[325:2] Musset Pathay, Vie de Rousseau, vol. i. p. 116. This gentleman concludes that, within the space of twenty-four hours, Rousseau must have had reason to change from the extremity of confidence in Hume, to a full conviction of his guilt. But with all his desire to vindicate Rousseau, his account of the manner in which this conclusion had been reached, does not tend to convince one that it was well founded.
"Mais, d'après l'étude du caractère de Rousseau, d'après l'observation qui prouve que, dans la solitude, l'imagination s'effarouche aisément, il est plus naturel de croire que, tout-à-coup, une multitude de circonstances s'offrirent à la fois à la mémoire de Jean Jacques, et, quoique minutieuses en elles mêmes, qu'elles devinrent, par leur nombre, et leur coïncidence, importantes et graves. Il ne fallait qu'un incident pour les rendre telles, comme une goutte suffit pour faire déborder un vase plein d'eau."
[326:1] Printed documents of the controversy—Ritchie's Life of Hume.
[328:1] Documents of the controversy, &c.
[329:1] There is certainly one important exception to this method of viewing the matter, and that in a book otherwise of merit. One would hardly expect to meet with a work of the nineteenth century, containing a serious vindication of Rousseau, as a sane man who was in the right in this quarrel, while Hume was in the wrong. Yet some such task has been undertaken in the "Histoire de la Vie et des Ouvrages de J. J. Rousseau," by the late M. Musset Pathay, (1821,) which may be ranked among the boldest efforts of that school of biographers, whose principle is, that the hero of their tale must not be admitted to have had any vice or weakness. M. Musset's charges against Hume are much of the same mystical character with those made by Rousseau himself, and amount to this, that there was something in the whole aspect of affairs not quite satisfactory. He deals with some small matters of fact,—he is very indignant that Hume should, as he confesses, have tried to prevent Rousseau from plunging into a distant solitude; and we have already seen the effect which his zeal has had on his discrimination, in the affair of Walpole's letter. He makes one discovery, of which it would be unjust to deny him the full merit. Hume says, in his Vindication, "It is with reluctance I say it, but I am compelled to it. I now know of a certainty, that this affectation of extreme poverty and distress was a mere pretence, a petty kind of imposture, which M. Rousseau successfully employed to excite the compassion of the public: but I was then very far from suspecting any such artifice." In a letter to Madame de Boufflers, he says, "I should be glad to know how your inquiries at M. Rougemont's have turned out. It is only matter of mere curiosity: for even if the fact should prove against him, which is very improbable, I should only regard it as one weakness more, and do not make my good opinion of him to depend on a single incident." (Private Correspondence , p. 130.) Now Rougemont was a banker, and M. Musset infers that Hume had been making inquiries as to Rousseau's pecuniary affairs. Perhaps, when he found a man proclaiming his destitution to all Europe, and flinging back, in the faces of the givers, the assistance his importunities extracted from the compassionate, it was not a very great crime to endeavour to ascertain the truth of any rumour, that the misery was not so extreme as the sufferer painted it, and the necessity for their intervention not so great as the compassionate believed it to be. There is one letter from M. Rougemont among the MSS. R.S.E. dated 5th March, 1766. If it does not contradict, it certainly does not confirm the theory of M. Musset. It is too long and commonplace to be here inserted in full. There is not a word in it about money matters; and it appears to be written in answer to some high praise of Rousseau by Hume. The banker says:
"L'opinion que vous avez de M. Rousseau ne me laisse plus aucun doute: et c'est avec la plus grande satisfaction que je vois que mon enthusiasme ne m'a point aveuglée; les détails que vous me faites, me persuadent encore plus de la vérité d'une observation que vous avez faite un soir; c'est, qu'il n'est qu'un homme ordinaire quand son coeur ne sent rien." MS. R.S.E.
One might indeed infer, that Hume's inquiries were to discover whether the solitude of Wooton would be likely to be favourable to Rousseau. M. Rougemont thinks it would not. "La solitude," he says, "qui peut cesser quand on veut, peut avoir des charmes; mais je ne puis croire qu'il ne soit pas fort malheureux d'être nécessairement privé de toute société." The rest of his letter is devoted to Parisian literary gossip, with which the banker appears to have been ambitious of showing his acquaintance.
It is not when reviewing the conduct of Hume, but when recalling such observations as those made by Dr. Johnson on Rousseau, that one is tempted to sympathize with M. Musset. Of the rigid moralist's opinions, Boswell gives us the following sketch:
"One evening, at the Mitre, Johnson said sarcastically to me, 'It seems, sir, you have kept very good company abroad: Rousseau and Wilkes!' I answered, with a smile, 'My dear sir, you don't call Rousseau bad company: do you really think him a bad man?' Johnson. 'Sir, if you are talking jestingly of this, I don't talk with you. If you mean to be serious, I think him one of the worst of men; a rascal who ought to be hunted out of society as he has been. Three or four nations have expelled him; and it is a shame that he is protected in this country. Rousseau, sir, is a very bad man. I would sooner sign a sentence for his transportation, than that of any felon who has gone from the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have him work in the plantations.'"—Boswell, vol. ii. p. 314, ed. 1835.
[331:1] A scientific gentleman, whose writings on medical jurisprudence are of high authority, and who had read the Hume and Rousseau controversy, observed to me, that Rousseau's case should have been treated as one of monomania.