CHAP, xn.] NEWS FOR THE CLUB.

gaily, " we will not go to the Mitre to-night, since we cannot
" have the hig man with us." Whereupon the hig man,
laughing at the jovial Irish phrase, called for a bottle of
port; of which, adds Boswell, " Goldsmith and I partook,
" while our friend, now a water drinker, sat by us." *

One does not discover, in such anecdotes as these, what
honest though somewhat dry Joe Warton calls Goldsmith's
solemn coxcombry. But beside Boswell's effulgence in that
kind, any lesser light could hardly hope to shine. Even
to the great commoner himself, at whose unapproachable
seclusion all London had so lately been amazed, and who
at length, with little abatement of the haughty mystery, had
reappeared in the House of Commons, was he now resolved,
before leaving London, to force his way. Corsican Paoli
was the card to play for this mighty Pam; and already he
had sent mysterious intimation to Pitt of certain views of the
struggling patriot, of the illustrious Paoli, which he desired
to communicate to " the prime minister of the brave, the
" secretary of freedom and of spirit." "Wonder reigned at
the club when they found the interview granted, and
inextinguishable laughter when they heard of the interview
itself. Profiting by Eousseau's Armenian example, Boswell
went in Corsican robes. " He carne in the Corsican dress,"
says Lord Buchan, who was present; " and Mr. Pitt smiled;
" but received him very graciously, in his pompous manner." f
It was an advantage the young Scot followed up; very soon
inflicting on Pitt a brief history of himself. He described
his general love of great people, and how that Mr. Pitt's

* ii. 318.

f "In consequence of this letter," wrote Lord Buchan on the back of one of
Boswell's epistles, "I desired him to call at Mr. Pitt's, and took care to be with
'' him when he was introduced. Mr. Pitt was then in the Duke of Grafton's house
" in Great-bond-street. .. Boswell had genius, but wanted ballast to counteract his,
'«whim. He preferred being a showman to keeping a shop of his own." physician, retired to a small town, does to his practice in a great