of "Peter the Great" to please his admirer and correspondent the Empress Catherine; employed himself at intervals on his 'Philosophical Dictionary;' produced many fresh tragedies (not always equal to the earlier ones) and four comedies; innumerable tales and satires in verse, and many occasional poems; many novelettes, too, in the style of "Zadig;" and a host of papers in prose. Several of the most telling satires were prompted by a personal attack which had been made on Voltaire. A M. Le Franc de Pompignan had been elected to the French Academy, and had conceived the unlucky idea of giving point to his inaugural discourse by censorious remarks on the philosopher and some of his disciples, who were also members of the Academy. On learning this, Voltaire discharged on the aggressor such a deluge of ridicule that he never again dared to show his face in the Academy, and, instead of vanishing quietly from the world, has remained pickled for posterity. And, all the time, flowed on in full stream that copious correspondence, never intended for publication, but which is esteemed as a most precious example of letter-writing, and which of itself would seem to constitute the labour of an industrious life.
In the correspondence with his friend and brother-philosopher, D'Alembert, is seen more clearly than elsewhere what it was that he had all his life considered it his mission to battle against. The nature of his creed will have been recognised in the extracts from his works already given, and he would probably have considered Pope's "Universal Prayer" as exactly expressing it. The morality of the New Testament was altogether in
