s 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 cov