Significance of literature as a profession 125 Voltaire’s dramatic art 126 Not deliberately art with a purpose 126 His plays a prolongation of the tradition of the great age of Lewis XIV. 129 His criticism on Hamlet 132 Merits of the French classic drama 134 Voltaire compared with Corneille and Racine 136 His ideas of dramatic renovation 140 His Roman subjects 141 His enlargement of dramatic themes 143 Failure in comedy 144 Arising from want of deep humour 145 The Pucelle: offends two modern sentiments 147 Its true significance 148 Peculiarity of the licence of the eighteenth century 149 Sophisms by which it was defended 149 Contempt for the middle ages 152 The Henriade 153 CHAPTER IV. BERLIN. Death of Madame du Châtelet 158 Voltaire and the court 158 He goes to Berlin 161 Character of literary activity in Prussia 161 The two movements of which Voltaire and the king were chiefs 162 Character of Frederick the Great 166 Breaking up of the European state-system in 1740 171 The first shock in 1733 172 Frederick raises international relations into the region of real matter 174 The situation defined 175 Two conceptions of progress 177 From which of them the result of the Seven Years’ War is seen to be truly progressive 180 The Jesuits 181 Their repulse after the humiliation of Austria 182 Frederick’s probable unconsciousness of the ultimate bearings of his policy 184 His type of monarchy 186 He sprang doubly from the critical school 188 Other statesmen affected by this school 188