and customs, in favour of sieges and battles.'107 In the same spirit, Velly and Villaret, in their voluminous history of France, express regret that historians should usually relate what happens to the sovereign, in preference to what happens to the people, and should omit the manners and characteristics of a nation, in order to study the acts of a single man.108 Duclos, again, announces that his history is not of war, nor of politics, but of men and manners:109 while, strange to say, even the courtly Hénault declares that his object was to describe laws and manners, which he calls the soul of history, or rather history itself.110

Thus it was, that historians began to shift, as it were, the scene of their labours, and to study subjects connected with those popular interests, on which the great writers under Louis XIV. disdained to waste a thought. I need hardly observe, how agreeable such views were to the general spirit of the eighteenth century, and how well they harmonized with the temper of men who were striv ing to lay aside their former prejudices, and despise what had once been universally admired. All this was but part of that vast movement, which prepared the way for the Revolution, by unsettling ancient opinions, by encourag ing a certain mobility and restlessness of mind, and, above all, by the disrespect it showed for those powerful individuals, hitherto regarded as gods rather than as

107 Mably, Observ. sur l'Hist. de France, vol. i. p. ii. ; and compare vol. iii. p. 289: but this latter passage was written several years later.

108 Bornés à nous apprendre les victoires ou les défaites du souverain, ils ne nous disent rien ou presque rien des peuples qu'il a rendus heureux ou malheureux. On ne trouve dans leurs écrits que longues descriptions de siéges et de batailles; nulle mention des mœurs et de l'esprit de la nation. Elle y est presque toujours sacrifiée à un seul homme.' Histoire de France par Velly, Paris, 1770, 4to, vol. i. p. 6; and see, to the same effect, the Continuation by Villaret, vol. v. p. vi.

109 Si l'histoire que j'écris, n'est ni militaire, ni politique, ni économique, du moins dans le sens que je conçois pour ces différentes parties, on me demandera quelle est donc celle queje me propose d'écrire. C'est l'histoire des hommes et des mœurs.' Duclos, Louis XIV et Louis XV, vol. i.

p. xxv.

110 Je voulois connoître nos loix, nos mœurs, et tout ce qui est l'âme de l'histoire, ou plutôt l'histoire même.' Hénault, Nouvel Abregé chronologique de l'Histoire de France, edit. Paris, 1775, vol. i. p. i.

but who now, for the first time, were neglected by the greatest and most popular historians, who passed over even their prominent actions, in order to dwell upon the welfare of nations, and the interests of the people at large.

To return, however, to what was actually effected by Voltaire, there is no doubt that, in his case, this tendency of the time was strengthened by a natural comprehensiveness of mind, which predisposed him to large views, and made him dissatisfied with that narrow range to which history had been hitherto confined. Whatever may be thought of the other qualities of Voltaire, it must be allowed that, in his intellect, every thing was on a great scale.112 Always prepared for thought, and always ready to generalize, he was averse to the study of individual actions, unless they could be made available for the establishment of some broad and permanent principle. Hence his habit of looking at history with a view to the stages through which the country had passed, rather than with a view to the character of the men by whom the country had been governed. The same tendency appears in his lighter works; and it has been well observed,113 that, even in his dramas, he endeavours to portray, not so much the passions of individuals, as the spirit of epochs. In Mahomet, his subject is a great religion; in Alzire, the conquest of America; in Brutus, the formation of the Roman power; in the Death of Caesar, the rise of the empire upon the ruins of that power.

114

111 In 1763, he writes to D'Argental: 'il y a environ douze batailles dont je n'ai point parlé, Dieu merci, parceque j'écris l'histoire de l'esprit humain, et non une gazette.' Euvres de Voltaire, vol. lxiii. p. 51. See also his letter to Tabareau (Lettres inédites de Voltaire, vol. ii. p. 585): 'Personne ne lit les détails des combats et des siéges; rien n'est plus ennuyeux que la droite et la gauche, les bastions et la contrescarpe.'

112 M. Lamartine characterizes him as 'ce génie non pas le plus haut, mais le plus vaste de la France.' Hist. des Girondins, vol. i. p. 180.

113 Biog. Univ. vol. xlix. p. 493. His Orphelin de la Chine is taken from Chinese sources: see Davis's China, vol. ii. p. 258.

114 The surprising versatility of Voltaire's mind is shown by the fact, unparalleled in literature, that he was equally great as a dramatic writer and as an historian. Mr. Forster, in his admirable Life of Goldsmith, 1854, says (vol. i. p. 119), 'Gray's high opinion of Voltaire's tragedies is shared

By this determination to look upon the course of events as a great and connected whole, Voltaire was led to several results, which have been complacently adopted by many authors, who, even while using them, revile him from whom they were taken. He was the first historian who, rejecting the ordinary method of investigation, endeavoured, by large general views, to explain the origin of feudality; and, by indicating some of the causes of its decline in the fourteenth century,115 he laid the foundation for a philosophic estimate of that important institution.116 He was the author of a profound remark, afterwards adopted by Constant, to the effect, that licentious religious ceremonies have no connexion with licentious national morals.117 Another observation of his, which has been

by one of our greatest authorities on such a matter now living, Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, whom I have often heard maintain the marked superiority of Voltaire over all his countrymen in the knowledge of dramatic art, and the power of producing theatrical effects.' Compare Correspondence of Gray and Mason, edit. Mitford, 1855, p. 44.

115 Essai sur les Maurs, chap. lxxxv., in Euvres, vol. xvi. p. 412, and elsewhere.

116 During the eighteenth century, and, I may say, until the publication in 1818 of Hallam's Middle Ages, there was in the English language no comprehensive account of the feudal system; unless, perhaps, we except that given by Robertson, who in this, as in many other matters of history, was a pupil of Voltaire. Not only Dalrymple, and writers of his kind, but even Blackstone, took so narrow a view of this great institution, that they were unable to connect it with the general state of society to which it belonged. Some of our historians gravely traced it back to Moses, in whose laws they found the origin of allodial lands. See a charming passage in Barry's History of the Orkney Islands, p. 219. On the spirit of feudality, there are some remarks well worth reading in Comte's Philos. Posit, vol. v. pp. 393-413.

117 Constant, in his work on Roman polytheism, says, 'des rites indécens peuvent être pratiqués par un peuple religieux avec une grande pureté de cœur. Mais quand l'incrédulité atteint ces peuples, ces rites sont pour lui la cause et le prétexte de la plus révoltante corruption.' This passage is quoted by Mr. Milman, who calls it 'extremely profound and just.' Milman's History of Christianity, 1840, vol. i. p. 28. And so it is extremely profound and just. But it happens that precisely the same remark was made by Voltaire, just about the time that Constant was born. Speaking of the worship of Priapus, he says (Essai sur les Maurs, chap. cxliii., in Euvres de Voltaire, vol. xvii. p. 341), 'nos idées de bienséance nous portent à croire qu'une cérémonie qui nous paraît si infâme n'a été inventée que par la débauche; mais il n'est guère croyable que la dépravation des moeurs ait jamais chez aucun peuple établi des cérémonies religieuses. Il est probable, au contraire, que cette coutume fut d'abord introduite dans les temps de simplicité, et qu'on ne pensa d'abord qu'à honorer la Divinité

only partly used by writers on ecclesiastical history, is pregnant with instruction. He says, that one of the reasons why the bishops of Rome acquired an authority so superior to that of the eastern patriarchs, was the greater subtlety of the Greek mind. Nearly all the heresies proceeded from the east; and, with the exception of Honorius I., not a single pope adopted a system condemned by the church. This gave to the papal power an unity and consolidation, which the patriarchal power was unable to reach; and thus the Holy See owes part of its authority to the early dullness of the European fancy.11

It would be impossible to relate all the original remarks of Voltaire, which, when he made them, were attacked as dangerous paradoxes, and are now valued as sober truths. He was the first historian who recommended universal freedom of trade; and, although he expresses himself with great caution,119 still the mere announcement of the idea in a popular history forms an epoch in the progress of the French mind. He is the originator of that important distinction between the increase of population and the

dans le symbole de la vie qu'elle nous a donnée. Une telle cérémonie a dû inspirer la licence à la jeunesse, et paraître ridicule aux esprits sages, dans les temps plus raffinés, plus corrompus, et plus éclairés. Compare the remarks on the indecency of the Spartan customs, in Thirlwall's Hist. of Greece, vol. i. pp. 326, 327.

118 Essai sur les Mours, chaps. xiv. and xxxi., in Euvres, vol. xv. pp. 391, 514. Neander observes, that in the Greek church there were more heresies than in the Latin church, because the Greeks thought more; but he has failed to perceive how this favoured the authority of the popes. Neander's History of the Church, vol. ii. pp. 198, 199, vol. iii. pp. 191, 492, vol. iv. p. 90, vol. vi. p. 293, vol. viii. p. 257.

119 In his account of the trade of Archangel, he says, 'les Anglais obtinrent le privilége d'y commercer sans payer aucun droit; et c'est ainsi que toutes les nations devraient peut-être négocier ensemble.' Hist. de Russie, part i. chap. i., in Euvres, vol. xxiii. p. 35. Remarkable words to have been written by a Frenchman, born at the end of the seventeenth century; and yet they have, so far as I am aware, escaped the attention of all the historians of political economy. Indeed, on this, as on most matters, sufficient justice has not been done to Voltaire, whose opinions were more accurate than those of Quesnay and his followers. However, Mr. M'Culloch, in noticing one of the economical errors of Voltaire, honestly admits that his 'opinions on such subjects are, for the most part, very correct.' M'Culloch's Principles of Political Economy, p. 530. For proof of his sympathy with Turgot's efforts to establish free trade, compare Lettres inédites de Voltaire, vol. ii. pp. 367, 403, 423, with Longchamp, Mém. sur Voltaire, vol. i. pp. 376, 378.

increase of food, to which political economy has been greatly indebted ;120 a principle adopted several years later by Townsend, and then used by Malthus as the basis of his celebrated work. 121 He has, moreover, the merit of being the first who dispelled the childish admiration with which the Middle Ages had been hitherto regarded, and which they owed to those dull and learned writers, who, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, were the principal investigators of the early history of Europe. These industrious compilers had collected extensive materials, which Voltaire turned to good account, and by their aid overthrew the conclusions at which the authors had themselves arrived. In his works, the Middle Ages are, for the first time, represented as what they really were,—a period of ignorance, ferocity, and licentiousness; a period when injuries were unredressed, crime unpunished, and superstition unrebuked. It may be said, with some show of justice, that Voltaire, in the picture he drew, fell into the opposite extreme, and did not sufficiently recognize the merit of those truly great men, who, at long intervals, stood here and there, like solitary beacons, whose light only made the surrounding darkness more visible. Still, after every allowance for that exaggeration which a reac

120 The idea of the different ratios by which population and food increase, was originally thrown out by Voltaire; and was picked up and expanded into many a goodly volume by our English political economists in the present century.' Laing's Notes, second series, p. 42.

121 It is often said that Malthus was indebted to Townsend's writings for his views on population; but this obligation has been too strongly stated, as, indeed, is always the case when charges of plagiarism are brought against great works. Still, Townsend is to be considered as the precursor of Malthus; and if the reader is interested in tracing the paternity of ideas, he will find some interesting economical remarks in Townsend's Journey through Spain, vol. i. pp. 379, 383, vol. ii. pp. 85, 337, 387-393; which must be com pared with Culloch's Literature of Political Economy, pp. 259, 281-3. Voltaire having preceded these authors, has, of course, fallen into errors which they avoided; but nothing can be better than the way in which he opposes the ignorant belief of his own time, that every thing should be done to increase population. 'Le point principal n'est pas d'avoir du superflu en hommes, mais de rendre ce que nous en avons le moins malheureux qu'il est possible,' is the summing-up of his able remarks, in Dict. Philos., article Population, sect. 2, in Euvres, vol. xli. p. 466. Godwin, in his notice of the history of these opinions, is evidently ignorant of what was done by Voltaire. Sinclair's Corresp. vol. i. p. 396.