Much must be forgiven to Hume, stung as he was by what appeared the most hateful ferocity in one on whom he had heaped acts of affection.  Still, one would have been glad on behalf of human dignity, if he had suffered with firm silence petulant charges against which the consciousness of his own uprightness should have been the only answer.  That high pride, of which there is too little rather than too much in the world, and which saves men from waste of themselves and others in pitiful accusations, vindications, retaliations, should have helped humane pity in preserving him from this poor quarrel.  Long afterwards Rousseau said, “England, of which they paint such fine pictures in France, has so cheerless a climate; my soul, wearied with many shocks, was in a condition of such profound melancholy, that in all that passed I believe I committed many faults.  But are they comparable to those of the enemies who persecuted me, supposing them even to have done no more than published our private quarrels?"[370] An ampler contrition would have been more seemly in the first offender, but there is a measure of justice in his complaint.  We need not, however, reproach the good Hume.  Before six months were over, he admits that he is sometimes inclined to blame his publication, and always to regret it.[371] And his regret was not verbal merely.  When Rousseau had returned to France, and was in danger of arrest, Hume was most urgent in entreating Turgot to use his influence with the government to protect the wretched wanderer, and Turgot’s answer shows both how sincere this humane interposition was, and how practically serviceable.[372]

Meanwhile there ensued a horrible fray in print.  Pamphlets appeared in Paris and London in a cloud.  The Succinct Exposure was followed by succinct rejoinders.  Walpole officiously printed his own account of his own share in the matter.  Boswell officiously wrote to the newspapers defending Rousseau and attacking Walpole.  King George followed the battle with intense curiosity.  Hume with solemn formalities sent the documents to the British Museum.  There was silence only in one place, and that was at Wootton.  The unfortunate person who had done all the mischief printed not a word.

The most prompt and quite the least instructive of the remarks invariably made upon any one who has acted in an unusual manner, is that he must be mad.  This universal criticism upon the unwonted really tells us nothing, because the term may cover any state of mind from a warranted dissent from established custom, down to absolute dementia.  Rousseau was called mad when he took to wearing convenient clothes and living frugally.  He was called mad when he quitted the town and went to live in the country.  The same facile explanation covered his quarrel with importunate friends at the Hermitage.  Voltaire called him mad for saying that if there were perfect harmony of taste and temperament between the king’s daughter and the executioner’s son, the pair