Herbert and Hobbs, accordingly, were followed up by bolder, though, in every respect, inferior men. The "Freethinkers" emerged into notoriety and importance; their courage increased with their numbers; and they ventured publicly to announce the existence of their sect, and openly to avow their rejection of Christianity. Men of rank, such as Lords Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke, who exercised a powerful influence on the contemporary literature of their country, were known to entertain their principles; and their opinions were generally received with favour by such as were anxious to be regarded as superior to vulgar prejudices and the weaknesses of superstition.

In the intimate society of Bolingbroke, the witty Frenchman acquired the tone and language of the "Freethinkers." With the light gained in this school, he studied Locke and Newton, and was confirmed in his materialism and scepticism; he examined the constitution and manners of England, and became thoroughly dissatisfied with the institutions of his native country. In 1728, he obtained permission to revisit France. He returned with his talents matured, his knowledge extended, and his opinions systematized, the formidable opponent of Christianity and monarchy.

From the time of his return to France, Voltaire may be regarded as the declared enemy of religion, and indeed of common decency and morality. He had the means of gratifying his inclinations. He had come into the possession of an ample patrimony, which was increased by presents, and by commerce. He soon became the first dramatic poet of the day, and moved in the most influential circles in the French capital. He at once came forward in his new character. He invited his countrymen to the study of metaphysics and government, exhibiting his new friends, the English, as patterns for the imitation of less enlightened nations. He declared war against all prejudices. He caricatured the Bible, turned into ridicule the doctrines of Chris tianity, and composed works which surpassed everything, which had ever been written by any person of reputation, in the grossness of their licentiousness. Some of these were of such a nature that, for a time, they could not safely be printed, but they were made sufficiently public in manuscript. Others which, when published, exposed him to danger, he felt no hesitation in disclaiming. Again obliged to quit Paris, upon the appearance of his "Lettres Philosophiques," in 1731, he spent some years at the residence of the Marquise de Châtelet, and employed his retirement in publications which drew upon him the attention of all Europe.

Though his genius led him chiefly to poetry, and especially to the drama, there were few subjects in literature which he left unattempted. History, philosophy, and even science, from time to time attracted his attention, and exercised his pen. But in all he did, the influence of two great motives was sufficiently obvious-personal vanity, and hatred of Christianity. He laboured incessantly to exalt himself, and to bring down the influence of religion. His clear, accurate, and lively style procured readers for everything he wrote. His quarrels with the church and the court, which he took every opportunity of

representing as persecutions, served to extend his reputation. He was admired and talked of. He sought approbation with ridiculous eagerness. He liberally paid for the slightest marks of good will and favour which he could receive from courtiers and men of letters, with compliments and flattery; while he lavished upon his opponents the most atrocious abuse and the most bitter satire.

Though the government and clergy of France obstinately refused to acknowledge his pretensions, and it was not till after he had attained the age of fifty that he gained the great object of his ambition-a place in the academy; from a much earlier period his claims were admitted by the great body of his countrymen and the rest of Europe. In 1736, he was honoured with the correspondence of the Prince Royal of Prussia, so celebrated in history as Frederic the Great; in 1745, his tragedy of "Mahomet," and some of his other writings, were acknowledged in a complimentary letter by the pope.* Many of the most distinguished persons in Europe were already among his friends and correspondents, and his fame extended over the civilized world.

That such a man,-so active, so insinuating, so attractive,-should exercise a prodigious influence on the literature of his country, cannot be regarded as anything astonishing. He was soon the most conspicuous man of letters in France. His defects and his merits were alike acceptable to his countrymen. He taught them to despise what they could not readily understand; to disregard everything that hindered the gratification of their inclinations. He proposed to them no deep principles; he required their attention to no delicate reasoning. What he had to offer might be comprehended without any previous mental training, and it afforded present delight, and promised emancipation from the bondage of superstition. When we take into account the considerations which have been already suggested, we cannot but see that his success was inevitable He struck a chord with which the age was in unison. "The French nation," as Goëthe says, "fell to him as his portion." He was its master.

Yet it was not by genius that he obtained this supremacy. Voltaire was at the utmost but a talented, a clever man. His tragedies, beyond all question the greatest of his works, are at most but imitations, in which, as it has been observed, he resembles his two great rivals only as an accomplished hypocrite resembles a saint. The rest of his poetry, with the exception of one accursed piece, of which the licentiousness is so loathsome that it is a pollution to mention its name, affords nothing above mediocrity.† Who now reads the "Henriade"?

The letter is curious. "Benedictus P. P. XIV., dilecto filio, Salutem et Apostolicam benedictionem. Settimane sono ci fu presentato da sua parte la sua bellissima tragedia di Mahomet, la quale leggemmo con sommo piacere.....In questa serie d'azzioni si contengono molti capi, per ciascheduno de'quali ci riconosciamo in obbligo di ringraziarla. Noi gli uniamo tutti assiemi, e rendiamo a lei le dovute grazie per cosi singolare bontà verso di noi, assicurandola che abbiamo tutta la dovuta stima del suo tanto applaudito merito." The rest of it is not less flattering. It was written when Voltaire had long been infamous for the immorality and impiety of his writings.

+ The following remarks of Joseph de Maistre are not less just than they are clo

In metaphysics, he did but pervert and exaggerate Locke. In science, he only attempted to expound the elements of the philosophy of Newton. His theological speculations were derived entirely from the English deists, many of whom were very greatly his superiors in originality and learning. His tales, though elegant and witty, were so destitute of moral dignity that, even when not disgusting from their grossness, they were but trifles or satires. His historical writings well nigh effected the ruin of history. Shamefully ignorant of the materials of historical knowledge, and only superficially acquainted with secondhand and popular information, in substituting for facts commonplace sentiments* and false principles, he seems to have fancied that he was imitating the great pragmatical historians. As the philosophy of history, he served up his ignorance and prejudices in the most inviting form. But as he was utterly unacquainted with the antiquities of the ancient world, as he had not a tincture of philology or learning, and possessed withal nothing of that happy faculty by which the historian must realize in himself the character and condition of the persons who figure in his narrative, his attempts in this department were nothing but romance and speculation, calculated only to degrade history into a mere instrument of amusement and sophistry. It is perhaps not too much to say that by his works on history he did as much harm to literature as by his writings against Christianity he did to religion.

But the brilliancy of his wit and the animation of his language prevented his contemporaries from detecting his want of originality, and the feebleness of his imagination. His mission of evil had a terrible success. He gave a fresh direction to the feelings and opinions of society. After labouring almost alone for nearly twenty years, a crowd of proselytes enrolled themselves under his standard. The young aspirants for literary fame had grown up since the com

quent and empassioned: "Je ne puis souffrir l'exagération qui le nomme universel. Certes, je vois de belles exceptions à cette universalité. Il est nul dans l'ode: et qui pourrait s'en étonner? L'impiété réfléchie avait tué chez lui la flamme divine de l'enthousiasme. Il est encore nul et même jusqu'au ridicule dans le drame lyrique, son oreille ayant été absolument fermée aux beautés harmoniques commes ses yeux l'étaient à celles de l'art. Dans les genres qui paraissent les plus analogues à son talent naturel, il se traîne: ainsi il est médiocre, froid, et souvent (qui le croirait?) lourd et grossier dans la comédie; car le méchant n'est jamais comique. Par la même raison, il n'a pas su faire une épigramme, la moindre gorgée de son fiel ne pouvant couvrir moins de cent vers. S'il essaie la satire, il glisse dans le libelle: il est insupportable dans l'histoire, en dêpit de son art, de son élégance et des graces de son style, aucune qualite ne pouvant remplacer celles qui lui manquent, et qui sont la vie de l'histoire, la gravité, la bonne foi, et la dignité. Quant à son poème épique, je n'ai pas le droit d'en parler; car, pour juger un livre, il faut l'avoir lu, et pour le lire, il faut être eveillé. Une monotonie assoupissante plane sur la plupart de ses écrits, qui n'ont que deux sujets, la Bible et ses ennemis: il blasphême ou il insulte. Sa plaisanterie si vantée est cependant loin d'être irréprochable: le rire qu'elle excite n'est pas légitime, c'est une grimace."

* J. A. Ernesti says, with his usual felicity: "Hoc est illud genus sententiarum, quo Voltarius, qui se nuper a scenica fabularium simulatione ad rerum gestarum veritatem transferre instituit, has novi generis fabulas suas commendat muliercularum Francicarum elegantiæ amantium, aliorumque nostrorum hominum imperitiæ; quamquam eas et contritas plerasque habet, et plerumque alieno loco positas.”—Prolus. v. ap. Opuscula Oratoria, p. 165.

mencement of his supremacy. They were drawn along by the current of his influence; they were acted upon by the fatal magic of his principles. The most conspicuous of them were soon attracted together by the similarity of their opinions and objects; and towards the middle of the century, they found themselves strong enough to conceive and execute a combined and systematic attack on Christianity in the publication of the Encyclopédie.

(To be continued.)

POPISH LEGENDS.-No. II.

THE author having assured his host that he had no design whatever to attack the catholic church, or the saints, but only to draw his pen against the absurd legends by which both were disgraced, their discourse proceeded :—

Land. Draw your pen in God's name-but you will find that you have one hard nut to crack.

Auth. Where is that to come from?

Land. Why, from that place which St. Macarius did not choose to go to. My good Sir, you will want no safeguard against compliments from Rome. You will not get any from that quarter.

Auth. You may rest assured that, even in Rome itself, there are learned men who set no great store by the legends.

Land. Rome will never allow those whom it has pronounced to be saints to be brought in question; and, as it were, confess that it has cheated itself, and others, by its acts of canonization.

Auth. My good landlord, you have never formed any right notion as to what canonization is-and that, I am sorry to say, is the case with a great many persons.

Land. How so? Is not canonization exclusively the pope's business? Can one suspect that anybody who was not a real saint should be publicly proclaimed to have been such, be placed upon the altar, and commended to veneration, and that this should be nothing more than a trick put upon all Christendom-namely, that they should venerate those who never existed at all, or who, if they did exist, were no such persons as the legend writers have represented? And would the bishops and all their clergy allow themselves to be so far deceived as to consecrate churches dedicated to such saints, and say masses in honour of such saints, and make the extracts from the lives of such saints part of the service of their breviary, as our old rector said to my aunt in my presence? Would the pope, and the bishops, and the civil authorities, suffer the printing and circulation of the legends to go on, if accounts of saints that never existed, or things which they never did, or things absurd in themselves, were thus spread abroad? Of course, at the times assigned to these saints and their actions, there were persons living who were worthy of credit, by whom all these things were set down; and it must first of all be shewn that they

wrote fables and lies; and that actually, in the case of some saint, they have held up to admiration what was inconsistent with his character.

Auth. Now you are in your fever again-and certainly a very hot fit. Are not you thirsty with it? in such cases a glass of wine is recommended-what will you take?

Land. You are always joking about it-I never drink anything from one dinner-time to another; except, for mere civility, when our old rector gives me a call. It would be much better for you to answer what I have said.

Auth. Why, you have said a good deal as far as words are concerned, though not much to the purpose. It will be very easy to answer you point by point.

Land. Point by point? I am afraid some will be omitted, for I cannot take upon me to repeat all that I have just been saying.

Auth. I know every word that you have said. The first questionfor all your philippic was in the interrogatory form-the first question was, "Is not canonization exclusively the pope's business ?"

Land. Yes, yes,-that was the first.

Auth. In the old times of the Christian church, my good landlord, there was no papal canonization at all; but the people themselves honoured with their trust and confidence those who were most famous for their sanctity; and those popular canonizations (as they may be called) received the approbation of the bishops. It was not until the twelfth century

Land. The twelfth century?-what when the church was more than eleven hundred years old?

Auth. Yes, yes, that is what is meant by the twelfth century—it was in the twelfth century that Pope Eugenius III. [elected 1145*] undertook to perform the first solemn canonization, and that was in the case of the Emperor Henry.

Land. What a fine thing it is to have learning.

Auth. And Pope Alexander III. [elected 1159] was the first who maintained that canonization was exclusively the pope's business. Land. That must have annoyed the bishops uncommonly. Did they let it pass?

Auth. Some of them; especially as the bishops grew by degrees more sleepy in their office, till in process of time they slept away their rights.

Land. They not only slept them away, but played them away, and hunted them away, and eat and drank them away, and-may God forgive me-made away with them by other means. But now we have got again some stout bishops, who would not take everything from Rome quite so easily. But, however, since Pope Alexanderthe how many?

Auth. The Third.

Land. Since Pope Alexander the Third, then, have all saints been canonized by the popes?

The translator begs to state generally that he is responsible for anything which may be found in the text and notes between brackets.