now treated his old subject, showed the change that had come over him. In 1752, appeared his celebrated work on Louis XIV.,91 the very title of which is suggestive of the process through which his mind had passed. His former history was an account of a king; this is an account of an age. To the production of his youth he gave the title of a History of Charles XII.; this he called the Age of Louis XIV. Before, he had detailed the peculiarities of a prince; now, he considered the movements of a people. Indeed, in the introduction to the work, he announces his intention to describe, "not the actions of a single man, but the character of men."92 Nor, in this point of view, is the execution inferior to the design. While he is contented with giving a summary of military achievements, on which Bossuet hung with delight, he enters at great length into those really important matters which, before his time, found no place in the history of France. He has one chapter on commerce and internal government;93 another chapter on finances ;94 another on the history of science;95 and three chapters on the progress of the fine arts.96 And though Voltaire did not attach much value to theological disputes, still he knew that they have often played a great part in the affairs of men; he, therefore, gives several distinct chapters to a relation of ecclesiastical matters during the reign of

91 Lord Brougham, in his life of Voltaire, says that it appeared in 1751. Lives of Men of Letters, vol. i. p. 106. But 1752 is the date given in Biog. Univ. xlix. 478; in Quérard, France Lit. vol. x. p. 355; and in Lepan, Vie de Voltaire, p. 382.

92"On veut essayer de peindre à la postérité, non les actions d'un seul homme, mais l'esprit des hommes dans le siècle le plus éclairé qui fut jamais." Siècle de Louis XIV, in Euvres de Voltaire, vol. xix. p. 213. And in his correspondence respecting his work on Louis XIV., he carefully makes the same distinction. See vol. lvi. pp. 453, 488, 489, 500, vol. lvii. pp. 337, 342-344, vol. lix. p. 103.

93 Chap. xxix., in Euvres de Voltaire, vol. xx. pp. 234-267.

Chap. xxx., in Œuvres, vol. xx. pp. 267-291. This chapter is praised in Sinclair's Hist. of the Public Revenue, vol. iii. appendix, p. 77; an indifferent work, but the best we have on the important subject to which it refers.

95 Chap. xxxi., in Euvres, vol. xx. pp. 291-299; necessarily a very short chapter, because of the paucity of materials.

95

Chapters xxxii to xxxiv., in Œuvres, vol. xx. pp. 299-338.

Louis.97 It is hardly necessary to observe the immense superiority which a scheme like this possessed, not only over the narrow views of Bossuet, but even over his own earlier history. Still it cannot be denied, that we find in it prejudices from which it was difficult for a Frenchman, educated in the reign of Louis XIV., to be entirely free. Not only does Voltaire dwell at needless length upon those amusements and debaucheries of Louis, with which history can have little concern, but he displays an evident disposition to favour the king himself, and to protect his name from the infamy with which it ought to be covered.98

But the next work of Voltaire showed that this was a mere personal feeling, and did not affect his general views as to the part which the acts of princes ought to occupy in history. Four years after the appearance of the Age of Louis XIV., he published his important treatise on the Morals, Manners, and Character of Nations.99 This is not only one of the greatest books which appeared during the eighteenth century, but it still remains the best on the subject to which it refers. The mere reading it displays is immense ;100 what, however, is far more admir

97 Euvres, vol. xx. pp. 338-464.

SS This disposition to favour Louis XIV. is noticed by Condorcet, who says it was the only early prejudice which Voltaire was unable to shake off: "c'est le seul préjugé de sa jeunesse qu'il ait conservé." Condorcet, Vie de Voltaire, in Euvres de Voltaire, vol. i. p. 286. See also, on this defect, Grimm et Diderot, Corresp. Lit. vol. ii. p. 182; Lemontey, Etablissement Monarchique, pp. 451, 452; Mém. de Brissot, vol. ii. pp. 88, 89. It is interesting to observe, that Voltaire's earlier opinions were still more favourable to Louis XIV. than those which he afterwards expressed in his history. See a letter which he wrote in 1740 to Lord Harvey, printed in Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. lviii. pp. 57-63.

"Mr. Burton, in his interesting work, Life and Correspondence of Hume, vol. ii. p. 129, says it was "first published in 1756;" and the same date is given by Quérard (France Littéraire, vol. x. p. 359), who is a very accurate bibliographer; so that Condorcet (Vie de Voltaire, p. 199) and Lord Brougham (Men of Letters, vol. i. p. 98) are probably in error in assigning it to 1757. In regard to its title, I translate Moeurs' as 'morals and manners;' for M. Tocqueville uses 'mours' as equivalent to the Latin word 'mores.' Tocqueville, Démocratie en Amérique, vol. iii. pp. 50, 84.

100 Superficial writers are so much in the habit of calling Voltaire superficial, that it may be well to observe, that his accuracy has been praised, not only by his own countrymen, but by several English authors of admitted learning. For three remarkable instances of this, from men whom no one

able, is the skill with which the author connects the various facts, and makes them illustrate each other, sometimes by a single remark, sometimes only by the order and position in which they are placed. Indeed, considered solely as a work of art, it would be difficult to praise it too highly; while, as a symptom of the times, it is important to observe, that it contains no traces of that adulation of royalty which characterized Voltaire in the period of his youth, and which is found in all the best writers during the power of Louis XIV. In the whole of this long and important work, the great historian takes little notice of the intrigues of courts, or of the changes of ministers, or of the fate of kings; but he endeavours to discover and develop the different epochs through which Man has successively passed. "I wish," he says, "to write a history, not of wars, but of society; and to ascertain how men lived in the interior of their families, and what were the arts which they commonly cultivated."101 For, he adds, "my object is the history of the human mind, and not a mere detail of petty facts; nor am I concerned with the history of great lords, who made war upon French kings; but I want to know what were the steps by which men passed from barbarism to civilization."102

will accuse of leaning towards his other opinions, see notes to Charles V., in Robertson's Works, pp. 431, 432; Barrington's Observations on the Statutes, p. 293; and Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. i. p. xvi. Even Sir W. Jones, in his preface to the Life of Nader Shah, says, that Voltaire is "the best historian" the French have produced. Works of Sir William Jones, vol. v. p. 542; and compare the preface to his Persian Grammar, in Works, vol. ii. p. 123.

101 "Je voudrais découvrir quelle était alors la société des hommes, comment on vivait dans l'intérieur des familles, quels arts étaient cultivés, plutôt que de répéter tant de malheurs et tant de combats, funestes objets de l'histoire, et lieux communs de la méchanceté humaine." Essai sur les Mœurs, chap. lxxxi., in Œuvres, vol. xvi. p. 381.

102 "L'objet était l'histoire de l'esprit humain, et non pas le détail des faits presque toujours défigurés; il ne s'agissait pas de rechercher, par exemple, de quelle famille était le seigneur de Puiset, ou le seigneur de Montlhéri, qui firent la guerre à des rois de France; mais de voir par quels degrés on est parvenu de la rusticité barbare de ces temps à la politesse du notre." Supplement to Essai sur les Mœurs, in Euvres, vol. xviii. p. 435. Compare Fragments sur l'Histoire, vol. xxvii. p. 214, with two letters in vol. lx. pp. 153, 154, vol. lxv. p. 370.

It was in this way, that Voltaire taught historians to concentrate their attention on matters of real importance, and to neglect those idle details with which history had formerly been filled. But what proves this to be a movement arising as much from the spirit of the age as from the individual author, is, that we find precisely the same tendency in the works of Montesquieu and Turgot, who were certainly the two most eminent of the contemporaries of Voltaire; and both of whom followed a method similar to his, in so far as, omitting descriptions of kings, courts, and battles, they confined themselves to points which illustrate the character of mankind, and the general march of civilization. And such was the popularity of this change in the old routine, that its influence was felt by other historians of inferior, but still of considerable, ability. In 1755, Mallet 103 published his interesting, and, at the time it was written, most valuable work, on the history of Denmark ;104 in which he professes himself a pupil of the new school. "For why," he says, "should history be only a recital of battles, sieges, intrigues, and negotiations? And why should it contain merely a heap of petty facts and dates, rather than a great picture of the opinions, customs, and even inclinations of a people ?"105 Thus too, in 1765, Mably published the first part of his celebrated work on the history of France;106 in the preface to which, he complains that historians "have neglected the origin of laws

103 Mallet, though born in Geneva, was a Frenchman in the habits of his mind he wrote in French, and is classed among French historians, in the report presented to Napoleon by the Institut. Dacier, Rapport sur les Progrès de l'Histoire, p. 173.

104 Göthe, in his Autobiography, mentions his obligations to this work, which, I suspect, exercised considerable influence over the early associations of his mind: "Ich hatte die Fabeln der Edda schon längst aus der Vorrede zu Mallet's Dänischer Geschichte kennen gelernt, und mich derselben sogleich bemächtigt; sie gehörten unter diejenigen Mährchen, die ich, von einer Gesellschaft aufgefordert, am liebsten erzählte." Wahrheit u. Dichtung, in Goethe's Werke, vol. ii. part ii. p. 169. Percy, a very fair judge, thought highly of Mallet's history, part of which, indeed, he translated. See a letter from him, in Nichols's Illustrations of the Eighteenth Century, vol. vii. p. 719. 105 Mallet's Northern Antiquities, edit. Blackell, 1847, p. 78.

106 The first two volumes were published in 1765; the other two in 1790. Biog Univ. vol. xxvi. pp. 9, 12.

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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 striving 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 encouraging 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 men,

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 que je me propose d'écrire. Cest 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 Abrégé chronologique de l'Histoire de France, edit. Paris, 1775, vol. i. p. i.