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meeting,—a very novel scene to Norwich. A consi- 
derate person must marvel to see, on the one hand 
such extravagance and dissipation, on the other so 
much distress and complaint, from the decay of trade, 
and the increased load of taxes: but I believe it 
has been observed as the characteristic of a luxu- 
rious sinking empire, and is often that of a sinking 
individual. 
Perhaps you will smile when I tell you I read 
Rousseau’s works a second time. In reading his 
Heloise, I became very much interested in his cha- 
racter, and pleased with his genius. I read the 
volume you lent me with more attention the second 
time; the first I hurried it over, and found I had 
missed a thousand beautiful passages: now, I stu- 
died him, and found in his Heloise a store of the 
finest thoughts, and most profound observations of 
any book I almost ever read. I cannot alter my 
opinion of the man. I think hima heterogeneous 
composition of great vices, and fewer virtues, but 
of a sublime genius, and a penetrating faculty into 
the human heart, that no writer has developed with 
so much perspicuity and ingenuity. He carries 
you to the bottom of it, and will not leave you till 
he has made you thoroughly persuaded you under- 
stand it yourself. His descriptions are amazingly 
strong. Sterne had him certainly in view, but he is 
so minute as to leave nothing to the reader’s ima- 
gination, and puts one in mind of the laboured ex- 
actness of the Flemish painters. Rousseau’s pic- 
tures have infinitely more force, by not making 
each trait so very distinct. Moore says, “ All dress 
