DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62267#0245
THROUGH ITALY,
235
Dis.
employed all its talents and all its attractions to
confound the distinction of right and wrong, of
truth and falsehood, to infect the heart with
every vice, and to cloud the understanding with
every error; to stop for ever the two great
sources of human dignity and felicity, Truth
and Virtue ; and to blot out of the mind of man,
the very Sun and soul of the intellectual world,
even the Divinity himself. Such is the unvary-
ing tendency of almost all the works which have
issued from the French press, and been circu-
lated in all the countries of Europe during the
period above-mentioned, from the voluminous
and cumbersome Encyclopedic down to the De-
clamations of Volney or the Tales of Marniontel,
en petit format, for the accommodation of tra-
vellers. The truth is, that the ■ ppellation of
French literature, at present, seems confined to
the works of Voltaire and of his disciples, that
is, to the infidel faction, excluding the nobler
specimens of French genius, the productions of
the age of Louis XIV. and of the period imme-
diately following that monarch’s demise: and if
we wish to know the effects which this literature
produces upon the human mind, we need only
cast our eyes upon tnose v ho are most given to
it, and the countries where it flourishes most.
We shall find that impiety and immorality keep
pace with it in private and public life, and that
235
Dis.
employed all its talents and all its attractions to
confound the distinction of right and wrong, of
truth and falsehood, to infect the heart with
every vice, and to cloud the understanding with
every error; to stop for ever the two great
sources of human dignity and felicity, Truth
and Virtue ; and to blot out of the mind of man,
the very Sun and soul of the intellectual world,
even the Divinity himself. Such is the unvary-
ing tendency of almost all the works which have
issued from the French press, and been circu-
lated in all the countries of Europe during the
period above-mentioned, from the voluminous
and cumbersome Encyclopedic down to the De-
clamations of Volney or the Tales of Marniontel,
en petit format, for the accommodation of tra-
vellers. The truth is, that the ■ ppellation of
French literature, at present, seems confined to
the works of Voltaire and of his disciples, that
is, to the infidel faction, excluding the nobler
specimens of French genius, the productions of
the age of Louis XIV. and of the period imme-
diately following that monarch’s demise: and if
we wish to know the effects which this literature
produces upon the human mind, we need only
cast our eyes upon tnose v ho are most given to
it, and the countries where it flourishes most.
We shall find that impiety and immorality keep
pace with it in private and public life, and that