VOLTAIRE.* [FOREIGN REVIEW, 1829.] COULD ambition always choose its own path, Is it to be a nameless brook, and will its tiny and were will in human undertakings syhony-waters, among millions of other brooks and mous with faculty, all truly ambitious men rills, increase the current of some world'swould be men of letters. Certainly, if we river? Or is it to be itself a Rhine or Danaw, examine that love of power, which enters so whose goings forth are to the uttermost lands, largely into most practical calculations, nay, its flood an everlasting boundary-line on the which our Utilitarian friends have recognised | globe itself, the bulwark and highway of as the sole end and origin, both motive and whole kingdoms and continents? We know reward, of all earthly enterprises, animating not only in either case, we know its path is alike the philanthropist, the conqueror, the to the great ocean: its waters, were they but money-changer, and the missionary, we shall a handful, are here, and cannot be annihilated find that all other arenas of ambition, com- or permanently held back. pared with this rich and boundless one of Literature, meaning thereby whatever respects the promulgation of Thought, are poor, limited, and ineffectual. For dull, unreflective, merely instinctive as the ordinary man may seem, he has nevertheless, as a quite indispensable appendage, a head that in some degree con-age die away into insignificance and oblivion! siders and computes; a lamp or rushlight of understanding has been given him, which, through whatever dim, besmoked, and strangely diffractive media it may shine, is the ultimate guiding light of his whole path: and here, as well as there, now as at all times in man's history, Opinion rules the world. Curious it is, moreover, to consider, in this respect, how different appearance is from reality, and under what singular shape and circumstances the truly most important man of any given period might be found. Could some Asmodeus, by simply waiving his arm, open asunder the meaning of the Present, even so far as the Future will disclose it, how much more marvellous a sight should we have, than that mere bodily one through the roofs of Madrid! For we know not what we are, any more than what we shall be. It is a high, solemn, almost awful thought for every individual man, that his earthly influence, which has had a commencement, will never through all ages, were he the very meanest of us, have an end! What is done is done; has already blended itself with the boundless, ever-living, ever-working Universe, and will also work there, for good or for evil, openly or secretly, throughout all time. But the life of every man is as the well-spring of a stream, whose small beginnings are indeed plain to all, but whose ulterior course and destination, as it winds through the expanses of infinite years, only the Omniscient can discern. Will it mingle with neighbouring rivulets, as a tributary; or receive them as their sovereign? * Mémoires sur Voltaire, et sur ses Ouvrages, par Longchamp et Wagnière, ses Secrétaires; suivis de divers Ecrits inédits de la Marquise du Châtelet, du Président Henault, &c., tous relatifs à Voltaire. (Memoirs concerning Voltaire and his Works, by Longchamp and Wagnière, his Secretaries; with various unpublished pieces by the Marquise du Châtelet, &c., all relating to Voltaire.) 2 Tomes. Paris, 1826. As little can we prognosticate, with any certainty, the future influences from the present aspects of an individual. How many Demagogues, Croesuses, Conquerors fill their own age with joy or terror, with a tumult that promises to be perennial; and in the next These are the forests of gourds, that overtop the infant cedars and aloe-trees, but, like the Prophet's gourd, wither on the third day. What was it to the Pharaohs of Egypt, in that old era, if Jethro the Midianitish priest and grazier accepted the Hebrew outlaw as his herdsman? Yet the Pharaohs, with all their chariots of war, are buried deep in the wrecks of time; and that Moses still lives, not among his own tribe only, but in the hearts and daily business of all civilized nations. Or figure Mahomet, in his youthful years, " travelling to the horse-fairs of Syria!" Nay, to take an infinitely higher instance, who has ever forgotten those lines of Tacitus; inserted as a small, transitory, altogether trifling circumstance in the history of such a potentate as Nero? To us it is the most earnest, sad, and sternly significant passage that we know to exist in writing: Ergo abolendo rumori Nero subdidit reos, et quæsitissimis panis affecit, quos per flagitia invisos, vulgus CHRISTIANOS appellabat. Auctor nominis ejus CHRISTUS, qui, Tiberio imperitante, per Procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio affectus erat. Repressaque in præsens exitiabilis superstitio rursus erumpebat, non modo per Judæam origincm cjus muli, sed per urbem etiam, quo cuncta undique atrocia aut pudenda confluunt, celebranturque. "So, for the quieting of this rumour, Nero judicially charged with the crime, and punished with most studied severities, that class, hated for their general wickedness, whom the vulgar call Christians. The originator of that name was one Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, suffered death by sentence of the procurator, Pontius Pilate. The baneful superstition, thereby repressed for the time, again broke out, not only over Judea, the native soil of that mischief, but in the City also, where from every side all * Of his having set fire to Rome. heaps of straw!" For here, as always, it continues true, that the deepest force is the stillest; that, as in the Fable, the mild shining of the sun shall silently accomplish what the fierce blustering of the tempest has in vain essayed. Above all, it is ever to be kept in mind, that not by material, but by moral power, are men and their actions governed. How noiseless is thought! No rolling of drums, no tramp of squadrons, or immeasurable tumult of baggage-wagons, attends its movements: in what obscure and sequestered places may the head be meditating, which is one day to be crowned with more than imperial authority; for Kings and Emperors will be among its ministering servants; it will rule not over, but in all heads, and with these its solitary combinations of ideas, as with magic formulas bend the world to its will! The time may come, when Napoleon himself will be better known for his laws than for his battles; and the victory of Waterloo prove less momentous than the opening of the first Mechanics' Institute. We have been led into such rather trite reflections, by these volumes of Memoirs on Voltaire; a man in whose history the relative importance of intellectual and physical power is again curiously evinced. This also was a private person, by birth nowise an elevated atrocious and abominable things collect and flourish."* Tacitus was the wisest, most penetrating man of his generation; and to such depth, and no deeper, has he seen into this transaction, the most important that has occurred or can occur in the annals of mankind. Nor is it only to those primitive ages, when religions took their rise, and a man of pure and high mind appeared not merely as a teacher and philosopher, but as a priest and prophet, that our observation applies. The same uncertainty, in estimating present things and men, holds more or less in all times; for in all times, even in those which seem most trivial, and open to research, human society rests on inscrutably deep foundations; which he is of all others the most mistaken, who fancies he has explored to the bottom. Neither is that sequence, which we love to speak of as "a chain of causes," properly to be figured as a "chain," or line, but rather as a tissue, or superficies of innumerable lines, extending in breadth as well as in length, and with a complexity, which will foil and utterly bewilder the most assiduous computation. In fact, the wisest of us must, for by far the most part, judge like the simplest; estimate importance by mere magnitude, and expect that what strongly affects our own generation, will strongly affect those that are to follow. In this way it is that conquerors and political revo-one; yet so far as present knowledge will enalutionists come to figure as so mighty in their influences; whereas truly there is no class of persons, creating such an uproar in the world, who in the long run produce so very slight an impression on its affairs. When Tamerlane had finished building his pyramid of seventy thousand human skulls, and was seen "standing at the gate Damascus, glittering, in steel, with his battle-axe on his shoulder," till his fierce hosts filed out to new victories and new carnage, the pale onlooker might have fancied that Nature was in her death-throes; for havoc and despair had taken possession of the earth, the sun of manhood seemed setting in seas of blood. Yet, it might be, on that very gala-day of Tamerlane, a little boy was playing ninepins on the streets of Mentz, whose history was more important to men than that of twenty Tamerlanes. The Tartar Khan, with his shaggy demons of the wilderness, "passed away like a whirlwind" to be forgotten for ever; and that German artisan has wrought a benefit, which is yet immeasurably expanding itself, and will continue to expand itself through all countries and through all times. What are the conquests and expeditions of the whole corporation of captains, from Walter the Pennyless to Napoleon Bonaparte, compared with these "movable types" of Johannes Faust? Truly, it is a mortifying thing for your Conqueror to reflect, how perishable is the metal which he hammers with such violence: how the kind earth will soon shroud up his bloody footprints; and all that he achieved and skilfully piled together will be but like his own "canvas city" of a camp,this evening loud with life, to-morrow all struck and vanished, "a few earth-pits and Tacit. Annal. xv. 44. ble us to judge, it may be said, that to abstract Voltaire and his activity from the eighteenth century, were to produce a greater difference in the existing figure of things, than the want of any other individual, up to this day, could have occasioned. Nay, with the single exception of Luther, there is, perhaps, in these modern ages, no other man of a merely intellectual character, whose influence and reputation have become so entirely European as that of Voltaire. Indeed, like the great German Reformer's, his doctrines too, almost from the first, have affected not only the belief of the thinking world, silently propagating themselves from mind to mind; but in a high degree also, the conduct of the active and political world; entering as a distinct element into some of the most fearful civil convulsions which European history has on record. Doubtless, to his own contemporaries, to such of them at least as had any insight into the actual state of men's minds, Voltaire already appeared as a note-worthy and decidedly historical personage: yet, perhaps, not the wildest of his admirers ventured to assign him such a magnitude as he now figures in, even with his adversaries and detractors. He has grown in apparent importance, as we receded from him, as the nature of his endeavours became more and more visible in their results. For, unlike many great men, but like all great agitators, Voltaire everywhere shows himself emphatically as the man of his century: uniting in his own person whatever spiritual accomplishments were most valued by that age; at the same time, with no depth to discern its ulterior tendencies, still less with any magnanimity to attempt withstanding these, his greatness and his littleness alike fitted him to produce an immediate effect; for he leads whither the multi tude was of itself dimly minded to run, and | lish Life of Voltaire; nay, we remember to keeps the van not less by skill in commanding, have seen portions of his writings cited, in terthan by cunning in obeying. Besides, now rorum, and with criticisms, in some pamphlet, that we look on the matter from some distance," by a country gentleman," either on the Eduthe efforts of a thousand coadjutors and disci- cation of the People, or else on the question of ples, nay, a series of mighty political vicissi- Preserving the Game. tudes, in the production of which these efforts had but a subsidiary share, have all come, naturally in such a case, to appear as if exclusively his work; so that he rises before us as the paragon and epitome of a whole spiritual period, now almost passed away, yet remarkable in itself, and more than ever interesting to us, who seem to stand, as it were, on the confines of a new and better one. the world had his veridical Boswell, or leash of Boswells! We could then tolerate his Hawkins also, though not veridical. With regard to Voltaire, in particular, it seems to us not only innocent but profitable, that the whole truth regarding him should be well understood. Surely, the biography of such a man, who, to say no more of him, spent his best efforts, and as many still think, successfully, in assaulting the Christian religion, must be a matter of considerable import; what he did, and what he could not do; how he did it, or attempted it, that is, with what degree of strength, clearness, especially with what moral intents, what theories and feelings on man and man's life, are questions that will bear some With the "Age of the Press," and such manifestations of it on this subject, we are far from quarrelling. We have read great part of these thousand-and-first "Memoirs on Voltaire," by Longchamp and Wagnière, not without satisfaction; and can cheerfully look forward to still other "Memoirs" following in their train. Nothing can be more in the course of nature than the wish to satisfy one's self with knowNay, had we forgotten that ours is the " Age ledge of all sorts about any distinguished perof the Press," when he who runs may not only son, especially of our own era; the true study read, but furnish us with reading; and simply of his character, his spiritual individuality, counted the books, and scattered leaves, thick and peculiar manner of existence, is full of as the autumnal in Vallombrosa, that have been instruction for all mankind: even that of his written and printed concerning this man, we looks, sayings, habitudes, and indifferent acmight almost fancy him the most important tions, were not the records of them generally person, not of the eighteenth century, but of all lies, is rather to be commended; nay, are not the centuries from Noah's flood downwards. such lies themselves, when they keep within We have Lives of Voltaire by friend and by foe: bounds, and the subject of them has been dead Condorcet, Duvernet, Lepan, have each given for some time, equal to snipe-shooting, or Colus a whole; portions, documents, and all manner burn-Novels, at least little inferior in the great of authentic or spurious contributions have art of getting done with life, or, as it is techbeen supplied by innumerable hands; of whichnically called, killing time? For our own we mention only the labours of his various part, we say,-would that every Johnson in secretaries Collini's, published some twenty years ago, and now these two massive octavos from Longchamp and Wagnière. To say nothing of the Baron de Grimm's Collections, unparalleled in more than one respect; or of the six-and-thirty volumes of scurrilous eavesdropping, long since printed under the title of Mémoires de Bachaumont; or of the daily and hourly attacks and defences that appeared separately in his lifetime, and all the judicial pieces, whether in the style of apotheosis or of excommunication, that have seen the light since then; a mass of fugitive writings, the very diamond edition of which might fill whole libraries. The peculiar talent of the French in all narrative, at least in all anecdotic, departments, rendering most of these works ex-discussing. To Voltaire, individually, for the tremely readable, still further favoured their last fifty-one years, the discussion has been circulation, both at home and abroad: so that indifferent enough; and to us it is a discussion now, in most countries, Voltaire has been read not on one remarkable person only, and chiefly of and talked of, till his name and life have for the curious or studious, but involving congrown familiar like those of a village acquaint-siderations of highest moment to all men, and ance. In England, at least, where for almost a century the study of foreign literature has, we may say, confined itself to that of the French, with a slight intermixture from the elder Italians, Voltaire's writings and such writings as treated of him, were little likely to want readers. We suppose, there is no literary era, not even any domestic one, concerning which Englishmen in general have such information, at least have gathered so many anecdotes and opinions, as concerning this of Voltaire. Nor have native additions to the stock been wanting, and these of a due variety in purport and kind: maledic-work, which we can recommend only to such as feel "By Frank Hall Standish, Esq." (London, 1821): a tions, expostulations, and dreadful death-scenes, themselves in extreme want of information on this subpainted like Spanish Sanbenitos, by weak well-ject, and, except in their own language, unable to acquire meaning persons of the hostile class; eulogies, generally of the gayer sort, by open or secret friends all this has been long and extensively carried on among us. There is even an Eng inquiries which the utmost compass of our philosophy will be unable to embrace. Here, accordingly, we are about to offer some further observations on this quæstio vexata; not without hope that the reader may accept them in good part. Doubtless, when we look at the whole bearings of the matter, there seems little prospect of any unanimity respecting it, either now, or within a calculable period: it is probable that many will continue, for a long time, to speak of this "uni and not without considerable indications of talent; to all versal genius," this "apostle of Reason," and "father of sound Philosophy;" and many again of this "monster of impiety," this "sophist," and "atheist," and "ape-demon;" or, like the late Dr. Clarke of Cambridge, dismiss him more briefly with information that he is "a driveller:" neither is it essential that these two parties should, on the spur of the instant, reconcile themselves herein. Nevertheless, truth is better than error, were it only "on Hannibal's vinegar." It may be expected that men's opinions concerning Voltaire, which is of some moment, and concerning Voltairism, which is of almost boundless moment, will, if they cannot meet, gradually at every new comparison approach towards meeting; and what is still more desirable, towards meeting somewhere nearer the truth than they actually stand. With honest wishes to promote such approximation, there is one condition, which, above all others, in this inquiry, we must beg the reader to impose on himself: the duty of fairness towards Voltaire, of Tolerance towards him, as towards all men. This, truly, is a duty, which we have the happiness to hear daily inculcated; yet which, it has been well said, no mortal is at bottom disposed to practise. Nevertheless, if we really desire to understand the truth on any subject, not merely, as is much more common, to confirm our already existing opinions, and gratify this and the other pitiful claim of vanity or malice in respect of it, tolerance may be regarded as the most indispensable of all prerequisites; the condition, indeed, by which alone any real progress in the question becomes possible. In respect of our fellow-men, and all real insight into their characters, this is especially true. No character, we may affirm, was ever rightly understood, till it had first been regarded with a certain feeling, not of tolerance only, but of sympathy. For here, more than in any other case, it is verified that the heart sees farther than the head. Let us be sure, our enemy is not that hateful being we are too apt to paint him. His vices and basenesses lie combined in far other order before his own mind, than before ours; and under colours which palliate them, nay, perhaps, exhibit them as virtues. Were he the wretch of our imagining, his life would be a burden to himself; for it is not by bread alone that the basest mortal lives; a certain approval of conscience is equally essential even to physical existence; is the fine all-pervading cement by which that wondrous union, a Self, is held together. Since the man, therefore, is not in Bedlam, and has not shot or hanged himself, let us take comfort, and conclude that he is one of two things: either a vicious dog, in man's guise, to be muzzled, and mourned over, and greatly marvelled at; or a real man, and, consequently, not without moral worth, which is to be enlightened, and so far approved of. But to judge rightly of his character, we must learn to look at it, not less with his eyes, than with our own; we must learn to pity him, to see him as a fellowcreature, in a word, to love him, or his real spiritual nature will ever be mistaken by us. In interpreting Voltaire, accordingly, it will be needful to bear some things carefully in mind, and to keep many other things as carefully in abeyance. Let us forget that our opinions were ever assailed by him, or ever defended; that we have to thank him, or upbraid him, for pain or for pleasure; let us forget that we are Deists, or Millenarians, Bishops, or Radical Reformers, and remember only that we are men. This is a European subject, or there never was one; and must, if we would in the least comprehend it, be looked at neither from the parish belfry, nor any Peterloo Platform; but, if possible, from some natural and infinitely higher point of vision. It is a remarkable fact, that throughout the last fifty years of his life, Voltaire was seldom or never named, even by his detractors, without the epithet "great" being appended to him; so that, had the syllables suited such a junction, as they did in the happier case of CharleMagne, we might almost have expected that, not Voltaire, but Voltaire-ce-grand-homme would be his designation with posterity. However, posterity is much more stinted in its allowances on that score; and a multitude of things remain to be adjusted, and questions of very dubious issue to be gone into, before such coronation titles can be conceded with any permanence. The million, even the wiser part of them, are apt to lose their discretion, when "tumultuously assembled;" for a small object, near at hand, may subtend a large angle; and often a Pennenden Heath has been mistaken for a Field of Runnymede; whereby the couplet on that immortal Dalhousie proves to be the emblem of many a man's real fortune with the public: And thou, Dalhousie, the great God of war, the latter end corresponding poorly with the beginning. To ascertain what was the true significance of Voltaire's history, both as respects himself and the world; what was his specific character and value as a man; what has been the character and value of his influence on society, of his appearance as an active agent in the culture of Europe; all this leads us into much deeper investigations; on the settlement of which, however, the whole business turns. To our own view, we confess, on looking at Voltaire's life, the chief quality that shows itself is one for which adroitness seems the fitter name. Greatness implies several conditions, the existence of which, in his case, it might be difficult to demonstrate; but of his claim to this other praise there can be no disputing. Whatever be his aims, high or low, just or the contrary, he is at all times, and to the utmost degree, expert in pursuing them. It is to be observed, moreover, that his aims in general were not of a simple sort, and the attainment of them easy: few literary men have had a course so diversified with vicissitudes as Voltaire's. His life is not spent in a corner, like that of a studious recluse, but on the open theatre of the world; in an age full of commotion, when society is rending itself asunder, Superstition already armed for deadly battle against Unbelief; in which battle he himself plays a distinguished part. From his earliest years, we find him in perpetual com munication with the higher personages of | rion-like, his keen, innumerable shafts; anon, his time, often with the highest: it is in circles when danger is advancing, flies to obscure of authority, of reputation, at lowest, of fashion nooks; or, if taken in the fact, swears it was and rank, that he lives and works. Ninon debut in sport, and that he is the peaceablest of l'Enclos leaves the boy a legacy to buy books; men. He bends to occasion; can, to a certain he is still young, when he can say of his supper extent, blow hot or blow cold; and never atcompanions, "We are all Princes or Poets." tempts force, where cunning will serve his In after life, he exhibits himself in company turn. The beagles of the Hierarchy and of or correspondence with all manner of princi- the Monarchy, proverbially quick of scent, and palities and powers, from Queen Caroline of sharp of tooth, are out in quest of him; but this England to the Empress Catherine of Russia, is a lion-fox which cannot be captured. By from Pope Benedict to Frederic the Great. wiles and a thousand doublings, he utterly disMeanwhile, shifting from side to side of Europe, tracts his pursuers; he can burrow in the hiding in the country, or living sumptuously earth, and all trace of him is gone. With a in capital cities, he quits not his pen, with strange system of anonymity and publicity, of which, as with some enchanter's rod, more denial and assertion, of Mystification in all potent than any king's sceptre, he turns and senses, has Voltaire surrounded himself. He winds the mighty machine of European Opi- can raise no standing armies for his defence, nion; approves himself, as his schoolmaster yet he too is a "European power," and not had predicted, the Coryphée du Déisme; and, undefended; an invisible, impregnable, though not content with this elevation, strives, and hitherto unrecognised bulwark, that of Public nowise ineffectually, to unite with it a poetical, Opinion, defends him. With great art, he historical, philosophic, and even scientific pre- maintains this stronghold; though ever and eminence. Nay, we may add, a pecuniary anon sallying out from it, far beyond the perone; for he speculates in the funds, diligently mitted limits. But he has his coat of darkness, solicits pensions and promotions, trades to and his shoes of swiftness, like that other America, is long a regular victualling-contrac- Killer of Giants. We find Voltaire a supple tor for armies; and thus, by one means and courtier, or a sharp satirist; he can talk blasanother, independently of literature, which phemy, and build churches, according to the would never yield much money, raises his in- signs of the times. Frederic the Great is not come from 800 francs a-year to more than too high for his diplomacy, nor the poor Princentuple that sum. And now, having, besides ter of his Zadig too low; he manages the all this commercial and economical business, Cardinal Fleuri, and the Curé of St. Sulpice; written some thirty quartos, the most popular and laughs in his sleeve at all the world. We that were ever written, he returns after long should pronounce him to be one of the best exile to his native city, to be welcomed there al- politicians on record; as we have said, the most as a religious idol; and closes a life, pros- adroitest of all literary men. perous alike in the building of country-seats, and the composition of Henriades and Philosophical Dictionaries, by the most appropriate demise; by drowning, as it were, in an ocean of applause, so that as he lived for fame, he may be said to have died of it. At the same time, Voltaire's worst enemies, it seems to us, will not deny that he had naturally a keen sense for rectitude, indeed, for all virtue: the utmost vivacity of temperament characterizes him; his quick susceptibility for every form of beauty is moral as well as in- \ Such various, complete success, granted tellectual. Nor was his practice without inonly to a small portion of men in any age of dubitable and highly creditable proofs of this. the world, presupposes, at least, with every To the help-needing he was at all times a allowance for good fortune, an almost un-ready benefactor: many were the hungry adrivalled expertness of management. There must have been a great talent of some kind at work here: a cause proportionate to the effect. It is wonderful, truly, to observe with what perfect skill Voltaire steers his course through so many conflicting circumstances: how he weathers this Cape Horn, darts lightly through that Mahlstrom; always either sinks his enemy, or shuns him; here waters, and careens, and traffics with the rich savages; there lies land-locked till the hurricane is overblown; and so, in spite of all billows, and sea-monsters, and hostile fleets, finishes his long Manilla voyage, with streamers flying, and deck piled with ingots! To say nothing of his literary character, of which this same dexterous address will also be found to be a main feature, let us glance only at the general aspect of his conduct, as manifested both in his writings and actions. By turns, and ever at the right season, he is imperious and obsequious; now shoots abroad, from the mountain tops, Hype * See Tome ii. p. 328 of these Mémoires. venturers who profited of his bounty, and then bit the hand that had fed them. If we enumerate his generous acts, from the case of the Abbé Desfontaines down to that of the widow Calas, and the Serfs of Saint Claude, we shall find that few private men have had so wide a circle of charity, and have watched over it so well. Should it be objected that love of reputation entered largely into these proceedings, Voltaire can afford a handsome deduction on that head: should the uncharitable even calculate that love of reputation was the sole motive, we can only remind them that love of such reputation is itself the effect of a social, humane disposition; and wish, as an immense and rather ridiculous account in this work, by Long* Of one such "taking to cover," we have a curious champ. It was with the Duchess du Maine that he sought shelter, and on a very slight occasion: nevertheof Sceaux; and, with closed windows, and burning candles in daylight, compose Zadig, Babouc, Memnon, &c., for his amusement. less he had to lie perdue, for two months, at the Castle See in Longchamp (pp. 154-163) how by natural legerdemain, a knave may be caught, and the change rendu à des imprimeurs infidèles. |