Boswell, as we know, had left Johnson “rolling his majestic frame in his usual manner” on Harwich beach in 1763, and was now on his travels.  Like many of his countrymen, he found his way to Lord Marischal, and here his indomitable passion for making the personal acquaintance of any one who was much talked about, naturally led him to seek so singular a character as the man who was now at Motiers.  What Rousseau thought of one who was as singular a character as himself in another direction, we do not know.[151] Lord Marischal warned Rousseau that his visitor is of excellent disposition, but full of visionary ideas, even having seen spirits—­a serious proof of unsoundness to a man who had lived in the very positive atmosphere of Frederick’s court at Berlin.  “I only hope,” says the sage Scot, of the Scot who was not sage, “that he may not fall into the hands of people who will turn his head:  he was very pleased with the reception you gave him."[152] As it happens, he was the means of sending Boswell to a place where his head was turned, though not very mischievously.  Rousseau was at that time full of Corsican projects, of which this is the proper place for us very briefly to speak.

The prolonged struggles of the natives of Corsica to assert their independence of the oppressive administration of the Genoese, which had begun in 1729, came to end for a moment in 1755, when Paoli (1726-1807) defeated the Genoese, and proceeded to settle the government of the island.  In the Social Contract Rousseau had said, “There is still in Europe one country capable of legislation, and that is the island of Corsica.  The valour and constancy with which this brave people has succeeded in recovering and defending its liberty, entitle it to the good fortune of having some wise man to teach them how to preserve it.  I have a presentiment that this little isle will one day astonish Europe,"[153]—­a presentiment that in a sense came true enough long after Rousseau was gone, in a man who was born on the little island seven years later than the publication of this passage.  Some of the Corsican leaders were highly flattered, and in August 1764, Buttafuoco entered into correspondence with Rousseau for the purpose of inducing him to draw up a set of political institutions and a code of laws.  Paoli himself was too shrewd to have much belief in the application of ideal systems, and we are assured that he had no intention of making Rousseau the Solon of his island, but only of inducing him to inflame the gallantry of its inhabitants by writing a history of their exploits.[154] Rousseau, however, did not understand the invitation in this narrower sense.  He replied that the very idea of such a task as legislation transported his soul, and he entered into it with the liveliest ardour.  He resolved to quarter himself with Theresa in a cottage in some lonely district in the island; in a year he would collect the necessary information as to the manners and opinions of the