XV 



Captain Cook must endear his name to every Eng- 

 lishman;* the Viscount Girardin, who wrote De la 

 Composition des Paysages, who buried Rousseau in 

 his garden at Ermenonville, and who kept a band of 

 musicians to perambulate those charming grounds, 

 performing concerts sometimes in the woods, and at 

 other times on the water, and at night in a room ad- 

 joining his hall of company;! the venerable Malherbes, 



* The late Sir U. Price, pays a very high compliment to this ex- 

 quisite poem, in p. 31, vol. i. of his Essays, terming it full of the 

 justest taste, and most brilliant imagery. 



t In the Earl of Harcourt's garden, at Nuneham, in Oxfordshire, 

 (laid out in some parts under the eye and fine taste of the poet Ma- 

 son), on a bust of Rousseau are these lines : 



Say, is thy honest heart to virtue warm ? 



Can genius animate thy feeling breast ? 

 Approach, behold this venerable form ; 



"Tis Rousseau ! let thy bosom speak the rest. 



There are attractive pages in this little volume of the Viscount's, 

 which would have interested either Shenstone, or Gainsborough, 

 particularly the pages 59, 143, 145, and 146, (of Mr. Malthus's 

 translation), for in these pages " we feel all the truth and energy of 

 nature." A short extract from p. 131, will enable the reader to 

 judge of the writer's style : " When the cool evening sheds her 

 soft and delightful tints, and leads on the hours of pleasure and re- 

 pose, then is the universal reign of sublime harmony. It is at this 

 happy moment that Claude has caught the tender colouring, the 

 enchanting calm, which equally attaches the heart and the eyes ; it 

 is then that the fancy wanders with tranquillity over distant scenes. 

 Masses of trees through which the light penetrates, and under 

 whose foliage winds a pleasant path ; meadows, whose mild verdure 

 is still softened by the transparent shades of the evening ; crystal 

 waters which reflect all the near objects in their pure surface ; mel- 



