In confirmation of this narrative, there is the following letter in the MSS. R.S.E. Mr. Stewart is probably the "Jack Stewart," frequently alluded to in Hume's letters. "MY DEAR SIR,--Mr. Elliot told me the affair you recommended to him. Since his arrival I have tried every farmer in our side of the country, and can find no proper place. Some have not room, some hate foreigners, some don't chuse boarders, and the major part of all are such beings as he could not live with in any comfortable manner. There is an old Frenchman who has been here since a child, and has a sort of a garden farm at Fulham. To him I proposed the thing without mentioning names, and to oblige me he will take such a boarder: but still I could wish to find a place where he would be more agreeably situated, for this man keeps only a single maid, eats very plain, and his house is as dirty as a Frenchman's in France. The farmer himself is about sixty years old, unmarried, a cheerful honest creature, of a very obliging disposition. Consider whether this will suit your purpose, or if I should try in other counties. Adieu, my worthy good sir. Believe me eternally, your devoted servant, "J. STEWART." [312:1] Blair had written on 24th February,-- "I received both your letters; and am exceedingly indebted to you for the many curious and entertaining anecdotes you gave me concerning Rousseau. They bestowed upon me somewhat of the same importance which you say your connexion with Rousseau himself bestowed upon you in Paris, by having so much information to give my friends from you concerning so extraordinary a personage. Your accounts pleased me the more, that they coincided very much with the idea I had always formed of the man--amiable but whimsical. Strong sensibilities joined with an oddly arranged understanding. He is a proof of what I always thought to be a possible mixture in human nature, one being a sceptic from the turn of their mind, and yet an enthusiast from the turn of their heart; for this I take to be his real character--a man floating betwixt doubts and feelings--betwixt scepticism and enthusiasm: leaning more to the latter than the former; his understanding strangely tinctured by both." He desires Hume to ask Rousseau, whether the principal scenes in his "Héloise" were not founded on real events.--MS. R.S.E. [315:1] This anecdote is told in substantially the same manner to Madame de Boufflers, to whom its spirit would be doubtless far less incomprehensible than to Dr. Blair.--_See Private Correspondence_, p. 150. [317:1] _Literary Gazette_, 1822, p. 731, corrected from original, MS. R.S.E. [318:1] MS. R.S.E. Blair writes on 12th June:--