KQUSSEAIL 



this time a refident in that capital, as charge d'affaires 

 from the Englim court, and having been applied to in favour 

 of Rouffeau, who was defirous of making England hisafy- 

 lum, he willingly undertook to conduct him thither in the 

 beginning of the year 1766. "At this period," fays one 

 of his biographers, " the perfections which he had under- 

 gone, the hoftility which he had experienced, and with 

 which he had been hunted from place to place ; the acrimony 

 of his numerous opponents, and the ferment which his pre- 

 fence had excited in the different places of his refidence, had 

 fo agitated his fufceptible mind, and inflamed his vanity, that 

 he imagined himfelf not only the moil important, but almofl 

 the only important perfonage in Europe, and fancied that a 

 general confederacy was formed againft him of all fects and 

 parties. This notion filled him with abfurd fufpicions, and 

 rendered him prone to view every thing in a wrong light, 

 and to magnify trifles into matters of great moment. In Short, 

 he was under the influence of a perverfion of temper and intel- 

 lect, nearly amounting to mental derangement : a malady 

 which, indeed, in a certain degree, feems to have attended him 

 through life, and which alone can account for his Angularities 

 and inconfiftencies." Without this clue, his conduct to Mr. 

 Hume mult appear the extreme of bafenefs and ingratitude. 

 This gentleman, fenfibly affected with his various misfor- 

 tunes, procured for him an agreeable fituation in England, 

 but Rondeau was not long fatistied with the new place. He 

 had wifhed for peace, but peace and quiet he was utterly 

 incapable of enjoying. He did not make fuch an imprefiion 

 upon the minds of the Englilh as he had done upon the in- 

 habitants of other countries. The freedom of his opinions, 

 and the fettled melancholy of his temper, were not deemed 

 very remarkable or fingular here. He was regarded only 

 as an ordinary man : in the public prints he was fitirized ; 

 his principles and conduct were reprefented as quite 

 adapted to a modern Diogenes. He was rather regarded 

 as an object of ridicule than of terror to any of the prevail- 

 ing parties in England. Roulfeau now imagined there was 

 a plot between Hume and the French philofophers to de- 

 ftroy his glory. He fent a letter to him, filled with the 

 moft violent abufe, and at the fame time refufed to 

 accept a penfion from the crown, which had been ob- 

 tained through the intereft of Mr. Hume. He did not 

 remain long in England after this, but went to France 

 in the year 1767, where he met with various protectors, 

 with whom he paffed his time in different provinces. At this 

 period he publifhed his " Dictionnaire de Mufique," which, 

 though an excellent work, brought upon the author much 

 feverity of criticifm. In the following year he refumed his 

 botanical purfuits, by collecting and ftudying the plants 

 which he found on the mountains of Dauphine. In the year 

 1 769, he married a lady with whom he had lived many years, 

 and by whom he had already had five children, all of whom 

 he had bafely fent to the orphan hofpital. This has been 

 juitly efteemed in this country as one of the greateft ftains 

 upon his character, though his foreign biographers take little 

 notice of it, and feem to think he was juftified by the indi- 

 gence in which he lived. But how could a man venture to 

 talk of morality, and write upon education, who had 

 abandoned his own children ? Notwithftanding his other 

 merits, he mull in this refpect be held in abhorrence by every 

 feeling mind. During the year 1770, he appeared at a 

 coffee -houfe in Paris in his ordinary drefs, and took much 

 pleafure in the plaudits of the fin-rounding crowd. Though 

 he affected the love of folitude, yet he was never eafy un- 

 lefshe could in fome way or other occupy the public atten- 

 tion. He could neither accommodate himfelf to the world, 

 nor be content to live out of it. Neverthelefs, fome of 



his latter years he feems to have paffed more tranquilly than 

 any former period of his life, having, in a good meafure, 

 renounced all farther difcufiion of thofe controverted topics 

 which had involved him in fo many difficulties, and deter- 

 mined to keep his philolophy for his own ule. Still he 

 iufpected that a confederacy was making againlt him, and 

 he gladly accepted, in May 1778, an invitation from the 

 marquis de Girardin, to retire with his wite to a imall houfe 

 near his beautiful feat of Ermenonville, where he died in the 

 month of July in the fame year, at the age of 66. His 

 friend and patron, the marquis, erected a monument for him 

 in the Ifle of Poplars, in his pleafure grounds, with an in- 

 fcription, to which Rouffeau was by no means entitled : " Ici 

 repofe 1' Homme d^ la Nature et de la Verite." 



After the death of this philofopher, his " Confeflions" 

 were publifhed, which give a minute account of every thing 

 that happened to him till the 3Cth year. This lingular piece 

 of biography is itfelf a ftriking exemplification of character, 

 for there is hardly any work in which circumilances fo de- 

 grading and humiliating are related with fo little referve, 

 while the air of importance given to the molt trivial incidents 

 in which he was any way concerned, and the contempt of 

 Shame implied by exhibiting himlelf thus naked to the world, 

 prove it to have been dictated more by vanity and fell-im- 

 portance than by contrition. He would have paffed for a 

 better man if this work had not been publifhed, but then he 

 could not have had any pretext for talking fo much of him- 

 felf. " His Confeffions," fays M. Sennebier, author of the 

 Literary Hiilory of Geneva, " appear to me a very dan- 

 gerous book, and paint Rouileau in fuch colours as we (hould 

 never have ventured to apply to him. The excellent analyfes 

 which we meet with of fome fentiments, and the excellent 

 anatomy which he gives of fome actions, are not fufficient to 

 counterbalance the deteftable matter which is found in them, 

 and the unceafing obliquities every where to be met with." 

 There is no doubt that he has done much mifchief to the in- 

 terelts of morality by thefe " Confeffions," as well by the 

 bafenefs of the vices which he has diiclofed, as by the man- 

 ner in which he united them with the virtues. Among the 

 other pieces of Rouffeau, not already noticed, and which 

 were publifhed after his death in a new edition of his works, 

 are, I. The Reveries of a folitary Wanderer, being a 

 journal of the latter part of his life. In this he confeffes 

 that he preferred fending his children into hofpitals deftined 

 for orphans, than to take upon himlelf the charge of their 

 maintenance, and endeavours to palliate this Shameful dere- 

 liction of duty. 2. Confiderations upon the Government 

 of Poland. 3. The Adventures of Lord Edward, a novel, 

 being a fort of fupplement to his Heloiie. 4. Various 

 memoirs and fugitive pieces, with a great number of let- 

 ters. 5. Emilia and Sophia. 6. An opera and a comedy. 

 7. Translations of the firft book of Tacitus' Hiftory, &c. 

 &c. Like all the other writings of Rouffeau, there are in 

 thefe pollhumous pieces many admirable and ufeful things ; 

 but at the fame time they abound with contradictions, para- 

 doxes, and ideas very unfavourable to religion. In his let- 

 ters efpecially, we fee a man chagrined with misfortunes, 

 which he never attributes to his own want of conduct : he is 

 fufpicious of every body about him, calling and believing 

 himfelf a lamb amidft wolves. All his works are marked 

 with a peculiar warmth and energy of ftyle, and with great 

 vigour of thinking. He was one of the firlt writers who 

 exercifed the greateft influence upon the opinions of the age, 

 and in the early periods of the French revolution, they 

 were referred to as of the higheft authority in political mat- 

 ters, and his memory was almoft deified. His reputation 

 has fince been much in the wane ; but as long as the French 



language 



