when Diderot made this advance, which was honourable to him; he was doubtless piqued by the refusal; but we cannot excuse him when, many years afterwards, after the death of his friend, he attacked him in one of his works. It would have been better to forget. And gladly would we, in spite of the publicity given, have passed over these details--but that they formed an intrinsic portion of the picture of Rousseau's life; and were the cause why, in after times, he became suspicious even to madness--miserable even to death. [Sidenote: 1758. Ætat. 46.] With the new year, Rousseau, quitting the Hermitage, began a new life; as much as an entire casting away of old friends, and seeking fresh ones, can change the tenor of existence. But Rousseau was ever the same. His passions, masked even to himself by their intensity, ruled his destiny; and it was a miserable one. The semblance of tranquillity, however, awaited him at first; and he gave himself to study and authorship uninterruptedly. The "Encyclopædia" undertaken by d'Alembert and Diderot engaged the attention of the literary world: it was made the vehicle of their opinions, and the engine for propagating them. Voltaire was residing at the Délices. He was disgusted by the pedantic, austere, puritanic tone of society at Geneva: he considered the drama as an admirable means of enlightening and refining a people; and, in concert with him, D'Alembert, in his article on "Geneva," wrote in favour of the establishment of a theatre in that city, where hitherto it had been forbidden. Rousseau, in his dreams of primitive innocence, considered this as an innovation on the simple manners of his country-people; and he took up his pen in opposition. He wrote with fervour and eloquence: he detailed the miseries resulting from a sophisticated state of society; and argued that the drama, by treating concerning, nourished the passions, and weakened the principles of morality. In the state in which society was in Paris, he had many arguments in his favour; and he might well consider the introduction of libertinism and luxury as pernicious, contrasted even with the narrow, bigoted spirit reigning at Geneva. The eloquence of his letter gave it vogue. In a note appended, he announced his rupture with Diderot,--accusing him at the same time of betraying him. This was fairly regarded as an unwarrantable attack, though he imagined it to be an act of heroism. It was an error, to make the public a confidant in their quarrel; and the doing so arose from the belief that all the world was occupied with him: but it was worse publicly to accuse a former friend.