discovery, but he was stopped at the third by a Roman soldier who demanded where he was going. Losing his presence of mind, he no longer attempted concealment. He was led to the foot of the stairs of the Capitol, in front of the lion of porphyry, where he had himself aforetime passed so many sentences of death. At his appearance a profound silence succeeded to the furious outcries of the rioters, not one of whom had the courage to touch him. With his arms crossed upon his breast he awaited their decision, and availing himself of their silence, he was about to address them, when Cecco del Vecchio, an artisan, fearful of the effect of his redoubtable eloquence, ran him through the body. This was the signal for a general assault, and the ex-Tribune soon expired beneath the blows of a hundred weapons. His head was cut off, and his mutilated trunk dragged disgracefully through the city. Thus perished Cola di Rienzo, the last of the Roman Tribunes—a man whose undoubted patriotism renders him a subject of interest as well to the historian as to all lovers of their country, who can but mourn over the crimes and follies which, originating in boundless vanity, were consummated in death and ruin. JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU. SINCE antiquity no man ever influenced more powerfully the intellect and the feelings of his country than JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU. Since antiquity no man has been more libelled or more admired. Halfa century of criticism, wherever literature is known, has exhausted all the forms of apology and all the resources of vituperation to clear or to calumniate his name. A third, stream has broken from the confluence of these hostile tides, to receive the truth of both; but in a war of ideas few eyes are turned upon the neutral ground. The moderators remain obscure while the enemy and the advocate attract the observation of mankind. In one respect, however, there is a universal harmony of opinion. Rousseau possessed, it is acknowledged, a mind which rose above the level of his age like Caucasus over the plains of Asia. They who describe this mighty genius of the Alps as making of a whole nation his proselytes and his victims, speak of him, nevertheless, as an imperial master of language, as one whose declamation, passionate as it was, ornate with the richest imagery, and modulated to a lyrical sweetness, was frequently inspired by pure sentiments, and ruled by perfect reason. The bland persuasion of his pen, indeed, could almost change an illusion into a reality; but in his most fantastic reveries there were often grand speculations on truth, and amid the moral chaos of his mind a knowledge and a reverential love of virtue. Of such a man, whose life was like a storm in the torrid zone,-half cloud, half fire, with lulls of unimaginable peace, and episodes fraught with the very spirit of romance, it is not easy to describe the idiosyncrasies, or to relate the story. Even if a narrative of his acts and thoughts were faithfully given, the summary of his character as a whole, would be a difficult task. There is so much thatis strange to be comprehended, so much that seems contradictory to be reconciled, so much that appears unintelligible to attribute to its true cause, that the colours become confused, and the light, flashing through the shade, leaves a picture which art considers grotesque, and philosophy can scarcely understand. If, however, there be still doubt and controversy about Rousseau, it is not that the records of his life are few. He is the priest of his own shrine, the interpreter of a mystery created by himself. It was his vanity to believe that nature, after making him, broke the mould in which he had been formed; that whether he was better or worse than other men, he was at least unlike them, and that the sincere explanation of his acts would be a lesson of eternal value to the world. From his cradle, therefore, almost to the approach of his tomb we have his career reflected in his own estimate of his own deeds, passions, and ideas. Whatever our judgment may be, Rousseau's defence remains as immortal as his fame; and when his critics are in temperate his confessions form a perpetual tribunal of appeal. He was born at Geneva in 1712. His father Isaac, was a skilful watchmaker; his mother Susannah, the daughter of a minister. They were poor, but their affection strengthened with many trials until Jean came into the world, a feeble child, whose birth was from a deathbed. The husband grieved bitterly for his loss, never embraced his infant-but with sobs, taught him earliest the words of lamentation, and long remained desolate himself, but when, forty years afterwards, he died, it was in the arms of a second wife. His sister took care of little Jean, and by her tenderness, he was rescued from the sickly state which at first seemed to leave no hope of his being reared. Rousseau began early to emerge from the ethereal, unconscious innocence of infancy. He felt before he thought, as all do; but he stimulated his feelings at the very dawn of life by the excitement of romances, which his father often read to him all night, until startled at sunrise by the caroling of the birds. By this dangerous process he acquired not only an acquaintance with books, but a familiarity with the passions which prepared him to be the sport of every emotion known to the human breast. But when he had every feeling active, he had no ideas. The picture of man's nature, therefore, which suggested itself to him, was one fantastic and grotesque illusion, never entirely dispelled by the experience of his later years. This succession of visions, however, did not continue to fill his whole intellectual prospect. In 1719, at an age when common children spin their first top, and fly their first kite, he began a new series of studies,-modern history and the classics. He read the eloquent discourses of Bossuet, whom the French claim as a greater than Demosthenes; the Lives of Plutarch, the story of the Venetian Republic, the fables of Ovid and La Fontaine, and the dramas of Molière. He loved to pause over the achievements of the heroic warriors and statesmen, the orators and poets of antiquity, and the inventions of fiction now seemed to him less brilliant than historical truth. Juba he forgot for Brutus, Orondates for Agesilaus. And the perusal of these works influenced his mind with a double power. They nurtured in him a free, republican spirit; they made him unconquerable and fierce, incapable of submission and impatient of authority. Scævola and Curtius were the heroes of his waking dreams-Athens and Rome, the cradles and the tomb of public liberty and virtue. But from that tomb he early imagined that patriotism might again be invoked to adorn with a similar virtue the degenerated states of Europe. He had an elder brother, spoiled in his childhood, and then, as usual, severely treated when a boy. For him he felt a strong affection, and willingly suffered to spare him from punishment; but at length the young fellow ran away, disappeared altogether from sight, and left Jean Jacques in the position of an only son. Like most only sons he was idolized by all around him, and like most children similarly treated gave way to wanton habits and the impulse of weak desires. He became greedy, and indifferent to the truth; he became mischievous, and even inclined to steal; but he was humane, and never maliciously injured another. Thus the morning of his existence passed, and loving his friends as well as beloved by them, the future star of those Alps rose faintly above the horizon of infancy. His aunt was a woman of gentle character, not to be forgotten in history, because from her Rousseau derived that taste for music which afterwards developed into one of the passions of his mind. But this serene course of his early life was interrupted by an occur rence which strongly influenced all the rest. Isaac, the watchmaker, in consequence of a quarrel, exiled himself from Geneva, and Jean Jacques was left under the tutelage of his uncle, an engineer. By him he was placed, with a little cousin of the same age, at a school at Boisey, under a minister, Lambercier. There he first began to study with any system, though the usage he received being tender and kind, no reminiscences of irksomeness appear to have remained of his schoolboy days. Already the fatal disease of Rousseau's character was spreading with frightful virulence through his heart and mind. The predominance of animal passions developed itself, and the humiliating account of it in his confessions remains unique among the voluntary revelations of vice. Already, too, the happiness of his childhood was drawing towards a close. The power of feeling which made him peculiarly susceptible of innocent as well as criminal pleasures, rendered him keenly alive to insult, suffering, or disappointment. An unjust punishment inflicted on him at Boisey rankled in his breast. The place was the same-beautiful, serene, with orchards, gardens, and pleasant walks, but it was Eden without innocence, and the whole charm of it was gone. With his little cousin Rousseau became a rebel against the authority of Monsieur and Mademoiselle Lambercier. He became sly, he disobeyed, he uttered falsehoods to conceal his faults. They became weary of him, as he of them, and after a residence of many months, he went back to his uncle at Geneva. with whom he held brief and secret in- All But this illusion was not of long existence. The friends who had neglected him till now, at last determined on his career, and he was apprenticed to M. Ducommon, a metal-graver of Geneva. His master was a rough and violent young man, who appeared re solved to break the spirit of his new servitor into a humility consistent, as he thought, with his condition. elegant acquirements were now forgotten-Latin, history, romances,—and were replaced by the manipulations of the engraver. Still, this was not altogether repulsive to the youthful Rousseau. He had a talent for designing, and since the requirements of his craft were very limited, hoped to arrive at a speedy perfection. In this probably he would have succeeded had not the bru tality and despotism of his master entirely quenched the aspiration. Instead of steady application to the legitimate branches of his art, he soothed his ennui by kindred occupations more congenial to his mind. He engraved medals to imitate the decorations of chivalry, was detected by Ducommon and savagely punished, because, as the petty tyrant pretended, he was coining base money and forging the arms of the Republic. There he passed two or three years while his friends concerted how to dispose him for the great experiments of life. His cousin was studying to be come an engineer, and with him Jean Jacques took lessons, though he never displayed so fine an aptitude for this as for that other science which taught him how to undermine and blast a throne. The persons he was with aided little in guiding his pursuits or elevating his desires. His uncle was dissipated and careless; his aunt devoted to superstition, and more charmed with the psaltery than with training to good the minds of the children. Rousseau and his little companion therefore enjoyed a licence, which encouraged them in indolent habits, or rather habits of frivolous activity. They made cages, flutes, kites, tambourines, huts, and bowers; they imitated the marionettes brought to Geneva by some strolling Italians, and Jean Jacques wrote comedies for representation. Thus a glimmering of his genius was already visible, and the author of the "New Heloise may be imagined declaiming as a child the ear- The invariable influence of tyranny liest effusions of his pen among those is to corrupt. Rousseau was corrupted lakes and mountains which gave to him by the tyranny of his master. He went his inspiration. There too, among his to his service with a determination to playfellows, he might have been seen act honourably, but the treatment he attempting to redress the wrongs of any received disgusted him with his own rethat were injured, and to be a paladin solve. He began by idleness, he went in perfection he must engage in some on to falsehood--from a liar he degraded amorous adventures to emulate the himself into a thief. With his father chivalry of the Crusades. There was a he had been free and high-spirited; Madame de Vulson, who caressed him with his schoolmaster independent; sometimes, and with her this half-grown | with his uncle cautious and discreet; boy played the part of a tyrannical but now he became timid, cunning, lover. And then as a Dora to this intriguing, "lost already," according to Agnes there was Mademoiselle Goton, his own confession. He had been ac customed to an equality with all around to be in time. Coming within sight of him; to share in all they had; to enter the postern he saw the platoon of solinto all their amusements; but now he diers moving down to close it. He fled was compelled to silence; to leave the forward, cried aloud, and was all but table before the repast was over, to sub- on the drawbridge when it reared backmit to every command, whether reason- wards, and its ponderous iron arms were able or not, and to refrain from uttering flung up into the air. a word in his own behalf. The results were lamentable. They were also not surprising. I do not mean that they were inevitable, but they were inevitable on Rousseau. Many a character has come out purged from such an ordeal, and no one commands respect who yields to influences so continually active in society. But the young poet of Geneva had not within him that unfailing faith in virtue which is the foundation of self-respect; he had not that love of the good for its own sake, which is at once the revenge and the consolation of other men. When he was injured, he injured himself still more; he reckoned always with the world, and never with himself. Be this as it may, it is undoubted that under M. Ducommon he practised dissimulation, lying, and even theft. He was not allowed to share in the delicacies of the table-so he stole asparagus; he was excluded from the dessert-so he stole apples. But amid all these inventions to beguile his weariness reading was the supreme pleasure of his mind and thus he entered on his seventeenth year, a son of Hagar, a tutored enemy to all the powerful among mankind. On Sundays it was his custom to stroll with some companions in the neighbourhood of the city. Twice he delayed his return so long that the gates were closed, and on the morrow he suffered the harshest punishment which his master's severity could devise. The third time, he was warned, would expose him to a more disgraceful penalty. That he determined to avoid. Accordingly he was more watchful of the hours, and for a long time was not again shut out. But at length the unfortunate chance occurred again. There was a certain captain of the guard, whose usage it was to close the barriers half an hour earlier than any of his colleagues. By this the vigilance of Jean Jacques was defeated. Returning one evening from a ramble, he heard, when about a mile and a half off, the sound of the evening fife. He redoubled his pace. The beating of the drum began. With all the power of his limbs he ran, in order Rousseau, in a convulsion of that passionate rage, which was a symptom of his character, flung himself on the glacis, and ground the dust between his teeth. Then starting up, he swore never to enter again his master's house. To his companions he made an adieu, telling them to confide in his cousin the place of his flight, and then he turned his back upon Geneva. Had it not been, he solemnly avers, for the cruelty of his master, he would never have gone thence; he would never have resigned his country, or forgotten his religion, or exchanged the life of a simple republican burgher, for that of an Ishmael, pouring out against the rulers of earth an imperial eloquence from the midst of a desert of his own creation. Here was Jean Jacques quitting his country, his parents, his means of living, to plunge, though still a boy, into an unknown labyrinth of adventure. He was not yet sufficiently skilled in his calling to gain a livelihood by it; but he was free, independent, full of heart and soul, and he struck out boldly upon the wilderness of the world. Wealth, pleasure, excitement, friends ready to serve him, beauty glad to smile on him these were the pictures of his reverie; not a tumultuous confusion of all the earth's delights, but one light, brilliant, happy castle in the air. Some one to respect, and some one to love, and some one to be tenderly caressed by-this was the triple-tinted star that glimmered far off, over the fleeting horizon of his hope. For some days he remained near the city, lodging in the cottages of peasants who knew him well, and hospitably entertained him. Then he went to the house of M. de Pontverre, the minister of Cassignon, about two leagues from Geneva. This good man first spoke to him of hierarchical disputes, and heresies in general, finishing by an invitation to dinner. To an argument so concluded Jean Jacques had little to say. He was too convivial to be a good theologian. And thus he listened willingly to the diatribes of his host against the Reformed Church, which prepared him for an apostacy to the superstition of Rome. read it. When she had finished, she raised her face, looked at him mildly, and said, "Well, my boy, you are very young to be alone in the world." The voice made him tremble, and when she said she would talk to him after mass, he gave no answer. Madame de Warens belonged to an ancient family of Vevay, in the Pays de Vaud. She had married early, but, crossed by some troubles, deserted her husband and fled to Victor Amadeus, of Savoy. He gave her a pension, and sent a guard of horse to escort her to Auncey, where she became a recluse devotee, at twenty-eight years of age. Her youthful graces were still fresh, because they blended in all her counte M. de Pontverre directed his young friend to go to Auncey, where he would find a charitable lady, a new convert to Catholicism, who, living on a pension from the King of Sardinia, shared it with the needy. Rousseau was humbled by the necessity to obey. He desired to be provided, but not by alms; and the acceptance of these was not the less painful, because they came from a religious devotee. Nevertheless he went to Auncey, walked up to the chateau, and sang a song under the most at tractive window. There was a sort of madness of romance in his mind. He expected that some beautiful maiden would be in the chamber above, sooth-nance, instead of being inserted in each ing her heart by listening to the modulations of his voice; or that some train of stately ladies would appear and invite him to partake of the hospitality of their abode. It was the day of a religious festival, in 1728. Rousseau stood trembling between excitement and timidity. Who that, looking at that humbly attired youth, trilling madrigals under a window, could have prophesied that his genius would vibrate in the heart of a whole nation for a hundred years, and be repeated from mother to child, in songs and proverbs, which speak of him as another Muse born among the Alps? He was then in the middle of his seventeenth year. Without being handsome he was of attractive appearance. His form was good; his carriage was easy; his face was animated; and his black hair and brows gave additional expression to the small deep-set eyes which shot forth some of the fire that heated all the blood in his frame. There was still a little more delay, for the lady of the chateau was at church; but she soon returned, and Rousseau was introduced to Louise Eleonore de Warens. Her countenance composed of every grace, her large blue eyes filled with sweet expression, her delicately tinted cheeks, her neck of lovely contour and white as snow, made an absolute enchantment for his fancy. Proselyte he already was, but the beauty of this woman baptized him, as it were, by a second sacrament into his new religion. He had written a letter, in which the eloquence of a poet was combined with the phraseology of an apprentice, and he stood abashed while the lady particular feature. She had, says Rousseau, a tender and caressing manner, a sweet look, an angelic smile, a mouth small, like his own, and blond hair disposed in classic tresses. Tall she was not; but, he adds, it was impossible to see a more beautiful head, a more beautiful bosom, more beautiful hands, or more beautiful arms. The education of this celebrated woman had been one not very dissimilar in its irregularity to that of Rousseau. Philosopher and charlatan divided the empire of her mind; but her heart was compassionate and forgiving, while her disposition was cheerful and even gay. Whether it was a sudden perception of any of these qualities, with the nameless essence of them all combined, that inspired the Genevese youth who now stood before her, certain it is that her first word, her first look, chained her to him by a feeling more than admiration if less than love. It was a sympathy, a perfect confidence, a yearning to remain with her and converse with her as his friend. She apparently, also, conceived some fondness for Jean Jacques, and she immediately asked him to stay and dine with her, that she might talk with him at her ease. It was the first time in his life, he tells us, that he ever sat down to a meal without being hungry. He was looking into her blue eyes when he should have been eating, and his brain was already too bewildered to need the stimulus of wine. He related his story to Madame de Warens; she expressed her pity, and sought to induce him to go back to his father, but every eloquent word imbued him with a deeper resolution not to leave |
