176 ROUSSEAU. 



in the first weakness- of childbearing, was quite enough 

 to make her weary of him, if his temper had been far 

 less irritable than a diseased bladder, bad stomach, and 

 half crazy brain, allowed it to be. That he had a 

 great contempt for her understanding, and no confi- 

 dence in her virtue or her disposition, is quite plain 

 from a letter which he wrote her in 1769, and which is 

 preserved. Her complaints of the tiresome life they led, 

 and her constant threats of leaving him, appear to have 

 given rise to this letter, together with a complaint of 

 a less delicate kind to which he adverts in plain terms 

 enough, but which no other pen can well touch upon. 

 Her conduct in England gave the greatest offence to 

 Mr. Davenport ; and, among other tricks to which she 

 resorted for the purpose of making Rousseau suspect 

 everybody, and thus resolve to quit Wootton, of which 

 she as easily tired as she did of Switzerland, she broke 

 open his letters, and made him fancy that his enemies 

 had done it. 



After they quitted Neufchatel, in 1765, they went to 

 live for a few months in the Isle St. Pierre, an .islet 

 in the Lac de Bienne, belonging to the hospital of 

 Bern. Here he indulged in his botanical pursuits, 

 and fancied that he led a quiet wild life, as in a state 

 of nature. The invitation sent through Madame de 

 Boufflers, from David Hume, to visit England, brought 

 him from his solitude, and he accompanied the phi- 

 losopher thither. Mr. Davenport soon afterwards 

 invited him to inhabit his convenient mansion of 

 Wootton in Derbyshire. A pension of 100 a-year 

 was obtained for him through Mr. Hume's influence 

 with the Conway family, and it appears to have been 



