dence; a slave, yet a braggart of his freedom-returned once again to Paris, from which, after a brief, restless stay, he finally set out for one of the adjacent provinces, there to close his eyes and die. The manner of his death has been variously related. Some say that he committed suicide; others, that he was attacked with a fit of epilepsy; others, that he fell a victim to that unconquerable dejection which for years had been preying on and withering the energies of his mind and body. In this state of doubt we shall, as a matter of course, incline to the charitable side, and take as our guide a slight memoir penned a few days after his decease, and widely circulated throughout Paris. According to this narrative, Rousseau had been ailing for some weeks; but it was not until within a day or two of his death that he anticipated the slightest danger. His love of nature-and this, be it said to his honor, was an enthusiastic passion that neither age nor infirmity could quench-remained with him to the last. He rambled daily to a summer-house situated at the bottom of his garden, and there, seated with some favorite book in his hand, would send his thoughts abroad into eternity, on whose threshold he was even then unconsciously standing. A few friends who lived near him, and who, by respecting his infirmities, had, somehow or other, contrived to preserve his good opinion, occasionally called in to see him; and to them only was his approaching change apparent he himself was alternately sanguine and desponding to the last. On the morning of his dissolution, he had risen sooner than usual, and after passing the earlier parts of the day in pain, grew considerably better towards evening, and requested to be wheeled out in a low garden-chair towards his favorite summer-house. The day until twelve o'clock had been clouded, but it cleared up at noon, and the freshness of the air, the hum of the insects, and the fragrant perfume of the flowers as they lifted up their heads after the rain, revived the languid spirits of the invalid. For a few minutes he remained absorbed in thought, in which state he was found by a neighbor who had accidentally called in to pay him a visit. "See," said Rousseau, as he approached, "how beautifully the sun is setting! I know not why it is, but a presentiment has just come over me, that I am not doomed to survive it. Yet I should scarcely like to go before it has set, for it will be a satisfaction to me-strange, perhaps, as it may seem to you that we should both leave the world together." His friend (it is he himself that relates the story) was struck by the singular melancholy of this remark, more especially as the philosopher's countenance bore but too evident an impress of its probable truth. Accordingly, he strove with officious kindness to divert the stream of Rousseau's thoughts: he talked to him of indifferent matters, hoping thereby that he would regain his cheerfulness, but was concerned to find that every attempt was vain. Rousseau, at all times an egotist, was now solely occupied in the contemplation of himself and his approaching change. His thoughts were immovably fixed on death: he felt, he repeatedly exclaimed, that he was fast declining; and, every now and then, after closing his eyes for a minute or so, would languidly open them again, as if for the purpose of remarking what progress the sun had made towards the west. He remained in this state of stupor for a considerable time, when suddenly he shook it off, gazed about him with nearly all his wonted animation, and after bursting into a feeble rhapsody about his unwearied love for nature, turned full towards the sun, with the devotional aspect of a Parsee. By this time, the evening had far advanced, and his friend endeavored to persuade him to return into the house. But no; his last moments, he was resolved, should be spent in the open air. And they were so. Scarcely had the sun set, when the eyes of Rousseau began al so to close; his breath grew thicker, self and fortunes to an atheist. By and was drawn at longer intervals; he this person she has a large family; but, strove to speak, but finding the effort though guiltless of infidelity towards vain, turned towards the friend at his him, her mind has received a taint : elbow, and pointed with his hand in she is, in fact, a speculative adultress, the direction of the red orb, which from whose impassioned soul the wife just at that moment dropped behind is unable to root out the mistress. the horizon. This was his last feeble Her very last letter-that affecting movement: an instant longer, and composition which it is scarcely posRousseau had ceased to live. sible to read without tears-though dated from a death-bed, breathes the spirit of guilty and incurable infatuation. To make matters worse, the object of this infatuation returns, after a long absence, from abroad; and, notwithstanding that his presence must be a perpetual memento of the past, replete with danger, Madame de Wolmar (the married name of Eloise) receives him with unfeigned ecstacy, and not only insists on his taking up his abode exclusively with her, but (grateful, no doubt, for the valuable moral principles which he had instilled into her own mind) is indiscreet-not to say mad-enough to propose him as a tutor to her children. As if her own invitation were not sufficient, her husband is persuaded to add his entreaties, even though that husband has been previously made acquainted with the circumstance of Saint Preux's former intimacy with his wife. Now all this, we roundly assert, is monstrous, and has no prototype in nature. When we say no prototype, we would be understood to mean that it has never been, and never will be, found connected with that refined sensibility and exquisite sense of decorum with which Rousseau has invested these inconsistent creations of his fancy. A wife anxious for her children's morals, proud of her husband, and passionately devoted to the pure and simple enjoyments of home, would never peril her own reputation, or that of her family, by encouraging an attachment framed in guilt, and at variance with the most obvious duties. If, however, she did encourage such attachment, she would not rest satisfied, as Eloise-and herein lies an additional violation of nature-is represented to have been, with the mere We stop not to detail the particulars of the sensation that his death occasioned throughout France; but, contenting ourselves with this brief and meagre, but impartial memoir, come at once to the consideration of his character as an author. And here, if we could forget the insidious principles that every where pervade his works, and lurk like thorns beneath the flowers of his intellect, our task would be one of unmixed praise. But we cannot do so; a regard to the decencies of life compels us to remember that the writings of Rousseau teem with the most pestilential doctrines, couched in language so beautiful, so eloquent, that the fancy is flattered, while the judgment is wheedled on to its destruction. The Eloise that unequalled model of style and grace-is full of a certain captivating simplicity that seems the inspiration of an unsophisticated nature. sets out on wrong principles; it requires the reader to grant that female modesty and virtue are consistent with immoral indulgences, that vice is only vice when detected, and that the heart is the best and most correct moral guide through life. This last is an extravagant Utopian doctrine, at variance with principle, at variance with all that has made society what it is, and still contributes to preserve its decorum. Yet it is the key to unlock the mysteries of Eloise. The heroine is there represented as a young lady full of superlative sensibility, without judgment, without principle, though eternally boasting of both. But it Attached enthusiastically to Saint Preux, the friend and instructer of her youth, she is yet compelled, by the force of circumstances, to link her theoretical enjoyments of guilt: she would at once reduce speculation to practice. In like manner, a husband described as being endowed with an almost romantic sense of honor, and even with a sceptical turn of mind that had its origin in principle, would never, consistently with these qualities, look with indifference on the hazardous condition of a wife who trod daily on a precipice enwreathed with flowers he would either snatch her from the brink, or perish with her. But, supposing he relied on her virtuous self-possession for her safety, he would then show himself utterly unacquainted with the human heart; so that, in either sense, whether viewed as a man of the world, or a man of honor, (and Rousseau invests him with both qualities in the extreme,) Monsieur de Wolmar must be set down as a picturesque but ludicrous anomaly. As the characters of the Eloise are unnatural, so also are the sentiments -those, at least, which profess to adapt themselves to reality. They are couched, as we before observed, in sweet and honied language, yet inculcate the most pernicious morals. They bubble up with apparent artlessness from a good and benevolent heart, yet are tainted all over with miasma. Vice is taught to lisp the sentiments of a generous wisdom: the language of the Cecropian Pallas is mouthed by the Cyprian Venus; Eloise prates of chastity, St. Preux of reason, and both, of the charms of patriarchal innocence and simplicity. It was upon a principle pretty similar to this, and at least with equal sincerity, that the Gracchi complained of sedition. It has been the object with many undoubted moral authors, to paint the fascinations of vice in the most alluring colors, in order to contrast it afterwards with the penalties it must pay perforce to virtue, and thus to work out a more obvious and impressive homily. This is not the case with Rousseau. Vice, throughout his Eloise, robed in the garb of modesty, is triumphant; she is even pitied, and monopolizes the tears due to her celestial adversary. Who, except by the determined efforts of a strong mind, can bear for an instant to condemn Madame de Wolmar-the beautiful-the sensitive-the confiding? Who can forget the highwrought, impassioned youth, her exceeding love of nature, of art, of all, in short, that contributes to the grace, the ornament, and the simplicity of existence ? Even up to the present moment, though years have elapsed, fashions have changed, and literature has diverged into new channels, she is ever visibly before us. The rocks of Meillerie breathe of her-Clarens is eloquent of her name-Vevay whispers it through all her woods—and the evening breeze, as it sighs over the blue waters of Geneva, repeats the last parting that rent the souls of herself and her unforgotten lover. She has a distinct-a separate-an undivided existence in our memories: for the Eloise, be it observed, is not a book to be laid aside with childhood; it grows with our growth, and strengthens with our strength; we abjure its principles, but, despite ourselves, we hug its sensibility to our hearts; and even when we repudiate it as the true Liber Amoris, or Book of Love, it puts forth new claims to our admiration by its exuberant fulness of ideas, its ingenious sophistry, and faultless style. We own throughout its pages the presence of a powerful and analytical mind, that has studied deeply studied-the origin and progress of even its slightest emotions, and noted them down, fresh as they rose, one after the other, from patient and acute investigation, with all the overwhelming earnestness of sincerity. the The "Confessions," like "Eloise," abounds in impassioned sentiment, but possesses in parts a vein of indignant sarcasm, of which the other is devoid. It is the history and a mournful one it is-of Rousseau's own mind; of his progress from childhood to age, from first enthusiasm to final despair. It is full of detailed accounts of his connexion with Madame de Warrens, Theresa, and his unrequited fondness for Madame de Houdetot, the plain but faithful mistress of Saint Lambert. It is, in fact, the autobiography of an ardent, self-willed mind, at one time capable of the loftiest flights of virtue; at another, equal to the most contemptible misdeeds. What can be more inconsistent than the candor that could afford to acknowledge that, in order to avoid punishment, it falsely accused a poor, unfriended maiden of theft, and the meanness that could stoop to act so? But, from first to last, Rousseau was the child of caprice: his actions were all impulses they could never be relied on. With regard to the literary excellence of his Confessions, it is lavish and splendid in the extreme. Each chapter abounds (as suits occasion) in passages of unaffected simplicity, of glowing declamation, of energetic scorn, and sweet descriptive beauty. In proof of this, we may adduce Rousseau's account of his first introduction to Madame de Houdetot-of his solitary walk every morning, to steal one kiss from this idol of his enthusiasm of his proud expectations -unwearied attachment, which neither absence on his own part, nor indifference on that of his mistress, could extinguish-and of his subsequently blighted hopes. Nor is that passage to be forgotten wherein he describes his ecstatic feeling of enjoy ment, while sailing about at evening in his boat, far away from the sight of the human countenance, and surrounded only by the grandest forms of nature-the towering mountain-the shrubless crag, the soft, luxuriant meadow, through whose daisied herbage wound a hundred silver rivulets, sparkling in the red sunset, and lapsing on their course in music and in happiness. Yet the whole passagebeautiful as it undoubtedly is, and conceived in the rapt fervor of poetic inspiration-is false to nature, and equivocal in sentiment. It is in direct contradiction to the experience of ages-surely entitled to some little Of deference even from so headlong a reformer as Rousseau-which has left it on the records of a thousand volumes that the unreasonable indulgence of solitude is a factitious feeling, engendered by a diseased, and confirmed by an unsocial intellect. Amid passages, however, of such doubtful (to say the least of them) sensibility, it is delightful to catch now and then glimpses of another and a nobler nature. It is like the bursting in of sudden sunshine upon November's gloom. such a redeeming character is Rousseau's account of the periwinkle, which by accident he picked up in one of his Alpine botanical excursions. His simple exclamation of delight at the recognition, "Ah, voilà la pervenche!" goes deeper to the heart than a thousand elaborate homilies. It was not the mere flower itself, but the associations thereby engendered, that filled the philosopher's eyes with tears, as he pressed it with fervor to his lips. Eight and thirty years before, while rambling with Madame de Warrens through the same neighborhood, he had gathered that very flow er. Time had nearly effaced the circumstance from his mind-age had crept over him—the object of his un. ceasing attachment had been long since consigned to earth; but here was a talisman to recal the past; this little simple mountain-plant bore about with it a magic power that could roll back the wheels of time, and array a haggard soul in the same sweet freshness which it wore in the morning of existence. As regards the pervading spirit of the Confessions, it is a work which sets out in a pensive vein of reflection, and terminates in the darkest, the fiercest misanthropy. Yet, whether for good or evil-whether to sear with scorn, or melt with tenderness-the spirit of a mighty genius moves along each page, free, undisguised, and unchartered as the wind. Indeed, had Rousseau shown but half as much talent in palliating misery as he has shown in forestalling and aggravating it, he would have been the greatest man that ever existed. But baneful as is the character of his productions, they inculcate the Confessions more especially-an impressive, but unconscious moral. They convince the unformed, wavering mind, that true happiness is only to be found where it holds in respect the social and the moral duties; that sensibility, without principle, is like the tower built by the fool upon the sands, which the very first wave swept into annihilation; and that every departure from reason is a departure from enjoyment, even though companioned by supreme abilities. Having thus discussed impartially the character of Rousseau's chief works, it remains, as some slight apology for their obliquities, to say a few words respecting the age in which he flourished. He wrote at a period when the French mind, drugged with a long course of anodyne literature, made up from prescriptions unchanged through a tedious succession of ages, was eagerly prepared to receive any alterative that might exhilarate its intellectual constitution. Previous to his time, France was trammelled by Aristotelian regulations, which, whether for the drama, the closet, or the senate, prescribed one uniform style of composition-correct, but coldpolished, but insipid; founded essentially on the imitative, and deprecating-as was the case with the Augustan age in England, which derived its mental character from the French court-any departure from the old established classics of Greece and Rome as downright unadulterated heresy. Voltaire was the first to break through the ice of this formality he threw a vivifying power into literature, which sparkled with a thousand coruscations, and drew forth the dormant energies of others. Rousseau was one of the master-spirits thus warmed into life: his predecessor, by his novel and brilliant paradoxes, had triumphantly led the way; France was henceforth prepared to be astonished-overwhelmed-electrified; and Rousseau answered every expectation. This, perhaps, is but a poor apology for vice, that it adapts itself to the taste of the day; nevertheless, every man is more or less fashioned by the age in which he lives—few having, like our divine, unsullied Milton, the fortitude to precede it ;-and if the gross immoralities of Beaumont and Fletcher, and still worse, of Congreve, Vanburgh, and Farquhar, are excused from consideration of the period in which they flourished, surely the same extenuating principle may with justice be applied to Rousseau ? In addition to this, it must not be forgotten that his sentiments, however revolting they may appear to Englishmen, were, literally speaking, the received opinions of his country. They grew out of a courtly system of fashion which visited only with condemnation an uncouth person, bad address, churlish temper, or clownish dialect. At such a demoralized period-the necessary precursor of a revolution which should clear the polluted atmosphere-a man of first rate ability, a pander to the elegant sensuality of the age (which, according to Burke, lost "half its danger in losing all its grossness"), and an unflinching philosopher of the new school, was not likely to pass unnoticed. Rousseau felt this, wrote accordingly, and rendered himself immortal and a wretch. The secret of his success he has himself explained in a published conversation with Burke, wherein he observes, that finding the old vehicle of literature was crazy and worn out, he took upon himself the task of renewing the springs, repainting the panels, and gilding the whole machine afresh. In other words, he resolved to extend the pathetic, deepen the unsocial, and pervert what little was left, of moral and religious sensibility among his countrymen. In this he too happily succeeded; but what were the penalties he paid for such success? The answer is tremendous! A shipwrecked character-a broken heart—a brilliant but unenviable immortality. One word more. Rousseau has been frequently styled the champion, |