THE FRIENDS OF VOLTAIRE.
The Friends of Voltaire. By S. G. Tallentyre. With Portraits. (Smith, Elder, and Co. 9s. net.)—In ten articles, of about thirty pages each, Miss Tallentyre here sketches the lives and the principal characteristics of ten remarkable men of the eighteenth century. The study required for her "Life of Voltaire" has been, of course, a great assistance to her in this new work, which was well worth doing, for the subjects cannot fail to be found interesting, especially by readers of the former book. D'Alembert, Diderot, Galiani, Vauvenargnes, d'Holbach, Grimm, Helvetii's, Target, Beaumarchais, Condorcet : these are the selected names. Some, it will be seen, are much better known than others ; some were more intimate with Voltaire than others ; several went beyond the Patriarch as to atheism, for Voltaire believed in God. Some of the names are worthy of real respect ; it seems rather unfair, in the matter of sincerity, unselfishness, moral sense, to put Turgot, Condorcet, and Vanvenargues on a level with smiling, mocking philosophers like d'Holbach and Helvetins, ribald chatterers like Diderot, sentimentalists like Grimm. Miss Tallentyre admires all her heroes, and takes a certain delight in them. Their brilliancy dazzles her, as it dazzled their own day. But of Diderot she cannot honestly refrain from saying :— " If to be great means to be good, then Denis Diderot was a little man." Indeed, for this reason or another, Target seems to us the only "great man" of the collection.
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