ldom-read
"Essay on Criticism" and the other from the equally seldom-read "Essay
on Man." Here and there a professor like the late Professor Conington
will praise the "unhasting unresting flow" of the translations from
Homer; but the next generation will read its "Iliad" in the Greek, or
in some future successor to Mr. William Morris or Mr. Way. Few now
re-echo the praises which the critics of fifty years ago gave to the
"Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady" and "Eloisa to Abelard;" nor do any but
the habitual pilgrims of the by-ways of literature devote their
serious attention to the different versions of the "Dunciad." But
there is no reason why the "Rape of the Lock" should not find as many
admirers a hundred years hence as it does to-day, or why--so long as
men remember the poems of the friend of Maecenas--the "Satires and
Epistles" should fail of an audience. In these Pope's verse is as
perfect as it is anywhere; and his subject is borrowed, not from his
commonplace book, but from his own experiences. He wants, it is true,
the careless ease, the variety, the unemphatic grace of the Roman
writer. But he has many of the qualities of his master; and it is
probable that only when men weary of hearing how Horace strolled down
the Sacred Way and met an intolerable Bore--only then, or perhaps a
little earlier, will they cease to hearken how Alexander Pope bade
John Searle bar the door at Twickenham against the combined inroad of
Bedlam and Parnassus.

[Signature of the author.]

VOLTAIRE[4]

[Footnote 4: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

By M. C. LOCKWOOD, D.D.

(1694-1778)

[Illustration: Voltaire.]

In order to justly estimate the life, character, and genius of a man
it is necessary to possess some knowledge of the environments and
heredity which generated him. Any study of Voltaire which ignores
these influences will fail not only in doing him justice, but in
comprehending his unique and exceptional place in history. The most
careful examination of these, together with the voluminous
bibliography relating to Voltaire provided by French, German, and
English literature, still will leave him something of an enigma.

The stage properties and scenery were prepared for the great Frenchman
long before he appeared, as is always the case with the famous actors
in the drama of history. The time in which he was born was that of
Louis XIV., king by divine right, whose history is that of one who was
more the