Rousseau's Dog by David Edmonds Read Free Book Online Page B

earned.
    Earl Marischal had another useful contact: he was a staunch friend and admirer of David Hume’s. He cautioned Hume that Rousseau was vulnerable in Neuchâtel because of “the power of the people.” Britain was a better bet.
    The earl was not alone in thinking of Britain. Rousseau recorded that Mme de Boufflers strongly disapproved of his going to Switzerland, “and made fresh endeavours to persuade me to go to England. I remained unshaken. I have never liked England or the English; and all Mme de Boufflers’ eloquence, far from overcoming my repugnance, served for some reason to increase it.”
    Mme de Boufflers had initiated a correspondence with Hume not long before, sending him a note about how utterly “sublime” she considered his books. Like Earl Marischal, she sought to engage Hume in the quest to secure Rousseau asylum. She wrote to the Scottish historian in mid-June 1762 to say that she had advised Rousseau to go to England, adding a character study. There was praise for the Genevan’s “eccentric, upright heart [and his] noble and disinterested soul.” Dependency he dreaded: he would rather make his living copying music than receive benefits from his best friends. Only in solitude could he be happy. “I do not believe you will find anywhere a man more gentle, more humane, more compassionate to the sorrows of others, and more patient under his own. In short, his virtue appears so pure, so contented, so equal, that until now, those who hated him could find only in their hearts reasons for suspecting him.”
    Hume cast aside his customary moderation to live up to her enthusiasm for a man with whom he had no previous connection. He had, Hume gushed, “esteem, I had almost said veneration, for [Rousseau’s] virtue and genius. I assure your ladyship there is no man in Europe of whom I have entertained a higher idea and would be prouder to serve. … I revere his greatness of mind, which makes him fly obligationsand dependence; and I have the vanity to think, that through the course of my life I have endeavoured to resemble him in those maxims.”
    Hume, who was in Edinburgh, added that he had connections with men of rank in London and would make “them sensible of the honour M. Rousseau has done us in choosing an asylum in England. We are happy at present in a king, who has a taste for literature; and I hope M. Rousseau will find the advantage of it, and that he will not disdain to receive benefits from a great monarch who is sensible of his merit.” However, the hero-worship was qualified. Hume disparaged
Émile,
in which, intermingled with genius, there was “some degree of extravag ance. … [O]ne would be apt to suspect that he chooses his topics less from persuasion, than from the pleasure of showing his invention, and surprising the reader by his paradoxes.”
    The Scotsman offered the Genevan the use of his house in Edinburgh for as long as he liked. Later Hume explained, “No other motive was wanting to incite me to this act of humanity than the account given me of M. Rousseau’s personal character by the friend who had recommended him.” Hume also made overtures about a royal pension for Rousseau: he believed that assisting Rousseau would yield a propaganda triumph over the French worth a hundred victories in battle.
    In return, Rousseau, a spirit of intuition, imagination, and feeling, rhapsodized to Mme de Boufflers about the detachment of David Hume:
    Mr. Hume is the most genuine philosopher I know of, and the only historian who has ever written with impartiality. … I have frequently mingled passion with my researches; whereas his are enhanced by his enlightened conceptions and his beautiful genius. … He has contemplated, in every point of view, what passion has not permitted me to contemplate but from one side.
    However, Rousseau went on, he was deterred by the distance and expense of the