had for his mistress’ (Letters to Erskine, p. 101), and he had persuaded his father to let him return thither, still with a view to a commission in the guards. He reached it in November 1762, and immediately plunged into the pleasures of the town.
Lord Hailes had impressed upon Boswell a veneration for Johnson. Gentleman had mimicked ‘Dictionary Johnson’ in Glasgow. Boswell had made acquaintance on his first visit to London with Derrick, afterwards Nash's successor at Bath, who promised an introduction, but did not find an opportunity. In 1761 the elder Sheridan had lectured in Edinburgh and made the same offer. When Boswell reached London, Derrick was at Bath, and a coolness had separated Sheridan from Johnson. Boswell, however, made the acquaintance of Davies, the actor, who now kept a bookseller's shop at 8 Russell Street, Covent Garden. And here, 16 May 1763, the famous introduction of his future biographer to Johnson took place. The friendship rapidly ripened. Boswell had evenings alone with Johnson at the Mitre, was taken to see his library by Levett, saw him in company with Goldsmith, introduced his friend Temple and another friend, Dempster, whose freethinking principles were sternly rebuked by Johnson (Letters to Temple, p. 33); made notes of the great man's conversation from the first interview, and received from him much good advice. Johnson encouraged Boswell to keep a full journal, and said that he would some day go with his new friend to the Hebrides.
Lord Auchinleck was meanwhile threatening to disinherit his son (Rogers, Boswell, p. 35), and in June Boswell had agreed to pacify his father by going to study civil law at Utrecht. Johnson exhorted Boswell to he steady, and accompanied him to Harwich in the stage-coach, leaving London 5 Aug. 1765, Boswell started with an allowance of 240l, a year from his father (Letters to Temple, p. 37), with plenty of letters of recommendation, and with a resolution to study the civil law and to transcribe Erskine’s ‘Institutes.’ He studied through the winter, and became intimate with Trotz, a distinguished professor of civil law, and with William Brown, pastor of the English congregation, and afterwards professor at St. Andrews; but he could not stay out the intended two years. In July 1764 he was at Berlin, whither he probably travelled in company with the Earl Marischal, who was at the same time returning to Berlin from a visit to Scotland (Streckeisen-Moulton, Rousseau, i. 103–11). Boswell attached himself to the British ambassador Mitchell. He wrote to his father, asking for supplies for a voyage to Italy. The reply ordered a return to Utrecht, though it permitted a visit to Paris. Boswell complained to Mitchell in a long letter full of sage rellections upon his own character. Mitchell advised implicit compliance with paternal authority. Boswell meanwhile had gone to Geneva, where he visited Voltaire at Ferney, and went to Rousseau at Motiers, with an introduction from the Earl Marischal, who, as governor of Neufchatel, had protected Rousseau (Bisset, Memoirs or Mitchell, ii. 381).
Marischal tells Rousseau that Boswell is a hypochondriac visionary who often sees spirits. On 26 Dec, 1764 Boswell (writing from Geneva) triumphantly tells Mitchell that his father has now consented to let him travel in Italy. He sneers at the ambassador's previous counsels of submission, and in the same breath proposes to him a little job. By getting a place in the customs for the now bankrupt father of Temple and doing something for Temple’s younger brother, ‘you will oblige a worthy fellow, for such I am’ (Bisset, Memoirs of Sir A. Mitchell, ii. 351–358). In Italy Boswell added Wilkes to his list of friends. He wrote from Rome in April to remind Rousseau-just now expecting to be the Solon of Corsica, of a promised introduction to Paoli (Tour in Corsica, p. 264). If it did not come, said Boswell, he should still go, and probably be hanged as a spy. The letter reached Boswell, however, at Florence in August. He crossed from Leghorn to Corsica; saw the great Paoli; talked politics to him and declared himself a kind of Hamlet, a man given to melancholy, bewildered by fruitless metaphysical wanderings, and ‘for ever incapable of taking a part in active life.’ He also took the liberty of asking Paoli ‘a thousand questions with regard to the most minute and private circumstances of his life.’ He rode out on Paoli's own horse, with ‘furniture of crimson velvet’ and ‘broad gold lace;’ he exulted in being taken for an English ambassador; he played Scotch airs and sang ‘Hearts of Oak’ to the Corsican peasantry; quoted Johnson's best sayings to the cultivated; and announces, in a letter to Rousseau. ‘Ce voyage m'a fait un bien merveilleux. Il m'a rendu comme si toutes les vies de Plutarque fussent fondues dans mon esprit’ (Musset-Pathay, Œuvres inédites de Rousseau, i. 410). Rousseau, meanwhile, was on his way to England. Hume announces (12 Jan. 1766) that Thérèse Levasseur, Rousseau’s mistress, is to be escorted to England ‘by a friend of mine—very good-humoured, very agreeable, and very mad.' This was Boswell, who reached England in February 1766, and, after a short stay in
