Digitized by VjOOQIC



280 ROUSSEAU. CHAP.
was happening in the world of art and letters, just as
an ambassador keeps his government informed of what
happens in politics. The sobriety, impartiality, and
discrimination of his criticism make one think highly
of his literary judgment ; he had the courage, or shall
we say he preserved enough of the German, to defend
.both Homer and Shakespeare against the unhappy
strictures of Voltaire. 1 This is not all, however ; his
criticism is conceived in a tone which impresses us
with the writer's integrity. And to this internal
evidence we have to add the external corroboration
that in the latter part of his life he filled various
official posts, which implied a peculiar confidence in
his probity on the part of those who appointed him.
At the present moment (1756-57), he was acting as
secretary to Marshal d'Estr^es, commander of the
French army in Westphalia at the outset of the Seven
Years' War. He was an able and helpful man, in
spite of his having a rough manner, powdering his
face, and being so monstrously scented as to earn the
name of the musk-bear. He had that firmness and
positivity which are not always beautiful, but of which
there is probably too little rather than too much in
the world, certainly in the France of his time, and of
which there was none at all in Rousseau. Above all
things he hated declamation. Apparently cold and
reserved, he had sensibility enough underneath the
surface to go nearly out of his mind for love of a singer
at the opera who had a thrilling voice. As he did
1 For Shakespeare, see Oorr. LU. y iv. 143, etc.
