120 VOLTAIRE. 



cruel attack upon this poor man than is to be found 

 upon any other person in that or any of Voltaire's 

 satires. It is not to be forgotten that the constant 

 undervaluing of Rousseau's genius can scarcely be 

 ascribed to anything but jealousy, if not of his talents, 

 yet of his success. He can see no merit whatever in 

 any of these writings, except the ' Profession de Foi,' 

 in the ' Emile ;' and of that he only speaks as an excep- 

 tion to their general worthlessness ; whereas we know 

 that he felt the greatest jealousy of the courage which 

 it displayed in attacking religion openly, while he 

 had himself never ventured upon any but covert, anony- 

 mous assaults, always disavowed as soon as repelled or 

 reprobated. Rousseau's conduct towards Voltaire was 

 a great contrast to this. To the end of his life he 

 avowed the most unrestrained admiration of that great 

 genius ; he subscribed to his statue erected at Lyons 

 an act which Voltaire was silly enough to resent, 

 affecting to think that the Due de Choiseul, whose 

 name was at the head of the subscription, might not 

 like being in such company. Finally, when ' Irene/ 

 his last composition, was represented a few weeks 

 before his death, Rousseau generously declared, on some 

 one mentioning the decline of genius which it indicated, 

 that it would be equally inhuman and ungrateful in 

 the public to observe such a thing, even if it were un- 

 questionably true. 



That the genius of the poet had in some degree 

 suffered by the lapse of so many years, who can doubt ? 

 Yet the ' Ir&ne,' finished two months before his death, 

 and the ' Agathocles,' which he had not finished when 

 he died, contain passages of great splendour and beauty ; 



