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and the vulgar, to be desirable, they did not come into conflict with the | hierarchy, and thus while the devoted Jansenists and Huguenots were Philosophy persecuted, the deist and atheist could safely publish their speculations in England. under the shield of outward conformity.

In England, even during the rebellion, Pym had been one who had cast off faith, but he does not seem to have been more than an ungodly man solely occupied with material things, and not attempting philosophy.

John Locke, a student of Christchurch, Oxford, was by no means sceptical, though his opinions were what are now called broad. He was a Somersetshire man, and lived from 1632 to 1704. He was a great friend of the Earl of Shaftesbury, who even employed him in choosing a wife for his son. He followed his patron into exile, and only returned to England on the death of that nobleman, but he was obliged to flee once more on a suspicion of being implicated in Monmouth's rebellion, and James II. illegally deprived him of his studentship. Penn offered to get a pardon for him, but, as he had never been guilty, he refused the offer. Nor, though he returned to England after the Revolution, could he obtain Restoration at Oxford, though he had a situation on the Board of Trade. He spent his later days at Oates, the house of Sir Francis Masham, and died while Lady Masham (not Queen Anne's friend) was reading the Psalms to him. His great works were the "Essay on the Human Understanding" and the "Treatise on Education," both of which had an immense and increasing influence on opinion both in England and France, the first on metaphysical thought, the last on education.

Sir Isaac Newton, the giant of physical science, was a sincere believer, though not orthodox, but Lord Bolingbroke, in his levity and shallowness, was an unbeliever. The great Bishop, Joseph Butler, was the Christian philosopher of his day in England, and his grand "Analogy of Nature and Revelation" has been a valuable study and text-book ever since.

In France, however, destructive reasoning was less adequately met, for persecution crushed independent thought in theology, and besides, the attacks on faith were less open. Bayle, who wavered between Protestantism and Catholicism, and Descartes had both been metaphysical writers of much repute, but not sceptical; and the Baron de Montesquieu, bred to the law and holding office in the Parliament of Bordeaux, was a very powerful and original thinker, though chiefly on practical matters. His "Lettres Persaunes," which were the supposed correspondence of two Persians visiting Paris, and describing the manners and the whole corrupt system, made a great impression, and the style was much admired. There was a good deal of satire on the evils in the Church, which caused much objection to be made to his election as a member of the Academy, but he was not an unbeliever, and was an earnest man, who really thought for the good of his country. A very different person was coming on the scene.

François Marie Arouet was born in 1694, and was son to a notary at Paris. He was educated at the college of Louis le Grand, by the Jesuit fathers, who were viewed as the best of teachers, intellectually as well as religiously. They already saw through the lad. His irreverence made one of the teachers spring from his desk, take him by the collar, and say, "Unhappy boy, one day you will be the standard of deism in France." And another, who was his confessor, said, "That boy is devoured by thirst for celebrity."

His cleverness, however, won him distinction, and when his snuffbox was confiscated because he handed it about in class, he sent in such a droll lamentation in verse that it was restored.

He declared that literature should be his profession, though his father told him that it was that of a man who was "useless to society, a burthen to his friends, and sure to be starved to death," and forced him to study the law, or rather, to pretend to do so, for he led a dissipated life among noblemen who were diverted by his satirical

verses.

At last an insolent poem on the Regent caused him to be exiled to Sully-sur-Loire, where he found congenial friends, and amused himself till he thought it worth while to write another epistle in verse to the Regent, which brought him back, but only to offend again.

"M. Arouet," said the Duke, "I am going to give you a sight that you have never seen."

"What, monseigneur ?"

"The Bastile."

And there he was in two days' time, and stayed there a month, beginning a poem on the Wars of the League which he finished later, and called "The Henriade." When he came out he was ordered to stay at a little estate named Chatenay, and he decided on calling himself Voltaire, instead of Arouet, after another part of the property.

He began to write tragedies and comedies with varying success, and interspersed with sneers at the Church, the clergy, and government, and made friends with Bolingbroke, a congenial spirit; but just at this juncture an adventure befel him, like that of Dryden with the Duke of Buckingham. It was the brutal custom of the nobility, when affronted by a person not of high birth enough to be challenged, to cause their bravos to seize and beat him.

"What would become of us if poets had not shoulders?" said Caumartin, the unworthy Bishop of Blois.

Voltaire and the Chevalier de Rohan Chabot had a sharp quarrel at the Opera. A day or two after, as the former was leaving a dinnerparty at the Duke of Sully's, he was set upon by two men, was belaboured furiously, the Chevalier looking on and calling out

“Do not hit him on the head, something good may come from it." The victim stumbled back into the house half dead, and sought for means of retribution, sending a challenge to his enemy; but the day before the encounter he was seized upon by the police and again thrown

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Voltaire.

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into the Bastile! When released, he was conducted to Calais, having asked as a favour to be allowed to visit England. Actually he instantly Philosophy rushed back to Paris to seek his enemy, who was not to be found. So in Prussia. he accomplished his English visit, and was introduced by Lord Bolingbroke to Pope and Swift. He stayed in England three years, during which he wrote several plays, and his best work, the "History of Charles XII. of Sweden.” He published these on his return to France, and likewise his "" Philosophical Letters upon England,” a book full of light mockery, often quizzing the English, but always giving the preference to their institutions over the French, extolling Locke above Descartes, and, moreover, full of attacks upon religion, somewhat veiled, but enough to put Cardinal Fleury on his guard, and the book was burnt, while Voltaire took refuge at Basle.

He had begun to be considered the leader of free thought in Europe, and the young Frederick, the heir of Prussia, was his enthusiastic admirer, while the stern old drill sergeant of a King, Frederick William I., regarded alike with horror freethinking and effeminacy. His son's flute and his French books were equally abhorrent to him, and his only notion of a cure was by almost savage severity. To find "Fritz" reading or writing with his sister Wilhelmina was an offence requited with blows and coarse abuse, and the whole family, Queen, princesses, and all, lived in a state of terror of the rude, brutal father.

At seventeen, Frederick, with his friend Captain Katt, could bear it no longer, and tried to escape to some foreign country, but his plans were betrayed, and they were pursued and brought back to Potsdam. Frederick stood before his father, covering his face with his hands, and not speaking. The King flew at him, struck him on the face, pulled out his hair, and reviled him as a deserter devoid of honour.

"I have as much honour as yourself," returned Frederick. "You would have done like me, if you had been treated in the same way."

On this the king drew his sword, and was barely restrained from killing him on the spot. The two lads were tried by court-martial as deserters, and Katt was condemned, though the officers would not sentence the heir-apparent. Frederick was shut up in a fortress, and held by force at the window by four grenadiers that he might see his friend shot in the court below. They signed their leave-taking, the muskets were fired and Katt fell. Frederick, in consequence, fell violently ill, and would neither eat nor swallow medicine till he was persuaded to do so for the sake of his mother and sister. Nothing but religious books were allowed him during his imprisonment, which lasted for a year, and his only visitors were pastors who tried to argue with him. On their favourable report, his father suddenly released him and brought him back to Potsdam in the midst of the festivities for his sister's marriage with the Markgraf of Bayreuth, when without the least warning his mother found him standing behind her chair and almost fainted away. Wilhelmina was dancing, when the Prime Minister

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Grumkow came up to her saying, “Madame, one would think you were bitten by a tarantula. Do you not see those strangers?" After this "the rascal Fritz" was allowed a little more freedom of Montesquieu. action. The old King's violence had not brought religion in favour with him, it had only taught him to avoid giving offence, and he lived in a world of his own, imitating the French as much as he dared, and keeping up a secret correspondence with the object of his hero-worship. Voltaire, had, however, returned to France, and was living at Cirey, with the Marquise Emilie des Châtelet, a clever, lively, conceited woman, whom he had fascinated to the oblivion of all duty and propriety. There metaphysics were talked, tales and plays written; he even dedicated one called Mahomet to the Pope, by way of cover to its audacity, and Benedict XIV. accepted it, probably without knowing much about it. He did not form one of the many systems of philosophy, but cast darts at religion on the wings of wit and irony-and these told the more from his being a perfect master of his own language, and likewise of no mean power as a historian-in the memoirs of Charles XII., of Peter the Great, and his Siècle de Louis XIV.

Montesquieu had gone to visit various countries, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, and finally spent two years in England, greatly admiring her constitution, and declaring in his journal that the French ambassadors understood it no better than a child of six months old, and that England was the most free country in the world. He published letters upon it, going as far in its praise as was any way prudent, and then wrote another study, "Sur la Grandeur et Décadence des Romains," dwelling of course on the liberty of Rome in its prime. Lastly he applied himself to a grand study and work which occupied him for twenty years, “L'Esprit des Lois," going deep into the principles of society and justice. The motto was Prolem sine matre creatam (an offspring created without a mother). When asked the meaning of this, he replied, "When a considerable book is written, genius is the father, and liberty the mother. Therefore I wrote on my title-page, Prolem sine matre creatam." And as the book would never have escaped the censorship of the press in France, he printed it at Geneva; but it was not finished till 1750.

Here then were the earlier stages of the great revolt against the tyranny over all expression of thought which had been established in France. The forces were pent up but were indestructible, and smouldered on, gaining strength and development through two successive generations till the fearful outbreak at the close of the century.

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The

IN the midst of the peace there were fresh seeds of war springing up. Charles VI., Emperor, the same who had contended with Philip V. for the crown of Spain, had no son, only two daughters. His elder Pragmatic brother, Joseph I., had likewise left only two daughters, and Charles Sanction. had succeeded because a male was preferred—succeeded, that is to say, to the hereditary possessions of the house of Hapsburg, Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia—for the Empire was still bestowed by election, though as it had been given to a Hapsburg ever since the fifteenth century, it had come to be regarded as a sort of right.

1722.

The daughters of Joseph ought in all justice to have come before the daughters of Charles, but in 1722 Charles obtained from the Diet of the Empire what was termed a Pragmatic Sanction-from the Greek word Pragma an action, being in fact the consent of the Empire to a deed not otherwise valid.

George I., as Elector of Hanover, was necessarily a party to this arrangement, as was also his son-in-law, Frederick William I., King of Prussia, who had succeeded to the throne in 1713, and showed himself no bad sovereign nor irreligious man, though his habits and views were more like those of a private soldier than of a prince of the highest lineage. He was devoted to his army, and kept it in the highest state of efficiency. Indeed, he had an absolute mania for his tall grenadiers. A man of large stature was never safe, even in other states, from being kidnapped to form one of the corps, and even large well-grown girls were seized to become one of their wives.

He had a bitter dislike to his brother-in-law, George II., and even broke off a proposed match between Frederick, Prince of Wales, and his daughter Wilhelmina, whom he gave to the Markgraf of Bayreuth, to