thers has turned out to be a simple piece of paste. Its glittering
was the outcome of no inward fire, but of a certain adroitness in the
manufacture; to use our modern phraseology, Voltaire was able to make up
for his lack of genius by a thorough knowledge of 'technique,' and a
great deal of 'go.'

And to such titles of praise let us not dispute his right. His vivacity,
indeed, actually went so far as to make him something of an innovator.
He introduced new and imposing spectacular effects; he ventured to write
tragedies in which no persons of royal blood made their appearance; he
was so bold as to rhyme 'pere' with 'terre.' The wild diversity of his
incidents shows a trend towards the romantic, which, doubtless, under
happier influences, would have led him much further along the primrose
path which ended in the bonfire of 1830.

But it was his misfortune to be for ever clogged by a tradition of
decorous restraint; so that the effect of his plays is as anomalous as
would be--let us say--that of a shilling shocker written by Miss Yonge.
His heroines go mad in epigrams, while his villains commit murder in
inversions. Amid the hurly-burly of artificiality, it was all his
cleverness could do to keep its head to the wind; and he was only able
to remain afloat at all by throwing overboard his humour. The Classical
tradition has to answer for many sins; perhaps its most infamous
achievement was that it prevented Moliere from being a great tragedian.
But there can be no doubt that its most astonishing one was to have
taken--if only for some scattered moments--the sense of the ridiculous
from Voltaire.

NOTES:

[Footnote 5: April, 1905.]

VOLTAIRE AND FREDERICK THE GREAT

At the present time,[6] when it is so difficult to think of anything but
of what is and what will be, it may yet be worth while to cast
occasionally a glance backward at what was. Such glances may at least
prove to have the humble merit of being entertaining: they may even be
instructive as well. Certainly it would be a mistake to forget that
Frederick the Great once lived in Germany. Nor is it altogether useless
to remember that a curious old gentleman, extremely thin, extremely
active, and heavily bewigged, once decided that, on the whole, it would
be as well for him _not_ to live in France. For, just as modern Germany
dates from the accession of Frederick to the throne of Prussia, so
modern France dates from the establishment of Voltaire on th