"Phidias Pigalle, it appears, remained a week at Ferne, The day before his departure, he had utterly failed in his object, and had determined to abandon the enterprize, on the plea that it was not feasible. Not but that the patriarch sat to him every day, but during the sitting he was, like a child, unable to be still for a moment. In general, he dictated letters to his secretary, while the artist was modelling him ; and, as customary with him when so employed, he continued to shoot peas out of his mouth, or made a hundred grimaces which were so many death-blows to the statuary's art. The statuary was therefore in despair, and saw no alternative but to return, or fall ill at Ferney of a burning fever. At length, on the last day the conversation turned, luckily for the enterprize, on the golden calf of Aaron; and the patriarch was so delighted with Pigalle for requiring at least six months to model such a machine, that, during the rest of the sitting, the artist did what he would with him, and succeeded in making his model as he desired."

Such was the power of irreverence for the holy volume over Voltaire, that it would even make him sit still, and be docile and tractable. Besides the model, Pigalle brought a most favourable account of the patriarch's health. He assured me,' says GRIMM, that this Septuagenary ran up stairs quicker than all the subscribers to his statue put together, and was more alert in shutting a door, opening a window, or twirling round on one leg, than any of the persons around him.'

At repartees, Voltaire was ambi-dexter. An English traveller, on his way to Ferney, had met the celebrated Haller. On hearing that name, Voltaire was loud and copious in praise of his abilities. "Your praise," said the Englishman," is the more generous, as it is unrequited on the part of M. Haller." "Alas," said the patriarch, "perhaps we are both mistaken.” This, we think, is the ne plus ultra of repartee.

Jean Jacques Rousseau, whose subscription to the statue was not much relished by the patriarch, returned to Paris unexpectedly with Mademoiselle Vasseur, whom he had married some time before. He had left off the Armenian and resumed the French dress. An impertinent tale was current on this occasion, not wholly favourable to the reputation of Madame Jean Jacques, and yet less complimentary to the taste of the person who was her accomplice. It is said that her husband, on detecting her in flagranti with a monk, left off the Armenian habit, declaring that he had only worn it for the purpose of assuming an exterior different from other men, but that he now saw he was merely an every-day mortal. It was, however, shrewdly suspected that the charms of Paris had more effect in inducing Jean Jacques to change his dress than the frolics of Madame Rousseau. On this condition, and on that of publishing nothing for the future, he obtained permission from the Attorney

Attorney-General to return.—His arrival created a great sensation at Paris. That city was necessary to him. In those nations in which unfettered genius, as it is called, marks out its way to fame by extravagances relieved by an occasional beauty, the country, or a foreign land, are no obstacles in the way of the candidate: but in France, where genius itself makes but small impression unless aided by taste, the metropolis is requisite to the writer during the period of his exertions, and when they have arrived at their close. Paris and its society directed and rewarded Rousseau's labours: at his return, he was every where followed; and, as he had prevailed on himself to leave his bear's skin behind, he became one of the favoured guests among the élite d' élite of petits-maîtres at Sophie Arnoud's and elsewhere. The eventful life of this vain and unhappy man is frequently introduced in these volumes; the adventure of the dog, which figures so mournfully in the history of his solitary walks, is cited; and a curious and incredibly absurd story is inserted of a dispute between him and a Curé at the table of Baron d'Holbach, which, as it rests on no other authority than that of the Baron, whose account of England is one tissue of wilful, stupid, and calumnious falsehoods, we totally disbelieve. That the death of Rousseau is attributable to poison, the investigation brought to light by these memoirs appears clearly to establish.

The account of the chemist Rouelle is highly entertaining. This man introduced by instinct (for he was too illiterate to master the science by any other process) the system of Sthal, and advanced this study to a great degree of perfection among his countrymen. He must be considered as the father of chemistry in France; yet his name will be lost, because he had not received an education that enabled him to publish an account of his discoveries; and because all the great chemists of that day were brought up in his school, obtained possession of the fruits of his labours, and gave them to the world as their own. These larcenies engaged the master and his disciples in perpetual quarrels. He avenged himself on their ingratitude by inveighing against them in public and private; and it was well known whose portrait would be drawn before the lecture began. He called them openly ignoramuses, barbers, fools, and plagiaries. This last term of reproach assumed in his imagination so odious a meaning, that it was applied by him to the greatest criminals; and he could invent no expression to signify his horror of Damiens's atrocious deed so strongly as that of plagiary. All his sufferings arose from this source. It became a species of madness. His utmost indignation could not devise a term so horrible as that of plagiary; and when he received the news

of

of the battle of Rosbach, in which the Prussians had defeated his countymen, his national pride found its only consolation in this summary sentence on the characters and conduct of the hostile Generals : "They are a set of plagiaries, to a man,”

said he, and he felt immediate relief from the assertion.

D'Alembert's name arrests us as we approach to the close of our account of this entertaining publication. This philosopher, endowed with many and various attainments, was indebted for high reputation to his knowlege of geometry. He began and closed his career with Diderot. If D'Alembert had only added to the discoveries of Euler, of Bernouilli, and of Newton, he would surely be intitled to the rank of a great man: but the preface to the Encyclopédie, for extent and variety of disquisition, for arrangement and perspicuity, and for energy of style and manner, will ever be regarded as one of the noblest literary monuments that have been erected to the glory of human knowlege. His style, ever cold and dry, had few recommendations beyond elegance and clearness; imagination, and what is termed soul, belonged not to his temperament: but, in the expression of the hardiest truths, he extorts admiration by the art, which was singularly his own, of preserving his temper, appearing to respect his antagonists, and confounding them by the authority of his proofs and illustrations. His minor productions must be read with indulgence, because they were probably rather the inspirations of his mistress than the suggestions of his own more sober judgment. His pride consisted in the ascendancy which he had obtained over the two academies; an ascendancy which the present author attributes rather to the intrigues of Mademoiselle l'Espinasse than to any general acknowlegement of his literary superiority. The death of this lady, which left him to his own resources, considerably weakened his academical influence.

The society at d'Alembert's house was for many years one of the most brilliant that could possibly be assembled: but it was far more promiscuous, and for that reason far less agreeable, after the death of his female friend. His own conversation presented all that could delight and instruct the mind. He could unbend with equal ease and compliance to the topic which was of most general interest and he brought to the discussion an engaging bonhomie and simplicity, with an enexhaustible fund of ideas, anecdotes, and curious recollections. It would be difficult to conceive a subject, however dry or frivolous, which he had not the secret of rendering agreeable. He spoke well, told stories with precision, and elicited the point of an anecdote with a grace and aptness peculiar to himself. All his sayings possess a delicate and profound character of research. "Who is happy ?" - "Some miserable man," is a trait of which Diogenes would have been jealous.

If it be true that nature had conferred on the ladies but few titles to the affections of this philosopher, it is still more true that he was not the less submissive to their empire; he was the most amorous of all slaves, and the most slavish of all the amorous. When he had risen high in public opinion, (and this was almost the only fund on which he was at that time supported *,) a woman as coquettish as frivolous took it into her head to reduce him to subjection. She obtained such possession of him, that he soon neglected all his affairs and all his studies; and perhaps she would have utterly ruined him, if Madame Geoffrin, who had been apprized of it, had not undertaken to interfere, with all the address and all the firmness of character which true friendship can inspire. She went to see the lady in question, although she had no knowlege of her; represented to her the irreparable injury that she was doing to her friend, and doing, according to all appearance, without any advantage; obtained possession of all the letters that she had received from him; and drew from her a solemn promise never to admit him again.

Nothing can equal the prodigious ascendency which Mlle. l'Espinasse had acquired over all his thoughts and actions. Although he once revolted from so harsh a tyranny, he did not support the yoke with less devotion. Not a poor Savoyard at Paris performs more tiresome errands, or is more on the tramp, than the first geometrician of Europe, the chief of the sect of Encyclopædists, the dictator of our academies, the philosopher who had the honour of refusing the glory attached to the preceptor of the heir to the most immense empire, performed every morning in the service of Mlle. l'Espinasse; neither is this all that she had the effrontery to demand of him. Reduced to be the confidant of the tender passion which she had conceived for a young Spaniard, M. de Thora, he was charged with all the arrangements which were to favor the intrigue; and, when his happy rival had quitted France, he was appointed to go and wait, at the general post-office, for the arrival of the courier, to procure for this lady the pleasure of receiving her letters a quarter of an hour sooner!

-

• This servitude to the will of Mlle. l'Espinasse is rather honourable to one sex than degrading to the other; it only proves how very little influence our systems have, whatever name we may give them, over our character and natural affections. The same disposition which subjected this philosopher to the caprices of his fair friend prompted him to say, in the fear which his sufferings and the approach of his death excited, "Happy they who have courage; for myself I have none." This confession manifests a bonhomie far preferable, perhaps, to the ostentation of a sentiment which is scarcely natural in the heart of man, and which in fact is much more rare than we imagine.

* M. d'Alembert was already a member of all the academies of Europe, when he possessed no more than from 12 to 1,500 livres (60l.) per ann. He was not much richer when he refused an income of 100,000 livres from the Empress of Russia, to undertake the instruction of his Imperial Highness."

It is well known that his first name was Jean Le Rond. A natural son of M. Destouches and Madame la Chanoinesse de Tencin, he was exposed on the steps of the church of Saint-Jean-le-Rond, and thence carried to the Foundling Hospital. His father took him from this asylum, and put him out to nurse with a glazier's wife named Rousseau, rue Michel-le-Comte, who suckled him, and reared him with great trouble on account of the extreme delicacy of his constitution. Indeed, he was so sickly that she refused at first to undertake the charge. A short time before his departure for Russia, his mother desired to see him: but it was with difficulty that he could be induced to accept the invitation, and he would not go unaccompanied by his nurse. The interview was very cold on the part of M. d'Alembert. Madame de Tencin, disconcerted, said to him, "But I am your mother." "You, my mother! no, here she is; I know no other." He then threw himself on Madame Rousseau, whom he embraced, weeping in her arms.'

His conduct towards this good woman was highly honourable on an occasion of greater moment. At the death of her husband, the grand-children did all in their power to seize on her little property; "Let them take all," said d'Alembert, " I will never forsake you," and he kept his word to the day of her

death.

No two characters and no two muses were more devotedly attached to pleasure than those of Bernard and Pannard, and no two persons could have sought pleasure by more contrary ways. Bernard, who merited and acquired from his politeness the surname of gentil, was considered as the Anacreon of the French; an Anacreon, indeed, well frizzed, powdered, and perfumed with musk; an Anacreon in yellow slippers, and soft silken morning gown, a recliner on sofas, the friend, companion, and confidant of every Parisian belle, and the envy of every Parisian beau. Whatever opinion may be formed of his genius from his two operas, Castor and Pollux, and The Surprizes of Love, or from his Poems on the Art of Love and Phrosine and Mélidore, he cannot be denied the merit of having written the two best odes in the French language; and the Öde to the Rose will be read and admired when the works of many of his detractors have paid their debt to time.

It might be said that he had rendered all his sentiments and all his passions subservient to that spirit of gallantry which is the prevailing character of his works; and perhaps the world never saw a philosopher so consistent, so faithful to his principles as Bernard. His epicurism possessed an admirable uniformity; a certain evenness, better supported and more regular than the stoicism of Epictetus or of Cato. He had arranged his plan of existence as he would arrange the plan of an opera: he had prepared festivals for every season of his life; and, if fate had not interfered with these flattering projects, no one would have met with more complete success.

He

had