preceded by a sentence of excommunication, or a secular judgment, and even an appeal might have been made against an excommunication, as a matter of abuse. Voltaire's family, by complaining to the parliament, would have obtained justice; but they feared the fanaticism of that body and the hatred of its members to Voltaire, who had so often combatted its pretensions, and exerted his powers against its injustice. They did not perceive that the parliament could not, without disgrace to itself, depart from the principles on which it had acted in favour of the Jansenists; they did not know that a great number of the young magistrates waited only for an occasion of effacing, by some splendid act, the reproach of fanaticism by which they were degraded, by dignifying themselves, by ordaining a mark of respect to the memory of a man of genius whom they had been unfortunate enough to number among their enemies, and of showing that they chose rather to atone for their injustice, than to yield to any incitements of vengeance. The friends of Voltaire did not observe how much power they had acquired by that enthusiasm which his name had excited; an enthusiasm which had gained every class in the nation, and which no authority would venture openly to insult.

They chose rather to negotiate with government. Daring neither to offend pubhe opinion by gratifying the vengeance of the clergy, nor to displease the priests by compelling them to obey the laws; fearing to mortify sacerdotal pride should they erect a public monument to a great man whose ashes were basely disturbed by priests: or should they indemnify his memory for the loss of ecclesiastic honours, to which he had so little claim, by civic honours due to his genius and the services he had done the nation, ministers approved a proposal which was made of removing Voltaire's body to the church of a monastery, of which his nephew was abbé. It was accordingly conducted to Scellières, and the priests agreed not to interrupt the execution of this design. However, two ladies, of distinguished rank and very great devotees, wrote to the Bishop of Troyes, to engage him, in quality of diocesan bishop, to oppose the burial. But, fortunately for the honour of the bishop, these letters arrived too late, and Voltaire was interred.

We will here insert a letter from one of his physicians-with the remarks that accompany it, taken from the preface to Sir T. C. Morgan's "Philosophy of Morals," page 27, and which will at once demolish the innumerable lies promulgated by the religious world concerning the death of this celebrated philosopher.

(TRANSLATION OF dr. burard's letter.)

"I feel happy in having it in my power, by rendering homage to truth, to overthrow the lying accounts that have been spread abroad with regard to the last moments of Voltaire. I was by my profession one of those who were appointed to mark the progress of his disease. (along with Doctors Tronchin Lorry, and Try, his physicians); I did not quit him a single instant during his last moments, and I can certify that we always observed in him the same strength of character, although, in consequence of his disorder, he must have experienced extreme suffering. We had absolutely prohibited him to speak, in order that he might avoid the progress of a spitting of blood with which he was afflicted; yet even then he continued constantly to communicate with us by means of cards, on which he wrote his questions: to these our answers were verbally given; and if we did not give him satisfaction, he still continued his observations in writing. He preserved therefore his intellects to the last moment, and the foolish stories which have been published, merit the greatest contempt.

"It cannot even be said that any person has related this or that circumstance of his death, as having been an actual witness; for, towards his end, all access to his

chamber was absolutely denied to any person whatever. Those who came to inquire the state of his health, remained in the anti-chamber or other apartments. The discourse which has been put into the mouth of Marshal Richelieu, must therefore be as counterfeit as the rest. He died on the 30th of May, 1778.

Paris, April 3, 1819.

Signed BURARD. Physician.

"This statement of Dr. Burard was confirmed to me in all its particulars by Madame la Marquise de Villette, Voltaire's adopted daughter, who was likewise about his person during his last moments. The origin of such stories as those here related, is easy to comprehend. If true, they prove only that a man, worn out by disease, has not the same force of character as when in the plentitude of health. But true or false, they are perfectly suited to the mental calibre of gossipping bigots, who measure humanity in all its aspects by the standard of their own impertinent imbecility; and who arrive at the pleasure of a strong sensation, through a strain upon their limited imaginations, to which they could never attain through their still more limited understanding.".

The French academy had observed a custom of saying mass at the church of the Cordeliers for each of their deceased members. The Archbishop of Paris, Beaumont, so well known by his ignorance and fanaticism, prohibited the performance of the ceremony. The Cordeliers obeyed with regret, for they knew that the confessors of the archbishop would pardon his spirit of revenge, and would forbear to recommend justice to him. The academy, therefore, resolved to suspend the practice of this ceremony till the insult offered to the most illustrious of its members should be repaired. Thus Beaumont became, in spite of himself, the instrument of destroying a ridiculous superstition.

Meanwhile, the King of Prussia commanded a solemn mass to be said for Voltaire in the Catholic church of Berlin; and the academy of Prussia was invited to attend. But that which was more glorious to Voltaire, was, that the king-in the field of battle, where at the head of a hundred and fifty thousand men he defended the rights of the princes of the empire and imposed laws on the Austrian powerwrote the eulogium of that illustrious man, whose disciple and friend he had been, and who perhaps had never pardoned him the unworthy and disgraceful violence which he had endured at Frankfort, but towards whom the monarch was incessantly and involuntarily led by his natural taste and his admiration of genius.

Government, in some degree ashamed of its feeble conduct, hoped to escape public contempt by prohibiting the naming of Voltaire in any writings, or in those places where the police was accustomed to violate the freedom of speech, under the pretence of preserving order, which it too often confounded with a respect paid to established and protected follies.

The public papers were forbidden to speak of his death; and the comedians had orders to perform none of his pieces. Ministers did not discover that means like these, of preventing the anger of the nation against their weakness, would only serve more fully to provoke it; and to demonstrate that they had neither courage to ment the approbation, nor to support the blame of the public.

This simple recital of the incidents of the life of Voltaire has sufficiently developed his character and his mind; the principal features of which were benevolence, indulgence for human foibles, and a hatred of injustice and oppression. He may be numbered among the very few men in whom the love of humanity was a real passion; which, the noblest of all passions, was known only to modern times, and

took rise from the progress of knowledge. Its very existence is sufficient to confound the blind partisans of antiquity, and those who calumniate philosophy.

But the happy qualities of Voltaire were often perverted by his natural restlessness, which the writing of tragedy had but increased. In an instant he would change from anger to affection, from indignation to a jest. Born with violent passions, they often hurried him too far; and his restlessness deprived him of the advantages which usually accompany such minds; particularly of that fortitude to which fear is no obstacle, when action becomes a duty, and which is not shaken by the presence of danger foreseen. Often would Voltaire expose himself to the storm with rashness, but rarely did he brave it with constancy; and these intervals, of temerity and weakness, have frequently afflicted his friends, and afforded unworthy cause of triumph to his cowardly foes.

His affections were permanent; and his friendship for Génonville, the President de Maisons, Formont, Cideville, the Marchioness du Châtelet, d'Argental, and d'Alembert, seldom obscured by passing clouds, ended only with his life. From his works, we discover that few men of feeling have so long preserved the remembrance of friends lost in early youth.

He has been reproached with his numerous disputes, but in none of these was he the aggressor. His enemies-those at least to whom he was irreconcilable, and whom he devoted to the world's contempt-did not confine themselves to personal attacks; they were his accusers to the fanatics, and wished to bring down the sword of persecution on his head. It is no doubt afflicting to be obliged to place in this list men of real merit; men like the poet Rousseau, the two Pompignans, Larcher, and even Rousseau of Geneva. But is it not more excusable to carry Vengeance too far, in self-defence, and to be unjust in the indulgence of anger, the first motive of which is founded in rectitude, than to violate the rights of man by endangering the freedom and safety of a citizen, to gratify pride, the aims of bypocrisy, or an obstinate attachment to opinions?

Voltaire has been censured for his attacks on Maupertuis; but were not these attacks confined to the mere act of rendering a man eternally ridiculous, who, by base intrigues, had endeavoured to dishonour and ruin him; and who, to revenge some jests, had called the power of a king, irritated by his insinuous arts, to his aid!

Voltaire, it is said, was envious; which has been answered by the following line from Tancred:

De qui dans l'univers peut-il etre jalouse?

[Does the world contain a man whom he might envy ?]

Three quarters of a century have now elapsed since the death of Voltaire, and his name is still loaded with the most opprobrious epithets and the most pious curses that the advocates of eternal hell and damnation can invent, in order to deter their dupes from reading his pages or examining his opinions. Whoever reads the work to which these observations are preliminary-"The Philosophical Dictionary,”will see that they have ample reason for so doing; inasmuch as whoever peruses these pages will have his eyes opened-will be able to see for himself, and will immediately cast off with contempt those black slugs who have too long feasted and fattened upon his fears, his ignorance, or his imbecility. Having been the man who baffled the odious vices of superstition, intolerance, and bigotry, while living, bis memory is pursued with proportionate malice and falsehood by those who are the legitimate representatives of those vices since his death. Every puling fanatic can dwell upon his personal failing, and every political alarmist attribute to a writer whose ever-fertile brain was in eternal exercise against the vilest atrocities of priest

craft or religion and tyranny or government, the re-action of violence which in the fullness of time they engendered. This observation is made in relation to the monstrous injustice of attributing the horrors of a revolution of unparalleled magnitude to the works of a writer whose only object was unlimited toleration in all matters which concerned the mental and bodily freedom of his countrymen. They reckon as nothing the oppression and misery of eight hundred years. It is true, the writings of Voltaire had some influence upon the leaders of the French Revolution after they had obtained power; but that was only upon questions of a theoretical nature, and not such as to affect the welfare of the great masses of the community. Those who labour, have no time to think. They must take for granted as true those doctrinal theories which they are told will regulate their happiness hereafter, and it is not till they are perishing for hunger that they will rise against those whom God hath set over them. No books, no writings, ever yet produced a rebellion in any country upon earth. And see how unanimous all shades of sectarianism agree in plundering the industrious and producing classes of the fruits of their labour; and with what a discordant yell they all as with one mouth assail the man of liberality who shall have the audacity to expose the horrible lies which are palmed upon the world in the names of Christianity and true religion. This Voltaire did; and to do this, without endangering his own existence, he was obliged to have recourse to those subterfuges which a despotic state of society compels every man to adopt who has not resolution enough to be ruined, nor courage to die a martyr. Voltaire did not possess nerve enough to adopt either of these alternatives. All he wished, was to be let alone. He declared that he died Catholic, in order to be allowed to die quietly. He had the Extreme Unction administered in his retreat at Ferney, in order to oppose the furious malice of his enemies. Let us suppose that Voltaire did not believe in the obscene mystery of the Holy Incarnation; let us suppose that he could hardly bring his powerful mind to place credence in the Holy Eucharist; and that he doubted whether One God was Three Gods, and still not Three Gods, but only One, being Three all the time. Whoever believeth not in these things shall be damned. He shall be burnt in hell everlastingly. There shall be a devil to roast and perpetually torment him. And shall a man like Voltaire, who had an undaunted mind but a nervous temperament, be blamed for succumbing for a moment to the ferocious and cruel superstition which was too powerful for him, and to resist which needed the succour of potentates and kings of too liberal minds to see the future consequences of their assistance. It was necessary that he should seek shelter beneath the mass that he was endeavouring to undermine. And he seemed especially born for the task he undertook. Did we believe in a special Providence, we should say he was sent from heaven to espouse the cause of humanity, of toleration, and of justice. In the time of Voltaire, to preach up toleration was a daring act, when we know that the word itself is but a tacit acquiescence in the right to deny or to refuse. But Voltaire obtained a great triumph. A right once granted it is difficult to take away, and thus far he did the greatest possible good to humanity in general. The warmth with which he espoused the cause of the unhappy Calas family will ever be remembered to his glory. Let it not be forgotten, that in the time of Voltaire the cause of freedom seemed hopeless; no one seemed to have courage and opportunity to Shake the slumbering and inert mass that lay as it were trampled and crushed under the feet of their oppressors. In France, it was consolidated under two powers the throne and the clergy; there was no aristocracy, as in England, that could occasionally be independent for the sake of acquiring popularity: all seemed barren and sterile. At this period appeared Voltaire. Removed by fortune from

the precarious existence which men of letters were forced to seek from the bounties of the rich, he could afford to be independent; and hence one cause of the vehement hostility with which he was assailed when living. It was then, as it is now in many places, thought to be disgraceful to earn a subsistence by labour, whether mental or bodily. The vile servility of the learned spoke in strong contrast to the boldness and independence of Voltaire. His writings caused an electric shock throughout France, which was communicated to the remotest region of Europeand their effects are seen and felt to the present day.

It has already been observed that, in the estimation of a public character, a due consideration must be had for the period in which he lived, and of the nature of the society amidst which he was reared. Voltaire was in his twentieth year when Louis XIV. died, and consequently his very precocious adolescence was spent during the reign of that pompous and celebrated actor of majesty. How was that season characterised as to morals and the tone of Parisian good company, an epitome of the private life of Louis himself will tell. When youthful, he debauched one or two of his mother's maids of honour, and his amours as he advanced were abundant, according to the routine of their most Christian majesties in general. One or two of these affairs, independently of the last, were very characteristic; but the chief circumstance to be regarded, is the solemn self-engrossment of the man and the formality and etiquette with which he surrounded even his vices and impurities. In fact, the concubinage of the throne, under both him and his successor, was in a manner legitimated upon a sort of Mahometan principle; the priesthood making as little objection as any one else no doubt because their privileges and revenues remained untouched, or were even extended by it as the sultans grew older. The decorum and air of state with which Louis sinned, was rather edifying than scandalous; and his subjects very faithfully copied the grand monarque. Gallantry Decame the order of the day throughout France, with a great abatement of the chivalrous sentiment which attended it under the regency of Anne of Austria, but still exempt from the more gross sensuality which succeeded Louis under the regency of the Duke of Orleans. When Voltaire entered life, Louis was all devotion and exclusive Madame de Maintenon; and as his glory, as it was called, had exceedingly abated, the youth of his dominions were beginning to look for other models and manners. Still a portion of this well-assorted decency and libertinism abounded, and the first thing we hear of the education of Voltaire is, that a very agreeable abbé the Abbé Chateauneuf-taught him to repeat the fables of La Fontaine and a sceptical poem of J. B. Rousseau as soon as he could speak, and at the age of fifteen introduced him to the celebrated Ninon de l'Enclos-the said abbé having been the last of her hundred and fifty lovers. Now all this was mere accident or routine in France; and yet, there are people who will dwell upon the levity and libertinism of Voltaire, and its desperate consequences, who would not hazard a word upon the dissolute framework of the society which formed him, because that would show at once both the source of his feelings and of the general disorder which engendered the revolution. The boasted reign of Louis, in fact, was signalised by the most flagitious immorality from the court downwards; which immorality was very poorly covered towards the close by a species of factitious devotion, which only added to the disgust of those who penetrated beyond the surface. The morals of the regency were a little better or a little worse just as the reader may be disposed to prefer impudence or hypocrisy, unblushing vice, or "the homage which vice pays to virtue." In England, this plated surface is preferred. But letting this pass, it is certain that a brilliant, highly-gifted young man, like Voltaire, who moved in the high tide of Parisian society, must necessarily be imbued with the levity and