Hume writes to Dr. Blair on 11th February:—
"You have seen in the newspapers enow of particulars concerning my pupil, who has now left me and retired to Chiswick. He is impatient to get into the mountains of Wales. He is a very agreeable amiable man, but a great humorist.[310:2] The philosophers of Paris foretold to me that I could not conduct him to Calais without a quarrel; but I think I could live with him all my life in mutual friendship and esteem. I am very sorry that the matter is not likely to be put to a trial! I believe one great source of our concord is, that neither he nor I are disputatious, which is not the case with any of them. They are also displeased with him because they think he overabounds in religion; and it is indeed remarkable, that the philosopher of this age who has been most persecuted, is by far the most devout. I do not comprehend such philosophers as are invested with the sacerdotal character. I am, dear doctor, yours usque ad aras."[310:3]
The first attempt to find a settlement for Rousseau,
was with the French gardener at Fulham, already alluded to. The arrangement proposed by Hume was, that the gardener was to receive from fifty to sixty pounds a-year, as the consideration for boarding Rousseau and Mademoiselle, but that he was only to draw twenty-five pounds from Rousseau, from whom he was to keep the arrangement secret.[311:1] Rousseau rejected this arrangement with disgust; and various other efforts to find him a suitable home were equally
unsuccessful. Hume, who, as Rousseau himself tells Madame de Boufflers, was more anxious about his welfare than he was himself, appears to have spent week after week, in the vain pursuit of a resting place for the wanderer—no sooner framing a hopeful scheme than it was contemptuously rejected. It does not appear, however, that the inquiries were conducted precisely in the sphere in which Rousseau liked to act. It is clear that he had not come to Britain to negotiate with farmers at Chiswick, or French gardeners at Fulham. He undoubtedly expected much more distinguished titles to be mixed up with his arrangements; and we find that it was not till a rich man's well kept country mansion was put at his disposal, that he deigned to be for a moment satisfied. A letter to Blair, contains a very full narrative of the subsequent proceedings.
Hume to Dr. Blair.[312:1]
Lisle Street, Leicester Fields,
25th March, 1766.
Dear Doctor,—I had asked M. Rousseau the question you propose to me: He answered, that the story of his
"Héloise" had some general and distant resemblance to reality; such as was sufficient to warm his imagination and assist his invention: but that all the chief circumstances were fictitious. I have heard in France, that he had been employed to teach music to a young lady, a boarder in a convent at Lyons; and that the master and scholar fell mutually in love with each other; but the affair was not attended with any consequences. I think this work his masterpiece; though he himself told me, that he valued most his Contrat Social ; which is as preposterous a judgment as that of Milton, who preferred the Paradise Regained to all his other performances.
This man, the most singular of all human beings, has at last left me; and I have very little hopes of ever being able, for the future, to enjoy much of his company, though he says, that if I settle either in London or Edinburgh, he will take a journey on foot every year to visit me. Mr. Davenport, a gentleman of £5000 or £6000 a-year, in the north of England, and a man of great humanity and of a good understanding, has taken the charge of him. He has a house called Wooton, in the Peake of Derby, situated amidst mountains and rocks and streams and forests, which pleases the wild imagination and solitary humour of Rousseau; and as the master seldom inhabited it, and only kept there a plain table for some servants, he offered me to give it up to my friend. I accepted, on condition that he would take from him £30 a-year of board for himself and his gouvernante, which he was so good-natured as to agree to. Rousseau has about £80 a-year, which he has acquired by contracts with his booksellers, and by a liferent annuity of £25 a-year, which he accepted from Lord Marischal. This is the only man who has yet been able to make him accept of money.