There  was  one  class  of  people,  however,  who  read  him,  indeed,
but  with  fury,  and  who  would  gladly  have  poisoned  him  for  every
word  he  had  written  ;  there  was  one  set  of  individuals  of  this


INCEEASING   ENLIGHTENMENT.  497

jdescription,  but  they  constituted  a  very  widely  distributed  and,
iitherto,  almost  all-powerful  body.  I  allude  to  the  ordained
clergy,  among  whom,  again,  the  black  cohort  of  Jesuits  ranged
.themselves  in  the  foremost  rank.  They  hated  him  most  mortally,
and  rightfully  so,  seeing  that  he  also  detested  them,  and,
indeed,  if  possible,  still  more  bitterly  than  they  disliked  him,
-and  persecuted  them  with  his  wit,  his  satire,  his  contumely
and  contempt,  in  such  a  keen  cutting  way,  and  with  such
immense  results,  that  he  thereby  brought  about  a  complete
jrevoluiion  in  the  mental  tendency  of  a  very  large  number  of  the
living  community  of  the  time.  It  may  be  that  in  our  days  a
good  many  object  to  his  writings,  especially  his  historical,  philo-
sophical, and  critical  works ;  it  may  be  that  he  may  be  accused,
with  more  or  less  reason,  of  want  of  solidity,  and,  on  the  other
hand,  with  superfluity  of  frivolity :  in  spite  of  all  this,  he  still
stands  forth  as  the  man  the  most  highly  endowed  mentally  of
Jiis  age;  none  the  less  he  was  the  rock  upon  which  was
■shattered  the  authority  of  the  hitherto  adored  Church  in  re-
ligious matters,  as  well  as,  to  some  extent,  political  and  social
•questions.
