TO ENGLAND 1726 - 1729 BY ARCHIBALD BALLANTYNE CHEAPER EDITION LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1919 Libr. Grant 3-19-25 11458 PREFACE VOLTAIRE'S visit to England was the most important incident in his life. He tells us so himself. Yet it is the one period of his extraordinary career which is passed over by his numberless biographers in almost complete silence. As Carlyle in his Frederick' puts it: Mere inanity and darkness visible reign, in all his Biographies, over this period of his life, which was, above all others, worth investigating: seek not to know it; no man has inquired into it, probably no competent man now ever will.' Carlyle's own account of Voltaire in England is full of mistakes. Later researches have done something to fill up this blank page in Voltaire's biography. Notable among these are Gustave Desnoiresterres' Voltaire et la Société Française au XVIIIe Siècle;' and Mr. Churton Collins' very short Essay on Voltaire in England. As this little monograph is mainly biographical, quotation from Voltaire himself and from other writers is used more freely than would be in place in a critical work. A. B. |