"I am sensible that my connexions with him add to my importance at
present. Even his maid La Vasseur, who is very homely and very awkward,
is more talked of than the Princess of Morocco or the Countess of
Egmont, on account of her fidelity and attachment towards him. His very
dog, who is no better than a collie, has a name and reputation in the
world. As to my intercourse with him, I find him mild, and gentle, and
modest, and good humoured; and he has more the behaviour of a man of the
world, than any of the learned here, except M. de Buffon; who, in his
figure, and air, and deportment, answers your idea of a marechal of
France, rather than that of a philosopher. M. Rousseau is of a small
stature, and would rather be ugly, had he not the finest physiognomy in
the world: I mean the most expressive countenance. His modesty seems not
to be good manners, but ignorance of his own excellence. As he writes,
and speaks, and acts, from the impulse of genius, more than from the use
of his ordinary faculties, it is very likely that he forgets its force
whenever it is laid asleep. I am well assured that at times he believes
he has inspirations from an immediate communication with the Divinity.
He falls sometimes into ecstasies, which retain him in the same posture
for hours together. Does not this example solve the difficulty of
Socrates' genius, and of his ecstasies? I think Rousseau in many things
very much resembles Socrates. The philosopher of Geneva seems only to
have more genius than he of Athens, who never wrote any thing, and less
sociableness and temper. Both of them were of very amorous complexions;
but a comparison in this particular, turns out much to the advantage of
my friend. I call him such, for I hear, from all hands, that his
judgment and affections are as strongly biassed in my favour as mine are
in his. I shall much regret leaving him in England; but even if a pardon
could be procured for him here, he is resolved, as he tells me, never to
return; because he never will again be in the power of any man. I wish
he may live unmolested in England. I dread the bigotry and barbarism
which prevail there.