ficient accuracy. We have had frequent occafions of giving our fentiments; and, without the exaggerations of enthufiafm, or the depreciation, of prejudice, have at different times endea voured to fix the real character, and appreciate the various merits of this fingular excentric man. The publication of confeffions was not a new defign: many celebrated men of the 9th, 11th, and 15th centuries had written fimilar teftaments; and we ftill remember the advice of the uncle of Bayard, the testament of Pithon, and that of de l'Hôpital. The Confeffions of Rouffeau give us a pleasure probably lefs pure and unadulterated than thofe other works: we view, with great fatisfaction, a faithful picture of the heart endued with the most exquifite fenfibility, of a foul refined fo delicately, as to feel the highest pain or pleasure from circumstances which others would have scarcely noticed, or foon forgotten; but we do not perceive the neceffity there was, at the time he drew his own picture, for expofing the foibles and weaknesses of his friends. Thefe memoirs, it may be faid, were to appear only after his death; but this is no excufe, when we reflect that the remembrance of a perfon furvives him, and his character influences the credit of his defcendants. But let us attend to our author's own apology.

These Memoirs were not interefting on account of the facts: I thought that they might be fo in confequence of the franknefs difplayed in them; and I refolved to compose a work which fhould be fingular in its kind, by a veracity without example, that, for once, man might be feen without difguife. I always fmiled at the pretended ingenuoufnefs of Montaigne, who affecting to own his faults, has aimed only at rendering himfelf amiable; while I felt, though I thought and ftill think myself, on the whole, the best of men, that the purest mind must conceal fome odious vice.' In another place he adds, I have told the truth: if any person contradict what I say, whatever proofs he may produce, he is a liar and an impoftor; and, if he refufes to examine and explain thefe difputed cir cumstances with me, while I am alive, he loves neither justice nor truth. For my own part I declare it boldly, and without apprehenfion, whoever, even without having read my writings, will examine with his own eyes, my difpofition, my cha racter, my manners, my propenfities, my pleafures, my habits, and will believe me a dishonest man, himself deferves to be hanged,' (eft lui mème un homme a ctouffer).-Avaunt falfe delicacy! Rouffeau muft fpeak in English as he has written in French.

We fee, in every part of this work, the picture of a man finglehearted rather than fimple; gloomy, but juft and good; always doubting of happiness; whofe fenfibility rifes to an extreme fufceptibility, an acuteness of feeling which gives an air of imporrance to common events, and enlarges little objects so as to fill the mind like thofe which are vaft and magnificent. Nothing

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is lefs founded than this general confpiracy against him, of which he tells us in every page, he is going to give proofs. Yet it is certain that the greater number of philofophers on the continent feemed jealous of his fuccefs. But what man has not experienced the perfidy of a friend? What author of credit has efcaped the envy of his rivals? And Rouffeau, whom so many of his readers feemed to adore, had certainly many fubjects of confolation. It was to Terefa, of whom he fpeaks fo much, and on whom he rested with confidence, that he owed many of his misfortunes. Her accufations, fcarcely ever fupported, were the caufes of his fufpecting to many of his friends. She feems to have foured his temper, and to have cherished that diffruit, the disease of his imagination, to render herself more neceffary. It is incredible that a man like Rouffeau could have pailed his life with fuch a creature: he has himfelf drawn her picture.

I wished at firft to form her mind, but I lost my la' our. I blush not to own that he could never read, though he writes tolerably well. At the hotel of Pontchartrain, I had oppofite my windows a fun-dial, on which I laboured for a month to teach her the hours: fhe fcarcely knows them at this moment. She could never count the twelve months in their order, and knows not a fingle figure, notwithstanding all the pains I have taken to point them out to her. She knows not how to reckon money, nor the price of any thing. Her words are almost al ways the oppofites of what he means to fay. I once made a dictionary of her phrafes to amufe madame de Luxembourg; and her errors were fashionable among those with whom I then lived.' Such was the woman who poffeffed a heart which many amiable well-informed women would have been happy to have obtained.

The principal charm of this work, we have faid, lies in the author's talent of making the most trifling objects, and even thofe childish events which would have difgufted in other hands, interefting: numerous examples occur in the former books, and there are many fimilar ones in the Supplement. We shall extract a fingle instance of this kind.

In fpeaking of his refidence in Venice, where he was fecretary to the embaffador from France, he tells us of his frequenting the most celebrated amufements in this city, and his tafte for the Venetian operas. But, fays he, a kind of music, in my opinion, much fuperior to that of the operas, which has nothing refembling it in Italy or in the rest of the world, is that of the icuole. These scuole are houses of charity established for the education of young girls without a fortune, to whom the fate gives portions, either in marriage or to go into a cloyfier. Music is one of the principal talents cultivated among these young women. Every Sunday, at the churches of these four feuole, at the vefpers, motets are executed with a grand chorus accompanied by a large orchestra. They are compofed and directed by the chief maiters in Italy, and performed in grated galleries

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only by girls, the oldest of whom is not more than twenty. I have no idea of any thing fo voluptuous or fo interefting as this mufic. The riches of the art, the exquifite tafte of the airs, the beauty of the voices, and the juftnefs of the execution; every thing in thefe delicious concerts contributes to produce an impreffion which is not perhaps in the best manner, but which I believe the heart of no man can refift. Carrio and myfelf never failed being at the vefpers of Mendicanti, and we were not alone. The church was always full of the lovers of mufic, and the actors of the opera came to form their taste on thefe excellent models. What distracted me was those curfed grates, which tranfmitted founds only, and concealed thofe beautiful angels which could alone utter them. I fpoke of nothing elfe: one day when I was talking on this fubject at La Blond's, he replied, if your curiofity to fee thefe little girls is fo great, it is eafy to gratify it. I am one of the stewards of the houfe, and fhall be happy to entertain you with the fight. I never left him in peace till he kept his word: on entering the faloon where thefe beauties fo eagerly coveted were, I felt a fhivering of love which I never experienced before. M. le Blond prefented in turn thefe celebrated fingers whofe voices and names only I knew.-Come here Sophia: fhe was horribleCome Cattina: fhe had but one eye-Here Bettina: the fmallpox had greatly disfigured her: there was fcarcely one without fome great deformity. The cruel wretch laughed at my furprize; yet two or three appeared tolerable, but they only fung in the chorules; I was diitracted. During the repaft, at the infligation of fome perfon, they began to enjoy themselves. Uglinefs does not banish the graces, and thefe I discovered. I faid to myfelf, it is impoffible to fing without a foul; thefe girls certainly have fouls. In fhort, my mode of thinking made fo great an alteration, that I came out of the houfe perfectly in love with thefe frights. I fcarcely dared to return at vefpers, but I had fomething to encourage me. I continued to find their finging exquilite, and their voices embellifhed their features fo well, that while they fung I was convinced in fpite of my eyes that they were beautiful.'

In other parts of the work, the gloom of his mind, a difpofition not uncommon in a man of genius, is too confpicuous. From his own account, he was unhappy, he was distrusted, envied, and at laft perfecuted. All that he remembers was dif treffing; every step had been marked by oppofition, by evils, and by misfortunes of a fingular kind. His character and his heart feem from his confeffions to have been torn asunder by fhocks, by oppreffion, and by oppofition. Never man appears to have demanded lefs from mankind; no man flies from fociety with fuch feeming pleafure; no one feels fo well the happinefs of living alone. When alone, fays he, I have never known what it is to be liftlefs, even when most completely idle: my imagination filled every vacancy, and was alone fufficient to em

ploy

ploy me.' Yet, from fome ftrange contradiction, from fome unaccountable fatality, from fome fault of his own or of others, no one seems to have lived lefs according to his own taste. These volumes give a key to his fingularities, to his melancholy, to his fondness for retirement. Genius, the first present of Heaven to mankind, was in him accompanied by a state of mind which fullied all profperity, which exacted a fevere penalty for his fame, and overwhelmed him with misfortunes, which he attributed to his fuperior character. Let us follow him in his narrative after his return from Venice, after the reprefentation of the Devin du Village, and the Difcourfe on the Progrefs of Society and Arts. Driven from France, from Geneva, from Berne, from Bienne, from Motiere, from Neufchatel, received with fufpicion in other places, obliged to feparate from Hume, and to quit England, his life was a continual emigration. In thefe events, his own exquifite fenfibility, his perverfe method of interpreting words and actions, were chiefly in fault to a distempered mind the fofteft mufic becomes the harshest found, and the tendereft green an infupportable glare. Such was the mind of Rouffeau: he would be independent; civility was infringing on that independence. He would be received with attention, and to neglect him was unpardonable. While his friends were unable to fteer between excentricities fo fingular and fo oppofite, his own heart was pained by reflecting on what appeared the mifconduct of thofe to whom he trusted; and in this ftate he wrote his Confeffions. We muft forgive him if his ink is tinged with gall, or if his colouring is unnatural. He tells us what he did, what he felt, with fimplicity and with truth. He is more diffuse and more elevated when he fpeaks of thofe he loved, whofe conduct he looked on without prejudice, and the remembrance of whom he cherifles with gratitude.

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The favourites of Rouffeau are painted in the most flattering colous; and when he brings forward too inconfiderately an ámiable woman, in a manner that prevents us for a moment from miftaking his meaning, he pays due honour to her virtue, and by all his eloquence, endeavours to efface her indifcretions, which probably did not arife to crimes. We were alone, fays he, in the grove, by moon light, and after two hours of the moft tender, the mott lively converfation, the left the fhade and the arms of her friend, as pure and uncontaminated as fhe entered it. Yet let no one imagine that I was as tranquil and infenfible as when converfing with Manon and Tere. I have faid that at this time it was love; love in all its violence and with all its fury. I will not defcribe the agitations, the fhiverings, the palpitations, the convulfive motions, nor the faintings, that I conftantly felt. They may be judged of by the effect which the recollection alone had on me. On going near this fpot, I thought of the delightful reception which I fhould experience, of the kits that waited my arrival. This kifs alone, this fatal kifs, which was yet diftant, fet my blood in fuch a flame, that my head was giddy, my eyes dim, and my trembling P 3

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knees refufed to fupport me. I was even obliged to ftop and fit down; my whole frame was in an inconceivable diforder; I was ready to faint. I arrived feeble, weak, exhausted, fup. porting myfelf with difficulty; at the inftant I faw her every power was restored, and I felt only, while near her, the impor tunity of inexhaustible, but ufelefs ftrength. Such was the heart of Rouffeau; and in a paroxyfn of a rever of this kind*, he wrote the new Eloife, a work which promifed very different events from what it produced. He confeffes it with his ufual veracity. We fhall tranfcribe the paffage :

Julia, at length appeared, and the fentiments of literary men were divided; but in the world there was but one opinion; and the women were fo much intoxicated with the book and with its author, that there was fcarcely one even in the highest ranks which I might not have attempted the conqueft of with fuccefs. I have proofs of this which I will not transcribe, and which, without the neceffity of experience, will fupport my opinion. What made the women fo partial to me was, their being perfuaded that I had written my own hiftory, and that I was myfelf the hero of my tale.'

The complaints of Rouffeau against his literary cotempora ries are frequent and bitter. He had, undoubtedly, reafon to complain of Diderot and Voltaire; but we do not fee that there are proofs fufliciently frong to justify his language against any other perfon. Too much prejudice and too much diftruft blinded John James. He had no right certainly to reproach the abbè Mably, in his dialogues of Phocion, for having copied from the Social Contract.' On a fimilar fubject it was not eafy to avoid fimilar ideas and expreffions; nor is it furprising that every writer had read and retained fome of those employed by an author of such distinguished eminence. Mr. Hume is treated with equal injuftice. Rouffeau afked nothing from him; Mr. Hume was of fervice to him, or withed to be fo, and John James thought only that he difplayed too great oftentation in his fervices. Mr. Hume, fays he, was an acquaint ance of three months, and it did not fuit me to be intimate with him. After the first moment of indignation, in which I was not master of myself, 1 retired peaceably. He wished for a formal rupture, it was neceffary to comply with him. He then defired an explanation, I confented to it.

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The only writer of whom John James fpoke with warm admiration is the abbè de Saint Pierre, who was dead; the only perfon fince the creation who had no other paffion but reafon.' We may compare the abbè in this refpect with John James, when he wrote his difcourfe on the progress of fcience, My fentiments, fays he, rofe with the moit inconceivable rapidity to the level of my ideas. All the leffer paffions were repreffed by the enthufiafm of truth, of liberty, and of virtue. It is more aftonishing that this effervescence was fupported in my mind

In the tranflation we have omitted fome trifling circumftauces.

for