business of wooing a wife. There is a recognised way of getting the thing accomplished (based, no doubt, on the instinct and experience of the race), and brave is the man who dares to adopt any other. "All the world loves a lover" - if he observes the conventions of the game; but if he does not, the world pours out upon the unfortunate creature the contempt which it always feels for those who do not accept its own methods.

One of these is furtiveness. There must be something clandestine about the first stages, if not all stages, of the process. Courtship is a kind of theft, and the amorous pair continue the policy of stealth long after their secret is known to the world. Indeed, the public demands it. If you

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