CHAPTER XV.
1766-1767. Æt. 55-56.
Rousseau at Wooton—Mr. Davenport—Negotiations as to Rousseau's pension—Origin and rise of his excitement against Hume—Proper method of viewing the dispute—Incidents illustrative of Rousseau's state of mind—His charges against Hume—Smith's opinion—Opinion of the French friends—Hume's conduct in the publication of the papers—Voltaire—Rousseau's flight and wanderings—Hume's subsequent conduct to him.
The place where Rousseau found a retreat, was the mansion of Wooton in Derbyshire, surrounded by scenery, not unlike that which he had left behind him in the Jura. It was a late addition to the extensive ancestral estates of its proprietor, Mr. Davenport of Davenport. How successful Hume had been, in finding a man of generous, warm, kindly nature, to be the protector of his exiled friend, some letters from Mr. Davenport, printed in the course of this narrative will attest.[319:1]
That Rousseau might be induced to live in his house, it was necessary that Mr. Davenport should agree to accept of a sum of money in the shape of board, and he good-humouredly conceded to Hume, that the amount should be fixed at £30 a-year. "If it be possible," says Hume, "for a man to live without occupation, without books, without society, and without sleep, he will not quit this wild and solitary place; where all the circumstances which he ever required, seem to concur for the purpose of making him happy. But I dread the weakness and inquietude natural to every man, and, above all, to a man of his character. I should not be surprised that he had soon quitted this retreat."[320:1] It appears that Mr. Davenport intended, if Rousseau became attached to Wooton, to leave him a life lease of the house.[320:2]
Rousseau reached Wooton about the middle of March. On the 22d he wrote to his cher Patron Hume, informing him that his new place of residence was in every way delightful; and that its charms were enhanced by the reflection, that he owed all the happiness of his new position to his dear friend.[320:3] Doubtless Hume, who must now have been a little tired of the caprices which had so constantly baffled his friendly exertions, felt this acknowledgment to be very gratifying. On the 29th he received a letter, still friendly and grateful, but not quite so warm, in which Rousseau, while he complains of the inconvenience of not being understood by the servants, congratulates himself on his ignorance of the English language, as saving him from the annoyance of communication with his neighbours.[320:4]
While all seemed thus serene, dark thoughts were gathering in the exile's mind: and if Hume, relieved of his troublesome duties, and probably satisfied with his own conduct, had known the nicer tests of the state of that variable and tempestuous temper, he might have calculated, by some indications, that the storm was about to burst. The letter of Horace Walpole had, for some time, been lying at the bottom of Rousseau's mind, not forgotten, though hidden from view; and it seems to have formed the nucleus round which his diseased imaginations gathered, and put themselves into shape.[321:1] On the 7th of April, Rousseau sent a letter to the editor of the St. James's Chronicle , in which it had appeared, denouncing it as a forgery concocted in Paris, and saying that it rent and afflicted his heart to say, that the impostor had his accomplices in England. That it was not then, or for many weeks before, that he first became acquainted with this jeu d'esprit, is clear from a letter to Madame de Boufflers, of 18th January, in which he states, that Hume had just informed him of its existence.[323:1] He appears to have then attributed it to Voltaire. He afterwards imputed it, with great confidence, to D'Alembert; and the ultimate discovery, that it was not written by any literary rival and conspirator, but by an English gentleman partial to such wicked amusements, appears to have been the most galling circumstance connected with it.
It seems to have been believed, by some of those who knew Rousseau's character, that his brooding over Walpole's letter would have been insufficient to cause the commotions that followed, without the malicious assistance of Mademoiselle Le Vasseur.[323:2] This woman, who seems to have possessed all the vices to which her sex is liable, without one of its virtues,—who had just enough of intellect to assist the cunning of her depraved heart,—is said to have had an influence over the philosopher of education, of which it is certainly difficult to credit the extent. It will be seen, in the letters of Mr. Davenport, that she had a dispute with his venerable housekeeper, concerning a kettle and cinders! What was the exact nature of the dispute, is now, it may be feared, buried in eternal oblivion; and we are left to conjecture whither an influential cause in a literary quarrel, which interested all Europe, may possibly have been a kettle and cinders. On the 12th of May, Rousseau wrote to General Conway, acknowledging the king's goodness in bestowing on him a pension; saying he thought himself armed against all disasters, but that a new and unimagined one had arisen, which so troubled his spirit, that he had not the necessary presence of mind to decide on the conduct he ought to adopt as to the pension. He expressed, at the same time, sorrow that he could not publicly acknowledge his obligations. This appeared to Hume and Conway to be an intimation, that the pension would not be accepted if it were to be secret.[324:1]
While his mind was thus blackening within, he preserved a cheerful exterior; and Mr. Davenport wrote to Hume, on 14th May, from Wooton: "I came on Friday, and had the satisfaction of finding M. Rousseau in perfect health. He seems to like the place; amuses himself with walking when the weather is fair; if raining, he plays upon the harpsichord and writes: is very sociable, and an excellent companion."[325:1] There is evidence, however, that he had entertained all his evil thoughts of Hume at a much earlier period. His second letter to him, in the capacity of Cher Patron, is dated, as we have mentioned, 29th March. On the 31st he wrote to M. D'Ivernois, saying that he found Hume allied with his most dangerous enemies, and if he were not a rascal, he himself would owe him many reparations for unjust suspicions entertained of him.[325:2]
Resolved to bring the matter of the pension to a conclusion, Hume wrote to Rousseau thus:—
"Lisle Street, Leicester Fields,
June 16, 1766.
"As I have not received any answer from you, sir, I conclude that you persevere in the resolution of refusing all marks of his majesty's goodness, as long as they must remain a secret. I have, therefore, applied to General Conway to have this condition removed; and I have been so fortunate as to obtain his promise, that he would speak to the king for that purpose. It will only be requisite, said he, that we know previously from M. Rousseau, whether he would accept of a pension publicly granted him, that his majesty may not be exposed to a second refusal. He gave me authority to write to you on the subject; and I beg to hear your resolution as soon as possible. If you give your consent, which I earnestly entreat you to do, I know that I can depend on the good offices of the Duke of Richmond to second General Conway's application; so that I have no doubt of success. I am, my dear sir, yours, with great sincerity."[326:1]
This brought on the first gust of the storm. On 23d June, Rousseau wrote his celebrated letter, beginning with the observation, that his silence, interpreted by Hume's conscience, must have convinced the latter that the whole of his horrible designs were discovered. In this letter nothing is more remarkable than the contrast between the frantic bitterness of the language, and the elaborate neatness of the penmanship, which, if handwriting conveyed a notion of character, would represent a calm, contented mind, gratifying itself by the exercise of the petty art of caligraphy. A fac-simile of the concluding paragraph is given, that the reader may have an opportunity of marking this singular contrast.
Hume, now thoroughly angry, wrote as follows:—
Hume to Rousseau.
"June 26, 1766.
"As I am conscious of having ever acted towards you the most friendly part, of having always given you the most tender and the most active proofs of sincere affection, you may judge of my extreme surprise on perusing your epistle. Such violent accusations, confined altogether to generalities, it is as impossible to answer, as it is impossible to comprehend them. But affairs cannot, must not, remain on that footing. I shall charitably suppose that some infamous calumniator has belied me to you. But, in that case, it is your duty, and, I am persuaded, it will be your inclination, to give me an opportunity of detecting him, and of justifying myself; which can only be done by your mentioning the particulars of which I am accused. You say, that I myself know that I have been false to you; but I say it loudly, and will say it to the whole world, that I know the contrary; that I know my friendship towards you has been unbounded and uninterrupted; and that though I have given you instances of it, which have been universally remarked both in France and England, the public as yet are acquainted only with the smallest part of it. I demand, that you name to me the man who dares assert the contrary; and, above all, I demand, that he shall mention any one particular in which I have been wanting to you. You owe this to me; you owe it to yourself; you owe it to truth, and honour, and justice, and to every thing deemed sacred among men. As an innocent man—for I will not say, as your friend; I will not say, as your benefactor; but I repeat it, as an innocent man, I claim the privilege of proving my innocence, and of refuting any scandalous falsehood which may have been invented against me. Mr. Davenport, to whom I have sent a copy of your letter, and who will read this before he delivers it, will, I am confident, second my demand, and tell you that nothing can be more equitable. Happily I have preserved the letter you wrote me after your arrival at Wooton; and you there express, in the strongest terms, in terms indeed too strong, your satisfaction in my poor endeavours to serve you. The little epistolary intercourse, which afterwards passed between us, has been all employed on my side to the most friendly purposes. Tell me, then, what has since given you offence. Tell me, of what I am accused. Tell me the man who accuses me. Even after you have fulfilled all these conditions to my satisfaction, and to that of Mr. Davenport, you will still have great difficulty to justify your employing such outrageous terms towards a man, with whom you have been so intimately connected, and who was entitled, on many accounts, to have been treated by you with more regard and decency.
"Mr. Davenport knows the whole transaction about your pension, because I thought it necessary that the person who had undertaken your settlement should be fully acquainted with your circumstances; lest he should be tempted to perform towards you concealed acts of generosity, which, if they accidentally came to your knowledge, might give you some grounds of offence. I am, sir," &c.[328:1]
In here exhibiting a few of the prominent features of the quarrel between Hume and Rousseau, there is no intention of entering on a defence of Hume, or a full examination of the conduct of the parties. Viewing it as a picturesque incident in literary history, the reader will probably feel an interest in such new light as may be thrown upon it on the present occasion; but, it is presumed that few who have made themselves acquainted with the material circumstances of the dispute, as they have been already made known, will expect any thing to be said that can alter their appreciation of the conduct of the parties. Where there are personal disputes, there is no cause so hopelessly bad as to be without partisans; and when no other motive comes into action, a feeling of generosity towards one who seems to have forfeited the good opinion of his kind, calls forth a few vindicators and supporters. It was natural that Rousseau, a man of great genius, whose writings had produced a prodigious influence on his age,—one who had shown, in many instances, the outward manifestations of a kind unselfish disposition, and who had discarded, with an air of magnanimous scorn, all the grovelling ties that bind the human creature to the earth on which he crawls,—should have champions and supporters in any dispute in which he might be involved, be his conduct what it might. Thus he had a few vindicators, chiefly of the female sex, while he lived: but gradually, when feelings of personal sympathy had died away, the conduct of the disputants ceased to be weighed against each other in the same scales. People did not inquire which of them had acted more fairly and justly than the other; but, putting Rousseau's conduct out of the question as a criterion, they asked, whether that of Hume was kind and magnanimous towards the unfortunate monomaniac?[329:1] Although this view is plainly to be traced in the sentiments of those who have fugitively touched on the dispute, it is to be gathered more from the general tone of their remarks, than from any direct avowal of belief, that Rousseau was a monomaniac.[331:1] There is a majesty in genius, that makes us reluctant thus to ally it with the debasement of the human intellect. Yet, too often, some portion of the most brilliant mind is thus eclipsed, though the brightness of what is clear prevents our seeing easily the blackened spot. In Rousseau's case, there has been, perhaps, a disinclination to admit the "plea of insanity," on account of the wonderful practical sagacity that accompanied his aberrations. Though apparently surveying the world with a sick and careless eye, he occasionally penetrated into the depths of the human heart, and marked its secrets, with an accuracy that made the practised and systematic observer's survey seem but a superficial glance. He had a mind at times eminently practical,[332:1] and suited to estimate men's conduct and character: and thus appearing before the world, there has been much hesitation to pronounce, that the sincerity of insanity accompanied all his vile charges against a man whose heart could not have been for one moment visited by the atrocities of which he is accused.
It is clear, that whatever had been Hume's conduct in the affair, Rousseau's rage was a storm predestined to burst upon him. Its elements were in the mind of "the self-torturing sophist," not in the conduct of any other person; and whoever was the object nearest to his thoughts at the moment, as being most associated with the circumstances in which he was placed, had to stand the shock. In this view, Hume's conduct is no more to be tested by that of Rousseau, than the keeper's by that of his patient. We are thus rid of the unpleasant employment of comparing things which cannot bear comparison; and of the sickening task of enumerating instances of kindness, attachment, persevering good offices, and charitable interpretations of conduct on the one side, met by black ingratitude, contempt, and deadly injury on the other.
If we look for that over-excited propensity which may have caused this mental disease, it appears, beyond doubt, that it was vanity.[333:1] All Rousseau's avowed misfortunes are the calamities of celebrity. At one time he is the victim of princes and prime ministers; at another, of an assembled clergy; at another, of half the learned men of Europe. That he is neglected and forgotten is never among his ostensible complaints; though there is good reason to believe that it was at the bottom of his most conspicuous fits of fury. The English people, though they were at first somewhat curious about the remarkable stranger, did not incommode themselves about him, and obstinately abstained from following him into the wilderness. In his long letter of charges, he cannot help bitterly remarking the apathy of the public; but he states it as an accusation against Hume,[333:2] whom he supposes to have said, like Flavius,
I'll about
And drive away the vulgar from the streets:
So do you too, where you perceive them thick.
These growing feathers, pluck'd from Cæsar's wing,
Will make him fly an ordinary pitch,
Who else would soar above the view of men,
And keep us all in servile fearfulness.
Had the solitudes of Wooton been peopled by multitudes anxious to catch a passing glance of the "apostle of affliction," he would doubtless have let loose his half-appeased discontent in some querulous letters about the impossibility of his finding repose and solitude; but he would not have courted such a conflict as he rushed into in the bitterness of his solitude. Although his character stands without parallel in its own vast proportions, it is not without abundance of exemplifications on a smaller scale. There are few who have not, in their journey through life, encountered one or more small Rousseaus, in men of ravenous and insatiable vanity, who, unlike the ordinary good-natured vain men, are perpetually rejecting the incense offered to their appetite, and demanding some new form of worship. In these, as in the chimney-piece models of celebrated statues, may we view the proportions of the great self-tormenter's mind; and when it is found that the peculiarity is generally accompanied with some observable amount of intellectual acquirements, which place the individual a degree above those who surround him, the resemblance is the more complete. Vanity being its source, the shape assumed by his monomania was a dread of conspiracies in all shapes; and he was as sincere a believer in their existence, as any unfortunate inhabitant of bedlam has ever been in the creations of his diseased mind.[334:1]
Hume had difficulty in extracting an answer to his letter of 26th June; and probably it would not have been opened without the intervention of Mr. Davenport. It was one of Rousseau's whims for some time not to receive any letters; he said they were one of the methods by which his enemies had persecuted him. On his first arrival he was to open none but those which passed through the hands of his Cher Patron;[335:1] a convenient arrangement, as it afterwards enabled him to accuse Hume of tampering with his correspondence.
Two letters were received from Mr. Davenport, before Rousseau drew up his charge.
Mr. Davenport to Hume.
Davenport, June 30, 1766.
Dear Sir,—The receipt of your two last gave me much uneasiness, which was augmented by some letters received yesterday from Rousseau, along with yours, directed for me at Wooton. Surely there must have been some excessive great mistakes. It appears to me a heap of confusion, of which I can make neither head nor tail. His letter to you is perfectly astonishing: never any thing was so furious; so—I protest I don't know what to call it! I long to see him: he certainly will tell some reason or other that could induce him to write in that manner. Till I have seen him I can give no sort of answer to your queries, as he never spoke one syllable to me about any difference at all. I can't, possibly, before Saturday's post; as in this part of the country we have only three days in a week to send letters to town. You desired me to burn the duplicate after reading. That signifies nothing, for I can send you the other which I received yesterday from Wooton. Good God, he must be most excessively out of the way about this pension! In short, I have not patience to add one word more, till I hear what he can possibly have to say; and then I'll immediately acquaint you.
I can't help being troubled at seeing your uneasiness, and will with great pleasure do all in my power to assist in freeing you from it; at least I'll do my best endeavours. I am, your most obedient humble servant,
R. Davenport.
6th July, 1766.
Dear Sir,—I went over to Wooton on Tuesday: had a long conference with Mr. Rousseau on the subject of your last letters; gave into his hands yours addressed to him, (which he had not read before:) showed him those I received from you; and in the most earnest manner insisted upon his giving you an open answer to all your questions, which I told him you had certainly a right to ask, and he could not have any pretence whatever to refuse. His spirits seemed vastly fluttered. However, he told me a long history of the whole affair. I said, that as my knowledge of the French language was very imperfect, I might easily misrepresent things, so begged him to write down the whole matter. Before he began his discourse, I could not help speaking a deal to him on the subject of the pension, and expressed my astonishment at his even ever having had the least thought of refusing the favours of the greatest king in the world. To my infinite surprise, he directly returned this answer, That he never had refused, or any thing like it; spoke with the greatest respect and veneration of his majesty, and with all sort of acknowledgments of gratitude to General Conway, &c. You may well imagine my surprise increased. He then began his story: but that I entirely leave to his pen, as he has faithfully promised to perform. I am really sorry for him; he's uneasy, frets perpetually, and looks terribly. 'Tis almost impossible to conceive the oddness of his extreme sensibility; so that I conclude, when he's guilty of an error, his nerves are more in fault than his heart. Things vex him to the utmost extent of vexation, which would not even move such a dull soul as mine is. In short, I perceive his disorder is jealousy: he thinks you are fond of some savans hommes, whom he unfortunately calls his enemies. It will give me the greatest satisfaction to hear that you have received a satisfactory answer, and that every thing is set right again.[337:1]
At last came the full outpouring of the long-treasured wrath, in a letter dated the 10th of July, as long as an ordinary pamphlet, and penned with the same neat precision as its predecessor. The reader will not expect a document so well known and easily accessible to be reprinted; and an abridgment would fail to give any notion of the rabid eloquence with which the most paltry incidents are made to assume the appearance of portentous charges; until, through vehemence of expression and multitude of powerful words, they seem for the moment to acquire substantial shape. Many of the charges contained in this "indictment" have been already alluded to. The document begins with a statement of its author's candour,[337:2] and hatred of every kind of artifice; and no one can read the charges which follow, monstrously absurd as they are, without seeing that they are made in the perfect sincerity of a mind that saw all things through its own diseased medium. The following is one of the substantive charges:—
I was informed that the son of the quack Tronchin,[338:1] my most mortal enemy, was not only the friend of Mr. Hume, and under his protection, but that they both lodged in the same house; and when Mr. Hume found that I knew this, he imparted it in confidence to me; assuring me that the son by no means resembled the father. I lodged a few nights myself, together with my governante, in the same house; and from the kind of reception with which we were honoured by the landladies, who are his friends, I judged in what manner either Mr. Hume, or that man, who, as he said, was by no means like his father, must have spoken to them both of her and me.
All these facts put together, added to a certain appearance of things on the whole, insensibly gave me an uneasiness, which I rejected with horror.
The description of the following scene must have been, to those who knew Hume personally, irresistibly ludicrous. The picture of the phlegmatic reserve of English manners, is made perfect by contrast. It appears from Hume's letter, that the scene arose out of the dispute about the return chaise.
One evening, after supper, as we were sitting silent by the fireside, I caught his eyes intently fixed on me, as indeed happened very often; and that in a manner of which it is very difficult to give an idea. At that time he gave me a steadfast, piercing look, mingled with a sneer, which greatly disturbed me. To get rid of my embarrassment, I endeavoured to look full at him in my turn; but, in fixing my eyes upon his, I felt the most inexpressible terror, and was soon obliged to turn them away. The speech and physiognomy of the good David are those of an honest man; but where, great God! did this honest man borrow those eyes which he fixes on his friends?
The impression of this look remained with me, and gave me much uneasiness. My trouble increased even to a degree of fainting; and if I had not been relieved by a flood of tears, I must have been suffocated. Presently after this I was seized with the most violent remorse: I even despised myself; till at length, in a transport, which I still remember with delight, I sprang on his neck, and embraced him eagerly; while, almost choked with sobbing, and bathed in tears, I cried out, in broken accents, "No, no, David Hume cannot be treacherous; if he be not the best of men, he must be the basest." David Hume politely returned my embraces, and gently tapping me on the back, repeated several times, in a placid tone, "Why, what, my dear sir! Nay, my dear sir! Oh, my dear sir!" He said nothing more. I felt my heart yearn within me. We went to bed; and I set out the next day for the country.
There is another charge against Hume, of once muttering in his sleep the words Je tiens J. J. Rousseau; which he did not deny, saying, that he could not feel certain as to what he might or might not have done when asleep, though he doubted if it was his practice to dream in French.[339:1] The proffered hospitalities and kindnesses of Hume are a running charge throughout; wound up with the conclusion, that as he must have seen that Rousseau was estranged from him, "If he supposed that in such circumstances I should have accepted his services, he must have supposed me to have been an infamous scoundrel. It was then in behalf of a man whom he supposed to be a scoundrel that he so warmly solicited a pension from his majesty."[340:1]
Hume's answer to this charge was as follows:
Hume to Rousseau.
Lisle Street, Leicester Fields, July 22, 1766.
Sir,—I shall only answer one article of your long letter: it is that which regards the conversation we had the evening before your departure. Mr. Davenport had contrived a good-natured artifice, to make you believe that a retour chaise was ready to set out for Wooton; and I believe he caused an advertisement be put in the papers, in order the better to deceive you. His purpose only was to save you some expenses in the journey, which I thought a laudable project; though I had no hand either in contriving or conducting it. You entertained, however, a suspicion of his design, while we were sitting alone by my fireside; and you reproached me with concurring in it. I endeavoured to pacify you, and to divert the discourse; but to no purpose. You sat sullen, and was either silent, or made me very peevish answers. At last you rose up, and took a turn or two about the room, when all of a sudden, and to my great surprise, you clapped yourself on my knee, threw your arms about my neck, kissed me with seeming ardour, and bedewed my face with tears. You exclaimed, "My dear friend, can you ever pardon this folly? After all the pains you have taken to serve me, after the numberless instances of friendship you have given me, here I reward you with this ill-humour and sullenness. But your forgiveness of me will be a new instance of your friendship; and I hope you will find at bottom, that my heart is not unworthy of it."
I was very much affected, I own; and I believe a very tender scene passed between us. You added, by way of compliment no doubt, that though I had many better titles to recommend me to posterity, yet perhaps my uncommon attachment to a poor, unhappy, and persecuted man, would not be altogether overlooked.
This incident was somewhat remarkable; and it is impossible that either you or I could so soon have forgot it. But you have had the assurance to tell me the story twice, in a manner so different, or rather so opposite, that when I persist, as I do, in this account, it necessarily follows, that either you are, or I am, a liar. You imagine, perhaps, that because the incident passed privately without a witness, the question will lie between the credibility of your assertion and of mine. But you shall not have this advantage or disadvantage, whichever you are pleased to term it. I shall produce against you other proofs, which will put the matter beyond controversy.
First, You are not aware, that I have a letter under your hand, which is tolerably irreconcilable with your account, and confirms mine.[343:1]
Secondly, I told the story the next day, or the day after, to Mr. Davenport, with a view of preventing any such good-natured artifices for the future. He surely remembers it.
Thirdly, As I thought the story much to your honour, I told it to several of my friends here. I even wrote it to Madame de Boufflers at Paris. I believe no one will imagine that I was preparing beforehand an apology, in case of a rupture with you; which, of all human events, I should then have thought the most incredible, especially as we were separated, almost for ever, and I still continued to render you the most essential services.
Fourthly, The story, as I tell it, is consistent and rational: there is not common sense in your account. What! because sometimes, when absent in thought, (a circumstance common enough with men whose minds are intensely occupied,) I have a fixed look or stare, you suspect me to be a traitor, and you have the assurance to tell me of such black and ridiculous suspicions! For you do not even pretend that before you left London you had any other solid grounds of suspicion against me.
I shall enter into no detail with regard to your letter: you yourself well know that all the other articles of it are without foundation. I shall only add in general, that I enjoyed about a month ago an uncommon pleasure, in thinking that, in spite of many difficulties, I had, by assiduity and care, and even beyond my most sanguine expectations, provided for your repose, honour, and fortune. But that pleasure was soon imbittered, by finding that you had voluntarily and wantonly thrown away all those advantages, and was become the declared enemy of your own repose, fortune, and honour: I cannot be surprised after this that you are my enemy. Adieu, and for ever.[344:1]
Hume did not profess to submit to these attacks with the meekness of the dove, as a few letters to his friends will show. Of the two following letters to Blair, the one was written before, the other after the reception of Rousseau's "indictment."
Hume to Dr. Blair.
"Lisle Street, 1st July, 1766.
"You will be surprised, dear Doctor, when I desire you most earnestly never in your life to show to any mortal creature the letters I wrote you with regard to Rousseau. He is surely the blackest and most atrocious villain, beyond comparison, that now exists in the world, and I am heartily ashamed of any thing I ever wrote in his favour. I know you will pity me when I tell you that I am afraid I must publish this to the world in a pamphlet, which must contain an account of the whole transaction between us.[344:2] My only comfort is, that the matter will be so clear as not to leave to any mortal the smallest possibility of doubt. You know how dangerous any controversy on a disputable point would be with a man of his talents. I know not where the miscreant will now retire to, in order to hide his head from this infamy. I am," &c.[345:1]
"15th July, 1766.
"Dear Doctor,—I go in a few hours to Woburn; so can only give you the outline of my history. Through many difficulties I obtained a pension for Rousseau. The application was made with his own consent and knowledge. I write him, that all is happily completed, and he need only draw for the money. He answers me, that I am a rogue and a rascal; and have brought him into England merely to dishonour him. I demand the reason of this strange language; and Mr. Davenport, the gentleman with whom he lives, tells him that he must necessarily satisfy me. To-day I received a letter from him, which is perfect frenzy. It would make a good eighteen-penny pamphlet; and I fancy he intends to publish it. He there tells me, that D'Alembert, Horace Walpole, and I, had, from the first, entered into a combination to ruin him, and had ruined him. That the first suspicion of my treachery arose in him while we lay together in the same room of an inn in France. I there spoke in my sleep, and betrayed my intention of ruining him. That young Tronchin lodged in the same house with me at London; and Annie Elliot looked very coldly at him as he went by her in the passage. That I am also in a close confederacy with Lord Lyttelton, who, he hears, is his mortal enemy. That the English nation were very fond of him on his first arrival; but that Horace Walpole and I had totally alienated them from him. He owns, however, that his belief of my treachery went no higher than suspicion, while he was in London; but it rose to certainty after he arrived in the country; for that there were several publications in the papers against him, which could have proceeded from nobody but me, or my confederate, Horace Walpole. The rest is all of a like strain, intermixed with many lies and much malice. I own that I was very anxious about this affair, but this letter has totally relieved me. I write in a hurry, merely to satisfy your curiosity. I hope soon to see you, and am," &c.[346:1]
There could have been no incident better calculated than this to create a sensation in the coteries of Paris. Immediately on receiving the first angry letter, Hume sent an indignant account of the ingratitude and malevolence of Rousseau to the Baron D'Holbach, which proved a delightfully exciting morsel to a party assembled at his house; for the baron had told him, from the beginning, that he was warming a serpent in his bosom.[346:2] The very rapid celebrity which the story received does not seem to have been anticipated by Hume, and he says, apologetically, to Madame de Boufflers,—"I wrote, indeed, to Baron D'Holbach, without either recommending or expecting secrecy: but I thought this story, like others, would be told to eight or ten people; in a week or two, twenty or thirty more might hear it, and it would require three months before it would reach you at Pougues. I little imagined that a private story, told to a private gentleman, could run over a whole kingdom in a moment. If the King of England had declared war against the King of France, it could not have been more suddenly the subject of conversation."[346:3] Between the rupture and the publication of the narrative regarding it, Hume seems to have written very abundantly on the subject, to his friends in Paris. The following is one of his letters:—
Hume to the Abbé Le Blanc.
Lisle Street, Leicester Fields, 12th August, 1766.
My dear Sir,—I have used the freedom to send to you, in two packets, by this post, the whole train of my correspondence with Rousseau, connected by a short narrative. I hope you will have leisure to peruse it. The story is incredible, as well as inconceivable, were it not founded on such authentic documents. Surely never was there so much wickedness and madness combined in one human creature; nor did ever any one meet with such a return for such signal services as those I performed towards him. But I am told that he used to say to Duclos, and others, that he hated all those to whom he owed any obligation. In that case I am fully entitled to his animosity.
I am really at a loss what use to make of this collection. The story, I am told, is very much the object of conversation at Paris. Though my conduct has been entirely innocent, or rather, indeed, very meritorious, it happens, no doubt, as is usual in such ruptures, that I will bear a part of the blame; from which a publication of these papers would entirely free me: yet I own I have an antipathy and reluctance to appeal to the public; and fear that such a publication would be the only blame I could incur in this affair. You know that nobody's judgment weighs farther with me than yours: think a little of the matter. If Mme. De Dupré were in town, I would desire her to give these papers a perusal, and tell me her opinions. Unhappily M. Trudaine would only understand the French part, which is by far the most considerable. What would his friend Fontenelle have done in this situation?
I am as great a lover of peace as he, and have kept myself as free from all literary quarrels; but surely neither he nor any other person was ever engaged in a controversy with a man of so much malice,—of such a profligate disposition to lies, and such great talents. It is nothing to dispute my style or my abilities as an historian or philosopher; my books ought to answer for themselves, or they are not worth the defending;—to fifty writers who have attacked me on this head, I never made the least reply. But this is a different case; imputations are here thrown on my morals and my conduct; and, though my case is so clear as not to admit of the least controversy, yet it is only clear to those who know it; and I am uncertain how far the public in Paris are in this case. At London, a publication would be regarded as entirely superfluous.
I must desire you to send these papers to D'Alembert after you have read them: M. Turgot will get them from him. I should desire that he saw them before he sets out for his government.
Does not Mme. de Montigny laugh at me, that I should have sent her, but a few weeks ago, the portrait of Rousseau, done from an original in my possession, and should now send you these papers, which prove him to be one of the worst men, perhaps, that ever existed, if his frenzy be not some apology for him. I beg my compliments to M. and Mme. Fourqueux; and am, with great truth and sincerity, my dear sir, your most affectionate humble servant.[348:1]
To Adam Smith, who was then in Paris, he wrote the following letter, without date:—
Hume to Adam Smith.
"You may see in M. D'Alembert's hands, the whole narrative of my affair with Rousseau, along with the whole train of correspondence. Pray, is it not a nice problem, whether he be not an arrant villain, or an arrant madman, or both. The last is my opinion, but the villain seems to me to predominate most in his character. I shall not publish them unless forced, which you will own to be a very great degree of self-denial. My conduct in this affair would do me a great deal of honour, and his would blast him for ever, and blast his writings at the same time; for as these have been exalted much above their merit, when his personal character falls, they would of course fall below their merit. I am, however, apprehensive that in the end I shall be obliged to publish. About two or three days ago, there was an article in the St. James's Chronicle , copied from the Brussels Gazette , which pointed at this dispute. This may probably put Rousseau in a rage. He will publish something, which may oblige me for my own honour to give the narrative to the public. There will be no reason to dread a long train of disagreeable controversy. One publication begins and ends it on my side. Pray, tell me your judgment of my work, if it deserves the name. Tell D'Alembert I make him absolute master, to retrench or alter what he thinks proper, in order to suit it to the latitude of Paris.
"Were you and I together, dear Smith, we should shed tears at present for the death of poor Sir James Macdonald. We could not possibly have suffered a greater loss, than in that valuable young man. I am," &c.[349:1]
There is a letter by Smith on the subject, kind and honest. It must be kept in view, that it was written not only before the series of documents, mentioned in Hume's letter, had been sent to France, and before the French friends had recommended Hume to publish, but before the date of Rousseau's indictment. We shall, hereafter, find that Smith seems to have withdrawn his objection to the publication.
Adam Smith to Hume.
Paris, 6th July, 1766.
My dear Friend,—I am thoroughly convinced that Rousseau is as great a rascal as you and as every man here believes him to be; yet let me beg of you, not to think of publishing any thing to the world, upon the very great impertinence which he has been guilty of to you. By refusing the pension which you had the goodness to solicit for him with his own consent, he may have thrown, by the baseness of his proceedings, some little ridicule upon you in the eyes of the court and the ministry. Stand this ridicule, expose his brutal letter, but without giving it out of your own hand, so that it may never be printed; and if you can, laugh at yourself, and I shall pawn my life, that before three weeks are at an end, this little affair, which at present gives you so much uneasiness, shall be understood to do you as much honour as any thing that has ever happened to you. By endeavouring to unmask before the public this hypocritical pedant, you run the risk of disturbing the tranquillity of your whole life. By letting him alone, he cannot give you a fortnight's uneasiness. To write against him is, you may depend upon it, the very thing he wishes you to do. He is in danger of falling into obscurity in England, and he hopes to make himself considerable, by provoking an illustrious adversary. He will have a great party: the Church, the Whigs, the Jacobites, the whole wise English nation, who will love to mortify a Scotchman, and to applaud a man who has refused a pension from the king. It is not unlikely, too, that they may pay him very well for having refused it, and that even he may have had in view this compensation. Your whole friends here wish you not to write—the Baron,[350:1] D'Alembert, Madame Riccoboni, Mademoiselle Rianecourt, M. Turgot, &c. &c. M. Turgot, a friend every way worthy of you, desired me to recommend this advice to you in a particular manner, as his most earnest entreaty and opinion. He and I are both afraid that you are surrounded with evil counsellors, and that the advice of your English literati, who are themselves accustomed to publish all their little gossiping stories in newspapers, may have too much influence upon you. Remember me to Mr. Walpole, and believe me, &c.
Smith was thus in consultation on the subject with the excellent Turgot, who gave Hume his opinion at great length. On the 27th July, before he could have heard of the long "indictment," he wrote[351:1] that he could trace the rage of Rousseau to two causes: first, Hume being the author of one of the sarcasms in Walpole's letter, a rumour which Turgot appears to have believed; and second, the interpreting the letter to Mr. Conway as a refusal of the pension, which it was not intended by Rousseau to be. If the latter was one of Rousseau's grievances, he did not make it a count in the indictment. Turgot was ignorant of the strength of provocation which Hume received. He says, that it is a mistake to suppose Rousseau's conduct the effect of deliberate design,—a view in which every one not in the vortex of the dispute must have coincided with him; and on the ground that no sensible person will believe that he is guilty of the charges his excited enemy may make against him, he advises Hume not to treat them seriously. He even hints that Hume should acknowledge that he misinterpreted the letter about the pension, and should endeavour to coax Rousseau back to good humour, as a public exposure would be unpleasant to both parties. On the 7th September, after having seen all the documents, he preserved the same tone in speaking of Rousseau; recommending forbearance towards him: but at the same time he expressed an opinion that Hume might find it necessary to publish a narrative of the transaction.[352:1]
We find that Smith was also in communication with Madame de Boufflers, who wrote to Hume at considerable length, in the knowledge of the first angry letter, but not of the "indictment." She assumes a tone much the same as that of Turgot, when he wrote in the same circumstances. She expresses many regrets that Hume should have written so condemnatory a letter to the Baron D'Holbach. He is told that those who profess to be his friends in France will abet him, because he is proving himself to be a mere ordinary human being, instead of continuing to show his superiority to the common frailties of humanity. He is entreated to look compassionately on a man who has overwhelmed himself with calamities, and to treat one who is capable only of injuring himself with generous pity. While making these recommendations, she, as well as Turgot, believed that one of the sarcasms in Walpole's letter had been suggested by Hume.[354:1] The same tone was taken up by Lord Marischal; who, writing on the 15th August from Potsdam, seems not to have perused the "indictment." "You did all in your power," says this kind old soldier, "to serve him; his écart afflicts me on his account more than yours, who have, I am sure, nothing to reproach yourself with. It will be good and humane in you, and like Le Bon David, not to answer."[354:2]
D'Alembert was at first opposed to a publication, and to an exposure of the follies of the wise before "cette sotte bête appelée le public." So early, however, as the 21st of July, he communicates the solemn opinion of himself and other friends in Paris, that after the publicity which the dispute has acquired, it will be necessary for Hume to print a narrative.[354:3] He states that this is the opinion of all intelligent people. He says at the same time, that he had been speaking with Adam Smith on the subject, and though his name is not among those of the committee who recommended the publication, it may be presumed that he had at length admitted it to be necessary.
In connexion with the letter from D'Alembert, Hume wrote thus to Walpole:—
Dear Sir,—When I came home last night, I found on my table a very long letter from D'Alembert, who tells me, that on receiving from me an account of my affair with Rousseau, he summoned a meeting of all my literary friends at Paris, and found them all unanimously of the same opinion with himself, and of a contrary opinion to me, with regard to my conduct. They all think I ought to give to the public a narrative of the whole. However, I persist still more closely in my first opinion, especially after receiving the last mad letter. D'Alembert tells me that it is of great importance for me to justify myself from having any hand in the letter from the King of Prussia. I am told by Crawford, that you had wrote it a fortnight before I left Paris, but did not show it to a mortal, for fear of hurting me; a delicacy of which I am very sensible. Pray recollect if it was so. Though I do not intend to publish, I am collecting all the original pieces, and I shall connect them by a concise narrative. It is necessary for me to have that letter and Rousseau's answer. Pray, assist me in this work. About what time, do you think, were they printed? I am, &c.[355:1]
Hume, afterwards, sent to Paris all the documents connected with Rousseau's attack, to be published or not, at the discretion of his friends; and they were published. If it be asked how he permitted so cruel a thing to be done, the answer is, that he was human, and had been deeply injured; that he had a reputation to preserve, and did not consider himself bound to sacrifice it to the peace of his assailant. Rousseau had triumphantly written, hither and thither, that Hume dared not publish the "indictment." He had said, that if he did not see David Hume exposed ere he died, he would cease to believe in Providence. He was occupied in writing his celebrated Confessions, and had significantly hinted to Hume that he would find himself pilloried there. It is possible to create an ideal image of a mind that would have calmly resisted all these impulses, and let the traducer proceed unnoticed in his frantic labours. It is probable that if he had adopted this course, Hume would in the end have been as completely absolved from the accusations of Rousseau, as he was by the publication of the accusation. Had he thus scorned to adopt the usual means of protecting his good name, his character would have appeared, to all who believed in his innocence, more magnanimous than it was. But it certainly would not have been so natural; and many of those who seemed to have expected that the metaphysician should be above the influence of ordinary human passions, appear to have forgotten, that there are few even of the men whose office it is to teach that those smitten on the one cheek should present the other, who would have shown even as much forbearance on the occasion as David Hume.
The editing of the French version of these documents was committed to Suard, the author of the Mélanges de Littérature. In answer to a letter of 2d November,[357:1] announcing the publication, Hume wrote to him in the following terms, admitting, as the reader will perceive, that he had used harsh expressions, and approving of their being softened.
Hume to M. Suard.
I cannot sufficiently express, my dear sir, all the acknowledgments which I owe you for the pains you have taken in translating a work, which so little merited your attention, or the attention of the public. It is done entirely to my satisfaction; and the introduction in particular is wrote with great prudence and discretion in every point, except where your partiality to me appears too strongly. I accept of it, however, very willingly as a pledge of your friendship. You and M. D'Alembert did well in softening some expressions, especially in the notes; and I shall take care to follow these corrections in the English edition. My paper, indeed, was not wrote for the public eye; and nothing but a train of unforeseen accidents could have engaged me to give it to the press. I am not surprised, that those who do not consider nor weigh those circumstances, should blame this appeal to the public; but it is certain that if I had persevered in keeping silence, I should have passed for the guilty person, and those very people who blame me at present, would, with the appearance of reason, have thrown a much greater blame upon me. This whole adventure, I must regard as a misfortune in my life: and yet, even after all is past, when it is easy to correct any errors, I am not sensible that I can accuse myself of any imprudence; except in accepting of this man when he threw himself into my arms: and yet it would then have appeared cruel to refuse him. I am excusable for not expecting to meet with such a prodigy of pride and ferocity, because such a one never before existed. But after he had declared war against me in so violent a manner, it could not have been prudent in me to keep silence towards my friends, and to wait till he should find a proper time to stab my reputation. From my friends, the affair passed to the public, who interested themselves more in a private story, than it was possible to imagine; and rendered it quite necessary to lay the whole before them. Yet, after all, if any one be pleased to think, that by greater prudence I could have avoided this disagreeable extremity, I am very willing to submit. It is not surely the first imprudence I have been guilty of.[358:1]
Among other distinctions, the publication of the controversy brought Hume a letter from Voltaire, in which the patriarch gave the history of his own grievances against Rousseau, with all his usual sarcasm; and said, of that absorbing vanity for which he might have had more fellow feeling, that Rousseau, believing himself worthy of a statue, thought one half of the world was occupied in raising it on its pedestal, and the other in pulling it down.[358:2]
This little collection, bearing the title, "Exposé succint de la contestation qui s'est élévée entre M. Hume et M. Rousseau, avec les pieces justificatives," was soon afterwards published in English, under Hume's own superintendence. He judiciously observed, that a translation would undoubtedly appear, and that it was more honest, and at the same time more conducive to his reputation, that he should himself superintend the publication.
He had intimated, that as Rousseau would probably impugn the genuineness of the letters as they appeared in print, he would deposit the originals in a public library. In this view, he addressed the following letter to the librarian of the British Museum.
"Edinburgh, 23d Jan. 1767.
"Sir,—As M. Rousseau had wrote to several of his correspondents, that I never dared to publish the letters which he had wrote me; or if I published them they would be so falsified that they would not be the same, I was obliged to say in my preface, that the originals would be consigned in the Museum. I hope you have no objection to the receiving them. I send them by my friend M. Ramsay. Be so good as to give them the corner of any drawer. I fancy few people will trouble you by desiring a sight of them. All the world seems to be satisfied concerning the foundation of that unhappy affair. Yet notwithstanding, I own, that I never in my life took a step with so much reluctance as the consenting to that publication. But as it appeared absolutely necessary to all my friends at Paris, I could not withstand their united opinion. I have also sent the original of M. Walpole's letter to me, which enters into the collection. I am, sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant."[360:1]
It appears that the trustees of the British Museum, for some one or other of the inscrutable reasons which occasionally sway the counsels of such bodies, declined to receive this very curious collection of documents. Dr. Maty, writing to Hume on 22d April, 1767, says, "I longed to have some conversation with you on the subject of the papers, which were remitted to me by the hands of Mr. Ramsay, and as our trustees did not think proper to receive them, to restore them into yours. With respect to these papers, give me leave to assure you, that I had never any doubt about the merits of the cause. I have long ago fixed my opinion about R——'s character, and think madness is the only excuse that can be offered for his inconsistencies."[360:2]
Those original letters connected with the controversy, which were addressed to Hume, whether by Rousseau or others, are among the papers in possession of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. They bear marks of having been much handled.[360:3] Of the letters addressed to Rousseau, which of course were written in French, it is to be presumed that Hume preserved the duplicates, which afterwards enabled him to show copies of the documents on both sides. The originals probably do not exist; for Rousseau, who held his own part in a controversy as the only important one, appears not to have kept the letters addressed to him, though he retained copies of his own.
The dispute with Rousseau very nearly produced a subsidiary discussion with Horace Walpole. He said, alluding to the advice which had been transmitted to Hume by D'Alembert, "Your set of literary friends are what a set of literary men are apt to be, exceedingly absurd. They hold a consistory to consult how to argue with a madman; and they think it very necessary for your character, to give them the pleasure of seeing Rousseau exposed; not because he has provoked you, but them. If Rousseau prints, you must; but I certainly would not, till he does."
Walpole evidently looked on this quarrel as a small dispute between small people;—something on a par with the wrangling of country gentlemen about their preserves and their swing gates.[361:1] Yet, when he found that his own name appeared to be connected with it, he thought it right to publish "a narrative of what passed relative to the quarrel of Mr. David Hume and J. J. Rousseau, as far as Mr. Horace Walpole was concerned in it." He very distinctly absolves Hume from any connexion with the fictitious letter of the King of Prussia. The only wrong of which he had to complain was, that Hume published this exoneration, of which it seems a publication was not expected, though the letter contained the words, "You are at full liberty, dear sir, to make use of what I say in your justification, either to Rousseau or any body else;" and that, in printing the letter, the passage above cited, reflecting on the literary circle of Paris, had been, from motives of delicacy towards all parties, suppressed.[362:1]
The only portion of Walpole's pamphlet that appears to possess any interest, contains Hume's remarks on his friend, D'Alembert. They were intended as an answer to Walpole's spiteful sneers; but, though eulogistic, and apparently just, they by no means exhibit a violent encomiastic zeal.
D'Alembert is a very agreeable companion, and of irreproachable morals. By refusing great offers from the Czarina and the King of Prussia, he has shown himself above interest and vain ambition. He lives in an agreeable retreat at Paris, suitable to a man of letters. He has five pensions: one from the King of Prussia, one from the French King, one as member of the Academy of Sciences, one as member of the French Academy, and one from his own family. The whole amount of these is not six thousand livres a-year; on the half of which he lives decently, and gives the other half to poor people with whom he is connected. In a word, I scarce know a man, who, with some few exceptions, (for there must always be some exceptions,) is a better model of a virtuous and philosophical character.
You see I venture still to join these two epithets as inseparable, and almost synonymous, though you seem inclined to regard them almost as incompatible. And here I have a strong inclination to say a few words in vindication, both of myself and my friends; venturing even to comprehend you in the number. What new prepossession has seized you, to beat in so outrageous a manner your nurses of Mount Helicon, and to join the outcry of the ignorant multitude against science and literature? For my part, I can scarce acknowledge any other ground of distinction between one age and another, between one nation and another, than their different progress in learning and the arts. I do not say between one man and another, because the qualities of the heart and temper, and natural understanding, are the most essential to the personal character; but being, I suppose, almost equal among nations and ages, do not serve to throw a peculiar lustre on any. You blame France for its fond admiration of men of genius; and there may no doubt be, in particular instances, a great ridicule in these affectations; but the sentiment, in general, was equally conspicuous in ancient Greece; in Rome, during its flourishing period; in modern Italy; and even, perhaps, in England about the beginning of this century. If the case be now otherwise, it is what we are to lament and be ashamed of. Our enemies will only infer, that we are a nation which was once, at best, but half civilized; and is now relapsing fast into barbarism, ignorance, and superstition. I beg you also to consider the great difference, in point of morals, between uncultivated and civilized ages. But I find I am launching out insensibly into an immense ocean of commonplace. I cut the matter, therefore, short, by declaring it as my opinion, that if you had been born a barbarian, and had every day cooked your dinner of horse flesh, by riding on it fifty miles between your breech and the shoulder of your horse, you had certainly been an obliging, good-natured, friendly man; but, at the same time, that reading, conversation, and travel, have detracted nothing from these virtues, and have made a considerable addition of other valuable and agreeable qualities to them. I remain, not with ancient sincerity, which was only roguery and hypocrisy, but very sincerely, dear sir, &c.
Rousseau did not resign his pension, and made it be very distinctly known that he would insist upon his claims to be paid what had been promised; but he would not owe it to the intervention of David Hume. He continued to reside for several months at Wooton, where he made some progress in his renowned "Confessions." "He is, I am sure," says Mr. Davenport, in one of his letters, "busy writing; and it should be some large affair, from the quantity of paper he bought." Like other mental patients, when long separated from his favourite excitement, his mind became attuned to less tumultuous movements; and he ceased, in some measure, to feel the want of notoriety. The visions of conspiracy and treachery gradually disappeared, and now we find him, in his letters, only saying; "Je n'ai rien à dire de M. Hume, sinon que je le trouve bien insultant pour un bon homme, et bien bruyant pour un philosophe." He had a genuine love of nature and of rural pursuits; and he appears to have varied his literary labours, by joining in some projects of Mr. Davenport for the cultivation of forest lands.
Writing to Blair, on 14th February, 1767, Hume says:—
"General Conway told me, on my arrival, that Rousseau had made an application to him, through the canal of Mr. Davenport, to have his pension granted to him. The general's answer was, that I was to be in town in a few days; and, without my consent, and even full approbation, he would take no step in that affair. You may believe that I exhorted him to do so charitable an action. I wish he may not find a difficulty with the King, who is very much prejudiced against Rousseau.[365:1] This step of my old friend confirms the suspicion which I always entertained, that he thought he had interest enough to obtain the pension of himself; and that he had only picked a quarrel with me in order to free himself from the humiliating burden of gratitude towards me. His motives, therefore, were much blacker than many seem to apprehend them.
"A gentleman told me that he heard, from the French ambassador, that his most Christian Majesty had given an arrêt, prohibiting, under the severest penalties, the printing, vending, or dispersing, any paper of Rousseau, or his partisans, against me. I dine with the ambassador to-day, so shall know the truth of the matter, which scarce appears credible. It is surely very honourable for me; but yet will occasion that strange man to complain, that he is oppressed with power all over the world. I am,"[365:2] &c.
At length, on the 31st of April, 1767, Rousseau and Mademoiselle Le Vasseur suddenly disappeared from Wooton together. Hume thus describes the incident in a letter to Blair:—
"You may, perhaps, have heard that Rousseau has eloped from Mr. Davenport, without giving any warning; leaving all his baggage, except Mademoiselle, about thirty pounds in Davenport's hands, and a letter on the table, abusing him in the most violent terms, insinuating that he was in a conspiracy with me to ruin him.[366:1] He took the road to London, but was missing for about a fortnight. At last he emerges at Spalding in Lincolnshire, whence he writes a letter to the Chancellor, informing him that the bad usage he had met with in England, made it absolutely necessary for him to evacuate the kingdom, and desiring his lordship to send him a guard to escort him to Dover—this being the last act of hospitality he will desire of the nation. He is plainly mad, though I believe not more than he has been all his life. The pamphlet you mention was wrote by one as mad as himself, and it was believed at first to be by Tristram Shandy, but proves to be [by] one Fuseli an engraver. He is a fanatical admirer of Rousseau, but owns he was in the wrong to me. The pamphlet I sent to you was wrote by an English clergyman, whom I never saw; a man of character, and rising in the church,[366:2] for which reason it is more prudent in me to conceal his name. When would you have done so much for me."[367:1]
As Rousseau did not favour the world in his "Confessions," with the adventures he encountered during this flight, it is of some interest, in the absence of a personal narrative, to mark the impression produced by the incident on an onlooker, whom it seems to have filled with mingled feelings of compassion and astonishment. The following are some extracts from Mr. Davenport's letters to Hume:—
Mr. Davenport to Hume.
Davenport, 13th May, 1767.
Dear Sir,—After all my inquiries, I can't, for the life of me, find out to what part my wild philosopher is fled. I sent after him some papers, thinking they would most certainly find him in London. No such matter: he is not to be found there. They scarce took any thing along with them, but what they carried on their backs. All the trunks, &c. are at Wooton; and this odd man has just packed up his things, and left the keys dangling at the locks of his boxes. No sort of direction for me, though he knows I am in his debt between £30 and £40; and I want, of all things, to inform him what he has to do in relation to his majesty's bounty, which I am sure he will with great satisfaction receive, because I have it so positively under his own hand. You shall have the joy of perusing his letter; but one dated about six days before must be added to it. At present my gout is too much upon me to write copies of them. Pray, if you hear where he is, do me the pleasure to inform me. I am, &c. &c.
P.S.—I protest I pity him more and more, as I certainly conclude that his head is not quite right.
Davenport, Monday 18th.
I can't help giving you the trouble of this. Last night I received a most melancholy letter from poor Rousseau, dated Spalding in Lincolnshire. How, or on what account, he got to that place, I can't for the life of me guess; but this I learn, that he is most excessively sick of his situation, and is returning to Wooton, as soon as, I suppose, he can well get there. He has been all the time at an inn in that town. Pray, was the place you mentioned to me in that county, any where near Spalding? I own to you, I was quite moved to read his mournful epistle. I am quite confirmed in my opinion of him: this last from him, is entirely different in style, from any I ever yet received. I have in my answer, desired he would write to some friend of his in town, to authorize him to receive his majesty's bounty, as it becomes due. I have told him that his agent must apply, and show his letter to Mr. Lounds of the Treasury. Poor Rousseau writes of nothing but his misery, illness, afflictions; in a word, of his being the most unfortunate man that ever existed. Good God! most of those distresses are surely occasioned by his own unhappy temper, which I really believe is not in his power to alter! so, let him be where he will, I fear he is certain to be uneasy. His passion for Botany has, as I conjecture, almost left him. If I am right in my guess, I have no sort of doubt, but he will again take to his pen, as 'tis impossible for his imagination to remain idle. I am, &c.
Davenport, May 25, 1767.
Dear Sir,—'Tis with the greatest satisfaction I hear, this poor unfortunate man will enjoy the pension. I am sure he lies under a thousand obligations to you, and am extremely glad he has wrote to General Conway. I hope he made use of at least some expressions of gratitude and respect to that gentleman, whose goodness of heart obtained this favour from his majesty.
I am sure you'll do your endeavour to save him from the Bastile, or (which I more fear) the Archbishop of Paris' prison.
He wrote me a letter from Spalding, dated 11th, in which he says, I have great reason to be offended at his manner of leaving Wooton. He says,—
Je préférois la liberté, au séjour de votre maison; ce sentiment est bien excusable. Mais je préfère infiniment le séjour de votre maison à tout autre captivité, et je préférerois toute captivité à celle où je suis, qui est horrible, et qui, quoiqu'il arrive ne sauroit durer. Si vous voulez bien Monsieur me recevoir derechef chez vous, je suis prêt à m'y rendre au cas qu'on m'en laisse la liberté, et quand j'y serois après l'expérience qui j'ai faite, difficilement serois-je tenté d'en ressortir pour chercher de nouveaux malheurs. Si ma proposition vous agrée, tâchez, Monsieur de me le faire savoir par quelque voie sûre, et de faciliter mon retour d'ici chez vous.
He repeats the same request of sending to him two or three times. This which he sent on the 11th, I received on the 17th. On the 18th I despatched a servant to Spalding: instead of staying for my answer, behold, on the 14th he set out for Dover, and on that morning wrote again by the post to me, in which he says, that if he had any assurance this letter of the 11th would come to me, and that I would agree to his proposals, and again receive him, he should certainly stay for an answer; but as he despaired of my receiving his, so he was determined to pass the Channel, and I should hear from him when he reached Calais, and quite sure of his liberty; that he would write from thence and make me a very singular proposition. He professes the greatest regard for me, &c. The next is dated, Dover, 18th May, where he says, that he chose to write to me from that place; that seeing the sea, and finding he was in reality a free man, and might either go or stay,—then, says he, I stopped, and intended to return to you; but by chance seeing in a public paper how my departure from Wooton was treated, caused him immediately to renounce that idea. He finishes with many compliments, but without telling me where to write to him, and I long to know how to address my letters. Before he left Wooton, he disposed of several long gowns amongst the poor people, went off in an old French dress, and got a blue coat made for him at Spalding. Pray, can you inform me who he has authorized to receive his majesty's bounty; because I think I may pay into their hands the money I have of his in mine. I should be pleased if you could be so kind as to inform me what date his letter bore, which he wrote to the Lord Chancellor. I am, dear sir, &c.
4th July, 1767.
This week I received a letter from Rousseau, dated, Fleury under Meudon, wrote with great complaisance; he returns a thousand thanks for all the civilities he received from me at Wooton; says that he is not fixed as to the place of his future residence, but that he will inform me as soon as he has made choice of one.
The style of this is vastly different from some of the last of those which he wrote in England; no mention of captivities, no wild imaginations of any kind, but entirely calm and composed. I heartily wish he may continue so, then sure he will be somewhat happy. I am, &c.
6th July, 1767.
The good woman who is called my housekeeper was my nurse, near ninety, and more than three parts blind. Madlle and she never could agree. I have heard something of the story of the kettle and cinders,[370:1] but am inclinable to believe my philosopher's resolutions were determined before that fray happened. His governante has an absolute power over him, and without doubt more or less influences all his actions. You certainly guess right about the unaccountable quarrel with you, to whom he has so many and great obligations: nay, I am almost sure he very heartily repents and inwardly wants to be reconciled. He has desired to hear from me often, and promises to let me know how he goes on, as soon as ever he is the least fixed. What he was writing, is the same he mentioned to you, will be a large work, containing at least twelve volumes. I am positively certain that when I left him, he had not entirely finished one. There's nothing in it which in any shape relates to state affairs or to ministers of state.
You shall see his letter the first opportunity; but, God help him! I can't, for pity, give a copy; and 'tis so much mixed with his own poor little private concerns, that it would not be right in me to do it. . . . I am, dear sir, &c.[371:1]
In the following letters, Hume narrates these events to his Northern friends, having been so frequently desired to give explanations of the rumours regarding Rousseau's escapades which occasionally reached Scotland, that he found it most expedient to answer miscellaneous inquiries by general chronological narratives.
Hume to Dr. Blair.
"27th May, 1767.
"Since you are curious to hear Rousseau's story, I shall tell you the sequel of it. A few days after his letter to the Chancellor, of which I informed you, I got a letter from Davenport, who told me that he had just received a letter from Rousseau, dated at Spalding, wherein that wild philosopher, as he calls him, appeared very penitent, and contrite, and melancholy; and expressed his purpose of returning immediately to his former retreat at Wooton. The same day, and nearly the same hour, General Conway received a long letter from him, dated at Dover, about two hundred miles distant from Spalding. This great journey he had made in two days; and had probably set out immediately after writing the letter above-mentioned to Davenport.[372:1] This letter to General Conway is the most frenzical imaginable. He there supposes that he was brought into England by a plot of mine, in order to reduce him to infamy, derision, and captivity. That General Conway, and all the most considerable personages of the nation, and the nation itself, had entered into this conspiracy. That he is at present actually a state prisoner in General Conway's hands, and has been so ever since his arrival in the kingdom. He entreats him, however, to allow him the liberty of departing; warns him that it will not be safe to assassinate him in private; as he is unhappily too well known not to have inquiries made, if he should disappear on a sudden; and promises that if his request be granted, his memoirs shall never be printed to disgrace the English ministry and the English nation.
"He owns that he has wrote such memoirs, the chief object of which was to deliver a faithful account of the treatment he has met with in England; but he promises, that the moment he sets foot on the French shore, he shall write to the friend in whose hand the manuscript is deposited, to deliver it to the General, who may destroy it if he pleases. He adds, that as it may be objected, that after recovering his liberty he may do as he pleases, he offers, as a pledge of his sincerity, to accept of his pension; after which he thinks no one will imagine he could be so infamous as to write against the king's ministers or his people. Amidst all this frenzy, he employs these terms as if a ray of reason had for a moment broke into his mind. He says, speaking of himself in the third person, 'Non-seulement il abandonne pour toujours le projet d'écrire sa vie et ses mémoires, mais il ne lui échappera jamais, ni de bouche ni par écrit, un seul mot de plainte sur les malheurs qui lui sont arrivés en Angleterre; il ne parlera jamais de M. Hume, ou il n'en parlera qu'avec honneur, et lorsqu'il sera pressé de s'expliquer sur quelques indiscrètes plaintes, qui lui sont quelquefois échappées dans le fort de ses peines, il les rejettera sans mystère, sur son humeur aigrie et portée à la défiance, et aux ombrages par ce malheureux penchant, ouvrage de ses malheurs, et qui maintenant y met le comble.'[373:1]
"We hear that notwithstanding his imagined captivity, he has passed over to Calais; where he is likely to experience what real captivity is. I have, however, used my persuasion with Monsr de Guerchi to represent him to his court as a real madman, more an object of compassion than of anger. We shall no doubt see his Memoirs in a little time: which will be full of eloquence and extravagance, though perhaps as reasonable as any of his past productions; for I do not imagine he was ever much more in his senses than at present. I think I may be entirely without anxiety concerning all his future productions."[374:1]
The following letters to Smith appear to have been intended as a comprehensive history of the flight of Rousseau. The reader will readily excuse the repetition of some incidents already mentioned, and may perhaps find an interest in comparing the impressions produced by the events as they were successively occurring, with this general retrospect of the whole.
Hume to Adam Smith.
"London, 8th October, 1767.
"Dear Smith,—I shall give you an account of the late heteroclite exploits of Rousseau, as far as I can recollect them. There is no need of any secrecy: they are most of them pretty public, and are well known to every body that had curiosity to observe the actions of that strange, undefinable existence, whom one would be apt to imagine an imaginary being, though surely not an ens rationis.
"I believe you know, that in spring last, Rousseau applied to General Conway to have his pension. The General answered to Mr. Davenport, who carried the application, that I was expected to town in a few days; and without my consent and approbation he would take no steps in that affair. You may believe I readily gave my consent. I also solicited the affair, through the Treasury; and the whole being finished, I wrote to Mr. Davenport, and desired him to inform his guest, that he needed only appoint any person to receive payment. Mr. Davenport answered me, that it was out of his power to execute my commission: for that his wild philosopher, as he called him, had eloped of a sudden, leaving a great part of his baggage behind him, some money in Davenport's hands, and a letter on the table, as odd, he says, as the one he wrote to me, and implying that Mr. Davenport was engaged with me in a treacherous conspiracy against him! He was not heard of for a fortnight, till the Chancellor received a letter from him, dated at Spalding in Lincolnshire; in which he said that he had been seduced into this country by a promise of hospitality; that he had met with the worst usage; that he was in danger of his life from the plots of his enemies; and that he applied to the Chancellor, as the first civil magistrate of the kingdom, desiring him to appoint a guard at his own (Rousseau's) expense, who might safely conduct him out of the kingdom. The Chancellor made his secretary reply to him, that he was mistaken in the nature of the country; for that the first post-boy he could apply to, was as safe a guide as the Chancellor could appoint. At the very same time that Rousseau wrote this letter to the Chancellor, he wrote to Davenport, that he had eloped from him, actuated by a very natural desire, that of recovering his liberty; but finding he must still be in captivity, he preferred that at Wooton: for his captivity at Spalding was intolerable beyond all human patience, and he was at present the most wretched being on the face of the globe: he would therefore return to Wooton, if he were assured that Davenport would receive him.
"Here I must tell you, that the parson of Spalding was about two months ago in London, and told Mr. Fitzherbert, from whom I had it, that he had passed several hours every day with Rousseau, while he was in that place; that he was cheerful, good-humoured, easy, and enjoyed himself perfectly well, without the least fear or complaint of any kind. However this may be, our hero, without waiting for any answer, either from the Chancellor or Mr. Davenport, decamps on a sudden from Spalding, and takes the road directly to Dover; whence he writes a letter to General Conway, seven pages long, and full of the wildest extravagance in the world. He says, that he had endured a captivity in England, which it was impossible any longer to submit to. It was strange, that the greatest in the nation, and the whole nation itself, should have been seduced by one private man, to serve his vengeance against another private man: he found in every face that he was here the object of general derision and aversion, and he was therefore infinitely desirous to remove from this country. He therefore begs the General to restore him to his liberty, and allow him to leave England; he warns him of the danger there may be of cutting his throat in private; as he is unhappily a man too well known, not to have inquiries made after him, should he disappear of a sudden: he promises, on condition of his being permitted to depart the kingdom, to speak no ill of the king or country, or ministers, or even of Mr. Hume; as indeed, says he, I have perhaps no reason; my jealousy of him having probably arisen from my own suspicious temper, soured by misfortunes. He says, that he wrote a volume of Memoirs, chiefly regarding the treatment he has met with in England; he has left it in safe hands, and will order it to be burned, in case he be permitted to go beyond seas, and nothing shall remain to the dishonour of the king and his ministers.
"This letter is very well wrote, so far as regards the style and composition; and the author is so vain of it, that he has given about copies, as of a rare production. It is indeed, as General Conway says, the composition of a whimsical man, not of a madman. But what is more remarkable, the very same post, he wrote to Davenport, that, having arrived within sight of the sea, and finding he was really at liberty to go or stay, as he pleased, he had intended voluntarily to return to him; but seeing in a newspaper an account of his departure from Wooton, and concluding his offences were too great to be forgiven, he was resolved to depart for France. Accordingly, without any farther preparation, and without waiting General Conway's answer, he took his passage in a packet boat, and went off that very evening. Thus, you see, he is a composition of whim, affectation, wickedness, vanity, and inquietude, with a very small if any ingredient of madness. He is always complaining of his health; yet I have scarce ever seen a more robust little man of his years. He was tired in England; where he was neither persecuted nor caressed, and where, he was sensible, he had exposed himself. He resolved, therefore, to leave it; and having no pretence, he is obliged to contrive all those absurdities, which he himself, extravagant as he is, gives no credit to. At least, this is the only key I can devise to his character. The ruling qualities above-mentioned, together with ingratitude, ferocity, and lying,—I need not mention eloquence and invention,—form the whole of the composition.
"When he arrived at Paris, all my friends, who were likewise all his, agreed totally to neglect him. The public, too, disgusted with his multiplied and indeed criminal extravagancies, showed no manner of concern about him. Never was such a fall from the time I took him up, about a year and a half before. I am told by D'Alembert and Horace Walpole, that, sensible of this great alteration, he endeavoured to regain his credit by acknowledging to every body his fault with regard to me: but all in vain: he has retired to a village in the mountains of Auvergne, as M. Durand tells me, where nobody inquires after him. He will probably endeavour to recover his fame by new publications; and I expect with some curiosity the reading of his Memoirs, which will I suppose suffice to justify me in every body's eyes, and in my own, for the publication of his letters and my narrative of the case. You will see by the papers, that a new letter of his to M. D., which I imagine to be Davenport, is published. This letter was probably wrote immediately on his arrival at Paris; or perhaps is an effect of his usual inconsistence: I do not much concern myself which. Thus he has had the satisfaction, during a time, of being much talked of, for his late transactions; the thing in the world he most desires: but it has been at the expense of being consigned to perpetual neglect and oblivion. My compliments to Mr. Oswald; and also to Mrs. Smith. I am," &c.[378:1]
Hume to Adam Smith.
"London, 17th October, 1767.
"Dear Smith,—I sit down to correct a mistake or two in the former account which I gave you of Rousseau. I saw Davenport a few days ago, who tells me, that the letter inserted in all the newspapers, was never addressed to him. He even doubts its being genuine; both because he knows it to be opposite to all his sentiments with regard to me, to whom he desires earnestly to be reconciled, and because it is too absurd and extravagant, and seems to be contrived rather as a banter upon him. Davenport added, that Rousseau was retired to some place in France, and had changed his name and his dress:[379:1] but wrote to him that he was the most miserable of all beings; that it was impossible for him to stay where he was; and that he would return to his old hermitage, if Davenport would accept of him. Indeed, he has some reason to be mortified with his reception in France; for Horace Walpole, who has very lately returned thence, tells me, that though Rousseau is settled at Cliché, within a league of Paris, nobody inquires after him, nobody visits him, nobody talks of him, every one has agreed to neglect and disregard him: a more sudden revolution of fortune than almost ever happened to any man—at least to any man of letters.
"I asked Mr. Davenport about those Memoirs, which Rousseau said he was writing, and whether he had ever seen them. He said, yes, he had; it was projected to be a work in twelve volumes; but he had as yet gone no farther than the first volume, which he had entirely composed at Wooton. It was charmingly wrote, and concluded with a very particular and interesting account of his first love, the object of which was a person whose first love it also was. Davenport, who is no bad judge, says, that these Memoirs will be the most taking of all his works; and, indeed, you may easily imagine what such a pen would make of such a subject as that I mentioned. Meanwhile it appears clearly, what I told you before, that he is no more mad at present, than he has been during the whole course of his life, and that he is capable of the same efforts of genius. I think I may wait in security his account of the transactions between us. But, however, this incident, which I foresaw, is some justification of me for publishing his letters, and may apologise for a step, which you, and even myself, have been inclined sometimes to blame, and always to regret."[380:1]
So ended Rousseau's wild sojourn, in what he termed "l'heureuse terre, où sont nés David Hume et le Maréchal d'Ecosse." When the wounds inflicted on his benefactor by ungrateful actions and uncharitable interpretations had been healed by time, and the conduct of him who had occasioned them was seen no longer through the excited medium of lacerated feelings, the hour had come for the just understanding to aid the kind heart, in estimating the character of the assailant; for finding that, deep as were the wounds he might inflict on others, there was an arrow still more deeply buried in his own bosom; that commiseration should take the place of resentment; and that the wanderer's footsteps should be accompanied by the prayer, that peace might revisit his disturbed spirit. Hume felt, perhaps, what he could not have expressed so well as one whose mind had too much in common with that which he describes,
His life was one long war with self-sought foes;
Or friends by him self-banished; for his mind
Had grown Suspicion's sanctuary, and chose,
For its own cruel sacrifice, the kind,
'Gainst whom he raged with fury strange and blind.
But he was frenzied,—wherefore, who may know?
Since cause might be which skill could never find;
But he was frenzied by disease or woe,
To that worst pitch of all, which wears a reasoning show.
Hume was not a man given to the clamorous expression of contritions or regrets. It is in his silence and his subsequent acts that we find him desirous to compensate for the punishment he had inflicted on his assailant. The letters of his French friends, during the summer of 1767, show that he had earnestly exerted himself to protect Rousseau from the vengeance of the government;[381:1] and there is all reason to believe, that it was through this intervention that the wanderer was permitted to pursue his course in peace. On the other hand, when the dark cloud had completely passed away, the monomaniac appears to have awakened to a distressing consciousness of what he had done. He afterwards attributed his conduct in England to our foggy atmosphere, which had filled his mind with gloom and discontent; and the work at which he laboured busily with the fierce excitement of him who forges a weapon to avenge his wrongs, stopped short at the very point where his narrative of injuries was to commence.
FOOTNOTES:
[319:1] It might be expected, from the nature of Mr. Davenport's letters, that his descendants should be in possession of letters, either by Hume or Rousseau bearing on this curious passage of literary history. I believe I am committing no breach of private confidence in saying, that this family, to whom I am indebted for many polite attentions, lost all such documents, along with other valuable papers. They were destroyed by an attorney,—who at the same time put an end to his own life.
[320:1] This letter was written in French; and the person to whom it was addressed is not known. It was published in a miscellany, of which a translation (from which the above extract is made) appeared in 1799, as "Original Letters of J. J. Rousseau, Butta Fuoco, and David Hume."
[320:2] Private Correspondence, p. 153.
[320:3] Exposé Succinct.
[320:4] See above, p. 304. One of Rousseau's favourite amusements was, drawing a vehement picture of his misfortunes and his poverty; and after having thus laid a sort of trap, catching some benevolent person in the act of secretly attempting to aid him. Many of his letters are like those of a petty dealer, who is afraid of being imposed on, and must see that all the consignments are exact, as per invoice and account. The matter of the return chaise already alluded to, slightly tinges the good humour of the former of these letters. In the other, there are some remonstrances about a model of a bust of himself, which he will not take from the artist unless it is to be paid for. The same letter contains the following passage, which the editors of the "Exposé Succinct" did not think it necessary to print. It illustrates Rousseau's occasional attention to small matters.
"Je vous suis obligé d'avoir bien voulu solder le mémoire de M. Stuart. J'y trouve deux articles qui ne sont pas de ma connoissance. L'un de £1 14 pour du café, et l'autre de 5 sh. pour un moulin. Il est vrai que M. Stuart avoit bien voulu se charger de ces commissions, mais je ne les ai point recues ni avec mon bagage ni autrement, et n'en ai aucun avis que par son mémoire."
[321:1] Though it has been repeated in so many other places, it seems necessary, for the distinctness of the narrative, here to print this famous letter.
"Mon cher Jean Jacques,
"Vous avez renoncé à Genève, votre patrie. Vous vous êtes fait chasser de la Suisse, pays tant vanté dans vos écrits; la France vous a décrété; venez donc chez moi. J'admire vos talens; je m'amuse de vos rêveries qui (soit dit en passant) vous occupent trop et trop longtemps. Il faut à la fin être sage & heureux; vous avez fait assez parler de vous, par des singularités peu convenables à un véritable grand homme: démontrez à vos enemis que vous pouvez avoir quelquefois le sens commun: cela les fâchera sans vous faire tort. Mes états vous offrent une retraite paisible: je vous veux du bien, & je vous en ferai, si vous le trouvez bon. Mais si vous vous obstinez à rejetter mon secours, attendez-vous que je ne le dirai à personne. Si vous persistez à vous creuser l'esprit pour trouver de nouveaux malheurs, choisissez-les tels que vous voudrez; je suis roi, je puis vous en procurer au gré de vos souhaits; et, ce qui sûrement ne vous arrivera pas vis-à-vis de vos ennemis, je cesserai de vous persécuter, quand vous cesserez de mettre votre gloire à l'être. Votre bon ami,
Frederick."
Rousseau thought it worse than strange, that the person who wrote this letter should have been intrusted with the conveyance of a parcel to him, holding it to be clear that Walpole must necessarily be a person who could not be intrusted with his property. M. Musset Pathay, in his "Vie de Rousseau," makes a serious charge against Hume, in connexion with Walpole's conduct. Hume confessed his being present when one of the pleasantries of the letter was uttered in conversation. "Horace Walpole's letter," he says to Madame de Barbantane, "was not founded on any pleasantry of mine. The only pleasantry in that letter came from his own mouth in my company, at Lord Ossory's table, which my lord remembers very well." (Private Correspondence , p. 146.) On this passage, M. Musset says: "Elle prouve que l'historien Anglais s'est permis une plaisanterie contre Jean Jacques, au moment même ou, lui témoignant le plus grand intérêt, il se préparait à l'emmener en Angleterre. Ainsi, à l'époque où David donnait à Rousseau les plus grandes marques d'amitié, il contribuait d'un côté à le rendre un objet de ridicule, par un bon mot qui fit partie du persiflage d'Horace Walpole," (i. 115.) If the reader thinks he here finds a French statesman announcing the rigid doctrine of sincerity, that no man should patiently hear his friend's foibles laughed at, he will find, on examining the passage, that M. Musset has chosen to speak of Hume as the author of the jest. In harmony with this view he, innocently it is to be presumed, translates the above sentence in Hume's letter thus:—"La seule plaisanterie que je me sois permise relativement à la prétendue lettre du roi de Prusse, fut faite par moi à la table de Lord Ossory!"
[323:1] Private Correspondence, p. 133.
[323:2] Madame de Boufflers writes on 6th May:—
"Je ne puis croire que le violent chagrin dont parle J. J. vienne de la lettre de M. Walpole, quoique sûrement elle l'a du beaucoup affecter. Je crains bien plutôt que quelque dégoût de Melle. Le Vasseur ou quelques querelles entre eux n'en soit la cause; éclaircissez cela de grâce, et ôtez moi du l'inquiétude où vous m'avez prise."—MS. R.S.E.
[324:1] That Hume was, in the meantime, quite unconscious of any cause of offence against himself, is evident from his writing to Madame de Boufflers, on 16th May:
"As to the deep calamity of which he complains, it is impossible for me to imagine it. I suppose it is some trifle, aggravated by his melancholy temper and lively fancy. I shall endeavour to learn from Mr. Davenport, who is just gone to that neighbourhood. Lady Aylesbury and General Conway believe that it is Horace Walpole's letter which still torments him. That letter was put into our newspapers; which produced an answer, full of passion, and indeed of extravagance, complaining in the most tragical terms of the forgery, and lamenting that the impostor should find any abettors and partisans in England. Mr. Walpole has wrote a reply, full of vivacity and wit, but sacrifices it to his humanity, and is resolved that no copy of it shall get abroad. He assures me that he, as well as Madame du Deffand, were entirely innocent of that publication at Paris: it was a lady, a friend of yours, who gave the first copy." Private Correspondence , pp. 170-171.
[325:1] MS. R.S.E.
[325:2] Musset Pathay, Vie de Rousseau, vol. i. p. 116. This gentleman concludes that, within the space of twenty-four hours, Rousseau must have had reason to change from the extremity of confidence in Hume, to a full conviction of his guilt. But with all his desire to vindicate Rousseau, his account of the manner in which this conclusion had been reached, does not tend to convince one that it was well founded.
"Mais, d'après l'étude du caractère de Rousseau, d'après l'observation qui prouve que, dans la solitude, l'imagination s'effarouche aisément, il est plus naturel de croire que, tout-à-coup, une multitude de circonstances s'offrirent à la fois à la mémoire de Jean Jacques, et, quoique minutieuses en elles mêmes, qu'elles devinrent, par leur nombre, et leur coïncidence, importantes et graves. Il ne fallait qu'un incident pour les rendre telles, comme une goutte suffit pour faire déborder un vase plein d'eau."
[326:1] Printed documents of the controversy—Ritchie's Life of Hume.
[328:1] Documents of the controversy, &c.
[329:1] There is certainly one important exception to this method of viewing the matter, and that in a book otherwise of merit. One would hardly expect to meet with a work of the nineteenth century, containing a serious vindication of Rousseau, as a sane man who was in the right in this quarrel, while Hume was in the wrong. Yet some such task has been undertaken in the "Histoire de la Vie et des Ouvrages de J. J. Rousseau," by the late M. Musset Pathay, (1821,) which may be ranked among the boldest efforts of that school of biographers, whose principle is, that the hero of their tale must not be admitted to have had any vice or weakness. M. Musset's charges against Hume are much of the same mystical character with those made by Rousseau himself, and amount to this, that there was something in the whole aspect of affairs not quite satisfactory. He deals with some small matters of fact,—he is very indignant that Hume should, as he confesses, have tried to prevent Rousseau from plunging into a distant solitude; and we have already seen the effect which his zeal has had on his discrimination, in the affair of Walpole's letter. He makes one discovery, of which it would be unjust to deny him the full merit. Hume says, in his Vindication, "It is with reluctance I say it, but I am compelled to it. I now know of a certainty, that this affectation of extreme poverty and distress was a mere pretence, a petty kind of imposture, which M. Rousseau successfully employed to excite the compassion of the public: but I was then very far from suspecting any such artifice." In a letter to Madame de Boufflers, he says, "I should be glad to know how your inquiries at M. Rougemont's have turned out. It is only matter of mere curiosity: for even if the fact should prove against him, which is very improbable, I should only regard it as one weakness more, and do not make my good opinion of him to depend on a single incident." (Private Correspondence , p. 130.) Now Rougemont was a banker, and M. Musset infers that Hume had been making inquiries as to Rousseau's pecuniary affairs. Perhaps, when he found a man proclaiming his destitution to all Europe, and flinging back, in the faces of the givers, the assistance his importunities extracted from the compassionate, it was not a very great crime to endeavour to ascertain the truth of any rumour, that the misery was not so extreme as the sufferer painted it, and the necessity for their intervention not so great as the compassionate believed it to be. There is one letter from M. Rougemont among the MSS. R.S.E. dated 5th March, 1766. If it does not contradict, it certainly does not confirm the theory of M. Musset. It is too long and commonplace to be here inserted in full. There is not a word in it about money matters; and it appears to be written in answer to some high praise of Rousseau by Hume. The banker says:
"L'opinion que vous avez de M. Rousseau ne me laisse plus aucun doute: et c'est avec la plus grande satisfaction que je vois que mon enthusiasme ne m'a point aveuglée; les détails que vous me faites, me persuadent encore plus de la vérité d'une observation que vous avez faite un soir; c'est, qu'il n'est qu'un homme ordinaire quand son coeur ne sent rien." MS. R.S.E.
One might indeed infer, that Hume's inquiries were to discover whether the solitude of Wooton would be likely to be favourable to Rousseau. M. Rougemont thinks it would not. "La solitude," he says, "qui peut cesser quand on veut, peut avoir des charmes; mais je ne puis croire qu'il ne soit pas fort malheureux d'être nécessairement privé de toute société." The rest of his letter is devoted to Parisian literary gossip, with which the banker appears to have been ambitious of showing his acquaintance.
It is not when reviewing the conduct of Hume, but when recalling such observations as those made by Dr. Johnson on Rousseau, that one is tempted to sympathize with M. Musset. Of the rigid moralist's opinions, Boswell gives us the following sketch:
"One evening, at the Mitre, Johnson said sarcastically to me, 'It seems, sir, you have kept very good company abroad: Rousseau and Wilkes!' I answered, with a smile, 'My dear sir, you don't call Rousseau bad company: do you really think him a bad man?' Johnson. 'Sir, if you are talking jestingly of this, I don't talk with you. If you mean to be serious, I think him one of the worst of men; a rascal who ought to be hunted out of society as he has been. Three or four nations have expelled him; and it is a shame that he is protected in this country. Rousseau, sir, is a very bad man. I would sooner sign a sentence for his transportation, than that of any felon who has gone from the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have him work in the plantations.'"—Boswell, vol. ii. p. 314, ed. 1835.
[331:1] A scientific gentleman, whose writings on medical jurisprudence are of high authority, and who had read the Hume and Rousseau controversy, observed to me, that Rousseau's case should have been treated as one of monomania.
[332:1] Whoever would notice the practical sagacity of Rousseau's genius, may compare the early part of "Émile," with "Combe on the Management of Infancy," and observe in how many things the theorist and the scientific inquirer coincide.
[333:1] "We have had," says Burke, in his Reflections on the French Revolution, "the great professor and founder of the philosophy of vanity in England. As I had good opportunities of knowing his proceedings, almost from day to day, he left no doubt on my mind that he entertained no principle, either to influence his heart or guide his understanding, but vanity: with this vice he was possessed to a degree little short of madness."
[333:2] D'Alembert writes to Hume, on 4th August:
"Il y a dans la drôle de lettre de ce joli petit homme, comme vous l'appelliez autrefois, une phrase sacramentelle ou sacramentale, à laquelle vous n'avez peut-être pas fait autant d'attention qu'elle le mérite; c'est que le public, qui d'abord avoit eté fort amoureux de lui, commença bientôt après à le négliger. Voilà ce qui le fâche véritablement, et il s'en prend à qui il peut. Vous vous êtes chargé de montrer l'ours à la foire; sa loge qui d'abord etoit pleine, est bientôt restée vuide, et il vous en rend responsable. Il est d'ailleurs três certain, et je le sçais de Duclos son ami, à qui il l'a dit, ainsi qu'à bien d'autres, qu'il ne peut pas souffrir toutes les personnes à qui il a obligation: et sur ce pied là, vous avez bien des droits à sa haine." MS. R.S.E.
[334:1] During his sojourn in England, he was in dread of being kidnapped. The late Professor Walker remembered being asked by Lord Bute to accompany Rousseau on a botanizing excursion on the banks of the Thames, and that he was just explaining something about marine plants being acrid, when a Cockney pic-nic party of youths, dressed as sailors, landed. Rousseau instantly took to his heels! The professor being responsible for his safe restoration, followed, and, after a considerable chase, succeeded in running him down. Rousseau, seeing that there were no other pursuers, passed the matter off by the observation that marine men were acrid. After his return from England, an account for nine francs, which it appears he was not due, was presented against him by a tradesman. He called on all Europe to witness this conspiracy to destroy his character, and raised such an outcry as must have effectually frightened sober tradesmen from overcharging interesting solitaries.
[335:1] Even his trusted friend, Du Peyrou, writing to Hume on 13th February, after many eulogiums on his kindness to the unfortunate, says:—
"C'est sous votre couvert qu' M. Rousseau m'a marqué, Monsieur, que je devois lui écrire: voudriez vous donc avoir la complaisance de lui faire parvenir l'incluse à son adresse." MS. R.S.E.
[337:1] MS. R.S.E.
[337:2] He was a cordial hater of all uncandidness in others, whatever he might be in his own case. Morellet tells a laughable anecdote of Rousseau's presence on an occasion when some of the wicked wits of Paris were what is commonly called "trotting out" a vain poet, and making him say ridiculous things of his own genius. Rousseau, after walking restlessly about the room, burst into a rage, told the poet that he was a poor paltry idiot, and the company were only encouraging him to make game of him.
[338:1] An incident had just happened to make the name of the "quack Tronchin," peculiarly offensive. This distinguished physician had received public honours at Parma. After strenuous popular opposition, he had been permitted to practise the new precautionary remedy of inoculation on the young prince Ferdinand. The experiment had been successful; all Parma, excited by loyal joy, petitioned the Grand-duke to admit the physician to the rank of citizen. A tablet, commemorating the triumph of science, was erected in the town hall, and a medal with suitable devices was struck in honour of the operator. He was a relation of Tronchin the Procureur Général of Geneva, author of Lettres écrites de la Campagne , which Rousseau answered in Lettres de la Montagne . See him mentioned above, p. 186.
[339:1] Morellet questions if he could have done so, i. 106.
[340:1] The following jeu-d'esprit, which was printed in some of the periodicals of the day, is really a pretty accurate abridgment of Rousseau's paper. It has the appearance of having been written by a Scottish lawyer:—
Heads of an Indictment laid by J. J. Rousseau, philosopher, against D. Hume, Esq.
1. That the said David Hume, to the great scandal of philosophy, and not having the fitness of things before his eyes, did concert a plan with Mess. Tronchin, Voltaire, and D'Alembert, to ruin the said J. J. Rousseau for ever, by bringing him over to England, and there settling him to his heart's content.
2. That the said David Hume did, with a malicious and traitorous intent, procure, or cause to be procured, by himself, or somebody else, one pension of the yearly value of £100 or thereabouts, to be paid to the said J. J. Rousseau, on account of his being a philosopher, either privately or publicly, as to him the said J. J. Rousseau should seem meet.
3. That the said David Hume did, one night after he left Paris, put the said J. J. Rousseau in bodily fear, by talking in his sleep; although the said J. J. Rousseau doth not know whether the said David Hume was really asleep, or whether he shammed Abraham, or what he meant.
4. That, at another time, as the said David Hume and the said J. J. Rousseau were sitting opposite each other by the fireside in London, he, the said David Hume, did look at him, the said J. J. Rousseau, in a manner of which it is difficult to give any idea: That he, the said J. J. Rousseau, to get rid of the embarrassment he was under, endeavoured to look full at him, the said David Hume, in return, to try if he could not stare him out of countenance; but in fixing his eyes against his, the said David Hume's, he felt the most inexpressible terror, and was obliged to turn them away, insomuch that the said J. J. Rousseau doth in his heart think and believe, as much as he believes any thing, that he, the said David Hume, is a certain composition of a white-witch and a rattlesnake.
5. That the said David Hume on the same evening, after politely returning the embraces of him, the said J. J. Rousseau, and gently tapping him on the back, did repeat several times, in a good-natured easy tone, the words, "Why, what, my dear sir! Nay, my dear sir! Oh, my dear sir!" From whence the said J. J. Rousseau doth conclude, as he thinks upon solid and sufficient grounds, that he the said David Hume is a traitor; albeit he, the said J. J. Rousseau, doth acknowledge, that the physiognomy of the good David is that of an honest man, all but those terrible eyes of his, which he must have borrowed; but he the said J. J. Rousseau vows to God he cannot conceive from whom or what.
6. That the said David Hume hath more inquisitiveness about him than becometh a philosopher, and did never let slip an opportunity of being alone with the governante of him the said J. J. Rousseau.
7. That the said David Hume did most atrociously and flagitiously put him, the said J. J. Rousseau, philosopher, into a passion; as knowing that then he would be guilty of a number of absurdities.
8. That the said David Hume must have published Mr. Walpole's letter in the newspapers, because, at that time, there was neither man, woman, nor child, in the island of Great Britain, but the said David Hume, the said J. J. Rousseau, and the printers of the several newspapers aforesaid.
9. That somebody in a certain magazine, and somebody else in a certain newspaper, said something against him, the said John James Rousseau, which he, the said J. J. Rousseau, is persuaded, for the reason abovementioned, could be nobody but the said David Hume.
10. That the said J. J. Rousseau knows, that he, the said David Hume, did open and peruse the letters of him, the said J. J. Rousseau, because he one day saw the said David Hume go out of the room, after his own servant, who had, at that time, a letter of the said J. J. Rousseau's in his hands; which must have been in order to take it from the servant, open it, and read the contents.
11. That the said David Hume did, at the instigation of the devil, in a most wicked and unnatural manner, send, or cause to be sent, to the lodgings of him, the said J. J. Rousseau, one dish of beefsteaks, thereby meaning to insinuate, that he, the said J. J. Rousseau, was a beggar, and came over to England to ask alms: whereas be it known to all men by these presents, that he, the said John James Rousseau, brought with him the means of subsistence, and did not come with an empty purse; as he doubts not but he can live upon his labours—with the assistance of his friends; and in short can do better without the said David Hume than with him.
12. That besides all these facts put together, the said J. J. Rousseau did not like a certain appearance of things on the whole.
[343:1] "That of the 22d of March, which is full of cordiality, and proves that M. Rousseau had never, to that moment, entertained any of those black suspicions of perfidy which he publishes at present. There is only in that letter a peevish passage about the affair of his chaise."—Hume.
[344:1] Documents of the controversy.
[344:2] Such was his first impulse. He evidently, after viewing the matter more coolly, was disinclined to publish, but he was finally prevailed on to do so.
[345:1] MS. R.S.E.
[346:1] MS. R.S.E.
[346:2] Morellet, i. 105.
[346:3] Priv. Cor. 204.
[348:1] Voltaire et Rousseau par Henry Lord Brougham, App. No. IX. Lord Brougham twice honoured me with an intimation that he had obtained letters of David Hume, in Paris, which were too late for his own "Lives of Men of Letters," and were to be sent to me. While thankfully waiting for their arrival, I observed, on the title page of his lordship's French lives of Voltaire and Rousseau, that the book contained "Léttres entièrement inédites de Hume." Thinking it not impossible that the letters destined for my use, had thus, by some accident, been diverted from their destination, I have printed them in this book, according to their dates, in the fullest assurance of his lordship's cordial concurrence.
[349:1] MS. R.S.E.
[350:1] D'Holbach.
[351:1] MS. R.S.E.
"A Paris, le 7 Septembre, 1766.
"J'ai trouvé ici, monsieur, votre lettre de 5 Août, à mon retour d'un voyage que j'ai été faire en Normandie. D'Alembert, qui venoit alors de recevoir votre récit de l'Histoire de Rousseau avec les lettres que vous y avez insérées, me l'a communiqué. Je vous crois à présent si ennuyé de cette affaire que je ne sais si je dois encore vous en parler. M. De Montigni m'a cependant dit que vous désiriez de savoir ma façon de penser. Vous imaginez bien qu'elle ne peut pas être douteuse sur le fond de l'affaire, et je crois qu'excepté Rousseau, et peut-être Mlle. Le Vasseur, il n'y a personne dans le monde qui s'imagine, ni qui eut jamais imaginé, que vous ayez mené Rousseau en Angleterre pour le trahir, et à qui sa longue lettre et ses démonstrations ne fassent pitié. Mais je vous avoue que j'y vois toujours plus de folie que de noirceur. J'y vois des sophismes dont une imagination se sert pour empoisonner les circonstances les plus simples et les transformer au gré de la manie qui l'occupe. Mais je ne crois point que ces extravagances soient un jeu joué, et un prétexte pour secouer le poids de la reconnoissance qu'il vous doit. Il paroît sentir lui même que personne ne le croira, et qu'il se couvre d'opprobre du moins pour le moment aux yeux du public. Il avoue qu'il sacrifie et son intérêt et même sa réputation: et il est certain que cette affaire lui fait un tort irréparable, l'isole du genre humain, et lui ôte tout appui contre les persécutions auxquelles ses opinions et encore plus ces traits de sa misanthropie l'exposeront toujours. Je persiste donc à ne le croire que fou, et je suis affligé que l'impression trop vive qu'a faite sur vous sa folie vous ait mis dans le cas de la faire éclater et de la rendre irrémédiable; car le bruit qu'à fait votre lettre au Baron, est pour Rousseau une démonstration que ces conjectures étoient fondées sur la vérité même. Il a bien mandé à Madame de Boufflers qu'il ne se plaignoit pas, et que cette lettre qui vous a donné lieu de le diffamer comme le dernier des hommes n'étoit écrite qu'à vous. L'éclat que vous avez fait, lui a fait tout le mal possible, et sa lettre ne vous en a fait aucun. . . . . . . Après vous avoir dit aussi franchement mon avis, vous serez surpris peut-être de me voir presque revenu à l'avis de faire imprimer. La folie de Rousseau est telle qu'il a écrit ici différentes lettres dans lesquelles il regarde votre trahison comme si constante, et les démonstrations comme si terrassantes pour vous, qu'il vous défie de publier les pièces sans vous déshonorer, à moins que vous ne les falsifiez; ce ne sont pas ses termes mais c'en est le sens. Si cette espèce de défi devenoit public à un certain point, et faisoit plus d'impression en Angleterre qu'il n'en peut faire en France, peut-être serez-vous obligé d'imprimer. Mais en ce cas je voudrois retrancher tout réçit, toute imputation de mensonge, toutes notes excepté quelques unes nécessaires pour rétablir simplement les faits importans, comme celui de la scène qui s'est passée la veille de son départ pour Wooton. Encore voudrois-je que dans ces notes vous disiez simplement le fait, sans traiter Rousseau de menteur, sans vous abaisser à le prouver. Vous devez être cru sur ce que vous direz, et vous le serez. Je ne mettrois autre chose à la tête, si non que les discours répandus sur la querelle, &c. et l'espèce de défi que M. Rousseau vous fait d'en publier ce qui s'est passé, vous obligent à regret à publier les accusations de M. Rousseau contre vous, et que vous croyez leur publication une réponse suffisante. Voilà quel est actuellement mon penchant. Mais comme je ne vois à cela rien de pressé, je crois que vous ferez bien de vous donner tout le tems d'y réfléchir. Plus vous mettez dans cette affaire de modération et même d'indifférence, plus le tort de Rousseau deviendra évident."—MS. R.S.E.
[354:1] The original of this letter is in the MSS. R.S.E. It is printed in Priv. Cor. p. 187.
[354:2] MS. R.S.E.
[354:3] "Le hasard a voulu que la plus part de vos amis, et surtout ceux à qui vous me conseillez de lire votre lettre, se soient trouvés rassemblés chez Mlle. de L'Espinasse presque au moment que je l'ai reçue; Mr. Turgot, Mr. L'Abbé Morellet, Mr. Roux, Mr. Saurin, Mr. Marmontel, Mr. Duclos. Tous unanimement, ainsi que Mlle. de L'Espinasse et moi sommes d'avis, que vous devez donner cette histoire au public, avec toutes ses circumstances. Voici ce que nous vous conseillons—je dis nous, car je parle ici au nom de tous. Vous commencerez d'abord par dire que vous savez que Rousseau travaille à ses mémoires, qu'il fera sans doute mention de sa querelle avec vous, qui a fait trop de bruit pour qu'il ne cherche pas à la tourner à son avantage, que les mémoires pourront paroître ou après votre mort ou aprés la sienne: que dans le 1er cas, comme vous l'observez vous-même, personne ne pourra vous justifier; que dans le second, votre défense seroit sans force; que vous avez donc cru devoir donner vous même toute cette histoire au public, afin que Mr. Rousseau réponde s'il le peut. Ensuite vous entrerez dans le détail, et dans le plus grand détail, mais surtout, et c'est une chose absolument essentielle et que nous vous recommendons tous—vous vous bornerez aux faits, exprimés simplement et nettement, sans aigreur, sans la moindre injure, sans même de réflexions sur le caractère de Rousseau et sur ses écrits; vous rapporterez vos lettres et les siennes; celle qu'il vous a écrite le 23 juin suffiroit seule pour le faire condamner, vous ne direz point, du moins trop souvent, que vous êtes son bienfaiteur—tout le monde le sait assez. Enfin mon cher ami, nous vous recommendons, et nous vous conjurons de mettre dans cette brochure la plus grande modération mais en même temps la plus grande clarté."—MS. R.S.E.
[355:1] Walpole's "Narrative."
[357:1] "Vous devez être bien étonné, Monsieur, de n'avoir encore reçu aucune lettre sur la publication de votre mémoire, et il y a en cela beaucoup de ma faute. J'avois dit à M. D'Alembert que j'aurois l'honneur de vous écrire. Il a compté sur moi. Le Baron D'Holbach a compté sur nous deux, et moi j'ai compté aussi sur eux; voilà ce qui fait qu'il n'y a rien que d'avoir plusieurs domestiques pour être mal servi."
Stating, that he has sent a copy of the collection by post, he proceeds:
"Vous avez désiré que je fusse votre traducteur, et je n'avois pas besoin de tous les sentimens qui m'attachent à vous, pour me charger de ce travail, avec plaisir. Votre cause me paroisoit celle des honnêtes gens et surtout celle des amis de la philosophie. Il y a long-tems que je regardois Rousseau comme un profond et dangereux charlatan, qui avoit passé sa vie à recevoir des bienfaits de tout le monde, et à faire tout le mal qu'il avoit pu à ceux qui lui avaient fait le plus de bien. . . Vous trouverez sans doute, Monsieur, qu'on a pris bien des libertés avec votre texte: il y a beaucoup de passages altérés, et suprimés: mais il n'y a aucun changement qui n'ait été fait par M. D'Alembert ou de son consentement, et toujours pour des raisons que vous aprouverez vraisemblement."
[358:1] New Monthly Magazine, (original series,) No. 72.
[358:2] The letter is dated Ferney, 24th Oct. 1766. Oeuvres de Voltaire, ed. 1789, lxiv. 495. Probably Hume never received this letter. It is not in the MSS. R.S.E., and Voltaire was known to be in the habit of writing to people through the press. Hume, however, states, in a note to the narrative of his controversy, that he had had a letter from Voltaire about three years before. There is no trace of it among his papers.
[360:1] MS. R.S.E.
[360:2] MS. R.S.E.
[360:3] Among those who were eager to peruse these documents, Hume says, writing to Madame de Barbantane, "The King and Queen of England expressed a strong desire to see these papers, and I was obliged to put them into their hands. They read them with avidity, and entertain the same sentiments that must strike every one. The king's opinion confirms me in the resolution not to give them to the public, unless I be forced to it by some attack on the side of my adversary, which it will therefore be wisdom in him to avoid." Private Correspondence , p. 210.
[361:1] He says, in a subsequent letter,—"What are become of all the controversies since the days of Scaliger and Scioppius, of Billingsgate memory? Why, they sleep in oblivion, till some Bayle drags them out of their dust, and takes mighty pains to ascertain the date of each author's death, which is of no more consequence to the world than the day of his birth. Many a country squire quarrels with his neighbour about game and manors, yet they never print their wrangles, though as much abuse passes between them, as if they could quote all the Philippics of the learned." We have an instance of what he considered a really important dispute, when he was baffled in his attempt to get his nephew, Lord Orford, married to Miss Nicol, "the vast fortune." "Thus," he says, "had I placed him in a greater situation than even his grandfather hoped to bequeath to him,—had retrieved all the oversights of my family,—had saved Houghton, and all our glory." "I have been forced," he says, writing to Horace Mann, "to write a narrative of the whole transaction; and was with difficulty kept from publishing it."—Letters , ii. 401.
[362:1] He did not lose the opportunity afforded by the publication of his pamphlet, for again expressing his contempt of men whose sole claim to notice rested on the greatness of their genius: "For Monsieur D'Alembert," he says, "I said that I was mighty indifferent about seeing him. That it was not my custom to seek authors, who are a conceited troublesome set of people." And hearing that Fréron, the same who was so sharp a thorn in Voltaire's side, had made some remarks on him, which displeased the Duchesse de Choiseul, he says, "I immediately wrote to Paris, to beg the duchess would suffer Fréron and D'Alembert, or any of the tribe, to write what they pleased, to get what money they could by abusing me."
[365:1] This is repeated in a letter to Robertson, of 19th March, and is followed by the statement, "The King, when applied to, said, that since the pension had once been promised, it should be granted, notwithstanding all that had passed in the interval. And thus the affair is happily finished, unless some new extravagance come across the philosopher, and urge him to reject what he has anew applied for."—Stewart's Life of Robertson.
[365:2] MS. R.S.E.
[366:1] The letter is in the usual editions of Rousseau's works, dated 30th April.
[366:2] The pamphlets produced in England on this subject, were not nearly so numerous as those published in France. Fuseli, whose mind was well suited for such a paradoxical championship, wrote "A defence of M. Rousseau, against the Aspersions of Mr. Hume, Monsieur Voltaire, and their associates." The other pamphlet alluded to in the letter, was, perhaps, "A letter to the Honourable Horace Walpole, concerning the dispute between Mr. Hume and M. Rousseau," by the Rev. Ralph Heathcote, D.D. Hume says, in a letter to Madame de Boufflers, "Agreeably to the licence of this country, there has been a great deal of raillery on the incident, thrown out in the public papers, but all against that unhappy man. There is even a print engraved of it: M. Rousseau is represented as a Yahoo, newly caught in the woods; I am represented as a farmer, who caresses him and offers him some oats to eat, which he refuses in a rage; Voltaire and D'Alembert are whipping him up behind; and Horace Walpole making him horns of papier mâché. The idea is not altogether absurd."—Private Correspondence , p. 234.
[367:1] MS. R.S.E.
[370:1] Walpole, whose capacity for acquiring information on such matters was unrivalled, seems to have at least made a near approach to the discovery of this point. He says in his narration, "The chief cause of his disgust has been a long quarrel between his housekeeper and Mr. Davenport's cook-maid, who, as Rousseau affirmed, had always dressed their dinner very ill, and at last had sprinkled ashes on their victuals."
[371:1] MS. R.S.E.
[372:1] These incidents are also narrated in a letter to Madame de Boufflers.—Priv. Cor. p. 241. And some of them in a French letter to a person unknown, ib. p. 220.
[373:1] See the letter following that of 30th April to Mr. Davenport, in the ordinary editions of Rousseau's works. The only material divergence in the passage cited above is in the last clause, and the words "quelques indiscrettes plaintes qui lui sont quelquefois echappées dans le fort de ses peines," to which the corresponding clause in Rousseau's Works, is "les plaintes indiscrettes, qui dans le fort de ses peines, lui sont quelquefois échappées." These discrepancies were probably between Rousseau's preserved copy, and the letter sent. That this letter was printed from a copy preserved by Rousseau, is shown by the editors of his Works not knowing to whom it was addressed. Hume repeats his own version of the passage in a French letter already referred to. See Private Correspondence , p. 222.
[374:1] MS. R.S.E.
[378:1] Literary Gazette , 1822, p. 649. Corrected from original MS. R.S.E.
[379:1] He assumed the name of Renou.
[380:1] MS. R.S.E.
[381:1] On 1st June, 1767, Turgot writes, in answer to a letter from Hume: "Je me hâte d'y répondre par ce courier, quoique je n'aie encore fait aucune démarche pour le malheureux homme auquel, il est si digne de vous de prendre encore intérêt. Le degré de folie qu'il montre aujourdhui est en vérité préférable à une folie moins exaltée, qui le laissoit chargé de tout l'odieux d'un excès d'ingratitude envers vous et M. Davenport. Une pareille ingratitude réfléchie et méditée ne peut me paroître dans la nature. . . . Je vous remercie de m'avoir choisi parmi vos amis de ce pays-ci pour m'associer à la bonne action que vous voulez faire en lui rendant service. J'y mettrai certainement tout le zèle dont je suis capable et à cause de son infortune, et à cause de l'intérêt que vous y prenez." He continues to say, that to get him a safe passage may be easy: to find him a permanent asylum in France, would be a more difficult matter. "La chose est possible hors du ressort du Parlement de Paris, mais il faut que le Roi y consente. Il n'y a que l'intérêt même que vous prenez, et la singularité de cette circonstance qui puisse peut-être adoucir le Roi sur le compte de Rousseau en faisant demander la chose en votre nom par M. de Choiseul."
