tion, there is no strong epithet of invective used: a more poignant and effective reproach is contained in the word, the well-beloved Brutus," than in all the "monsters" and "assassins" with which the attack of Antony in Voltaire's play is eked out.

The superiority of Shakspeare is just as obvious in the artful delay of Antony to read the will, which he reserves to the last as the fit climax to be addressed to such an audience, as compared with the French version, where he hastens at once to proclaim its contents; and in the pretended moderation with which, after stirring up to an ecstacy of indignation the passions of the people, he affects to control the tempest he had raised, and which he knew to be ungovernable-precipitating the people into the career of vengeance, while affecting to restrain them; while in Voltaire's play, it is Antony himself who is the first to call for vengeance on Cæsar's murderers, and to urge on the crowd to rise and mutiny.

If the claims of Voltaire as a dramatist cannot be considered as standing very high, it is still less possible to consider him as entitled even to the name of an epic poet. Villemain has a long parallel between the Pharsalia and the Henriade: in which he gives the preference, on the whole, to the latter poem. We grant to Voltaire the merit of better taste, for he has nothing of the tumid and somewhat bombastic diction of Lucan: but, on the other hand, where in the Henriade shall we find passages like the contrasted characters of Cæsar and Pompey? or the pregnant beauty and truth of such brief traits as those by which the rival leaders are discriminated, and in which the secret of their fortunes may be said to be embodied? "Solusque pudor non vincere bello," the marking trait in the character of the first the other, " Magni nominis umbra," a man who had over-lived his greatness, which had always been exaggerated. "Voltaire in the Henriade," says Villemain, "is Lucan abridged, tempered, calmed downLucan without exaggerated figures, without declamation, but also less energetic, and less dazzling." "The French poet, like the Roman, has his

passion for controversy: Catholicism is for him what the empire was for the other. Both occasionally flatter their enemy; but they take pleasure in allusions which tend to discredit and degrade it. Thus the canto descriptive of the St Bartholomew is the finest in the Henriade. But the passion of the poet is little in harmony with the constrained denouement of his piece-the abjuration of Protestantism by Henry. And there is a similar contradiction between the sceptical maxims with which he has interspersed his poem, and the Christian marvels which he employs."

That the political and philosophical speculations of Voltaire exercised a strong influence over his own age, and tended greatly to accelerate those attacks upon all authority which heralded the Revolution, no calm observer can reasonably doubt. It may be very true that he himself had no very clear perception of their tendency. It may even be the case that the subversion of an established government was the last thing in his thoughts. But the aristocratic insult to which he had been subjected, and which had driven him to England, probably left on his mind no very pleasing impression in regard to hereditary rank; and the maxims of popular liberty, and the limitation of the monarchical power, which he was accustomed to hear from his Whig acquaintances in England, probably gave him as strong a leaning as he was capable of towards a popular form of government, or rather towards a government which was to be in the hands of an aristocracy of letters, over which he himself was to reign as the despotic sovereign.

The sincerity of his anti-religious views, and the zeal with which he discharged the apostolate of infidelity, are matters which admit of less question. He did not merely doubt or deny, but he detested, Christianity. He never speaks of it but with a feeling of personal hatred. "Je finis toutes mes lettres par dire écrasons l'enflame!" He writes to D'Alembert (25th Feb. 1768), "Comme Caton dit, delenda est Carthago." To the Count D'Argental he writes (3d Oct. 1761), "Ah! chiens de Chrêtiens, que je vous deteste! que mon mépris et ma haine

pour vous augmentent continuellement!" In his aversion to Christianity, therefore, he was admitted to come up to the true Holbachean and Helvetian standard; but as he wavered in regard to Atheism, and had not quite adopted the creed of the Système de la Nature, he was considered a weak and timorous reformer, whose ideas were still clouded by childish fears or narrow views, and consequently very scurvily treated by his brother apostles of what was called the Holy Philosophical Church. "The patriarch, poor man," says Baron de Grimm, who went all lengths, "still sticks to his Remunerateur-Vengeur, without whom he fancies the world would go on very ill. He is resolute enough for putting down the God of knaves and bigots, but is not for parting with that of the virtuous and rational. He reasons upon all this, too, like a baby; a very smart baby it must be owned, but a baby notwithstanding!"

But enough of Voltaire, whether as a poet or a philosopher. To us he appears to far more advantage in his Contés-his graceful Vers de Société, and in his Romans, than in any of his more elaborate compositions. Whatever may be thought of the tendency of his romances, the ingenuity with which they are framed so as to bring out in comic relief the idea which he wishes to ridicule, is admirable. His Epitre à Horace, and his Stances à Madame du Deffant, are more perfect in their way than the well-rounded declamation of his tragedy, or the laboured episodes of the Henriade.

While Voltaire was thus carrying the spirit of mockery, of universal disbelief, and contempt for established opinion, into every department of literature, for he essayed them all in turn, a remnant of the spirit of the 17th century was kept alive by the Chancellor D'Aguesseau, in the magistracy; by Rollin, in the literary and religious education of youth; and by the Duke de St Simon, at Court. Villemain's estimate of D'Aguesseau is somewhat lower than that to which we have been accustomed; even as a magistrate, a lawyer, and a man of business, he seems to think him somewhat timorous and time-serving, notwithstanding the excellence of his ordonnances or the irreproachable character of his life. To Rollin, on the other hand, we think the esprit de corps in favour of a brother

professor has led him to do rather more than justice; for, granting the high tone of morality and religion which it was the object of Rollin to infuse into his educational system, the cold correctness, the dryness, and, after all, the defect of real learning or comprehensive view which his Ancient History exhibits, are surely sufficient to exclude him from the list of great historians. To St Simon, the last of the Jansenist colony surviving amidst the eighteenth century, Villemain is peculiarly favourable. He seems almost disposed to concede to him the praise of genius. And there is no doubt that, as compared with Dangeau and the other annalists or keepers of Court diaries, the graphic spirit and caustic sketches of St Simon-a close observer, feeling strongly, writing from a full mind, tainted with strong prejudices, particularly in favour of aristocracy, and tinging every thing he wrote with the peculiarities of his own character-are most amusing. "The dead figures of the day," says Villemain, "are resuscitated in the pages of St Simon; his electrical expression gives motion to all this ossuary of a Court."

To the same school, in point of taste, belong the great novelists of the commencement of the eighteenth century-Le Sage, Prevôt, and Marcvaux. The popularity of the two latter has, in all probability, for ever passed away; for the merits of Prevôt's Manon L'Escaut have been exaggerated, and, were they greater than they are, they would hardly make amends for the tediousness of Cleveland and the Dean of Coleraine; and, with all deference to French criticism, we cannot help regarding the Marianne and the Paysan parvenu as in the highest degree wearisome. On the other hand, the popularity of the first of these novelists, at the distance of two centuries remains undiminished, and without experiencing even a momentary fluctuation. In truth, the whole character of Gil Blas is so essentially popular-its beauties lie so much on the surface, and are so independent of all peculiarities of opinion, or deep and subtle enquiry

that we could almost as easily conceive a man tiring of the common air, or the cheerful sunlight, as of its lively, natural, and good-humoured pictures. Voltaire, however, and it is a great proof of his want of simple and

natural tastes, seems to have formed a most inadequate notion of the merits, and we may indeed say the genius, of Le Sage. Speaking of his works in his Age of Louis XIV., he says, with a brief and disdainful air of condescen.. sion, "His romance of Gil Blas has survived, because it is natural." It is curious now to reflect, that for one foreigner who is even tolerably acquainted with the works of him who thus took it upon himself arbitrarily to dispense ex cathedrâ the meed of literary fame, there are at least a hundred to whom every scene in Gil Blas, from the adventure with the parasite at Corcuelo down to the double marriage celebrated at Lirias, is as familiar as most passages in the life of an actual acquaintance.

It so happened, too, that the best comic poets of the day took part rather with the spiritofthe seventeenth century than the eighteenth. Gresset, Destouches, and even Piron, were all hostile to the philosophers. At the present day, we should be disposed to repeat "non tali auxilio," and to think that religion and morality were in nearly as great danger from their friends as from their foes. Piron preaching morality, is certainly as near an approach to the devil citing Scripture for his purpose, as can well be imagined.

Destouches, like Voltaire, had made a residence of some length in England; but it may be doubted whether his study of the English theatre of the time was calculated to improve his taste. Moliere would have been a far safer guide than either Vanburgh or Congreve, with which he was probably most familiar. Their licentiousness he no doubt avoided, but their exaggeration of comic character he retained. All his plays, even the Glorieux, are full of this tendency. In the Glorieux, Destouches certainly made what is technically called "a hit." The rage for financial speculation and adventure of all kinds, which distinguished the time of Louis XV.-the sudden rise of the vulgar to opulence and distinction

"Seigneur Suzerain de deux mille d' Eeus,"

and the fall of the noble and the opu lent into poverty, with the consequent approximation of wealth and insolence to pride and poverty, these are the sources from which the contrasted characters of the Glorieux were drawn.

Even a romantic and elevated interest is thrown into it by the episode of the father, disowned through mere pride by his son; and few passages on the French stage are more effective than that when Lycandre thus addresses him :

"J'entends, la vanité me declare à genoux, Qu'un père infortuné n'est pas digne de vous."

The solitary comedy of Destouches which rises above' mediocrity, owed its success in a great degree to the fortunate choice of a subject, to which the existing state of society gave point and interest. The same cause in a great measure determined the superiority of Piron's clever Metromanie over the other now forgotten productions of his pen. Having known by experience the miseries to which the dramatist is heir

familiar with the mysteries and intrigues of stage management— "The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes;" he was struck with the notion of turning his experience to account, and of making the life of a poet the subject of a drama, composed half in the spirit of comedy, half in earnestness. Reynolds, in treating the same subject, has made it merely farcical. Piron's dramatist actually carries our sympathies with him, and we are smitten with the infection of his enthusiasm.

The merits of Gresset's Méchant we are less able to perceive. As a picture of the hollowness, the slanderous spirit, the ridicule of self, in order to be allowed the freer scope for the ridicule of others as a portrait, in short, of the combined wit and utter heartlessness of the eighteenth century, the play has the merit which bélongs to a faithful portrait of an unattractive subject; but it has little of the originality of the Metromanie. We confess we are of the number of those who prefer the Ver-vert, or the Chartreuse, to the Michant.

At this period is observable the rise of that Comedie Larmoyante, which subsequently became so popular in the rough, vigorous, and coarse prose dramas of Diderot. The tendency is perceptible even in the Glorieux of Destouches, as well as in several of his other works. But the system first appears reduced into form in those Tragédies Bourgeoises, to which La Chaussée chose most inappropriately

to give the name of comedies. The name might have been, with nearly equal propriety, applied to the Gamester or George Barnwell; for though they neither conclude with suicide or the gallows, their whole tone and spirit is tragical, and they certainly contained little which was calculated to refute the truth which was laughingly conveyed, in some lines, by a satirist of the Foire

"Le comique ecrit noblement Fait bâiller ordinairement." The name of Fontenelle is well known to foreign readers, but such is nearly the whole extent of their acquaintance with the man or his works. Yet his influence during a long literary life was so extensive, that he cannot be overlooked in any tableau of French literature. He connects the seventeenth century with the eighteenth. In the former, he might be viewed as a timid reformer; in the latter, as one who still held fast by the ancient landmarks, and opposed a placid passive resistance to the further movement of opinions. The nephew of the great Corneille, he seems to have conceived that he had a hereditary turn for poetry. In youth, he com. posed Latin poems, and Greek verses "equal to those of Homer;" for in fact they were borrowed from him. At a more advanced age, he tried tragedy: with what success, the epigrams of Racine attest. Eclogues, lettres galantes, dialogues of the dead, succeeded; all deformed by affectation, none exhibiting any high appearance of genius. What, then, was the source of Fontenelle's influence in his age?

It lay chiefly in the skill with which he applied the rules of good taste, and a kind of pleasing fancy, to compositions on matters of science. Without being deeply acquainted with any of the sciences, he had acquired a superficial knowledge of all; nor is it possible to peruse, without admiration, the long series of reports prepared by him on all subjects, while officiating as secretary to the Academy-a duty which he only resigned in his eighty-fourth year, that he might have time to finish some theatrical pieces which still lay on his hands. General physics, anatomy, chemistry, botany, mathematics, astronomy, optics, hydrography, acoustics; nothing seems to come amiss to Fontenelle. The description

of some novel fact in natural history succeeds an account of the binary arithmetic of Leibnitz; and observations on a comet seen at Pekin, are followed by calculations of the power of steam. It was in his eloges, however, of the different members of the Academy, that his union of accurate knowledge with a good taste, and his power of popularizing science, appear most conspicuous. The charm of his style in these compositions, which is great, appears to increase as he grows older; for age seems to remove the tendency to subtility and over-refinement which existed in youth, and to communicate to his observations on life and morals a more tender and earnest character.

The philosophical depth of Montesquieu has certainly been overrated. He writes sententious epigrams, or supports ingenious paradoxes on polity and government, in the style of a French Tacitus, but with a false brilliancy of diction, inconsistent with true grandeur or profundity of mind. As a discoverer in the science of politics or ethics, we are at a loss to perceive what new view he has originated, or what point attended with doubt his learning or his penetration has cleared up. In his treatise on the Greatness and Decline of the Romans, we see he adopts as implicitly true the common narrative of Livy. The contradictions and difficulties since pointed out by Niebuhr, and suspected even before Montesquieu's time, never embarrass him: he reasons on the received accounts without even a suspicion of their authenticity; and, accordingly, those brilliant lights which the German critic occasionally throws across the obscurity of some portions of the Roman history, such as the Agrarian laws, or the relations of client and patron, are wholly wanting in the clever and amusing, but superficial work of Montesquieu. The same objection is applicable to his celebrated Spirit of Laws, where the inartificial divisions, and the indiscriminating adoption of statements as the basis of his reasonings, which will not bear investigation, render the book, though it may stimulate thought, one of very slender practical utility.

It matters not, in truth, to the learned and ingenious president, whether his facts come from France, Bantam, or Timbuctoo, from "Nova Zembla, or the Lord knows where;" they are

all assumed with equal complacency, as grounds on which a pompous edifice of speculation may be built up. As it stands, then, the work seems to justify the observation of the Prince de Ligne, that it is not so much l'Esprit des Lois, as l'Esprit sur les Lois.

The same epigrammatic tendency which pervades the works of Montesquieu, appears not less obvious in the historical writers of this period. History had been timid and subservient during the reign of Louis XIV., nor was much boldness to be expected, where even a doubtful speculation with regard to the origin of the French nation, had been sufficient to consign an unlucky antiquary, the learned Freret, to the Bastile. But, in proportion to its former restraint, seemed to be its present license of portraiture and of speculation. The spirit of free enquiry, which Voltaire had probably imbibed from his intercourse with England, he bequeathed to a numerous body of imitators; and from the labours of the French school, did our English historians in turn borrow that more reasoning and philosophizing character which distinguishes the works of Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon, from their predecessors. Voltaire cannot certainly be considered a great historian: he want ed learning, conscientiousness, knowledge of original sources; but he was an admirable narrator-an art indeed in which his Charles XII. may be considered as a masterpiece.

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We pass over the disagreeable subject of the gradual growth of the new infidel philosophy, till it reached its height in the Materialism of La Mettrie, and the thorough-going Atheism of Diderot. But while nothing can be more detestable than the philosophy of Diderot, it cannot be denied that his views of criticism, though undigested and incomplete, were more comprehensive and liberal than those of many of his countrymen-that he had a feeling of the beauty of simplicity, and natural expression of passion, a mind of very remarkable activity and fire-though, as Barante observes, it was often fire without fuel-and that he possessed something which, without amounting to genius, occasionally made an approach to it. As a narrator, the directness and rapidity of his manner in his best passages, equal the manner of Voltaire: and in his

criticism he frequently throws out views, derived no doubt from the study of foreign literature, and with out form or system, but which were both new and important to his countrymen. "Diderot," says Villemain, "is a superior critic; though he is frequently wanting in exact justice, But he feels what he judges; he analyses with eloquence. His imagina tion takes its colour from that of others: he assumes the language and the accent of those he is about to praise. You think him emphatical and declamatory: it is because he is writing a dissertation on Seneca. But read the few pages he has written on Terence; it is impossible to bé more simple, more elegant, more prêcise, more tasteful. Terence had fascinated him; and he preserves his image as a sensitive eye, which has been for some time fixed upon a bright and distinct colour, preserves its im pression, and carries it for some time along with it."

The name of Diderot is almost inseparably associated with that of D'Alembert, his friend and fellowlabourer in the Encyclopédie: a man of great ability, not merely as a mathematician, but of singular clearness, method, and very considerable grasp, in all those provinces of literature which depended rather on the vigorous application of the intellect, than of the sensibilities or the imagination. Where these were necessary, he entirely fails. His style is particularly cold and constrained, totally destitute of that natural vigour and ease in which Diderot, with his carelessness and his coarseness, is rarely deficient. D'Alembert carried the austere style of science even into literature itself. He disliked the style of Buffon, and inveighed against it to a friend as pompous and declamatory: "Why, what would you have?" said the person to whom the criticism was addressed; "it is not every one that can pretend to be as dry as yourself!"

Unquestionably, however, where the subject was one where breadth of philosophical view was legitimately associated with this austerity of style, as in his celebrated Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopédie, D'Alembert appears to great advantage. The correctness of particular opinions in that dissertation, has been justly questioned; and D'Alembert unquestionably