of our literature. Voltaire, in particular, devoted himself with his usual ardour to the new pursuit, and acquired in England a knowledge of those doctrines, the promulgation of which, afterwards won for him so great a reputation.522 He was the first who popularized in France the philosophy of Newton, where it rapidly superseded that of Descartes.523 He recommended to his countrymen the writings of Locke;524 which soon gained immense popularity, and which supplied materials to Condillac for his system of metaphysics,525 and to Rousseau for his theory of education.526 Besides this, Voltaire was the first Frenchman who studied Shakespeare; to whose works he was greatly indebted, though he afterwards wished to lessen what he considered the exorbitant respect paid to them in France.527 Indeed, so intimate was his knowledge of the English language,528 that we can trace his obligations to Butler,529 one of the most difficult of our poets, and to Tillotson,530 one of the dullest of our theologians. He was acquainted with the speculations of Berkeley,531 the most subtle metaphysician who has ever written in English; and he had read the works, not only of Shaftesbury,532 but even of Chubb,533 Garth,534 Mandeville,535 and Woolston.536 Montesquieu imbibed in our country many of his principles; he studied our language; and he always expressed admiration for England, not only in his writings, but also in his private conversation.537 Buffon learnt English, and his first appearance as an author was as the translator of Newton and of Hales.538 Diderot, following in the same course, was an enthusiastic admirer of the novels of Richardson;539 he took the idea of several of his plays from the English dramatists, particularly from Lillo; he borrowed many of his arguments from Shaftesbury and Collins, and his earliest publication was a translation of Stanyan's History of Greece.540 Helvétius, who visited London, was never weary of praising the people; many of the views in his great work on the Mind are drawn from Mandeville; and he constantly refers to the authority of Locke, whose principles hardly any Frenchman would at an earlier period have dared to recommend.541 The works of Bacon, previously little known, were now translated into French; and his classification of the human faculties was made the basis of that celebrated Encyclopædia, which is justly regarded as one of the greatest productions of the eighteenth century.542 The Theory of Moral Sentiments, by Adam Smith, was during thirty-four years translated three different times, by three different French authors.543 And such was the general eagerness, that directly the Wealth of Nations, by the same great writer, appeared, Morellet, who was then high in reputation, began to turn it into French; and was only prevented from printing his translation by the circumstance, that before it could be completed, another version of it was published in a French periodical.544 Coyer, who is still remembered for his Life of Sobieski, visited England; and after returning to his own country, showed the direction of his studies by rendering into French the Commentaries of Blackstone.545 Le Blanc travelled in England, wrote a work expressly upon the English, and translated into French the Political Discourses of Hume.546 Holbach was certainly one of the most active leaders of the liberal party in Paris; but a large part of his very numerous writings consists solely in translations of English authors.547 Indeed, it may be broadly stated, that while, at the end of the seventeenth century, it would have been difficult to find, even among the most educated Frenchmen, a single person acquainted with English, it would, in the eighteenth century, have been nearly as difficult to find in the same class one who was ignorant of it. Men of all tastes, and of the most opposite pursuits, were on this point united as by a common bond. Poets, geometricians, historians, naturalists, all seemed to agree as to the necessity of studying a literature on which no one before had wasted a thought. In the course of general reading, I have met with proofs that the English language was known, not only to those eminent Frenchmen whom I have already mentioned, but also to mathematicians, as D'Alembert,548 Darquier,549 Du Val le Roy,550 Jurain,551 Lachapelle,552 Lalande,553 Le Cozic,554 Montucla,555 Pezenas,556 Prony,557 Romme,558 and Roger Martin;559 to anatomists, physiologists, and writers on medicine, as Barthèz,560 Bichat,561 Bordeu,562 Barbeu Dubourg,563 Bosquillon,564 Bourru,565 Begue de Presle,566 Cabanis,567 Demours,568 Duplanil,569 Fouquet,570 Goulin,571 Lavirotte,572 Lassus,573 Petit Radel,574 Pinel,575 Roux,576 Sauvages,577 and Sue;578 to naturalists, as Alyon,579 Brémond,580 Brisson,581 Broussonnet,582 Dalibard,583 Haüy,584 Latapie,585 Richard,586 Rigaud,587 and Romé de Lisle;588 to historians, philologists, and antiquaries, as Barthélemy,589 Butel Dumont,590 De Brosses,591 Foucher,592 Freret,593 Larcher,594 Le Coc de Villeray,595 Millot,596 Targe,597 Velly,598 Volney,
‘Le vrai roi du xviiie siècle, c'est Voltaire; mais Voltaire à son tour est un écolier de l'Angleterre. Avant que Voltaire eût connu l'Angleterre, soit par ses voyages, soit part ses amitiés, il n'était pas Voltaire, et le xviiie siècle se cherchait encore.’ Cousin, Hist. de la Philos. Ire série, vol. iii. pp. 38, 39. Compare Damiron, Hist. de la Philos. en France, Paris, 1828, vol. i. p. 34.
<p>523</p>
‘J'avais été le premier qui eût osé développer à ma nation les découvertes de Newton, en langage intelligible.’ Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. i. p. 315; see also vol. xix. p. 87, vol. xxvi. p. 71; Whewell's Hist. of Induc. Sciences, vol. ii. p. 206; Weld's Hist. of the Royal Society, vol. i. p. 441. After this, the Cartesian physics lost ground every day; and in Grimm's Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 148, there is a letter, dated Paris, 1757, which says, ‘Il n'y a guère plus ici de partisans de Descartes que M. de Mairan.’ Compare Observations et Pensées, in Œuvres de Turgot, vol. iii. p. 298.
<p>524</p>
Which he was never weary of praising; so that, as M. Cousin says (Hist. de la Philos. II. série, vol. ii. pp. 311, 312), ‘Locke est le vrai maître de Voltaire.’ Locke was one of the authors he put into the hands of Madame du Châtelet. Condorcet, Vie de Voltaire, p. 296.
<p>525</p>
Morell's Hist. of Philos. 1846, vol. i. p. 134; Hamilton's Discuss. p. 3.
<p>526</p>
‘Rousseau tira des ouvrages de Locke une grande partie de ses idées sur la politique et l'éducation; Condillac toute sa philosophie.’ Villemain, Lit. au XVIIIe Siècle, vol. i. p. 83. See also, on the obligations of Rousseau to Locke, Grimm, Correspond. vol. v. p. 97; Musset Pathay, Vie de Rousseau, vol. i. p. 38, vol. ii. p. 394; Mém. de Morellet, vol. i. p. 113; Romilly's Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 211, 212.
<p>527</p>
In 1768, Voltaire (Œuvres, vol. lxvi. p. 249) writes to Horace Walpole, ‘Je suie le premier qui ait fait connaître Shakespeare aux français.’ See also his Lettres inédites, vol. ii. p. 500; Villemain, Lit. au XVIIIe Siècle, vol. iii. p. 325; and Grimm, Correspond. vol. xii. pp. 124, 125, 133.
<p>528</p>
There are extant many English letters written by Voltaire, which, though of course containing several errors, also contain abundant evidence of the spirit with which he seized our idiomatic expressions. In addition to his Lettres inédites, published at Paris in the present year (1856), see Chatham Correspond. vol. ii. pp. 131–133; and Phillimore's Mém. of Lyttelton, vol. i. pp. 323–325, vol. ii. pp. 555, 556, 558.
<p>529</p>
Grimm, Correspond. vol. i. p. 332; Voltaire, Lettres inédites, vol. ii. p. 258; and the account of Hudibras, with translations from it, in Œuvres, vol. xxvi. pp. 132–137; also a conversation between Voltaire and Townley, in Nichols's Illustrations of the Eighteenth Century, vol. iii. p. 722.
<p>530</p>
Compare Mackintosh's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 341, with Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. xxxix. p. 259, vol. xlvii. p. 85.
<p>531</p>
Œuvres de Voltaire, vol. xxxviii. pp. 216–218, vol. xlvi. p. 282, vol. xlvii. p. 439, vol. lvii. p. 178.
<p>532</p>
Ibid. vol. xxxvii. p. 353, vol. lvii. p. 66; Correspond. inédite de Dudeffand, vol. ii. p. 230.
<p>533</p>
Œuvres, vol. xxxiv. p. 294, vol. lvii. p. 121.
<p>534</p>
Ibid. vol. xxxvii. pp. 407, 441.
<p>535</p>
Ibid. vol. xxxvi. p. 46.
<p>536</p>
Ibid. vol. xxxiv. p. 288, vol. xli. pp. 212–217; Biog. Univ. vol. li. pp. 199, 200.
<p>537</p>
Lerminier, Philos. du Droit, vol. i. p. 221; Klimrath, Hist. du Droit, vol. ii. p. 502; Harris's Life of Hardwicke, vol. ii. p. 398, vol. iii. pp. 432–434; Mém. de Diderot, vol. ii. pp. 193, 194; Lacretelle, XVIIIe Siècle, vol. ii. p. 24.
<p>538</p>
Villemain, Lit. au XVIIIe Siècle, vol. ii. p. 182; Biog. Univ. vol. vi. p. 235; Le Blanc, Lettres, vol. i. p. 93, vol. ii. pp. 159, 160.
<p>539</p>
‘Admirateur passionné du romancier anglais.’ Biog. Univ. vol. xxxvii. p. 581. Compare Diderot, Corresp. vol. i. p. 352; vol. ii. pp. 44, 52, 53; Mercier sur Rousseau, vol. i. p. 44.
<p>540</p>
Villemain, Lit. vol. ii. p. 115; Schlosser's Eighteenth Century, vol. i. pp. 34, 42; Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos. vol. xi. p. 314; Biog. Univ. vol. xi. p. 314; Grimm, Correspond. vol. xv. p. 81. Stanyan's History of Greece was once famous, and even so late as 1804, I find Dr. Parr recommending it. Parr's Works, vol. viii. p. 422. Diderot told Sir Samuel Romilly that he had collected materials for a history of the trial of Charles I. Life of Romilly, vol. i. p. 46.
<p>541</p>
Diderot, Mém. vol. ii. p. 286; Cousin, Hist. de la Philos. IIe série, vol. ii. p. 331; Helvétius de l'Esprit, vol. i. pp. 31, 38, 46, 65, 114, 169, 193, 266, 268, vol. ii. pp. 144, 163, 165, 195, 212; Letters addressed to Hume, Edinb. 1849, pp. 9, 10.
<p>542</p>
This is the arrangement of our knowledge under the heads of Memory, Reason, and Imagination, which D'Alembert took from Bacon. Compare Whewell's Philos. of the Sciences, vol. ii. p. 306; Cuvier, Hist. des Sciences, part ii. p. 276; Georgel, Mém. vol. ii. p. 241; Bordas Demoulin, Cartésianisme, vol. i. p. 18.
See the list, in Biog. Univ. vol. xx. pp. 463–466; and compare Mém. de Diderot, vol. iii. p. 49, from which it seems that Holbach was indebted to Toland, though Diderot speaks rather doubtingly. In Almon's Mem. of Wilkes 1805, vol. iv. pp. 176, 177, there is an English letter, tolerably well written, from Holbach to Wilkes.
<p>548</p>
Musset Pathay, Vie de Rousseau, ii. 10, 175; Œuvres de Voltaire, liv. 207.
<p>549</p>
Biog. Univ. x. 556.
<p>550</p>
Ibid. xii. 418.
<p>551</p>
Quérard, France Lit. iv. 34, 272.
<p>552</p>
Ibid. iv. 361.
<p>553</p>
Biog. Univ. xxiii. 226.
<p>554</p>
Montucla, Hist. des Mathém. ii. 170.
<p>555</p>
Montucla, ii. 120, iv. 662, 665, 670.
<p>556</p>
Biog. Univ. iii. 253, xxxiii. 564.
<p>557</p>
Quérard, France Lit. vii. 353.
<p>558</p>
Biog. Univ. xxxviii. 530.
<p>559</p>
Ibid. xxxviii. 411.
<p>560</p>
Ibid. iii. 450.
<p>561</p>
Bichat sur la Vie, 244.
<p>562</p>
Quérard, i. 416.
<p>563</p>
Biog. Univ. iii. 345.
<p>564</p>
Quérard, i. 260, 425, ii. 354.
<p>565</p>
Ibid. i. 476.
<p>566</p>
Biog. Univ. iv. 55, 56.
<p>567</p>
Notice sur Cabanis, p. viii. in his Physique et Moral.
<p>568</p>
Biog. Univ. xi. 65, 66.
<p>569</p>
Ibid. xii. 276.
<p>570</p>
Ibid. xv. 359.
<p>571</p>
Ibid. xviii. 187.
<p>572</p>
Quérard, iv. 641, vi. 9, 398.
<p>573</p>
Cuvier, Eloges, i. 354.
<p>574</p>
Quérard, vii. 95.
<p>575</p>
Cuvier, Eloges, iii. 382.
<p>576</p>
Biog. Univ. xxxix. 174.
<p>577</p>
Le Blanc, Lettres, i. 93.
<p>578</p>
Quérard, ix. 286.
<p>579</p>
Robin et Verdeil, Chim. Anat. ii. 416.
<p>580</p>
Biog. Univ. v. 530, 531.
<p>581</p>
Cuvier, Eloges, i. 196.
<p>582</p>
Biog. Univ. vi. 47.
<p>583</p>
Quérard, ii. 372.
<p>584</p>
Haüy, Minéralogie, ii. 247, 267, 295, 327, 529, 609, iii. 75, 293, 307, 447, 575, iv. 45, 280, 292, 362.
<p>585</p>
Quérard, iv. 598.
<p>586</p>
Ibid. viii. 22.
<p>587</p>
Swainson, Disc. on Nat. Hist. 52; Cuvier, Règne Animal, iii. 415.
<p>588</p>
De Lisle, Cristallographie, 1772, xviii. xx. xxiii. xxv. xxvii. 78, 206, 254.
<p>589</p>
Albemarle's Rockingham, ii. 156; Campbell's Chancellors, v. 365.
of our literature. Voltaire, in particular, devoted himself with his usual ardour to the new pursuit, and acquired in England a knowledge of those doctrines, the promulgation of which, afterwards won for him so great a reputation.522 He was the first who popularized in France the philosophy of Newton, where it rapidly superseded that of Descartes.523 He recommended to his countrymen the writings of Locke;524 which soon gained immense popularity, and which supplied materials to Condillac for his system of metaphysics,525 and to Rousseau for his theory of education.526 Besides this, Voltaire was the first Frenchman who studied Shakespeare; to whose works he was greatly indebted, though he afterwards wished to lessen what he considered the exorbitant respect paid to them in France.527 Indeed, so intimate was his knowledge of the English language,528 that we can trace his obligations to Butler,529 one of the most difficult of our poets, and to Tillotson,530 one of the dullest of our theologians. He was acquainted with the speculations of Berkeley,531 the most subtle metaphysician who has ever written in English; and he had read the works, not only of Shaftesbury,532 but even of Chubb,533 Garth,534 Mandeville,535 and Woolston.536 Montesquieu imbibed in our country many of his principles; he studied our language; and he always expressed admiration for England, not only in his writings, but also in his private conversation.537 Buffon learnt English, and his first appearance as an author was as the translator of Newton and of Hales.538 Diderot, following in the same course, was an enthusiastic admirer of the novels of Richardson;539 he took the idea of several of his plays from the English dramatists, particularly from Lillo; he borrowed many of his arguments from Shaftesbury and Collins, and his earliest publication was a translation of Stanyan's History of Greece.540 Helvétius, who visited London, was never weary of praising the people; many of the views in his great work on the Mind are drawn from Mandeville; and he constantly refers to the authority of Locke, whose principles hardly any Frenchman would at an earlier period have dared to recommend.541 The works of Bacon, previously little known, were now translated into French; and his classification of the human faculties was made the basis of that celebrated Encyclopædia, which is justly regarded as one of the greatest productions of the eighteenth century.542 The Theory of Moral Sentiments, by Adam Smith, was during thirty-four years translated three different times, by three different French authors.543 And such was the general eagerness, that directly the Wealth of Nations, by the same great writer, appeared, Morellet, who was then high in reputation, began to turn it into French; and was only prevented from printing his translation by the circumstance, that before it could be completed, another version of it was published in a French periodical.544 Coyer, who is still remembered for his Life of Sobieski, visited England; and after returning to his own country, showed the direction of his studies by rendering into French the Commentaries of Blackstone.545 Le Blanc travelled in England, wrote a work expressly upon the English, and translated into French the Political Discourses of Hume.546 Holbach was certainly one of the most active leaders of the liberal party in Paris; but a large part of his very numerous writings consists solely in translations of English authors.547 Indeed, it may be broadly stated, that while, at the end of the seventeenth century, it would have been difficult to find, even among the most educated Frenchmen, a single person acquainted with English, it would, in the eighteenth century, have been nearly as difficult to find in the same class one who was ignorant of it. Men of all tastes, and of the most opposite pursuits, were on this point united as by a common bond. Poets, geometricians, historians, naturalists, all seemed to agree as to the necessity of studying a literature on which no one before had wasted a thought. In the course of general reading, I have met with proofs that the English language was known, not only to those eminent Frenchmen whom I have already mentioned, but also to mathematicians, as D'Alembert,548 Darquier,549 Du Val le Roy,550 Jurain,551 Lachapelle,552 Lalande,553 Le Cozic,554 Montucla,555 Pezenas,556 Prony,557 Romme,558 and Roger Martin;559 to anatomists, physiologists, and writers on medicine, as Barthèz,560 Bichat,561 Bordeu,562 Barbeu Dubourg,563 Bosquillon,564 Bourru,565 Begue de Presle,566 Cabanis,567 Demours,568 Duplanil,569 Fouquet,570 Goulin,571 Lavirotte,572 Lassus,573 Petit Radel,574 Pinel,575 Roux,576 Sauvages,577 and Sue;578 to naturalists, as Alyon,579 Brémond,580 Brisson,581 Broussonnet,582 Dalibard,583 Haüy,584 Latapie,585 Richard,586 Rigaud,587 and Romé de Lisle;588 to historians, philologists, and antiquaries, as Barthélemy,589 Butel Dumont,590 De Brosses,591 Foucher,592 Freret,593 Larcher,594 Le Coc de Villeray,595 Millot,596 Targe,597 Velly,598 Volney,
