" It was because they were _his_ that they
were so loathsome. Mr. Burke was a snob, though an inspired one. Dr.
Johnson, the friend of that wretchedest of lewd fellows, Richard Savage,
and of that gay man about town, Topham Beauclerk,--himself sprung from an
amour that would have been disgustful had it not been royal,--must also
have felt something more in respect of Rousseau than the mere repugnance
of virtue for vice. We must sometimes allow to personal temperament its
right of peremptory challenge. Johnson had not that fine sensitiveness to
the political atmosphere which made Burke presageful of coming tempest,
but both of them felt that there was something dangerous in this man.
Their dislike has in it somewhat of the energy of fear. Neither of them
had the same feeling toward Voltaire, the man of supreme talent, but both
felt that what Rousseau was possessed by was genius, with its terrible
force either to attract or repel.
"By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes."
Burke and Johnson were both of them sincere men, both of them men of
character as well as of intellectual force; and we cite their opinions of
Rousseau with the respect which is due to an honest conviction which has
apparent grounds for its adoption, whether we agree with it or no.
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