ROUSSEAU.

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U fends himself by many baseless sophisms, that this crime,rankling at his heart, engendered much of the miseryj that he charged upon his fellow-creatures. Still Ba-| rante is unjust when he declares Rousseau ’s life to have! been devoid of virtuous actions. He was unpretend-, ingly charitable; and his fidelity to Therese, unworthyas she was, deserves praise. It would have been easy. to cast her off, and gain a more suitable companion ;6 but he bore her defects; and even to the last, when it

| has been suspected that her worthlessness drove him to

suicide, he never complained. There was, with all hiserrors, great nobleness in Rousseau ’s soul. The prideand envy of which he is accused led him to cherishpoverty, to repel benefits, to suspect his friends, butnever to cringe, or grasp, or lie. Distrust was his chieferror — a mighty one—but it did not injure others,while it destroyed himself.

'i Of his works, the “Emile” stands in the first rank for>! its utility: his theories however engendered some errors.

; The notion to which he was attached, that entire inde-pendence, even of natural duties, was the state congenialto man, mars many of-his views. He ■would not allowa man to be a father, scarcely a woman to he a mother ;yet such are the natural and imperative duties of life,

’ even in the most primitive states of society. Wemay add a further defect, gathered partly from thecontinuation he projected. Sophie proves faithless ; and: Emile, meditating on the conduct he ought to pursue,

?. makes himself the centre of his reflections, nor reverts

jj to the claims which his unhappy wife and blamelessi child have still on him. He leaves both to the mercy■ of a hard world, and affords another proof of Rousseau ’s’ natural deficiency in a sense of duty. Barante wellobserves that the “ Emile ” is the less useful, because’< it gives no rules for public education ; and public edu-ji cation is doubtless the best fitted to form the character} of social man. Properly carried on, it prevents all need: of having recourse to those plans and impostures which\ deface Rousseau ’s system. The little world of boys