I. 18. sîir le froid et sur le sec

" The aggregated soil

Death with his mace pétrifies, cold and dry,

As with a trident smote " X. 295 — 297.

1. 40. littérature variée^ essay literature is what Voltaire means hère.

Page 127.

1. 3. la seule tragédie â^c. It is hardly necessary to say that Shakspere was conipletely out of fashion in France at this time.

1. 4. îaie noblesse continue, ' ' conçue entièrement dans le système français," says M. Vapereau, "froide et déclamatoire, mais écrite avec noblesse, et contenant de beaux passages.

1. 9, c''est Rabelais pcrfectiojiné. Coleridge says of Dean Swift, anima Rabelœsi habitans in sicco. It was quite natural that the satirical and often coarse mind of Voltaire should sympathize with the particular talent which characterizes Gnlliver''s travels and the Taie of a tub. M. Taine's appréciation of the English pamphlet-writer strikes us as extremely correct : " Swift ne rencontre ni ime cause qu'il puisse chérir, ni une doctrine qu'il puisse établir ; il emploie toute la force de l'esprit le mieux armé et du caractère le mieux trempé à décrier et à détruire." {His t. de la lit t. ang. m. 195.)

I. 12. qui était très-grossière à Londres avant Charles II. This is not correct. Bishop Hall, Donne, Thomas Fuller, and Jeremy Taylor, had obtained their well-deserved réputation before the accession of Charles II.

1. 15. 671 imitant les Français. "The common style of sermons was either very flat or low, or swelled up with rhetoric to a false pitch of

a wrong sublime. The king (Charles II) had little or no literature, but true and good sensé; and had got a right notion of style; for he was in France at a time when they were much set on reforming their language. It soon appeared that he had a true taste. So this helped to raise the value of thèse men, when the king approved of the style their discourses generally ran in; which was clear, plain, and short." (Burnet, History qf /lis own times, I. 330, edit. of 1823.) Hallam is worth quoting on this subject: "The style of preaching in England was less ornamental, and spoke less to the imagination and the affections than thèse celebrated writers (Fléchier, Bossuet, Massillon) of the Gallican church ; but in some of our chief divines it had its own excellencies." {Literature of Europe, III. 295.)

1. 36. presçîie chaque année. See M. Lecky's History of England in the eighteenth centtiiy, especially vol. i. chap. il. Butler, in the préface to his Analogy, déclares that "it has come to be taken for granted that Christianity is not so much as a subject of enquiry; but that it is now at length discovered to be fictitious." In another work {Chaj'ge delivered to the Clergy in the Diocèse of Durhajn, 1751) he speaks of "the gênerai decay of religion in the nation; which is now observed by every one, and has been for some time the complaint of ail serions persons." "The influence of it," he adds, "is more and more wearing out of the minds of men, even of those who do not prétend to enter into spéculations upon the subject; but the number of those who do, and M'ho profess themselves unbelievers, increases, and with their numbers

their zeal As différent âges hâve been distinguished by différent sorts

of particular errors and vices, the déplorable distinction of ours is an avowed scorn of religion in some, and a growing disregard of it in the generality." Addison pronounced it an unquestionable truth that there was "less appearance of religion in England than in any neighbouring State or kingdom, whether Protestant or Catholic." (Lecky, Hist. of England, il. 530.) Montesquieu says [Notes sttr T Angleterre) : "Je passe en France pour avoir peu de religion ; en Angleterre pour en avoir trop." The following dates are interesting with référence to this subject : Blount, Oracles of reason, 1693. — Toland, Christianity not mysterious, 1696. — Mandeville, Fable of the bées, 1706. — Collins, Priestcraft in perfection, 1709. — Shaftesbury, An enquiry cojicerning virtne in his Characteristics, 171 1-23; Discourse on free-thinking, 171 3; Discourse of the grou7ids and reasons of the Christian religion, 1724. — Lyons, The infallibility of hu7nan judgment, its dignity and excellence, 1723. — Woolston, Six discourses on the Miracles of Christ, 1729. — Tindal, Christiatiity as old as création, 1730. — Bolingbroke, Philosophical Works, 1754.

1. 13. on ne la connaissait pas. An able French critic (art. Newton, in M.Franck's Dictionnaire des sciences philosophiques) makes the following remarks on the comparative merits of the Systems of Descartes {Théorie de V ondulation) and of Newton {Théorie de f é77ianation) so far as light is concerned : "Toutes les objections adressées au système Cartésien se trouvent aujourd'hui péremptoirement résolues, tandis que presque tous

les faits nouveaux trouvés en optique depuis cinquante ans, les interférences, la polarisation colorée, et les phénomènes de la diffraction, tels qu'ils résultent des mesures précises de Fresnel, qui s'expliquent facilement dans le système des pulsations ou ondulations, restent insolubles dans le système de l'émanation."

Page 129. .

1. 1. est enfin décidée, Boileau's work on the subject is entitled Réflexions sur Longin ; itappearedin 1694, andwas ananswer to Perrault's Parallèle des anciens ei des modernes. Sir William Temple's share in the literary controversy was his Essay npon the ancien} and modem learning. See for fuU détails, M. H. Rigault's Histoire de la qtierdle des anciens et des modernes^ 8vo. Paris, 1859.

1. 7. Depuis Platon Jztsqti' à lui il n''y a rien. This passage alone gives a sufîicient idea of Voltaire's ignorance and préjudices when he talks on matters connected with philosophy. We hâve seen him speaking contemptuously of Descartes whose system he knew only through the médium of Locke's criticisms; despite the praises he gives hère to the author of the Essay 07i human nnderstanding., he has found fault with him in other parts of his own writings (see Voltaii^e's Philosophe ignorant^ and also the article on Voltaire in M. Franck's Dictionnaire des sciences ph ilosoph iques) .

1. 17. lia jamais compris. Voltaire's strictures refer to Plato's Timœiis, a v^^ork, the influence of which, during the middle âges more especially, cannot be overrated, although it was due, as Professor Jowett remarks, " partly to a misunderstanding. In the supposed depths of this dialogue the Neo-Platonists found hidden meanings and connections with the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, and out of thèse they elicited doctrines quite at variance with the spirit of Plato."

1. 6. sans consulter les hommes. "On peut dire que Leibniz fut protestant par le jugement, et catholique par l'imagination, et par esprit de système." (Franck.) The duke de Broglie published some years ago a posthumous work of Leibniz {Systema theologicicm) from which he endeavours to show that the great German philosopher was secretly a Roman Catholic.

1. 7. le plies universel de V Europe. "Le vaste savoir et l'esprit encyclopédique qui le distinguent lui firent entrevoir l'unité et l'harmonie des sciences et des arts." (Franck.)

1. 8. historien infatigable. Amongst his numerous historical works we may name the Annales imperii occidentis Briinsviccfisis.

1. 9. éclairant V étude du droit par la philosophie : Methodus nova docendœ discendœqtte jurisprudentiœ ( 1 668).

1. 15, etitre Ahiuton et lui. This circumstance originated with the pulDlication (1674) of a treatise by Leibniz, entitled Schediasma de serierum summis et seriebus quadraticis. See Biog. universelle^ article Leibniz.

1. 25. servait à Vanimer. " L'étude du philosophe s'e'tait convertie en une sorte de cabinet d'agent d'affaires en grand, et de correspondance Havas au moyen de laquelle il était mieux informé que les princes... Les trois formes les plus modernes de l'éclectisme, les bibliothèques ou le goiàt des livres et des collections, les journaux ou recueils de variétés littéraires, scientifiques et autres, et les académies, ces élites des esprits, il les a connues et cultivées, il les a même perfectionnées... Il a fondé plusieurs journaux. Il avait d'abord travaillé à la fondation des Semestria literaria. Il a fondé les Acta eniditoru7?i, il a donné sa collaboration au Jotirnal des savants qui lui a quelquefois refusé ses articles; il a rédigé le Monatliche A^iszJtg, premier recueil périodique allemand qui parut à Hanovre." (Foucher de Careil.)