dogmatises a little on subjects with which his acquaintance was but partial; but an accomplished judge has admitted the general grandeur, simplicity, and nobleness of the outline traced by D'Alembert, and afterwards imitated, corrected, and surpassed by himself."

The turning of the tide in philosophy, from materialism towards idealism, becomes first visible in Condillac, in his Essai sur l'Origine des Connaissances Humaines. "The philosophy of Condillac affects to lay aside systems, and to rest upon observation and reasoning. It speaks a language precise and without imagery, but agreeable by its justness. It marks a restingplace a schism in the eighteenth century. Condillac first brought materialism into serious doubt. He investigates, examines, distinguishes, when the age was accustomed to dogmatise. He perceives the double nature of man in that which Diderot, Helvetius, and Holbach explained by the simple fermentation of matter, or the play of organs. Like them he sets out from the action of the senses; but in his course be becomes an idealist, and this interpreter of sensation has even, it may be said, erred upon the side of over-spiritualism, in attributing to the mind the power of creating the forms and colours which it perceives."

"Yet as men, and even philosophers, are often satisfied with appearances, Condillac has very often been judged of by the first words of his doctrine; it is thus that he has been styled an odious philosopher by that vehement spiritualist M. de Maistre, and denounced in our own day as the father of sensualism. The character and consequences of his philosophy, however, had from the first been sufficiently obvious to the materialists; and the difference between him and them had early become apparent. Diderot, in praising him publicly for some articles he had communicated to the Encyclopédie, took offence at certain passages, and characterised him as a schoolman and an idealist. It was even partly for the purpose of combating his views, that he entered upon his own physiological explanations of thought. To many others less clear-sighted than Diderot, Condillac no doubt appeared a

useful opponent of the metaphysics of religion-an observer favourable to scepticism-and by them he was as much lauded as Bonnet of Geneva was decried, though their doctrines have in fact many points of connexion. He succeeded in a great measure, in France, to the great reputation which Voltaire had created for Locke, as the founder of a new and liberal philosophy."

Amidst all this parade of intellectual and philosophical analysis, and this predominance of an absolute materialism, what was the condition of poetry?"So wan, so woe-begone, so spiritless," that it scarcely deserved the name; for all genuine poetical belief and inspiration were for the time at an end, swept away by the current of a universal scepticism and selfishness. A feeble attempt at descriptive poetry, in the manner of Thomson, was made in the Seasons of St Lambert: a work, the popularity of which, though extensive, was but of short duration, and which was afterwards thrown completely into the shade by the more finished performances, in the same department, of Delitte. "The elegance of St Lambert," says Villemain, "is not the elegance of a fine and classic diction, it has but the appearance of it, without the soul and life. The words are pure --the turn of the language harmonious. Sometimes we find nobleness — nowhere passion; often coldness-never eloquence." Comparing him with Thomson, he observes, "Thomson has not the grandeur and precision of antiquity, but his heart overflows at the sight of the country. He abounds in true images-in simple emotions. He possesses that poetry of the domestic hearth, in which the English have always excelled, and he has blended it with all the beauties of nature which for him are only shadows of the Creator's hand. Religious, and a painter, how could he fail to be a poet? Yet he wrote during the same age with St Lambert, and but a few years before him, in a country even more philosophic than France. Whence this difference between the two poems? It does not arise solely from the inequality of their talents. But the English poet, from the midst of the luxury and the philosophy of the capital, seeks the country, traver

sing it in poverty and on foot, to breathe the purer atmosphere of Old English morality. Though he dedicates his work to a great lady, his feelings are with the people-a people rich and proud of a free country. Like them, his imagination is nourished by the imagery of the Bible. Like them, he loves its pastures, its forests, and its fields. Thence springs his glowing manner; thence, under a gloomy sky, and in a period of cold philosophy, is his poetry so full of freshness and colour."

Two other names of this period awaken attention and sympathy, perhaps as much by their misfortunes as their genius-Malfilâtre and Gilbert. The first had a conception of poetry which rose far above the languid elegance of St Lambert or Colardeau. His fragments translated from Virgil, though sketches, mutilated and sometimes incorrect, seem a revival, as Villemain says, of the happy boldness of Racine. He is at least the first of the French poets since Racine, who indicates something of a genuine lyrical talent; while, in perusing his imperfect compositions, we must remember that want and misfortune clouded his talents, that "sharp misery had worn him to the bone," and consigned him to the grave at the age of thirty-four, ere he had time to labour for eternity. "La faim mit au tombeau Malfilâtre ignore,"

said Gilbert, a poet of a different stamp, but resembling Malfilâtre in the early and melancholy termination of his career, which closed in suicide, committed during an accès of madness in the hospital. With a mind ardent and impetuous, with many traits of genius, and a sullen energy of expres. sion which resembles Juvenal; with a style unequal, unformed, but always pregnant with ideas-still full of the faults of youth, but full also of the promise of a powerful manhood-his fate, like that of Chatterton, excites deep sympathy and regret for the early blight of a genius which promised to revive, in some degree, the sinking spirit of poetry in a worn-out and helplessly prosaic period.

It is somewhat singular, indeed, to find that the spirit of poetry, no longer able to animate into life an exhausted frame, passes in some shape into that of science, and communicates elo

quence, warmth, and imagination to the descriptions of natural history, in the animated pages of Buffon. It is doubtful whether Buffon is entitled to the character of a man of genius, and still more to the magnificent eulogy which he lived to see inscribed on his statue, "Majestati naturæ par ingenium". his own conception of genius, which he described as une longue patience, seems rather to indicate a man of strong conception, united to resolution and perseverance of character; and to the union of these qualities, the laborious and yet striking compositions of Buffon owe their origin." Some descriptions," says Villemain, "have been extracted from his great work, which it is usual to admire in an insulated form. This is doing Buffon injustice; the great merit of his works on animal life lies, on the whole, in the way in which tradition, observation, narrative, and criticism, are united and blended. The too pompous elegance of some of his commencements, only makes way for the precision of details, and the clear simplicity of narrative; and it is there, in particular, that his excellence as a writer consists.

"The true or conjectural painting of the habits of animals-the description of the places which they inhabit

this contrast, this blending of animost vivid colours to the historian. mate and inanimate nature, present the Pliny has sometimes caught them in their greatest diversities-as he describes the lion or the nightingale, he is by turns energetic or brilliant, with the same striking effect. Buffon is more equal, more elevated, more pure. Pliny belonged to that school of imagination rather than taste, which, in Tacitus, produced one incomparable painter, but which is elsewhere stamped with the impress of declamation and subtility. Pliny frequently throws the veil of a far-fetched style over fables or notions in themselves false. Buffon, enlightened by modern science, is severe and precise even in his most ornate descriptions. His diction, more irreproachable than that of Rousseau, is free from that affectation which mingles with the style(so truly French) of Montesquieu. By another and still rarer privilege, during forty years no decline, no falling off, is visible in his mind-if we except some needless circumlocutions, some pompous phrases,

every thing in his writings appears equally youthful and matured, vigorous and polished."

He was a slow composer-patiently meditating his fine passages-laboriously reducing his matter into shape -striving in solitude to give his ideas all the neatness, precision, and elegance of expression of which they were susceptible. To the very last he used to say, "I am learning every day the art of writing." "In my later works there is infinitely greater perfection than in my first." And this estimate, Villemain adds, is correct, at least in regard to the Epoque de la Nature, which he wrote at the age of 70, and which he had recopied eighteen times.

The most distinguished name which alternately adorns and disgraces this period of French literature, is that of Rousseau-a being whose singular, and in many respects antithetical qualities, were at once the production of his age, and yet contradictory to the main current of its opinions. In his very first writings we perceive a spirit of democratic vehemence—a hatred of the refinements and distinctions of society-an earnestness, an appearance of conviction, which mark a vast advancement in the progress of popular opinions, since Montesquieu advanced the opinion that honour was the principle and foundation of monarchy. "They display the irritation of a man of superior abilities who has been long kept beyond the pale of society; we perceive in them the recollections of the miserable apprenticeship of his youth-his flight without bread or a home-his forced conversion-his employments of valet, seminariste, musician, copyist, secretary, and lastly of clerk, at Paris, without ever advancing further than merely sustaining life by hard labour."

Though Rousseau, however, was in earnest, so far as a feeling of aversion to the distinctions of rank and the refinements of society was concerned, it is extremely difficult to believe him serious in some of his paradoxical opinions-such as his eulogy of the savage state; as to which Voltaire, with dry irony, remarked, in thanking him for his essay-"That it was so seductively written, that it really tempted a man to walk on all fours after reading it." Still more preposterous is his denunciation of the idea of property. "The first person," says he, "who, having

VOL. XLVI. NO, CCLXXXV.

enclosed a bit of ground, thought proper to say This is mine,' and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of eivil society. How many crimes, wars, murders, miseries, and horrors, would not the human race have been spared, if some one, tearing up the stakes, or filling up the ditch with which he had enclosed it, had called out to his fellows: Beware of listening to that impostor; you are undone if you forget that these fruits belong to all, and the earth to none!"" Well might Voltaire, who seems to have had the profoundest contempt for the practical judgment or good sense of Rousseau, remark in regard to this passage, "What is this species of philosophy, which dictates opinions which common sense repudiates from China to Canada? Is it not that of a beggar, who wishes to see the rich robbed by the poor, in order the better to establish fraternal union among mankind?"

A candid but somewhat too favourable a criticism on the Emile and the Confessions follows. We can make room, however, only for the concluding remarks on Rousseau, in which Villemain compares the influence exercised by Voltaire and Rousseau respectively on French literature.

"On the 30th March 1778, Voltaire, leaving the Old Louvre and the Aca demy, crossed the Carousel, amidst the applauses of an immense crowd, on his way to the Theatre Français to witness the sixth representation of Irene. Dressed in the ancient mode, with his large powdered peruke and long lace sleeves, he wore also a magnificent cloak of sable fur—a present from that guilty Empress to whom he has lent an undue celebrity. An uncommon fire sparkled in his eyes; he poured out an unceasing flow of wit and ingenious remark. Irene, or rather Voltaire, excited a tumult of enthusiasm such as had once greeted the Cid. The people applauded in the street; the men of the court filled the pit; well-dressed women in the boxes joined in the demonstrations of applause: and when, after the close of the piece, the bust of the poet was carried upon the stage, a new delirium ensued. Voltaire was more intoxicated than a young author at his first successful play, and exclaimed with feeling, Would you have me die of pleasure!' Two months after this apotheosis, on the 30th May 1778, Voltaire had ceased to exist."

B

Within a week after this brilliant close of his career, the rival of Voltaire, if he had one, Rousseau, who had scarcely completed his 66th year, terminated, on the 3d of June, an existence, the burden of which he was suspected of having voluntarily thrown off. These two spectacles thus brought together, seemed emblematical of what was wanting in the philosophy of these two great writers. The one, passionately fond of eclat, of the world, and the theatre, even to extreme old age, had hastened his death by declaring the verses of his last tragedy more feeble even than Irene. The other, solitary, savage, with his reason disordered, with a genius still full of vigour, perhaps committed suicide, or died consumed by anxiety without a cause, and pride that knew no bounds.

Thus disappeared the two most influential personages of the 18th century; or rather their death displayed more clearly the influence of their opinions, and the strength of the impression which they left behind them. We cannot admit, in this respect, the terms of the parallel, such as they have been laid down. We are no believers in the providential contrast which Bernardin de St Pierre supposes, and which makes him see in Voltaire and Rousseau, the embodied representations of the evil and the good genius of the time. For each of them in turn has had his share in this double part, and this share, more or less equally distributed, is found in all the history of our present society.

The action of these two men on the opinion of society, however, was in some respects as different as the nature of their genius. Voltaire had more influence on common opinion; Rousseau on characters and talents. Voltaire had no pupils of any originality; he trained up no men of superior ability; he had no disciples but France, of which he was the organ, and Europe, which he dazzled with the ideas of France. By that sceptical irony, and that zeal for humanity, independence, and political well-being, which he found or excited in his time, he has, more than any one else, prepared the spirit of our own, and the singular contrast of our ideas and our manners. His admirable judgment, which one passion only had distorted upon the most important point of the social problem, still constitutes the

basis of opinion in France, and is dominant even over those by whom his name is rejected.

But

Rousseau has exercised a less durable influence over men's minds. Except during those times of social crisis, when his doctrines were commented on by inflamed passions, he has remained in the class of speculative writers, and of writers who are eloquent without the power of persuasion. Though he has bequeathed a legacy of expressions to our political writers, and even of forms to our institutions, his theories have lost their absolute hold over the mind: after having convulsed the political world, he continued to retain an influence only over a literary school, which, however, it is true, exercises in turn some influence on society. at the commencement of the Revolution, his double influence inspired by turns St Pierre and Mirabeau-the man of contemplation and the tribune of the people-the elegant painter of nature, and the impetuous orator armed with genius and indignation. And soon after, amidst the social chaos which followed, it animated the wandering studies of a youthful French officer (Chateaubriand), thrown first amidst the savages of Louisiana, then back from the desert into the camp of civil war, and thence into the melancholy isolation of a great foreign city; it nourished, with mingled sorrow and hope, this fugitive then unknown, and sustained him by the example of what genius can do against obscurity and misfortune.

The influence of Rousseau is not less decidedly marked in the works of the great English poet of our age. But while strengthening, in Byron, that hatred against society which is never the judgment pronounced by the virtuous or the wise, it contracts in him a still more fatal alliance with scepticism. Hence that poetry, melancholy and yet sensual, bitter without being serious, borrowing the richest colours from the spectacle of nature, kindling into enthusiasm at the physical beauties of the world, but never carrying into them that moral emotion which should constitute their greatness and their life. The genius of Rousseau has not had a less share in the production of the poetical egotism of the painter of Childe Harold and Lara, than that of Voltaire has had on the philosophical education of the painter of Don Juan.