Chapter VIII: Part 8

La Nouvelle Heloïse has been censured for the dangerous example it affords, and for the interest it throws upon seduction and frailty. The character of St. Preux is decidedly faulty, and even base, in spite of all his sophistry, which however has probably led other young men placed in a similar situation to forget the relative duties of society, and the obligations of hospitality. Here we perceive also the influence of Rousseau’s favourite paradox; for in a state of nature, such as Rousseau has fancied it, the intimacy of St. Preux and Julie would have been unobjectionable. But then the relative position of the teacher, his pupil, and her parents, would not have been the same as in the novel, for they would have been all savages together. Rousseau has however redeemed the character of Julie after she becomes a wife, and he has thus paid a sincere homage to the sacredness of the marriage bond, and to the importance of conjugal duties, the basis of all society. Rousseau was not a contemner of virtue; he felt its beauty, though his practice was by no means modelled on its dictates. He tells us himself the workings of his mind on this subject. “After much observation I thought I perceived nothing but error and folly among philosophers, oppression and misery in the social order. In the delusion of my foolish pride I fancied myself born to dissipate all prejudices; but then I thought that, in order to have my advice listened to, my conduct ought to correspond to my principles. I had been till then good-hearted, I now became virtuous. Whoever has the courage of showing himself such as he is, must, if he be not totally depraved, become such as he ought to be.” It was probably in compliance with his growing sense of moral duty, that he married at last the woman he had so long been living with, when she was forty-seven years of age, and, as he himself acknowledges, was not possessed of any attractions of either mind or person, having nothing to recommend her except her attention to him, especially in his frequent fits of illness or despondency. He seems also to have bitterly repented, in the latter years of his life, having in his youth sent his illegitimate children to the foundling hospital.

Rousseau’s next work was the ‘Emile, ou de l’Education,’ which appeared in 1762. It contains many excellent precepts, especially in the first part, although, as a whole system, it may be considered as impracticable, at least in any state of society which has yet been formed upon the earth. It was remarked at the time, that the author, after having brought up his Emile to manhood, ought to create a new world for him to live in. Rousseau himself seems to have been of this opinion, for when a Mr. Angar introduced to him his son, whom he said he had educated according to the principles of the Emile, Rousseau quickly replied, “So much the worse for you, and for your son too.” The ‘Emile,’ however, introduced some beneficial changes in the early treatment of children. It discredited the absurd practice of swaddling infants like mummies, to the manifest injury of their tender limbs; it induced mothers of the higher ranks to suckle their children, instead of committing them to the care of nurses; it corrected several wrong principles of early education, such as that of ruling children through fear, of considering them as slaves having no will of their own, and of terrifying them by absurd stories and fables; it inculcated freedom of body and mind, the necessity of amusement and relaxation, of appealing to the feelings of children, of treating them like rational beings. Rousseau may be truly called the benefactor of children. As he proceeded, however, in his plan for boys grown older, Rousseau became involved in some of his favourite speculations about religion and metaphysics, which gave offence to both Catholics and Protestants. The Parliament of Paris condemned the work. The Archbishop issued a _mandement_ against it. The States-General of Holland likewise proscribed the book. At Geneva, it was publicly burnt by the hand of the executioner. The publication of the ‘Contrat Social, ou Principes du Droit Politique,’ which appeared soon after, added to the storm against the author. It contains much speculative truth, combined with much ignorance of men’s nature and passions. The idea of a perfect and universal model of government, without regard to local circumstances, seems chimerical. It is a curious fact that Rousseau, after reading Bernardin de St. Pierre’s political works, observed that they contained projects which were impracticable on account of a fundamental error, out of which the author was unable to extricate himself, namely, “that of supposing that men in general and in all cases will conduct themselves according to the dictates of reason and virtue, rather than according to their passions.” Rousseau, in uttering these words, passed judgment on his own ‘Contrat Social,’ which he afterwards also acknowledged having written, “not for men but for angels.” In fact, he never meant it for anything but a speculative treatise, and in his ‘Considérations sur le Gouvernement de la Pologne,’ published some years after, having to write for a practical purpose, he considerably modified his former principles.

In consequence of the excitement produced by these works, Rousseau left Paris for Switzerland in 1762. He went first to Yverdun, but the Senate of Berne enjoined him to leave its territory. He then repaired to Neuchatel, which was subject to the King of Prussia, and of which the old Marshal Keith was Governor. Keith received him very kindly, and Rousseau took up his residence at the village of Motiers, in the Val de Travers. There he wrote a Reply to the Archbishop of Paris, and a Letter to the Magistrates of Geneva, in which he renounced his rights of citizenship. He next wrote the “Lettres de la Montagne,” which is a series of severe strictures on the political government and church of Geneva. It is curious as a sketch of the old institutions of that republic, written by one of its own citizens. This work increased the existing irritation against its author, a feeling which spread even to the villagers of Motiers, who are said to have annoyed their eccentric visiter in various ways. Rousseau, however, is suspected of having greatly magnified, if not invented, some of the acts of aggression of which he complains. He spoke of them as amounting to a regular conspiracy against his person, and removed his abode to the little island of St. Pierre, on the lake of Bienne. Thence, after a time, as if to court notice, he wrote a letter to the Senate of Berne, requesting permission to remain on the island. For answer he received an order to quit the territory of the canton in twenty-four hours. At the invitation of his former friend Marshal Keith, he meditated a visit to Berlin. But the advice of some friends in Paris induced him to change his mind, and accept the friendly offer of our historian Hume, who was anxious to procure for him a safe asylum in England, where he might quietly attend to his studies and live in peace. Rousseau arrived in London in January, 1766; and in the following March, went to his intended home at Wootton in Derbyshire. Knowing the man he had to deal with, Hume, with the real kindness of character which he possessed, had sought by every means to avoid shocking the irritable delicacy or vanity of his protégé: and the residence which he procured for him in the house of a man of fortune, Mr. Davenport, is said to have been unexceptionable. But before long he quarrelled with both Hume and Davenport, left Wootton abruptly, and returned to France. The ostensible cause of all this was the publication of a letter in the newspapers, bearing the King of Prussia’s name, and reflecting severely upon Rousseau’s weaknesses and eccentricities. Rousseau accused Hume, or some of his friends, of having written it. Hume protested in vain that he knew nothing of the matter. At last Horace Walpole acknowledged himself to be the author. Rousseau, however, would not be pacified, and attributed to Hume the blackest designs against him. The correspondence that passed between the parties on the subject is curious, and is given in the complete editions of our author’s works. He afterwards seemed to say that during his residence in England he had been subject to fits of insanity.

Returning to France, Rousseau led an unsettled life, with frequent changes in his place of residence, until June, 1770. He then returned to Paris, and took lodgings in the Rue Plâtrière, which has since been called Rue J. J. Rousseau. It is to be noticed that in the interim he had published his ‘Dictionnaire de Musique,’ a work which has the reputation of being both imperfect and obscure. Indeed, notwithstanding his passionate fondness for the art, he never attained to a profound acquaintance with it. Passing through Lyons on his way to Paris, he subscribed his mite towards the erection of a statue to Voltaire: thus avenging himself for the coarse abuse which the latter had on many occasions poured upon him, and which Rousseau never returned. Voltaire is said to have been exceedingly annoyed at this. After his return to the capital, he was overwhelmed with visits and invitations to dinner. Though there was a prosecution pending against him for his ‘Emile,’ he was left undisturbed: but at the same time he was cautioned not to exhibit himself too conspicuously in public; advice which he utterly disregarded. He soon relapsed into his former misanthropy, and became subject to convulsive fits, which fearfully disfigured his features, and gave a haggard expression to his looks. He fancied that every body was conspiring against him, and he also complained of inward moral sufferings which tortured his mind.

Among other imaginary grievances he thought that the French ministers had imposed restrictions upon him with respect to his writings. One of his friends applied to the Duc de Choiseuil to ascertain the fact. The Duke’s answer, dated 1772, is as follows: “If ever I have engaged M. Rousseau not to publish anything without my previous knowledge, of which fact however I have no remembrance, it could only have been in order to save him from fresh squabbles and annoyance. However, now that I have no longer the power of protecting him (the Duke had resigned his premiership), I fully acquit him of any engagement of the kind.”

As Rousseau was walking one day in the street Menil Montant, a large dog that was running before the carriage of the President Saint Fargeau tripped his legs, and he fell. The President alighted, expressed his regret at the accident, and begged the sufferer to accept of his carriage to return home. Rousseau, however, refused. The next day the President sent to inquire after his health. “Tell your master to chain up his dog,” was the only reply.

Being old and infirm, the labour of copying music had become too irksome for him: still he would accept of no assistance from his friends, though all his income consisted of an annuity of 1450 livres. His wife was also in bad health, and provisions were very dear at the time; he therefore began to look out for a country residence. A friend mentioned this to the Marquis de Girardin, who immediately offered Rousseau a permanent habitation at his château of Ermenonville, near Chantilly. Rousseau accepted the proposal, and chose for his residence a detached cottage near the family mansion. He removed to it in May, 1778, and appeared more calm and contented in his new abode. He was fond of botany, and used to take long walks in quest of flowers with one of M. de Girardin’s sons. On July 1st he went out as usual, but returned home fatigued and ill: he however slept quietly that night. Next morning he rose early according to his custom, and went out to see the sun rise; he came back to breakfast, after which he went to his room to dress, as he intended to pay a visit to Madame de Girardin. His wife happening to enter his room shortly after, found him sitting with his elbow leaning on a chest of drawers. He said he was very ill, and complained of cold shivering and of violent pain in his head. Madame de Girardin being informed of this, came at once to visit him; but Rousseau, thanking her for all her kindness to him, begged of her to return home and leave him alone for the present. He then having requested his wife to sit by him, begged her forgiveness for any pain or displeasure of which he might have been the cause, and said that his end was approaching, that he died in peace, as he never had intended or wished evil to any human being, and that he hoped in the mercy of God. He begged that M. de Girardin would allow him to be buried in his park. He gave directions to his wife about his papers, and requested her particularly to have his body opened, that the cause of his death might be ascertained. He then asked her to open the window, “that he might once more behold the beautiful green of the fields.” “How pure and beautiful is the sky!” he then observed, “there is not a cloud. I trust the Almighty will receive me there above.” In so saying, he fell on his face to the floor, and on raising him, life was found to be extinct. On opening the body, a considerable quantity of serum was found between the brain and its integuments. His sudden death was attributed by many persons to suicide: but there is no direct evidence of which we know to prove this. On the other side there is the positive assertion of the physician who examined the body, that his death was natural. Rousseau was buried in an island shaded by poplars, on the little lake of the park of Ermenonville. A plain marble monument was raised to his memory.

The first part of his ‘Confessions,’ which he had begun to write while at Wootton, was published in 1781. He had himself fixed the year 1800 for the publication of the second part, judging that, by that time, the persons mentioned in the work would be dead; but, through an abuse of confidence on the part of the depositories of the MSS., it was published in 1788. His autobiography does not include the latter years of his life.

Rousseau was temperate and frugal in his habits, disinterested and warm-hearted, and impressed with strong feelings against oppression and injustice. He was not envious of the fame or success of his brother authors. He never sneered at religion like Voltaire and others of his contemporaries, although in his speculative works he expressed his doubts concerning revelation, and brought forth the arguments that occurred to him on that side of the question: but he had none of the fanaticism of incredulity against Christianity. Of the morality of the Gospel he was a sincere admirer, and a most eloquent eulogist. “I acknowledge,” he says in his ‘Emile,’ “that the majesty of the Scriptures astonishes me, that the holiness of the Gospel speaks to my heart. Look at the books of the philosophers; with all their pomp, how little they appear by the side of that one book! Can a book so sublime, and yet so simple, be the work of man? How prejudiced, how blind that man must be, who can compare the son of Sophroniscus (Socrates) to the son of Mary!” With such sentiments Rousseau could not long agree with Helvetius, Diderot, D’Holbach, and their coterie. They, on their side, ridiculed and abused him, because he was too sincere and independent for them. “I have spent my life,” says Rousseau, “among infidels, without being seduced by them; I loved and esteemed several of them, and yet their doctrine was to me insufferable. I told them repeatedly that I could not believe them.... I leave to my friends the task of constructing the world by chance. I find in the very architects of this new-fangled world, and in spite of themselves and their arguments, fresh proofs of the existence of a God, a Creator of all.” A very good collection of the moral maxims scattered about Rousseau’s works was published under the title of ‘Esprit, Maximes et Principes de J. J. Rousseau,’ 8vo., Neuchatel, 1774.

Rousseau set to music about 100 French romances, which he called ‘Consolations des Misères de ma Vie.’ Several editions of all his works have been made at different times: that by Mercier and Le Tourneur, 38 vols. 4to., has been long considered as one of the best. The edition of Lefevre, 22 vols. 8vo., 1819–20, and that of Lequien, 21 vols. 8vo., 1821–2, are now preferred to all former ones.

_Engraved by W. Holl._

JOHN HARRISON.

_From an Engraving by Tassaerts published in 1708 after a Painting by
King._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

HARRISON.

John Harrison was born in May, 1693, at Foulby, in Yorkshire. His father, who was a joiner, trained him from an early age to the same business; but he soon began to study machinery. He turned his attention to the mechanism of clocks; and, to obviate the irregularities produced in their rate of going by variations of temperature, he invented the method of compensation, employed in what is now called the _gridiron_ pendulum, before the year 1720. This contrivance consisted in constructing a pendulum with bars of different metals, having different rates of expansion so as to correct each other: it is described in all popular treatises on physics. By this means it is stated that he had, before the year above-mentioned, constructed two clocks which agreed with each other within a second a month, and one of which did not vary, on the whole, more than a minute in ten years.[10]

Footnote 10:

Folke’s Address to the Royal Society, Nov. 30, 1749.

This success induced him to turn his attention to watches, or rather to time-keepers for naval purposes. It would be impossible without the help of plates to render intelligible the rise and progress of his methods, for which we must refer the reader to treatises of Horology. His first instrument was tried upon the Humber, in rough weather, and succeeded so well that he was recommended to carry it to London, for the inspection of the Commissioners of Longitude.

The question of the discovery of the longitude had been considered of national importance since the year 1714, when an Act was passed offering 10,000_l._, 15,000_l._, and 20,000_l._ for any method of discovering the longitude within 60, 40, or 30 miles respectively. In 1735 Harrison arrived in London with his time-piece, and showed it to several members of the Royal Society. He obtained a certificate of its goodness, signed by Halley, Smith, Bradley, Machin, and Graham, in consequence of which he was allowed to proceed with it to Lisbon, in a king’s ship, in 1736. The watch was found to correct the ship’s reckoning a degree and a half; and the commissioners thereupon gave Harrison 500_l._, to enable him to proceed. He finished a second time-piece in 1739, and a third in 1758, each nearer to perfection than the former, and both abounding in ingenious contrivances to overcome the effects of temperature, and of the motion of a vessel at sea. In 1741 he obtained another certificate, signed by almost every name of eminence in English science of the time. In 1749 the gold medal of the Royal Society was awarded to him. In 1761, having then a fourth time-piece in hand, but being convinced that the third was sufficiently correct to come within the limits of the act of parliament, he applied to the Commissioners for a trial of it. Accordingly, in 1761 (Nov. 18), his son, William Harrison, was sent in a king’s ship to Jamaica with the watch, and returned to Portsmouth, March 26, 1762. On arrival at Port Royal, Jan. 19, 1762, the watch was found wrong only 5⅒ seconds; and at its return, only 1 minute 54½ seconds. This was sufficient to determine the longitude within 18 miles; and Harrison accordingly claimed 20,000_l._, in a petition to the House of Commons, presented early in 1763. The Commissioners had awarded him 1,500_l._, and promised 1,000_l._ more after another voyage. Owing to some doubt as to the method of equal altitudes employed in finding the time at Port Royal, they do not appear to have been of opinion that the first voyage was conclusive. In 1763 an act passed, by which, firstly, no other person could become entitled to the reward until Harrison’s claim was settled; and, secondly, 5,000_l._ was awarded to him on his discovery of the structure of the instrument. But the Commissioners not agreeing about the payment, another voyage was resolved on, and Mr. William Harrison sailed again for Barbadoes, with Dr. Maskelyne, afterwards the Astronomer Royal. The result was yet more satisfactory than before; and in 1765 a new act was passed, awarding to Harrison the whole sum of 20,000_l._: the first moiety upon the discovery of his construction; the second, so soon as it should be found that others could be made like it. In this act it is stated that the watch did not lose more than ten miles of the longitude. But Harrison had by this time been rendered unduly suspicious of the intentions of the Commissioners. He imagined that Dr. Maskelyne had treated him unfairly, and was desirous of having no method of finding the longitude except that of lunar observations. An account of the subsequent proceedings, of which the following is an abstract, was printed in self-defence by the Commissioners:—

May 28, 1765, Mr. Harrison’s son informs the Commissioners that he is ready to deliver the drawings and explanations, and expects a certificate that he is entitled to receive the first moiety of the reward. The Commissioners are unanimously of opinion that verbal explanations and experiments, in the presence of such persons as they may appoint, will be necessary. May 30, Mr. Harrison attends in person, and consents to the additional explanation; and certain men of science, as well as watchmakers, are instructed to receive them. June 13, Mr. Harrison, being present, is informed that the Board is ready to fix a time to proceed, on which he denies ever having given his assent, and refers to a letter which he had delivered at the last meeting. The letter had not, says the Commissioners’ Minute, been delivered, but had been left upon the table, unnoticed by any one. It was to the effect that Harrison was willing to give further verbal explanation, but requires to know to whom it must be given; “for,” says he, “I will never attempt to explain it to the satisfaction of the Commissioners, and who they may appoint; nor will I ever come under the directions of men of theory.” He further refuses to make any experimental exhibition, and ends by complaining of the usage he has received. He was then told by the Board that he would only be asked for experiments in cases where there were operations which could not be fully explained by words, such, for instance, as the tempering of the springs; on which he left the Board abruptly, declaring, “that he never would consent to it, as long as he had a drop of English blood in his body.” The Commissioners thereupon declined further dealing with him.

The reason of the above absurd conduct we suspect to have been, that Harrison desired, in addition to the large reward claimed by him, to have a monopoly of the manufacture of his watches, such as would have necessarily been created for his benefit, had he been allowed to keep his actual methods of working a secret. For he offered, _upon receiving the reward_, “to employ a sufficient number of hands, so as with all possible speed to furnish his Majesty’s navy, &c. &c., not doubting but the public will consider the charge of the outset of the undertaking.” We quote here from the Biographia Britannica, in the last volume of which, published in 1766, is an account of him, from materials avowedly furnished by himself, and plainly written by a partisan. It is the only instance we can find in which a memoir of a living person has been inserted in that work.

The next circumstance we find, (for there is no connected history of this discussion, which exists only in a number of detached pamphlets,) is the delivery of the watch to Dr. Maskelyne, at the Royal Observatory, in May, 1766, that its rate of going might there be tried. The Report of the Astronomer Royal states, that it could not be depended upon within a degree of longitude in a voyage of six weeks; and a very angry pamphlet, published by Harrison in the following year, accuses Maskelyne of having treated the instrument unfairly. Many circumstances are stated which now appear ludicrous, and some which, if true, would have reflected discredit on the Commissioners. But nothing can be inferred, after the refusal of Harrison to accede to the very reasonable demand of the Commissioners, except that he was most probably as wrong in his suspicions as he had been foolish in his dealings. The end of this dispute was, that in 1767 Harrison complied with the conditions insisted upon; and, it having been found that his improvements were such as admitted of execution by another person, he received the whole sum awarded to him by the Act of Parliament.

Harrison was not a well-educated man, and was deficient in the power of expressing his meaning clearly. It was easier for him, no doubt, to make two watches than to explain one; and hence, perhaps, his aversion to “men of theory,” who troubled him for descriptions and explanations.

He died in 1776, at his house in Red Lion Square, having been engaged during the latter years of his life in bringing his improvements still nearer to perfection. His last work, which was tried in 1772, was found to have erred only four seconds and a half in ten weeks.

In his younger days, some church-bells, which were out of tune, set him upon examining the musical scale, with a view to correct them. He communicated his ideas on the subject to Dr. Smith, who confirmed and extended them in his well-known work on Harmonics. In the Preface it is stated that Harrison made the interval of the major-third bear to that of the octave the proportion of the diameter of a circle to its circumference. This, he said, he did on the authority of a friend, who assured him it would give the best scale. Harrison himself wrote a treatise on the scale, but we do not know whether it was published.

He is, on the whole, a fine instance of the union of originality with perseverance. The inventions, of which it takes so short a space to tell the history, were the work of fifty years of labour, and to them the art of constructing chronometers, and consequently the science of navigation, is indebted for much of its present advanced state.

_Engraved by C. E. Wagstaff._

MONTAIGNE.

_From an original Picture at Paris, in the “Dépot des Archives du
Royaume.”_

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

MONTAIGNE.

Michel, Seigneur, or Lord, of MONTAIGNE, a feudal estate in the province of Perigord, near the river Dordogne, was born February 28, 1533, of a family said to have been originally from England. He was a younger son; but, by the death of his elder brother, inherited the estate by the title of which he is known. His father, a blunt feudal noble, who had served in the wars of Francis I., placed him out at nurse in a village of his domain, and directed that he should be treated in the same manner as the children of the peasants. As soon as he could speak, he was placed under the care of a German tutor, selected for his ignorance of the French, and intimate acquaintance with the Greek and Latin languages. All Montaigne’s intercourse with his preceptor was carried on in Latin; and even his parents made a rule never to address him except in that language, of which they picked up a sufficient number of words for common purposes. The attendants were enjoined to follow the same practice. “They all became latinized,” says Montaigne himself, “and even the villagers around learnt words in that language, some of which took root in the country, and became of common use among the people.” Thus, without any formal course of scholastic teaching, Montaigne spoke Latin long before he could speak French, which he was afterwards obliged to learn as if it had been a foreign language. When, at a mature age, he was writing his Essays, he professed to be still ignorant of grammar, having learnt various languages by practice, and not knowing yet the meaning of adjective, conjunctive, or ablative, (Essais, b. i. c. 48.) This last assertion probably is not to be taken strictly to the letter. He studied Greek also by way of pastime, rather than as a task. The object of his father was to make him learn without constraint and from his own wish; and, as an instance of the old soldier’s whimsical notions on education, he caused his son to be awakened in the morning to the sound of music, that his nervous system might not be injured by any sudden shock. At six years old Montaigne was sent to the College of Guienne, at Bordeaux, an establishment which then enjoyed a very high reputation. He soon made his way to the higher classes; and at thirteen years of age had completed his college education. Having no taste for military life, which was then the usual career of young noblemen, he studied the law; and in 1554 was made Councillor (or Judge) in the Parliament of Bordeaux, in which capacity he acted for several years. He went several times to Court, and enjoyed the favour of Henry II., by whom, or as some say, by Charles IX., he was made a Gentleman of the King’s Chamber, and Knight of the Order of St. Michel. Among his brother councillors at Bordeaux there was a young man of distinguished merit, called La Boëtie, for whom Montaigne conceived a feeling of the most romantic friendship, which soon became reciprocal. The sentiments and opinions of the two seem to have sympathized in an extraordinary degree. La Boëtie died young, but his friend’s affection survived: a chapter of the Essays is devoted to his memory, and in other parts of Montaigne’s writings we find frequent recurrence to the same subject.

Montaigne married Françoise de la Chassaigne when he was thirty-three years of age; and this he did, as he says, in consequence of external persuasions, and in order to please his friends rather than himself, for he was not inclined to a married life; “but once married, although he had been till then considered a licentious man, he observed the conjugal laws more strictly than he had himself expected.” On succeeding to the family estate, on which he generally resided, he took the management of it into his own hands; and although his father, judging from his habits of abstraction and seeming carelessness of worldly objects, had foretold that he would ruin his patrimony, Montaigne, at his death, left the property if not much better, certainly not worse than he found it. He was not rich, for we are told, by Balzac, that his income did not exceed 6000 livres, which was no great revenue for a country gentleman even at that time. In 1569 he translated into French a Latin work of Sebonde or Sebon, in defence of the mysteries and doctrines of the Church of Rome, against Luther and other Protestant writers. France was at that time desolated by civil and religious war. Montaigne, although he evidently disapproved of the conduct of the Court towards the Protestants, yet remained loyal to the King. He lived in retirement, and took no part in public affairs, except by exhorting both parties to moderation and mutual charity. By this conduct he became, as it generally happens, obnoxious to both factions, and he incurred some danger in consequence. The massacre of St. Bartholomew plunged him into a deep melancholy. He detested cruelty and the shedding of blood, and in several passages of his Essays has animadverted in strong terms upon the atrocities committed against the Protestants. It was about this dismal epoch of 1572, when, solitude and melancholy urging him to the task, he began to write that celebrated work, of which we shall presently speak more at length. It was first published in March, 1580; and had great success. After some time, Montaigne printed a new edition of it, with additions; but without making any alterations in the part which had appeared before. The popularity of the book was such that in a few years there was hardly a man of education in France who had not a copy of it.

Soon after the first publication of his Essays, Montaigne undertook a journey for the sake of his health. He went to Germany, Switzerland, and, lastly, to Italy. He visited several bathing-places, among others, Baden, and the baths of Lucca in Tuscany. He proceeded to Rome, where he was well received by several Cardinals and other persons of distinction, and was introduced to Pope Gregory XIII. Montaigne was delighted with Rome; he found himself at home among those localities and monuments which were connected with his earliest studies, and with the first impressions of his childhood. His remarks on what he saw in the course of his journey are those of a man of penetration, sincere and plain spoken, and written in his peculiar antique style. His MS. journal, after lying forgotten for nearly two centuries, was discovered in an old chest in the château of his family, and published in 1775, by M. de Querlon, under the following title, ‘Journal du Voyage de Michel de Montaigne en Italie, par la Suisse et l’Allemagne, en 1580–1.’ It is one of the earliest descriptions of Italy in a modern language. In this journey, Montaigne received the freedom of the city of Rome, by a special bull of the Pope, which he valued as the proudest distinction of his life.

While he was abroad, he was elected mayor of Bordeaux by the votes of the citizens; an honour which he would have declined, but that the king, Henry III., insisted on his accepting of it. This was a mere honorary office, no emolument being attached to it. The appointment was for two years; but Montaigne was re-elected at the expiration of that period, which was a mark of public favour of rare occurrence.

On retiring from his office, Montaigne returned to his estate. The country was then ravaged by the war of the League. He had great difficulty in saving his family and property in the midst of the contending parties, and once narrowly escaped assassination in his château. To add to the miseries of civil war, the plague broke out in his neighbourhood in 1586; and he then, with his family, left his home and became a wanderer, residing successively at several friends’ houses in other parts of the country. He was at Paris in 1588, busy about a new edition of his Essays. It appears from De Thou, that about this time he was employed in negotiation with a view to mediate peace between Henry of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV., and the Duke of Guise. At Paris, he made the acquaintance of Mademoiselle de Gournay, a young lady, who had conceived a kind of sentimental affection for him by reading his book. In company with her mother, she visited and introduced herself to him, and from that time he called her his “fille d’alliance,” or adopted daughter, a title which she retained for the rest of her life, as she never married. This attachment, which, though warm and reciprocal, has every appearance of being of a purely platonic nature, is one of the remarkable circumstances of Montaigne’s life. At the time of his death, Mademoiselle de Gournay and her mother crossed one-half of France, in spite of the civil troubles and the insecurity of the roads, to mix their tears with those of his widow and daughter.

On his return from Paris, in the latter part of 1588, Montaigne stopped at Blois, with De Thou, Pasquier, and other friends. The famous States-General were then assembled in that city, where the murder of the Duke of Guise, and of his brother, the Cardinal, soon after took place (23d and 24th December, 1588). Montaigne had long foreseen that the civil dissensions could only terminate with the death of one of the great party leaders; and he also said to De Thou that Henry of Navarre was inclined to embrace the Catholic faith, were he not afraid of being forsaken by his party; and that, on the other side, Guise himself would not have been averse from adopting the Protestant religion, if he could thereby have promoted his ambitious views. After these events, Montaigne returned to his château. In the following year, he became acquainted with Pierre Charron, a theological writer of considerable reputation. An intimate friendship ensued between the two authors; and Charron, in his book ‘De la Sagesse,’ borrowed many thoughts from the Essays, which he held in high estimation. Montaigne, by his will, empowered Charron to assume the coat of arms of his family, as he himself had no male issue.

Montaigne’s health had been declining for some time; he was afflicted with gravel and cholic, and he was obstinately resolved against consulting physicians. In September, 1592, he fell ill of a malignant quinsy, which kept him speechless for three days, during which he had recourse to his pen to signify to his wife his last intentions. He desired that several gentlemen of the neighbourhood should be requested to come and take leave of him. When they were assembled in his room, a priest said mass, and at the elevation of the host, Montaigne half raised himself on his bed, with his hands joined together, and in that attitude expired, September 13, 1592, in the sixtieth year of his age. His body was buried at Bordeaux, in the church of the Feuillans, where a monument was erected to him by his widow. He left an only daughter, heiress of his property.

Montaigne’s Essays have been the subject of much and very conflicting criticism. If we consider the age and the intellectual condition of the country in which the author was born, we must pronounce them a very extraordinary work, not so much on account of the learning contained in them, as for the philosophical spirit and the frank, independent, liberal tone that pervades their pages. Civilization and literature were then at a low ebb in France; the language was hardly formed, the country was still torn by the rude turbulence, and subject to the oppression, of feudal lords and feudal laws; and was, moreover, distracted by ignorant fanaticism, by deadly intolerance, and by civil factions, rendered more fierce by religious feuds. It is very remarkable that, in a remote province of a country so situated, a country gentleman, himself belonging to the feudal aristocracy, should have composed a work full of moral maxims and precepts, conceived in the spirit of the philosophers of Greece and Rome, and founded, not on the sanctions of revealed religion, but on a sort of natural system of ethics, on the beauty of virtue, on the innate sense of justice, on the lessons of history. It is almost more remarkable that such a book should have been read with avidity amidst the turmoil of factions, the din of civil war, the knell of persecution and massacre.

The morality of the Essays has been called, and justly so, a pagan morality: it is not founded on the faith and the hopes of a Christian; and its principles are in many respects widely different from those of the Gospel. Scepticism was the bias of Montaigne’s mind; his philosophy is, in great measure, that of Seneca, and other ancient writers, whose books were the first that were put into his hands when a child. Accordingly, Pascal, Nicole, Leclerc, and other Christian moralists, while rendering full justice to Montaigne’s talents and the many good sentiments scattered about the Essays, are very severe upon his ethics, taken as a system. Yet he was not a determined infidel, for not only in the Essays, but in the journal of his travels, which was not intended for publication, he manifests Christian sentiments; and we have seen that the mode of his death was that of a Christian. In his chapter on prayers, (Essais, b. i. 56,) he recommends the use of the Lord’s Prayer in terms evidently sincere; and in a preceding chapter, after speaking of two sorts of ignorance, the one, that which precedes all instruction, and the other, that which follows partial instruction, he says, that “men of simple minds, devoid of curiosity and of learning, are Christians through reverence and obedience; that minds of middle growth and moderate capacities are the most prone to error and doubt; but that higher intellects, more clear-sighted and better grounded in science, form a superior class of believers, who, through long and religious investigations, arrive at the fountain of light of the Scriptures, and feel the mysterious and divine meaning of our ecclesiastical doctrines. And we see some who reach this last stage, through the second, with marvellous fruit and confirmation; and who, having attained the extreme boundary of Christian intelligence, enjoy their success with modesty and thanksgivings, accompanied by a total reformation of their morals, unlike those men of another stamp, who, in order to clear themselves of the suspicion of their past errors, become violent, indiscreet, unjust, and throw discredit on the cause which they pretend to serve.” (Essais, b. i. ch. 54.) And a few lines after, he modestly places himself in the second rank, of those who, disdaining the first state of uninformed simplicity, have not yet attained the third and last exalted stage, and who, he says, are thereby rendered “inept, importunate, and troublesome to society. But I, for my part, endeavour, as much as I can, to fall back upon my first and natural condition, from which I have idly attempted to depart.” Although we may not trust implicitly to the sincerity of this modest admission, yet we clearly see from this and other passages, that Montaigne’s mind was anything but dogmatical, and that he felt the insecurity of his own philosophy, which was made up of impulses and doubts, rather than of argumentation and conviction.

Montaigne has been also censured for several licentious and some cynical passages of his ‘Essais.’ This licentiousness, however, is rather in the expressions than in the meaning of the author. He spoke plainly of things which are not alluded to in a more refined state of society, but he did so evidently without mischievous intentions, and as a thing of common occurrence in his days. His early familiarity with the Latin classics probably contributed to this habit.

Notwithstanding these faults, Montaigne’s Essays are justly admired for the sound sense, honesty, and beauty which abound in them. ‘The best parts of them (says a French critic) are those in which he speaks of the passions and inclinations of men; as for his learning, it is vague, not methodical, and uncertain; and his philosophical maxims are often dangerous.’ (Mélanges d’Histoire et de Litterature,’ Rouen, 1699, tom. i. p. 133.) Montaigne combats most earnestly all the malignant feelings inherent in man, inhumanity, injustice, oppression, uncharitableness; cruelty he detests, his whole nature was averse from it. His chapters on pedantry and on the education of children are remarkably good. He throws, at times, considerable light on the state of society and manners in France in his time, which may be considered as the last period of feudal power in that country. In his chapter on the inequality among men, he speaks of the independence of the French nobility, especially in the provinces remote from the Court, as Britanny; where the feudal lords living on their estates, surrounded by their vassals, their officers and valets, their household conducted with an almost royal ceremonial, heard of the king but once a-year as if he were some distant king or Sultan of Persia, and only remembered him on the score of some distant relationship, which they hold carefully registered among their ancestral documents.

Mademoiselle de Gournay edited Montaigne’s ‘Essais’ in 1635, and dedicated the edition to the Cardinal de Richelieu. She wrote a long preface to it, which is a zealous apology for Montaigne and his works against the charges of the earlier critics. An edition of the ‘Essais’ was published by Pierre Coste, 3 vols. 4to. London, 1724, enriched with valuable notes and several letters of Montaigne at the end of the third volume. The edition of Paris, 3 vols. 4to. 1725, is, in great measure, a reprint of that of Coste, except that the publishers have added extracts of the various judgments of the most distinguished critical writers concerning the ‘Essais,’ and also two more letters of Montaigne’s at the end. These additions render this Paris edition the most complete. The ex-senator Vernier published in 1810, ‘Notices et Observations pour faciliter la Lecture des Essais de Montaigne,’ Paris, 2 vols. 8vo. It is a useful commentary.

POPE.

Alexander Pope was born in London, June S, 1688. His father was a merchant, of good family, attached to the Roman Catholic religion; and his own childish years were spent, first under the tuition of a priest, then at a Roman Catholic Seminary at Twyford, near Winchester. He taught himself to write by copying printed books, in the execution of which he attained great neatness and exactness. When little more than eight years old he accidentally met with Ogilby’s Translation of Homer. The versification is insipid and lifeless; but the stirring events and captivating character of the story so possessed his mind, that Ogilby became a favourite book. When about ten years old he was removed from Twyford to a school at Hyde Park Corner. He had there occasional opportunities of frequenting the theatre; which suggested to him the amusement of turning the chief events in Homer into a kind of play, composed of a succession of speeches from Ogilby, strung together by verses of his own. In these two schools he seems, instead of advancing, to have lost what he had gained under his first tutor. When twelve years old he went to live with his parents at Binfield, in Windsor Forest. He there became acquainted with the writings of Spenser, Waller, and Dryden. For the latter he conceived the greatest admiration. He saw him once, and commemorates the event in his correspondence, under the words “Virgilium tantum vidi:” but he was too young to have made acquaintance with that master of English verse, who died in 1701. He studied Dryden’s works with equal attention and pleasure, adopted them as a model of rhythm, and copied the structure of that author’s periods. This was, however, so far from a grovelling imitation, that it enabled him to raise English rhyme to the most perfect melody of which it is capable.

_Engraved by J. Posselwhite._

POPE.

_From the Picture by Hudson in the possession of His Grace the Duke of
Buckingham._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

In the retirement of Binfield, Pope laboured successfully to make amends for the loss of past time. At fourteen years of age he had written with some elegance, and at fifteen had attained some knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, to which he soon added French and Italian. In 1704 he began his pastorals, published in 1709, which introduced him, through Wycherley, to the acquaintance of Walsh, who proved a sincere friend to him. That gentleman discovered at once that Pope’s talent lay less in striking out new thoughts of his own, than in easy versification, and in improving what he borrowed from the ancients. Among other useful hints, he pointed out that we had several great poets, but that none of them were correct; he therefore admonished him to make that merit his own. The advice was gratefully received; and Pope’s correspondence shows that it was carefully followed. His melodious numbers, so marked a feature of his style, were in a great measure the result of that suggestion.

In the same year, 1704, he wrote the first part of his ‘Windsor Forest’: the whole was not published till 1713. The fault charged on this poem is, that few images are introduced which are not equally applicable to any other sylvan scenery. It was dedicated to Lord Lansdowne, whom he mentions as one of his earliest acquaintance. To those already named, may be added Bolingbroke, Congreve, Garth, Swift, Atterbury, Talbot, Somers, and Sheffield, whose friendship he had gained at sixteen or seventeen years of age. Pope, to his credit be it set down, cultivated friendships not only with the great, but with his brethren among the poets. Wycherley indeed was infected with the weakness of the archbishop in ‘Gil Blas,’ touching his own compositions, and the young poet was imprudently caustic in his criticism on the old one. Their correspondence was consequently dropped; and though renewed through the mediation of a common friend, it was with no revival of cordiality. But in 1728, some time after Wycherley’s death, his poems were republished; and in the following year Pope printed several letters which had passed between them, in vindication of Wycherley’s fame as a poet, in answer to certain misrepresentations prefixed to that edition. This quarrel was a trying affair in the outset of Pope’s career, and his conduct had been above his years; but young as he was, his talents were now beginning to ripen. His example confirms the truth of Lord Bacon’s remark, that personal deformity acts as a spur to that improvement of the mind, which is most likely to rescue him who is curtailed of his due proportion from a sense of degradation.