in Dumfries-shire on 3d January, 1716, and he was minister of the Tron Church parish when he died. The death was sudden; and Hume, overlooking the calamitous consequences of such events to surviving relatives, and in harmony with the opinions he had expressed on death in a still more appalling form, seems to have considered its suddenness as fortunate. He thus writes to Blair, on 5th June.

"I cannot begin my letter without lamenting most sincerely the death of our friend Dr. Jardine. I do not aggravate it by the circumstance of its being sudden, for that is very desirable. But surely we shall ever regret the loss of a very pleasant companion, and of a very friendly honest man. It makes a blank which you must all feel, and which I in particular will sensibly feel, when I come amongst you. I need not ask you whether the miscreants of the opposite party do not rejoice, for I take it for granted they do." 1

1 MS. R.S.E. Blair writes on 12th June :

"Poor Jardine-I knew you would join with us in dropping very cordial tears over his memory. What pleasant hours have I passed with you and him. We have lost a most agreeable companion, as it was possible for any man to be, and a very useful man to us here, in all public affairs. I thought of you at the very first as one who would sensibly feel the blank he will make in our society, when you come again to join it. But when are you to come ?" MS. R.S.E.

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CHAPTER XV.

1766-1767. T. 55-56.

Rousseau at Wooton-Mr. Davenport-Negotiations as to Rousseau's pensionOrigin 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.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

'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.

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."1 It appears that Mr. Davenport intended, if Rousseau became attached to Wooton, to leave him a life lease of the house.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.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.*

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."

2 Private Correspondence, p. 153.

3 Exposé Succinct.

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

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.1 On the 7th of April, Rousseau

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."

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 VOL. II.

Y

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

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!"