General Paoli

James Boswell befriended General Pasquale Paoli on a visit to Corsica, later making Paoli famous throughout all Europe, by publishing his “An Account of Corsica” (1768).  Paoli was perhaps one of the more honorable of Boswell’s companions, many of which were a point of concern for Boswell’s strict father.  An account of the elder Lord Auchinleck’s feelings in this regard is taken from John Gibson Lockhart’s “Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott”.

‘The following notices of Boswell himself, and his father, Lord Auchinleck, may be taken as literal transcripts from Scott’s Table-Talk:—

….“Old Lord Auchinleck was an able lawyer, a good scholar, after the manner of Scotland, and highly valued his own advantages as a man of good estate and ancient family; and, moreover, he was a strict Presbyterian and Whig of the old Scottish cast. This did not prevent his being a terribly proud aristocrat; and great was the contempt he entertained and expressed for his son James, for the nature of his friendship, and the character of the personages of whom he was engoué one after another. ‘There’s nae hope for Jamie, mon,’ he said to a friend. ‘Jamie is gane clean gyte. What do you think, mon? He’s done wi’ Paoli—he’s off wi’ the land louping scoundrel of a Corsican; and whose tail do you think he has pinned himself to now, mon?’ Here the old judge summoned up a sneer of most sovereign contempt. ‘A dominie, mon—an auld dominie! he keeped a schule, and caud it an acaadamy.’…’

Pasquale Paoli died on February 5^th, 1807.

Carlyle on Scott

'...Whether Sir Walter Scott was a great man, is still a question with some; but there can be no question with any one that he was a most noted and even notable man. In this generation there was no literary man with such a popularity in any country; there have only been a few with such, taking-in all generations and all countries. Nay, it is farther to be admitted that Sir Walter Scott's popularity was of a select sort rather; not a popularity of the populace. His admirers were at one time almost all the intelligent of civilised countries; and to the last included, and do still include, a great portion of that sort. Such fortune he had, and has continued to maintain for a space of some twenty or thirty years. So long the observed of all observers: a great man or only a considerable man; here surely, if ever, is a singular circumstanced, is a 'distinguished' man! In regard to whom, therefore, the 'instinctive tendency' on other men's part cannot be wanting. Let men look, where the world has already so long looked. And now, while the new, earnestly expected Life 'by his son-in-law and literary executor' again summons the whole world's attention round him, probably for the last time it will ever be so summoned; and men are in some sort taking leave of a notability, and about to go their way, and commit him to his fortune on the flood of things, - why should not this Periodical Publication likewise publish its thought about him? Readers of miscellaneous aspect, of unknown quantity and quality, are waiting to hear it done. With small inward vocation, but cheerfully obedient to destiny and necessity, the present reviewer will follow a multitude: to do evil or tw do no evil, will depend not on the multitude but on himself. One thing he did decidedly wish; at least to wait till the Work were finished: for the six promised Volumes, as the world knows, have flowed over into a Seventh, which will not for some weeks yet see the light. But the editorial powers, wearied with waiting, have become peremptory; and declare that, finished or not finished, they will have their hands washed of it at this opening of the year. Perhaps it is best. The physiognomy of Scott will not be much altered for us by that Seventh Volume; the prior Six have altered it but little; - as, indeed, a man who has written some two hundred volumes of his own, and lived for thirty years amid the universal speech of friends, must have already left some likeness of himself. Be it as the peremptory editorial powers require...'

Thomas Carlyle was a prolific writer.  His death on February 5, 1881 was posted on last year.  His birth also (December 4, 1795).  That post focused on Carlyle's focus on great men.  Today's post provides a bit more of Carlyle's thinking on Sir Walter Scott. 

Passing a Gift from Goethe to Scott

Thomas Carlyle died on February 5, 1881.  Carlyle, and his absorption in "great men, heroic leaders" was covered in an earlier post.  He sent at least two letters to Walter Scott.  On April 13, 1828, he notified Scott that he had received a letter from Goethe that contained the poet's thanks for a copy of Scott's Life of Napoleon, and two medals intended as a gift for Scott.  The medals contained images of Goethe himself.  Carlyle makes clear he would like to meet Scott, and offers to bring or send the medals to him.  Scott did not reply.

Carlyle's second letter, on May 23, 1828, references the earlier letter, and the fact that it had not been answered.  Goethe comments in an advertisement to "The Life of Napoleon":

"Walter Scott passed his childhood among the stirring scenes of the American War, and was a youth of 17 or 18 when the French Revolution broke out.  Now well advanced in the fifties, having all along been favorably placed for observation, he proposes to lay before us his views and recollections of the important events through which he has lived..."