[59] "The present fashion in France, of passing some time in the country, is new; at this time of the year, and for many weeks past, Paris is, comparatively speaking, empty. Everybody who has a country seat is at it, and such as have none visit others who have. This remarkable revolution in the French manners is certainly one of the best customs they have taken from England; and its introduction was effected the easier, being assisted by the magic of Rousseau's writings. Mankind are much indebted to that splendid genius, who, when living, was hunted from country to country, to seek an asylum, with as much venom as if he had been a mad dog; thanks to the vile spirit of bigotry, which has not received its death wound. Women of the first fashion in France are now ashamed of not nursing their own children; and stays are universally proscribed from the bodies of the poor infants, which were for so many ages torture to them, as they are still in Spain. The country residence may not have effects equally obvious; but they will be no less sure in the end, and in all respects beneficial to every class in the state." Arthur Young's _Travels_, i. 72. [60] _Causeries_, xi. 195. [61] _Nouv. Hél._, V. iii. "You remember Rousseau's description of an English morning: such are the mornings I spend with these good people."--Cowper to Joseph Hill, Oct. 25, 1765. _Works_, iii. 269. In a letter to William Unwin (Sept. 21, 1779), speaking of his being engaged in mending windows, he says, "Rousseau would have been charmed to have seen me so occupied, and would have exclaimed with rapture that he had found the Emilius who, he supposed, had subsisted only in his own idea." For a description illustrative of the likeness between Rousseau and Cowper in their feeling for nature, see letter to Newton (Sept. 18, 1784, v. 78), and compare it with the description of Les Charmettes, making proper allowance for the colour of prose. [62] IV. x. 260. [63] V. ii. 37. [64] V. ii. 47-52. [65] Rousseau considered that the Fourth and Sixth parts of the New Heloïsa were masterpieces of diction. _Conf._ ix. 334. [66] VI. viii.. 298. _Conf._, xi. 106. [67] The La Bédoyère case, which began in 1745. See Barbier, iv. 54, 59, etc. [68] III. xviii. 84. [69] III. xx. 116. In the letter to Christopher de Beaumont (p. 102), he fires a double shot against the philosophers on the one hand, and the church on the other; exalting continence and purity, of which the philosophers in their reaction against asceticism thought lightly, and exalting marriage over the celibate state, which the churchmen associated with mysterious sanctity. [70] I. lxii. [71] V. ii. [72] V. vii. 141. [73] V. ii. 31-33. [74] For the Robecq family, see Saint Simon, xviii. 58. [75] Morellet's _Mém._, i. 89-93. Rousseau, _Conf._, x. 85, etc. This _Vision_ is also in the style of Grimm's _Pétit Prophète_, like the piece referred to in a previous note, vol. ii. p. 31.