is communicated of the author's object and intention; while, in many of the more abstruse and metaphysical papers, when an idea is once attempted to be rendered precise, and, if we may be allowed the expression, tangible, it is lost in a wood of words, and we are compelled to begin the hunt again, and retrace the ground we had already trodden. Were most of the articles compressed into half the space, they now occupy, they would be at least doubled in their value; the writer's object would in general be rendered far more clear and comprehensive; and he would be disburdened, in many instances, of a vast incumbrance of idle and affected learning, which discovers more of the superficial pedagogue than the profound but unobtrusive scholar.

These and other similar objections--we now speak from personal knowledge-have hitherto operated against presenting the Memoirs of the National Institute to the public in an English dress. We know that arrangements for this purpose have been twice attempted by different scholars well qualified for the task f but, from the defects we have now summarily pointed out, the version in both instances has been relinquished, and we have now no idea of seeing any such attempt revived.

The National Institute is however but at present in its infancy; it has had many difficulties and perplexities to struggle with; it was born in the midmost uproar of thunder and tempest; and perhaps we should, after all, rather express our surprise that it has been capable of maintaining its existence at all, than that it should have made no further progress towards perfection. Constituted as it seems to be for many of the best purposes of science, the sincerest wish of our heart is-ESTO

PERPETUUS:

We have received the third volume of the different classes, and shall commence a critical analysis of them in our next Appendix.

ART. V.-Vie Polémique de Voltaire, ou Histoire de ses Proscriptions, avec les Pièces justificatives. Par G****y. Paris. 1902. Polemic Life of Voltaire, or History of his Proscriptions; with vindi-, catory Papers. By G****y. 8vo. Imported by De Boffe

$ THE vanity and irritability of Voltaire are well known;

and the arch-poet of France, with Boileau, and our own coun tryman Pope, may well justify the sarcasm, and establish the title of genus irritabile. Neither could bear a brother near his throne;' and Jean Baptiste Rousseau, Quinault, and Theobald, with many others, might have descended to posterity with no in considerable credit, had they not encountered the grey goose quill of thest satirists, Perhaps, indeed, we injure: Pope and

Boileau by classing them with Voltaire. They were goaded by abuse long before they retaliated; but they retaliated at last with little mercy, and not always with justice or discrimination. Voltaire, on the contrary, had always a quill to direct on every side where he did not find a flatterer, or sometimes where any thing smart or witty occurred. Neither friendship nor obligations could check the sarcasm which he thought might in the end redound to his own credit. It is not singular, therefore, that his polemic life fills a large volume. We have read it with pleasure, because it recalls the little disputes which once entertained us; and with some information, as explaining what, perhaps from the distance of the scene, was before unaccountable. The work commences with spirit and elegance.

The life of the great Condé, painted in the gallery of Chantilly, represented, on one side, the Historic Muse tearing from the collection of that prince's actions the leaves that contained those in which he opposed his king and his country: on the other side the hero stops the trumpet of Fame, preparing to publish both his good and his bad actions. If the statues erected to Voltaire had thus represented him treading under foot the infamous collection of pamphlets published in violation of truth and decency, and the poet rejecting, with an air of indignation and tears of penitence, that pen of iron and dirt, which has mangled religion and destroyed the characters of literary men, we would willingly have dispensed with the publication of the present work. But far different were these sentiments from those of the hero of literature. He never wished to check the progress of those publications which have sullied his glory. In his extreme age we have seen him give a new current to the bitterness of his bile; direct fresh attacks against Christianity, and those who defended and respected it. We may say that his genius acquired new vigour when inspired by hatred or impiety."

M. G****y next explains his object more clearly, and the plan which he has followed; but the work does not require such minute detail. We shall give the outline of the contents, and some specimens of the author's manner, which is on every occasion manly and judicious. He shows a regulated zeal in favour of religion, decency, and propriety, which ftrongly interests us in his favour.

The first antagonist of Voltaire was Jean Baptiste Rousseau, the Pindar of France. The genius of Jean Baptiste, who must not be confounded with Jean Jacques, was not of the first class; and he had faults sufficient to justify the criticism," though not to justify the critic, who had been patronised by Rousseau in his early youth, and was only offended by his

not joining in general indiscriminate applause of Voltaire's first works, particularly that of Zara.

The abbé Desfontaines offended Voltaire by some 'judicious and moderate reflexions' on the Death of Cæsar; but, if we recollect rightly, however judicious, they were by no means moderate. Voltaire, however, did not carry his resentment so high as in the first instance; and the effects are little known beyond the country which gave them birth.

Maupertuis, president of the Berlin Academy, was another antagonist of Voltaire; and at this moment we cannot pro perly appreciate the merits of the dispute. The author, as usual, adopts the cause of the president. Maupertuis was not a very acute philosopher, nor a brilliant genius*; and Voltaire, who undoubtedly irritated him by accusing him of plagiarism from Leibnitz, was irritated in turn by the king's adopting the cause of the president. We find in this volume an explanation of Frederic's conduct; which Voltaire, in his Memoirs, represents as unreasonable and capricious. Voltaire cannot answer for himself; but this narrative is supported by collateral evidence. We shall add Voltaire's letter to the secretary of the Berlin Academy, as it has never yet been published in his works.

Mr., eternal, Secretary,

I send you the death-warrant which the president has issued against me, with my appeal to the public, and the protections sent me by all the physicians and apothecaries of Leipsic. You see that the president does not confine himself to the experiments which he projected in the northern regions, and that he is resolved to separate in the north my soul from my body. It is the first time that a president has wished to kill one of his counsellors. Is this the principle of the 'least action? What a terrible man is this president? He declares himself guilty of forgery on one hand, and assassinates on the other; and proves the existence of a God by a+b. In truth I

2

have seen nothing like it; but, sir, I have made one little reflexion. When the president has killed, dissected, and buried me, he must pronounce my éloge to the Academy, according to laudable customs. If this should be his lot, he will be somewhat embarrassed. We know how much he was so with the marshal de Sch-metteau, to whom he had given some uneasi ness during his life. If you, sir, make my funeral oration,

Even his accuracy in the measurement of a degree of the meridian in the arctic circle has lately been impeached.

The subject on which it was asserted that Maupertuis had stolen from Leibnitz.

APP. Vol. 34.

20

you will be scarcely less embarrassed. You are a priest, and I am a deist : you are a Calvinist, and I am a papist: you are an author, and I am the same : you are in health, and I am a physician. So, sir, to escape this office, and to put the world at rest, suffer me to die by the hands of the president, and erase me from your list. You will perceive that, being condemned by his sentence, I shall probably be degraded. Erase me then from your catalogue, and place me with the Koenig accused of forgery, who had however the misfortune to be right. I shall wait with patience for death with this culprit-pariterque cadentes, ignovere deis.

I am, sir, metaphysically, yours, &c.’

With M. Beaumelle Voltaire quarrelled at Berlin; but Beaumelle gave the first provocation, though he was afterwards pursued by Voltaire with a pertinacity and malignity which nothing could excuse. St. Hyacinthe was also the aggressor, and Voltaire only made the accusation public by his notice of it; but the dispute never became very interesting. His quarrel with Vernet arose from the unfavorable account given of Geneva in his History, and in the Encyclopædia. This Vernet resented, though he allowed that some years before he had offered his assistance as editor of the former work. It does not however appear that the offensive parts were then in existence, or at least that Vernet was acquainted with them: besides, Vernet was a man of true religion, irreproachable integrity, and decency of conduct. The contrast was too great to be borne with patience by the philosopher of Ferney.

The quarrel with M. de Pompignan is not very intelligibly related; but it contains a very humorous, though probably a fictitious, or at least an embellished, account of a deputation, at the head of which was M. l'Archer, the learned translator of Herodotus, to examine Voltaire's proficiency in Greek. They found him, it is said, reading Greek authors with the assistance of wretched translations; and forbade him to speak of, or write concerning, Greek literature again. One foundation of the quarrel seems to have been M. de Pompignan's translation of Pope's Universal Prayer. Voltaire's attack on M. Le Franc, bishop of Puy, seems wholly unprovoked and unjustifiable.

The abbé Ronotte had filled two duodecimo volumes with the mistakes occurring in Voltaire's General History. This was enough to rouse the historian's resentment; but it is displayed in the lowest abuse, and continued far beyond the period that even unmerited severity would justify. The abbe's work, however, is remarkably temperate and judicious.

The marquis Maffei, author of the Italian Merope, was introduced to and flattered by Voltaire at Paris. Voltaire, however, unfortunately copied from the Italian tragedy; and from

that time the credit of his own was, in his opinion, only to rest on the destruction of that of his prototype. It must be owned that Voltaire has improved on the original; but his character was not enhanced by the attack.

The Oracle of the new Philosophers was the work of the abbé Guyon; and in it the sophisms of Voltaire were assailed-perhaps refuted. No more was necessary to make the abbe the object of the poet's satire and hatred. M. Fréron was a more decided enemy, and pursued Voltaire in all his doublings, and opposed all his pretensions: Fréron was therefore the object of still greater resentment. Indeed Voltaire seems never weary of abusing him.

The quarrel between Voltaire and Jean Jaques Rousseau is well known. It is attributed to the recommendation of an established theatre at Geneva in the Encyclopædia, and to Rousseau's opposition. Whatever may have been the cause, Voltaire was the constant enemy of Jean Jaques, even in the early moments when he appeared to overwhelm him with praise. Which was the greater offender, we can scarcely say. Our author, as usual, condemns Voltaire.

Bishop Warburton was once highly praised by Voltaire; but the latter having, by a kind of alchymy-in the opinion of many no very difficult task-extracted infidelity from the Divine Legation, Warburton corrected his mistakes and erroneous quotations. Hinc illa lacryma. Warburton was no longer the 'learned bishop,' the sagacious inquirer;' he was scarcely superior to Fréron. M. Coger published an Examination of Belisarius; and Coger was a scribbler, an ignoramus, an assassin, and, if possible, worse. L'Archer attacked the Philosophy of History, and showed it to be a string of blunders and misrepresentations. Hence L'Archer was accused of the worst of crimes. Against Gresset he published nothing; but he did him, in private letters, the greatest injuries. An excellent letter of Haller's is preserved in this chapter, but too long for insertion.

The last chapter contains the occasional darts from the 'fretful porcupine,' who attacked all those who did not think him supreme in science and belles lettres, in philosophy and history, in poetry and criticism. On the whole, we perceive in this work too great a portion of the spirit of invective and resentment. Voltaire deserved much of this return; for he was often, perhaps almost always, reprehensible. Yet our author has occasionally gone too far, and magnified the merit of his enemies, while he has depressed his own. The life and character of Voltaire still require a calm dispassionate critic. In those departments where he has erred most grossly, he has done many things well. In dramatic poetry, he has carried the fame