SOURCE: Strayer, Joseph R. “The Winner, Voltaire.” New Republic 162, no. 25 (20 June 1970): 29–30.

In the following review, Strayer invents a fictional dialogue between the historical figures Lucian, Erasmus, and Voltaire, assessing Gay's treatment of their ideas in The Bridge of Criticism.

Lucian

Voltaire, I know that you taught us that historians like to play tricks on the dead, but don't you think that [in The Bridge of Criticism] Peter Gay has gone too far? He has taken advantage of a careless suggestion by Gibbon to set you and me and Erasmus into arguing about the nature of the Enlightenment. And by eavesdropping on our conversation he has produced a book that will be admired for its wit and intelligence when we were the ones who wrote all the good lines.

Erasmus

That is not exactly the problem, Lucian. Gay wrote some very good lines of his own, thanks, I suppose...