ness of an analytic mind to bear on the exploitation of the tender passion; and a conscientious though desultory effort is made to study subtle phases of character in the light of surrounding circumstances. Despite the artificial précieuse qualities of his style, and the unfinished condition of his novels, Marivaux enjoyed an extraordinary popularity in his day. The same problem repeats itself on a larger scale when we transfer our attention to Richardson, whose works, translated and popularized by Prévost, were read with the greatest avidity in France. Were not these such influences as Professor Dowden's profound knowledge of English literature would have qualified him to illustrate with more precision than has yet been brought to bear upon them; and was it not in point of fact almost imperative for him to deal seriously with such an important theme in the international literary history of nations?
The pages which Professor Dowden devotes to Voltaire, although brilliant, are not sufficiently suggestive of the extraordinary influence which that most celebrated of writers exercised. It was in no uncritical spirit that Mr. Morley wrote: "The existence, character, and career of this extraordinary person constituted in themselves a new and prodigious era. The peculiarities of his individual genius changed the mind and spiritual conformation of France, and in a less degree of the whole of the West, with as far-spreading and invincible an effect as if the work had been wholly done, as it was actually aided, by the sweep of deep-lying collective forces. A new type of belief, and of its shadow, disbelief, was stamped by the impression of his character and work into the intelligence and feeling of his own and modern times." Nor will Villemain be accused of rapt enthusiasm when he writes, "C'est le plus puissant renovateur des esprits depuis Luther, et l'homme qui a mis le plus en commun les idées de l'Europe par sa gloire, sa longue vie, son merveilleux esprit et son universelle clarté." The strangest fact to contemplate with regard to this unrivaled popularity, this astonishing range of influence, is that it truly constitutes an apotheosis of superficiality. And this in no disparaging spirit of Carlylese disdain for clear ideas around which hang no mists of oracular obscurity, but rather by way of tribute to a heart that beat responsively to human suffering, to a mind keenly sensible of human wrongs. Voltaire rejected the subtleties of metaphysical thought, was indeed incapable of attaining to the heights of speculative contemplation; he was only preternaturally sensitive to the moral defects of this imperfect world, and determined to bend all his efforts to the alleviation of injustice and of crime. As a further concession to his superficiality as a thinker we may frankly admit his incapacity to originate new ideas. His mind indeed was extraordinarily receptive, his intellectual curiosity unlimited, and hostile critics have
