g, never read book"--that is,
never studied such authors as Hartley, Hume, Berkeley, etc. Locke's Essay
on the Human Understanding is, however, a work from which I never derived
either pleasure or profit; and Hobbes, dry and powerful as he is, I did
not read till long afterwards. I read a few poets, which did not much hit
my taste,--for I would have the reader understand, I am deficient in the
faculty of imagination; but I fell early upon French romances and
philosophy, and devoured them tooth-and-nail. Many a dainty repast have I
made of the New Eloise;--the description of the kiss; the excursion on the
water; the letter of St. Preux, recalling the time of their first loves;
and the account of Julia's death; these I read over and over again with
unspeakable delight and wonder. Some years after, when I met with this
work again, I found I had lost nearly my whole relish for it (except some
few parts) and was, I remember, very much mortified with the change in my
taste, which I sought to attribute to the smallness and gilt edges of the
edition I had bought, and its being perfumed with rose-leaves. Nothing
could exceed the gravity, the solemnity with which I carried home and read
the Dedication to the Social Contract, with some other pieces of the same
author, which I had picked up at a stall in a coarse leathern cover. Of
the Confessions I have spoken elsewhere, and may repeat what I have
said--"Sweet is the dew of their memory, and pleasant the balm of their
recollection!" Their beauties are not "scattered like stray-gifts o'er the
earth," but sown thick on the page, rich and rare. I wish I had never read
the Emilius, or read it with less implicit faith. I had no occasion to
pamper my natural aversion to affectation or pretence, by romantic and
artificial means. I had better have formed myself on the model of Sir
Fopling Flutter. There is a class of persons whose virtues and most
shining qualities sink in, and are concealed by, an absorbent ground of
modesty and reserve; and such a one I do, without vanity, profess
myself.[149] Now these are the very persons who are likely to attach
themselves to the character of Emilius, and of whom it is sure to be the
bane. This dull, phlegmatic, retiring humour is not in a fair way to be
corrected, but confirmed and rendered desperate, by being in that work
held up as an object of imitation, as an example of simplicity and
magnanimity--by coming upon us with all the recommendations of n