The Port Folio.

BY OLIVER OLDSCHOOL.

LIFE OF JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU.

JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU, a native of Geneva, and son of a watch-maker, was born 28th June, 1712. His birth was accompanied by the death of his mother; he therefore considered the commencement of his existence as the beginning of his misfortunes. It would appear by the little care bestowed upon his education, that his father never designed him to fill any higher station than his own, or that of a trader or working mechanic. To this neglect is to be added the disadvantage of a weakly constitution. But a strong and penetrating mind, aided by the early perusal of such authors as Plutarch, Tacitus, and other historical, political, and philosophical classics, soon began to read the book of man and of nature; and his ideas expanded too rapidly not to predict a brilliant career in the track of moral philosophy and speculative literature. His imagination swelled when he contemplated the characters which he found in these imperishable pages; to their lives and to the conversations which they occasioned with his father he imputes that free and republican spirit, that fierce and intractable disposition, which ever after was his torment. The utmost attention was bestowed upon him and he was almost idolized. Yet he owns that he had all the faults of his age; he was a prater, a glutton, and sometimes a liar; he stole fruit, sweetmeats, and victuals; yet he never delighted in being mischievous or wasteful, in accusing others, or in tormentAPRIL. 1823.-NO. 252.

ing poor animals. After remaining at home till his approach to manhood, he suddenly quitted his father's house; but on what account is not precisely known, though it has been pretty generally attributed to some frolic or whim of his own. But whatever might be the cause, certain it is, that he at the same time resigned the protestant creed for that of the catholic; that the Bishop of Anneci, in whose palace he solicited, and for a while, received an asylum, placed him with Madame de Warens, a lady who had recently apostated from the protestant to the papistical tenets, and that the change in his professed faith wore all the appearance of being the price of the patronage he received.

One of the most prominent features of Rousseau's mind was that of the love of independence: a sentiment which did not permit him to remain in the humiliating state of a protected man, or humble friend. Leaving the hospitable roof of his benefactress, he threw himself on his own resources, and went to Chamberri, where, as music had been one of the objects of his multifarious studies, he availed himself of his knowledge of that science by teaching it to others. At the age of twenty-nine he went to Paris, and there was so fortunate as to form connections that led to his being, in 1743, two years after his arrival at that capital, engaged as secretary to the French ambassador destined for Venice. In that situation, again, his high feelings displayed themselves, and a consequent quarrel with his employer produced his discharge and return to Paris; where he had not been long when he was noticed by Dupin, the Farmer-general, in whose department he obtained a profitable situation. But his ardent and aspiring mind, disdaining to content itself with official employment, was always more bent on study than on the dry, dull, business in which he was engaged; and the result was his entering upon that brilliant career of literature which surprised and delighted the world, and will transmit his name to the latest posterity. The private life of Rousseau may be read in his "Confessions," which are described by M. Sennebier, in his Literary History of Geneva, as" a very dangerous book." "The excellent analysis,” continues this writer, "which we meet with of some sentiments, and the admirable anatomy which he gives of some actions, are not sufficient to counterbalance the detestable matter and the

unceasing obliquities every where to be found." What renders this book the more pernicious is, not only the baseness of the vices which he has disclosed, but the manner in which he endeavoured to unite them with the virtues.

It happened that while Jean Jacques was in Dupin's office, the Academy of Dijon proposed as a prize subject, the question-Whether the re-establishment of the arts and sciences had been conducive to the purity of morals? By the advice of Diderot, the friend and fellow-labourer of D'Alembert in the gigantic undertaking of a Dictionnaire Encyclopedique, Rousseau adopted the negative position; which he asserted with a boldness, and defended with a degree of eloquence, that astopished all the learned, and excited many literary antagonists. Several answers appeared against it, one of which was written by Stanislaus, king of Poland, who was, however, so much an admirer of Rousseau, that when the latter was ridiculed on the stage of Nancy, by Palissot, the king, then Duke of Lorraine, deprived the author of his place in the Academy. On this occasion Rousseau, with far more sense, interceded for him, and obtained for him his restoration. This striking and decided proof of a genius no less original than great, was soon afterwards followed by " A Discourse on the Causes of Inequality among Men, and on the Origin of Society"-a work which, while it exhibits a singular cast of thinking, displays a union of the boldest flights of imagination, with ideas almost as incoherent as novel, and attempts to exalt the savageness and gratifications of uncultivated nature above the polish and comfort of domestic and social life. His country, that had felt itself scandalised by his religious apostacy, read with satisfaction a production that evinced the writer's return from papal to protestant principles; and was so sensibly flattered by its being dedicated to the Republic of Geneva, that it restored him to its favour and regard. Not long after the appearance of this composition, he produced two dramatic pieces, one of which, "Le Devin du Village," was musical, and not only written, but set to music by himself. Its success in Paris was as decided and as great, as had been in London that of the Beggars' Opera of Gay. With the profits produced by these popular pieces, he now retired into solitude; and, relieved from all interruption, prosecuted his studies with more fervour than ever.

About this period, he produced his "Lettre sur la Musique Françoise;" the object of which was to prove that the French had no such thing as vocal music, and that, from the defects in their language, they could not have it. This work so excited the resentment of the people, that he is said to have been burnt in effigy. He now wrote his "Discours sur les causes de l'Inegalite parmi les Hommes, sur l'Orgine des Societes." This endeavour to prove that all mankind are equal, has been, in the opinion of a modern critic, by no means partial to Rousseau's character-much misunderstood by critics, and misrepresented by wits. Even by the author's confession, it is rather a jeu d'esprit than a philosophical inquiry; for he owns that the natural state, such as he represents it, did probably never take place, and probably never will; and if it had taken place, he seems to think it impossible that mankind should ever have emerged from it without some very extraordinary alteration in the course of nature. He also says that this natural state is not the most advantageous for man; for that the most delightful sentiments of the human mind could not exert themselves till man had relinquished his brutal and solitary nature, and become a domestic animal. At this period, and previous to the establishment of property, he places the age most favourable to human happiness; which is precisely what the poets have done before him, in their descriptions of the golden age. After publishing this rhapsody he gave to the world, in 1758, his "Lettre" to D'Alembert on the design of establishing a theatre at Geneva, which he proved, could not be necessary in a place situated as Geneva was. D'Alembert and Marmontel replied to him, and Voltaire appears from this time to have begun his hatred for Rousseau, with whom he and the rest of the philosophers had hitherto cordially co-operated against the Christian religion. Rousseau wanted that uniform hatred to revealed religion which the others called consistency, and his fancy was apt to ramble beyond the limits they had set. The principal feature in the attack of the author of "The Henriade," consisted in the remark, that this violent advocate for the purity of morals, and bold assailant of theatrical representations, had himself written a comedy and a pastoral, both of which had been exhibited on the Parisian stage. Though the question under discussion was not whether M. Rousseau