VOLTAIRE. 129 



be forgotten his whole frame was animated what 

 eloquence, mixed with spirit the finest strokes of 

 raillery the greatest elegance of language the 

 utmost sensibility of manner ! Never was I so much 

 charmed, nor ever was so absolute a victory as he 

 gained."* 



To enter further on any general description, when 

 all the particulars have been gone over, would be absurd. 

 It is, however, fit to remark that the odium which has 

 cast a shadow on a name that must otherwise have 

 shone forth with pure and surpassing lustre, is partly 

 at least owing to the little care taken to conceal his 

 unpopular opinions, which is no sufficient ground of 

 blame. But in part, it is owing to that which is exceed- 

 ingly blameable, the unsparing bitterness of his invective 

 on all the honest prejudices (as even he must have 

 deemed them) of believers, and the unceasing ribaldry 

 of his attacks on those opinions, which, whether he 

 thought them true or not, had at any rate the sanction 

 of ages, the support of established institutions, and the 

 cordial assent of the vast majority of mankind. The 

 last twenty years of his life were devoted to a constant 

 warfare with these sentiments. Had he confined him- 

 self to discussion, had he only brought the resources 

 of his universal learning and acute reasoning to bear 

 upon the religious belief of his contemporaries, no one 

 would have had a right to complain, and no rational 

 Christian would ever have complained, if the twenty 

 volumes which he thus wrote had been multiplied 

 twenty fold, or even so as " that all the earth could not 



* Prior's Edition of O. Goldsmith's Works, iii. 223. 



K 



