Voltaire gives a peculiar reason for the non-appreciation by the English of Molière’s _Tartuffe_, the original of Mawworm if not of Uriah Heep. He says they are not pleased with the portrayal of characters they do not know. “One there hardly knows the name of devotee, but they know well that of honest man. One does not see there imbeciles who put their souls into others’ hands, nor those petty ambitious men who establish a despotic sway over women formerly wanton and always weak, and over men yet more weak and contemptible.” We fancy Voltaire must have seen society mainly as found among the Freethinkers. Could he give so favorable a verdict did he visit us now? The same remark applies to his statement that there was “no privilege of hunting in the grounds of a citizen, who, at the same time, is not permitted to fire a gun in his own field.” But this, as well as the more important passage that “no one is exempted from taxation for being a nobleman or priest,” was probably intended exclusively for the benefit of his compatriots. He was, however, not without a little touch of ridicule at the incongruities he detected in our countrymen. Thus he notes in one of his letters: “They learn Vanini and translate Lucretius for Monsieur le Dauphin to get by heart, and then, while they deride the polytheism of the ancients, they worship the Congregation of the Saints.” Those educated in the current delusion that Voltaire was a mere mocker will be surprised to find the temperate way in which he speaks of the Quakers. Here, where there was such excellent opportunity for raillery, Voltaire shows he had a genuine admiration for their simplicity of life, the courage of their convictions, their freedom from priestcraft, and their distaste for warfare. In these _Letters,_ as in all his writings, he proves how far he was the embodiment of the new era by his boldly expressed preference for industrial over military pursuits. In his remarks on the Church of England, Voltaire, however, gives an unmistakable touch of his quality: “One cannot have public employment in England or Ireland, without being of the number of faithful Anglicans. This reason, which is an excellent proof, has converted so many Nonconformists that not a twentieth part of the nation is out of the pale of the dominant church.”