I ever remember so absolute a victory as he gained in this dispute.
***
[Another biographer, writing early in the nineteenth century, offers a judicial summary of Voltaire's character, from which we select a few passages.]
This simple recital of the incidents of the life of Voltaire has sufficiently developed his character and his mind; the principal features of which were benevolence, indulgence for human foibles, and a hatred of injustice and oppression. He may be numbered among the very few men in whom the love of humanity was a real passion; which, the noblest of all passions, was known only to modern times, and took rise from the progress of knowledge. Its very existence is sufficient to confound the blind partisans of antiquity, and those who calumniate philosophy.
But the happy qualities of Voltaire were often perverted by his natural restlessness, which the writing of tragedy had but increased. In an instant he would change from anger to affection, from indignation to a jest. Born with violent passions, they often hurried him too far; and his restlessness deprived him of the advantages that usually accompany such minds; particularly of that fortitude to which fear is no obstacle when action becomes a duty, and which is not shaken by the presence of danger foreseen. Often would Voltaire expose him-
