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1828.] his Eloise, and Confessions. 615 
began also to close; his breath grew thicker, and was drawn at longer 
intervals ; he strove to speak, but finding the effort vain, turned towards 
the friend at his elbow, and pointed with his hand in the direction of the 
red orb, which just at that moment dropped behind the horizon. This 
was his last feeble movement: an instant longer, and Rousseau had 
ceased to live. 
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 
Gonsideration 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 elo- 
quent, 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. But it sets out on wrong principles ; it 
requires the reader to grant that female modesty and virtue are consistent 
with immoral indulgencies, 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 super- 
lative sensibility, without judgment, without principle, though eternally 
boasting of both. Attached enthusiastically to Saint Preux, the friend: 
_ and instructor of her youth, she is yet compelled, by the force of circum- 
stances, to link herself and fortunes to an atheist. By this person she has 
a large family ; but, though guiltless of infidelity towards him, her mind 
has received a taint: she is, in fact, a speculative adultress, from whose 
impassioned soul the wife is unable to root out the mistress. Her very 
last letter—that affecting composition which it is scarcely possible 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 ecstasy, 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 suflicient, 
her husband is persuaded to add his intreaties, even though that 
husband has been previously made acquainted with the circum- 
stance 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 
