PREFACE.

THE general scheme of this series of French plays has been set forth in the preface to Horace: and it is not necessary to repeat the exposition here. The essays on the Progress of French Tragedy, which for convenience sake were divided on the former occasion, have here been consolidated on the model of the essay on French comedy, which figures in the editions of comic plays appearing in the series. But their contents have not been very greatly changed. In regard to the essay on the Stage I have a special acknowledgment to make. I have myself less acquaintance with theatrical than with literary history: and the authorities on the stage of the eighteenth century are scattered, incomplete, and by no means always trustworthy. In my difficulty on the question whether I had put the information I desired to give correctly, I applied to M. Gustave Larroumet, Maître de Conférences à la Faculté des Lettres de Paris, whose exhaustive work on Marivaux has made him one of the chief living authorities for the period and subject. M. Larroumet very kindly read the paper and furnished me with numerous and valuable suggestions and corrections. He is, of course, in no way responsible for any errors which it may contain, but its value, if it has any, is largely due to him.

I have consulted not a few separate editions, both French and German, of Mérope, and I have to specify those of the late M. Géruzez, of M. Lebobe, of Dr. Waetzoldt, and of Dr. E. von Sallwürk, as having furnished me with many

useful hints, while the almost classical criticism of La Harpe and St. Marc Girardin has also been drawn upon, as well as that of Lessing and Mr. Matthew Arnold. The summary of the sources of the play in Dr. von Sallwürk's book is very creditable to the laborious intelligence of German scholarship, but I have not followed his devotion to parallel passages, the Delilahs of the mere scholar.

PROLEGOMENA.

I. LIFE AND WRITINGS OF VOLTAIRE.

THE writings of Voltaire are amongst the most voluminous and varied productions due to any single man of letters, and if their general merit as well as their bulk and their variety be taken into consideration, their author may without extravagance be said to stand alone. His life was, moreover, a very long one; it was full of interest and event, and it happens to be far more minutely recorded than that of almost any other writer. All these things together make the task of dealing in a short notice with the Life and Writings of Voltaire an unusually difficult one. But it is at the same time unusually necessary for the purpose of such a work as the present; for every book of Voltaire's and every part of every book has more or less distinct relation to his own personality, to his other work, and to the circumstances and history of the time. Most very great literary work can be understood and appreciated without such information on such points, though it may be understood better with it. In Voltaire's case half the interest of the work is lost unless the history and character of the worker are known.

Voltaire's real name was François Marie Arouet, and he did not take the surname of Voltaire until he was four-andtwenty. Its origin is not certainly known, but the most reasonable supposition is that it was an anagram of ‘Arouet L. J.' Arouet le Jeune. The Arouet family came from Poitou, where they were of respectable position and descent, an ancestor being heard of early in the sixteenth century. Voltaire's father, who married Marie Marguerite Daumart, was a notary in Paris, and Voltaire was born in that city on the 20th of November, 1694. His mother died when he was

seven years old, and in his tenth year he was put to school at the Collège Louis le Grand, then managed by Jesuit Fathers. He distinguished himself here, especially in the prize compositions usual in Jesuit schools. He was, however, very early introduced to miscellaneous society by his godfather, the Abbé de Châteauneuf. Among the acquaintances he made through the Abbé were Ninon de l'Enclos (who left him 2000 livres to buy books) and the very lively but not particularly respectable society of the Temple-a coterie of loose livers, who in the later years of Louis XIV opposed to the external austerities and decencies of the court a course of life the best side of which was its encouragement of literature. To this society Voltaire's earliest writings were submitted. His father, however, did not relish his son's proceedings, and procured him an appointment in the suite of the Marquis de Châteauneuf, ambassador to Holland. Here he fell in love with a girl named Olympe Dunoyer, who was without fortune, and whose connections were not too creditable. He was in consequence sent home, and had to enter a solicitor's office, but he devoted almost the whole of his time to light literature. The death of Louis XIV, which might have seemed likely to bring him luck, had a contrary result. He was suspected (there are differences of opinion as to the justice of the suspicion) of lampooning the Regent Orléans, and after once escaping, was on May 10, 1717, sent to the Bastille. He stayed there for nearly a year and made no bad use of his time, for he began the Henriade and entirely recast a play-Oedipe-which he had already written. On leaving the Bastille he was, after a preliminary and penitential sojourn in the country, presented to the Regent, and before the year was over Oedipe was put on the stage. It made a great noise, and the author, young as he was, was admitted to be that successor of Racine who had been expected for some thirty years. His second play, however, Artémire, produced a year later, was not successful, and for some time he published nothing, occupying himself with the Henriade and with society. He made the acquaintance of Bolingbroke, and this drew his attention to the philosophy of Locke and to English literature, politics, and character. In 1723 he