408 
ROUS 
sunk all his fortune, and he was reduced, in the decline of 
life, to subsist on the benevolence of his friends. Boutet, a 
notary of Paris, generously supplied his most urgent wants; 
and he met with a more considerable resource in the Duke of 
Aremberg, who, on being obliged to quit Brussels for Ger¬ 
many in 1733, settled upon him a pension of 1500 livres, 
besides an. apartment and table in his palace This patron, 
too, he had the misfortune to displease, on account of some¬ 
thing he published calumniating Voltaire; but the duke, 
whilst he discharged him from his palace, proposed to con¬ 
tinue his pension. This favour, the poet spiritedly declined. 
Brussels now became odious to him, and he complied with 
an invitation from his friends to return secretly to Paris, in 
the hope of finally obtaining the repeal of his banishment. 
He had prepared the way by two epistles, one to the Jesuit 
Brumoy, the other to the JaUsenist Rollin, and by an ode to 
the praise of Cardinal Fleury on the peace. All these efforts, 
however, were defeated by some new imprudences of his 
satirical muse, and the ill offices of his enemies. He could 
not obtain even a safe-conduct for passing a year at Paris, 
and returned to Brussels, where he died in March, 1741, at 
the age of 70. He expressed much religious fervour on his 
death-bed ; and on receiving the viaticum solemnly protested 
that he was not the author of the couplets for which he had 
been condemned. 
He was very generally acknowledged to stand at the head 
of ode-writers in the French language. To those composi¬ 
tions he brought great fire and force of expression, copious¬ 
ness, and grandeur of imagery, and all the harmony of 
which his language is capable; but the sentiment is gene¬ 
rally common, and nothing indicates a soul of the superior 
order. Of his Odes there are four books, of which the'first 
consists of sacred topics, taken from the Psalms. He wrote 
besides two books of Epistles in verse, more querulous and 
misanthrophical than philosophical; cantatas, in which 
species he is regarded as original and unrivalled ; allegories; 
epigrams, some of the earlier of w r hich are licentious, but 
the pointed severity of this kind of composition was well 
suited to his genius; “ Miscellaneous Poems,” mostly de¬ 
fective in ease and grace; four Comedies in verse and three 
in prose; generally of little merit; a collection of Letters in 
prose, which are said to give a very unfavourable idea of his 
temper and feelings; but something should be pardoned to 
a man who was so long an object of the persecution of his 
enemies, and of whom Piron has said, in an epitaph, that 
“ thirty years he was an object of envy, and thirty of 
compassion.” Moreri. Nouv. Diet. Hist. Voltaire 
Siecle de Louis XIV. 
ROUSSEAU (Jean Jacques), the most eloquent French 
writer and singular character of his age, was born at Geneva 
ip 1712. His father was a watch-maker, an ingenions man, 
and tinctured with that taste for literature which is almost 
universal among the citizens of Geneva. The aliment he 
administered to the young mind of his son was doubtless,' 
one of the most powerful external causes which conduced 
to the formation of his character: he read romances with the 
boy till he was eight years old, and then led him through a 
course of Plutarch’s Lives, with which he intermixed such 
conversations as might be expected from an ardent republi¬ 
can. A taste for romantic adventure, and a high admiration 
of free and patriotic principles, were therefore impressed on 
his mind in indelible colours. In his “ Confessions,” Rous¬ 
seau has recorded several other circumstances which, in his 
opinion, exerted a lasting influence upon his character; but 
it is more probable that his ruling propensities were deter¬ 
mined by his bodily constitution. This, he represents as 
of the warmest kind, “ burning with sensuality from 
his very birth;” in fact, he was all susceptibility, mental 
and corporeal, and made to be a creature of feeling rather 
than of reason. His school education was very imperfect, 
and never enabled him to read Latin with facility. He grew 
up in habits of idleness, and the vices of a weak unsteady 
temper. He was first apprenticed to an attorney, who soon 
discharged him for negligence ; and was then put to an en¬ 
graver, who disgusted him by what he thought tyranny. 
S E A U. 
The fear of chastisement rendered him, in his 16th year, a 
fugitive from this master, at which time, by his own account, 
he was a restless discontented being, consumed with desires 
of which he knew not the object, and caressing his fancies 
for want of realities. He strolled away to the territory of 
Savoy, where he was hospitably entertained by a parish 
priest, who pleased himself with the idea of making a prose¬ 
lyte of a Genevan heretic. For this purpose he sent the 
youth to Annecy, to a Mad. de Warrens, a new convert to 
the Catholic church, who had left her husband at Lausanne, 
and employed all the charitable zeal of her character in the 
pious work of proselyting. A captivating woman of 28 was 
well calculated to operate conviction upon the mind of an 
enthusiast of 16; but for further instruction she forwarded 
him to a seminary of catechumens at Turin, where his con¬ 
version was completed, and he got twenty florins in exchange 
with his new religion. When .this money was spent, he 
found no better resource than to enter as a footman into the 
service of a countess of Vercellis. Here he committed a crime 
which is scarcely conceivable how any man could be brought 
to confess. He became attached to an amiable girl of the 
household, and he stole a ribbon or some trinket to present 
her with. It was discovered, however, in his possession, 
and he accused her of having given it to him. The touching 
appeal she made to him was such as none but the depraves! 
heart could have resisted. He persisted, nevertheless, in his 
cowardly accusation ; she was disgraced, and he heard , no 
more of her. After the death of the countess, he entered the 
family of a nobleman, whose son, a man of letters, took pains' 
to instruct him inliterrture, and treated him rather as a com¬ 
panion than a servant. But the flattering prospects opened 
to him by this connexion he destroyed by his misconduct; 
and being turned out of doors, after passing some time as a 
vagabond, he returned to Mad. de Warrens. This lady had 
found means to ally her devotional turn with the indulgence 
of amorous propensities, of which her young protege was 
an object, though not the only one; and it is a remarkable 
proof of Rousseau’s utter ignorance of human nature ( which 
was the main object of his study), that he actually believed 
this woman to have reasoned herself into licentiousness; 
that she had naturally an aversion to immodesty, but that she 
abandoned herself to the embraces of those she esteemed, as 
the only method of fixing their affection. This almost in¬ 
credible absurdity was not the offspring of Rousseau’s youth 
and inexperience, but was promulgated by him in the latter 
years of his life, when he might surely have learnt to see 
that placidity is not utterly incompatible with libidinousness. 
Through Mad. Warrens’ interest, he obtained a place as 
secretary to a commission appointed by the King of Sardinia, 
for surveying lands; and in this employ he continued two 
years, during which he applied to the study of arithmetic 
and geometry. Music, however, which he had already 
taught, became his passion; and growing disgusted with 
his other occupation, he renounced it, and took up the pro¬ 
fession of music-master at Chambery. In this place he passed 
eight more years, intimately connected with Mad. de Warrens, 
though not without following her example of occasional de¬ 
viations to other favourites. At length a coldness between 
them took place, and our philosopher (such he was now be¬ 
come in his studies), was recommended by her to the office 
of tutor to the children of M. de Mably, at Lyons. This 
place he did not long keep. He went to Paris, where he 
seems to have lived in indigence and obscurity till 1743, when 
he was appointed secretary to the French ambassador to the 
republic of Venice. It was not long before he quarrelled 
with his superior ; and returning to Paris with an improved 
knowledge in music, he supported himself by copying 
music, at the same time employing his leisure in the study 
of natural philosophy and botany. He was also for some 
time clerk to a farmer general; and with part of his profits 
in this place he repaid some of the pecuniary assistance he 
had received from Mad. de Warrens, who now stood in need 
of it. In 1748 he began to feel the attacks of a disorder in 
the bladder, which tormented him during his whole life, and 
by incapacitating him for active employments, was probably 
a remote 
