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Bayle, Fontenelle, Voltaire, Montesquieu, and the schools formed by these men; combated in "favour of truth. They alternately employed "all the arms, with which learning and philosophy, with which wit and the talent of writing, "could furnish them. Assuming every tone, taking every shape, from the ludicrous to the pathetic, from the most learned and extensive compilation to the novel or the petty pamphlet of the day; covering truth with a veil, which, sparing the eye that was too weak to bear it, left to the "reader the pleasure of guessing it; insidiously caressing prejudices in order to strike at them "with more certainty and effect; seldom menacing

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more than one at a time, and that only in part; "sometimes soothing the enemies of reason, by seeming to ask but for a half toleration in religion, or a half liberty in polity; respecting despotism when they combated religious absurdi"ties, and religion when they attacked tyranny ; combating these two pests in their very princi

ples, though apparently inveighing against ridi"culous and disgusting abuses; striking at the "root of those pestiferous trees, whilst they ap

t

peared only to wish to lop the straggling "branches; at one time, pointing out superstition, "which covers despotism with its impenetrable

* What the truth was, for which Voltaire combated, a long life laboriously spent in the service of a hard task-master has amply shewn and France has no less amply tasted the fruits

"shield, to the friends of liberty, as the first “victim which they are to immolate, the first chain to be cleft asunder; at another, denouncing su"perstition to despots as the real enemy of their

power, and alarming them with a representation

of its hypocritical plots and sanguinary rage; "but never ceasing to claim the independence of ·reason, and the liberty of the press, as the right "and safeguard of mankind; inveighing with en"thusiastic energy against the crimes of fanaticism "and tyranny; reprobating every thing which "bore the character of oppression, harshness, or barbarity, whether in religion, administration, morals, or laws; commanding kings, warriors, priests, and magistrates, in the name of nature, to spare the blood of men; reproaching them, "in a strain of the most energetic severity, with "that which their policy or indifference prodigally "lavished on the scaffold, or in the field of battle; "in fine, adopting the words reason, toleration, "and humanity, as their signal and call to arms. "Such was the modern philosophy, so much de"tested by those numerous classes which exist "only by the aid of prejudices. Its chiefs had the art of escaping vengeance, while they exposed "themselves to hatred; of concealing themselves "from persecution, while they made themselves sufficiently conspicuous to lose nothing of their

glory*.

ود

In

Cited by Kett from Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progrès de l'esprit humain, par Condorcet. For the original, see

the

..

In order as it were that the meaning of this rhapsody may not possibly be mistaken, the same Condorcet plainly tells us, what effects this sort of truth, propagated by Voltaire, did produce. Celebrating the glories and benefits of the French revolution, he observes, "that it would have been impossible to shew in a clearer light the eternal obligations which human nature has to Voltaire. "Circumstances were favourable. He did not "foresee all that he has done, but he has done all "that we now see "" * In order moreover, that we may not too candidly fancy, that Voltaire's zeal was only directed against the abuses of Popery, while he respected genuine Christianity, he himself unequivocally informs us, that the very Gospel of the Messiah, whether embraced by protestants or papists, was the real object of his animosity †. "I am weary," says the pseudo-philosopher of Ferney, " of hearing people repeat, that twelve "men have been sufficient to establish Christianity: " and I will prove, that one may suffice to over"throw it-Strike, but conceal your hand-The "mysteries of Mithras are not to be divulged: "the monster must fall pierced by a thousand in

the Annual Register. p. 200; for the extract, Barruel's Mem. of Jacobinism. vol. ii. p. 133.

* Life of Voltaire, cited by Kett.

† The reader will have observed, that, in one of the clauses of the foregoing declamation of Condorcet, religion is used as the synonym of religious absurdities; and government and religion are declared to be the two pests, which the new philosophy combats in their very principles.

"visible

"visible hands: yes, let it fall beneath a thousand repeated blows-I fear you are not sufficiently "zealous; you bury your talents: you seem only to contemn, whilst you should abhor and destroy "the monster-Crush the wretch."

By the incessant labours of Voltaire, his diabolical principles, even before the foundation of Weishaupt's order of the illuminated, were protected by the sovereigns of Russia, Poland, and Prussia, and by an innumerable host of Landgraves, Margraves, Dukes, and Princes. They had penetrated into Bohemia, Austria, Spain, Switzerland, and Italy. They had many zealous advocates in England: they had thoroughly impregnated France: and, in short, had more or less pervaded the whole Roman earth, where the dragon had now taken his station after his expulsion from the symbolical heaven.

It is not however perfectly ascertained, that Voltaire wished for more than the overthrow of religion and royalty. Proud of his talents, he at first "did not pretend to enlighten housemaids "and shoemakers, equally contemning the rabble, "whether for or against him :" but, after the German union, a yet more extensive plan of mischief was resolved upon. The infernal ingenuity of Weishaupt contrived a method of subverting not only religion and royalty, but all governments whatsoever and Jacobinism, that consummation of united German and French villainy, proposed to set mankind free from every restraint both

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both of human and divine law, and to let them loose like wild beasts upon each other, an infuriated herd of anarchists and atheists.

4. In this manner it was, that the dragon, quitting heaven for earth, and "having great wrath because "he knoweth that he hath but a short time," prepared to vomit against the symbolical woman a noisome flood of mock philosophers, German and French, illuminated and masonic," with all their trumpery;" of philanthropic cut-throats, civic thieves, humane anarchists, and candid atheists; of high-born Catalines, and low-born buffoons *; of enlightened: prostitutes, and revolutionary politicians; of popish priests, and protestant ecclesiastics, united only by the common bonds of apostate profligacy; of Jews, Turks †, infidels, and heretics; of the catharmata of the prisons of Lyons and Paris, wretches who, escaping the just sentence of the law, commenced the reformers of the world; in short, of all the filth and offscouring of all the kennels of all the streets of the great mystical city Babylon. At the sounding of the

During the French revolution, a comedian, dressed as a "priest of the Illuminati, publicly appeared, personally attacking Almighty God, saying, No, thou dost not exist. If "thou hast power over the thunder-bolts, grasp them, dim them at "the man who dares set thee at defiance in the face of thy altars. "But no, I blaspheme thee, and I still live; no, thou dost not "exist" (Barruel's Mem. of Jacobinism, vol. iii. p. 217.). To the catalogue of low-born buffoons Mr. Thomas Paine may with much propriety be added.