The publication of the voluminous _Correspondence_ of Grimm, which was
much read in England, led Englishmen to review the subject of the
character and writings of Rousseau, and in the remarks which
contemporaries made in 1813 and 1814 we may trace a rapid cooling of
their enthusiasm. The scorn of all French habits of thought and conduct,
which immediately succeeded the anxious and wearisome period of the
Napoleonic wars, makes itself particularly felt in the English attitude
towards Rousseau, who was regarded as the source from which all the
revolutionary sorrows of Europe had directly proceeded. The _Quarterly
Review_ for April, 1814, pronounced a judgment upon Rousseau, of which a
portion must be quoted here, since it may be considered as the original
indictment, the document which served to start the unfavourable opinion
which now became more and more that which sober and conservative
Englishmen were to adopt during the next fifty years. The opening lines
give a new warning, which was to gain more and more in emphasis, while
the end repeats praise which was conventional in 1814, but was already
fading, and was soon to disappear.
It says:--
A writer who professes to instruct mankind is bound to deliver
precepts of morality. But it is by inflaming the passions, and by
blotting out the line which separates virtue from vice, that
Rousseau undertakes to teach young ladies to be chaste, and young
men to respect the rights of hospitality. His heroine, indeed, in
conformity to his own example, is always prating about virtue, even
at the time when she deviates most essentially from its precepts;
but to dogmatize is not to be innocent. Yet, with all its defects,
there are numerous passages in this celebrated work which astonish
by their eloquence. Language, perhaps, never painted the conflicts
of love in colours more animated and captivating than in the letter
written by St. Preux when wandering among the rocks of Meillerie.
Unfortunately, the name of this critic is unknown.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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