[kdgar] SHELLEY'S DEBT TO XVIII. CENTURY THOUGHT 191 



the rapid growth of 'radicalism in France, Voltaire's radicalism was 

 never, it is true, displayed in the field of politics, but in matters of 

 faith and religion his scepticism has not in recent times, at least, been 

 stamped as timid and ineffectual. 



But in politics and in religion the advanced position was held by 

 Diderot and his fellow Encyclopaedists. 'They gave no quarter and 

 they asked for none, and blithely hurled their shot and shell into the 

 broken ranks of a retreating enemy. Their victory was cheaply won. 

 The stronghold of orthodoxy in France was well nigh defenceless. In 

 the ranks of the clergy only the name of the Abbé Guenée is to be noted, 

 and after the death of d'Aguesscau in 1751 the orthodox laity was 

 defenceless for half a century, until Joseph de Maistre raised his voice 

 in protest against a godless age. 



It is interesting to note under what different conditions the contest 

 was waged in England. There the intellectual forces of the nation 

 were arrayed on the side of orthodoxy. Swift poured out the vials of 

 a more than Voltairan irony upon the enemies of the church. Pope 

 pilloried the hapless rank and file in the pages of the Dunciad. Johnson 

 swelled large with vituperative scorn when sacrilege approached. The 

 greater philosophical minds of the century also lent their powerful aid 

 in support of the established faith — the sagacious Bentley, Berkeley, 

 keenest of English metaphysicians, and Locke, the intellectual law- 

 giver of the day. The only notable names that grace the other side 

 were Shaftesbury, Mandeville and finally Bolingbroke, whose attack was 

 wanting in vigour and directness. 



In the sphere of politics, also, radicalism growled in corners. The 

 accretion of generations had developed a constitution which foreigners 

 viewed with envy. The fierce disputes of the preceding century were 

 at an end, and a corrupt oligarchy, called parliament, shared the sup- 

 remacy of power with a king no less corrupt. Whig and Tory sipped 

 their port in their armchairs, and political enthusiasm was reserved for 

 a loyal little band of Scotsmen, who did not indeed make the air 

 resound with abstract political theories, yet knew how to fight and die 

 for a despairing cause. 



Turn we to France where the seed wafted across the Channel in the 

 earlier days of the century was germinating for a bloody harvest. 



The Germans have accused the French Encyclopaedia philosophers 

 of shallowness, of a desire to popularize and disseminate incendiary 

 ideas. They stand open to the charge. In the XVIIT. century, litera- 

 ture was a weapon. Beauty and depth were little prized beside a 

 trenchant clearness of expression. In art the importance of these 



