VOLTAIRE. 133 



handling of pious topics, all his assaults upon things 

 which should have been sacred from rude touch, as 

 well as his adherence with unrestrained zeal to some 

 of the most erroneous tenets of the Romish faith all 

 are forgiven, nay, forgotten, in contemplating the man 

 of whom we can say "He broke our chains." Un- 

 happily the bad parts of Voltaire's writings are not 

 only placed as it were in a setting by the graces of 

 his style, so that we unwillingly cast them aside, but 

 embalmed for conservation in the spirit of his immor- 

 tal wit. But if ever the time shall arrive when men, 

 intent solely on graver matters, and bending their 

 whole minds to things of solid importance, shall be 

 careless of such light accomplishments, and the writ- 

 ings which now have so great a relish, more or less 

 openly tasted, shall pass into oblivion, then the im- 

 pression which this great genius has left will remain ; 

 and while his failings are forgotten, and the influence 

 of his faults corrected, the world, wiser and better 

 because he lived, will continue still to celebrate his 



name.* 



ribaldry the most filthy his conflicts against the devil. Nothing in 

 Rabelais is more coarse. Indeed these are passages unexampled in any 

 printed book ; but the original sermon must be consulted, for no 

 translator would soil his page with them, and accordingly Audin 

 and others give them only by allusion and circumlocution. * Titzen- 

 Rede,' p. 306 and 464, must itself be resorted to if we would see 

 how the great Reformer wrote and spoke. His allowing the Land- 

 grave of Hesse to marry a second wife while the first was living, 

 and the grounds of the permission, are well known ; and the attempt 

 to deny this passage of his life is an entire failure. 



* The edition of Voltaire referred to in this ' Life' is that of 

 Baudouin, at Paris, 1828, in 75 volumes. 



