88 LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.

conduct to Rousseau has disgraceful prominence. It istrue that the citizen of Geneva had provoked him first ;but Rousseau ivas the victim of the system of tyrannywhich Voltaire so fervently deprecated. Even if hisintellects were not impaired, he had, from the unfortu-nate susceptibility of his disposition, and the misfor-tunes that pursued him, become an object of commis-seration, at least to one who sympathised in his opinionsand views. But once attacked, Voltaire never forgave.He could not be injured, yet he avenged the intendedinjury. Had he confined his ridicule and blame ofRousseau to conversation and letters, it had, consi-dering his influence in society, been sufficient revenge ;but when, to a great degree excited by Rousseau , thosetroubles and tumults occurred in Geneva , from whichVoltaire was so far the sufferer , that he thought himselfobliged to sell his property of Les Delices, he made thetumults the subject of a licentious and burlesque poem,in which Rousseau was held up to ridicule. The dis-grace, however, recoiled on himself. His most enthu-siastic friends blamed his conduct, and disliked hispoem.

Voltaire ran a more fortunate career than befallsmost men. He was rich, and he had been wiseenough to adopt a system that insured his independ-ence. At a distance from the capital, he was in realityremoved from the cabals of literature, the turmoils ofsociety, and from the excitement, so often attended bydisappointment, that belongs to the life of a literaryman of high reputation. He led what he himself termsa patriarchal life; his niece was at the head of hishousehold. The niece of Corneille, adopted by him, hadmarried M. Dupuis, a gentleman of some fortune in theneighbourhood of Geneva , and resided in his house.No foreigner ever passed from France to Italy withoutpaying a visit to Ferney . All those of any note ormerit were received with cordial hospitality, and thechateau was never free from guests : above fifty personsof different grades—masters, guests, and servants— in-