EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EXTREMES 273 



lengthened shade on the lake, and silence seemed to 

 repose on its unruffled bosom. . . . The worthies to 

 whom the temple of philosophers is dedicated and whose 

 names are marked on the columns, are Newton, Lucem. 



Descartes, Nil in rebus inane. Voltaire, Ridiculum. 



Rousseau, Naturam. And on another unfinished 

 column, Quis hoc perficiet? The other lake is larger; 

 it nearly fills the bottom of the vale, around which are 

 some rough, rocky, wild, and barren sand-hills, either 

 broken or spread with heath ; in some places wooded 

 and in others thinly scattered with junipers. The char- 

 acter of the scene is that of wild and undecorated nature, 

 in which the hand of art was meant to be concealed as 

 much as was consistent with ease of access." 



A morbid fondness for funereal monuments was shown Fondness 



. for funereal 



even more frequently in France than in England. The monuments, 

 sentimental garden without a grave could never hope to 

 arouse a powerful sensation of agreeable melancholy. 

 Girardin's possession of Rousseau's remains made him 

 the object of much envy. Coligny's grave added to the 

 charms of Maupertin, but at Mereville there was only an 

 empty cenotaph to Captain Cook. This memorial, a 

 blue marble column ornamented with rostra and sur- 

 rounded by weeping willows and other foreign trees, was 

 on the middle of an island. The pedestal was decorated 

 with bas-reliefs of savages, urns, and other mournful 

 trophies. At Morfontaine a black marble monument, 



