The

social, constitutional, and mental, we create a Voltaire. These are gaiety, facility, address, a tendency to wit, raillery, and equivoque; light, quick, and spontaneous feelings of humanity, which may be occasionally worked up into enthusiasm; vanity, irascibility, very slip-shod morality in respect to points which grave people are apt to deem of the first consequence; social insincerity, and a predominant spirit of intrigue. Such were the generalities of the French character in the days of Voltaire; and multiply them by his capacity and acquirement, and we get at the solid contents of his own. It is therefore especially inconsistent to discover such excellence and virtue in the old French regime, and especially in the reign of Louis XIV. and to find so much fault with the tout ensemble of Voltaire; for both his good and his bad qualities were the natural growth of the period. application of the former is indeed another affair, and stands over for subsequent observation; but in concluding that which it is to be hoped will be deemed a candid admission of the failings as well as the merits of a favourite author, it is necessary to rescue him from inconsistent attack. There is a tribe of political and religious critics, who will rail against the personal vices of Voltaire, while they countenance the wretched government and social condition which rendered them nearly those of the French people at large, gentry, who lift up their hands and eyes at La Pucelle, but who never talk of the grave and multiplied adulteries of Louis le Grand, or of the Parc aux Cerfs of his successor; of the dissolute gallantries, amounting almost to promiscuous intercourse, of the entire body of the nobility;-of the nauseous depravity of the churchmen;-or of the gross and insolent oppression and demoralization of the

people by the whole. Like that silly old gentlewoman, Madame de Genlis, they prate as eloquently as parrots about those wicked philosophers, and speak of the ejectment of half a million of subjects by the god-like Louis, and the murder, rape, ravishment, and dragooning of the Protestants which preceded and followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantz, as the slightest of all possible drawbacks in that very kingly character.

Having briefly dismissed what may be denominated the private and personal character of Voltaire, the far more important consideration of his public merits and defaults must necessarily follow. Has the application of his extraordinary talents been serviceable or disserviceable to mankind? Was the state of things which he contributed so much to overthrow, such as ought to remain? Or, was there any other mode of successfully assailing it than the one which he adopted,that of reducing it into contempt? Suppose the quality of that which was attacked be first stated, and then the propriety and legitimacy of the weapons employed by Voltaire.

The corruption of habits and manners which prevailed during the reign of Louis XIV. notwithstanding its imposing, orderly, and even devotional aspect, has already been mentioned. A few sentences on the public character of that ostentatious period, either the positive or comparative merits of which there is neither space nor disposition to dispute, are now requisite. Attending to much of the sway which preceded it, the reign of Louis was doubtless effective and useful to his people. His natural capacity was strong; and possessing firmness, self-will, and an extraordinary thirst for renown, the nation soon began to feel the benefit of that unity of power and of purpose, forming the single advan

tage which absolute monarchy can at any time claim, and that but very seldom. At the same time, the lofty notion entertained by Louis of the regal character, and the theory,-not possibly altogether new in France, but certainly never carried to the like extent,-of making the glory of the monarch the mainspring and object of all public exertion, gave a factitious ascendancy to his character, which was by no means inoperative. There is occasionally much metaphysical ingenuity in political servility; and it was never more dexterously displayed than in this filching abstraction of all the more broad and general notions of love of country and of kind, of national utility, and of public renown, which transforms patriotism into a species of pagod-worship of one man, and that one not unfrequently the most contemptible and insignificant in his own kingdom.

However, political as well as legal fictions, in whatever degree unnecessary and absurd, may be attended with incidental advantages; and in reference to Louis XIV. that which has just been described, in the first instance was so. He who engrosses all the renown and credit to himself, can afford to choose superior instruments; and it is the merit of Louis, that he not only selected able men for a long portion of his reign, but respectably enacted the part of Dictator in his own person. The word enacted is used; for, after all, it is certain that his real information was very bounded, and that he knew little or nothing of the arts, the sciences, or the belles lettres, which he encouraged. Some people assert that this is all a King need, or should be; but a close examination of the reign of Louis le Grand will do any thing but bear them out. Without going to the extent of Mandeville, that private or personal vices are public benefits, one kind of selfishness,

may be preferable to another; and as that of Louis exacted the employment and encouragement of capacity, much talent was elicited and displayed. The same observation may be made in relation to the resources and capacity of the nation at large; to cultivate, extend, and improve them, was at once to advance his own glory and supply funds in furtherance of his ruinous and exhaustless ambition. Some very splendid consequences, therefore, followed, and Louis secured much of the kind of glory he sought for during his life, and a portion of it still remains, which, if not of the first quality in the eye of the philosopher, is still of a nature to stand distinguished in the discreditable annals of French history; for we cannot affect to regard the wars of aggrandisement in which he so lavishly engaged, as peculiarly condemnable in him. France always waged such wars, and at this moment is as likely to wage them as ever.

Having allowed so much general credit to Louis XIV. in the way of comparison, in imitation, indeed, of Voltaire himself, there need be the less hesitation and reserve in dwelling upon the monstrous tyranny, oppression, and cruelty by which it was in one particular polluted. The most detestable and odious of all political sins is, indisputably, religious persecution; and by that execrable union of kingcraft and priestcraft which assumes a sway over volition itself, was this sin unsparingly committed during the whole of the reign under consideration. This leads at once to the source of the early predispositions of Voltaire, and of the honourable enthusiasm which coloured nearly the whole of his long life. By accident, carelessness, or indifference, he was very early allowed to imbibe a large portion of philosophical scepticism, which no after education,-and he was sub

sequently educated by Jesuits,*-could remove. It is not intended either to applaud or lament this fact, but simply as a fact to produce it, for the purpose of asking what was more natural for a brilliant, ardent, and vivacious young man, thus early vaccinated-if the figure be allowableagainst the small-pox of fanaticism and superstition so prevalent in his country, and born during a reign which revoked the Edict of Nantz, and expatriated half a million of peaceable subjects? In what way did his Most Christian Majesty, the magnificent Louis, signalize that part of his kingly career which immediately preceded the birth of Voltaire? In the famous Dragonades, in which a rude and licentious soldiery were encouraged in every excess of cruelty and outrage, because, to use the language of the Minister Louvois, "his Majesty was desirous that the heaviest penalties should be put in force against those who are not willing to embrace his religion; and those who have the false glory to remain longest firm in their opinions, must be driven to the last extremities."

They were so driven, in a manner which at this time of day renders the verbal frippery with which the ultra folly has been recently decorating the memory of this glory-loving fanatic,-this selfish pageant of a ruler-more than commonly ridiculous. It is impossible to enter into de

At the College of Louis le Grand, which was conducted by those holy fathers. In allowing a little occasional tergiversation in the character of Voltaire, this part of his education might have been pleaded.

Burke, with some point, said of the Jacobins, that they would experiment upon an existing generation, as if it were no more than a frog in an air-pump; but this is nothing to fanaticism, which has absolutely despoiled, outraged, and banished its hundreds, and murdered its tens of thousands, with the most perfect sang-froid. Existing generations, indeed!