It was the necessity of his position. He wanted to do his work, not to become a martyr, leaving it to unknown hands. It should be remembered that Voltaire had sometimes to bribe publishers to bring out his writings; and, in such circumstances, the pseudonymity is surely open to no suspicion of baseness. His poem on _Natural Religion_ was condemned to the flames by the decree of the Parliament of Paris, 23rd January, 1759. His _Important Examination of the Scriptures_, which he falsely attributed to Lord Bolingbroke, was condemned with five other of his pieces by a decree of the Court of Rome, 29th November, 1771. Could the author have been caught, he would have had a good chance, if not of sharing the fate of his book, at least of permanent lodgment in the Bastille, of which he had already sufficient taste. He knew that although Bolingbroke had no hand in its composition he largely shared its ideas, and he obtained at once publicity and security by attributing it to the dead friend who, Morley says, “was the direct progenitor of Voltaire’s opinions in religion.” If he stuck at no subterfuge to achieve his work, his lies injured no one. One of the funniest was the signing one of his heterodox publications as the Archbishop of Canterbury, a lie which may remind us of the drunken Sheridan announcing himself as William Wilberforce. Voltaire had been Bastilled twice, and verily believed that another taste would end his days. “I am,” he said, “a friend of truth, but no friend at all to martyrdom.” Shelter behind any ambush was necessary in such guerilla warfare as his. Over fifty of his works were condemned, and placed upon the Index. Voltaire used no fewer than one hundred and thirty different pen-names, which have enabled bibliographers to display their erudition.(1) But for this underground method, he might have been laid by the heels instead of living to old age, with the satisfaction of seeing the world becoming a little more humane and tolerant through his efforts. In such warfare the only test is success, and the fact remains that Voltaire’s blows told. He cleared the course for modern science, and it is not for those who benefit by his labors to sneer because he did not become a martyr in the struggle. 1. Special mention should be made of the _Bibliographie Voltairienne_ of M. L. Querard, and _Voltaire: Bibliographie de ses Œuvres_, in four volumes, by M. G. Bengesco, 1882- 1890.