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The Reaction in Eighteenth-Century England to Rousseau's Two Discours

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

James H. Warner
James H. Warner*
Affiliation:
Duke University
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Extract

The early reactions of Englishmen to the famous works of Jean Jacques Rousseau have never been adequately studied. Jacques Pons, Louis J. Courtois, and Margaret Hill have been the only writers to present well-documented studies of any large phase of the subject; but their attention has been confined to the impact of Rousseau's pedagogical theories and to various aspects of his visit in England during the years 1766–67. Even the bibliography of Théophile A. Dufour is very incomplete in its citations of English editions. Under these circumstances, authors have generally taken refuge in assertions of tremendous and universal influence emanating from Rousseau, or they have surmised as to the effect of his works in England. The present work undertakes to provide a basis for more definite conclusions. The numerous assertions of the impetus which Rousseau is alleged to have given to the “romantic” revival of the late eighteenth century are familiar, and we know already that the diffusion of his works in England was wide. Furthermore, the first production of the French writer to excite attention there was the Discours sur les sciences et les arts (1750); and, although several works intervened, including the Devin du village (1752), Narcisse (1752), and the Lettre sur la musique française (1753), the next writing to excite comment was the Discours sur l'origine de l'inégalité (1755). Thus, although Rousseau's diffusion and popularity in England were due chiefly to La nouvelle Héloïse, the two Discours mark the beginning of his reputation in that country. Furthermore, the theses of these two productions have been closely associated with Rousseau. The insistence in the first Discours upon the baneful effect of modern civilization was also closely allied with the praise of primitive life in the second, and the designation of private property as the source of human inequality. Moreover, both of these productions questioned the justice of existing institutions; and Roussean himself maintained that, with Émile, they form a single entity.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , June 1933 , pp. 471 - 487
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1933

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References

1 Pons, L'éducation en Angleterre entre 1750 et 1800. Aperçu sur l'influence pédagogique de J. J. Rousseau (Paris, 1919); Courtois, “Le séjour de Jean-Jacques Rousseau en Angleterre (1766–67),” Annales de la société Jean Jacques Rousseau, vi (1910), 1–313; Hill, “La querelle Rousseau-Hume,” Annales de la société Jean Jacques Rousseau, xvin (1927–28), 1–331.—The Master's thesis of Mary Lynch Johnson, entitled Contemporary Opinion of Rousseau in English Periodicals (Columbia, 1921), not only confines itself to periodicals but examines only twenty-three of them and finds only fourteen that contained references to Rousseau. As printed in the quarterly bulletin of Meredith College (Series 15, Nos. 1 and 2, 1921–22), the thesis omits dates for most of the periodicals cited. The purely chronological arrangement of the material is perhaps the best for such a brief work (forty-four pages), but it does not make clear the difference in the reception of Rousseau's various works. Moreover, the assertion that the Court Magazine (London, 1761–63) contained no reference to Rousseau is incorrect. See, for example, note 52 of this article. Nevertheless, the limited conclusions of Miss Johnson are correct.

2 Recherches bibliographiques sur les œuvres imprimées de J. J. Rousseau, ed. Pierre-Paul Plan (Paris, 1925).—I plan to publish soon a bibliography of fifty-eight editions of Rousseau which were published in England during the eighteenth century, and also of fourteen others which, although they have “Londres” on the title page, were probably printed on the Continent. See Gustave Brunet, Imprimeurs imaginaires et libraires supposés (Paris, 1866), pp. 1–5, 26, 29, 33, 35 ff.

3 The world-wide influence of Rousseau was “stupendous,” according to the Reverend Thomas Rennell's sermon, as quoted in Gentleman's Magazine, Lxm (1793), 255–256. According to Sir Henry Maine: “The world has not seen more than once or twice in all the course of history, a literature which has exerted such prodigious influence over the minds of man, over every cast and shade of intellect, as that which emanated from Rousseau between 1749 and 1762.” See Ancient Law, 4th ed. (New York, 1906), p. 67. George Saints-bury held that Rousseau's influence was “unrivalled in literary history” (article on Rousseau in the Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed.). William Boyd believed that “it is a simple fact that Rousseau has left his mark on the course of human affairs in a manner permitted to but few of the world's greatest men.” See his Educational Theories of Jean Jacques Rousseau (New York, 1911), p. 349. Oliver Elton maintained that “In the movement of philosophy back of Romanticism, Rousseau wielded the most potent single influence.” See his Survey of English Literature, 1780–1830 (London, 1912), i, 24. The opinion of Walter Raleigh was that Rousseau was, “more than any other, … the precursor of the Revolution in all its aspects,” that his success was “startling,” and that “It was largely due to Rousseau that … a love of natural scenery and a highly strung emotional sensibility became inextricably associated with rebellion against political institutions.” See The English Novel (New York, 1911), pp. 240, 241. William Lyon Phelps believes that Rousseau was the most influential writer of the modern age. See The Advance of the English Novel (New York, 1916), p. 76.

Concerning the effect of Rousseau in England, Thomas Davidson has asserted that it was “all pervasive,” and that it resulted in the abandonment of the “aphoristic stiltedness of Pope.” See Rousseau and Education according to Nature (New York, 1898), pp. 230, 232. Edmund Gosse maintained that the earliest objections to Rousseau's influence by Englishmen were political, and that Edmund Burke was the first English writer of prominence to deplore the style of that author. See “Rousseau in England in the Nineteenth Century,” Fortnightly Review, xcviii (1912), 27 ff.

4 See Oliver Elton, Survey of English Literature, 1780–1830, i, 24, and the citations of note 3 above.

5 Prof. R. S. Crane has published the results of an examination of 218 English private libraries of the period. He found works of Voltaire in 172 of these, Pope in 115, Young in 62, Thomson in 51, Rousseau in 50, Gray in 43, Helvetius in 30 (out of 199), editions of “Ossian” in 28 (out of 190). Thus we see that the volumes of Rousseau come fifth in the order of frequency. It is significant that the collections examined contained more of his works than those of Gray and probably of Helvetius and “Ossian.” However, they appeared in less than one-third as many libraries as Voltaire, and in only one-half as many as Pope. Furthermore, they were outnumbered by Young and Thomson. See R. S. Crane, “Diffusion of Voltaire's Writings in England, 1750–1800,” Mod. Phil., xx (1923), 264.

6 The first reference to Rousseau which I encountered is found in a preface to the first English edition, A Discourse . . . on the Arts and Sciences (London, 1751). See a notice of the publication of this translation in the Monthly Review, v (1751), 237. Rousseau, however, had previously published several minor productions. In addition to five brief pieces in either the Mercure de France or the Suite de la clef, ou journal historique from 1737 to 1750, were the Dissertation sur la musique moderne (1743); Voltaire's Fêtes de Ramire, slightly altered by Rousseau and presented in 1745; l'Engagement téméraire (1749); and the Lettres de J. J. Rousseau sur différens sujets, Geneva, 1749–50. See the catalogue of the British Museum; Gustave Lanson, Manuel bibliographique de la littérature française moderne (1911), iii, 778–806; L. J. Courtois, “Chronologie critique de la vie et des œuvres de Jean-Jacques Rousseau,” Annales de la société Jean Jacques Rousseau, xv (1923), 1–366; and T. A. Dufour, op. cit. However, neither these nor several unpublished poems, essays, and dramatic fragments written before 1750 brought fame to their author either in France or elsewhere. As a consequence, the sudden and immense fame of the first Discours (1750) was the more noticeable. See Rousseau's replies to numerous critics of the Discours in Œuvres complètes de J. J. Rousseau, 13 vols. (Hachette, Paris, 1909–12), i, 20–70; and A. Schinz, Vie et œuvres de J. J. Rousseau (New York, 1921), p. 74. In referring to the works of Rousseau hereafter, I shall always use the Hachette edition.

7 See notes 34, 35, 36, and 37 below.

8 I plan to publish soon the reception accorded this production in England.

9 See the citations in note 3 above.

10 Letter to M. de Malesherbes, January 12, 1762, in Œuvres, x, 301–302.

11 Compare the facts which follow in the text with the situation in France described by Schinz, op. cit., p. 74.

12 I have cited the 1751 edition in note 6 above. The 1752 edition, according to the catalogue of the British Museum, is entitled A Discourse to which the Prize was Adjudged by the Academy of Dijon … on this question .. whether the Re-establishment of Arts and Sciences has Contributed to Purify our Morals. Translated by R. Wynn (London, 1752). The translation of the 1760 edition is different from that of R. Wynn, according to the catalogue of the British Museum, and the title is A Discourse … which got the Premium at the Academy of Dijon on this Question … Whether the Revival of the Arts and Sciences has Contributed to render our Manners Pure? Proving the Negative (London, 1760). The Gentlemen's Magazine refers to a newly published edition in February, 1753; but lack of other evidence makes it probable that the reference is to the 1752 edition or to a reprint of it. See the Gentlemen's Magazine, xxii (1753), 103.

13 Monthly Review, v (August, 1751), 237. See also the True Briton, ii (1751), 376.

14 An Answer to the Discours which carried the Grand Prize of Dijon … by Monsieur Guatier (see a rotograph of this pamphlet in the Library of Congress).

15 The works which intervened include the “Lettre à l'abbé Raynal” in the Mercure de France for June, 1751; the Lettre à M. Grimm au sujet des remarques ajoutées à sa lettre sur Omphale (1752); the Devin du village (1752); Narcisse (1752); the Lettre sur la musique française (1753); the opera, Les muses galantes, presented privately in 1747 and published in 1753; the “Lettre de J. J. Rousseau à M. Philopolis” in the Mercure de France (1755); the article “L'Économie politique” in the Encyclopédie (1755), the Discours sur l'inégalité (1755); the article on “Genie” in vol. vii of the Encyclopédie (1757); “La reine fantasque,” in the Journal encyclopédique, Liége, 1758; the “Lettre à M. de Voltaire au sujet de son poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne, 18 août 1756,” in the Nouvelle bibliothèque germanique (1746–59) and also in a separate edition at Geneva (?) in 1759 (see J. J. Rousseau, Lettre à M. Philopolis [1755] in Œuvres, i, 153–157; the catalogue of the British Museum; L.J. Courtois, “Chronologie Critique,” Annales de … Rousseau, xv [1923], 1–366; and T. A. Dufour, op. cit., i, 30).

15b The Harper Memorial Library, University of Chicago, contains a copy of A Letter from M. Rousseau of Geneva to M. d'Alembert of Paris, concerning the Effects of Theatrical Entertainments on the Manners of Mankind (London, 1759).

16 The table on the opposite page was constructed from unpublished data kindly placed at my disposal by Professor R. S. Crane. The table lists in the order of their frequency the works of Rousseau which Professor Crane found in the 218 English private libraries cited in note 5 above.

17 In addition to the immense confidence in “oratory” shown by the Reverend Mr. Bowyer in the excerpt quoted in the text are several other bits of evidence of a similar nature: Oliver Goldsmith believed that “From eloquence, therefore, the morals of our people are to expect emendation.” See Bee, November 17, 1759, in Works of Oliver Goldsmith (New York, 1900), v, 117. Thomas Day referred to “that irresistible eloquence, which was never prostituted to falsehood.” See The Dying Negro (London, 1773), pp. iii–v. And Francis Grose defined oratory in 1792 as follows: “As a mighty river swelled by mountain torrents … tramples under foot every intervening obstacle, … so oratory, applied to our passions, … impels our judgments.” See The Olio … Being a Collection of Essays (L., 1792), p. 127.

18 For material on the originality of the thought of the Discours, see M. F. Maury, “Jean Jacques Rousseau,” Histoire de la langue et de la littérature française (Petit de Julleville, Paris, 1896–99), vi, 255–259; Histoire de la littérature française illustrée, eds. Joseph Bedier and Paul Hazard (Paris, 1923), ii, 120; and S. C. Chew, “An English Precursor of Rousseau,” MLN, xxxii (1917), 321–337.

19 This preface is quoted from Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, ed. John Nichols (London, 1812–13), ii, 226–227. The prefaces to the editions of 1752 and 1760 (copies in the British Museum) had little of significance in them. R. Wynn, the translator of the former, merely noted the interest aroused by the Discours in France—A Discourse to which the Prize was Adjudged … (London, 1752), pp. iii–v;—and the writer of the preface to the edition of 1760 contented himself with indicating, by an anecdote, that Rousseau's conduct had always been “comformable to the Doctrine inculcated in the pieces that have come from him.” See A Discourse which got the Premium at the Academy of Dijon (London, 1760), pp. v–vii.

20 Rousseau bore this appellation very generally from the beginning of his career both in France and in England. It appeared on the title pages of most of the English translations; and Rousseau's citizenship in Geneva, a Protestant state with which England was particularly friendly, undoubtedly tended to increase his popularity in the latter country-See J. C. Collins, Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau in England (London, 1908), p. 195; and W. U. Vreeland, Étude sur les rapports littéraires entre Genève et l'Angleterre (Geneva, 1901).

21 See note 14 above.

22 Monthly Review, v (1751), 237.

23 Annual Register, ii (1759), 479–484.

24 London Chronicle, xix (1766), 127.

25 Political Register, i (1767), 100–111.

26 Monthly Review, xxxix (1768), 213–218.

27 Universal Magazine, lxviii (1781), 225–228. See also the Encyc. Brit. (3rd ed., Edinburgh, 1797), xvi, 533–536.

28 Five vols. (London, 1764), iii, 74–111.

29 Ibid., p. 75.

30 Letter to the Rev. James Williamson, October 22, 1767, in William Forbes, An Account of the Life and Writings of James Beattie, 2 vols. (London, 1874), i, 98–99.

31 On the Nature and Immutability of Truth (1770), in Essays, Edinburgh 1776, p. 292, ii. Margaret Forbes states that this note was inserted for the first time in the fourth edition of 1772. See Beattie and his Friends (Westminster, 1904), p. 70. The note also appeared in the Universal Magazine, lxviii (1781), 225–228.

32 Letter to M. Roget, January 1, 1781, in Memoirs of … Romilly (London, 1841), i, 109.

33 Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 2nd ed. (London, 1792), pp. 22–23.

34 See the letter to M. Rey, November 17, 1754, as quoted by Schinz. “Discours sur l'inégalité,” PMLA., xxviii (1913), 278.

35 See J. J. Rousseau to M. Rey, Lettres inédites (Bosscha: Paris, 1858), p. 28.

36 Although the title page of the first English edition bears the date 1761, the volume was probably not issued to the public until January 14, 1762, the date specified by a series of advertisements in the London Chronicle (xi [1762], 53). The English title of the translation was A Discourse upon the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality among Mankind.

37 Adam Smith, “Letter to the Authors of the Edinburgh Review,” Edinburgh Review for 1755, 2nd ed. (London, 1818), pp. 130–134; and Oliver Goldsmith, An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning (1759), in Works, ed. Gibbs (London, 1908), iii, 467–528.

38 I found but seven such references outside of the following ones in periodicals: Monthly Review, v (August, 1751), 237; True Briton, ii (1751), 376; London Chronicle, v (1759), 138–139, 146–147, 161–162, 185–187; London Magazine, xxviii (1759), 38–40; Critical Review, vii (1759), 48–49; Monthly Review, xx (1759), 115–134; and Annual Register, ii (1759), 479–484. The Reverend William Mason, Thomas Gray, and Horace Walpole mentioned Rousseau in letters between 1755 and 1759 without specific indication of any of his works. See Mason, letters to Thomas Gray of June 27, 1755, and January 25, 1759, in Letters of Thomas Gray, ed. Tovey (London, 1900–12), i, 266, ii, 77; Walpole, letter to the Earl of Strafford, July 5, 1757, Letters, ed. Toynbee (Oxford, 1903–05), lv, 72; Gray, letter to Thomas Wharton, December 2, 1758, Letters of Thomas Gray, ed. Tovey, ii, 68. Mrs. Montague and the writers for the periodicals under date of 1759, just cited, based their remarks on a translation of Rousseau's Lettre à d'Alembert (1758) which appeared in London in 1759 (see note 15b above). See letter of Mrs. Montague to Mrs. Carter, January 24, 1759, in Elizabeth Montague … Correspondence, 1720–61 (New York, 1906), ii, 159. Oliver Goldsmith and Jean Rousseau referred to the Discours sur l'inégalité (1755); see notes 35 and 37 above. Adam Smith felt the necessity of stating in the Edinburgh Review (1755) that the authors of the Encyclopédie (1755) were “already known to foreign nations by the valuable works which they have published, particularly Mr. Alembert, Mr. Diderot, Mr. Daubenton, Mr. Rousseau of Geneva, Mr. Formey …;” see reference in note 37 above. As late as 1761 a critic observed that Rousseau was “possessed of a very great share of literary reputation at home.” See the Critical Review, xi [1761], 65–66. The italics in the two preceding quotations are mine.

39 For citation of this English translation, see note 36 above.

40 See notes 50, 51, 52 below.

41 Life of Johnson, ed. Hill (New York, 1904), i, 509.

42 See the twenty-five citations in the remainder of this article. Twenty-two of these group themselves closely around 1762 and 1792.

43 The Miscellaneous Works of Mr. J. J. Rousseau, 5 vols. (London, 1766,—not placed on sale, however, until May 16, 1767, according to the London Chronicle, xxi (1767), 471; The Works of Jean Jacques Rousseau (Edinburgh, 1773–74) see catalogue of the British Museum; Discours sur … l'inégalité (Londres, 1782)—see catalogue of the John Crerar Library; A Discourse on … Inequality (London, 1791)—see Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica; or a General Index to British and Foreign Literature, 4 vols. (Edinburgh, 1824), ii, 818.

44 Letter to his nephew (1793), in Letters of Joseph Ritson (London, 1823), ii, 39.

45 Dublin periodical, iii (1794), 271–274, 329–333, 406–407.

46 See note 16 above.

47 See the opinions cited in the remainder of this section.

48 “Letter to the Authors of the Edinburgh Review,” Edinburgh Review for 1755, 2nd ed. (London, 1818), pp. 130–134.

49 An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning (1759), in Works, ed. Gibbs (London, 1908), iii, 467–528. The conclusion of Goldsmith as to the problem presented by Rousseau was somewhat neutral. Goldsmith maintained that the sciences were useful in a populous state but harmful in a primitive community. See Letter ixxxii, Citizen of the World (1760–61), in Works, ed. Gibbs, iii, 305–309.

50 xxvii, 331–342.

51 xi, 615.

52 i, 232. A similar excerpt is in The Beauties of all the Magazines, i (1762), 278–279.

53 Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope (1756-82), 5th ed. (London, 1806), i, 305. Note the similarity of this opinion with that of Goldsmith cited in Note 49 above.

54 Enquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense (1764), in Works (Edinburgh, 1863), i, 200–201.

55 Letter to the Rev. James Williamson, October 22, 1767, in Forbes, An Account … of Beattie (1874), i, 98–99.

56 See Boswell's letter to the “eloquent et amiable Rousseau” under date of December 3, 1764, in Letters of James Boswell, ed. Tinker (Oxford, 1924), i, 60. For Boswell's own account of his interview with Rousseau, to which he (Boswell) had looked forward with great eagerness, see Private papers of James Boswell from Malahide Castle, eds. F. A. Pottle and M. S. Pottle (London, 1931), iv, 55, 72, 75, 87 ff., 98, 114.

57 Letter of 1767 in Létters of James Boswell, ed. Tinker (Oxford, 1924), i, 98.

58 An advertisement of this print, under the title of The Savage Man, appeared in the Public Advertiser for January 29, 1767. See a letter of Boswell to the Rev. William Temple, February 1, 1767, in Letters of James Boswell, ed. Tinker, i, 103. For a copy of the print, see Tinker, Young Boswell (Boston, 1922), p. 60. F. A. Pottle also points to a sarcastic “Vers en caractère de J. J. Rousseau,” which appeared in the London Chronicle for January 6, 1767, as written by Boswell—Literary Career of James Boswell, Esq. (Oxford, 1929), pp. 237, 260; and in his Life of Johnson, Boswell referred to Rousseau's “absurd preference of savage to civilized life and other peculiarities”—ed. Hill (New York, 1904), ii, 14.

59 Letters of Samuel Johnson, ed. Hill (New York, 1892), I, 263. Note should also be taken of Johnson's previous denunciation (1763): “Rousseau, and all those who deal in paradoxes, are led away by a childish desire of novelty.” See Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. Hill, i, 510). Mrs. Piozzi has indicated, however, that Johnson and Rousseau were in accord on one point,—the instability of love between the sexes—A necdotes of the late Samuel Johnson (1786), in Johnsonian Miscellanies, ed. G. B. Hill (New York. 1897), i, 220.

60 J. B. Gent (pseudonym?) stated that Rousseau was one who vainly attempted to depreciate knowledge. See Political Disquisitions (London, 1775), iii, 186. James Dunbar maintained that the truth was probably to be found half way between those thinkers, who, like Rousseau, “not inferior in sagacity to any,” decried it. See Essays on the History of Mankind in Rude aud Uncultivated Ages (London, 1780), p. 148. Ferguson believed that Rousseau had placed the originals of the human race too high in the scale of animal life if one is to consider them as bereft of intelligence, and, at the same time, on a level with the brutes. Ferguson also deplored the skill that “would tempt us to admit, among the materials of history, the suggestions of fancy, and to receive, perhaps, as the model of our nature in its original state, some of the animals whose shape has the greatest resemblance to our own” (Essay … on civil Society [1766], 1793, p. 9).

61 The only other reference which I encountered to this point, the keynote of the Discours, was a quotation from the work by the Rev. Josiah Tucker, Treatise concerning Civil Government (London, 1781), p. 46.

62 Cf. the opinion of Samuel Johnson cited in Note 59 above.

63 Political Register, i (1767), 100. Compare the last point with the opinion of Adam Ferguson expressed in note 60 above.

64 Annual Register, xi (1768), 197.

65 Universal Magazine, lxix (1781), 44—48.—It is surprising to note that this was the only reference to “equality” which I found, and that this reviewer and Joseph Ritson (see note 44 above) provide the only specific references encountered to that large section of the “Seconde partie” of the Discours which discussed political liberty and the relation of the individual to the government. Very possibly, however, the essay was in the minds of several who referred in a general way to Rousseau as an exponent of liberty. These opinions were invaribly favorable before the French Revolution. See, for examples, the Critical Review, xi (1761), 221; Monthly Review, xli (1769) 561; Thomas Day, The Dying Negro (L., 1773), pp. iii–iv; letter to the editor in John Almon's Remembrancer or Impartial, Repository of Public Events. Pt. ii for 1776, pp. 147, 292–293; London Chronicle, xl (1776) 220.

66 This writer approved the attack on Rousseau by a Dutch critic, Professor Hendrik C. Cras, Monthly Review, x (n.s. 1793), 481.

67 Treatise concerning Civil Government (London, 1781), p. 199.

68 Burke objected to Rousseau's primitivism, to his sentimental morality, and to his personal vanity, rather than to his distinctly political theories; see Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) in Works (Boston, 1894), iii, 345; Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791), in Works (London, 1891), ii, 537–540.

69 Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) in Works (Boston, 1894), iii, 345.

70 London, 1799, p. 66.

71 Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 2nd ed. (London, 1792), pp. 20, 22. The French writers of this school also condemned Rousseau. See Masson, La religion de J. J. Rousseau (Paris, 1916)), iii, 283 ff.

72 Enquiry concerning Political Justice, ed. Preston (New York, 1926), ii, 33.

73 Godwin wrote as follows concerning Rousseau: “It was, however, by a very slight mistake that he missed the opposite opinion which it is the business of the present volume to establish. It is sufficiently observable that, where he described the enthusiastic influx of truth (in his second letter to Malesherbes), he does not so much as mention his fundamental error but only the just principles which led him into it” (op. cit., ii, 33–34). Godwin obviously refers here to a letter dated January 12, 1762, in which Rousseau described his sensations on reading in the Mercure de France the advertisement of the Academy of Dijon which led to the writing of the first Discours. The “principles” outlined in the letter are merely Rousseau's sensitiveness to the follies of his fellow-men, his realization of fundamental errors in the prevailing social structure, and his consequent desire to lead a life of solitude (Œuvres, x, 300–303).

74 Enquiry concerning Political Justice, ed. Preston, ii, 34.

75 See C. E. Vaughan, ed. The Political Writings of Rousseau (Cambridge, 1915), i, 4–5, 14. Note also Godwin's low opinions of the Contrat social (1762) and of the Gouvernement de Pologne (1782) in the Enquiry concerning Political Justice (N. Y., 1926), ii, 33–34, n.

76 Diary, under date of 1789, as quoted by J. C. Collins, “William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft,” Posthumous Essays (London, 1912), p. 72.

77 See Godwin, op. cit., ii, 15. Godwin also maintained that the term “eloquent” was better fitted to the writings of Rousseau than those of any other writer. Godwin also praised the Genevan for his perspicuity (op. cit., i, 5, ii, 34). Furthermore, B. Sprague Allen has maintained that much of the English writer's sentimentalism came from Rousseau. See “William Godwin as a Sentimentalist,” PMLA., xxxiii (1918), 1–29.

78 Godwin was especially grateful to Swift and Latin historians for the conviction that monarchy is unavoidably corrupt, and to the Système de la nature (1770) of d'Holbach for thoughts on “justice, gratitude, rights of man, promises, oaths, and the omnipotence of truth.” To Helvetius and Rousseau, however, the English writer expressed indebtedness only for “additional instruction” (Enquiry concerning Political Justice, ed. Preston, i, xl).

79 See F. K. Brown, Life of … Godwin (London, 1926), pp. 34, 462.

80 When one considers the almost unanimous condemnation of Rousseau's theories of primitive man in this paper, together with the lack of other evidence, one may well doubt, as far as eighteenth-century England is concerned, the statement of Oliver Elton to the effect that, “In the philosophy back of Romanticism, Rousseau wielded the most potent single influence.” See Survey of English Literature, 1780–1830 (London, 1912), i, 24. Cf. also other references cited in note 3 above.

81 Sixth ed. (London, 1793), p. 9.

82 (London, 1780), p. 148.

83 See Chauncey Tinker, Nature's Simple Plan (Princeton, 1922), pp. 12 ff.

84 See note 8 above.

85 xix, 127.

86 William Godwin wrote that Fuseli was “smitten with Rousseau's conception of the perfectness of the savage state. ”See Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman (London, 1798), p. 88.

87 Origin and Progress of Language, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh, 1774–1809), i, iii, 403.

88 I have observed but two other such comments: The Critical Review (1762) approved Rousseau's assignment of the origin of language to a period “previous to all other political institutions” (xiii, 100–07), while Dugald Stewart objected to the belief in a mysterious origin of the human concept of the common noun in his Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind (1792), in Works, (Edinburgh, 1877), iii, 22. Quite naturally I found no reference to the Essai sur l'origine de langues, which was written in 1750–54, but which remained unpublished during the eighteenth century.

89 Op. cit., i, lx. Later in this volume (p. 414), Lord Monboddo asserts that he has solved this problem.

90 Observations on the Appeal from the New Whigs, and Mr. Paine's Rights of Man (1792), in A Comparative Display of the Different Opinions … on the Subject of the French Revolution (London, 1793), ii, 314.