The spirit of disaffection which existed in France for some time previously to the Revolution arose from political causes; but the total disregard for religion, which was equally prevalent, may be chiefly ascribed to Voltaire and the Encyclopedists. Scepticism, when it proceeds from philosophical inquiry, must necessarily be circumscribed within a very narrow circle: because few people have leisure or ability for such disquisitions: but unfortunately the far greater number of those who profess infidelity do it only because they think it fashionable, and erroneously consider faith as the mark of a weak understanding. The lower classes are in general inclined to respect the established worship, whatever it may be; but when they are continually told that priests are impostors, and that religion is a farce, they begin to suspect that they have been deceived, and grow outrageous at the idea of having so long sacrificed their pleasures and interests to a chimera.

Of this the French philosophers were fully aware, and directed their batteries accordingly, as we are ostentatiously informed by an author who, after having contributed to the dreadful explosion perished in the tempest he had raised. Exulting amid the Tuins with which he was surrounded, Condorcet proudly boasts that erudition, philosophy, the brilliancy of wit, and the fascination of style, had been successively employed for the diabolical purpose of undermining the throne and the altar. Under the opposite forms of humour and pathos the poison was skilfully instilled; now dignified with the pomp of metaphysical acuteness, it attacked the understandings of those who aspired to literary renown; now clothed in the lighter garb of a pamphlet, or the voluptuous dress of a romance, it perverted the mind by inflaming the passions. It was an invariable maxim with the party, says the writer to whom we allude, to lull the vigilance of their enemies by flattering the establishment which they meant to overturn. Thus while they aimed at subverting the Christian religion they persua ded the clergy that toleration was all they required; and when attempting to sap the foundations of the throne they asked only for the suppression of some notorious abuse. Fanaticism and tyranny became alternately the watchwords of the philosophers; but under the former appellation every sect was comprehended which acknowledged the divinity of Christ, and the latter applied to all legitimate governments.

In conformity to custom, we have given the title of philosophers to a description of writers destitute of almost every quality which adorned the sages of antiquity. During the splendid period of Grecian literature that appellation was reserved exclusively for those who devoted their existence to the investigation of truth and the improvements of science. No labours were too arduous, no dangers too formidable to stop them in the glorious pursuit. They

visited countries the most remote, traversed seas and mountains, and encountered heat and cold, for the pleasure of conversing with some celebrated sage or exploring some secret of nature. Their manners were austere and their meditations uninterrupted by those trifling occupations which employ the votaries of pleasure. Seclusion and study, and unremitting attention to the wonderful productions of Providence, enabled them to form those celebrated systems which have excited the admiration of subsequent ages, and afforded models for their imitation.

But the philosophers of whom we have been speaking, were beings of another kind. Instead of consecrating their lives to serious studies they passed them at the table of some wealthy financier, or in the boudoir of some capricious beauty. Led away by the impression of the moment, they thought it degrading for an author of the eighteenth century to consult the lessons of experience or to enrich his mind with the treasures of literature. To doubt was regarded as the criterion of wisdom, and they in consequence affected to despise all ancient institutions as the offspring of ignorance and superstition. The Christian religion was the object of their hatred, and they daily insulted it with blasphemous ribaldry; but their attacks were irregular and desultory. Though they all equally aspired to eradicate from the breast of man his only consolation in adversity, nothing was ever less systematic than their mode of proceeding. No union of opinion connected them; because every one was ambitious of surpassing his colleagues in boldness and impiety. Neither were they less at variance with themselves. At one moment they strove to establish a principle which they openly controverted at another. Vanity prevented them from forming a sect, because it was impossible to embrace any theory without tacitly acknowledging the superiority of its author.

This subject would furnish materials for volumes, and we can scarcely afford room for a few hasty remarks upon the characters of Rousseau and Voltaire, whom we select from the vast tribe of French unbelievers, because they possessed the greatest influence over the opinions of the age in which they flourished.

Of all the sceptical writers of the eighteenth century Rousseau was undoubtedly the most eloquent; he was besides the only one who established a system of his own, if the eccentricities of a man who was constantly at war with the customs and ideas of civilized society can merit the appellation of system. Proud, envious, and unsociable, he was far more jealous of the reputation obtained by his contemporaries than delighted with the applause which he personally received. After forsaking his religion and country, which imposed wholesome restraints upon his natural profligacy, he declared himself inimical to all human institutions,

because while appearing under the character of a needy adventurer he had been treated with little hospitality. Totally destitute of all those amiable qualities which inspire affection and esteem, he regarded every being who attempted to sooth his affliction, or relieve his wants, as impelled by interested motives, and of course soon quarrelled with his greatest benefactors. An insulated being in the midst of society, he considered the various duties of life not as necessary sacrifices to the peace and order of the whole, but as so many infringements of natural liberty. From this strange perversion of ideas the greater part of his errors proceeded. Though constantly declaiming with enthusiastic fervour in favour of justice, benevolence, and probity, he as constantly transgressed all their precepts, and even endeavoured to overturn the magnificent basis upon which alone they can securely repose. Too haughty to own that his insatiable pride was the cause of almost all his misfortunes, he imputed them to the envy of a hostile confederacy. Disdaining to tread the path of experience he wandered from error to error, and though constantly offending the laws of morality he proclaimed himself the most virtuous of mortals.

The writers of novels had hitherto confined themselves to a delineation of the actions and feelings of their dramatis personæ ; but Rousseau undertook a more arduous task, and attempted to develop the secret workings of the soul, submitting to the guidance of a heated imagination, and abandoning the sphere of realities. It would therefore be fruitless to look in the Nouvelle Héloïse for an accurate picture of real life, or for characters like those which move and act upon the busy theatre of the world. They are for the most part the creatures of a distempered fancy; they are paradoxes embodied under a human form.

A writer who professes to instruct mankind is bound to deliver precepts of morality. But it is by inflaming the passions, and by blotting out the line which separates virtue from vice, that Rousseau undertakes to teach young ladies to be chaste, and young men to respect the rights of hospitality. His heroine indeed, in conformity to his own example, is always prating about virtue even at the time when she deviates most essentially from its precepts; but to dogmatise is not to be innocent. Yet with all its defects, there are numerous passages in this celebrated work which astonish by their eloquence. Language perhaps never painted the conflicts of love in colours more animated and captivating than in the letter written by St. Preux, when wandering among the rocks of Meilleraye.

After instructing his fair readers in the arts of intrigue, Rousseau proceeds to lay before them a novel system for educating the fruit of their amours; and in this he proves equally extravagant : for instead of bringing up his pupil to be useful to mankind, he

strives to render him unfit for the commerce of civilised society, According to the plan recommended by the philosopher of Geneva, every thing that a youth would meet with, when he enters the world, would be repugnant to his habits and feelings. He would, indeed, be able to mend a chair or a kettle, and to find his way in the dark without fearing to meet a ghost or a hobgoblin; but he would probably eat with his fingers, and wipe his mouth with the sleeve of his coat.-Add to this, that the system is utterly impracticable, unless a whole nation should combine to carry on the farce by which children are to be tricked into the performance of their duty.

One of the most extraordinary parts of this extraordinary book is the confession of the Savoyard priest; in which, after drawing a most striking and beautiful parallel between Jesus and Socrates, and contending that the miracles attested by the Evangelists are as clearly proved as any of the events recorded by Xenophon, he concludes by deciding in favour of Deism, because the duration of human life is too short to acquire the different languages, and perform the long journies, which can alone qualify a man to form an impartial judgment between Judaism, Christianity, and Mahometism! In a writer less addicted to paradoxes, it would be impossible to reconcile the magnificent picture drawn by Rousseau of the Redeemer of mankind with the total rejection of his divinity; but nothing was too inconsistent for that man to adopt who, though incessantly talking of justice and benevolence, discarded his mistress when she had no friend except himself to support ber, and sent her five children to an eleemosynary asylum, where it was impossible they should ever be recognised. To sum up his character as concisely and fairly as we are able, we shall remark, that as a philosopher he was paradoxical and dangerous; as a moralist lax and licentious; as a theologian unsettled and sceptical; as a politician bold and delusive; as a parent unnatural; as a lover selfish ; and as a friend suspicious and ungrateful: yet, with all his eccentricities, and all his failings, he is certainly one of the most fascinating writers that ever drew tears from a reader.

Voltaire was endowed with very different qualities, and placed in a very different situation. As pride was the ruling passion of Rousseau, so was vanity that of the philosopher of Ferney. This inordinate love of popular applause gave a tone and colour to all his actions during a long and splendid career, and induced him to dedicate transcendent abilities to purposes the most vile and pernicious. It was vanity that induced him to decorate a metrical narrative of battles and intrigues with the lofty title of epic, and to forget that the exalted reputation of Homer and Virgil was not acquired by the flowery recital of a dream or a journey, nor by the

introduction of spirits and divinities, but by a creative genius, an elevated imagination, and an eloquent and touching simplicity. It was vanity that led him to sully his pen with disgusting obscenity, and an ostentatious display of impiety, and to flatter himself that a happy mixture of satire and wit might atone for their turpitude, and place the name of a revolting blasphemer upon a level with that of Ariosto. It was vanity that tempted him to undermine the faith of his countrymen by ridiculing the established worship, and representing those by whom it was administered under the odious character of hypocrites. The hostility of Voltaire toward the Christian dispensation is rather that of a rival than of a philoso pher. He wished to overturn it, not so much from his entertaining any solid objection to its beautiful theory, or doubting the miracles by which it is attested, as because he envied the glory of its divine author, and even hoped to be able, if Christianity was abolished, to introduce in its place a system of moral indulgence of which he might become the pontiff and patriarch.

But it would be useless to push the subject farther. The French Revolution has furnished the most satisfactory comment upon the GRAND EXPERIMENT of the philosophers; and we are firmly persuaded that no person in future, unless actually labouring under mental derangement, will attempt to govern mankind by simple reason, unassisted by the light of revelation. No; it is religion alone that has authority to silence the clamours of interest, to controul the sensual appetites, and to fetter the turbulence of ambition.

ART. XII. The Remorse. A Tragedy. By S. T. Coleridge. Second Edition. 8vo. London. 1814.

WHEN a system of opinions, either new, or apparently so, is formally laid before the world, no judgment can be formed respecting its merits, till the whole has been attentively considered: but when philosophical opinions come to us cursorily scattered through volumes of miscellaneous poetry, it can scarcely be expected that their merits will be so fairly tried. The premises being sometimes not at all, and, perhaps, never formally laid down, the conclusion appears to rest on little authority; in this page the reader is startled with one peculiar idea, in the next with another, and between both, perhaps, traces no connection. Thus he proceeds nearly through the book, still ignorant of its characteristic feature; his vanity is mortified, and forgetting that his ignorance should in justice prevent his forming any judgment, he suffers it to be the very groundwork of his condem M

VOL. XI. NO. XXI.