Quisquis amat vitam, sobriam, castamque tueri, Perpetuò esto illi casta Geneva domus: Quisquis amat vitani hanc bene vivere, virere et illam, Illi iterum fuerit casta Geneva domus. Illic iuvenies, quidquid, conducit utrique: Relligio hic sana est, aura, ager, atque lucus. Amongst the various objects which are pointed out as deserving the attention of a stranger, is the house in which the celebrated J.J. Rousseau was born, in the year 1712. The circumstance is recorded by an inscription over the door. His father was a watchmaker, and his house was small and obscurely situated. Rousseau was perhaps the most eloquent and fascinating of all the sceptical writers of the last century; and probably the only one amongst them who established a _system of his own_, if indeed his eccentricities can be so called. His character exhibited a strange mixture of _pride_, which made him perpetually anxious to be of public notoriety, and of an _unsociable temper_, which often made him retire in disgust with the world, and treat (without any rational cause, that has been assigned) those who were most his friends, as if he considered them to be his bitterest enemies. He was far more jealous of the reputation obtained by his contemporaries, than delighted with the approbation he personally received. Considered as a _philosopher_, he was paradoxical; as a _moralist_, dangerous and licentious; as a _parent_, unnaturally abandoning his offspring; as a _friend_, suspicious and ungrateful. As _pride_ was the ruling passion of Rousseau, so was _vanity_ beyond dispute the grand characteristic of _Voltaire_, (the proximity of Fernay may excuse my here comparing him with Rousseau,) and this passion induced him to pervert transcendent talents to the most pernicious and fatal purposes.