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ROUSSEAU.

1712 — 1778 .

It is. impossible to imagine a character in stronger con-trast with Voltaire, than that of Rousseau . Theypossessed hut one quality in common. It is difficultto know what to call it. In ordinary men it would benamed egotism, or vanity. It is that lively and intimateapprehension of their own individuality, sensations, andbeing, which appears to be one of the elements of thatorder of minds which feel impelled to express theirthoughts and disseminate their views and opinionsthrough the medium of writing ;—men of imagination,and eloquence, and mental energy. This quality isgood as long as it renders an author diligent, earnest,and sincere; it is evil when it deprives him of thepower of justly appreciating his powers and posi-tion, and causes him to fancy himself the centre, asit were, of the universe. Rousseau was its victim ;it was exaggerated till his mind became diseased; andone false idea becoming fixed and absorbing, a sort ofmadness ensued. He was too alive to the sense of hisown actions and feelings ; and as he had committedmany faults, not to say crimes, the recollection ofthese, joined to his sincere love of virtue, produced astruggle in his mind full of misery and remorse.

Jean Jacques Rousseau was horn at Geneva , on the28th June, 1712. His birth cost the life of his mother,and was, he says, “ the first of his misfortunes." Hisfather was a watchmaker, and clever in his trade — itwas all he had to subsist upon. Jean Jacques was bornweally, and with some organic defect, that renderedthe rearing difficult and precarious. A sister of his