MY EVER DEAR AND MUCH RESPECTED SIR,--You know my solemn enthusiasm of mind. You love me for it, and I respect myself for it, because in so far I resemble Mr Johnson. You will be agreeably surprized when you learn the reason of my writing this letter. I am at Wittenberg in Saxony. I am in the old church where the Reformation was first preached, and where some of the Reformers lie interred. I cannot resist the serious pleasure of writing to Mr Johnson from the tomb of Melancthon. My paper rests upon the gravestone of that great and good man who was undoubtedly the best of all the Reformers.... At this tomb, then, my ever dear and respected friend! I vow to thee an eternal attachment. It shall be my study to do what I can to render your life happy: and if you die before me, I shall endeavour to do honour to your memory and, elevated by the remembrance of you, persist in noble piety. May God, the father of all beings, ever bless you! and may you continue to love your most affectionate friend, and devoted servant,--JAMES BOSWELL.'
So early had Boswell made his resolve to be the biographer of Johnson. On the very day of his introduction to him, he had taken notes of all that had passed in Davies' back-parlour. He was none of the men that do things by halves, and blunder into a kind of success, as some of his depreciators have thought.
Six weeks he had been in Corsica. The first day of December saw him land at Genoa on his return, Lyons was reached on the third day of the new year, Paris one week later. Here Rousseau who had preceded him to London had provided him with a curious commission, the bringing over into England of his mistress Therese Levasseur. The easy-going Hume thus announces the fact to his friend the Countess de Boufflers. 'Mademoiselle sets out with a friend of mine, a young gentleman, very good humoured, very agreeable, and very mad. He has such a rage for literature that I dread some event fatal to my friend's honour. For remember the story of Terentia who was first married to Cicero, then to Sallust, and at last in her old age married a young nobleman, who imagined that she must possess some secret which would convey to him eloquence and genius.' A letter he found waiting from Johnson, together with one announcing the death of his mother. No more was heard about a second year at Utrecht. He crossed to London, and was again with his old friend, who had moved from the Temple to a good house in Johnson's Court, in Fleet Street. Goldsmith was no longer the obscure writer whom he had left behind, but the author of the _Vicar of Wakefield_ and the _Traveller_. The club had been founded. He was encouraged by the sage to publish his account of his travels in Corsica--'you cannot go to the bottom, but all that you tell us will be new.'