In Rousseau’s “New Heloise” there are the same contradictions, the same paradoxes, the same unsoundness as in his other works, but it is more eloquent than any.  It is a novel in which he paints all the aspirations of the soul, all its unrest, all its indefinite longings, its raptures, and its despair; in which he unfetters the imagination and sanctifies every impulse, not only of affection, but of passion.  This novel was the pioneer of the sentimental romances which rapidly followed in France and England and Germany,—­worse than our sensational literature, since the author veiled his immoralities by painting the transports of passion under the guise of love, which ever has its seat in the affections and is sustained only by respect.  Here Rousseau was a disguised seducer, a poisoner of the moral sentiments, a foe to what is most sacred; and he was the more dangerous from his irresistible eloquence.  His sophistries in regard to political and social rights may be met by reason, but not his attacks on the heart, with his imaginary sorrows and joys, his painting of raptures which can never be found.  Here he undermines virtue as he had undermined truth and law.  Here reprobation must become unqualified, and he appears one of the very worst men who ever exercised a commanding influence on a wicked and perverse generation.

And this view of the man is rather confirmed by his own “Confessions,”—­a singularly attractive book, yet from which, after the perusal of the long catalogue of his sorrows, joys, humiliations, triumphs, ecstasies and miseries, glories and shame, one rises with great disappointment, since no great truths, useful lessons, or even ennobling sentiments are impressed upon the mind to make us wiser or better.  The “Confessions” are only a revelation of that sensibility, excessive and morbid, which reminds us of Byron and his misanthropic poetry,—­showing a man defiant, proud, vain, unreasonable, unsatisfied, supremely worldly and egotistic.  The first six Books are mere annals of sentimental debauchery; the last six, a kind of thermometer of friendship, containing an accurate account of kisses given and received, with slights, huffs, visits, quarrels, suspicions, and jealousies, interspersed with grand sentiments and profound views of life and human nature, yet all illustrative of the utter vanity of earth, and the failure of all mortal pleasures to satisfy the cravings of an immortal mind.  The “Confessions” remind us of “Manfred” and “Ecclesiastes” blended,—­exceedingly readable, and often unexceptionable, where virtue is commended and vice portrayed in its true light, but on the whole a book which no unsophisticated or inexperienced person can read without the consciousness of receiving a moral taint; a book in no respect leading to repose or lofty contemplation, or to submission to the evils of life, which it catalogues with amazing detail; a book not even conducive to innocent entertainment.  It is the revelation of the inner life of a sensualist,