86 



The Review of Reviews. 



THE ROUSSEAU BICENTENARY. 



Just two hundred years ago Rousseau was born at 

 Geneva on June 28th'. The French reviews have not 

 overlooked the bicentenary, for in the June numbers 

 we have no fewer than seven articles relating to the 

 philosopher and his work. 



Writing in the Revue des Deux Mondes of June 15th, 

 M. Pierre M. Masson pleads for a study of Rousseau's 

 papers and manuscripts, his notes, the original versions 

 of his works, etc., and also /or a study of the authors 

 who influenced him, or who were in any sense his intel- 

 lectual begetters, and his annotations of their 

 works. 



The article by M. Bernard Bouvier in the June 

 number of the Bibliotheque Utiiverselle is devoted to 

 the " Confessions " ; in the Revue de Paris of June isth 

 M. Leon Cahen writes on Rousseau and the French 

 Revolution ; an article on Rousseau and Thc'rese 

 Le Vasseur by M. Gustave Dupin appears in the first 

 June number of the Nouvelle Revue ; Rousseau at 

 Motiers-Travers in Switzerland, 1762-5, is the subject 

 of M. Henry Tournier's paper in the Grande Revue of 

 June loth ; in the June number of Lectures pour Tous 

 there is an article on Rousseau and Nature ; and m the 

 mid-June number of the Nouvelle Revue M. Dupin 

 writes on Rousseau's death. To these may be added 

 two German articles— one by " F. W." in the Konser- 

 vative Monatsschrijt for June, and the other by Herr 

 0. E. Kuehnel in the Deutsche Revue for June. 



Mr. Edmund Gosse's Tribute. 



The address delivered in French before the Rousseau 

 Society at Geneva on the bicentenary of Rousseau's 

 birth, by Dr. Edmund Gosse, is published by him in 

 the Fortnightly Review for July. He treats of Rousseau 

 in England in the nineteenth century. He traces how 

 the early enthusiasm for Rousseau began to fade 

 when the French Revolution showed to what results 

 his teaching led, and gradually fell out of favour until 

 Lord Morley's classic work on Rousseau did him 

 something like justice. 



HIS INFLUENCE OVER GEORGE ELIOT. 



We have lately learned, Mr. Gosse says, that there 

 were two great authors who, in the seclusion of their 

 libraries, .subjected themselves to the fascination of 

 Rousseau : — 



On February glh, 1849, George Eliot wrote thus privately to 

 a friend :— "It would signify nothing to mc if a very wise 

 person were to stun me with proofs that Kousseaifs views of 

 life, religion, and government are miserably erroneous— that he 

 was guilty of some of the worst kis'sessa that have degraded 

 civilised man. I might .admit all this : and it would not lie the 

 less true that Rousseau's genius has sent that electric thrill 

 through my intellectual and moral frame which has wakened 

 me to new perceptions. . . . The rushing mighty wind of his 

 imagination has so quickened uiy faculties that I h.ave been able 

 lo shape more definitely for myself ideas which h.ad previously 

 dwelt as dim Alinuni;,ti in my soul ; the fire of his genius has 

 so fused together old thoughts and prejudices, that I have been 

 icady to make new combinations." 



RUSKI.N, THE ENGLISH ROUSSEAU. 



John Ruskin, too, began to feel affinities existing 

 between him and Rousseau : — 



In 1S62 he wrote, " I know of no man whom I more entirely 

 resemble than Rousseau, Jf I were asked whom of all men of 

 any name in past time I thought myself to be grouped with, I 

 sliould answer unhesitatingly — Rousseau. I judge by the 

 'Nouvelle Heloise,' the 'Confessions,' the writings of 

 Politics and the life in the He St. Pierre." In 1866 Ruskin 

 added, "The intense resemblance between me and Rousseau 

 increases upon my mind more and more," Finally, in " Pre- 

 terita " (18S6) he openly acknowledged his life-long debt to 

 Rousseau, We may therefore .set down the impact of Rousseau 

 upon Ruskin as marking the main influence of the Genevese 

 writer's genius upon English literature in the nineteenth century, 

 but this was sympathetic, subterraneous, and, in a sense, secret. 

 Without Rousseau, indeed, there never would have been 

 Ruskin, yet we are only now beginning to recognise the fact. 



DISMAL VIEWS OF DEMOCRACY. 



A S0MEWH.\T gloomy distrust of democracy appears 

 in the Empire Review for June. Mr. H. Douglas Gregory 

 draws a very dismal picture of the dangers of extended 

 franchise, and laments the recent encroachment upon 

 the power of the Commons, of the peers and the pre- 

 rogatives of the Crown, He concludes, however, with 

 the wise advice that the middle-classes should rouse 

 themselves and seek to guide the masses, and that the 

 rudiments of sane political principles should be taught 

 in the schools through an intelligent study of history. 



women's VOTE A MENACE TO EMPIRE. 



Mr. F. A. W. Gisborne, of Tasmania, discussing 

 womanhood suffrage from an .\ustralian point of view, 

 is very pessimistic. Not merely does he regard the 

 prospect of manhood suffrage in Great Britain as 

 alarming, but " should the vast flood of female inex- 

 perience and emotionalism be let loose also, there is 

 painful reason to fear that the bulwarks of the Empire 

 itself will be swept away." 



O FOR THE SWORD OF A CESAR ! 



This Tasmanian actually begins to clamour for the 

 strong rule of the Cssar. He says : — 



In this age of social turbulence and pleasure-seeking, when 

 uiultitudes expend their energies in striving to extort increased 

 rcw.ard for diminished work, the fundamental virtues from 

 which spring all true conceptions of civic obligations appear to 

 be losing their old vitality and power. Should they become 

 extinguished, public liberty must, for a season at least, perish 

 with \hem ; and rather than see once more unchained the horrors 

 of anarchy and mob despotism, a British patriot would hope 

 that, as in ancient Rome when tlie Republic writhed in its dying 

 convulsions, order might be restored by military force, and the 

 Einpiie be endowed with renewed vigour and youth by the sword 

 of a Cfc.sar. 



There is a short historical study of .Ancient 

 Egypt in La Lcctura ; mention is made of sun- 

 worshippers and moon-worshippers, and how. in an 

 encounter between the two, the latter surrendered 

 because, during a nocturnal strtiggle. they saw the 

 moon's disc grow to an unusual size, which they inter- 

 preted as evidence of anger on the part of their deity. 



