s public action. His prince
sent multitudes of Germans to visit the sage, and his letters, endless
with their details of the nursery, may well have become a little
tedious to a worn-out creature who only wanted to be left alone.[145]
The famous Prince Henry, Frederick's brother, thought a man happy who
could have the delight of seeing Rousseau as often as he chose.[146]
People forgot the other side of this delight, and the unlucky
philosopher found in a hundred ways alike from enemies and the friends
whose curiosity makes them as bad as enemies, that the pedestal of
glory partakes of the nature of the pillory or the stocks.

It is interesting to find the famous English names of Gibbon and
Boswell in the list of the multitudes with whom he had to do at this
time.[147] The former was now at Lausanne, whither he had just
returned from that memorable visit to England which persuaded him that
his father would never endure his alliance with the daughter of an
obscure Swiss pastor. He had just "yielded to his fate, sighed as a
lover, and obeyed as a son." "How sorry I am for our poor Mademoiselle
Curchod," writes Moultou to Rousseau; "Gibbon whom she loves, and to
whom she has sacrificed, as I know, some excellent matches, has come
to Lausanne, but cold, insensible, and as entirely cured of his old
passion as she is far from cure. She has written me a letter that
makes my heart ache." He then entreats Rousseau to use his influence
with Gibbon, who is on the point of starting for Motiers, by extolling
to him the lady's worth and understanding.[148] "I hope Mr. Gibbon
will not come," replied the sage; "his coldness makes me think ill of
him. I have been looking over his book again [the _Essai sur l'etude
de la litterature_, 1761]; he runs after brilliance too much, and is
strained and stilted. Mr. Gibbon is not the man for me, and I do not
think he is the man for Mademoiselle Curchod either."[149] Whether
Gibbon went or not, we do not know. He knew in after years what had
been said of him by Jean Jacques, and protested with mild pomp that
this extraordinary man should have been less precipitate in
condemning the moral character and the conduct of a stranger.[150]

Boswell, as we know, had left Johnson "rolling his majestic frame in
his usual manner" on Harwich beach in 1763, and was now on his
travels. Like many of his countrymen, he found his way to Lord
Marischal, and here his indomitable passion for making the personal
acqu