John Churton Collins

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ... ROUSSEAU IN ENGLAND I The circumstances under which Rousseau sought an asylum in England, and his residence here between January 1766 and May 1767, can scarcely be described as an unwritten chapter in his biography, because they have been treated with some fulness both by Burton in his Life of Hume, and by Mr. John Morley in his well-known monograph on Rousseau. But Burton confines himself chiefly to Rousseau's relations with Hume; and considerations of symmetry, as well as the plan and design of Mr. Morley's work, necessarily precluded him from entering too much into detail about what was after all only a short episode in a long and somewhat crowded life. And yet this episode well deserves particular attention. Nothing which concerns a man so truly extraordinary can be without interest; everything which can throw light on his peculiarities and character is of importance. The visit to England was the turning-point of his life; it was more; it witnessed or occasioned the transformation of the author of La Nouvelle Hilo'ise, of Emile, of the Contrat Social, of the Lettre a Christophe de Beaumont, into the author of the Confessions, of the Reveries, of the Dialogues, and of the Letter to General Conway. It found him, no doubt, a compound as whimsical as Pascal's and Pope's picture of man, but consistent in inconsistency and perfectly intelligible, --it left him a psychological problem almost as puzzling and fascinating as Swift. It is commonly supposed that the eccentricities which always distinguished him simply became exaggerated in England, and that he was essentially the same man between 1766 and his death as he had been before. This was certainly not the case. To speak of him indeed as losing the balance of his mind and as becoming..

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