subject, made up his mind to take the negative side of the question. Diderot encouraged, but did not, as has been commonly said, originate this determination. He supported his position, that science, literature, and art, have been fatal to the virtues and happiness of mankind, with a glowing eloquence; and the Academy awarded him the prize. His success confirmed him in a turn for paradox and exaggeration; and he seems to have adopted, as a general principle, the doctrine that the extreme opposite to wrong must necessarily be right. At the same time his reputation as an author became established, and in a few years after his first essay, he was acknowledged to be one of the most, or rather the most, eloquent writer among his contemporaries. Meantime he persevered in his attempts at musical composition, and wrote ‘Le Devin du Village,’ an opera which was played before the king at the Court Theatre of Fontainebleau, and met with the royal approbation. Rousseau was in one of the boxes with a gentleman belonging to the court. The king having expressed a desire to see the composer of the opera, Rousseau became alarmed or ashamed at the slovenly condition of his dress, and instead of repairing to the royal presence, he ran out of the house and hastened back to Paris. Naturally shy, he possessed neither ease of manners nor facility of address, and he could never throughout life subdue his own acute feeling of these deficiencies; a feeling which of course tended to perpetuate and increase his awkwardness. This was the secret spring of most of his eccentricities. In order to hide his imperfections, he resorted to the plan of affecting to disregard manners altogether; he put on the appearance of a cynic, of a misanthropist, which he was not in reality.