1801.] 
of water, was glad, in little more than half 
an hour, to look out for company at the 
kitchen- fire. Ill calculated tor general 
fociety, I fhould be a worfe hermit, except 
I could fupport myfelf, as I believe her- 
mits often did, by thinking that the world 
they affect to leave is talking of them. 
Even the mind of Rouffeau might at 
times have been peopled with fuch ideas. 
How well-fitted would Inisfallan have , 
been for the burial-place of Rouffeau, for 
the repofe of the man of nature and of 
truth. I have feena view of the Ifle of 
Poplars, in the Lake at Ermenonville, 
where his body was, fora time, fuffered 
to remain, until (I think, by a great want 
of tafte and delicate feeling) it was tran{- 
- ported tothe Pantheon of men at Paris. 
This was taking him by violence from 
the beloved bofom of nature, to place her 
child on the breaft of a hired and profti- 
tuted nurfe. He was not able to give re- 
fiftance ; but, could he have ‘done it, his 
free and indomitable fpirit would have 
ery’d aloud—Leave—O leave me to re- 
pofe! He who ufed to fay, ** That he 
never loved praying in his room ; the walls, 
and other trifling works of men feemed to 
thrult themfelves between God and him.”’ 
He who faid, ** When you fee me at 
death’s door lay me under a fhady oak; I 
promife you I fhall be better.”’ I repeat 
it, it was a great want of national tafte, 
to fqueeze the urn of fuch a man among 
their mob of immortals. ‘The ‘ coftume’ 
of charaéters would have been much better 
preferved, by leaving him in a ferene, {e- 
queftered fpot, on which the eyes repofe, 
and every part of the fcene fpeaks for the 
hallowed inhabitant, and fays, 
s¢ Placida demum in morte quiefco.”’ 
I lately faw another print, which I 
wifhed, for the fake of the moral contraft, 
to have placed near that of the tomb at 
Ermenonville. A little old man, with 
Shoulders elevated above the head, fat in 
au arm-chair in the agony of death.—It 
was Frederic II. the late terrible warrior, 
and King of Pruffia. Two grenadiers, 
one on each fide, held, as high as their 
arms could extend, a large taper, and fo 
exactly in the fame attitude, that they ftill 
appeared to act under his word of com- 
mand. The Prince of Pruffia was kneel- 
ing with awe, rather than forrow, at his 
fide. No woman ventured to appear. 
Rouffeau died in the arms of a woman, 
and that woman his wife. She has nar- 
rated his laft converfation, which was 
beautifully charafteriftic. He defired the 
window that looked into the lawn to 
Walks by the Fire-fide. 
197. 
be opened, that he might takea laf view 
of divine nature ; and, after {peaking to 
his wife in the language of endearment, 
and the kindeft condolence, he got up to 
go to the window, fell down on the floor, 
and expired, while fhe fupported him in 
her arms. 
What has become of thefe oppofite 
men ?—this republican, and this defpot ; 
this man-hater with the moft. humane 
heart, and this man-deftroyer, who affected 
to love philolephy and the Mufes, but 
only wanted their panegyric and adula- 
tion. Where are ye now? 
Is mind merely the refult of material 
organization ; and, that organization de- 
ftroyed, is the mind diffipated and loft, to 
pafs into fome untried change, fome new 
form of being? What is this breath of 
life, which animates the duft of the 
ground? Is the foul a mere quality, the 
refult of organization ; or, is it only the 
powers of life, or life itflf? Does the 
brain fecrete thought as the liver does 
bile, or as other fecretions not lefs won- 
derful in their refult? Are we immertal 
only in the fenfe of an implied indeflrudti- 
bility of the primary particles of matter, 
which are always changing from one com- 
bination to another, in the revolutions of 
the great wheel of exiftence? It appears, 
that there is no body, of which identity 
can be predicated for any afcertainable 
length of time, that the brain can never 
be in the fame flate any two given mo. 
ments, and that permanent identity can be 
but partial fimilarity. * Thou’rt not 
thyfelf ; for thou exifts of many thoufand 
grains, that iffue out of duft. And 
when the whole organization of the brain 
is completely deftroyed and diffipated, it 
feems hard to conceive how conicioufMnefs 
can continue, unlefs it adheres, as a qua- 
, lity, to the indivifible, indeftructible atom, 
or is an element fu generis. 
The doétrine of the Chriftian refurrec- 
tion of the whole man feems mot agree= 
able to the theory of mind being the re- 
fult of organization ; but the Gnoftic doc- 
trine of a foul diftin&t from the body, 
which in the firt ages of Chiiftianity was 
deemed heretical, became at length the 
general belief. The Gnoftics themfelves 
got it from the Platonic doétrine, and 
Plato himfelf from the philofophy of the 
Eaft, which, in the Vedas, thus fublimely 
imagines the fpiritual, etherial principle: 
“¢ All {pirit is homogeneous, the fpirit of 
God in kind the fame with that of man, 
though differing infinitely from it in de- 
gree; and, as material fubftance is mere 
illufion, there exiits, in this univer.e, only 
one 
