no other English book had ever come—­on the very verge of civilization, on the borders of Turkey—­this is indeed a wide reign and a proud distinction; but prouder still to be not only read, but to have subjugated, as it were, and moulded the literary tastes of the civilized world.  Voltaire is the writer who, in his lifetime, has approached nearest to this extent of popularity.  Sovereigns courted and corresponded with him; his own countrymen were enthusiastic in his praise; and so general was a knowledge of the French language, that a large majority of the well-educated throughout Europe, were familiar with his writings.  But much of this popularity was the popularity of partisanship.  He served a cause, and for such service, and not alone as the meed of genius, were honours lavished upon him.  The people of France, by whom he was almost deified in his latter years, regarded him less as the literary marvel of their land, than as the man once persecuted by despotism, and the ablest assailant of those institutions which they were endeavouring to undermine.  But Voltaire, with all his popularity, has left impressed on literature scarcely any distinguishable traces of his power.  He exhibited no marked originality of style—­he founded no school—­and as for his imitators, where are they?  To justify the admiration he excited, one must consider not merely how well, but how much and how variously he has written.  With the exception of Voltaire, and perhaps of Lord Byron, there is scarcely a writer whose popularity, while he lived, passed beyond the precincts of his own country.  This, until latterly, was scarcely possible.  Till near the middle of the eighteenth century, what had been long called the “Republic of Letters” existed only in name.  It is not truly applicable but to the present period, when the transmission of knowledge is rapid and easy, and no work of unquestionable genius can excite much interest in any country, without the vibration being quickly felt to the uttermost limits of the civilized world.  How little this was previously the case is evident from the fact, that numerous and important as were the political relations of England with the continent, and successfully as we had attended to the cultivation of letters, yet it is scarcely more than a hundred years since we were first known on the continent to have what might deserve to be called “a Literature.”  Shakspeare, Dryden, and Pope, successively enjoyed in their own country the highest popularity as writers.  Of these, it may reasonably be doubted whether the name of the first had been ever heard out of it.  We can find no evidence which shows that the second had a wider fame.  Pope was indeed better known; for literature had been made conspicuous through honours paid to it by the statesmen of Queen Anne; and Pope was the friend of a peer politically eminent, and was thought, in conjunction with him, to have written a poem, of which, if the poetry was disregarded, the opinions were not unacceptable to the “philosophers” of the continent.