Rousseau, feeling his end approach, also passed the few remaining years of an uneasy life in solitude. It was during old age that he composed the best and greater part of his admirable works; but, although he employed his time with judicious activity, his feelings had been too deeply wounded by the persecutions of the world, to enable him to find complete tranquillity in the bowers of retirement. Unhappily he continued ignorant of the danger of his situation, until the vexations of his mind, the disorders of his body, and his unpardonable neglect of health, had rendered his recovery impossible. It was not until he had been many years tormented by physicians, and racked by a painful malady, that he took up his pen; and his years increased only to increase the visible effect of his mental and corporeal afflictions, which at length became so acute, that he frequently raved wildly or fainted away under the excess of his pains. It is observed by one of our refined critics, that “all Rousseau wrote during his old age is the effect of madness.” “Yes,” replied his fair friend, with greater truth, “but he raved so pleasantly, that we are delighted to run mad with him.” The mind becomes more disposed to seek its “guardian angel and its God,” the nearer it approaches the confines of mortality. When the ardent fire of youth is extinguished, and the meridian heat of life’s short day subsides into the soft tranquillity and refreshing quietude of its evening, we feel the important necessity of devoting some few hours to pious meditation before we close our eyes in endless night; and the very idea of being able to possess this interval of holy leisure, and to hold this sacred communion with God, recreates the mind, like the approach of spring after a dull, a dreary, and a distressing winter.