MEN OF LETTERS 



OF THE 



TIME OF GEORGE III. 



VOLTAIRE. 



THIS name is so intimately connected in the minds of 

 all men with infidelity, in the minds of most men with 

 irreligion, and, in the minds of all who are not well- 

 informed, with these qualities alone, that whoever 

 undertakes to write his life and examine his claims to 

 the vast reputation which all the hostile feelings 

 excited by him against himself have never been able 

 to destroy, or even materially to impair, has to labour 

 under a great load of prejudice, and can hardly expect, 

 by any detail of particulars, to obtain for his subject 

 even common justice at the hands of the general 

 reader. It becomes, therefore, necessary, in the outset, 

 to remove a good deal of misunderstanding which, 

 from the popular abuse of language, creates great con- 

 fusion, in considering the history and weighing the 

 merits of this extraordinary person. 



The mention of Voltaire at once presents to every 

 one the idea, not so much of a philosopher whose early 

 inquiries have led him to doubt upon the foundations 

 of religion, or even to disbelieve its truths, as of a 

 bitter enemy to all belief in the evidence of things 



B 



