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LIBRARY

OP THE

University of California,

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SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

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SHAKESPEARE AS A DRAMATIC ARTIST

Alrtady FubUskid

II
SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

SHAKESPEARE

AND

VOLTAIRE

THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY, L.H.D., LL.D.,

Professor of En^ish m Vaie UnivorsUy

/\-

»..<-' •

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1902

By Charles Scribmer's Sons

PukUsMtd StfUmbtTf igoi.

UNIVERSITY PRKSS • JOHN WILSON
AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

PREFACE

IH the opening volume of this series I sought to
ohow, among other things, that the controversy between
what we now commonly call the classical and romantic
dramas was carried on as vigorously during the Eliza-
bethan era as it has been at any period since. The
present names did not exist, it is true ; but the realities
were just as active and as potent. The lines were
drawn as rigidly then as they have been at any time ;
and according to their preferences and beliefs men
allied themselves with the one or the other party.

Evidence of this was furnished from the mouths of
various witnesses. But had not their testimony been
handed down, the existence of such a condition of
things could have been inferred, not merely from the
acts of Shakespeare, but from his very words. From
them it is clear that he not only recognized the distinc-
tion between the two kinds of drama, but that he ad-
visedly ranged himself upon the side of the romanticists.
His rejection of the unities, for illustration, was not
accidental but deliberate. He made this evident not
only by his marked conformity to them in at least one
instance; in two or three others he practically pro-
claimed his dissent from them in the references he
made to the arguments by which they were supported.
This single fact is sufficient of itself to dispose of the

IGlUl

PREFACE

theory, widely accepted during the eighteenth centory
and not altogether discarded even now, that his was a
genius which worked independently of rule and acted
merely under the impulse of a blind inspiration.

Shakespeare's choice of his side could hardly have
failed to exert a distinct ulfluence during the age in
which he flourished, as it certainly exerted a decisive
influence later. At any rate, as the result of the conflict
which went on, the romantic drama remained at the end
of the Elizabethan period master of the field. There
were those who denounced it violently before it had
achieved its victory. There were dissenters from it
after its triumph had been assured. Not unfrequently
there was on the part of some a theoretical recognition
of the justice of the doctrines of the classicists, with a
disregard or evasion of them in practice. Still, it is
safe to say that up to the period of the civil war the
form of the drama which is best exemplified by the
plays of Shakespeare prevailed generally over that form
of it which sought to be in accord with the slow-endeav-
oring art — to use Milton's phrase — of Ben Jonson.

This condition of things was reversed after the Res-
toration. French ideas became not merely prevalent
but prevailing. Classicism took possession of the Eng-
lish stage. The hold it gained was still further con-
firmed during the eighteenth century. One thing only
stood in the way of its triumph being made absolutely
complete. This was the continuous and increasing
popularity of Shakespeare. As time went on, piece
after piece of his was revived and became a permanent
addition to the collection of plays which the theatres

PREFACE

held in stock. The indifference he had displayed to the
canons of the so-called classical drama sometimes called
forth derision, sometimes regret; but far more than
either it tended to excite doubt as to the validity of the
laws disregarded. The feeling strengthened with the
progress of the century. By its end respect for the con-
ventions insisted upon by the classicists had largely
disappeared. In a few years more the sway of its
gtand central doctrine, that of the unities, had been
utterly overthrown in practice. Men who wrote for the
stage might henceforth regard it or not, as it suited
their pleasure or their whim. But the belief in the
necessity of its observance was gone. This is to say
that in the early part of the nineteenth century the
practice of playwrights had swung back to that gen-
erally adopted by their predecessors in the latter part
of the sixteenth.

Then arose a body of critical teachers — of whom
Schlegel in Germany and Coleridge in England are the
great exemplars — who came forward to defend the
methods which had come once more to prevail; to
affirm that they were in conformity to art, and not in
violation of it ; and that in consequence, not Comeille
and Racine, but Shakespeare was what Lessing had long
before proclaimed him to be, the true successor of the
Greek tragedians. But these writers did not create the
revolution, as it has often been asserted. They justified
it, they gave men a reason for the course they followed or
the faith they held. But the revolution itself had been
already accomplished. That was the work of Shake*
speare, and of Shakespeare alone.

PREFACE

So much contamed in the previoufl work it has been
necessaiy to premise before entering upon the subject of
the present one. For the victory which was gained was
gained very slowly. Th^re wag qtip. msLn \n parHnnUr who
did more than any other, or rather more than all others, to
delay in eyeiy country of Europe the revolt against clas-
sicism, and in some to arrest it for more than a generation.
This man was Voltaire. It is the story of the relations
he held to Shakespeare, of the influence originally exerted
upon him by the English dramatist, of the war he waged
against the latter*s growing reputation on the Continent,
of the hostility evol|;ed in turn towards himself in Eng-
land, which L have sought to relate in the following
pages. It is a story which has never been told save in
part. Certain ^rtlbns of it — especially that dealing
with the ^toi^ of Shakespeare in France and Grermany
— have been made the subject of excellent treatises in the
languages of those two countriea These works have
necessarily devoted more or less space to Voltaire's words
and acts. But in none of them has there been any af>-
tempt to portray his attitude throughout with the fulness
found here ; still further, in none of them has there been
anything but the most meagre references to the attitude
taken towards him in turn by the English.

To give this side of Shakespearean controversy is one
of the main objects of the present work. Having said
so much, I may be permitted to state in addition what is
not one of its objects. No one will dispute the right of
the critic, as it is usually regarded by him as his duty, to
insist that certain things ought to have been discussed
which the author has not chosen to discuss. But I wish

• « •

VUl

PREFACE

to guaid against the impression that there was any de-
sign to give here any account of the growth of Shake-
speare's reputation on the Continent, especially in France.
Certain general statements had to be made in regard to
it. Certain aspects of it therefore are given, certain in-
cidents connected with it are told, in two or three in-
stances, with great fulness of detail. But these are
incidental to the main purpose. They are brought in to
throw light upon Voltaire's feelings and to explain his
acts and utterances ; they are never told for themselves.
One great difficulty has frequently presented itself in
the investigation of this subject. Voltaire was con-
stantly engaged in revising and altering his works.
While complete editions containing the final text are
abundant, early editions of single works are to a great
extent inaccessible in this country. They may possibly
be found in private libraries ; they do not seem to exist
in public ones. Perhaps the same difficulty would be
met everywhere outside of France. It is certainly
noticeable that the printed catalogue of the vast col-
lections of the British Museum shows only a very limited
number of these early authorities. One cannot always
be sure in consequence that the form in which any state-
ment of Voltaire's is finally found is the one which it
possessed originally. Here the invaluable bibliography
of Bengesco cannot help us, or helps us only at intervals.
In some instances I have accordingly been prevented
from making a positive statement where positive state-
ment would have been most desirable. If in these in-
stances I have been unable to tell all the truth, I can
only hope that I have been successful in the effort to

PREFACE

refrain from conveying wrong impressions by that part
of the truth which has been told.

As was the course pursued in the preceding yolume
of this series, I have endeavored to give the reader some
conception of the less-known men of letters who became
involved in the controversies which went on in regard
to Shakespeare as well as an account of the part they
played. Furthermore, the plan indicated in the general
introduction has been followed. This is to treat each
subject so as to constitute it of itself an independent
work, thereby rendering it unnecessary for the reader to
make himself familiar with what has preceded. In the
case of the present volume the result has been accom-
plished by the slight summary, supplied in this preface,
of certain conclusions reached in the previous treatise.
The adoption of this course has likewise rendered it
necessary to recount again a few facts which were con-
tained in that volume. In one instance indeed a short
quotation has been given for the second time. But even
in repetitions necessary to render the work complete in
itself, an effort has been made to present from a different
point of view the details of the incidents which were
related and the portrayal of the personages who were de-
scribed. Nor can the whole amount of repetition be con-
sidered as being of much consequence. At most it does
not occupy the space of more than two or three pages.

The next volume of this series will deal with the diffi-
culties which exist in ascertaining definitely the text of
Shakespeare, and the controversies which early sprang up
in regard to the proper method of its settlement.

CONTENTS

OiiAPTm Paob

I. VoLTAiBE IK England 1

II. Yoltaikb's Knowledge of English Literature 17

m. First Impressions of Shakespeare .... 41

. lY. Voltaire's Brutus and ZaIre T; .. .. : . . 67

^^V. *The Death of Casar' 96

YI. Macbeth and Mahomet, Hamlet and Si^mi-

RAMIS 118

Vu. Resentment of the English 132

VIII. La Place's Translation of Shakespeare . . 160

IX. The Appeal to the Nations 182

X. The Commentaries on Corneillb 204

XL Second Appeal to the Nations 219

Xn. The Critic Criticised 240

XIII. The Voltairb-Walpole Correspondence . . 258

XIV. Two New English Adversaries 281

XV. Attack and Defence in England 801

XVI. Pessimistic Views op Voltaire 315

XVn. Le Tourneur's Translation of Shakespeare . 330

XVm. The Wrath of Voltaire 855.

XIX. The Day of St. Louis 378

XX. Indifference of the English 397

XXI. Later Results of the Controversy .... 422

XXn. General Conclusions 438

SHAKESPEAEE AND VOLTAIRE

CHAPTER I

yOI/TAIBE IN SNGLAND

On the second of May, 1726, Voltaire was released
from the Bastille on the condition that he should repair
at once to England. On the following morning he set
out for Calais. Either from fear that he would miss
the road, or to guard against a momentary lapse of
memory which might lead him to wander in another
direction, a government official was commissioned to
accompany him on the journey to that port. The in-
structions given to the attendant were, to remain with
the released prisoner until he saw him safely on board
of the vessel and on his way to England. At Calais
Voltaire remained a few days, much irritated at the
surveillance to which he was subjected. At last he
embarked. In a short time he found himself in a land
separated from his own by a few leagues of water, but
in opinions, in feelings, in tastes, divided by immeas-
urable distances.

The country to which he was exiled welcomed him

cordially. To both the great Whig and Tory houses he

had access. He came into personal contact with no

small number of the men most renowned in literature

1 1

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

and politics. The new edition of his epic, published
at London in the second year after his arrival, had
on the list of its subscribers many of the most noted
names of the English aristocracy, and was dedicated to
the Queen of England herself. For him the barriers
did not exist which divided the people into classes
hostile to each other where they were not indifferent.
His insatiable curiosity led him to seek the society of
men of all creeds, of all ranks, of all parties. Much
of his time was spent at Wandsworth, a now outlying
suburb of the great city, in the home of Everard
Falkener, an English merchant trading with the EasL,
He dined at the house of the prime minister, Walpole ;
he lived in familiar intercourse with Walpole^s bitter
enemy, Bolingbroke, whom he had come to know long
before in France. He made the acquaintance of patrons
of literature like Lyttelton and Bubb Dodington, of
philosophers like Clarke and Berkeley, of men of letters
like Pope, Swift, Gay, Congreve, Thomson, and Young.
Nearly three years he remained. It was long enough
for him to learn to read English with ease, to speak it
with a tolerable degree of fluency, and to write it with
what his enemies chose to consider suspicious accuracy.
^ tt was long enough, furthermore, for him to become an
jardent admirer of English philosophy and science as
Embodied in the works of Locke and Newton, and to
form a limited acquaintance with English literature.
To the immense majority of his countrymen this last
was then not only an unknown, but an unheard-of land.
It was while in England that Voltaire became ac-
quainted with the works of Shakespeare. It is more

VOLTAIRE IN ENGLAND

correct to say he became acquainted with some of them.
Of many of the plays of the great dramatist he pretty
certainly lived and died in profoundest ignorance. He
unquestionably had them in his library ; he never had
them in his mind. From the various criticisms which,
from time to time during the rest of his life, he poured
forth upon the English stage, no one would get the
slightest inkling of the fact that Shakespeare ever wrote
a single comedy. It was not entirely Voltaire's fault.
His knowledge of plays was derived largely from seeing
them acted. During the time he was in England, it
was mainly the tragedies of Shakespeare that were
brought upon the stage. The two or three of his come-
dies which were performed at all were not only vilely
altered, but even in their mutilated state were then per-
formed but rarely. The English works of this sort
which Voltaire heard of were the composition of men
who belonged to the period following the Restoration.
The principal writers of them whom he knew about
were Congreve, Wycherley, and Vanbrugh ; it is of them
alone he speaks with any fulness.

Ignorant as he was of Shakespeare's comedies, his
knowledge of many of the other works of the dramatist
was none too remarkable. The way in which he sub-
sequently referred to some of them will clear him from
the charge of any undue familiarity with their contents.

* Hamlet,' * Lear,' * Othello,' ' Macbeth,' ' Julius Caesar,'

* Antony and Cleopatra,' ^ Romeo and Juliet,' ^Richard
II.,' 'Richard IH.,' * Henry IV.,' * Henry V.,' and

* Troilus and Cressida,' comprise the plays which he at
various times mentioned. The list would be a sufB-

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

ciently satisfactory one, were it not that his remarks
upon some of the number tend to establish his ignorance
of them instead of indicating his knowledge. Of cer-
tain of these he really knew little more than the names.
The blunders he made in discussing them amply acquit
him of intentional perversion of the meaning he mis-
understood. The two pieces with which he was best
acquainted were 'Hamlet* and ^Julius C%sar.' The
latter, excellent as it is, is ranked by no one among the
grreatest of Shakespeare's productions; but for some
reason it made upon Voltaire a particularly vivid im-
pression. It may be that he had seen it acted with
peculiar power. It may be that the absence from it of
a love intrigue, which he hated in tragedy, reconciled
Iiim in a measure to its total disregard of the diumatic
laws which he held so precious. But to whatever cause
his interest in it was due, it is the one of Shakespeare's
works which on the whole plays the most prominent
part in both his critical and creative writings, so far as
his relations with its author are concerned. It is the
one to which he most frequently refers for the sake of
conveying either praise or blame. Even when it did
not inspire direct imitation, it suggested scenes and
plots and portrayals of character to pieces of his own.
There was one recommendation which these two plays
possessed. Both of them had been saved from the
hands of the spoiler. Both continued to be presented
in their original purity, or, as Voltaire would have con-
sidered it, in their original impurity. In them conse-
quently Shakespeare was seen at his best or at his
worst, according to the way one was disposed to regard

VOLTAIRE IN ENGLAND

hiB art. There was, furthermore, no question as to
the favor with which these plays, as well as others of
the dramatist, were received. To the popularity of the
great Elizabethan, Voltaire himself bore frequent witness.
For the period of his residence in England it is conclu-
sive. Excellent translations of the best French tragedies,
excellent productions of native writers, exemplars in
both cases of chastened and refined art, were never able,
he observed, to draw to their representation audiences
such as thronged the theatre whenever it was an-
nounced that one of Shakespeare's plays was to be
performed.

One reason, outside of the character of the works
themselves, ought to be added here for the steady hold
which Shakespeare continued to retain over the men
of the eighteenth century. To the excellence of the
matter was generally added a well-sustained excellence
of performance. All dramatic writings are in danger
of suffering from having one part acted finely, and the
others inadequately or meanly. This too common con-
dition of things has frequently wrought havoc with the
pieces of Shakespeare, crowded as they usually are with
several characters of first importance. The London
which Voltaire saw possessed but two playhouses. In
them was largely concentrated all the theatrical talent
to which the British isles had given birth. In the
hands of a capable manager an opportunity was thus
afforded for the adequate performance of great produc-
tions, which can hardly be said to exist now, when
those who would give most effective representation
to its various parts are scattered over the entire land,

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

or dispersed in the dozen diifferent houses of a single
city. This opportunity was not always improved, to be
sure ; but during the whole century it existed. Garrick,
for instance, was a host in himself. The English stage
has never witnessed any one so amply endowed as he
to fulfil all parts of a star, either in comedy or tragedy.
Yet when in 1747 he undertook the management of
Drury Lane, his avowed aim was to secure for it all
the best performers that could be found. For his first
season he assuredly succeeded. What should we think
now of a single playhouse which should contain on its
rolls, as his did then, about forty performers of greater
or less distinction, with Garrick at their head, and
including among them such actresses as Mrs. Gibber,
Mrs. Clive, Mis. Pritchard, and Peg Woffington 7

The remark of Voltaire, which has just been cited,
shows that not even the later works, which he regarded
as representatives of refined art, were able then to
hold their own against the overwhelming popularity
of Shakespeare. This is not the only contribution he
makes to the sentiment of that age in regard to the
dramatist His visit to England furnishes additional
confirmation of the truth of a view which, however
well-known, is not sufficiently well-known to keep it
from being occasionally controverted. This is the
general concession of Shakespeare's superiority not only
to the playwrights of later times, but to the playwrights
of his own time. Both the popular and the critical
estimate agreed in recognizing his supremacy. How
completely he had come at this period to outrank all
his contemporaries in public opinion is made conspicu-

VOLTAIRE IN ENGLAND

ous by the fact that he is the only one of the Eliza-
bethans whom Voltaire knows. Of the dramatists of
that earlier period, Fletcher had been for a while the
favorite with theatre-goers after the Restoration. Jon-
son also had then stood side by side with Shakespeare,
at least among the critics. But with neither of these
two had Voltaire any real acquaintance. Of one of
them he had probably never heard ; he certainly never
spoke of him. Of the other it would have been just
as well had he never spoken ; for what he said estab-
lishes not his knowledge but his ignorance.

By Shakespeare Voltaire was both attracted and re-
pelled. As a Frenchman, trained in the strictest rules
of the classicists, and disposed to render those rules
even more rigid, he was shocked beyond measure by
the irregularities, the gross improprieties, or rather in-
decencies, as he looked upon them, in which the greatest
English dramatist had indulged with no apparent con-
sciousness that his course was anything but perfectly
proper. A man who could in all sincerity assert, as
did Voltaire, that in the three unities, all other laws,
that is to say, all other beauties of the drama, are
comprised, was not likely to be impressed favorably
by the persistent disregard of them which Shakespeare
had manifested. He shuddered furthermore at the
mixture of the comic and the tragic in the same pro-
duction; at the low characters which were brought
upon the stage, and the low language in which they
indulged ; at the scenes of violence, of horror, and of
carnage which were enacted in full view of the audi-
ence. Such practices ran counter to all his personal

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

tastes and prejudices, as well as to the traditioiis of the
one theatre which he believed, or tried to believe, sur-
passed not only that of all modem nations, but that of
the Greeks themselves.

With these views of his he found plenty of sym-
pathizers in the land to which he came. Had he him-
self been disposed to hesitate about the justice of his
conclusions, the men he met would have stood ready
to assure him of their correctness. There existed then
a large number of Euglishmen who continued to feel
deeply pained at the failure of Shakespeare to conform
to the canons of art pure and undefiled. Their admira-
tion of particular passages did not blind their eyes to
his defects, or hinder their perception of his failure
to reach their own exalted standard of taste. The
attitude of condescension was invariably maintained by
the professed arbiters of public opinion. Besides the
common ruck of critics, who always make it a point
to re-echo the prevalent cant of the day, there were
men possessing abilities of no mean order who enter-
tained and expressed sentiments of this sort Some
of them too had occupied or were still occuppng high
station in society. Earlier in the century Shaftesbury
had given utterance to the then not uncommon opinion
that the British muses were as yet in their mere infant
state. They lisp in their cradles, he told us. They had
scarcely arrived at anything of shapeliness of person.
This was true of Shakespeare, Jonson, Fletcher, and
Milton. Yet upon the great dramatist he was willing
to bestow a good deal of praise for the justness of his
moral and for his skill in characterization, which caused

VOLTAIRE IN ENGLAND

him to be relished in spite of ^^his natural rudeness,
his unpolished style, his antiquated phrase and wit, his
want of method and coherence, and his deficiency in
almost all the graces and ornaments of this kind of
writing." ^

With this estimate Chesterfield, for a long time the
arbiter of taste in the fashionable world, did not differ
materially. To his son he wrote that a gentleman should
make it a point to know the classics of every language.
In the list he gave of English authors entitled to that
distinction Shakespeare did not appear ; though in the
corresponding one in French, Comeille, Racine, and
Molidre were to be found.' He had nO disposition, how-
ever, to proscribe the dramatist. To a female friend in
France he sent as a present the works of four writers as
ambassadors from his own country. In the number
Shakespeare was included. But with the announcement
of the gift he felt it incuiUbent to put in a qualifying
statement, lest it should be supposed that he condoned
the irregularities of the plajrwright, or failed to recog-
nize his errois. He told his correspondent that she
should give to Shakespeare the precise sort of reoeption
which she deemed fitting, inasmuch as he sometimes
merited the best and sometimes the worst.^ This guarded
approbation was the utmost which the thoroughly
superior people of that time felt that they could properly
gfive. From Bolingbroke, with whom Voltaire spent
much of his time, he learned that the English stage did

^ Advice to an Author, PaVt II. sec. I and sec 3 (1710).

* Letter to his son, March 2, 1752.

* Letter to Madame da Boccage, March 4, 1752.

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

not possess a single good tragedy. Let ns be just By
this was meant one good tragedy as a whole. The
existence of admirable scenes was conceded ; it was as
a complete work of art that every play failed.

But besides being a Frenchman, Voltaire was a man
of genius. As a man of genius he could not help being
impressed by certain qualities which the English dram-
atist exhibited. They affected him, they influenced him
to an extent of which he was hardly conscious, and
which at a later period he was little disposed to acknowl-
edge. He was willing, at least at first, to pardon much
that Shakespeare did, on account of that assumed rude
and unpolished age in which he flourished. If as you
say, he wrote to Bolingbroke, you do not possess a
single good tragedy, there are nevertheless some most
admirable scenes in those wild pieces which go under
that name. While, therefore, Voltaire could not approve
the barbarous irregularities with which the play of
^Julius CsBsar,' for illustration, abounds, he told the
man he was addressing that he was only astounded that
there were not more irregularities in pieces produced in
an age of ignorance by a writer who did not understand
Latin, and who had no instructor but his own genius.
These pieces lacked indeed the correctness, the purity,
the elegance, for which the French stage was, dis-
tinguished. But however deficient in taste, they un-
mistakably possessed power. They held the attention,
they stirred the heart. This was what Voltaire said
then. Long afterward, when his criticism of Shake-
speare had begun to assume a peculiarly depreciatory
tone, he did not refuse to acknowledge the strength

VOLTAIRE IN ENGLAND

that lay in these dramas, bizarre and savage as he both
deemed and termed them. ^^ I have seen ' Julius CsBsar '
played," he wrote in 1764, "and I confess that from
the first scene, when I heard the tribunes reproaching
the Roman populace for its ingratitude to Pompey and
its attachment to Pompey's conqueror, I began to be
interested, to be excited. I did not see afterwards
any conspirators upon the stage who did not arouse my
curiosity ; and in spite of the large number of its absurd
improprieties, I felt that the piece impressed me." ^

No student of Voltaire's life needs to be told of the
profound influence which his residence in England ex-
ercised over his later activities, both literary and polit-
icaL The account he gives of his experiences there is
not indeed to be always received with the trusting faith
we exhibit towards a divine revelation. He was never
a man to spoil a good story by insisting upon a slavish
adherence to inconvenient details merely because they
happened to be true. Accuracy, if it conflicted with
an effect he was aiming to produce, was treated by
him with more than indifference ; he had for it what
may be termed a fine scorn. Doubtless he would always
have preferred to have his facts just as he said they
were ; but if they were not, it was their misfortune, not
his. It was his business to be interesting ; and if interest
was lacking in the events he narrated, he was ready
to supply it from his own inexhaustible invention. The
danger under which we all lie is to accept Voltaire's
account of a g^ven occasion, or of anything in a given

^ Observations sur U Jules CAar de Shakespeare in Commentatres tur
Comeiile.

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

work, as an exact relation of what was then done or
there said.

In the edition of Voltaire's complete writings which
was brought out a few years after his death — the one
published at Kehl — there appeared among the mis-
cellanies a short piece in the form of a letter.* It
purported to give an account of his first experiences in
England. It was assigned by the editors to 1727, the
year after his arrival in that country. As it opens with
an account of some views which he had been reading in
a work of Dennis's, it must have been written some
time after he had become reasonably familiar with the
language. It is an interesting and brilliant description
of the scenes he saw, or said he saw, upon his first
landing, which, according to the account here given, was
at Greenjrich. Everything was bright and animated.
The weather was delightful; the sky was without a
cloud; a gentie west wind added to the happiness of
every one ; for it appears from his description to have
been the day of the fair. He met in the crowd some
men of business to whom he had letters of introduction.
They were exceedingly cordial ; they put themselves
out in every way to contribute to his enjoyment. He
was transported with pleasure at everything which he
saw and in which he took part. So passed the first

day.
J On the day following he met at an ill-appointed,
ill-managed coffee-house the same men, who were no lon-
ger the same men. They scarcely recognized his exist-
ence. He could hardly get from any one of them

1 Vol. xUx. pp. 10-21 (1785). It is headed Bimplj " A. M.

• • •

VOLTAIRE IN ENGLAND

anything more than the monosyllabic yes or no. As *
he could not recall a single thing he had said or done
which could properly give them offence, he tried to dis-
cover the reason of this strange behavior. From one of
them he wrung at last the allnsufficient reply, *^The
wind is in the east." Pretty soon a person came in who
informed the assembled company with a good deal of
indifference that a woman of their acquaintance, young,
beautiful, and rich, and just on the point of being hap-
pily married, had been found dead in her chamber by
her lover. She had cut her throat with a razor.
Her friends who heard the news received it with the
same indifference as had been exhibited by the friend
who had communicated it. The single inquiry made
was about the lover. What had become of him ? " He
has bought the razor," said coldly one of the company.

Voltaire discovered that the strange conduct of the
men, the suicide of a happy girl were due to the one
single fact that the wind was in the east. This account
of events was supplemented by a number of similar
details and observations written to harmonize with the
prepossessions and beliefs existing on the Continent as
to the character of the English. It requires a &ith
capable of removing mountains to believe that many
of the incidents narrated ever took place, or could
have taken place. The very fact that this epistle
was not printed in Voltaire's lifetime seems to indicate
that he regarded its publication as too much of a tax
upon human credulity, if not upon English patience.
At all events it was clearly an impression he was seek-
ing to convey by it, not a recital of occurrences he was

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

setting out to give. As a circumstantial account of
what really happened, one might as well go^the ' .£neid '
for an exact picture of what took place at the founding
of Carthage. This portrayal of English sentiment and
behavior constitutes, with its striking and in many
instances impossible incidents, an entertaining story,
entertainingly told. But there is about it nothing so
amusing as the way in which it has been taken. It has
been treated as veritable history. Its details have been
carefully scrutinized; its errors have been solemnly
pointed out.

As long as Voltaire was disposed to embellish hiB
own experiences for the sake of making a good story,
he in one sense had no right to complain that others
would deal in extravagant fictions about him in turn.
Only, his were pleasant inventions, and little calculated
to deceive. Those of which he was made the subject
were often malignant After he had succeeded in
shocking the religious sentiment of his time, more es-
pecially after he had cowed the persecuting rage of
religious bigotry, there was little limit to the imbrica-
tions that went on of false statements about his life and
actions. There is no mendacity more unscrupulous
than that which sets out to calumniate those whom its
utterers choose to deem the enemies of God. France''
furnished msmj baseless stories about Voltaire's con-
duct and career; but in meanness they were fully
equalled by the smaller crop which sprang up in Eng-
land. There too they were fathered by dignitaries of
the church, and were spread far and wide by the agency
of professed moralists. The most widely circulated of

VOLTAIRE IN ENGLAND

them is the story that Voltaire, the cultivated and
polished man of the world, indulged in conversation so
gross, when dining with Pope, that the poet's mother
was obliged to leave the room. For the origin of this
absurdest of stories Warburton seems to have been
remotely responsible, but its extensive currency has
been due to Dr. Johnson. Another is that he, the
intimate personal friend of Bolingbroke, played the
part of a spy upon that nobleman in the interests of
the English ministry. Long after all the parties were in
their graves, another peculiarly ridiculous falsehood was
evolved by an anonymous slanderer. It represented
Voltaire as having defrauded deliberately and in a spe-
cially mean way his friend, the Earl of Peterborough ;
and in order to escape the wrath of the justly incensed
nobleman, eager to kill him, as having fled precipitately
to his own country.*

These lies correspond closely to Prince Hal's descrip-
tion of FalstafiTs : they are gross as a mountain, open,
palpable. Voltaire had plenty of faults. Many of
them will be constantly displayed in the course of this
volume. In trickiness he was in certain ways unrivalled.
In the war which he waged in behalf of freedom of
thought he was forced to resort to crafty devices of all
kinds to foil the efforts of those determined to prevent
the circulation of his writings. When it came to the
denial of the authorship of his own works, rarely has
there been found a more versatile and intrepid liar.
No criminal ever appeared under more aliases. But

1 For a full acconnt of these stories, see Ballantyne's valuable " Vol-
taire's Visit to England" (1893), pp. 74-86, anJppTSs 1-234.

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

Stories such as those just mentioned, lick that deeeot
d^ree of piobslMlity which beLoogs to the most eztniT-
sgsnt fictkxL The acts reoonled are senseleas and
motivelesB. We are asked to beliere that the most
Ivilliant man of letten of his time, who associated
during his whole life with the highest and moai
refined society of all lands, was not only gnilty of rio-
lating the decencies of ordinary behaTior, bat in addi-
tion coold descend to the {Hactices of a common
cheat. This of itself is hard enough to accept; it may
be granted that it is not actoally impossible. We are
forther asked to believe that in so doing he acted the
part of an unconscionaUe fool. There is a point at
which credulity stops.

CHAPTER II

VOLTAIEE'S knowledge op ENGLISH LITERATURE

AcctTRACY is a very useful quality in a writer, bui
it never tends of itself to make him interesting. In the
equipment of a man of genius, it is at best but a virtae
of secondary importance. In works of imagination who
but a pedant cares whether facts have been misstated,
whether chronology has been defied, whether the manners
of one age have been transferred to those of anotiier?
It is the truth of life at which the great artist aims, not
at the truth of detail. Furthermore, if the man of
genius be a very prolific author, accuracy is for him a
simple impossibility. That demands leisure and vigi-
lance and painstaking on matters of minor impoi-tance.
The time and toil necessary to secure it are wasted in
the case of him who aims at results which are inde-
pendent' of any consonance with the actual course of
events. What he gains on one side he loses on the
other. If the mistakes of the man of genius are of im-
portance in themselves, it becomes the duty of the
humble gleaner who follows in his footsteps to point
out things as they were, and not as in the glowing
imagination of the writer they were supposed to be ; to
correct the errors arising from carelessness or ignomnce,
or to indicate the artistic skill which can overleap the
2 17

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

restniiiits of fact in order to produce thereby a pro-
founder impression.

It has been intimated in the preceding chaj)tcr that
VolUiire never concerned himself about exactne.^sj in tBe
details of any story which he songlit to make inteiesting.
This is not brought against him as a reproach. Like
all men of genius, he had many qualities far higher
than accuracy. How indeed could he have Ix'cn accu-
rate ? How could a writer who treated of almost every
t^pic in which the human race is interested expect to
b ) correct in ev^rj- little detail ? Here was a man whose
life was spent in bringing beliefs of ^11 sorts to the bar
of reason ; who was fighting continuously against time-
honored abuses in clmrch and state ; who was constantly
engaged in promulgating new views on eveiy subject, or
new ways of looking at old views ; who, further, in the
midst of these occupations, was throwing off year aft^r
year poems, plays, tales, treatises without number, besides
carrjdng 'on an immense correspondence with persons in
every grade of society, ranging from crowned beads to
the humlue friends of his youth. How could such a
person find the leisure to master the petty details which
are necessary to make his statements accord with precise
fact? What time had he at his commfind to spend in
verifying dates, establishing exactness of quotation, jus-
tifying correctness of assertion? This may not have
been the view he took of himself and of his statements :
but it must be the view of his advocates. For his vin-
dication they must rely up(;n the truth of liis genei-al-
ities, not upon the truth of his det^iils.

Not onlv did Voltaire, in the multifarious Jictivities

VOLTAIRE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE

of his life, have no leisure to attain accuracy, he may
almost be said to have felt, if not a contempt for it, a
contempt for its importance. It would be unjust to say
that he looked upon it with detestation whenever regard
for it interfered with any impression he was trying to
produce; but he certainly did with indifference. He
assuredly never considered how much it costs to tell
the truth. As he had not the leisure, so he had not the
disposition to spend much time in securing a product
which struck him as in many respects of comparatively
little value. He could never have been made a convert
to the modem doctrine, sometimes taught as a theory,
more often exemplified in practice, that in order to have
history accurate, it must be rendered stupid. Strive for
such a result as best he might, Voltaire could never
have been dull. But along with dulness he neglected
certain other things. Without doubt he honestly be-
lieved at times that he was engaged in making laborious
researches; but nothing could have been less to his
taste than the Dryasdust method which painfully per-
plexes itself about exactness of dates and faithful
representation of events. This he would have charac-
terized as belonging to the letter which killeth, and not
to the spirit which maketh alive.

It is not unjust to impute to him this feeling, for
he avowed it himself. In the article on Dante in his
^ Philosophical Dictionary,' he observed that Bayle had
made a mistake of five years in the date of the poet's
birth. He had put it down as 1260; he should have
said 1265. The correction was made, not as one might
naturally suppose, in order to guard the reader against

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

errotf or to censui'e the biographer for carelessneBS. On
the contrary, he referred to it to point out how utterly un-
important the error was, and to convey an implied censure
upon those who looked upon it as of any consequence
and found fault with the writer for committing it. A
little variation of five years in the date of a man's iHrth
is the merest bagatelle, so long as one's eyes are fixed
on higher objects. *^The great thing/* was Voltaire's
comment, *^ is not to mistake either in point of taste or
in point of argument." This disposition to look on the
anxiety to be accurate as a low and grrovelling ambition
which tended to fasten the eyes of the spirit upon the
earth, was shared by his followers and admirers in all
countries. We are told with approval by an English
reviewer of the contemptuous smile which Voltaire
bestowed upon an informant who pointed out to him
that he had transferred the date of a battle to another
year from that in which it actually took place. ** These
minute details," remarked the critic, *^ these labors of
little minds, are only important when magnified by
dulness." ^

In a large share of the matters which engaged Vol-
taire's attention, and upon which his reputation still
rests, correctness of statement was of little account
He is not to be blamed for his unwillingrness to sacrifice
to it results far greater. A man whose ideas were
sapping creeds, disintegrating ancient beliefs, under-
mining the tyranny of political dogmas, could not be
expected to subject himself to the tyranny of fact. But
though in works of the imagination, accuracy is the

1 Critical Review, vol. Ix. ]>. 239.

VOLTAIRE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE

least of virtues, and if higher things are subordinated
to it, tends to become a positive vice, it plays, after all,
a part of some importance in those humbler efforts of
the mind which deal with the relation of events. In
certain fidds of investigation there has been and always
will remain a prejudice in its favor. It is felt to be
desirable in historical investigation. It imparts also an
element of fairness, and sometimes of conclusiveness,
to controversial discossion. The indifference which
Voltaire frequently displayed to it justifies us in taking
a further step. We can say that he never made himself
a slavish adherent to fact, when not simply higher ends,
but also his own ends, could be better subserved by a
liberal intermingling of fiction. There were in his mind
two predominant feelings. One was to be entertaining ;
and rarely has man succeeded better. The other was
to enforce the triumph of his own views ; and it seemed
at times to have been to him a matter of indifference
how he did it, provided he did it. Misrepresentation,
misquotation, perversion of meaning were perfectly jus-
tifiable, if more satisfactory agencies failed to accomplish
what he wished. This is true at all events in the case
of Shakespeare. In regard to him there is scarcely a
method of conveying a wrong impression, from sup-
pression of the truth to intentional falsification, to
which Voltaire did not occasionally resort. Unques-
tionably his misstatements arose sometimes from care-
lessnesB, sometimes from ignorance, sometimes from
that recklessness of assertion which prefers to hazard
any misrepresentation, however g^oss, to undergoing any
toil of verification, however slight But there are in-

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

stances in which no investigator can escape the convic-
tion that Voltaire deliberately determined to deceive
readers who were utterly ignoranti or at least more
ignorant than himself.

To many this view of Voltaire may be a sniprise,
and to some it will seem unwarranted. It is certainly
a serious imputation upon the character of a man of
genius, and the reader has a right to demand something
besides assertion. Yet we need not limit this charge
of untrustworthiness to what is said by him about
Shakespeare. To some extent it pervades numerous
statements of his about English history and English
literature. It is not meant to imply by tins that he
did not say many true things ; only, in no case can we
accept a thing as true solely because Voltaire said it.
His unsupported testimony is never to be relied upon
implicitly. Of matters he knew little or nothing
about he talked with a confidence so assured that it
frequently staggers belief to find how absolutely with-
out foundation his assertions are. In a few cases the
blunders committed are apparently so without cause
or provocation that they seem the outcome of a per-
versity which was determined to be wrong when it
might just as well have been right. As a sort of
preliminary study for testing the trustworthiness of his
statements about Shakespeare and his writings, let us
turn to what he says of other persons and other works
in the departments of English history and literature.
Take in the first place, the account of Cromwell, which,
previously printed, was embodied at last in his * Philo-
sophical Dictionary.' It is an article which can be

VOLTAIRE AND ENGLISH UTERATURE

studied with peculiar satisfactioiiy for its perusal im*
parts to the reader that peace of mind which arises
from the certainty of conviction that the author is inya-
riablj and unqualifiedly wrong, wherever the slightest
opportunity is furnished to be wrong.

From the veracious account Voltaire gives us we
learn that Cromwell was originally in doubt whether
he should become a churchman or a soldier; that in
1622 he made a campaign with Frederick Henry, Prince
of Orange; that on returning to England he entered
as chaplain into the service of Bishop Williams, who
in turn was thought to be too intimate with Cromwell's
wife ; and that finally he was banished from the bishop's
family on account of his extreme puritanical opinions.
So much for the earlier period of his life. Later, after
the English parliament had declared war against royalty
and episcopacy, we are informed that he was chosen for
a borough through the agency of some of his friends ;
that he began his military career as a soldier of fortune
in the city of Hull, then besieged by the king; that
there he so distinguished himself that he was rewarded
by parliament with a donation which was equivalent
in value to six thousand francs ; that he was then made
colonel, and in consequence of his ability and success
rose rapidly to the highest rank ; but that while in the
midst of this cruel war he was also engaged in making
love to the wife of Major-general Lambert, and having
captured the Earl of Holland, who was more acceptable
to that lady than he was himself, he had the supreme
satisfaction of cutting off his rival's head.

Such an account as this of one of the greatest soldiers

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

and stateamen of his time ought to jnreyent the least
feeling of surprise at any remark made by Voltaire which
may tarn up in the course of the following pages. The
mine of misinformation in which he delred, in order
to produce this essay, furnished him still more ore of a
similar character ; but on the whole, the nuggets here
giyen are the choicest that can be readily exposed to
yiew. A puzzling question presents itself to the reader
who is fiimiliar with merely the ordinary facts in the
life of Cromwell. From what possible quarter could
this dreadful trash haye been deriyed? It is the
source of it which excites curiosity; there can hardly
be any other feeling than that of amusement at the
malice which engendered it, and at the credulity which
could eyer haye accepted it as trutL No penny-a-liner
eyer concocted from stories floating about ale-houses
a more ridiculous lot of rubbish than was here picked
up and handed down to posterity by the most brilliant
writer of his time, who was celebrated far and wide
as a great historian. The gossip of stable-boys sitting
about cayalier camp-fires would be authority entitled to
respect compared with this precious farrago of lies which
Voltaire raked up from forgotten dungheaps of calumny
and palmed off upon his confiding contemporaries as
a yeritable account of the life of one of the greatest
men of the preceding century. Upon his contempo-
raries of the Continent; not upon Englishmen. £yen
in those days, when Cromwell's character and motiyes
were most misunderstood and maligned, these state-
ments were too much for his English translator, who
ayowed his inability to point out the source from which

VOLTAIRE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE

they came. Voltaire never troubled himself to correct
them, even if he ever entertained a suspicion of their
groundlessness. In truth, the worst thing to be said
about this essay is that he undoubtedly believed him-
self what he put in it.

So much for English history. More germane to this
particular investigation is the accuracy of Voltaire's
reports about English literature. In regard to his
knowledge of that subject many extravagant assertions
have been made and still continue to be made. The
mention by him of an English book seems to some to
presuppose his familiaiity with its contents. As a
matter of fact, it not unf requently implies little knowl-
edge of it and sometimes none at all. He was not averse
to talking in a confident way about works upon which,
it can be proved almost to a demonstration, he had
never set his eyes. This at least is the charitable way
of looking at it ; for if he saw them, what he said about
them, instead of being imputed to ignorance, must be
ascribed to deliberate misrepresentation to suit his own
ends. It is not derogatory to Voltaire's genius to insist
that his acquaintance with English literature has been
vastly overrated. He is great enough in his own right
without being credited with attainments he did not and
could not possess. On the other hand, care must be
taken not to underrate his actual acquirements from
the gross errors he occasionally made. We can there-
fore say generally that, during the limited period he
remained in England, he accomplished far more than
exceedingly able men, equally diligent, would have done
in twice or thrice the length of time ; for his curiosity

SHAKESPEARE ASD VOLTAIRE

was omiUTOioiis and his poweiv of af^catioD and re-
tention wonderful. It was wliile in exile that he
natundlj learned most that he knew of die Kngliah
Uteratoie of the past; and to that our ofaeeiTationa
shall mainlv be confined.

It is literature pore and simple of which we are here
speaking. There are productions ootside of its domain
which Voltaire knew or knew about, such w the sci-
entific and philosophical works of Newton, Locke*
Clarke, and Berkeley; the sermons of Tillotson; and,
further, the writings of deistical anthore like Woolston,
Toland, Collins, and many others^ With these last his
acquaintance could be assumed, even had he never
mentioned their names. Their sentiments were his
sentimentB ; and he always professed envy at the freedom
of uttenuiee — looking to us Tery little like freedom —
which was accorded to such writers in Elngland and
denied them in France. At a later period it gave him a
malicious pleasure to reckon in this class Bishop War-
burton, on account of his effort to establish the divinity
of the mission of Moses not because that law-giver taught,
but because he did not teach the doctrine of the im-
mortality of the soul. But in the case of literature,
strictly so called, his acquaintance lay mainly with the
writings which were most in vogue in England at the
time he was there resident — especially with those which
were read and talked about in the circles in which he
mainly moved. Consequently it was with the authors
who followed the era of the Restoration that he was
really &miliar.

The writers strictly dramatic will be mentioned else-

VOLTAIRE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE

wbere. Throwing such out of view, more or less fre-
quent references appear in his pages to Dryden, Butler,
Rochester, Roscommon, Dorset, Buckingham, Addison,
Garth, and Prior. In the case of four of these — Diyden,
Rochester, Butler, and Addison — he gave translations
of certain passages. But his highest praise was re-
served for his immediate contemporaries with whom he
came in personal contact. Of Thomson indeed he
thought none too well; but of the two greatest Eng-
lish authors then living he expressed strong and unques-
tionably sincere admiration. He preferred Swift to
Rabelais, and found, what few have done, that his
poetical numbers are of a singular and almost inimitable
taste. But for Pope he reserved his warmest eulogiums.
In his opinion he was the most elegant, the most correct,
and the most harmonious poet to whom England had
ever given birth. At a later period he asserted that
the * Essay on Man ' was the finest, the most useful,
and the most sublime didactic poem that had ever been
written in any language.

Foreign opinion is frequently spoken of as giving
something of the view of a contemporary which will be
taken by posterity. If Voltaire is to be regarded as a
representative of the spirit which foresees the future,
never has prophetic announcement of this sort had more
inadequate fulfilment. We may ascribe it to better or
to worse taste on our own part, as we choose ; but a
good deal that he admired has long been reckoned by
most men as being at best simply endurable. His
critical appreciation gave high praise to productions
which have not only dropped now out of sight of almost

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

everybody save the special student of literature, but
even at the time were rarely reckoned equal to works
which he either undervalued or praised half-heartedly.
Out of deference to contemporary opinion he conceded
a somewhat reluctant tribute of commendation to that
belated Elizabethan, Milton, who had just then entered
upon the fulness of his fama But whatever was his
real opinion of ^Paradise Losti' he expressed little
respect for ^ Paradise Regained ' or for ^ Samson
Agonistes/ On the other hand he spoke with genuine
enthusiasm of ^ Hudibras/ which to most of even well-
educated men is at present little more than a name.
With the same feelings he read ^The Dispensary' of
Garth, which is now hardly so much as a name. He
found the Earl of Rochester to be a man of genius and a
great poet. He declared that Addison's ^Campaign,'
now preserved only by two of its lines, was a more
durable monument to the victory of Blenheim than the
castle which bears that name. AU these and others
such as Prior's ^ Alma ' and Philips* ^ Splendid Shilling '
were a good deal talked about, while he was in England,
whether read little or much. It was natural that he
should become interested in them, though loss of crit-
ical insight on his part seems unnecessary. Still, if the
admiration which he expressed for certain of them
strikes us as disproportionate, we must remember that
they were written in the taste of the time, and that
taste had been largely formed under the influence of
French models. They suited Voltaire, because they
belonged to the kind of literature which he had been
brought up to admire.

VOLTAIRE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE

But the moment we go back of the era of the Res-
toration English literatore was to Voltaire largely a
sealed book. Of the earliest aathors he naturally knew
' nothing ; it was an ignorance he shared with nearly all
the inhabitants of the country. With Denham and
Waller, who had lasted oyer from the Civil War into the
era of the Restoration, he had the customaiy familiarity
of the period. Certain of their poems, or certain pas-
sages of them, still retained a feeble literary vitality:
and from the latter, for whom he professed great
respect, he translated a passage. Cowley was histor-
ically in the same situation ; but it is one of the proofs
of the decliiie which had now overtaken his once wide-
spread fame that Voltaire, who knew his name, did not
find it really necessary to know his works. In fact
there is nothing more striking about the comments of
the French writer on many English authors than their
thoroughly conventional character. Nearly all of them,
great or small, flit through his pages. Their names
occur; but in many, perhaps most instances, there is
no display of that independent judgment which denotes
actual acquaintance. He said of them just what every
one was then saying. He made no pretence that he
was familiar with Spenser. His own countiymen, he
told us, esteemed him ; but no one was able to read
him. The only two of the Elizabethans whom he knew
were Bacon and Shakespeare. Not that he himself made
any such assertion of ignorance or gave any such im-
pression. On the contrary, he assumed at times a
familiarity with writers and writings of this period
and did it with so much assiui^nce, that it not only

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

imposed upon his contemporaries, bat has ]argely imposed
upon men who came long after. That this statement is
not too strongly pat» let us consider two instances in
which he made excuisions into the Elizabethan period.

In 1752 Voltaire published his tragedy of Borne
Sauvie. To it he furnished a preface in which he
remarked that while the learned would not meet
with a faithful narratiye of Catiline's conspiracy — since
a tragedy is not a history, — they would see a true
picture of the manners of the times, and an accurate
representation of the genius and character of the lead-
ing personages of the drama. That in the play he had
an eye on Shakespeare is noticeable, though it has pos-
sibly not been noticed. In * Julius Caesar ' the wife of
Brutus, though occupying but a subordinate part, plays
a somewhat striking rdle. It attracted Voltaire's atten-
tion, and against her and her relations to her husband
he sought to raise a rivaL He found one in Aurelia
Orestilla, the wife of Catiline. But in his tragedy she
is no beautiful but disreputable character, such as she
has been handed down in history; on the contrary,
she is the daughter of a noble and high-minded Roman,
and is herself a woman of lofty spirit, devoted to her
father, to her country, and to her husband. So far she
is like Brutus^s Portia. With her, Catiline is repre-
sented as being deeply in love. Her influence, however,
is not sufficient to deter him from continuing his career
of crime and treason. It does not even keep him from
murdering her own father, Nonnius, when he finds that
deed essential to the success of his plans. Yet this
desperate and remorseless reprobate is completely over-
do

VOLTAIRE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE

come when she indignantly turns upon him in the senate-
house, and before proceeding to take her own life,
denounces him for the murder of her father and for his
treason to his country. Voltaire was certainly faithful
to his idea of not onaking his work a transcript of any
real history. We may further be permitted to doubt the
accuracy of his representation of the characters he
portrayed.

In this play too we find strikingly exemplified his
treatment of i*ules he professed to regard as sacred.
There was never a louder asserter of the inviolability
of the doctrine of the unities than Voltaire. The dis-
regard of it by Shakespeare was one of the chief indict-
ments he brought against his art as a dramatist. For
it he was constantly held up to reprobation as the
barbarous author of a barbarous age. Nothing was
dearer to Voltaire in theory than these fundamental laws
of the drama, as he termed them. Yet no one ever
violated their spirit more ruthlessly while papng alle-
giance to them in words. Of the numerous fraudulent
evasions of them which he perpetrated, one of the
worst examples is this very play of Rome Sauvie.
Twenty-four hours constitute the theoretical limits of
the action. As usual, not a word is found to indicate
their passage; but the number of events that occur
in this one day is astounding. In these twenty-four
hours we have, taking place at various times, several
meetings of the conspirators ; several interviews between
Aurelia and Catiline ; an interview between Cicero and
Catiline ; an interview between Csesar and Catiline ; the
planning and the carrying into effect of the assassination

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

of Nonniufl ; a meeting of the senate, with the violent
debate which goes on in that body ; the self-destruction
of Aarelia ; the enforced departure of Catiline from the
city with the intent of making war; the detection
and execution of his confederates; the charge of com-
plicity in the plot brought against Csdsar ; the departure
of that leader to the scene of conflict ; and finally the
play closes with his return from the field of battie with
the announcement of the defeat and death of Catiline,
and with it the crushing of the conspiracy. We are
not concerned with the numerous violations of historic
fact here found. Rome may have been saved in the
manner Voltaire described; but the unities certainly
were not.

Furthermore, in the preface to this play Voltaire made
remarks which manifested to his countrymen his posses-
sion of a knowledge that has been denied him here. He
told us that the English, who hazard everything without
knowing what they hazard, had given us a play on the
subject of Catiline's conspiracy. It was the work of Ben
Jonson. This observation would seem to indicate Vol-
taire's acquaintance with other of the Elizabethan
dramatists than Shakespeare. It certainly suggests the
existence of such knowledge; as a matter of fact it
proves its non-existence. He went on to tell us that
Jonson had made no scruple of translating seven or eight
pages of Cicero's oration against Catiline. He had in
addition translated them in prose, not imagining it
possible to make Cicero speak in verse. This shocking
procedure was perhaps no more than could reasonably
be expected from such a man in such a period. *^ To

VOLTAIRE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE

say the truth," he continued, ^*the consul's prose,
mingled with the verse of the other characters, forms a
contrast worthy of the barbarous age of Ben Jonson."

The first comment that it is incumbent to make upon
this very positive statement is that in Ben Jonson's
play of ^Catiline' Cicero never once speaks in prose.
Throughout the whole play he does the most talking of
any of the characters, but he talks invariably in blank
verse, save in two or three places where for a few lines
he uses ryme instead. Jonson's version of the passages
he took from the Catiline oration extends to about three
hundred lines. It is a most elaborate piece of work.
He prided himself upon it — a feeling in which few
since have been found to share. Both the audiences of
his own day and readers of later times have usually
derived as little enjoyment from his version of Cicero's
speech, as Oatiline himself probably did from the
original. So much for the accuracy of Voltaire's com-
ment upon this particular portion of the play. But
this is not the only display of ignorance. There is not
to be found anywhere in it that mingling of prose and
verse which had been censured as denoting the barbar-
ous age in which it was produced. Such a proceeding
in tragedy would have been as distasteful to Ben Jonson
himself as to Voltaire. It never occurred to the latter
that the former had preceded him in many of his views
as much as he did in time. From beginning to end of
his play of ^ Catiline ' there is not a single sentence in
prose. With the exception of the lyric choruses and
the few lines of rjrme just mentioned, the whole of the
piece is in blank verse.

3 38

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

As in the previoufl case of Cromwell^ the puzzling
question arises as to the quarter from which Voltaire
derived these statements. The acquaintance he pro-
fessed with the tragedy was clearly not based upon any
examination of the original The only source from
which he appears to have got his knowledge of it was
from the version of La Place. This was contained in
his work upon the English theatre which had been
published a few years before the production of Rome
SauvU, By him ' Catiline ^ had been pretty fully trans-
lated.^ But the perplexing thing is that it had been
translated entirely in prose. Even the lyric portions had
been so rendered. Not a line of it uttered by a single
one of the characters had been given in verse. Where,
then, did Voltaire get his notion that Cicero spoke in
prose in this piece, and the other characters in verse ?
The only plausible explanation seems to be that he
evolved it from his own imagination or invention. One
is led the more readily to accept this view of its origin
from the way he dealt with the further work that comes
here under consideration. In the remarks on Ben
Jonson we have the sort of knowledge of Shakespeare^s
contemporaries which Voltaire exhibited in middle life.
Later he was able to extend to Shakespeare's prede-
cessors this peculiar kind of information which he
possessed. The growth of his familiarity with early
English literature has been pointed to with pride by his
admirers. Striking evidence of his continued interest
in the subject was evinced, we are told, in the course of
the war he carried on against Le Toumeur's translation

1 Le Th^Atre Anglois, vol. t. pp. 1-18S (1747).

VOLTAIRE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE

of Shakespeare. During it Voltaire sought to emphasize
the representations of scenes of violence and bloodshed
which characterized the English drama, especially that
of the Elizabethan age. For this purpose he gave an
account of the tragedy of ^ Gorboduc'

It was not altogether a happy selection. There were
far worse plays than ^ Gorboduc ' which, would have
served his purposes far better. If it be said that while
this may be true, Voltaire did not know of them and
could hardly be expected to know of them, the answer
is easy, that he knew as much of them as he did of the
piece he criticised. Its unsatisfactoriness for his pur-
pose consists in the fact that while a good deal of
bloodshedding goes on in ^ Gorboduc,' never once does
it occur upon the stage. The horror which, according
to French critics, exists in it, belongs to the narration ;
it is never once brought to the observation. There is an
ample amount of slaughter indicated ; but the spectator
never witnesses it He invariably hears of it from some
messenger. Voltaire unquestionably assumed that the
various deaths recounted took place upon the stage, and
that the audience were regaled by the dying agonies of
the victims. On the contrary, it was its careful absten-
tion from the actual representation of deeds of violence,
its preference of declamation to action, which had re-
commended this tragedy to the adherents of the school
which looked with disdain upon the productions of the
irregular and lawless contemporary drama, and desired
to substitute for them plays that should be in accord
with the practice of the ancients.

•Gorboduc,* like many other works of the early

UMViLRolTY ;

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

English stage, will be read with pleasure mainly by those
whose tastes are antiquarian rather than literary. It is
formed upon the Senecan model, though the unities of
time and place are disregarded. There are lyric
choruses between the acts, and very protracted speeches
during the course of them. The work will always have,
however, a certain importance in the history of English
literature, as both its first tragedy and its first drama in
blank verse. The contemporary interest attaching to
it, the contemporary success, whatever it was, that
attended it, was largely due to the fact that it was a
political pamphlet in the guise of a play.^ The dis-
tresses, commotions, civil wars, and deaths depicted in it
were introduced for the sake of pointing out the dangers
and miseries awaiting a land where the succession to
the throne is unsettled. It was for this that details of
massacre and murder were brought to the attention,
though not to the sight. Voltaire is not to be blamed
for knowing nothing of this. What is objectionable is
the attempt on his part to impose upon an uninformed
audience an untrue account of a play with which he was
himself unacquainted. Readers of *• Gorboduc ' were not
then and are not found by the million among the men
who use the speech in which it is written. In France
at any time, and more especially at that time, there
were hardly any at all. Voltaire could rely upon a
general ignorance among his countrymen as dense as
his own. It is accordingly a matter of some interest to
contrast his account of the incidents of the play with

^ See L. H. Courtney's article in ' Notes and Qneries/ Series II. toI. z.
pp. 261-263.

VOLTAIRE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE

what is represented in it as actually happening. His
suGcessiye sentences will be quoted exactly : the facts
as they are will follow.

*^ There was," he said, ^^a good king, husband of a
good queen. In the first act they divided their realm
between two children who quarrelled about this divi-
sion." The use of the plural pronoun is here objection-
able. They did not divide ; it was the king who divided,
much to the grief and indignation of the queen, who
wished the elder to be sole ruler of the realm. Nor did
the brothers quarrel in the first act ; Porrex, the younger,
did not appear in it at all. They never in &ct met on
the stage during the course of the play. " The younger
son," continues Voltaire, " gave ihe elder a box on ihe
ear in the second act." This is an event which — as is
evident from their never meeting — did not happen in
the representation ; nor is there the slightest sugges-
tion in the tragedy that anything of the kind had ever
happened. In this second act they were both in their
respective kingdoms, and preparing to wage war upon
each other. *^In the third act," says the critic, ^'the
elder killed the younger." This is reasonably accurate
for Voltaire ; the only correction needed is that it was
the younger brother who killed the elder. The news of
the deed was brought to the court by a messenger.
^* The mother in the fourth act killed the elder son,"
goes on this faithful report. Necessarily he could not
have been killed twice ; it was the younger son that met
that fate at the hands of the queen. *^ In the fifth act,"
says Voltaire, ^ the king killed the queen Gorboduc,
and the people, having risen in rebellion, killed the king

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

Gorboduc. As a result there was no one left at the
conclusion." In his report of the play Voltaire gave
the same name to husband and wife. In the play itself
the queen's name is Videna. She was not killed by her
husband. Along with him she was slain by the popu-
lace. The fact and the manner of the double death were
announced in the half-dozen opening lines of the fifth
act Necessarily the murder of the king and queen did
not form the conclusion of the tragedy, as Voltaire's
words imply. So far from there being no one left to
carry on the play, there were half a dozen characters
who appeared in the final act and were alive at the end.
One of them indeed was very much alive. He con-
cluded the piece with a discourse going well on towards
two hundred lines.

The question arises, Where did Voltaire get this
account of the play? He could never have seen a
copy of it, though it had been reprinted in 1736, and
again in Dodsley's collection of 1744. At least, if he
saw one, he never improved the opportunity to make its
further acquaintance. He could never even have read
the argument prefixed to the tragedy, for this gave an
outline of the plot. The slightest perusal of it would
have saved him from committing the blunders of which
he was guilty, even had he not troubled himself to read
the piece. In this instance we can trace the origin of
the ridiculous description which he gave. He was in the
habit of sneering at Dennis, of whom he knew little but
what Pope and his friends told him. He was well ac-
quainted, however, with the attack upon Shakespeare
wliich had been made by Dennis's contemporary, Rymer,

VOLTAIRE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE

about whom men are now unable to decide whether he
succeeded in making his criticism wretcheder than his
poetry, or his poetry wretcheder than his criticism.
More than once he referred with ill-concealed glee to the
passage in which that writer had declared that there was
not a monkey but understood nature better than Shake-
speare, not a pug in Barbary that had not a truer taste
of things. Ryraer was as ignorant of ^ Gorboduc * as
Voltaire, without Voltaire 's excuse. He, however, pro-
fessed to regard its plot as better adapted to tragedy
than any which Jonson or Shakespeare had had the
luck to follow. The following is the way it appears in
his account: '^Here is a king, the queen, and their
two sons. The king divides his realm, and gives it be-
twixt his two sons. They quarrel. The elder brother
kills the younger. Which provokes the mother to kill
the elder. Thereupon the king kills the mother. And
then, to make a clear stage, the people rise and despatch
old Gorboduc." ^ It is to this collection of blunders that
Voltaire was mainly indebted for his own errors. He
was a man of genius, however, and could not content
himself with simply reproducing what some one else
had said. He felt the need of filling up the bare out-
lines of Rymer's account, and enriching it with some
additional details. The box on the ear is, however, the
principal contribution which his imagination made to
the incidents of the play, as reported by the authority
he followed.

After what has just been related, no one will be likely
to assert that Voltaire's acquaintance with a work can

1 Bymer'B ' Short View of Tragedy ' (1693), p. 134.

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE ^

be assumed, merely because he chanced to mention it or
even professed to give an account of it. The caution is
all the more needed because many of his misstatements
were not only repeated at the time by others, but even at
this day are occasionally reproduced by writers who nat-
urally cannot be expected to believe that a man of his
intellectual rank and genius should speak ignorantly
when he spoke so positively. This is true in particular
of what he said of ^ Gorboduc.' His utterly false report
of a book which he had never seen has been accepted as
true not only by men who have never read it themselves,
but by men who profess to have read it, and very
likely have done so. The influence of a man of genius
upon a man of talent is perhaps best exemplified in the
base of Villemain. That distinguished French scholar
and critic told us that he did not know of any work more
declamatory and insipid in the midst of its horrors than
this tragedy of ^Gorboduc' To this he added that
Voltaire had given of it ^^a pleasant and veraciot^
analysis." ^

1 (Euvret de M. VxlUmain, Studeg de litt&aturt ancwniM cf tfraia^erc,
pftge 214. V&idiqM is ViUemAin'B wordi the tranBlation of which I hare
italicized.

«
I

CHAPTER III

FIBST IMPRESSIONS OF SHAKESPEAB1S

In making the acquaintance of Shakespeare Voltaire
felt that in certain ways he had stumbled upon a treasuie.
He had no disposition to keep to himself what he had
found. He became animated indeed with something of
the feelings of the explorer. He had lighted upon an
unknown land, and he showed all the zeal of a discoverer
to communicate to the world what he had there seen
and heard. He said — and at a later period he kept
repeating it on every pretext — that it was he who had
first made Shakespeare known to France. In one sense
it was perfectly true. Others before him had announced
the existence of this great constellation in the northern
sky; but their words had attracted no attention and
aroused no interest.

He could have said more. It was Voltaire who first
really introduced Shakespeare to the knowledge of the
Continent. To bring about such a result circumstances
came to the aid of his abilities. For all literary as well
as diplomatic purposes French was at that time the
language of the European mainland. Everywhere culti-
vated men read it, everywhere they conversed in it.
The greatest monarch of his time spoke it better than
he did his native tongue. In it his own royal academy

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

published its proceedings. Indeed as late as 1783 it
gave a prize for a treatise — it was published in 1784 —
which should furnish the most satisfactory answer to
these questions: How came the French language to be
universal ? By what title does it merit that prerogative ?
Is it likely to maintain it always ? It is somewhat sig-
nificant that only a very few years after the appearance
of this essay the proceedings of the academy which
awarded it the prize were published in German as well
as in French ; and only a few years later still that they
were published in German alone.

The universal acceptance which the French language
had won with all the cultivated classes of the continent,
it continued to retain during the whole life of Voltaire.
To no one of his compatriots was the fact more a source
of gratification than it was to himself. He dwelt upon
it with pardonable pride in published treatises and in
private letters. In his discourse to the French Academy
in 1746, on the occasion of his reception into that body,
he made it a subject of congratulation that the French
author was read everywhere, not through the imperfect
and inadequate agency of translation, but in the words
of his own vernacular. The Holy Father was as familiar
with the tongue as with the learned language in which
he taught all Christendom. The great Frederick had not
only made the speech his own, he had made it that of his
court and country. In the capital of the mighty empire,
which extended over a large share of Europe and Asia,
French dramas were regularly played to delighted audi-
ences which perfectly understood and appreciated their
beauties. The desire of justifying the general favor

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF SHAKESPEARE

which the tongue had gained, and of increasing its
spread, was one of the principal motives which led
Voltaire to advocate constantly the rectification of its
orthography, and the preparation of a great lexicon
which should contain all its authorized words with their
authorized uses. The irregularity of the speech irritated
him. He constantly deplored the lack of a satisfactory
dictionary. Both these were with him standing griev-
ances. ^*Our language," he said in a private letter of
1767, *^is spoken at Vienna, at Berlin, at Stockholm,
at Copenhagen, at Moscow. It is the language of
Europe. But for it we must thank the goodness of our
books, and not the regularity of our speech. Our
excellent artists have caused our stone to be taken for
alabaster." ^

Universality such as this was sure to give French
ideas headway everywhere. It helped the reputation
of comparatively feeble writers. We can accordingly
understand how much it must have done for him who
was the most celebrated author of his time. During all
the latter half of his long life Voltaire had for his
audience the whole of Europe. In this respect no other
writer has rivalled him before or since. There have
been greater authors than he ; but few indeed are those
who have possessed so great a variety of powers. There
has never been any one, with a reputation purely literary,
who has filled so large a space in the eyes of his con-
temporaries. Byron had something of the same uni-
versal acceptance. But Byron died young ; besides, his
vogue was only that of a poet. Voltaire's mere length

I Letter of Angiut 7, 1767, to M. Qnjot,

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

of life, coupled with constancy of production, gave him
that compound interest of reputation which comes from
being for a long period before the public. But besides
being a poet, he was novelist, philosopher, historian,
essayist, controversialist, critic. There was hardly a
field of intellectual activity into which he had not
ventured; and even where he had not gained great
success, he had acquitted himself with credit.

The extension of his native speech was therefore to
Voltaire something more than a subject of patriotic
congratulation. It was a distinct personal advantage,
and he enjoyed it to the uttermost. Not alone France,
but all the countries of Europe funiished him with
a body of enthusiastic admirers and disciples. If there
was any exception to this general rule, it was England.
There his influence was less than elsewhere ; but even
there it was great. French, for obvious reasons, was
not so familiar to so many of its inhabitants as it was
to the dwellers on the Continent; yet it is probable
that the number of those acquainted with the speech
was at that time proportionately larger than now. Be
that as it may, for those who could not read it, transla-
tions of his more important works were provided. These
brought the knowledge of his opinions to a race which
looked upon the land to which he belonged with jealous,
when it did not with hostile eyes. Yet the members
of it were frequently influenced by what he said far
more than they would have been willing to confess.
But if with the English his words carried weight, to
the rest of Europe they carried conviction. By many
they were accepted as incontrovertible gospel. Even

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF SHAKESPEARE

those who most bitterly resented the views he expressed
on matters of religion deferred largely to his judgment
on matters of literature. Friend and foe alike recog-
nized the prevalence and potency of this influence.
'^ But what does it avail," said Lessing with some bitter-
ness, ^* to raise objections against M. de Voltaire ? He
speaks, and the world believes." ^

Voltaire, it has just been said, was he who introduced
Shakespeare to the knowledge of the Continent. Here
a distinction must be made. The verb just employed
describes all that he really did. He introduced Shake-
speare to the European mainland ; he did not make it
acquainted with Shakespeare. It is not easy to overrate
the influence he exerted in exciting the curiosity of the
Continent about the English dramatist. It is very easy
to get a perfecUy unwarranted and exaggerated unpres-
sion of the value of the information in regard to that
dramatist's writings which he condescended to impart to
its inhabitants. They learned from him of the existence
of Shakespeare. They learned that his countrymen
regarded him as another Sophocles, that they called him
the divine. They learned that his plays, though mon-
strosities taken as wholes, contained some most admi-
rable passages. But of Shakespeare himself they scarcely
learned anything. The specimens of his work which
Voltaire communicated, at first with praise, were very
meagre. Even then they gave in nearly every instance
an inadequate and sometimes a perverted idea of the
ortginaL His later and fuller versions were little more
than travesties. It is a question, indeed, whether the

^ Sambwrgiieke DramaiwrgU, No. 10, June 2, 1767.

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

appreciation of Shakespeare, which was sure to come to
the Continent sooner or later, was not retarded rather
than advanced by the knowledge Voltaire imparted,
coupled with the views he expressed. He was responsi-
ble for the critical estimate of the dramatist which con-
tinued to prevail in Europe during a good share of the
eighteenth century. There is little need to cite the
opinions of other men. They usually knew nothing of
the English dramatist save what Voltaire told them ; and
he told them very little. They consequently do hardly
more in most instances than echo his words.

There are three public references which Voltaire
made to Shakespeare during the years that immediately
followed his first acquaintance with the poet One is
contained in the discourse upon tragedy which was
prefixed to the printed play of Brutus^ originally brought
out on the stage in December, 1780. Another is in his
essay on epic poetry, and the third in his Lettres Phtio-
iophiques. The first pubUshed of these — the discourse
upon tragedy — was in the form of a dedicatory epistle
to Lord Bolingbroke. It was largely devoted to a com-
parison between the stages of France and England. It
has an interest of its own because in it we see Voltaire
wavering between the larger dramatic liberty prevailing
in the latter country, even though it degenerated, as he
believed, into license, and the strict conventions, often
assuming a character purely arbitrary, which held in
restraint the freedom of the playwright in his own land.
In Bolingbroke he found a man who took a view of
Shakespeare not essentially different from his own. He
had no need therefore to combat any undue and unjusti-

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF SHAKESPEARE

fiable admiration. He conducted himself accordingly.
V He assumed what he felt to be a generous attitude
toward this culprit of genius, who, though guilty of the
grossest theatrical crimes, had to a certain extent atoned
for his offences by performing some most dazzling dra-
matic exploita

In the course of this prefatory letter Voltaire gave a
translation of the address of Brutus to the people con-
tained in the third act of * Julius CsBsar.' It is both the
earliest and tiie most &ithf ul of any attempt on his part to
reproduce a passage of Shakespeare. In fact, it is the only
adequate one he ever made. It is short; but though
shorty it is sufficient as far as it goes. His next refer-
ence to the dramatist was incidental, and naturally dealt
in criticism alone, and not in citation. Voltaire had
been in England about a year and a half when a littie
volume containing two essays of his in the language of
the country, was brought out at London. The work
was so well done that his enemies were henceforth dis-
posed to attribute its correctness, not to his own unaided
efforts, but to the labors, or at any rate to the super-
vision, of friends whom he had made in the land of his
exile. His correspondence shows that from the begin-
ning he had been impressed by the energy of the English
tongue,^ and the ambition to compose in it was stimu-
lated by his desire to contribute still further to the suc-
cess of an undertaking in which he had the deepest
personal interest. Both of these essays were designed
to call attention to the H&nriade^ the new edition of
which was on the point of appearing at London. One

1 Letter of Not. 22, 1733, to M. Brossetti.

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

of them was devoted to the subject of epic poetry. It
was mainly given up to brief notices of certain writers
of various countries who had produced work of this
nature. Here consequently it was not Shakespeare who
came under consideration, but Milton.

Of Milton Voltaire spoke as well as he could of an
author with whom he had the least possible sympathy.
It was undoubtedly his interest just then to do so. He
was writing for an English audience, and with the intent
to secure their support for a work of his own soon
to be published. Naturally he would be careful to
refrain from saying anything to offend the susceptibil-
ities of those he was addressing. His real opinion of
Milton found later much more accurate expression in
the words put in the mouth of Pococurante in his
Candide; and later still in the article entitled Mpopie in
the ^ Philosophical Dictionary.' This last abounds in
blunders so peculiarly preposterous that momentaiy
indignation speedily subsides into positive enjoyment.
More entertaining even than the misstatements of fact is
the critical outlook. After speaking of Milton's reply
to Salmasius he tells us how little likely was such an
atrabilious pedant to please the polished and delicate
court of Charles II., and such members of the nobility as
Rochester and Buckingham. All tiiese lofty characters
held in detestation the man and his poem. With their
feelings Voltaire fully sympathized a hundred years later.
Yet it is not unreasonable to believe that at the time of
his stay in England he honestly made a strenuous effort
to admire a good deal which in his heart he thought
abominable. It was a sort of courtesy that he owed to

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF SHAKESPEARE

the opiiiion of the country which had received him
hospitably. The spirit is to be approved, even if the
attempt met with but scant success.

Of course in the account of Milton contained in the
* Essay on Epic Poetry/ Voltaire contrived to introduce as
facts a number of fictitious statements. One or two of
them may be worth mentioning here, not for any im-
portance they have in themselves, but as furnishing still
further illustration of the unflinching consistency with
which on every possible occasion he exhibited himself as
the great enemy of exactitude. Samuel Simmons is pretty
well known to us as the original publisher of ^ Paradise
Lost.' The contract he made for the pa3rmeDt of it has
conferred upon him a sort of quasi-immortality. But in
this essay of Voltaire's a man named Tompson, appears
in that capacity. Under that disguise we are enabled to
detect Tonson, the later purchaser of the copyright. At
the time the poem appeared the future publisher was not
even in his teens. A special contribution of his own
Voltaire also made to the swelling mass of misstatement
about the favor or rather disfavor with which the great
epic had been received at the time of its appearance.
He assures us that Milton never lived to see a second
edition of his principal work.

In the essay as it appeared in English at the end of
1727, Voltaire had no comment to make on Shakespeare.
But a few years after his return from exile he published
in French an enlarged edition of the treatise. In it he
inserted a passage about the dramatist. It occurs only
incidentally in the course of his remarks upon Homer.
Of that poet he thought none too highly. He distinctly
4 49

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

preferred Vergil. Likes and dislikes of this sort are
within limits matters of personal taste with which no
one but the individual himself has any concern. But
to some it will seem a suggestive fact that the three
greatest authors of their respective countries, Homer,
Dante, and Shakespeare never found much favor in
Voltaire's eyes. Of them all he expressed at times
peculiarly disparaging opinions.

In the course of his remarks upon Homer he was seek-
ing to explain the great vogue which that poet had with
his countrymen in spite of his manifest faults. The
matter was one, he said, which had long puzzled him.
At last he found its parallel in Shakespeare. By him
ihe paradox of Homer's reputation was explained. Then
he went on to give the following account of the attitude
exhibited by the English toward tiieir favorite author.
To them he was their greatest tragic poet. With his
name the epithet of ^* divine'' was almost invariably
coupled. The announcement that one of his plays was to
be acted was sufficient to fill the theatre, as could not be
done by the ^ Cato ' of Addison or the Andromaque of
Racine, excellently translated as was, in his opinion,
that masterpiece of the French stage. Yet these plays
of Shakespeare, he tells us, are really monstit)sities.
The action of some of them lasts a good many years.
The hero baptized in the first act dies of old age in the
fifth. No examples of such a nature can indeed be found
in the editions of Shakespeare to which English readers
have access; but a stem solicitude about the exact
truth was never permitted by Voltaire to blunt the
point of an effective statement. He further depicted a

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF SHAKESPEARE

number of things which, as a man brought up in the
traditions of the French stage, naturally struck him as
improper where they were not actually offensive. In
these plays are seen, he said, sorcerers, peasants, drunk-
ards, buffoons, gray&Kliggers in the act of making a
grave, and singing drinking-songs as they play with the
skulls of the dead. Even in the simple report of what
he had before his eyes Voltaire was enabled to free him-
self from the tyranny of exactness. The grave-diggers
sing songs; but they are not drinking-songs. In the
exercise of their calling they throw up skulls ; but they
do not play with them.

Nothing, continued Voltaire, can be imagined more
monstrous and absurd than what will be found in
Shakespeare. Yet in spite of these things, most offensive
to what he deemed true taste, he recognized the privilege
of genius in striking out a path for itself and leaving
behind exceUence that can only plead in its favor that ^
it has followed the beaten path. '^When I began to
learn the English language," he added, ^^I could not
understand how so enlightened a people could admire
an author so extravagant. But when I gained a fuller
acquaintance with the speech, I perceived that the
English were right, and that it is impossible for a whole
nation to be deceived in a matter of sentiment, and to be
wrong in being pleased. They saw, as I did, the gross
faults of their favorite author, but they felt better than
I his beauties, all the more remarkable because they are
lightning flashes which have sent forth their gleams in
profoundest night." It is the old story of the barbarism
of the Elizabethan age which crops out in these last

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

words. For repeating it Voltaire can hardly be blamed.
It expressed the view not uncommonly held in the
eighteenth century by the English themselves.

It is in the closing words of this passage that Voltaire
took the most advanced ground he ever occupied,
so far as his appreciation of Shakespeare was concerned.
It is the only suggestion to be found in his numerous
remarks upon the English dramatist that there might be
depths of creative art which no critical plummet had yet
sounded. He did not commit himself too boldly in his
concession ; he hedged it in with limitations : but still
the concession exists. He was led to make the reflection
he did by the contemplation of the continuous hold
which Shakespeare had kept over the hearts of his
countrymen. For a hundred and fifty years, he said,
that dramatist had enjoyed his reputation. The writers
who had come after him had served to increase rather
than diminish it. The great judgment of the author of
^Cato,' the talents which had made him secretary of
\ state, had never been able to place him by the side of
\ Shakespeare. "Such," concluded Voltaire, "is the
privilege of creative genius. It strikes out for itself a
path which no one has travelled before. It moves for-
ward without guide, without art, without rule. It loses
its way in its progress ; but it leaves far behind it every-
thing which can boast only of reason and correctness."
Here the critical outlook is much broader than any
which the author indulged in at a later period, and the
tone more kindly and generous. It evinces a much
deeper insight into the nature of Shakespeare's art than
the far more widely known passage likening the poetic

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF SHAKESPEARE

genius of the English to a leafy tree sending out its
branches irregularly and at random, though always with
vigor, but dying if clipped and pruned after the manner
of the trees in the gardens of Marly.

It was, however, by what he said in the third of these
works — the ' Philosophical Letters ' — that Voltaire more
particularly awakened the curiosity of the Continent
about Shakespeare. These were first published in
London in 173S, and appeared there imder the title of
' Letters Concerning the English Nation.' They came
out under the supervision of his friend Thieriot, who
was then staying in that city. Of course this edition
was a translation. The original, which appeared in
France the following year, was there designated as
Lettres PhUoaophiqaes. Voltaire encountered many
trials and tribulations in his efforts to bring his work
before the public, and the deed was accomplished at last
in a surreptitious way. To the modern reader, accus-
tomed to much bolder speculation and far more bitter
satire, the hostility which these essays met with, both
before and after their appearance in France, may excite
a certain measure of surprise. Professedly the work
was innocent enough. It purported to be made up of
letters written by Voltaire to his old comrade Thieriot,
on the various things which had attracted his attention
and aroused his interest during his exile. It was merely
to gratify the thirst for useful information on the part of
this friend that he had jotted down the impressions
which he had received of the island and the islanders.
Now they were to be given to a larger circle.

So we are told in the preface to tiie English volume.

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

An impression to the same effect is conveyed in Vol-
taire's correspondence. It hardly needs to be said that
this account of their origin is largely mythical. Some
things in them there are which had doubtless been com-
municated by him to his friend ; but no such carefully
wrought and brilliant sketches of men and manners ever
constituted the matter of private letters. The work
consists of a series of rambling but delightful essays
upon the government, the philosophy, the poetry of the
English, and more than all upon their religion, or rather
their religions. To the abundance of these latter Vol-
taire attributed the fact that they lived in peace with
one another. There was a subsidiary motive in the
composition of the * Letters ', which has almost a right
to be termed the leading one. Under cover of describing
what he saw in England he took occasion to put in a
light rendered odious by comparison whatever he found
objectionable in France.

From the point of view of the upholders of political
and spiritual despotism the work could never have been
regarded as innocent. No one was likely to be deceived
by the bland profession that it was merely a picture of
the manners and customs of the English. The advo-
cates of all repression of thought, save of their own way
of thinking, were in no danger of being misled by the
apparent artlessness with which Voltaire betrayed their
cause while professing to stand up for it They were
not imposed upon — he could hardly have had the
expectation that they would be — by his pretence of
being shocked at the impiety of views which he heard
with horror, but was careful to bring out with peculiar

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF SHAKESPEARE

vigor and eJSectiveness. The * Letters ' opened with
an account of the Qaakers. The interview between
Voltaire and the eminent and benevolent member of that
sect whom he visited, and who came to take him to one
of their meetings, reads very much like a myth; but the
man unquestionably had a being, even if the conversation
did not. Whether as portrayed he existed in the
flesh, or purely in the spirit, he served the writer a most
useful purpose in enabling him to express views about
church and church government which, though aimed
ostensibly at the members of the Anglican body, bore
down even more heavily upon the clergy of his own
land. The sentiments, though put in the mouth of a
Quaker, were expressed with a wit and keenness which
no Quaker up to this time had succeeded in exhibiting.
The English edition of the work came out in August,
1738. It consisted of three thousand copies. Of the
feeling entertained about it in Great Britain it is not easy
to give a satisfactory account. In none of the periodi-
cals, so far as I can discover, was there any notice taken
of it whatever. This, however, means little, if anything ;
for those productions, besides being few in number,
were not apt then to take notice of anything literary
worth noting. But the private correspondence of the
period seems also to be fully as barren of allusion. Still,
whatever opinion was held about it there is hardly any
doubt as to its success so far as that was indicated by its
sale. Voltaire certainly was well satisfied with the
reception of his work in the land of which it treated.
*'The letters philosophical, political, critical, poetical,
heretical, and diabolical,*' he wrote in April, 1784, ** have

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

met with great success." That was because, he added,
^ the English are damnable heretics,^ accursed of God,
and are all so constituted as to approve of the works of the
devil/* • His report of the favor with which the work
was received by them can be accepted with scarcely any
qualification. The subject would naturally be of interest
to the men of that nation. There was comparatively
little in the ' Letters ' to offend their susceptibilities, and
a good deal to flatter their self-love. Unquestionably
some hostility was aroused by his comments upon
Shakespeare and the EngUsh drama generally. This we
shall see manifested later ; but at the time there was no
public exhibition of it.

Nor could the Anglican clergy have been much pleased
with the mocking tone which pervades Voltaire's utter-
ances about them, though in almost every instance
there was a designed reflection, either by implication or
by contrast, upon the corresponding members of the
French church. Still, men are never disposed to enjoy
the vicarious punishment inflicted upon themselves
for the benefit of other offenders. Neither the matter
nor the manner of Voltaire's comments upon the English
ecclesiastics could have furnished them pleeisant read-
ing ; and there was certainly little limit to its impudent
drollery. The established church, we are assured, had
retained a great number of the Romish ceremonies, but
especially that of receiving with most scrupulous atten-
tion the tithes. Those who made up the convocation, in
the days when that body was allowed to meet, had the

^ The Rabelaisian word pap^figues is the one nsed here bj Voltaire.
> Letter to M. de Formont, AprU, 1734.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF SHAKESPEARE

power of sentencing to the flames books that were
impious — that is to say, books written against them-
selves. Unlike what was often found in France, the
dignitaries of the church were old men. They were
generally stiS and awkward in their manners, never
having been able to shake off the rusticity of their
university training. Hence, lacking the power to please,
they were obliged to rest content with their own wives.
The vice to which they were specially addicted was the
gentlemanly, or rather old-gentlemanly, one of avarice.
Certain liberties too were allowed to the inferior clergy,
which to their credit they never abused. They were
permitted to drink in taverns ; but if they ever got fud-
dled, they did so in a serious way and thereby occasioned
no scandaL There was no real persecution or pros-
elytizing; but no one could hold an office without
being ranked among the faithful. By this expedient
such numbers of dissenters had been converted that not a
twentieth part of the nation was outside of the estab-
lished church. In business, however, they met on
common ground. Anglican and non-conformist, Jew,
Gentile, and Mohammedan had in that Jbut one creed.
They dealt with one another, they confided in one
another fully. It was only to a bankrupt they applied
the name of infidel

Voltaire's observations were very apt to be of the
nature of a two-edged sword. Satirical strokes of the
kind just mentioned cut both ways. They could not be
expected to gratify the members of the Anglican com-
munion; but they were as little calculated to add to
the complacency of the French clergy. Furthermore,

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

no occasion was neglected to suggest, if not to emphasize,
the contrast between the religious and the political free-
dom enjoyed in the one country, and the restraint placed
upon both in the other. It was an unfortunate fact
that a just tribute could not be paid to the manners
and customs of the English without seeming to satirize
the French. The work was therefore destined by its
very nature to provoke hostility. For some time before
it appeared in France Voltaire was conscious that he
was standing upon a mine. Imprisonment, exile loomed
up before him as possibilities. At a little later period
he remarked that the only replies to his * LfCtters ' which
he feared — there were several of them — were lettres
de cachet} There was some reason for the dread. In
fact his words imply that he felt that a certain justifi-
cation existed for Englishmen in speaking of the French
government very much as Frenchmen spoke of the
Turkish. If his report can be trusted, it was in the
following way that they expressed themselves: "The
English think,'' he wrote, half humorously, half seriously,
"that half of France is confined in the Bastille; the
rest are reduced to beggary; and all the too daring
authors are put in the pillory."^ It was not entirely
true, he added. There was, however, enough of truth
in it to make him feel that it was desirable to take
precautions.

Accordingly in April, 1784, at the time copies of the
French edition of the * Letters ' were thrown upon the
market — published of course without his consent and

1 Letter of July 24, 1734, to M. de Ciderille.
> Letter of Feb. 24, 1733, to Thieriot.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF SHAKESPEARE

much to his vociferous indignation — he had found it
convenient to be at a goodly distance from Paris. He
was attending the marriage of the Due de Richelieu at
Monjou near Autun. Warned in time of what was
impending he slipped away from the place some days
before the official sent to arrest him arrived. Two
visits to the Bastille had not impressed him with its
attractions as a place of even temporary sojourn. Nor
did any other of the royal fortresses appeal to him as
a desirable abode for one who sought relief from the
burdens of life. He had conceived, he wrote to one of
his friends, a mortal aversion to a prison.^ He was ill ;
and the close and musty air did not agree with his
health. Serious as it assuredly was in some ways, there
is a certain suggestion of opera bouffe about the whole
business. The officer despatched to take him into cus-
tody made no unbecoming haste in the effort to reach
him before his departure ; and the journey he was about
to undertake for that purpose has the appearance of
having been proclaimed as with the sound of a trumpet.
Ample warning of his coming was furnished. Voltaire
found no difficulty in disappearing as soon as the news
of the explosion reached him. After some wanderings
he retired to Cirey in Champagne, close to Lorraine,
which was not then under French jurisdiction. There
he was in a position to cross the border any moment
that it became necessary.

Meanwhile the men, whose feelings his book had
outraged, proceeded to do everything that lay in their
power to attract attention to it and excite the curiosity

1 Letter of April, 1734, to the Comte d'Argental.

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

of the world about it. The most devoted friends of the
author could not have labored more zealously in its
behalf than did its enemies. It was condemned by the
parliament of Paris as scandalous, as contrary to religion,
to good morals, and to the respect due to the powers that
be. It was ordered to be torn in pieces and cast into
the fire by the executioner. The sentence was carried
into efFect on the 10th of June. Provincial parliaments
were disposed to follow the example of that of the
capital. ^^ If this holy zeal continues," wrote Voltaire
to a friend, ^' the process of burning will make the tour
of the realm. I shall be burned a dozen times," he
added. ^'Between us, it is something very much to
one's honor ; but one really must have some modesty." ^
Never indeed did a work have a more magnificent
advertisement. Doubtless its author would have pre-
ferred the personal comfort and more limited sale which
would have attended its authorized publication, to the
delays and obstructions which preceded its issue and
the condemnations which followed it. Under any cir-
cumstances it would have been sure of success ; nor is
it necessary to agree with a single one of its views to
maintain that it would have deserved all the success it
received. Still, he had the consolation of knowing that
his opponents were doing everything they could to
advance the circulation of the volume. The results
speedily made themselves manifest. It was no short
time before his book had more than travelled into every
comer of France. It had traversed the whole length
and breadth of Europe.

1 Letter of July 24, 1734, to M. de Cideville.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF SHAKESPEARE

The part of the work which concerns us here are the
letters that treat of the English drama. To this subject
two of them were devoted. One was on its comedy,
the other on its tragedy. In the remarks upon the
former not so much even as the name of Shakespeare
appeared. That he had ever written a play of that char-
acter was something that Voltaire either did not know
or did not think worthy of mention. The only authors
of this kind whom he recognized and wrote about were
Wycherley, Vanbrugh, and Congreve. He referred
indeed to Sir Richard Steele and Colley Gibber as good
comic writers still living — in the case of one of them
a singular oversight; for Steele had died the year of
his own return from exile.

Voltaire was disposed to think highly of English
comedy, especially as represented by the three men
first mentioned. Their work has come to be looked at
askance in modern times, even where it is not actually
neglected. This, however, has never been due to its
lack of wit, but to the abundance of its immorality. He
himself incidentally gave a picture of its character and
of the state of society which generated it, in the com-
ments he made upon Congreve's plays. This author,
he tells us, had raised the glory of English comedy to
a greater height than any one before or since. The
criticism is very much in the spirit of that delightful
ignorance of his which constantly spoke of the time
of Charles H. as the reign of politeness and the era of
the fine arts. But Voltaire's lack of acquaintance with
even the existence of the better literature of a better
period did not prevent him from noting with keen

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

insight the peculiar nature of the one with which he
had become familiar. The language of the characters
in these plays, he remarked, is always that of men of
honor ; their actions are those of knaves. This shows,
he added, that Congreve was perfectly well acquainted
with human nature, and frequented what is called polite
society.

It is the views he expressed about Shakespeare in
the letter on tragedy which dominated for half a cen-
tury the opinion of the Continent ; which did not give
way indeed until the great dramatist took the field, it
may be said, in person. In it further was displayed
that extravagant admiration for the * Cato ' of Addison
which was to find constant expression during the rest
of his life. Here, in his opinion, was a play written in
perfect taste. If it had not in every respect reached
the highest ideal, it had furnished the model for all
succeeding writers. What the merits were which en-
titled it to this lofty position it is easy to discover from
the views about the drama to which Voltaire never
ceased to cling with almost passionate fervor. It con-
formed in every particular to the rules. It observed the
unities. It had no comic scenes intermixed with its
tragic. No one appeared in it below the rank of a
patrician or of a foreign monarch. It shed no blood
before the eyes of the spectators. Cato, though ex-
hibited to the audience in his dying moments in order
to make a few closing remarks, had been considerate
enough to fall on his sword behind the scenes. Every-
body throughout had conducted himself with the most
conspicuous propriety. There was, to be sure, an insipid

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF SHAKESPEARE

love story, against the constant introduction of which
into tragedy Voltaire steadily protested in print, though
he usually gave way to it in practice. Certain other
deficiencies there were. But while the existence of
these prevented the play from being considered perfect,
it did not prevent it from being a beautiful as well as
a rational piece.

Besides these negative merits Voltaire credited this
tragedy with certain positive ones. As regards its
diction and the beauty and harmony of its numbers
he deemed it a masterpiece. Cato himself he declared
to be the greatest character that had ever been brought
upon the stage. But Voltaire knew also perfectly well
the wide gulf that lies between taste and genius. No
more than Addison's countrymen did he venture to set
Addison's tragedy beside the plays of Shakespeare as an
exhibition of power. He began his observations upon
the latter poet with the remark that the English spoke
of him as the Comeille of their nation. This was the
way the comparison appeared originally. No one but
a Frenchman would have thought of applying to Shake-
speare a description which almost every Englishman,
even at that time, would have regarded as distinctly
derogatory. Later the remark appeared, with much
more fidelity to fact, that his countrymen considered
him another Sophocles. Voltaire naturally took no
such extravagant view of his greatness. " His genius,"
he observed, '' was at once strong and abundant, natural>.,
and sublime, but without the smallest spark of taste,
and devoid of the remotest idea of the rules." In these
words he set the tune which was played with slight

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

variationB by countless critics on the Continent, and
somewhat in England itself, all through the eighteenth
centuiy. He further observed that these plays of Shake-
speare which are christened tragedies are in reality noth-
ing but monstrous farces. Yet they contain scenes
so beautiful and passages so full of the grand and the
terrible that they have always been played with pro-
digious success. Later writers had accordingly been
tempted to imitate him; but they had succeeded only
in reproducing his absurdities without ever exhibiting
his power. The natural consequence had followed.
The merit of Shakespeare had been the ruin of the
English stage.

Voltaire told us that the world — by which in this
instance he meant the Continent — had heard only of
the faults of Shakespeare. It would have been nearer
the truth to say that it had never heard of him at all.
It became now his pleasing duty to inform it of the
beauties which atoned for these faults. To convey an
idea of them he selected the famous soliloquy of Hamlet.
This he translated into French. It was not rendered
literally, he was careful to remark, but in such a way
as to give a conception of its spirit. ^^ Woe be to those
translators," he exclaimed, '^ who by seeking to give the
meaning of every word, enfeeble the sense." He cer-
tainly had no intention of laying himself open to any
of the penalties involved in this denunciation. It seems
only fair indeed to re-translate his version into English
with tolerable literalness, not indeed to give an idea of
its spirit, but to get from it the sort of impression which
Frenchmen would receive of the thoughts and feelings

PIRST IMPRESSIONS OF SHAKESPEARE

which Shakespeare was seeking to conyey. Here ac-
cordingly is the soliloquy as it reaches us after haying
passed through the medium of two translations :

" Pause, it is incumbent to choose and pass in an instant
From life to death, or from existence to nothingness.
Cruel gods, if there be any gods, enlighten my heart.
Must I grow old, bowed under the hand that insults me.
Endure, or end my ill-fortune and my fate ?
Who am I ? What holds me back ? And what is death ?
It is the end of our ills, it is my sole refuge :
After long delirium it is a tranquil slumber.
One falls asleep and all dies ; but a frightful awakening
May perhaps succeed to the pleasures of sleep.
We are threatened, we are told, that this short life
Is by eternal torments immediately foUowed.
O death ! fatal moment 1 dreadful eternity 1
Every heart, at thy name merely, is congealed with terror.
Ah t were it not for thee, who could endure this life?
Who would bless the hypocrisy of our lying priests ?
Flatter the faults of an unworthy mistress ?
Grovel under a minister of state, pay court to his pride ?
And show the weakness of his downcast soul
To ingrate friends, who turn away their eyes?
Death would be too sweet in extremities like these,
But doubt speaks, and cries out to us. Stop.
It forbids our hands indulging in that happy homicide.
And of a warlike hero makes a timid Christian." ^

This is a fairly literal reproduction in English of
Voltaire's representation in French of H^,mlet's soliloquy.
It would be unjust to base upon the re-translation any

^ At a later period Voltaire added to this translation another literal
one, line for line. The inability to consult early editions of bis works
renders it impossible for me to say where and when this second version
appeared^ From some contemporary English comments I am inclined to
pnt its production about 1760: but this is purely conjectural, and may
be far out of the way.

5 65

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

opinion xwhatever of the poetic merit of his version.
But one can get from it a correct conception of its fidel-
ity to the original. We hardly need his asseveration
that there was no attempt to render the latter word for
word. Are we any better off as regards its sense and
spirit ? What idea could his countrymen have got from
it of what Hamlet said ? Its composition reminds one
of the proportion which sack bore to bread in FalstafiTs
tavern-account. There is but a half-pennyworth of
Shakespeare to an intolerable deal of Voltaire.

CHAPTER IV

VOLTAIRE'S BRUTUS AND ZAIRE

Voltaire, as a Frenchman, had been profoundly
struck with the freedom of thought and speech which
he found prevalent in England. To us at this time the
political and religious liberty then enjoyed there deserves
anything but unqualified praise. To the man, however,
who had been twice imprisoned in the Bastille, it
seemed almost ideal. He was never weary of contrast-
ing the freedom of utterance which prevailed in the one
country with the shameful oppression under which it
languished in the other. It was his own bitter personal
experience that led him to declare that the highest right
of humanity consisted in dependence upon law, and not
upon the caprices of men. The French theologians,
according to him, were so enamoured of the doctrine
of the immortality of the soul, that they sought, when-
ever possible, to furnish speedy and convincing evidence
of its truth to those who presumed to doubt it, by burn-
ing their bodies. " Why is it necessary," he exclaimed
with some bitterness, " to endure the rigors of slavery in
the most beautiful country of the universe, which one
cannot leave, and yet in which it is dangerous to live ? '*

But the freedom of the English stage, especially as
represented by Shakespeare, was to him full as much of

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

a revelation. It broadened, at least for a time, his con-
ception of the privileges of the dramatist. It led him
at first to question the justice of the rules prescribed
and the methods followed in his own country. It
forced upon his attention the limitations of the French
drama. They were not limitations existing in nature,
they were frequently not imposed by the authority of
the ancients. They were in fact nothing but conven-
tions accepted by it, which time and custom had at last
made sacred. Why was it always necessary to go back
for characters to the everlasting Greeks and Romans?
Why should not subjects be taken from modem history,
and if from modem history, why should not modem
names be used ? These things had been done, it is true,
though Voltaire did not say it ; but they had been few,
they had been far between, they had made but little
impression. He felt further the tyranny of the restric-
^ tions which these conventions imposed, not only upon

the subject of the play, but also upon its conduct. It
occurred to him that it might work no harm if there
was a little less talk and a little more action. Further-
more, while the indiscriminate slaughter found in Shake-
speare could not of course be tolerated, why should not
more latitude be conceded to the dramatist in the dis-
posal of inconvenient characters? It was hard, in
particular, for him to see why the hero should be per-
mitted to kill himself in the sight of the audience, and
yet have the privilege denied him of killing somebody
else. These and similar questions presented themselves
to his ever active mind as he studied with attention the
English stage.

VOLTAIRE'S BRUTUS AND ZAIRE

He began to feel that the delicacy upon which his
conntrymen had prided themselves was somewhat too
delicate. Was it not therefore desirable to transplant
some of the features of this foreign drama into that of his
own land ? Of course it had gone much too far ; but
had the French gone far enough ? It struck him that
here was the point where they had been at fault. There
waB nothing at which the English stage stopped. In
consequence they overstepped constantly the bounds of
dramatic decorum. But on the other hand the French
failed because they did not venture at all. They did
not reach the tragic because they were afraid of going
beyond it. But wherever the English had actually
succeeded, was it not worth while to follow in their
footsteps? The dead body of Cato's son, brought in and
shown to his father, had been admired both in England
and Italy. No one was shocked by it ; all indeed had
been impressed by it. Why could not similar represen-
tations be tolerated in France ? Nature is the same every-
where, and if such scenes be not inherently objectionable,
why cannot the French bring themselves to accept them
also ? Strokes of a majestic and terrible nature should be
rare ; for if often repeated, they lose their effect. But if
the manner be in accordance with the matter, that which
might seem commonplace and childish would become in
the hands of a great master something to awe and to
fascinate. No one but Shakespeare, the English them-
selves admitted, could call up the spirits of the dead ; but
as they obeyed his call, the more striking was his
success.

To views like these Voltaire gave frequent utterance

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

after his retom from exile. Furthermore he set out
seriously to introduce upon the French stage certain
things which had impressed him when seen upon the
English. He did not go far ; pretty certainly not so far
08 he Mras at first disposed to go. He came to recognize
that a good deal which he was inclined to regard with ap-
proval would not be allowed ; for with a nation wedded
to the belief that its art had already reached perfection,
innovation of almost any sort was likely to partake in
its eyes of the nature of profanation. At a later period
he said of the scene just mentioned, that if the dead
body of Marcus were brought upon the stage, as in the
*' Cato * of Addison, with his father shedding tears, the
parterre at Paris would roar at such a spectacle, and
the ladies would turn away their heads. Yet it was
clear to him that such proceedings were not merely
legitimate from the point of view of art, but they con-
stituted a powerful addition to the effectiveness of the
representation. ^^ With what rapture,*' said he, ^^ have
I seen Brutus holding in his hand the dagger, still wet
with the blood of Caesar, and haranguing from the
rostrum the Roman populace." But no assemblage of
artisans and plebeians would have been tolerated for a
moment upon the French stage. Voltaire did not say
even then that this refusal was a mistake. In the reac-
tionary mood which came over him later, he would have
been still less disposed to make any such admission;
but it is pretty evident that he so regarded it at the
time.

Accordingly his attempts to introduce into the drama
of his own land those features of the English stage

VOLTAIRE'S BRUTUS AND ZAlRE

which he favored were in large measure tentative. The
only one in which any boldness was displayed — La
Mart de Cesar — was accompanied with apologetic utter-
ances. He professed that its principal aim was to bring
to the knowledge of his countrymen that there were
other methods and other rules of dramatic representa^
tion than those of their own stage ; and to lead them in
consequence to consider whether the boundaries of their
theatre might not be profitably enlarged. ^^ France is
not the only country," he wrote to one of his critics,
^ where tragedies are written ; and our taste, or rather
our practice, of putting upon the stage nothing but love-
dialogues does not please other nations. Our theatre is
ordinarily devoid of action and of great interests. ... If
you had seen an entire scene of Shakespeare played as I
have seen it, and such as I have pretty closely translated
it, our declarations of love and our confidants would
appear pretty poor stuff in comparison."^ It mat-
tered therefore little to the public whether La Mart de
Cesar were a good or bad piece in itself. Its aim was to
give his countrymen a correct idea of the English taste.'
This play was therefore avowedly an imitation. But*^
there were other scenes taken from Shakespeare hi
which it did not occur to him to say anything whatever
about his original. In five of the plays which he wrote
during the score of years that followed his return from
France, the obligations, not indirect but direct, which he
was under to the English dramatist, are plainly percep-
tible. By some a sixth has been added. These will be

1 Letter of Not. 14, 1735, to Desfontunes.
s Letter of Oct 14, 1735, to the Abb^ Aflselin.

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

considered in the order of their publication. For most
of them this is the same as the order of their production
on the stage.

The first of these six was the tragedy of Brutus. It
was the earliest one which he brought out after his return
from exile. It was first acted on the 11th of December,
1730, but gained then only a moderate success. The
play, as printed in 1731, was preceded by the discourse
already mentioned, upon tragedy, which embodied many
of the views that Voltaire's residence in England had led
him to entertain. It is commonly said that he was
inspired to write this piece by having witnessed a repre-
sentation of ^ Julius Csesar/ Yet it would be hard to
detect in it any specific obligation to Shakespeare,
though the existence of such, men have occasionally
professed to find. It is the general influence of the
^>JL whole English stage upon the action and movement of
/ the play, upon the outspokenness also of its political
utterance, tha)^ we recogiSize, rather than the special
influence of any particular author. Much more fre-
quently, however, has it been charged that the hint of
the whole piece and much of its treatment have come
from an entirely difiFerent quarter. The letter to Boling-
broke prefixed to the play contained, almost at its be-
ginning, an error of fact. This is not very astonishing
for Voltaire ; the wonder is that it contained but one.
He reminded his friend that they had both been equally
surprised that no Englishman had selected as a subject
the first Roman consul condemning to death his son for
having been concerned in a conspiracy to restore the
Tarquins. The stern virtue which had preferred one's

VOLTAIRE'S BRUTUS AND ZAlRE

country to one's child had seemed to both of them
peculiarly fitted to attract the attention of English play-
wrights. These, in Voltaire's opinion, were not gifted
with the power of depicting love between the sexes.
Their success lay in the representation of love of
country.

It does not convey a high opinion of the knowledge
of human nature, possessed by either Bolingbroke or
Voltaire, to believe that the spectacle of a father put-
ting his own son to death, for any cause, could of itself
ever be agreeable to the audience of any nation, unless
under very exceptional conditions of public sentiment
or popular excitement. We may respect the judicial
attitude of mind which does not hesitate to inflict upon
one closely allied in blood the penalty which would fall
remoraelessly upon some one far removed. We may
admire the devotion to duty which sacrifices an erring
child to the cause of the country he has sought to betray.
But it is useless to try to pretend that the sight of
such a spectacle contributes to enjoyment. To fancy
that it would appeal particularly to the English was
part of that mistaken impression about them which pre-
vailed largely at that time upon the Continent. The
truth is that Voltaire's choice of a subject was largely
influenced by a fondness on his part, which was almost
morbid, for those which involved the taking of life by
the one who stood in the closest sort of relationship to
the victim. The killing of a parent by a child enters
into the plot of a number of his tragedies. In the
ancient legends he adopted for treatment he seemed to
select by preference those in which this incident belongs

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

to the story. In (Edipe the father has died at the hand
of his son. In Eriphyle^ in SimiramUy in Orestey it ia
the mother who meets the like fate. The situation is
sometimes reversed. In Mirope it is the mother who
deliberately determines to slay the youth who turns out
to be her own child.

If any fault can be found with Voltaire in these
instances, it is in the selection of a story of which such a
feature forms an integral part. But there are other
cases in which he dragged in the motive with little, if
any, justification from history or legend. In La Mori
de CSsar the idle gossip, preserved by Plutarch, which
made Brutus a natural son of the dictator — who was
but fifteen years older — is not merely accepted as true,
but upon it the development of the plot is made to turn.
In Mahomet the case is even worse. The murder of
a father by a son is brought into the story with the
admission that for it there is nowhere the slightest
authority in history. To an author with this natural
bent for the introduction of parricide into his dramas,
filicide would have seemed a not unsatisfactory variation
of the same theme. This stone, therefore, which, accord-
ing to him, the English had rejected, became in BrutuB
the comer-stone upon which he built his tragedy.

He was soon informed that his assertion was unwar-
ranted ; that the stone had actually not been rejected.
As early as the summer of 1782 an adaptation of his
Brutus had been prepared for the English stage by
William Duncombe, a writer of that time. A series of •
unfavorable accidents prevented it from being brought
out for two years ; according to its author it was a series

VOLTAIRE'S BRUTUS AND ZAiRE

of accidents that prevented it from being successful
when it was brought out. First acted on November 25,

1734, it had had a run of but six nights. The f oUowing
year it was published. In the preface to the printed
play Duncombe pointed out Voltaire's error. A tragedy
on this very subject had been written by Nathaniel Lee,
and had been produced in 1681. After having been
played three days, its representation had been stopped
on the ground that it reflected on the king. The origi-
nal statement, however, in the discourse on tragedy was
never modified at all by Voltaire in the body of the
epistle. In later editions, a note was appended to the
effect that there was such a piece by an author named
Lee, but it was entirely unknown and never played.
This was adding another error to the one previously
committed. Not only had Lee's tragedy been printed
the year of its original representation, but several edi-
tions of his dramatic works, in which this particular one
was contained, had appeared since his death.

In England the translation, and along with it the
French original, were speedily made the subject of
unfavorable criticism. This was the work of Aaron
Hill, who was at that time concerned in a periodical
publication called ^ The Prompter.' In it a great deal
of attention was paid to matters connected with the
theatre. In a review, which appeared in February,

1735, of the plays produced up to that time during the
season, Duncombe's adaptation was noticed, and inci-
dentally plagiarism was imputed to Voltaire. " The
first piece brought on," said he, "was the tragedy of
* Brutus,* , , . Everybody knew it was (and the author

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

himself gave it for no more than) a translation from
1^1. de Voltaire, who has not only taken the hint from
our own countryman, Lee's * Brutus,' but coldly imi-
tated his finest scenes. The illnsuccess that this play
met with gave me as much satisfaction as I had already
conceived indignation against the poet for having been
so servile as to stoop to translate a Frenchman's plagi-
arism, and to bring it on a stage which our own Brutus
might have trod once more with true Roman dignity.
The fate it met seemed to me a sort of poetical punish-
ment inflicted by the town on an author who wanted
to invigorate the Roman eagle's wings with French
instead of British fire." ^ Hill, who was almost certainly
responsible for these words had been long laboring zeal-
ously to have his own translation of Zaire brought out
at Drury Lane. It is not unlikely that the manager's
delay gave additional zest to his enjoyment of the
failure of the piece which had been put on before his
own.

Borrowing from Lee under the circumstances would,
if true, have implied peculiar baseness upon the part of
Voltaire. He would appear in the light of having
first stolen his work from an author far inferior ; then,
besides making no acknowledgment of the obligation,
denying even the existence of his original. It must be
said that there was much in his conduct toward Shake-
speare that renders such action on his part possible if
not probable ; yet in this case, there is little justifiable
ground for the charge of plagiarism. It is not infre-
quently safe to rely upon Voltaire's slight acquaintance

1 The Prompter, No. xxix., February 18, 1785.

VOLTAIRE'S BRUTUS AND ZAIRE

with English authors and works that he takes the pains
to mention. This confidence can be increased a hun-
dred-fold in the case of those that he fails to mention.
The weight of evidence is all in favor of his total igno-
rance of Lee's work, at the time he made the assertion
which is found in his discourse upon tragedy. The
plots of the two plays are in most respects as far apart
as they well can be in two pieces based upon the same
subject. Certain resemblances there are; but besides
being superficial, they have almost the nature of the
inevitable. In both dramas the cause of the ruin of
Titus is a fatal passion which seduces him from alle-
giance to his country. In Lee's play he is in love with
Teraminta, a natural daughter of the exiled king. In
Voltaire's it is with his legitimate daughter, TulUa, who
has been detained in the house of Brutus. But a story
of this sort was then a necessity of the situation. No
drama could be expected to have much hope of success
on the English stage without love as a leading motive.
On the French it could have none at all. If once
that passion were introduced into the play, love for a
daughter of Tarquin would naturally be selected to
account for the defection of the son of Brutus from the
patriot cause. The further resemblances are incidental
and of slight importance ; the differences both in details
and in the general conduct of the plot are extreme.

Accordingly in his Brutus Voltaire — so it seems to
me at least — cannot be fairly charged with unacknowl-
edged obligations to an English author. In this instance n^
injustice has been done him even by the writers of
bis own land. But so much cannot be said in the case

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

of several tragedies which followed. He has told us
himself how profoundly he had been impressed with the
appearance of the ghost in Hamlet A scene of this
sort he attempted to reproduce in his tragedy of
r Uriphylej which was brought out in March, 1732.
Neither the play itself nor the reception it met altogether
pleased him, and after it had been withdrawn from
representation he did not even suifer it to be printed.
As later he introduced this same feature into Simiramii^
it will be well here to follow his example and defer all
consideration of his course in imitating the ghost scene
until that piece is reached. Eriphyle was foUowed by
^Zdire^ one of Voltaire^s greatest dramatic successes.
It was produced in August of this same year. In it
there can be no question of the influence of Shakespeare.
The imitation of ^Othello' is distinctly perceptible, in
spite of the particular variations which taste or necessity
compelled. It extends alike to the general outline of the
plot and to its details.

A close comparison makes this point very plain.
In both these plays the action turns upon a dispro-
portioned match. In both there is the same all-absorb-
ing love on the part of hero and of heroine. In both
there is the same unfounded jealousy on the part of
the hero. For furnishing it a pretext for its display,
in place of the handkerchief in * Othello ' is substituted
in Zaire an intercepted letter, whose purport is mis-
taken. In both the hero has a confidant to whom he
reveals his inmost heart He it is who sympathizes, or
pretends to sympathize, with his superior, and assists
him in carrying his wishes into effect. In the French

VOLTAIRE'S BRUTUS AND ZAiRE

play he is represented as being influenced by much
higher motives than in the English ; but as a dramatic
character he is immeasurably inferior to the intellectual
villain whom Shakespeare depicted. In both the hero
murders the woman he loves, though in Zaire he does it ^
decorously behind the scenes. The audience do not
witness the act, they hear only the words attending its
commission. In both the hero is made to wake sud-
denly to the consciousness of his crime, of the causeless-
ness of his jealousy, of the irreparable wrong he has
inflicted upon the woman who loves him passionately.
In both he kills himself by way of atonement.

In the closing scenes indeed of both plays the re-
semblances culminate. Like Othello, Orosmane before
plunging the dagger into his own heart bids the hearers,
when reporting on their return to their own land the
story of these sad events, to record the misery which
has befallen him, as well as the hapless fortunes of the
woman, most precious, most worthy to be loved, but
whose truth and devotion he has come to know too late.
Nor does it seem straining the evidence to assert that
in this play there are also reminiscences of ^ Lear.' As r*
Gloucester, after the terrible experiences he has gone
through, dies between the extremes of joy and grief,
when he comes to know Edgar, so Guy de Lusignan,
released from his long imprisonment, dies as a result
of the unexpected happiness of seeing once again his
long lost, but at last recovered children. In both
instances the death is related by the son in language
not essentially different. Again, the same thought
comes to the dying Edmund and to the sultan purpos-

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

ing to die. To each, life has turned out a failure ; but
to its last moments has been g^ranted one signal consola-
tion. To the lips of Edmund, as he hears of the fate
of Goneril and Regan, whose passion for him has brought
death to them both, come the words, ^^Yet Edmund
was beloved." So when the truth of Zaire is re-
vealed to Orosmane in a way not to be mistaken, his
overcharged heart finds relief in the simple words,
•^ "I was beloved."^

Voltaire dedicated this work to his friend Everard
Falkener in an epistle of mingled prose and verse. In
his ^Philosophic Letters' he had called attention to
the strangling of Desdemona by Othello in full sight
of the audience. In the dedicatory epistle prefixed

1 The reader can jadge for himaelf of the likeness of these passages.
In the last act of * Lear ' Edgar relates to Albany the death of his ^her,
on his revealing to him who he was and what had been his fortunes. He
concludes with these words :

Bat his flaw'd heart, —
Alack, too weak the conflict to support ! —
Twizt two extremes of passion, joj and grief.
Burst smilingly.

The corresponding passage in 2!alre reads as foUows :

Sa joie, en nous vojant, par de trop grand efforts,
De ses sens affaiblis a rompu les ressorts ;
Et cette Amotion dont son &me est remplie,
A bientot ^puis^ les sources de sa vie.

Edmund's later speech

Tet Edmund was beloved !
corresponds to that of Orosmane

O ciel I j Vtius aim^.

It is not even so much the resemblance of the words which is of most
account, as the resemblance of the situations in which they are uttered.

of r^

VOLTAIRBPS BRUTUS AND ZAlRE

to Zaire^ he had something further to say upon the
same general theme when contrasting the French and
English stages. He rebuked the latter for its addiction
to scenes of violence and bloodshed, and recommended
the writers for it to imitate Addison, who, in spite
the insipid love-passages which he had introduced into
his ^Cato,' still remained the poet of the judicious.
But if he felt that the barbarousness of the English
drama ought justly to receive censure, he professed him-
self glad to acknowledge the debt due to it for better
methods in which it had led the way. From it he had"^
derived the hardihood which had prompted him to bring
into his play the name of French kings and of men
belonging to the ancient families of the realm. This
he declared to be a novelty. He trusted it would be
the beginning of a new species of tragedy which France
did not know, but of which she stood in need. It
strikes the modem reader as a peculiarly bold proceed-
ing to venture upon such a statement about a kind of
drama in which, not to speak of others, he had been
anticipated by the great ComeiUe. Yet his assertion
seems to have passed unchallenged at the time. But
though he remembered to acknowledge an undeserved
obligation to the English stage, he remembered to forget
the obligation which he owed to its greatest representa^
tive. Not a word was there about Shakespeare in this
dedicatory epistle ; not an intimation that such a play
as * Othello' had ever been present to his thoughts
when he wrote Zaire. Nor in a later edition, contain-
ing a second epistle to Falkener, who had become the
English ambassador at Constantinople, was there the
6 81

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

remotest allusion to the man from whom he had derived
much which had given direction, if not distinction, to
his own play.

It is impossible to acquit Voltaire of disingenuousness
in this omission. He had done no more than what he
had a right to do in borrowing from Shakespeare the
incidents he did. Speaking for myself at least, it does
not seem to me that he exceeded the just privilege of an
author who finds something admirable to imitate in the
works of another author writing in a strange tongue.
It is of the slightest possible consequence from what
quarter a great writer gets his material ; what he does
with it after he has gotten it is the all-important con-
sideration. Voltaire's avowed aim was to enrich French
literature with whatever was good in foreign tongues,
and especially to enlarge the boundaiies of the French
drama. He recognized in Shakespeare certain methods
worth following, certain motives worth adopting, certain
scenes worth imitating. What fault can be found for his
seeking to introduce them into the drama of his own
land ? It is his attempted concealment of the act which
exposes him to censure, and as much so for its irration-
ality as for its futility. For in this case while many of
the incidents were suggested by Shakespeare, the treat-
ment he gave them was entirely his own. The play was
a thoroughly French play, and in the French taste. All
the more inexcusable, therefore was the sedulous care
manifested to refrain from making the slightest allusion
to the source from which so much had been taken. The
obligations he was under were not indeed likely to be
recognized by his countrymen, in the almost universal

VOLTAIRE'S BRUTUS AND ZAIRE

ignorance of Shakespeare which then prevailed. But
an author of the standing and genius of Voltaire ia
expected to act from a sense of right, and not from a fear
of detection.

But if tlie French did not observe his indebtedness, it
did not escape the attention of the English. With them
it was at the outset a matter of patriotic congratulation
rather than of censure. It was jSrst made subject of
public remark when the adaptation of Zaire was brought
out on the London stage. This was the work of Aaron
Hill, who had made the previous imputation of plagi-
arism against its author in the case of Bruttut. Aaron
Hill is not a writer of whom any one talks now. To
the mass of educated men not even is his name known ;
and if to know it involves the reading of his works, they
are not to be condoled with for their ignorance, but to
be congratulated. Yet among the illustrious obscure
who occupy, if they do not adorn, a place in the literary
annals of the first half of the eighteenth century, he
looms up with a good deal of prominence. In his own
day he had no small repute. There is no question that
with many of his contemporaries he had the reputation
of being a man of ability, and with some of being a man
of genius. A writer, to impress himself thus upon his
time, must have, it would seem, certain positive qualities.
Yet after the diligent perusal of hundreds of his pages it
is hard to find aujrthing whatever to justify the high
opinion entertained by many of his merits.

One characteristic he possessed which may account
in part for the estimate in which he was held. If he
said nothing worth saying, never had any man a more

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

impressive way of saying it. The assumption of superior
knowledge and wisdom is so complete that the mind is
disposed to reject the belief which forces itself upon it
constantly, that all this lofty tone and talk clothes
remarks which either have no discoverable meaning, or
if they have a meaning have none of any importance,
when unrolled at last from the turgid verbiage in which
they are enveloped. His prose is in truth indescribable.
To use one of his own phrases, he treated every subject
he touched with a florid leaiiness. Furthermore, while
never vigorous, he was always vehement ; and to obtain
the effect of the former, he betook himself to the femi-
nine resource of italicized words. These are so abundant
in some of his writings that one of his pages frequently
gives the impression that a contest must have gone on
in the printing-house between the two kinds of type, in
which the roman got distinctly the worst of it

But however seriously Hill was taken by many of his
contemporaries, he took himself far more seriously. No
man possessed of moderate abilities ever had a more im-
moderate opinion of them. It was impossible for any
person to have as much wisdom on any subject as he
fancied himself to have on a large number. In particu-
lar, no one could be so great a critic, poet, or dramatist
as he in fullest sincerity thought he was all three.
The reputation of Shakespeare won from him the tribute
of conventional respect and conceded inimitableness ;
but the inferiority of that author to himself in art
was as manifest to him as a similar inferiority was to
Voltaire. As he wrote to Fielding, the men who injure
Shakespeare " are his implicit admirers, who make no

VOLTAIRRS BRUTUS AND ZAlRE

diBtinction between his errors and his excellence/'^
Into this pit Hill took care not to fall. Accordingly,
he pointed out his defects with a gentle but unsparing
hand. "What obstruction of bold unprepar'd, yet,
sparkling life^^' he wrote to Mallet in 1741, " do we see
lo9t for want of being artfully made necessary^ among
iihe pa%9ion»^ which start up, in Shakespeare."^ This
sentence is given as a specimen of his style, when he
did not abandon himself altogether to italics. No one
need trouble himself to ascertain its meaning. Hill's
language did not really conceal thought, as he himself
and perhaps some of his contemporary readers fancied ;
it merely concealed what he thought he thought.

HilPs self-conceit was indeed so colossal that it
inspires something of that sort of respect which we all
cannot help feeling for magnitude of any sort. His
facility of writing he mistook for felicity. There was
in him a little rivulet of poetry of the kind then in
vogue. In his effort to render it a river, he broadened
it into a very shallow and muddy marsh. With a pro-
found belief in his knowledge of dramatic art, he brought
out in 1728 a play entitled * King Henry V.' It was
partly taken from Shakespeare's, but besides the altera-
tions, it contained some peculiarly preposterous additions
of his own. That dramatist, he tells us in the prologue,

had,

" Blind with the dost of war, overlooked the fair."

So he introduced several love-scenes, and a new char-
acter, a woman whom Henry V. had seduced while

^ Works of Aaron Hill, vol. ii. p. 134.
^ Ibid. vol. ii. p. 215.

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

Prince of Wales, and deserted as king. There is
no question that Hill considered his pky a great im-
provement upon his predecessor's. His feelings were
re-echoed in the account of his life prefixed after his
death to his dramatic works. In it we are told, of this
piece, that ^ where the characters have similitude, those
parts may be said to be an improvement of the great
Shakespeare."

But Shakespeare was far from being the only one
who benefited from his labors. The living were the
objects of his solicitude much more than the dead. No
one escaped his mania for giving advice. No station
in life, no position in the public service, no eminence
in any profession led him to hesitate about bestowing
upon the occupant or possessor the result of his reflec-
tions upon matters to which they might reasonably be
assumed to have themselves devoted the attention of
years. To Walpole he vnx)te, giving hints about poli-
tics; to Pope, about poetry; to Garrick, about acting.
Nor to these limited fields did he confine his restless
and many-sided activity. He had ideas upon all sorts
of subjects; it is not improbable that some of them
were of value. He indulged in schemes for extracting
oil from beechnuts ; for the colonization of the present
state of Georgia; for the improvement of the art of
war by sea and land ; for new modelling, arming, and
increasing the swiftness of vessels, so as to revolutionize
the whole sea-service of the world. To Chesterfield he
wrote that he would with his consent send him occa-
sionally reflections *^ out of the too trodden road, some-
times commereialj sometimes military^ and sometimes,

VOLTAIRE'S BRUTUS AND ZAIRE

too, not excluding mix'd amusements of a less severe
attention." ^ He proposed himself as a correspondent to
Bolingbroke, and that political leader was obliged to
resort to the intervention of Pope to save himself from
the infliction.

But his interest lay most of all in the drama. There
was no player of either sex whom he did not feel com-
petent to instruct; and many there were upon whom,
after the manner of Dogberry, he bestowed his tedious-
ness. To Garrick he gave advice how to improve his
acting in Shakespeare. It was not vanity, he assured
him, that led him to venture upon this step. ^^ A poet
can best understand a poet," was the all-sufficing reason
he supplied. To the really intelligent men among his
contemporaries he must have seemed the most persistent
and colossal bore of the century. With all this, there
appears to be no doubt that he was as generous of nature
as he was vain of opinion and verbose of speech. He
belongs to a class of authors who are a source of peculiar
annoyance to the critic, because while being intellect-
ually feeble, they will not be so morally; but along
with the commonplaceness of their writings, and the
ridiculousness of their pretensions, they will persist in
being kind-hearted, self-sacrificing, not too bitter to
their enemies, and ready to do everything that lies in
their power for their friends.

Hill tells us that he had formed a poor opinion of Vol-
taire's poetical powers from reading some of his works,
especially the Henriade. But Zaire captivated him.
He at once set to work to translate it and prepare it for

^ Works of Aaron Hill, voL ii. p. S27.

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

the English stage. He had completed it as early as the
summer of 1783. In May of that year his version of
one of its most effective scenes was published in a
London magazine, with the statement at its head that
the French play from which it was taken had had a
run of thirty-six nights at Paris.^ His adaptation he
offered to the theatre for the benefit of his old friend,
William Bond, who had been a coadjutor of his some
years before in a periodical work called *The Plain-
dealer/ The managers seem to have accepted it. Cer-
tainly during the latter half of the year he was all the
while expecting to have his play — which he had en-
titled *Zara' — speedily brought out He put forth
strenuous exertions to pave the way for its success. He
wrote to Bolingbroke, to Pope, to engage their help;
to Thomson to secure the support of his friends, Dod-
ington in particular.^ The play was always to appear a
few weeks later. But the time kept receding. Months,
years passed without its being put on the stage ; and in
the meantime Duncombe's adaptation of BrutuB had
been produced and had met with but little favor.

Bond, to whom ' Zara ' had been consigned, tried for
two years to have it acted at one of the theatres. It
was all to no purpose. At last he learned, not from the
managers themselves but from others, that they were not
disposed to bring out any tragedies at all. They inti-
mated as their reason for this course that the taste of
the town did not lie in that direction — which gives a

1 Gentleman's Magazine, Maj, 1733, vol. iii. p. 261.
> Letters of Not. 7 and Nov. 10, 1733. Works of Aaron Hill, toI. i.
pp. 175, 177, 187.

VOLTAIRE'S BRUTUS AND ZAiRE

rather good opinion of the taste of the town to him who
is now compelled to wade through the pieces of this
kind which were then produced. No other resource
accordingly was left him but to accept the generous
offer of a young gentleman — it was Hill's nephew * —
to procure a sufficient number of persons and act with
him this tragedy *^ at Sir Richard Steele's Great Musick
Room in ViUarsnatreet, York Buildings." So it was
brought out in June, 1735, and played for three nights.
The first performance of the tragedy was itself attended
by a tragedy. Bond, for whose benefit it was produced,
took the part of Guy de Lusignan. But advanced in
years and feeble, like the character he represented, he
fainted on the stage, was carried home, and died the
next day. Still the play, as performed by the amateurs,
met with marked acceptance, according to the report
found in * The Prompter.' ^ Testimony from that quarter
must, under the circumstances, be taken with a great
deal of allowance. But there seems to be so much jus-
tification for the assertion that all difficulties in the way
of its public representation were smoothed over, and a
little more than half a year later it was produced at
Drury Lane.

It repeated in London the success it had met with in
Paris. It was brought out on the 12th of January,
1786, and had the somewhat unusual experience for ^
those days of an uninterrupted run of fourteen nights.
It is generally reckoned the best of the pieces, amount-

^ Victor's History of the Theatres of London and Dublin, rol. i. p. 40.
3 The Prompter, No. lx., Jane 16, 1735. This contains a letter written
hy Bond a few dajs before his death.

Y-

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

ing in all to nearly a score, which Hill wrote. One
other feature signalized its production, and for it he seems
himself to have been directly responsible. The tide-
r6le was taken by Mrs. Gibber, who, previously noted as
a singer, made in this tragedy her first appearance as an
actress, and at once achieved reputation. Nowhere in
the preface to the printed play, nor in the dedication of
it to the Prince of Wales, did Hill make any reference
to the obligation which Voltaire lay under to Shakes-
peare. But the fact was stated almost bluntly by
CoUey Gibber in the prologue written by him for it and
recited by his son. It began with the then usual re-
marks that the French extinguished largely their fire by
their conformity to critical rules ; while the English, fol-
lowing the freedom of nature, had let the flame rage to
an ungoverned extent. In this play, however, they would
have a chance to taste the excellences of both theatres ;
and the reason given for it is found in the following
lines :

** From English plajs, Zara's French author fired,
Confessed his muse, beyond herself, inspired ;
From rack*d Othello's rage he raised his style,
And snatched the brand that lights his tragic pile."

Voltaire was unquestionably pleased with this adapta-
tion. "I have read the English Zair«," he wrote to
Thieriot, ^^ and it has delighted me more than it has
flattered my self-esteem." In his second dedicatory
epistle to Falkener prefixed to the edition which ap-
peared this year, he spoke of it very favorably, though
he could not refrain from indulging in a satirical stroke,

VOLTAIRE'S BRUTUS AND ZAtRE

assuredly well deserved, at a stage-direction in the
translation. Nor could he save himself from falling
into one of those blunders which were sure to drop from
his pen the moment he set out to make any but the most
superficial comment upon English literature. In this
instance it was used to convey a compliment to Hill.
He it was who had started a reform in the dramatic art
of his country. According to Voltaire the English had
a custom of ending each act with verses in a different
style from the rest of the piece. These verses further-
more were compelled to include a comparison. Even
Addison, the most judicious of their writers, had re-
sorted to this practice — so much, said Voltaire, does
usage take the place of reason and law. The transla-
tor of Zaire^ however, had been the first to maintain the
rights of nature against a taste so far removed from it.
He had discarded the practice. He had felt that passion
speaks always the language of truth, and that the poet
should let his own personality disappear in order to
have that of the hero alone impress itself upon the
audience.

Voltaire is here referring to the practice of ending
the last speeches of acts with a rjrmed couplet instead
of the regular blank verse. The style is in no way
affected by so doing ; it is only the measure. It con-
sists merely in the use of rymed lines instead of
unrymed ones. But Voltaire's remarks on this point
have just enough of resemblance to truth to impose upon
those who had no more knowledge of the matter than he
had himself, or rather had less. If he had said that the
practice of ending acts — and he might have added scenes

/ ^' OF ^»-'t

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

— with rymed couplets, and sometimes with two or three
pair of them, was not very uncommon on the English
stage ; if he had said further that these rymed couplets
occasionally contain a simile, — to these two statements
no objection could have been made. Had he also
remarked that the sage Addison in his ^ Cato ' had car-
ried the practice to an extreme, he would have shown
still more familiarity with the actual facts. Unfortu-
nately two or three examples frequently furnished a
basis satisfactory enough for Voltaire to found upon it
a sweeping generalization. So a not infrequent custom
of having a couplet or couplets at the end of an act —
which couplets on rare occasions contained a compari-
son — was transformed by him into a regularly estab-
lished usage to which all conformed. Furthermore,
in so doing, figures of speech were invariably employed.
This custom Hill, in translating Zaire^ had been the
first to break through. The assertion was a particularly
absurd one under the circumstances. He had only to
look at this English adaptation of his play, upon which
he was commenting, to see for himself that every one of
its acts ended with a rymed couplet. But it was a still
absurder assertion to come from a man who pretended
to have read Shakespeare. With this author's *■ Julius
Csdsar,' Voltaire was certainly familiar. Had he taken
the pains to examine that play in regard to this par-
ticular point, he would have found that the only act
which terminates with a rymed couplet is the last ; and
that couplet contains no comparison. Further, of the
eighteen scenes of this same drama but four end in such
a way, including the one just specified ; and in none of

VOLTAIRE'S BRUTUS AND ZAlRE

the four is there anything of the character of a rhetori-
cal figure.

Before this dedicatory epistle appeared, Voltaire's
appreciative estimate of the adaptation had been con-
veyed to Hill, either accidentally or designedly, through

the agency of Thieriot. It produced from the transla-
tor a letter to the original author full of the most flatter-
ing avowals of admiration. They form so marked a
contrast to some of his later utterances that they are
worth citing for the sake of comparison. Hill observed
that since he had now come to know Voltaire in spirit,
he had a most melancholy sense of how much he had
lost by being absent from London at a time when so
many of his friends had enjoyed there the personal inti-
macy of the author of Zaire. " But," he continued, " I
know you in your noblest self, as millions now know
Homer and Euripides ; and as future millions will Vol-
taire, when envy shall be choked in dust, or France
deserve it for producing you." ^ There was a good deal
more in the letter, written in the same flamboyant style ;
but this will serve to show something of the feeling
which was at that time entertained in England towards )(,
the great Frenchman. There can be no question of the
general friendliness then prevailing.

Hill's letter, however, was more than one of acknowl-
edgement ; it contained an item of news which showed
how indefatigable he was in advancing the interests of his
correspondent. Voltaire's Ahire had been brought out
in Paris in January of this same year. There it had
met with the most unqualified success. Hill hurriedly

1 Letter of Jane 3, 1736, Hill's Works, toI. i. p. 241.

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

prepared an adaptation of it for a company of actors who
had opened for the summer the large theatre in Lincohi's
Inn Fields. He distinctly implied that tiie motives
which had induced him to set about the undertaking
were of the noblest kind* He had written to Garrick
that a poet could best understand a poet; necessarily
much more true was it that only a poet should translate
a poet But there were presumptuous beings who
deemed themselves as capable of preparing an adaptation
of Ahire as Hill himself. They were looking forward
to the regular theatrical season as furnishing a fit oppor-
tunity to reproduce it upon the English stage. To
forestall such a calamity Hill threw himself manfully
into the breach. He urged the actors to reopen the
theatre just mentioned in order to perform his adaptation^
which he had made from the original in three weeks.
" I own," he wrote, " I have encouraged them to this
attempt, in summer, to protect you from a winter storm
of mercenary pens, that, tempted by your Zaire*s success,
were threatening to disjoint Ahire ; but to prevent her
from being blotted by defacing pencils, I chose rather to
produce her hastily, than permit her to be robbed more
slowly of her spirit, air, and likeness." Accordingly the
translation of Ahire was brought out on the 18th of
June of this year,^ just about two weeks after this letter
was written. It met with a fair degree of success, and
was played at least nine times.

^ Genest's English Stage, toI. iii. p. 483.

»
•

CHAPTER V

♦

*THB DEATH OF CJEBAR.^

If Voltaire had been careful to refrain from express-
ing obligation to Shakespeare in the case of Zaire, he
was at first eager to avow it in the next of his plays
that comes here under consideration. This was the one
entitled La Mori de Citar. It professed to be written
i in the English style. That was the defence set up for

its deviation from the character of the plays to which
his countrymen were accustomed. One innovation there
was which would hardly recommend it to the fastidious
critics of that nation, who conceived that the limits of
theatrical progress had been reached by the time Horace
had laid down rules for the government of the stage.
It consisted of but three acts instead of the conventional
five. But if this was certain to dissatisfy the French
critic, there was one thing it lacked that was still less
calculated to please a French audience. In it there was
not the slightest trace of a love-story. So far indeed
was the repression of this element carried that there
was not even a female character.

Such a treatment of his subject was supposed by
Voltaire to represent the sort of feeling which prevailed
among the people with whom for nearly three years he
had made his home. He had constructed in his own

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

mind an imaginary Englishman, who was delighted
with sentiments and scenes which would repel the men
of other races. In him the passions that influence the
lives of most of us were swallowed up in the love of
liberty and the love of country, Voltaire honestly con-
sidered that this play of his, dealing with the death of
Csesar, was written in what he called the English taste.
It was a remark he repeated again and again. Yet the
only real reason he had for taking this view was that
it was not written in the French taste, or indeed, in the
taste of any civilized nation. Still, the assumption
served him, as we have already seen, as a quasi-apology
for the character of the plot he had adopted. He ac-
cordingly professed at the outset that his design was
to give his countrj'men a conception of the sort of
tragedy which pleased the people on the other side
of the channel. It was to illustrate the severe style
they affected ; to give a life-like portrayal of the stem
and even ferocious virtues which characterized their
nature. Here was a son so eaten up with love of
country that family ties and the sacredness of the pa-
rental relation availed nothing in comparison. The
austerity that marked the whole conduct of the piece
was consequently to be cheapened nowhere by the pul-
ing sentiments and tender motives which belong to the
representation of the passion of love.

Two things had been impressed upon Voltaire's mind
by his visits to the London theatre. One was that the
early English stage, as represented by Shakespeare, still
held sway over the hearts of the English people ; the
other was that in it female characters play often an

'THE DEATH OF CjBSAR'

inconspicuous part He attributed the latter fact to
design. He did not perceive that it was a mere acci-
dent of the situation. The main reason why female
characters were hardly found in some Elizabethan plays,
or had attached to them a subordinate interest, was
the very natural one that there were then no female
actors. The author in consequence did not feel himself
compelled to provide places in the scene for such person-
ages, where, if they did not appear, their absence would
not be missed. Shakespeare was not only a great dra-
matic genius, but also a practical plajrwright. Along
with the desire to produce an effective work he had
also the very natural motive of fitting certain parts to
the capacity of the members of the company whom he
knew best qualified to sustain them. Had there been
great actresses in his day, he would have been eager
to provide for them speeches and situations most suited
to display their peculiar powers. No necessity of the
sort existed in his time. Accordingly in introducing
female characters, he simply followed the plain require-
ments of the plot. In one case it might demand much
of their presence; in another very little.

There was at first no pretence on Voltaire's part that
La Mort de Cesar was not inspired by the * Julius
Csesar' of Shakespeare. During his stay in England
he had been struck by the impression invariably pro-
duced on the spectators by the performance of that
^^i^g^7- But him it had likewise impressed as much
as it had Shakespeare's countrymen. Long after, when
his attitude towards the great dramatist had become
distinctly hostile, he bore testimony, as we have had
7 97

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

occasion to observe, to its effectiveness.^ Much as
he had been shocked by its extravagance, he had been
equally struck by its power. There was the unde-
niable fact that the interest inspired by the play had
been sufficient to overcome in his own case, the re-
pugnance he felt to what he called its absurd im-
proprieties. For Shakespeare's tragedy violated every
canon of art which he held sacred. A tumultuous
crowd of the lowest class appeared more than once upon
the stage. Questions, answers, retorts were exchanged
between them and the higher personages of the play.
In his eyes, one of these higher personages was himself
little more than a buffoon. There was throughout a
mixture of prose and verse. Men were slain in full
sight of the audience. Worse than all, time and place
were scandalously violated. The scene opened at Rome
in 42 B.C., and ended at Philippi more than two years
later.

With all these violations of the eternal principles of
art, the play was unmistakably one which affected the
feelings profoundly. It fulfilled the one requirement
beside which all other requirements are as naught. It
did not bore. It kept audiences interested and excited.
Why could there not be a treatment of the same theme
which, while conforming to the rules, would at the
same time preserve the effectiveness of the action?
This was the thought which occurred to Voltaire. He
accordingly set out to produce a drama which should
combine French correctness and elegance with English
force and fire. As the time of the action was to be

^ Seepage 11.
98

*THE DEATH OF CJESAR'

brought into one day, his piece was accordingly made
to correspond to the three acts of ^ Julius Caesar ' which
end with the circumstances attending and inmiediately
following the death of the dictator. Here it was
that great innovations were made upon the practice
of the French stage. It was indeed only these last
incidents that gave Voltaire's piece the slightest claim
to be spoken of as having been written in the English
taste. The rest of the play had as much title to the
distinction as in the previous one of Brutus had been
the execution of his son by the first Roman consul.
In the two concluding scenes of La Mart de Char there
was a professed imitation of the scene in the third act of
* Julius CsBsar ' in which speeches were made by Brutus
and Antony to the Roman populace. As in the original,
the dead body of the dictator was brought upon the
stage. As in the original, a crowd of the common
people formed the audience which was addressed by
the two orators. In Voltaire's piece, however, the ne-
cessity of the plot he had adopted required Cassius to
take the place of Brutus. It would have been too
much for even his conception of the English taste to
introduce a parricide delivering a speech in which he
justified his murder of his father on the ground of
love of country.

Both for what it lacked and for what it contained
Voltaire's tragedy was foredoomed to failure on the
stage, even if it succeeded in making any appearance
there at all. It was written as early as 1781. But it
was impossible for him to get it played at the regular
theatre. It was first presented in public in August, 1735,

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLT A IRS

by the students of the college of Harcourt Such per*
sons, it was felt, were its proper actors ; a piece which had
no female characters could be best performed by boys.
Some years later — towards the end of August, 1743 —
it was brought out at last on the Parisian stage. The
enthusiasm which a few months before had been evoked
by Mirope^ in spite of its containing no lovenscenes, had
emboldened the managers to take this step. But the ex-
periment was a failure. It was clear that whatever suc-
cess the drama might gain would be rather a tribute of
admiration and good-will paid to the actora than a proof
of the interest inspired by the piece itself. Voltaire
came himself to recognize that a play of this character
had in it few elements to please a popular audience,
constituted as was human nature, or as he was inclined
to view it, Parisian nature. Yet he never lost faith in
the tragedy, nor in the theory upon which it had been
constructed. To have a play without love was an end
to be kept in view ; to have it without a female char-
acter was consequently a still nearer approach to the
ideal. " I love more, in truth," he wrote to his niece,
*^one scene of Oi9ar or OatUine than all Zaire; but
Zaire makes pious and sensitive souls weep. Of them
there are many ; and at Paris there are very few
Romans." ^

Long before La Mart de Char had been acted upon
the Parisian stage, it had been several times printed.
Voltaire's indignation had been excited by the appear-
ance of the spurious and incorrect edition of 17S5. To
his friends he sent at once corrected copies of the con-

1 Letter of Nov. 17, 1750, to Madame Denia.

100

'THE DEATH OF CJBSAR'

eluding scenes. For the play in general, and for these
scenes in particular, he assumed then a somewhat apolo-
getic attitude. The piece, he observed, had no other
merit than that of revealing the character of the Romans
and the characteristics of the English stage. The acts
depicted in it were not in accordance with French man-
ners, nor did the conduct of the play fall within French
rules. But to make known the taste of our neighbors
was to enrich the republic of letters.^ This was the justi-
fication he put forth for violating the proprieties of the
, French theatre by bringing on the stage the corpse of a
murdered man and a miscellaneous body of the populace.
These two scenes he represented at that time as a rea-
sonably accurate translation of the original of Shake-
speare. At a later period he was rather anxious not to
make this fact too prominent. He had become proud of
what he had done ; he did not care to give too much
credit to the source of his inspiration. There was some
justification for the stand he then took. His version of
the speeches of Brutus and Antony was about as clearly
entitled to the character of a translation as had been his
previous version of the soliloquy of Hamlet

As his play had been printed as it was not, he deter-
mined to bring it out as it really was. Accordingly
appeared in 1786 the first authorized edition. Voltaire,
when publishing his works, had always a lot of dummies
to sign their names to introductions in various forms
which he himself wrote or inspired. Sometimes it was
the publisher, sometimes an editor, sometimes a personal
friend. Frequently it was an unreal being whom he had

1 Letter of Oct 24, 1735, to the Abb^ Aflselin.

101

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

created and endowed with a literary existence to father
opinions for which he himself did not choose to be held
directly responsible. He kept in stock, one might say,
a number of imaginary abb^s who stood ready to do him
service whenever service was needed. They sprang up
at once if it was desirable to make an attack upon his
enemies or to produce a defence or eulogy of himself.
Names which had never been heard of before wrote him
public letters in a style clearly modelled upon his own.
They expressed themselves with such felicity and force
that it was a wonder to their contemporaries that men '
who were capable of writing so well should be content
to fall back into obscurity and write no more. It was
rather a matter of pretended wonder ; for these practices
rarely imposed upon any one, and in some instances
were never designed to impose upon any one.

This last was not always the case, however. In fair-
ness ample allowance must often be made for the almost
absolute necessity of such a course of proceeding.
There was a holy inquisition presiding over literature in
France, and the most innocent as well as the most harm-
ful of books might be kept from publication by the in-
terposition of fools and bigots. Furthermore the avowal
of authorship brought with it not infrequently personal
danger. Voluntary or involuntary exile was the least of
the penalties to which the too daring writer subjected
himself. A man brought up under such a system would
inevitably acquire habits of evasion, subterfuge, and
denial. Especially would this be the case if he treated
of political or religious subjects. Unless he made up
his mind to forgo writing at all, he had to resort for his

102

'THE DEATH OF C^SAR'

safety to expedients of this nature. But habits of such
a kind, once acquired, never limit their action to cases
of necessity. Voltaire extended them constantly to
literary matters where no further risk was run than that
of criticism ; and he frequently did so, not so much even
to further the spread of his own opinions as to minister
to his personal vanity.

In the case of La Mart de Oisar the man selected as
sponsor for his views was his friend, the Italian author.
Count Algarotti. He was staying at the time with Vol-
taire at Cirey . He wrote a criticism of the play or rather
a eulogy of it, with a defence of some of its peculiarities,
in the form of a letter to another Italian. A French
translation of this epistle was prefixed to the first author-
ized edition of 1736. In its original Italian form —
which was not published till the edition of 1763 — it
reproduced a large number of Voltaire's ideas ; in the
French version their resemblance to their source was
even more striking. The translation indeed bore about
the same relation to what Algarotti wrote in Italian, as
the speech of Antony in the play did to the coiTcspond-
ing speech in Shakespeare. To use the terminology of
music, while the motive was the same, the variations
were so numerous and important as to give the composi-
tion in places almost the character of a new piece. Alga-
rotti must have had some difficulty in recognizing what
he had said in his letter, as it appeared in the French trans-
lation. As, however, he himself made no protest, it is not
for others to take exception on his account to sentiments
that were put in his mouth.

Speaking through his friend, Voltaire was enabled

103

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

to give an account of the play which could not have
come with propriety from himself. It was intimated
that in this piece the boundaries of the French drama
had been enlarged beyond the point to which its pre-
vious assumed perfections had been carried by Comeille
and Racine. There was furthermore a reference to the
scenes borrowed from Shakespeare. In the account
given of this adaptation the language employed in the
two letters is worthy of comparison. Though the views
in each case came from the same source, the expression of
them is marked by noticeable variations. In the Italian
letter Algarotti observed that Voltaire had undertaken
to imitate the severity of the English theatre, especially
Shakespeare, one of their poets, in whom, it had been
said not unjustly, there are innumerable errors and inim-
itable thoughts. He further added that his adapter had
made the same use of him as Vergil did of Ennius. He
had put into French the last two scenes of the English
tragedy, in order to portray the two kinds of eloquence
which succeed in persuading men to do most contrary
things by employing the same arguments. It is in the
following way that Algarotti expressed himself in his
French letter under the skilful manipulation of the
inspired translator. **M. de Voltaire," he is made to
say, *' has imitated in some places an English poet, who
has united in the same piece the most ridiculous pueril-
ities and the most sublime passages. He has made the
same use of him that Vergil did of the works of Ennius.
Of the English author he has imitated the last two
scenes, which are the most beautiful models of elo-
quence to be found in the drama." There is an almost

104

'THE DEATH OF CJESAR'

diabolical ingenuity in the way in which this conclud-
ing sentence is expressed. It could be supposed to
refer to the original scenes — or rather the single scene
— as found in Shakespeare ; it was meant to be under-
stood as referring to the two which are found in Vol-
taire's tragedy.

To the play there was also a preface. This purported
to come from the publishers. It has been imputed to
the Abb^ de La Mare, to whom the preparation of the
first edition was confided. It requires an innocence
which verges closely on imbecility not to recognize in
it the hand of Voltaire himself. Its ideas are his
ideas ; his in some places are its very words. He took,
however, the fullest advantage of the fact that the
preface appeared to come from outside sources. The
ascription of it to the publishers gave him the oppor-
tunity, in which he always took delight, to speak of
himself. The preface began with the assertion that it
was Voltaire who had first imparted to his countrymen
the knowledge of English literature. If any reader
of his ever remained ignorant of that fact, it was due to
no neglect on the author's part to keep him fully in-
formed of it. Henceforth it was something which he
can fairly be said to have dinned into the ears of his
countrymen. " We are able," declared Voltaire, as pub-
lisher, ** to say that he is the first who has made the
English poets known in France. He translated in
verse, a few years ago, several fragments of the best
English poets for the information of his friends, and
by this means induced many persons to learn English.
As a consequence that language has become familiar

105

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

to people of education. . • . Among the most remark-
able pieces of the English poets which our friend has
translated for us, he gave us the scene of Antony and
the Roman people, written a hundred and fifty years ago
by the famous Shakespeare, and played still at the
present day before crowded audiences upon the London
stage. We have begged him to give us the rest of the
piece, but it was impossible to translate it."

Voltaire in the character of critic now proceeded to
inform Voltaire as publisher why the whole piece could
not be translated. ^' Shakespeare was a great genius,*'
ran the account, « but he lived in a rude age. In his
pieces is found the coarseness of his time much more
than the genius of the author. M. de Voltaire, instead
of translating the monstrous work of Shakespeare, com-
posed in the English taste the * Julius Caesar ' which he
has given to the public." Then followed a few sentences
which reveal his conception of what constituted the
English taste. It requires a somewhat peculiar nature
to find it attractive. Voltaire meant nothing offensive
by what was really an offensive picture ; on the contrary,
he fancied that he was sa}ring something complimentary.
English taste, in his portrayal, found its chief pleasure
in the admiration of what may be called the disagreeable
virtues. To be outspoken and rough under the pretence
of frankness; to be repellent in behavior under the
guise of sincerity ; to be inaccessible to all the gentler
motives by which men are actuated, under the sway
of feelings which clothe themselves with the title of
love of liberty and love of country, — these were the
characteristics which in his opinion, appealed to the

106

'THE DEATH OF CJESAR*

taste of the English. In accordance with this view he
had avoided the introduction of the passion of love.
While so doing he felt that he had perhaps gone to the
other extreme. In the eyes of many, Brutus, he said,
would seem possessed of too much ferocity. Still, it
was necessary to paint men as they were ; and such as
he actually was, he was here represented. In this
tragedy, therefore, would be found depicted the genius
and character of the Roman people as well as that of
the English nation. In it would be discovered the
dominant love of liberty which prevailed in both, as
well as the audacities of representation which French
authors rarely ventured to take.

By writing this play Voltaire had put himself in direct
competition with the great master. He was not in the
least anxious to avoid the comparison. He was fully
satisfied with the work he had accomplished. Of its
general superiority to the corresponding tragedy of the
English dramatist, he had no doubt. It is implied in
the pre&ce ; it is almost directly asserted in the adver-
tisement to the reader prefixed to the pretended word-
for-word version of the three acts of * Julius CaBsar'
which he published in 1764. This advertisement pur-
ports to come from the publisher : it is hardly necessary
to say that it is Voltaire who is responsible for its every
line. The reader is told in it that he will now be able
to make a comparison between the works of Shakespeare
and Voltaire, dealing with the death of Caesar. Then
he can decide for himself whether the tragic art haa
made any progress since the days of Elizabeth. Yet
this version of the English play is really an exhibition

107

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

on Voltaire's part of practices which in an inferior man
would be called fraud. This so-called literal transla-
tion, as we shall see later more fully, stops designedly
with the death of the dictator. The passages of the
original in which Brutus and Antony address the popu-
lace are carefully omitted.

Voltaire was certainly wise in withholding from his
readers any version of the scenes following the death of
CsBsar. He had good reason to shun the comparison, even
if Shakespeare's words were given in a translation as
bald and inadequate as that which he made of the rest
of the three acts. In this instance it does not require
national prepossession or the partisanship of race to rec-
ognize the hopeless inferiority of his imitation to the
original. The attempt in particular to reproduce the
speech of Antony might well have deterred a bolder
spirit than his own. His adaptation of it — which he
at first called a translation — showed how little under-
standing he possessed of the arts by which popular
assemblies are swayed. These the all-comprehending
mind of Shakespeare had either conceived of itself or
had developed with peculiar effectiveness out of the
scattered hints furnished by Appian. The baldest trans-
lation of this speech compared with Voltaire's imitation
of it will reveal the difference — not aesthetic but intel-
lectual — in the skill with which the orator in each case
is represented as playing upon the passions of the people.
The contrast drawn by Antony between the charge of
ambition brought against Csesar and the acts which
implied the opposite; the pretended deference to his
assassins as honorable men ; the constant ringing of

108

'THE DEATH OF C^SAR'

the changes upon the same words and ideas till they had
wrought fully the effect they were intended to bring
about, — this conduct was all lost upon Voltaire because
he had little comprehension of the methods most suc-
cessful in appealing to the feelings of a popular assembly.

On the contrary, he sought to produce the result at
which he aimed by making Antony resort to the cheap
device of springing a surprise upon his hearers by
announcing that the murderer of CsBsar is his son. It
was an expedient as false in art as the asserted relation-
ship was &lse in fact. It would have been spumed by
the higher skill of the more conmianding genius, who
would have recognized at once that such a declaration
by the orator at such a time would have defeated the very
end he had in view. To the hearer, whether intelligent
or unintelligent, it would have seemed, whatever its
actual truth, to be nothing more than a falsehood con-
cocted for his immediate purpose by a liar and a slan-
derer, and not a secret wrung from the speaker in the
excitement of the moment Either it would have had no
effect, or it would have had an effect exactly opposite to
that sought to be produced. There are other and as great
faults in this speech as foimd in the French play. Not
only was it impossible for Voltaire to approach the spirit
and fire of the original, but even more did he fail to con-
vey a remote apprehension of the subtle insinuation
which suggests what it does not say, the appeals which
inflame the passions they pretend to calm, the thousand
delicate touches defying analysis which make the speech
of Antony the most effective of oratorical masterpieces.

Equally inferior was his whole play upon the side of

109

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

dramatic art. A motive false in fact, but falser still for
theatrical effect, was made the central point upon which
the interest of the play hinged. Voltaire could hardly
have done anything better calculated to exhibit the supe-
riority to himself of the assumed rude and irregular dramar
tist who according to his account was infected by the
barbarism of an uncultured age. Furthermore, he was
hampered throughout by the rules of time and place to
which he professed unswerving devotion, but which as
usual he obeyed in appearance while breaking in reality.
In spite of the long period of labor he had spent^upon
the production of the piece, he had not taken the
trouble to make those preliminary preparations for the
denouement which would give to the events described an
air of probability. In consequence eveiything is hurried
beyond reason and belief. In the one day to which the
action is limited two meetings of the senate are held for
the purpose of carrying into effect Caasar's long-meditated
plan of making himself king. In this one day the plot
to murder the foremost man of the world is conceived ;
in this one day it is carried into execution. The con-
spiracy is, what no such conspiracy has ever been, the
work of a moment. As on the one side the unity of time
is discredited by crowding into it events which would have
required and actually did require weeks for preparation,
so on the other side the unity of place is made ridiculous
by transactions which could never have happened on the
same spot. The scheme of assassination is concocted in
open day, in the crowded capitol. In that same edifice
CsBsar holds the all-important interview with Brutus, in
which he announces the long-deferred and astounding

110

*THE DEATH OF CJESAR'

news that he is his son. It is here too that later Brutus
makes an appeal to his father to desist from his project
of destroying the liberties of Rome.

Upon the complications arising from this relationship
between the two leading personages of the play Voltaire
prided himself. Not content with portraying CaBsar as
the benefactor of Brutus, he had made him his father.
This contrivance for exciting interest he regarded as a
masternstroke. Such a belief shows how inferior was his
conception of his art to that of the man he unqualifiedly
blamed or patronizingly conmiended. That in real life
the murder of a parent by a child, or of a brother by a
brother, has been perpetrated under the pressure of
supposed duty, was no excuse for obtruding into a
drama a motive for action which could not fail to make
its hero repellent. Nor was Brutus portrayed in any
way as an attractive character. He is not exactly detest-
able ; but he approaches as near it as the unavoidable
limitations of human nature will permit. His very
virtues are repulsive. Moreover, the relationship repre-
sented as existing between him and the man he has
agreed to assassinate causes the action of the piece to
assume a still more crowded and unnatural character.
In it Csesar, who for no apparent reason has kept secret
for more than a quarter of a century the tie between
himself and Brutus, informs the latter that he is his son,
though for no more urgent reason at this particular time
than must have existed at a hundred others. He con-
firms the statement by showing him the dying letter of
his mother ServiUa. Naturally the son is torn by con-
flicting emotions at the unexpected and startling news.

Ill

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

Still he is not diverted from the purpose to which he had
pledged himself an hour or two before. As his father
cannot be persuaded to conform to his political views, to
give up the design of enslaving his country, the son
feels that he cannot honorably withdraw from practising
the '^ cruel virtue," as it is termed, of killing his
parent, a deed to which he had previously engaged him-
self, while in ignorance of their relationship. So out of
pure love of country he commits parricide in the after-
noon, though in the morning he had contemplated nothing
worse than mere murder.

Personal hatred, dislike, envy, and the hostility of
faction were pretty certainly reasons why several of
Voltaire's pieces were not successful on their first repre-
sentation. There was nothing in their character to
cause failure. They were suited to the taste that then
prevailed ; they were conformed to the dramatic beliefs
that were then accepted. On later revivals they were
not unfrequently received with the highest applause.
But no genuine success could ever be expected at any time
for a play like La Mart de Ceiar. Voltaire had indeed his
own reason for its failure. The noble and austere taste
which alone could enjoy it no longer existed in the
effeminate time which had followed the greAt age of
Louis XIV. " Caesar without women," he wrote to
Le Kain in 1760, *' can never be played, save among the
Jesuits." There was some truth in this view, but it was
far from being the whole truth. That it was not ought
to have been clear to him from the fortunes of the cor-
responding English play. The uninterrupted success of
that had never been due at all to its female characters.

112

'THE DEATH OF CJSSAR*

These are but two in the large number which crowd its
scenes. Of these two, one plays a wholly and the other
a comparatively insignificant part. Voltaire missed the
real reason for the lack of &vor his drama met with.
It was one which, had he suspected^ he would have re-
fused to acknowledge. Its failure was not due to the
absence of female characters. This enhanced the diffi-
culty of pleasing, but did not render it insuperable.
Nor was it the effeminate taste of the spectators that
was at fault. It was his own deficiency in that supreme
dramatic art of adapting means to ends in which he
complacently fancied himself immensely superior to the
great Elizabethan.

That a play with a hero so disagreeable, pursuing a
course of conduct so repulsive, should be represented as
being in the English taste was offensive at the time to
Englishmen themselves. Aaron Hill made himself a
mouthpiece of their feelings. After the success of his
versions of Zaire and Ahire he had begun to fancy that
he possessed a sort of proprietary interest in all of Vol-
taire's plays. It is apparent that he had it in mind at
first to make an adaptation of La Mort de CUar for the
London stage. But he was revolted by the portrayal in
it of the character and conduct of Brutus ; he was indig-
nant that such a portrajral should be spoken of as being in
accordance with the taste of the English. It was a charge
against his countrymen which he resented. To accept
an inhuman and bloody enthusiast as an example of
national virtue would justly subject them to the imputa-
tion of brutaliiy. He declared, and probably with jus-
tice, that a play like Voltaire's would not be tolerated
8 113

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

npon the English stage ; that a scene which made war
upon human nature and violated the fundamental obliga*
tions of being in behalf of a collateral virtue, would be
looked upon with horror and hatred*^ He was equally
dissatisfied with Shakespeare's treatment of the same
theme. The deficiency of that dramatist in what he
called art was as objectionable to him as to Voltaire
himself. The gross violation of the unities in ^ Julius
Caesar ' was a fault that could not be condoned. But
Hill*8 feelings were outraged above all by the fact that the
man who gave to the play its title should perish when
its performance was only about half over. ^ What I " he
wrote indignantly, ** is Shakespeare's *• Cssar/ then,
come at last to be urged as a pattern? — a play wherein
he (the greatest and most renowned of mankind) sus-
tains not so much as a third-rate figure, and yet gives
his name to the tragedy I But such always were, and
forever will be, the effects of an implicit idolatry." ^

The feeling which Hill here expressed has been by no
means confined to him. It has troubled many. Much
elaborate justification of the propriety of the present
title, much elaborate explanation of how it came to exist,
would have been rendered unnecessary, had Shakespeare
only chosen to call his play ^ Brutus ' instead of * Julius
CaBsar.' The reasons which have been advanced for his
doing as he did belong to the class of explanations
which do not explain. The real reason is not far to
seek. There is everything to indicate that Shakespeare
was largely indifferent to the names his plays should

1 Hill's Workft, toI. i. p. 280.
^ Ibid. Tol. ii. p. 9.
114

'THE DEATH OF C^SAR'

bear. If a satisfactory one did not present itself at the
moment, he was little disposed to spend time and
thought in devising one merely to have it specially
appropriate. In the tragedies it is usually suggested by
the leading character. But the comedies rarely admit of
this easy solution of the difficulty of designation. As a
consequence it is in but few instances — such as ^ Meas-
ure for Measure ' and ^ The Taming of the Shrew ' —
that we find a title which answers accurately to the
leading motive of the play. Of the &ct itself notice
was early taken. On January 6, 1668, Pepys went to
see * Twelfth Night' acted. He found it but a silly
piece ; and more than that, it was not related at aU to the
name and the day.

Pepys could easily have extended his strictures on
this account to others of Shakespeare's works. ^ As You
Like It' is a title which will serve for any piece that
was ever written. * All 's Well that Ends Well ' is a
phrase which would fittingly designate the larger num-
bers of existing comedies. * The Winter's Tale ' ' Mid-
summer Night's Dream,' * Love's Labor 's Lost ' could be
applied to scores of dramas with as much propriety as to
the ones so-called. ' Much Ado about Nothing,' again,
is so far from being appropriate, that in any natural
sense of the words, the title is a misnomer. The much ado
that was made was so far from being about nothing that
it was an ado about something of prime importance in
the lives of the principal characters. There is hardly
any escape from the view that Shakespeare was either
indisposed to trouble himself about finding a specially
suitable name for his plays, or was unwilling to give

115

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

them Buch as would in any way indicate clearly their
character. It is more in accordance with the evidence
to accept the former supposition, — to believe tliat if the
title did not suggest itself at once, he adopted any
that would serve the purpose, however indifferently. In-
deed the second title to * Twelfth Night ' — that is, * What
You Will* — indicates a certain impatience with the
necessity of bothering himself about a matter which he
regarded as of extremely little importance. He practi-
cally says to reader or spectator, *' If you don't like the
name I have given this piece, have it any name you
please/' A like feeling of indifference existed in all
probability when he had completed the play now under
discussion. He called it after the greatest of the histor-
ical characters who appear in it, without pausing to con-
sider that the real hero of the tragedy is an altogether
different person.

Dissatisfied with Shakespeare, more dissatisfied with
Voltaire, Hill set out to produce a play on the same
subject, which, while following to a certain extent the
latter's plot, should develop it in accordance with Eng-
lish good-nature — that quality which, it was boasted,
other nations were so far from possessing that they
lacked for it the name. He adopted the same relation-
ship of father and son between Caesar and Brutus. He
introduced several other incidents of Voltaire's play-
He worked long and assiduously at the production of
his piece, which was styled ^ Roman Revenge.' He
bored Pope with it. He purposed to dedicate it to
Bolingbroke, who professed himself much honored by
the proposed compliment as well as impressed by the

116

'THE DEATH OF CJESAR'

perosal of the piece itself. But the theatrical manageis
of the day were not impressed. Hill could not succeed
in getting his play acted on the London stage, nor was
it ever published till some years after his death. Its
perusal gives one respect for the judgment which re-
fused to accept it for representation. It has about
every fault which can be found in Voltaire's play with-
out any of its merits. The incidents which Hill added
to the plot contributed to its absurdity, but not to its
interest. But its most distinguishing characteristic is
its unrelieved prosiness. The steady stream of plati-
tudes, which pours through it without restraint and
without cessation, makes this play one of the most
wearisome to be found in that unrivalled collection of
the dramatically tedious which we call eighteenth-
century tragedy. Even he who has, in a measure, been
prepared for its perusal by frequent previous struggles
with pieces of a similar character, will find it difficult
not to be overcome by its deadly dulness. The fact of
its non-appearance during its author's lifetime prevented
the publication of a letter addressed to Voltaire which
Hill had contemplated prefixing to the work when
printed. In it he had purposed to vindicate the char-
acter of his coimtrymen from the French author's rep-
resentation of it ; to protest against the assumption that
a model of the taste of the English could be found in a
wretch who persists in the murder of his father, after
being convinced that he stood toward him in the rela-
tion of a son.^

1 Hill's Works, vol. ii. p. 10.

117

CHAPTER VI

MAGBETH AJSD MAHOMET, HAMI^ET AND BKMIBAMI8

It was in his play dealing with the death of Caesar
that Voltaire attempted to introduce upon the French
stage some of the actual characteristics of the romantic
drama, as well as some which he fancied to belong to it
It was a venturesome undertaking ; he speedily saw that
it was so. He therefore did not commit himself too
fully and too far. Two kinds of assertion he was in
the habit of making about the experiment, according as
he sought to disarm the hostility of critics, or to arouse
the enthusiasm of partisans. If the work were attacked,
he maintained that it was an honest aim on his part to
enlarge the circle of knowledge by making his country-
men familiar with the taste of another people. If it
were approved, he said that it was designed to extend
the boundaries of the French drama by contributing to
it certain features which the experience of another race
had shown to be desirable and effective. These varying
reasons for his action he gave as he found it expedient
to apologize for his course, or to assume credit for it.

In the case of this particular play he was accordingly
willing — at least at the outset — to acknowledge his
indebtedness to Shakespeare. Two of the scenes he
professed to have taken directly from ^Julius Caesar."

118

MACBETH AND MAHOMET

It is the only time in Voltaire's career in which he vol-
untarily admitted any specific obligation on his part to
the English dramatist. One other was reluctantly wrung
from him; but it was so introduced that he who was
unacquainted with the original was little likely to sup-
pose that what he saw was borrowed. Outside of these
two instances there is not a line in his writings which
indicates that a single dramatic situation in his plays
had been even remotely suggested by anything he had
met with in the works of the author by whom he was
alternately attracted and repelled. The course of con-
cealment which he had practised in the case of Zaire he
persistently followed. Yet no dramatist ever owed to
another a more distinctive obligation than Voltaire did
to Shakespeare in the tragedy to which we now come.

In August, 1742, his play of Le FanatiBme^ ou Mahomet
le Prophite was brought out at the French theatre. It
had been written several years previously ; it had, more-
over been acted with success in a provincial ciiy. It
was produced at Paris a few months before MSrope.
After running three nights it was withdrawn in conse-
quence of the opposition of a powerful cabal which
pretended that the sentiments expressed in it imperilled
the safety of both church and state. A number of years
after, it was revived and met with great success. Noth-
ing shows much more clearly the wretched repression
under which literature then languished in France than
the banishment of this piece from the boards. All soi*ts
of pretexts for so doing were trumped up then, and have
not unfrequently been repeated since. Had the author-
ship come from another source, at least from an admit-

119

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

tedly orthodox source, the work would have met with
no hostility. The suspicions entertained of it, the im-
putations brought against it, were based upon inferences
drawn from the supposed beliefs of its writer, and not
from anything contained in the play itself. Over his
opponents Voltaire gained, a few years after, a triumph
which at the time afforded him infinite satisfaction. He
received permission to dedicate the work to the pope
himself. By parading this privilege at the beginning
of the play when printed, with the interchange of epis-
tolary compliments that went on between him and the
head of the church, he confounded the enemies who
professed to find in the piece ideas dangerous both to
religion and civil government

Not that the work was calculated to promote personal
piety or to advance the interests of the church. Of
any tendency of that sort it could hardly be accused,
though it represented Mahomet in the most odious
light. To a modern man, in truth, its most striking
feature is the picture it gives of the limitations of its
author. There are characteristics of human nature
which Voltaire could not comprehend. There are
mysteries of the spirit into which he could not pene-
trate. Of the weak side of faith, of its narrowness,
of its intolerance, of its persecuting spirit, he had the
clearest apprehension. And as he saw it distinctly, he
exposed it relentlessly. On the other hand, of its strong
side he had no conception whatever. He lacked not
only the appreciation of it which comes from knowledge,
but the deeper insight that springs from sympathy.
Of the uplifting power of faith, of the enthusiasm

120

MACBETH AND MAHOMET

and energy it arouses, of the lofty detennination it
inspires that what ought to be is to be, he saw nothing
because he felt nothing. He could in all sincerity as-
sume that a man could set on foot a great religious
movement destined to affect the lives of hundreds of
millions, without believing in himself or in his mission.
But his lack of spiritual insight was purely personal.
It furnished no justification for the outcry which was
raised against his piece, and drove it temporarily from
the stage.

In this play occurs a direct imitation of Shakespeare.
It consists of the circumstances attending the death of
one of its characters, Zopire, the venerable sheik of
Mecca. Seide, under the influence of fanaticism, mur-
ders the aged ruler for whom he feels an instinctive
veneration. After the deed has been committed, he
is horrified to learn that it is his own father to whom
he has given the deathnstroke. Joined with him is the
heroine Palmire, half dissuading her lover from the
perpetration of the crime for which her hand is to be
his reward, half consenting to the act which is to fulfil
the great desire of her life. No one familiar with
English literature, who reads the conversations preced-
ing and following the assassination, can fail to be '
struck by the evident attempt to reproduce the effect '
of the tremendous situations in ^Macbeth' which pre- .
cede and follow the assassination of Duncan. All the
accessories to the scene which are found in the one
play are introduced into the other, so far as the differ^
ence of plot allows them to be employed. It was the
appearance of Lady Macbeth in the English tragedy,

121

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

it was the part she played in it, which led Voltaire to
make Palmire an associate in the murder. The con-
versation between husband and wife, just before the
commission of the crime, suggested the conversation
between the lovers. But whatever force exists in the
scenes as depicted by Voltaire, it is felt to be attenuated
and feeble the moment it is contrasted with the terrible
grandeur of those in the original. In them the inten-
sity of the excitement reaches almost to the point of
pain. Even greater is the inferiority on the side of
dramatic art. In the English play the presence of Lady
Macbeth is essential. In the French the presence of
Palmire is a necessity of the theatre, and not of nature.
What is the inevitable demand of art in the one, in the
other is the result of artifice.

The inferiority of Voltaire is even more noticeable
in the attempt he makes to reproduce the tragic horror
of the situation which follows Macbeth's return from
the commission of the crime. The interview which
then takes place between the husband and the wife, till
it is broken off by the knocking at the gate, stands out
conspicuously even among the powerful scenes of Shake-
speare for the depth and painfulness of its thrilling
character. It is more appalling than the murder itself.
The shuddering awe it inspires is felt as profoundly,
even in the mere reading of it, as if we had been very
partakers in the act of which it is the outcome. Vol-
taire was too keenly susceptible to the influence of the
tragic scene not to feel its power. He sought, as far
as in him lay, to reproduce the agitation of the actors.
He imitated not merely the matter but the manner. In

122

MACBETH AND MAHOMET

hiB work as in the original is found the broken utterance,
the abrupt inquiry, the startled comment The attempt
was indeed the same; the result was something alto-
gether different The effect was one, in truth, which it
was only in the power of a genius as mighty as Shake-
speare's own to produce; and he himself produced it
but once. There was another reason beside the lack
of equal genius. At least it may be permitted the
members of an EngUsh-speaking race to believe that
no effect of that kind could be produced in the measure
employed in French tragedy. In this the restraint of
ryme, the regular recurrence of like sounds, however
fitted to impart pleasure, are little calculated to cause
impressions of terror. It is in scenes like these of
^Macbeth' that we, at all events, recognize the capa-
bilities and possibilities which lie in blank verse as an
instrument of expression.

It never struck Voltaire as worth while to do so much
as refer to the source from which the corresponding scenes
in Mahomet were taken. It shows the ignorance of
Shakespeare in France upon which he could reckon then,
that he never felt it necessary or expedient anywhere
in his voluminous writings, to make even the slightest
allusion to this most palpable of imitations. The Eng-
lish, however, recognized it and announced it at once. At
a litUe later period when their feeUngs had become some-
what embittered by Voltaire's attacks upon their stage,
no obligation of his to the English dramatist was flung
more frequently in his face than his calm appropriation
without acknowledgment of the scenes in * Macbeth.' It
seems to have made a far greater impression upon their

123

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

minds than the more extended imitation of * Othello'
which is found in Zaire, Of the charges of plagiarism
brought bj them against Voltaire it is certainly the
one much the most frequently specified. Yet though
so familiar to Englishmen, so constantly made the sub-
ject of animadversion, the obligation was apparently
never recognized at the time by Voltaire's countrymen.
In truth they seem none too well acquainted with it
now. So far as I have observed, much more attention
has been called to an imputed imitation of Lillo's
* LfOndon Merchant,' in which George Barnwell mur-
ders his uncle, but sees him casting an eye of love upon
him while breathing his last. The dying words of
Zopire to the son by whose hand he has fallen, the
blessing he gives, may have been suggested by this
incident. But it could easily have originated independ-
ently. Nor as an appropriation is it of much importance
in itself. As contrasted with the debt due to *' Macbeth,'
it is of no importance at all.

To another imitation of Shakespeare there has already
I been a reference. In his play of EriphyUj fired by the
'example of * Hamlet,' Voltaire had ventured upon the
expedient of introducing a ghost. In the state of feeling
which then existed in France in regard to dramatic art,
this under any circumstances would have been a hazard-
ous experiment. But it was then made doubly hazard-
ous by the mechanical difficulties which stood in the
way of creating the illusion necessary to produce the
desired effect. The French theatre still retained the bar-
barous practice of allowing seats upon the stage. It
was in fact never done away with until 1759. A ghost,

124

HAMLET AND S^MIRAMIS

therefore, could hardly be expected to create much of an
impression when the distinct corporeal substance of the
actor taking the part, would have to be in such close
proximity to the young men of fashion seated upon the
stage that it was likely to brush the powder from their
hair. Still Voltau-e was willing to run the risk ; and
in 1732 the tragedy of Eriphyle had been brought out
In it the shade of Amphiaraus appears, forbids the
approaching nuptials of his wife and his son Alcmaeon,
and orders the latter to avenge his death at the hands of
his mother. But the time was not ripe for a scene of
such a character to succeed in France ; and the play was
withdrawn both from the boards and the press.

Still, the impression made upon him by the appearance
of the ghost in ^ Hamlet,' which he had witnessed dur-
ing his stay in England, did not wear off. It haunted
his memory. Not merely did the effectiveness of the
scene itself appeal to him ; he had been struck by the
impression invariably produced by it upon the spec-
tators. Why could he not achieve the same results
upon the French stage ? The first trial had not been so
much of a failure that there was not a fair prospect of
success in a second. He determined to renew the ex-
periment. Accordingly, in 1748 his tragedy of SSmiramis
was brought out. It was built upon essentially the same
lines as that of Eriphyle. The ghost of Ninus replaced
that of Amphiaraus, and the rdle of Alcmaeon was taken
by Ninias. Again the experiment failed for the time
being. The success achieved by the play was only tol-
erable. When it was revived at later periods, especially
after the stage had been cleared, it took strong hold of

125

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

the publio favor, and during the eighteenth centniy
was one of Voltaire's frequently acted pieces.

In some verses written to be delivered before the rep-
resentation of EriphyUy Voltaire had had something to
say of the attempt to reproduce in it the terror of the
ancient stage. From the grave of iEschylus, he observed,
had come a new birth of daring experiment. He was
trying to convey the impression that he had borrowed
the idea from the shade of Darius which appears in the
PerscB. Of Shakespeare, who was responsible for the
only really daring experiment in the piece, he took care
to say nothing. But when SSmiramis came out, this
manner of proceeding was no longer possible. A trans-
lation in part of ^Hamlet' had appeared but a short
time before. In it the interview between the hero of
the piece and the ghost of his father had been rendered
in full. No longer, therefore, could the appeal be made
to Greek tragedy alone. In the prefatory discourse to
the play as printed, the authority of Shakespeare was
adduced for the introduction of the ghost. With it he
tells us that the best judges in England had been pro-
foundly impressed — the best judges, it is almost need-
less to add, being those who were most offended with the
irregularities of their ancient drama.

But even here he was careful not to make his obliga-
tion to Shakespeare prominent. It was not the authority
of the English dramatist which he put forward as the
main defence for the course he had himself adopted.
That was in fact merely incidental. He based it upon
the ground that in representing the manners of the past
he had also a right to represent its beliefs. Antiquity

126

HAMLET AND SMMIRAMIS

accepted the possibility of apparitions. In a scene which
is laid in antiquity ghosts accordingly can be introduced
with propriety. Furthermore he took occasion in this
same preface to speak depreciatingly of the author whose
action had suggested to him the particular novelty which
he had introduced upon the French stage. He gave an
account of the plot of ^ Hamlet ' which it dignifies too
much to call a travesty. The contemporary English
assailants of Voltaire used to insist that any obli-
gation he was under to Shakespeare was invariably
repaid on the spot by systematic misrepresentation and
detraction. His thefts, they said, could always be de-
tected by the cloud of calumnies with which they were
sought to be covered. It must be confessed that his
remarks upon ^ Hamlet,' as we shall see later, furnished
a good deal of justification for the charge.

All this elaborate argumentation in defence of his
course was shattered to pieces a few yeais later by Les-
sing.^ This critic, while not opposing, while even up-
holding the introduction of apparitions into modem
plays, exposed the futility of the reasoning by which
Voltaire had sought to justify it. In stage representa-
tion it is not what people believe in the past in which
the scene is laid that is to be considered. It is what
will affect the spectators in the present. The dramatist
is not a mere painter of manners of remote generations.
It is the living audience of to-day that he must have in
his eye. A stage representation which makes as its
main object a picture of how men once thought and felt
and acted, may serve to gratify a temporaiy curiosity,

1 Hamburgiache DramcUurgie, No. XI, June 11, 1767.

127

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

but it will never awaken pennanent interest Not such
should be the object of the playwright's ambition. His
should be the poet's aim to move men. It is not his
business to take the part of an antiquaiy for the sake
of instructing them. More damaging, however, than his
criticism of the reasons which Voltaire had alleged for
his action were his strictures upon the circumstances
attending the appearance of the shade of Ninus. His
main point was the very just one that if a ghost is
introduced at all, it is bound to be introduced in accord-
ance with the existing beliefs of men about ghosts.
This fundamental condition Shakespeare had fulfilled;
Voltaire had not. The matter is so important that it is
worth while to give expansion to the criticism and
comparison which Lessing did little more than outline.
For it marks with peculiar effectiveness the distinction
between the art of Shakespeare and the art of Voltaire.
It indicates in a way not to be gainsaid the superiority
of the former to the latter in that fidelity of representar
tion which holds the mirror up to nature.

Let us compare the two portrayals. In * Hamlet ' the
appearance of the ghost is in full harmony with the beliefs
which during modem times at least have gathered about
visitants from the other world, and even at the present
day affect men to a greater or less extent. No alien sights
or scenes distract our attention from the interview that
takes place between the living and the dead. The
apparition comes in the silence of the night. He is
clad from head to foot in the armor in which he appeared
on the battle-field. He marches by the terrified senti-
nels with slow and stately steps. He speaks but to

128

HAMLET AND SISmIRAMIS

one, and to him he speaks when alone. He awes the
spectators of the play, as in the play itself he awes those
to whom he appears. The stillness of the hour, the
loneliness of the place, the startling news imparted, the
solemn injunction imposed, are all in conformity with
beliefs which we have inherited about the spirit world,
and with impressions which but few of us are able to
shake off entirely. All this is to say that the ghost of
Hamlet appears to us under recognized ghostly condi-
tions. Furthermore, he is a being who is something more
than a character necessary to the business of the play.
He interests us for himself.

On the other hand, all these conditions for the proper
portrayal of apparitions are violated by Voltaire. To
hardly a single one even of our conceptions about them
and their behavior does he make conform the spirit that
he evokes. In certain ways the discrepancy between
our beliefs and its conduct is extreme. Ghosts, it is
to be remarked, have always been distinguished for their
aversion to society. It is not in the midst of crowds
that they intrude themselves. They are almost in-
variably in the habit of appearing to but a single person.
From the point of view of the sceptic they further
appear rarely to the right sort of person. The difficulty
had been foreseen by the all-observant eye of Shake-
speare. Horatio had been unwilling to accept the story
of the sentinels. He is convinced of their truthfulness
only by witnessing himself the sight which upon their
mere testimony he had refused to accept as possible.
The dramatist himself here strained somewhat spectral
proprieties by making his ghost appear to three ; but he
9 129

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

had taken care that the interview should be held with
but one. It is upon these two alone that the attention
of reader or hearer is concentrated. As Hamlet says of
it himself, though in another sense, it is an honest ghost
that is given us — honest, that is, from the side of
dramatic art But nothing of this sort can be asserted
of the apparition which Voltaire presents. The proceed-
ings of this being are in defiance of precedent, of tradi-
tional beliefs, and of decorum. No ghost who had the
slightest regard for the etiquette of the spiritual world
would have shown himself in the midst of a crowded
assembly. Still less would he have violated spectral
conventions by appearing in the daytime.

Yet these things Voltaire's ghost does without hesi-
tation and without scruple. He selects broad daylight
for the time of his appearance, and for the place a room
filled with persons about to witness a marriage ceremony.
The further conduct of his apparition is even more in
violation of spectral good-manners. It approaches the
vulgarity of spirit-rappings rather than the dignity of a
messenger from the unseen world deputed to execute
the justice of the gods. He is noisy. Groans emanating
from the mausoleum in which lies the body of the
murdered king is the method taken to announce earlier
in the day that something supernatural is to happen
later. When the ghost makes up his mind to appear
he signalizes his intention by a clap of thunder. The
tomb shakes, the door opens. Into the midst of the
crowded court stalks the shade of Ninus. There he
delivers his message. His mission done he does not
fade away. He returns instead with slow and stately

130

HAMLET AND SJSMIRAMFS

steps to his tomb. He re-enters it, and* the door closes
upon him. All this is done in the sight of the multitude
present. No properly behaved apparition ever con-
ducted himself in this manner. Not thus act the ghosts
whose appearances have received the sanction of human
faith or brought terror to human credulity. The effect
produced by a performance of this character may be
impressive; under powerful representation, it may
be startling ; but it is not legitimate. Voltaire's is an
artificial and not a natural creation. Yet there is no
question that this mechanical device, however unsuccess-
ful at first, met later with a warm reception. Upon it
eulogiums were lavished by some of the best critics of
the time. They can be forgiven. They had not yet
learned from Shakespeare what it was of the awe-inspir-
ing and terrible which it lay in the power of the highest
art to produce.

131

CHAPTER VII

BESEKTMENT OF THE ENGLISH

Fob many years after Voltaire's departure from
England there can be no question of Lis continuous
popularity in that country. Undoubtedly from some of
the opinions he expressed there was decided dissent.
Errors of statement he had made were known and
noticed. But there was no disposition to insist upon
these things, and comment upon them was confined to
private circles. Furthermore, if his observations touched
at times the susceptibilities of the English, they could
not fail to derive consolation from the fact that he had
made the superiority of their institutions almost offen-
sively prominent to the French. His admiration of
Newton and Locke had been expressed in extravagant
terms. No such ungrudging recognition had indeed
been paid to Shakespeare. His references to that author
always went on the assumption that while he was a man
of genius, he was also a barbarian. His comments on
the English stage implied that under the influence of
Shakespeare's example, it likewise continued to remain
barbarous. But while men might not accept these
views, they recognized his right to have them, and tlie
sincerity with which he held them. It had never once
occurred to him to doubt the immense superiority of the

132

RESENTMENT OF THE ENGLISH

French stage, as represented by Comeille and Racine,
and as he thought in his secret heart, though he did not
put it precisely in words, as represented by Voltaire
more than either. But the expression of his deprecia-
toiy estimate of English practices was not made offen-
sive ; and as praise of some sort was constantly mingled
with his blame there was little disposition to take
offence.

The English, moreover, had been quick to recognize
Voltaire's indebtedness to Shakespeare. They were not
in the least disposed to resent it or even his failure to
acknowledge it. To them it seemed a thing perfectly
understood on both sides. No one then deemed it
a necessity for him to specify it, any more than one
would now think of putting between quotation marks
a phrase or verse from the Bible. No plagiarism can
be imputed where everybody is expected to recognize
at once the source from which anything is drawn. The
English were gratified therefore to witness the impres-
sion produced upon the most eminent Frenchman of
the time by their favorite dramatist. Borrowing from
him was nothing but a tribute to his greatness. The
feeling is shown in Gibber's prologue to * Zara ' already
quoted. There it is distinctly implied that he owed
his success to Shakespeare. But while the fact is
asserted, there is nothing unkindly in its presentation.
In a similar way the prologue to Miller's adaptation of
Mahomet — which was brought out in April, 1744 —
conveys the same impression. It is in these lines that
Voltaire is represented as drawing his inspiration from
the English dramatist:

158

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

" Britons, these numbers to yourselves you owe ;
Voltaire hath strength to shoot in Shakespeare's bow :
Fame led him at his Hippocrene to drink,
And taught to write with nature as to think :
With English freedom English wit he knew.
And from the inezhausted stream profusely drew.
Cherish the noble bard yourselves have made.
Nor let the frauds of France steal all our trade."

It is also to be kept in mind that Voltaire himself
could not at the outset have supposed that his opinions
about Shakespeare were liable to run counter to the
opinions generally held in England by the educated
class, and certainly not to those held by the men he
most admired. The views he expressed were largely
the views of the literary circle with which he had come
into immediate contact during his stay in London.
The utterances he heard in private were pretty surely
much more outspoken than those which he read in
print; for, in spite of the intellectual superiority it
asstuned, this select class stood in a good deal of awe
of that great public, whose loyalty to Shakespeare had
never been shaken and could not be too defiantly out-
raged. Those having the poorest opinion of his works
accordingly hesitated to express with too much freedom
their real views. In many instances they had too little
familiarity with his writings to form views worth ex-
pressing. By the accident of editorship Pope had be-
come acquainted with all his plays. He publicly avowed
and to some extent exhibited a good deal of veneration.
Tet Pope was capable of saying in private that it was
mighty simple in Rowe to write in his time a play
professedly in Shakespeare's style, that is, professedly

134

RESENTMENT OF THE ENGLISH

in the style of a bad age.^ Such were largely the senti-
ments of the set with whose members Voltaire came in
contact. Swift earned the distinction of a double igno-
rance by fancying that the Wife of Bath was a character
in one of Shakespeare's dramas.^ It was not unreason-
able, tlierefore, for a foreigner to assume that his point
of view would be that generally taken by the educated
class in England ; for the opinions he heard expressed
were those entertained by the men of that country who
were in many cases reckoned as its intellectual leaders.

On this point he was destined to be speedily \mde-
ceived. In the essay on English tragedy, contained in
his *• Philosophical Letters,' he had observed that time,
which alone is capable of establishing the reputation
of authors, serves at length to consecrate their very
defects. Of this truth Shakespeare had, in his opinion,
furnished a glaring illustration. The extravagant pas-
sages and the bombast which abounded in his writings,
had in the course of a hundred and fifty years acquired
a title to pass for the true sublime. There was a period
during which Voltaire seems to have cherished a hope
that he himself could overthrow this prevailing delu-
sion ; certainly that he could bring efficient and perhaps
decisive aid to those who were striving to bring about
the triumph of true taste as represented by the French
stage. The dedicatory epistle prefixed to Zaire urges
upon the countrymen of Falkener the necessity of re-
forming their tragedy. At the close of the second dedi-

1 Spence's AnecdotM, etc., Singer's ed. 1858, p. 131.
3 Letter of Nov. 20, 1729, to Gaj; Elwin and Conrthope*B Pope, toL
▼ii. p. 167.

135

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

catory epistle to the same English friend he reiterated
his wanuDgs. I ^ You ought," he wrote, ^^ to submit to
the rules of our theatre, as we ought to embrace your
philosophy. The art of pleasing belongs to the French ;
the art of thinking is yours."

But if he entertained any expectation of success in
this crusade, he realized more and more its futility,
as time went on. Interest in Shakespeare, great as
it had been, was steadily increasing ; admiration was
steadily growing. Before the middle of the century
five men, two of eminence, had brought out successive
editions of his plays. A number of similar undertakings
were already promised or threatened. Comments and
commentaries were multiplying on every side. Criti-
cisms were put forth m profusion ; even if at all hostile,
they evinced the existence of the interest that prevailed.
The admiration, too, as it became more widespread, was
becoming distinctly more aggressive. The proclamation
of Shakespeare's superiority to all other dramatists,
ancient or modem, grew louder and more vehement
That he was superior to Comeille and Racine was
hardly thought worth asserting. It was self-evident
If a Frenchman believed otherwise, it was due to affec-
tation on his part or to ignorance. Views of this
nature were stoutly maintained even by those who did
not question the doctrine, still accepted by many, that
Shakespeare's productions abounded in gross absurdities.

Voltaire could not and did not shut his eyes to the
increasing strength of this heresy, as he sincerely deemed
it. Whatever hope he may at one time have entertained
of seeing England converted to what he regarded as the

186

RESENTMENT OF THE ENGLISH

orthodox dramatic faith, disappeared altogether. A few
choice spirits like Bolingbroke, Chesterfield, and Hume
might rise superior to the taste of the generality. But such
men as these were exceptional. Their influence too in
matters of this nature was steadily diminishing, their
small number was becoming smaller. They had never
represented the multitude at all, they were ceasing to
represent any considerable portion of the educated body.
A model of pure and correct taste, the nation, according
to Voltaire, had received in the * Cato ' of Addison.
But as the century advanced, it fell into disfavor. Play-
wrights showed little disposition to conform to it, audi-
ences exhibited for it a growing indifference. During
the closing years of Voltaire's life it was rarely brought
on the stage. Obviously nothing could be expected
from a people who considered Shakespeare an improve-
ment upon Sophocles, and who continued more than
ever to be pleased with his barbarous scenes.

In a letter of June, 1750, he embodied his opinion of
the low state of the English stage, and his despair of
ever seeing it any better. It was written in the English
tongue to Lord Lyttelton, and is as interesting for the man-
ner in which it is expressed as it is for its matter. ^^ Yr
nasion," he wrote, " two hundred years since is us'd to a
wild scene, to a croud of tumultuous events, to an emphat-
ical poetry mix'd with lose and comical expressions, to
murtherss, to a lively representation of bloody deeds, to a
kind of horrour which seems often barbarous and childish,
all faults which never sullyd the greak, the roman, or the
french 8t£^e ; and give me leave to say that the taste of
y' politest countrymen in point of tragedy differs not

187

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

much in point of tragedy from the taste of a mob at
Bear-Garden, ' tis true we have too much of words, if
you have too much of actLon, and perhaps the perfection
of the Art should consist in a due mixture of the french
taste and english energy." Voltaire, after this general
statement, proceeded to drag in the everlasting Addison.
He it was who, *^ warned often y' nation against the cor-
rupted state of the stage — and since he could not reform
the genius of the country, j am affraid the contagious
distemper is past curing." ^

The views expressed in this letter were by no means new.
Voltaire's attitude towards Shakespeare and the English
stage never really varied in its character from first to
last. It varied distinctly, however, in its manner of
exhibition. It assumed by degrees an aggressive, not to
call it an offensive character. It finally awakened lively
resentment He had from the very outset laid a good
deal of stress upon the inability of English dramatists to
depict the passion of love. Que reason, he tells us, that
had been given for the fabt was that it was something
for which English audiences did not particularly care.
But this was not the real cause. The heroes of English
plays did not express themselves in a natural manner.
" Our lovers," he wrote, " speak as lovers ; yours only as
poets." It was in gallantry therefore that the French
surpassed the English. All this he said in the first
dedicatory epistle of Zaire. In the second he returned
to the subject. If the introduction of love into the
drama be a fault, it is certain that in the representa-
tion of the passion the French have succeeded better than

1 Letter of May 17, 1750, in Lyttelton'a Correspondence, toL i. p. SS4.

138

RESENTMENT OF THE ENGLISH

all other nations, ancient and modem, put together.
*' Love appears in our theatres," he declared, ** with the
good manners, with a delicacy, with a yerity which is
found nowhere else." He enforced the failure of the
English in this matter by a comparison of passages from
Dryden and Racine. If we wonder at the selection, we
can take no exception to the particular criticism. The
former, he observed, had put into the mouth of his
lovers either rhetorical hyperbole or indecency.

These remarks, however, created no feeling, and ap-
parently no comment, at the time. It is not until a good
while later that counter-assertion can be found expressed.
Even then it might as well have been left unsaid; it
certainly cannot be deemed very convincing. Voltaire's
ignorance of love as portrayed by Shakespeare was due to
his ignorance of all his comedies and of some of his trag-
edies. But in his case it can be pardoned, when we
contrast it with the ignorance displayed by Shakes-
peare's countrymen. In the indignant protests put forth
later against Voltaire's assumption of the inability of
the English to portray the passion of love, there is not,
so &r as I can discover, the slightest allusion to the
representation of it by the greatest of their dramatists.
There is no apparent conception of the inexhaustible
variety of its portrayal in his writings, or of the peculiar
delicacy and refinement with which it has been made to
display itself. Feelings of this sort undoubtedly existed ;
but to all appearance they were entertained privately,
and not expressed publicly. We know that ' Romeo and
Juliet ' was early deemed by many to convey the very

soul of love. The man who tells us this tells us also

139

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

that he did not dare to say that the speeches in it were
not natural, because of the offence it would give to the
admirers of the play.^ But it is noticeable that while
he did not venture to contradict their judgment, he did
not confirm it. It was reserved for a foreign judge,
more than fifty years later, in contrasting this play with
Zairey to assert that ^ Romeo and Juliet ' was the only
one at which love itself had ever labored.' If English
critics did not recognize the propriety and force of the
delineation of the passion, as found in this tragedy, they
were little likely to observe the varied pictures of it
found in other pieces, such as *The Tempest,' *As
You Like it,* and * Twelfth Night.' With these examples
close at hand of the representation of the tenderness,
the fervor, and the purity of love, of the portrayal of its
spiritual side as distinguished from its sensual, English
writers brought forward as evidence of the untruthful-
ness of Voltaire's assertion, its representation as found in
Otway and Rowe and Southeme. The credit of the
attack was in consequence strengthened by the wretched-
ness of the defence.

It was by the preface to his tragedy of Mirope that
Voltaire first aroused the national indignation. That
play had been brought out at Paris in February, 1743.
It created a tremendous sensation; its reception the
first night remained long famous in the annals of the
French drama. Since the appearance of the Aihalie of
Racine it was the only tragedy which had succeeded
without containing a love-story. Voltaire, who had been

1 Oildon't Remarks on the Plays of Shakespeare (1710).

^ Lessing's Hamburgtache Dramaturgies No. XV., June 19, 1767.

140

RESENTMENT OF THE ENGLISH

well aware that it was a good deal of a risk, was justly
elated over his success. To the play when printed he
prefixed an essay in the shape of an epistle to the Marquis
Scipio Maffei who had written the piece, with the same
title, upon which his own had been founded. In it he
discussed pari;iculariy the subject of love in tragedy. In
his opinion it ought to be everything, or it ought not to
appear at all. In the course of this letter he took occa-
sion to make some reflections upon the English stage
and the English people. With his characteristic inability
to correct an incorrect statement, he repeated his previ-
ous assertion that the dramatic writers of that nation
had a custom of finishing their acts with similes. It is
fair to say that he had learned a little in the meantime ;
in consequence, while he did not make his observation
true, he made it less untrue. The remark underwent
a slight modification. Previously it had been implied
that the custom was universal ; now it was said that it
was almost universal

It was, however, no such petty misrepresentation of
fact that disturbed the English. The remarks to which
they took exception were of a totally different nature.
A drama on the subject of Merope had been brought
out at London in 1731. Into it a love-intrigue had
been introduced. This play, unsuccessful at the time,
and long forgotten, was here made by Voltaire the occa-
sion of a general attack upon their productions in
tragedy. "Since the reign of Charles II.," he wrote,
" love has taken possession of the English stage, and it
must be said that there is no nation that has painted
the passion so badly." This cannot be called agreeable

141

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

criticism. What followed was much worse. Though
this play of ^ Merope ' had failed, he observed that the
wonder really was that it had ever been thought worthy
of representation at alL It was a proof that their
theatre had not yet attained refinement. ^^ It seems," he
continued, ^^ that the same cause which deprives the
English of genius for painting and music, has taken
away from them also that for tragedy. That isle, which
has produced the greatest philosophers in the world, is
not so fertile for the fine arts. If the English do not
apply themselves seriously to follow the precepts of
their excellent countrymen, Addison and Pope, they
will not approach other nations in matters of taste and
literature."

Voltaire in the play of Le FafuUisme^ which had imme-
diately preceded Merope^ had not merely represented
Mahomet as a conscious impostor, but as a lover, alter-
nately ruthless and whining, who at the end bewails
most pitifully the loss of the woman whom his machi-
nations have caused to kill herself. Under the circum-
stances it seemed rather unjust for him to fall foul of an
EngUsh playwright for introducing the same passion
into a tragedy like * Merope.' Consistency, however, was
not a matter to which he ever felt the necessity of paying
heed. Nor did others seem to heed it so far as he was
concerned. Had he here confined his attack to this
particular writer, no one would have taken offence.
But he had extended his censure to a whole people.
Their incapacity for music, painting, and tragedy had
followed upon the assertion of their incapacity to por-
tray the passion of love. To this attack upon the nation

142

RESENTMENT OF THE ENGLISH

in geneial he added a few years after a severe attack
upon their favorite dramatist. In the dissertation upon
tragedy prefixed to his Simiramis he had justified the
introduction of his apparition by the example of ^Hamlet,'
and the favor those scenes in the play met with in
which the ghost takes part But Voltaire, whenever he
made any use of Shakespeare, was much inclined to
disburden his mind of the obligation he was under
by calling him names. As the dramatist was dead, this
course could not hurt him ; and to his own feelings it was
a sensible relief.

Accordingly, while employing the device found in
* Hamlet ' he went out of his way to attack ' Hamlet's '
creator. He was assuredly, he said, very far from justi-
fying that tragedy of his throughout. ^* It is," he
continued, ^' a coarse and barbarous piece, which would i
not be tolerated by the lowest rabble of France and |
Italy. In it Hamlet becomes mad in the second act, his
mistress becomes mad in the third ; the prince kills the
&ther of his mistress under pretence of killing a rat,^
and the heroine throws herself into the river. A grave
is dug upon the stage ; the grave-diggers indulge in
quibbles worthy of themselves, while holding in their
hands the skulls of the dead. Prince Hamlet replies to

1 In comparing this translation of the passage with that made by Dr.
FrancUin, which was published in 1761, I find that he renders it as fol-
lows: "The prince kills the father of his mistress, and fancies he is killing
a zat.'' In a note he says that the original is croyant tuer tin rat For
croyatU the later editions, to which alone I have access, reaud /eignant. If
croyant is the reading of the earlier, as seems to be no doubt the case, it
is only another instance of the unfamiliarity of Voltaire with a play of
which he pretended to give an entline. The reading of Francklin*s note
probably opened his eyes to the error.

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SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

their abominable vulgarities by stuff not less disgusting.
During this time one of the actors makes the conquest
of Poland. Hamlet, his mother, and his step-father
drink together on the stage. They sing at the table,
they quarrel, they beat one another, they kill one anotter.
One would suppose this work to be the fruit of the
imagination of a drunken savage."

It would be a waste of time to point out the gross
blunders contained in this passage. To adopt its author's
language, a misrepresentation of the play so confused
and grotesque would certainly seem, to any one really
familiar with it, the fruit of the imagination of a drunken
imbecile. Those who study Voltaire carefully will see,
in the account he gives, only another illustration of that
distinguishing peculiarity of his mind which, when his
memory of {^ts failed, enabled his imagination to go to
its rescue and invent others to repair their loss. His
observations, however, were not all censure. He re-
peated his usual remark that there were beauties to be
discovered in this drama in the midst of its terrible ex-
travagances. <« Among these gross irregularities," he
went on to say, ^* which still continue to render the Eng-
lish stage so absurd and barbarous, there are found in
'Hamlet,' by a singularity still greater, some sublime
strokes worthy of the greatest geniuses. It seems as if
nature had been pleased to bring together in the head
of Shakespeare whatever there is most forcible and
grand, along with whatever is of lowest and most detest-
able that coarseness without wit can exhibit"

The English never forgot or forgave the remarks
found in the epistles prefixed to Merope and Simiramis.

144

RESENTMENT OF THE ENGLISH

JeSreySf whose play had been made the pretext for the
attack, naturally retorted. In a preface to a collection
of miscellanies, which included a reprint of his tragedy
of * Merope/ he charged Voltaire with plagiarizing all but
one of the changes he had made in the Italian piece ; then,
while abusing him personally, with having *^ flourished on
them as his own." ^ But long before the publication of
his work the wrath of the EngUsh had manifested itself.
It is idle indeed to pretend that Voltaire's earlier depre-
ciatory comments upon Shakespeare, though conveyed
in more kindly terms, were relished by them generally.
. True, there was nothing he said that had not previously
been said by themselves. The critical views he put
forth did not differ materially from many which had been
publicly expressed by professed admirers of the great
dramatist They had come in with the Restoration.
They had met then and afterwards with wide acceptance.
But nations, while perfectly willing to be censured by
one of themselves, do not take kindly to the censure of
foreigners, especially of foreigners of distinction and
influence. Their assumed indifference speedily gives
way to very genuine and frequently very ugly resent-
ment. The offence in this case was aggravated by
the knowledge that Voltaire's hostile reflections would
travel the round of Europe, and would meet, wherever
they went, with unhesitating acquiescence. On the other
hand, any contrary view that would be taken in reply,
would reach few ears but those of his own countrymen.
These naturally needed no convincing.

1 Pige viil of Preface to ' Miscellames in Vene and Prose,' by Goorge
Jeffreys, London, 1754.

10 145

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

But in these two later infitances reflections had been
oast by him not only upon an individual but a race.
All were alike deficient. In their secret hearts the Eng^
lish felt sore upon the subject of music and painting.
They could not persuade themselves that their achieve-
ments in either had been of the very highest grade.
They were willing to say this among themselves ; it
was not agreeable to have it assumed and asserted as a
mere matter of course by a foreigner. But they were
far from considering themselves as inferior in tragedy.
Of their pre-eminence in that field they entertained not
the slightest doubt. Nor did it soothe their irritated
feelings to be recommended to Addison. Of his ^ Cato,'
so constantly held up by Voltaire for their imitation,
they had already had the good sense to be growing tired.
That play indeed had never had, from the outset, any-
thing but an artificial vitality. That it contained fine
passages all were willing to concede ; but its cold decla-
mation and languid action were little suited to the
national taste. These characteristics, too, were con-
stantly forcing themselves more and more upon their
attention at this time, by the contrast they presented to
the fervor and energy of Shakespeare, whose gpreatness
was then producing an impression, deeper even and
broader than before, under the wonderful acting of
Grarrick.

From this time on Voltaire met with scant courtesy
from many English writers. His repute and authority
distinctly declined. This is &r from implying that he
did not continue to have in that country a body of
admirers and followers. These, as was natural, oon-

146

RESENTMENT OF THE ENGLISH

Bisted largely of those who entertained the views about
Shakespeare and the drama which he expressed, and
would have entertained them, had he never uttered a
word. Still, it contributed a good deal to their comfort
and credit that their opinions were the opinions of the
foremost man of letters in all Europe. To be sure, they
were in England a feeble folk as contrasted with the
hosts holding similar beliefs on the Continent ; but they
made up to a certain extent for their lack of numbers by
superiority of attitude. Their taste was better than
that of the general public. On their side was the wis-
dom of the ancients, and with the partial exception of
their own countiy, the practice of the moderns ; at their
head was the greatest of living literary authorities. A
representative of this class was Chesterfield. He not
only agreed with Voltaire in most of his views, but in all
sincerity regarded the Henriade as a greater epic than
the * Iliad.' It must be conceded that there is something
cruel in the vengeance which Shakespeare invariably
takes upon his undervaluers. Wise and unwise alike
fall under the rod. Neither station nor ability can
exempt the detractor from paying the same distressful
penalty. Chesterfield thought the Henriade the greatest
of epics. Hume found the 'Epigoniad' of Wilkie a
wonderful production, full of sublimity and genius, and
taking rank as the second poem of its kind in the
English language.

But though he did not lose his hold over the select
few, by the mass of educated men a distinct depreciation
of Voltaire was henceforth manifested even when hos-
tility was not. One of the most common forms in which

147

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

it was shown was in the charge of plagiarism. His in*
debtedness to Shakespeare had been recognized from
the very beginning; but with the single exception of
Hill's remarks in the case of BrtUus, there had been
nothing disagreeable about its utterance. All this was
now changed. The obligations of Voltaire to the great
dramatist, always visible to the English, however hidden
from the French, were pointed out, after this, not for
the sake of approving his judgment, but of emphasizing
his ingratitude. He was constantly taunted with his
indebtedness to the man whom he first plundered and
then reviled. It is not worth while to give up space to
the words of anonymous writers who from this time to
the end of the century vented their sentiments or their
spleen on the subject in the periodical literature of the
day. The number of these was legion. But the spirit
that animated them, the opinions they expressed can be
gathered from the writings of authors, then if not now
of some repute, who published under their own names.

A very general feeling which early came to prevail
among the English, was expressed by Foote, at the time
he was setting out on his theatrical career. In 1747 he
brought out a pamphlet on Roman and English comedy.
In the course of it he attacked Voltaire, though that
author had apparently little to do with his subject. It
is in these words that he gave vent to the indignation
which the preface to Mlrope had already succeeded in
inspiring. ^Gan our contempt and resentment,'* he
wrote, *^ be too strongly expressed against that insolent
French panegyrist who first denies Shakespeare almost
every dramatic excellence, and then, in his next play*

148

RESENTMENT OF THE ENGLISH

pilfers from him almost every capital scene. Let those
who want to be informed of this man and this truth,
read the Mahomet of Voltaire and compare it with the
^Macbeth' of Shakespeare; to this add (if you have
patience) a perusal of his letters ; ^ you will then have at
one view the Zoilus and the plagiary, the carping, super-
ficial critic and the low, paltry thief."

Resentment so expressed is hardly entitled to the epi-
thet of restrained. Yet imputations of the same sort,
though less offensively put, can be found in the writings
of men who had a genuine admiration for Voltaire, and
were largely under the influence of his opinions. The
dramatist, Arthur Murphy, had received a good share
of his education in France. He had inevitably imbibed
many of the views about the drama there prevalent. In
1759 he brought out at Drury Lane an adaptation of the
Orphelin de la Chine. To the printed play he appended
a letter addressed to Voltaire personally. In it he
defended the very great deviations from his original
which he had introduced; but throughout he spoke of
the author himself in terms of highest deference and
admiration. The sincerity of his feelings there is no
reason to question. But while acknowledging his own
obligations to the French writer, he took none the less
care to insist upon the French writer's obligations to
the English dramatist. Using the phrase in which Dry-
den had pointed out Ben Jonson's imitations of the
ancients, he remarked that he also had tracked Voltaire
in the snow of Shakespeare. ^^The snow of Shake-
speare,'' he added, " is but a cold expression ; but per-

^ These must be the iMtru phUosopkiques.

149

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

haps it will be more agreeable to you than a woid of
greater energy, that should convey a full idea of the
astonishing powers of that great man ; for we islanders
have remarked of late that M. de Voltaire has a partic-
ular satisfaction in descanting on the &ults of the most
wonderful genius that ever existed since Homer ; inso-
much that a very ingenious gentleman of my acquaint-
ance tells me that whenever you treat the English baid
as a drunken savage in your avawt propoSj he always
deems it a sure prognostic that your play is the better
for him."

But the change of attitude which the English under-
went is perhaps best exemplified in Aaron Hill. Be-
tween him and Voltaire mutual compliments had been
exchanged. But after the publication of Mirope —
which he himself was to bring on the English stage —
Hill looked with jaundiced eyes upon everything done
by the man whose interests he had once professed the
utmost solicitude to advance. It colored his view of
things to which he ought to have felt indifference. In
1745, for instance, Voltaire, then at the court of France,
had dashed off a poem celebrating the victory of Fon-
tenoy. Whatever opinion we may now have of its
merits or defects, every one will concede that it was an
exceedingly natural thing for a man in his position to
do. It could not justly have been resented by a personal
enemy belonging to the beaten side. But the comment
of Hill upon it in a private letter is interesting, not for
any importance it has in itself, not even for the exem-
plification it furnishes of his peculiar turgid style, but
as an evidence of the hostility which Voltaire had now

150

RESENTMENT OF THE ENGLISH

succeeded in calling down upon himself in England It
is of the man for the possession of whom other nations,
he had said, were to envy France, that he speaks. ^^ What
a puny spume of frothiness,*' he wrote, ^^ has he fermented
his poor mite of meaning into I The lowest depth of
our late friend's profund wants many a thousand fathoms
to this very bottom of all bottoms which the French-
man's F<mtenoy has plunged him into. One might pro-
nounce him fallen below contempt, but that he aims to
heave in his reptQity ; and has diffused on others such
a barren waste of praise as may assure himself extent
of infamy-"^

The bitterness of Hill's feelings was doubtless inten-
sified by the pessimistic yiews which he had come to
take of eveiything. He was getting along in years.
His life, on the whole, had been a failure. None of his
many schemes for benefiting his country and enabling
his countrymen to reach his own level had met with
success. He attributed to the decadence of taste, which
had come to prevail, the incapacity of his contemporaries
to prize at its true worth the inestimable jewel it was
their good fortune to possess, and their folly not to
appreciate. If a work like his epic of * Gideon,' he
wrote in 1740, met with general neglect, he would
renounce desire of praise in such an age without a sigh.^
It was to posterity that he looked for recognition, for-
getting that posterity must necessarily be so taken up
with its own bores that only at rare intervals can a pious

1 Letter to Mallet, Jnly 13, 1745, Works of Aaron HOI, toL ii., p. 250.
'* Oar late friend " is Pope.

* Aaron Hill's Works, toI. ii, p. 286.

151

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

pedantay be trasted to exhume even tempoiarilj the
extinct bores of the past. Still, though Hill had lost
property and health, he had not lost self-confidence. At
the very time he was expressing the views about Vol-
taire which have just been quoted, he was laboring at
an adaptation of MSrope. As early as September, 1745,
he had it finished. The play, however, lay many years
upon his hands before it was produced. At last Grarriek
succumbed to the pressure brought to bear upon him,
and on the 15th of April, 1749, it was put upon the
stage.^ There it struggled to its ninth night.

In several ways the translation deviated from the
work as Voltaire wrote it. Hill had designedly im-
proved upon that author, and it must be added that he
had done so maliciously. This we know to be true,
for he has told us so himself. He made a frank con-
fession of the evil motives which had led him to mortify
the haughty Frenchman by bringing out an adaptation
which was superior to the originaL " You will receive,"
he wrote to his friend, " my * Merope,* upon a plan as
near Voltaire's as I could wring it with a safe conscience.
Let me fairly own what I am truly guilty of ; I under-
took this piece upon a motive more malignant than it
should have been ; for I but sought to mend, with the
bad view to mortify him. Indeed I wouldn't bear
with patience his provokingly unreasonable vanity, that
treats it as an act of downright impudence, when Eng-
lishmen presume genius for tragedy." ' Voltaire made
neither comment upon nor reply to the published out-

1 Genest'fl Rnglish Stage, toI. iy. p. 269.
* Aaron Hill's Works, rol. iL p. 247.

152

RESENTMENT OF THE ENGLISH

burst which followed. He seems to have succeeded in
this instance in concealing his mortification.

The state of mind exhibited by Hill in his private
letter was displayed much more fully in the advertise-
ment to the reader which stands as a preface to his
* Merope ' as printed. The English, we are there told,
were partial to even the defects and levities of the
French ; while the latter in their turn lacked gratitude
to pay a like civility due to the best qualities of the
former. France was so unsatisfied with her ambition
for the monopoly of empire that she sought to extend
it to supremacy in wit and learning. This was espe-
cially true of Voltaire. Some of his pieces, we are told
by the indignant Englishman, *^are so swelled with
this presumptuous puffiness, that I am forced into abate-
ments of the disposition, I once felt, to look upon him
as a generous thinker. So much over-active sensibility
to his own country's claims : with so unfeeling a stu-
pidity in judging the pretensions of his neighbors,
might absolve all indignation short of gross indecency,
towards one who has not scrupled (in the preface to
his Merope) to represent the English as incapable of
tragedy; nay, even of painting or of music. We are
men, he says, who push to their extremes, upon our
theatres, barbarity, absurdity and absolute indecency.
— Men bom in a too barren climate to produce a ta^te
for the fine arts : and who must rank beneath all other
people in the points of genius and of literature."

But Hill, like the author he was attacking, was not
satisfied with denouncing an individual. He ravaged
the whole of French dramatic poetry, as Voltaire had

153

•>

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

the English. In this particnlar instance he obsenred
that he had been compelled to retouch the chancters
in this high-boasted Mirape in order to meet the re-
quirements of that noble taste of dignified simplicity
which characterized the London stage. It was a ne-
cessity. French dramatic poetry he described as having
been deprived of everything that animates the passions.
It was given np to the porsnit of a cold, starved, tame
abstinence. From an affectation to shun figure, as he
phrased it, it had sunk to flatness. It had achieved
an elaborate escape from energy into a grovelling, weari-
some, bald, barren, unalarming chilliness of expression
that emasculated the mind instead of moving it^ Not
content with thus wreaking himself upon adjectives
in the capacity of critic, he further took up the rdle
of prophet He declared that not only had England
had much finer writers in the past than France, but it
had them now, and it would always have them. He
added that he purposed to bring out a work comparing
the stages of the two countries, which would convince
French judges themselves of the inferiority of their
own. Unfortunately HiU died in the early part of the
following year. Consequently the design of removing
the scales from the eyes of Voltaire's countrymen was
never carried into execution. The loss to France has
been irreparable. During the whole of the century it
kept on with its blind preference for its own dxamatists,
and not to this day has the unhappy nation got over the
error of ite partiality.

The passage just given from Hill reveals, however,
one phase of the controversy which it could have been

154

RESENTMENT OF THE ENGLISH

predicted beforehand that Voltaire's censures of Eng^
land's greatest author would surely develop. A series
of counter-attacks would inevitably be made upon French
dramatic poetry and its leading representatives. In
order to exalt Shakespeare it was not really necessary to
decry ComeiUe. But national feeling had been kindled
by Voltaire's assertions, and this peculiar sort of literary
argumentation continued to rage during the rest of the
eighteenth century. Henceforth the remarks about the
two greatest of the French dramatists were not un-
frequently as contemptuous and ignorant as had been
Voltaire's references to Shakespeare. In this way of
standing up for one's side imitation is easy; and the
English soon bettered the instructions they had re-
ceived. In May, 1747, for illustration, an essay on trag-
edy was put forth by William Guthrie, little heard of
now, but well known at the time as a miscellaneous
writer and a historian. In it he took the ground that
the extravagant reputation which the French dramatists
then possessed was due to French art, and the extent
to which they had spread the criticism of their drama,
especially in enforcing the sacredness of the doctrine
of the unities. Yet the truth was that they had never
produced a poet with one spark of that real fire which
animates a true dramatic genius. For it they had
substituted correctness. They knew nothing of the
English stage. They were ignorant that Jonson had
written regular plays before they themselves had dreamed
of their desirability. They decried Calderon and Lope
de Vega. There was a cold admission on Guthrie's part
that Comeille had accomplished something highly credit-

155

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

able in the Cid; but Racine was dismissed with the re--
mark that he had written ^^ several tragedies of which our
middling rate of English poets need not be ashamed."

It shows how far prejudice and resentment were tak-
ing the place of knowledge and judgment that these
words came from a man who was as much of a believer
in the so-called classical drama as was Voltaire himself.
It is noticeable, indeed, in the treatises put forth
avowedly or covertly in reply to Voltaire's attacks, that
no one ventured to repel the charge of irregularity
brought against Shakespeare. In particular, no one of
his defenders had the audacity to deny the obligation of
observing the unities. Disbelief in the Trinity would
have incurred at the time less reprobation. There was
an uneasy feeling visible among the partisans of Shake-
speare that by his disregard of these rules he had made
the defence of his art difficult. Voltaire's influence in
strengthening the conviction that it was of first impor-
tance to conform to the doctrine of the unities cannot
easily be over-estimated. Its sacred character had been
theoretically admitted long before in England; but
largely under the influence of his exhortations it had
come to be more rigidly observed than ever in practice.
To the feeling which was shocked by its violation he
assuredly gave greatly increased intensity and force.

Many illustrations of the fact can be furnished. The
antiquary, Daines Barrington, for instance, while still
a young man, wrote from Oxford in 1746 a letter for
the periodical which goes usually under the name of
* Dodsley's Museum.' It was an essay in imitation of
Swift's ^ Battle of the Books,' and purported to give an

156

RESENTMENT OF THE ENGLISH

account of an engagement between the English and
French writers. It was not printed then, but its author
showed that he had never outgrown the callow ideas' of
his youth by including it among his ^ Miscellanies ' pub-
lished in 1781. In this piece Shakespeare is repre-
sented as commanding the right wing of the English
forces, and Comeille the corresponding wing of the
French. A battle takes place between them — probably
the first time in history the right wings of two opposing
armies managed to confront each other. Voltaire is
represented as having been sent out to ascertain the
strength and disposition of the English troops. After
making his reconnoissance, he advised Descartes, the
commander-in-chief, to give direction to his engineers
to charge the artillery which was to be pointed against
Shakespeare with the unities of time and place. By
this course they could not fail of producing great
effect. In a battle in which two right wings were
opposed to each other, it was undoubtedly the proper
business of the engineers to load the cannon. Accord-
ingly they performed the duty which had been ordered.
Shakespeare was represented as advancing to the attack
at the sound of the trumpet ; but though he behaved
with the greatest resolution, he did not meet with all
the success he had promised himself. The artillery
charged with the unity of time and of place, made a
terrible havoc among his troops. Addison obtained
leave to go to his assistance, and charged the English
artillery with an essay against bombast declamation in
tragedy. This had as terrible an effect upon Comeille
as the other had had upon Shakespeare. Neither side

187

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

was able to obtain a decided advantage, although the
English, as was natural, are represented as haying on
the whole the superiority.

There was in truth an apologetic tone almost invari-
ably assumed by these early defenders of Shakespeare
against Voltaire. They conceded that the laws laid
down by Aristotle and Horace were agreeable to nature.
They did not deny that Shakespeare had violated them.
But after all they insisted that the beauties produced by
the observance of the Aristotelian rules were of a sec-
ondary class. They could easily be attained by men of
inferior power. Precedence in dramatic poetry de-
pended upon the exhibition of natural qualities, and
upon the ability to excite the passions. This it was
that required genius of the first order. It was here that
Shakespeare surpassed all possible rivals. Much stress
indeed was laid upon another unity — that of character
— in which he excelled. This was devised to offset
the very ancient and respectable ones which he con-
fessedly disregarded.

To this effect wrote Foote in 1747. Arthur Murphy
took the same attitude in 1758. The future playwright,
who had then abandoned banking for literature, had in
the year last mentioned, set up a periodical of the essay
order entitled * The Gray's Inn JoumaL' In its twelfth
number he addressed a letter to Voltaire.^ It was based
upon the discourse prefixed to the tragedy of SSmiramis.
It was easy to expose the blunders the French author
had made in his statements of fact But Murphy did not
content himself with the mere correction of details. He

1 The namber for Dec 15, 1753.
158

RESENTMENT OF THE ENGLISH

reproached Voltaire, as was now the fashion, with con-
stantly complaining of the barbarism of Shakespeare
while he as constantly availed himself of his labors. In
Mahomet^ ' Macbeth,' he said, marstials you the way you
are going. You advertise to bring in a ghost in SSmira-
mi8^ taken from the very play which you abuse. This
charge of plagiarism became a sort of stock reply to
Voltaire's fault-finding. Again and again he was told
that he himself never mounted to so high a flight as
when supported by the wings of the English dramatist
The further suggestion is found that he sought to hide
his obligations. To vary slightly the words and entirely
the meaning of a line of Pope's, it was plainly intimated
that he was one who sought to do himself good by
stealth, and blushed to find it fame.

159

CHAPTER Vin

LA place's translation OF SHAKBSPSAKB

The clamor of the English rolled for a long time
over Voltaire's head without disturbing in the slightest
his peace of mind. Of most of the criticism to which
he was subjected from that quarter, he probably re-
mained in ignorance. At any rate, whatever he heard,
he did not heed. The years immediately following his
departure from Berlin, in the early part of 1758, were
spent by him principally in Switzerland. In his retreat
on the shores of the Genevan lake he heard little said
of Shakespeare, and he pretty certainly thought of him
even less. During the sixth decade of the eighteenth
century the name of the English dramatist hardly oc-
curs in his correspondence. Furthermore, whatever
references there are to him are of no importance.
Voltaire's thoughts were in fact far removed from any
controversies save those connected with his own writ-
ings or his personal fortunes. Of these he usually had
enough to occupy a good share of his time. He was
engaged likewise in original composition. There was
much too in the political situation to keep his attention
fixed. During the closing years, in particular, of this
sixth decade, the one outside interest to which his

160

La PLACE'S TRANSLATION^ OP SBAKESPEARE

thoughts were directed, was the desperate struggle
which his old friend, from whom he had parted in
bitterness, was waging with the combined powers of
the Continent.

So he paid no heed to English attacks, even if he
knew of them. He went on, whenever occasion pre-
sented itself, repeating in the same calm, complacent
way as of old, his previous misstatements about Shake-
speare. Thus, in the preface to the Orphelin de la
Chine^ which came out in 1755, he referred once more
to those plays of Shakespeare and Lope de Vega, which
still pleased on the other side of the channel and beyond
the Pyrenees. The action of these monstrous farces,
he tells us, lasts sometimes twenty-five years. Though
nothing but a heap of incredible stories, they are called
tragedies. His pleasure was to contrast with these
monstrosities the productions of his own land. In the
same preface he tells us that the French have been
able to produce about a dozen pieces which, if they are
not absolutely perfect, are at least much above anything
of this nature to which the rest of the world can pre-
tend. A man who in all honesty thought the stage of
his own country was superior to the Greek was not
likely to take very seriously the productions of a theatre
so alien as was the English, both in spirit and method,
from the one which he sincerely deemed had made a
narrow escape from being absolutely faultless.

But while his thoughts were absorbed in other matters,

a change of feeling was slowly going on in his own

land. The attitude of his countrymen towards the

dramatist to whom he had earlier directed their atten-

11 161

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

tion was imperceptibly altering. In bis Swiss retreat
movements of literary currents were known to bim only
in a general way. He was not in the midst of tbem.
All information he would gain about them would come
from the views expressed in periodicals, or from the
reports of correspondents or visitors. The last would
be sure to be one-sided, and therefore imperfect. But
from no quarter would he get any real notion of those
gradual changes of public opinion, of those unseen
influences which modify or alter previously accepted
beliefs. These, in truth, escape the notice of most of
us until the results they have wrought present them-
selves to our eyes as accomplished facts. Had he dwelt
in the great capital, the nervous susceptibility he pos-
sessed as a man of genius would have rendered him
sensitive to their existence long before they were sus-
pected by the multitude. When, therefore, the knowl-
edge came, it was an unpleasant surprise to which
Voltaire was treated. As the sixth decade of the
century reached its close, he became aware that the
interest in Shakespeare was assuming proportions of
which he had formed no conception. The admiration
for the English dramatist was taking a shape which
was to become to him later one of the clearest evidences
of the general decadence of taste which had overtaken
the age.

There is not the slightest doubt that Voltaire was
perfectly sincere in the somewhat disparaging estimate
which he took, on the whole, of Shakespeare* In fact,
up to the period that we have reached, he can scarcely
be said to have regarded him seriously. He had there-

162

LA PLACE'S TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE

fore been perfectly wiUiDg at the outset to accord him
the praise of having produced admirable scenes, while
every one of his works was deficient as a whole. He
had used him to attack practices on the French stage
which he disliked, and to sustain innovations which he
was anxious to introduce. Still in his eyes Shakespeare
was a barbarian, was, in fact, little better than a clown,
— the Gilles, as he later delighted to call him, of the
booths at the fair. This contemptuous epithet, which
towards the end of his life was to be constantly in his
mouth, was used by him as early as 1735. When in
that year he sent to correspondents the concluding
scenes of his tragedy dealing with the death of CsBsar,
he usually shed a little light upon the density of their
ignorance by informing them that these scenes had been
translated from an English author named Shakespeare,
who had flounshed one hundred and fifty years before.
"He is," he wrote to one of them, **the Comeille of
London, great fool of everywhere else, and resembles
Gilles more often than Comeille; but he has some
admirable bits."^

At that time he could say what he pleased. In the
general ignorance which then prevailed in his country
about Shakespeare, there was no one to correct or to
contradict. But during the more than quarter of a
century that had since elapsed, the words of the proph-
ecy of Daniel had been fulfilled. Men had been running
to and fro, and knowledge had increased — in partic-
ular, knowledge of English literature. One agency
there was, in bringing this about too important to be

1 Letter to M. de Cideyille, Nor. 3, 1735.

168 .

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

passed over slightly. Shortly before the half-oentaiy
drew to its close, a series of eight volumes had appeared
containing partial versions of many of the most famous
pieces of the English stage. Four of them had been
given up to the plays of Shakespeare. This translation,
however imperfect and unsatisfactory, furnished some
definite idea of their character. For the first time men,
who could not read English, were put in a position to
get for themselves some conception of an author who
had hitherto been known to them only by the reports
of others. They could ascertain for themselves what
was really that English taste in which it was pretended
that La Mart de Otsar was written. This earliest trans-
lation of parts of Shakespeare was the work of Pierre
Antoine de la Place.

It is no easy matter for a foreigner to get any satis-
factory impression of La Place, without paying an
attention to his works which the intrinsic importsmce of
the man would probably not justify. His original
writings do not rank high enough to be widely cir-
culated. In consequence they are not ordinarily acces-
sible. Hence about most of them we have usually to
trust the reports of others. It has been the fortune and
the misfortune of La Place that the few and scanty
accounts of his career which have been transmitted to
later times, have come from the mouths of unfriendly
critics. They have come too from men who were full
believers in the old order of things which was to pass
away, and to whose eventual disappearance his ver-
sion of Shakespeare was one of the agencies that
contributed. There is no question that this work in-

164

LA FLACKS TRANSLATION OF SHAKESFEARE

curred the secret hostility of Voltaire, and the open
hostility of his partisans. From the writings of one of
these, La Harpe, modem impressions of La Place have
been largely derived. No sooner had the latter died
than the former gave to the press a sketch of his life
and character.^ It was written with some wit, a good
deal of vivacity, and with a great deal more of ill-will —
with a degree of it indeed that almost approached
malignity.

La Harpe's account of the man has accordingly all
that attractiveness for most readers which generally
belongs to pieces written under the influence of malice,
envy, and all uncharitableness. He denied La Place the
possession of knowledge, of taste, of talents. It is the
spirit and often the words of this sketch which have
filtered down to modem times through the ordinary
channels of reference. It has colored most notices of
this writer in biographical dictionaries. Whether the
estimate it gives be true or false, it obviously comes
from a suspected quarter. La Harpe was a disciple of
Voltaire, who adopted his master's failings and prejudices
much oftener than he did his better characteristics.
Wherever Voltaire was narrow, he was narrower.
Wherever Voltaire talked confidently with little knowl-
edge. La Harpe talked more confidently with no
knowledge at alL He could not translate a single
English sentence. That did not prevent him from pass-
ing decisive judgments upon English authors, and
expressing positive opinions about the comparative

1 Reprinted in hit Lydt, <m Cowrs de iitt^ature, tome xiii, p. 31 1.

165

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

merits of French and English pieces which treated of
the same subject.

It is not for a foreigner, who has read nothing of La
Place save what he finds in his work on the English
drama, to question the correctness of the depreciatory
opinions expressed about his writings. But one thing
can not be gainsaid. La Place had the suffrages of the
multitude, if he lacked those of the critics. The favor
he met with from the public was admitted on all sides.
It was one of that sort of grievances which could never
be forgiven. La Harpe, who denied him the possession
of all other ability, conceded him the ability to succeed
&r beyond his merits, though not up to his own estimate
of his merits. This last characteristic, assuming it to
be correctly reported, was a failing which he shared in
common with La Harpe himself, even if we cannot also
include the vast majority of the human race in the num-
ber so feeling. The same testimony to his popularity is
furnished by other contemporaries nearly as unfriendly.
His play of Adile de Ponthieu was brought out in 1757,
and was received with a good deal of favor. It was
severely criticised by Grimm. Tet he admitted that in
so doing he was giving his own personal views, and not
the views of the public. He spoke furthermore of the
previous works of La Place, which consisted largely of
adaptations and translations. These, he tells us, had
met with much success, without gaining much esteem.^
Remarks of such a sort, coupled with the facts given
with them, make the reader, unable to test their correct-
ness by independent investigation, doubtful of the

1 Qrimm'a Corrtspo m donee ItttSratre, tome ii, p. 13a

166

LA PLACE'S TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE

estimate expressed about the man and his writings. It
disposes him to believe, at least it inclines him to suspect,
that while La Place's work may not be good, it is not so
bad as it has been represented.

La Place had been educated at the Jesuit college of
St. Omer. There English only was spoken. He thus
became familiar with that tongue, so much so that, accord-
ing to his enemies, he never regained a full acquaintance
with his own. The possession of this knowledge led
him to imdertake many translations. Among them was
this project of giving to his countrymen in a series of
volumes partial versions of the leading plays of the
English stage. Naturally he began with the author in
whom was the greatest interest, and about whom was
the greatest curiosity. To Shakespeare he originally
purposed to devote two volumes. These in his opinion
would be sufficient to furnish all the information about
him and his writings which his countrymen would care
to have. He found himself mistaken. The two
volumes — which appeared in 1746 — included * Othello,'
the third part of ' Henry VI.,' * Richard HI.,' * Hamlet '
and ^Macbeth.' The success which attended this in-
stalment surpassed his expectations. In consequence
he yielded, as he tells us, to the solicitations of men for
whose opinions he had profound respect, and devoted
two more volumes to the foremost English dramatist.^
In these were included *Cymbeline,' * Julius Cflesar,'
* Antony and Cleopatra,' * Timon ' in Shadwell's altera-
tion, and * The Merry Wives of Windsor.' The list of
the plays contained in these four volumes furnishes ad-

1 £e Theatre Angiois, tome iii. Pre/ace du TradueUur,

167

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

ditional evidence of how little repute Shakespeare's
comedies had then for stage purposes. Only one of
these is given, and that one by no means his best. In
so doing La Place had been faithful to the English
sentiment of the time, so far as that was represented by
its theatre.

With the exception of ^ Richard III./ no whole play
was translated. A version of one or more scenes would
be followed by a summary of the contents of others in
order that the reader should in no case miss the drift of
the story. But besides the ten plays, which have been
specified, an abstract of the plots of twenty-six others
was given — thus accounting for all indeed which at
that time were included in editions of Shakespeare. The
translation was partly in prose, and partly in verse. It
has frequently been made the subject of hostile and
sometimes of contemptuous criticism. Grimm, for
instance, magisterially but somewhat fatuously informs
us that those who know Shakespeare only from La
Place's version would not be absolutely in a position to
judge him.^ Never was a safer statement made. It is
a safe statement to make about all the French versions
which have been produced since, or all that are ever
likely to be produced. To such an observation it would
have been a sufficient answer then, as it is now, that
they would be in a better position to judge him than
those who knew nothing of his works at all. It was the
men of this last class who were the most voluble in the
expression of opinion and the severest in their censures.

The truth is that La Place was what Voltaiie pie-

'a CarruponJanee htt&aire, tome ii, p. 190.
168

LA PLACETS TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE

tended to be, an explorer. He brought back pretty full
accounts, such as they were, of the unknown literature
which he had gone to seek. That there would be error
in his versions could be predicted beforehand. That
there woidd be misunderstanding of meaning could be
assumed, and far more frequently inadequacy of repre-
sentation where the meaning was understood. That in
particular he should fail to render things in accordance
with the requirements of our present knowledge is
something that was absolutely certain to happen. But
this is a defect that pertains to every first attempt, and
argues nothing against the man who has made it. The
merit of Columbus is not obscured because he had
opinions and published statements about the world he
had discovered which would now be laughed to scorn
by the dullest schoolboy. To the first adventurer in any
new enterprise is rightly awarded the glory due him
who has rendered possible the more perfect work of
those who are to follow. To this justice La Place is
entitled. Further, he made no greater blunders than
Voltaire himself, nor did he deliberately set out, as
Voltaire did later, to misrepresent his author, — to exe-
cute a version of part of one of his plays which was
little better than a travesty, and then dignify it by the
title of the most faithful and exact of translations.

To the first volume of his work La Place prefixed a
veiy ample discourse upon the English stage. If one
can judge of the author by this preface, his ideas were
far in advance of the great majority of his contempo-
raries. The discourse indeed makes one hesitate about
yielding unquestioning assent to the depreciatory esti*

169

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

mate of the man which Voltaire's partisans have handed
down. Nothing that La Harpe ever wrote upon the
dramas or for that matter La Harpe's master, can com-
pare with it in breadth, in good sense, and in acute-
ness. Like every one who fell under the attraction of
Shakespeare's all-dominating personality, La Place was
led to view with secret distrust the beliefis which he
had been brought up to regard as sacred. The pro-
fessed aim of his discourse was to gfive an account of the
peculiar character of the English stage. It turned out
to be largely a furtive treatise in its defence. It indi-
rectly censured the French for their disposition to dis-
regard and disparage the works of other peoples because
they did not approach perfection, or at any rate the sort
of perfection which they themselves cherished. Their
stage up to the time of Comeille had been ruder and
more immature than the English. Now it was the only
one in Europe where the rules were observed with the
strictest exactitude. No censure of this condition of
things was expressed ; it was very certainly suggested.
La Place furthermore enlarged upon one view which
Voltaire had previously indicated ; but he laid a stress
upon it which the latter had failed to do. Can a whole
people, he asked, continue to be made the dupe of a
false impression that merit exists where there is really
little or none ? Can a delusion of this sort continue for
an indefinite period ? It is impossible. The merit may
be exaggerated ; but it must be there. Shakespeare may
be irregular ; he may be full of faults ; he may defy the
rules of Aristotle ; but he fulfils the first condition of
the dramatic art : he interests, he pleases, he excites.

170

LA PLACE'S TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE

So long as La Place was speaking in his own person,
he evidentlj did not deem it desirable to say everything
he felt. He brought forward, in consequence, an emi-
nent Englishman whose observations he purported to give.
This gentleman, with that agreeable frankness of his
countrymen which foreigners frequently find so engag-
ing, indulged in some disagreeable strictures upon the
French stage and the rules by which it was governed.
These rules, he is represented as sajring, are of course
very proper rules; they are no doubt worthy of all
respect; but instead of adding to my pleasure, they
destroy it It is useless to tell me that they are founded
upon reason. I prefer a license which keeps me awake
to a reg^arity which puts me to sleep. I go to the
theatre to be amused, surprised, moved, softened, af-
fected. No observance of rules can make up to me for
being bored. Such are some of the views of the emi-
nent Englishman, who is pretty certainly a creature of
La Place's own invention. There is altogether too
suspicious a likeness in them to the views which he him-
self seems to entertain, but is careful not to express
openly.

It is clear that the long monologues to be found in
the French plays found no favor in La Place's eyes.
He felt their impropriety especially when they were
plainly designed to gfive information to the audience,
not to carry on the action of the piece. It is equally
clear that he had a strong suspicion that dramatic art
had not reached perfection in France. Still, all these
views were expressed very guardedly. He had been
careful not to lay himself open to any direct damaging

171

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

attack. He had indulged in no unwarrantable admira-
tion. He had done all in the way of censure that could
properly be demanded of a Frenchman at this period.
He set forth the authorized strictures upon Shakespeare.
He censured the English stage for the low characters it
introduced, for its bloody scenes, its revolting incidents,
its terrible catastrophes. He specified particular pas-
sages which were shocking to the just delicacy, the pure
and refined taste for which his countiymen were distin-
guished. In truth he did his duty nobly. He gave full
expression to all the conventional judgments which it
was the correct thing for an eighteenth-century critic to
pronounce.

Still he had not done enough. By the classicists it
was felt that there was no heart in his censure. There
was manifestly a latent sympathy with the views of that
eminent Englishman who had expressed himself as bored
by French plays. The praise was out of all proportion
to the condemnation. Furthermore the praise was given
to what was essential, the condemnation to what was
accidental. The language in the English plays, he had
observed, was always suited to the character of the
speakers. It was noble when they were noble, low when
they were low, commonplace when they were common-
place. Consequently there was nothing less monotonous
than their tragedy. This was really an indirect apology
for the mixture of the serious and the comic in the same
piece. La Place even translated the gravediggers* scene
in * Hamlet,* not only because it was £amous in England,
but, as he says, on account of its exceeding singularity.
Such passages in Shakespeare's plays as this fell of

172

LA PLACE'S TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE

course under the regular ofBcial condemnation. But
the force of the censure was impaired by the insinuation
that the French taste was perhaps too delicate ; that it
did not follow because the English taste was different,
that it was on that account necessarily bad. ^' Let us
guard," he said prophetically, ^' against condemning to-
day what our grandchildren will perhaps applaud."

Again, La Place was not thoroughly sound upon the
doctrine of the unities. He had the same idea of the
fiction of representing things as happening at one place
and in one day which could hardly happen in a dozen
places or a dozen days which Lessing was afterwards to
expose so pitilessly as the fraudulent device to avoid the
operation of rules which it was pretended to observe with
special strictness. Of this monstrous abuse of the doc-
trine of the unities, no one, it has been pointed out, had
been more guilty than Voltaire, who posed as its special
champion. La Place did not say this ; he exhibited no
disrespect to the greatest man of letters of the age.
But he could hardly help displaying a secret sympathy
with the change of scene and the prolongation of time.
There was no open profession of faith in this heresy.
On the contrary, it met with a mild kind of reprobation.
The arguments against the unities, he confessed, were
undoubtedly plausible ; still they were not suflBcient to
overthrow them. But he scuttled away from the ex-
posure he ought to have made of the falsity of these
plausible arguments, with the petty excuse that he would
not undertake to repeat the solid replies to them which
all the world knew so well. In shirking the duty of
denunciation in this and in other matters, La Place had

178

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

shown the cloven foot Its existence was at once de-
tected by the keen-sighted guardians of regularity. In
the preface to his third volume, which came out later
in the same year as the first two, he felt compelled to
defend himself against criticism which implied that he
had compared the French stage with the English to the
disadvantage of the former.

The discourse upon the English theatre was naturally
offensive to the partisans of the rules ; the work itself
was much more offensive by the fuller information it
furnished. Voltaire, who seemed to think that his
countrymen should be contented with what he had
doled out to them, could not have been pleased with
the translation. He was not pleased with it; but as
there was nothing in it to justify special attack, he did
not at the outset give public expression to the senti-
ments he privately felt. He was still less pleased with
it as time went on. The work did not profess to be
complete. It was made up of selections, especially of
those scenes which the translator regarded as the finest
and most striking. Naturally almost everything partic-
ularly repellent to the then reigning taste in France,
was omitted or modified. This necessitated the throw-
ing out of any coarse passage or low scene in the
original. The worst of these could be excluded all
the more easily because they rarely helped forward the
action of the piece. But it soon became Voltaire's
idea that the only proper way to display Shakespeare,
as he really is, was to pick out the passages which
would be offensive on the score of delicacy, and to lay
a stress upon them which they never had in the place

174

LA PLACE'S TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE

where they aie found. The object of La Place had
been to reveal Shakespeare, so far as in him lay, in his
greatness and majesty ; to render clear to his countrymen
what it was that had made him for a century and a half
the favorite dramatist of his own nation. He was intent
on explaining him, not on befouling him. But in the
omission of any passages that would offend the suscep-
tibilities of the French, Voltaire felt that La Place had
not done his duty. He should have selected such
passages by preference. They were the ones, as we
shall see, upon which later he was himself to dwell
particularly ; the ones to which he called the attention
of his readers; the ones which he culled out in order
to render them into the language of his countrymen, and
in so doing took pride in proclaiming himself a faithful
translator.

There was another reason that led Voltaire to enter-
tain a dislike for this version. However imperfect and
unsatisfactory it was, it gave the public an infinite deal
more of information about the matter and manner of
the great English dramatist than had been supplied
by himself. We must not allow ourselves to forget
that up to this time Voltaire had contributed scarcely
anything to the real knowledge of the author whom he
claimed to have made known to his countrymen. His
version of the speech of Brutus, his so-called translation
of the soliloquy of Hamlet, his adaptation of the speech
of Antony over the dead body of Caesar, sum up every-
thing which he had himself directly furnished. His in-
direct influence in stimulating interest in Shakespeare's
writings is quite another thing ; but while this excited

175

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

curiosity, it did not impart information. The latter was
a work which La Placets version performed in a measare.
One result of it was inevitable. The justice of much
of Voltaire's criticism came in question. His obliga-
tions to the English dramatist — nearly all of which
he had forgot to mention — became apparent It was
certain that there would be men who would begin to
entertain a different opinion of Shakespeare from that
officially authorized as the only proper one by the
literary dictator of Europe. It took years to bring
about any such result on a large scale; and even then
it was but partial. It was little more than a critical
revolt against the doctrine and practice of the French
stage that manifested itself ; the revolution was to wait
nearly a century.

But there was enough of it at the time to excite the
indignation of the vainest and most sensitive Uterary
man of Europe. The feeling can be traced earlier ; but
from the end of the sixth decade it becomes very con-
spicuous. By this time Voltaire had become aware
of the disaffection. Thenceforward his attitude towards
Shakespeare distinctly changed. Though there was
never any essential difference in the view he took of
the English dramatist, there was a vast difference in
the way that view was expressed. He continued to
speak, with assumed impartiality, both of his merits and
his defects; but as years went by, his merits were
steadily minimized, and his defects maximized. Finally
the former were thrown almost entirely out of considera-
tion, or were at best perfunctorily acknowledged. For
the rest of his life, indeed, the war he waged upon

176

LA PLACE'S TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE

Shakespeare became one of the most important of his
many minor controversies in the perpetual round of
hostilities of all sorts in which he was engaged. It
is hardly saying too much that it indirectly contributed
to hasten his death, though that, however, could not have
been delayed many years ; for it was one of the agencies
that led him to undertake that last journey to Paris, in
which he was to gain the glory of a momentary triumph
and to die.

One must avoid getting an erroneous impression from
what is here said. The life of Voltaire was one of per-
petual warfare. The attacks on Shakespeare, the con-
tentions he carried on with the admirers of that author,
were little more than mere incidents in his stormy
career. Compared with the controversies in which he
was engaged in behalf of toleration and of freedom of
speech, those concerned with the English dramatist are
insignificant. Nor into them did he throw himself, ex-
cept on rare occasions, with anything like the ceaseless
and fiery energy with which he went forth to fight with
those who persecuted opinion under the guise of pro-
moting religion. It was here he did his most congenial
and naturally his most effective work. It was here he
achieved his greatest successes; it was here also that,
like the war-horse in Scripture, he invariably scented
the battle afar off. In such contests there was little
limit to his zeal or toil. To the bigots and persecutors
of his time he must have seemed an incarnation of the
Puritan conception of the devil, as a being not equal, of
course, to the Almighty, but making up largely for his
inferiority in power by his infernal activity. Still, in-
12 177

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

coDBiderable, relatively speaking, as were the hostilities
directed against Shakespeare and Shakespeare's admirers,
they actually took up no small share of his attention ;
and as time went on, a proportionately greater share.
As such they demand a full examination.

It is right to add here, that unjustifiable as were many
of Voltaire's proceedings, inaccurate as were many of
his statements, and even discreditable as were some of
his devices, there was at bottom a rugged intellectual
honesty in the old warrior, which at times compelled
him, almost in spite of himself, to admit the merit
which he hated to see others applaud warmly. True,
the acknowledgment was too frequently made for the
sake of depreciating some one else; but for all that,
there was in it the ring of genuine sincerity. The
power of the great Elizabethan attracted him as much
as his practices shocked him. The varying feelings of
admiration and dislike, with which he regarded him, we
shall see exemplified in the years that follow. Accord-
ing as the one or the other sentiment prevailed at the
moment, corresponded the character of his utterance.
Still, it must be said, in general, that as he advanced in
years his enmity steadily increased, and his disparage-
ment became more frequent and pronounced. His change
of attitude was not due at all to any change in his opin-
ions. It was simply the result of the change of attitude
which had come over his own countrymen.

During the course of his life Voltaire passed, in fact,
from that state of mind about Shakespeare in which he
had felt something of the rapture of a discoverer, to
another state, which, starting out with feelings made up

178

LA PLACETS TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE

of admiration, disgust, and jealousy, developed into
positive dislike and ended in what may fairly be called
genuine hatred. He watched the progress of his reputa-
tion with anxious eyes. This poet, lawless and irregular,
of whom the world outside of England would, in his
opinion, never have heard had it not been for himself,
was now threatening to drive his benefactor from the
hearts of his own countrymen. The vastness of his
genius was coming to be insisted upon. The &ult8
that were found in him did not strike men as serious, if
it was even proper to speak of them as faults at all.
There was at times a disposition manifested to regard
them as virtues. There were occasionally ominous in-
dications that men were going to the inconceivable
length of preferring him to Comeille. By certain rash
and reckless panegyrists indeed this very assertion had
been made. Voltaire's feelings were outraged. As he
looked at it, he had a right to be angry ; it was a duty
on his part to protest He it was who had introduced
Shakespeare to the knowledge of France. It seemed to
him something almost like ingratitude that his country-
men should not be content with the estimate of the
English dramatist which he had taken the pains to set
forth as the one strictly correct Voltaire was a man of
genius. As such, he possessed that insight which is so
much better than knowledge. It was nevertheless hard
for him to appreciate that even with a people wedded,
as were the French, to classical models, a genius so
much mightier than his own couldj^long remain under
his patronage.

To avert the degradation which threatened, as he

179

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

honestly believed, the honor of France became now an
object which he kept steadily in view. His country*
men were still true to Comeilie and Racine. To us it
seems peculiarly absurd to fancy that the time would
ever come when they would cease to be true. Individ-
uals might dissent from the general partiality ; but not
the nation at large. But such a result did not seem
impossible to Voltaire. There was a small but noisy
minority which was disposed to look with disrespect
upon the traditions of the French stage. Its members
celebrated the grand manner of Shakespeare. They
spoke of him as the faithful interpreter of nature, they
contrasted his fire, his simple but strong expression, with
the dry and meagre tragedies, without action and with-
out emotion, so many of which in their opinion then
a£9icted the French stage.^ Would this minority ever
become a majority ? Voltaire unquestionably feared so
at times. There was in his thoughts an uneasy fore-
boding, similar to that which haunted the hearts of the
Romans of the Empire at the possible ruin to Latin
civilization and rule which lay hid in the depths of the
German forests. That gigantic figure across the channel
loomed up larger and more terrible every time he turned
his eyes in that direction. Was this monster destined
to cross the narrow seas and effect the conquest of the
Continent? Was this carefully constructed dramatic
art, in which France excelled all nations, even the
Greeks; was this regularity, this decorum, this purity,
this elegance to be swept away by the rude brute strength

^ These are almost the very words used later bj Mercler in hb T<tbleam
de Paris.

180

LA PLACE'S TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE

of a savage barbarian who bad no knowledge of the
beautiful and noble past, and lacked utterly a particle
of taste which might in a measure make amends for his
ignorance? Though he usually pretended to regard
such a result as impossible of occurrence, it was the
secret dread of it which henceforth influenced the ex-
pression of his feelings and changed his manner of
speech. From the outset Shakespeare had been in his
eyes an inspired barbarian. As time moved on, he
came to forget the adjective and remembered only the
' noun.

181

CHAPTER IX

THE APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

Of the numerous periodicals which circulated on the
Continent during the eighteenth century, one of the
most important was the Journal Eneyelapidique. It was
a fortnightly. It was first established at Lidge in 1756
by Pierre Rousseau, a personage altogether different, it
is needless to say, from the poet, or from the far more
celebrated novelist Its founder sympathized with the
political and religious views of the philosophers, as they
called themselves and were called. The periodical
came in consequence to be considered one xA their
organs. Voltaire is said to have written for it fre-
quently; he certainly spoke of it in high terms. Driven
out of Lidge because of the objectionable opinions it
expressed, the journal found at last an abiding-place in
Bouillon. There it remained during the rest of its
existence, which lasted until near the end of the century.

In the autumn of 1760 there appeared in successive
numbers of this periodical two articles which excited to
a high degree the wrath of Voltaire.^ The first con-
tained a parallel between Shakespeare and Comeille,
the second a similar parallel between Otway and Racine.
Both of them purported to be translations from the

1 Oct. 15 and Nov. 1, 1760 ; tome vii, Deoju^me Partte.

182

THE APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

English. But no information was vouchsafed as to the
place where the originals appeared or the time when.
Nor was there any attempt put forth to identify the
English author or even suggest his name. For all this
reticence there was ample reason. The fiction of trans-
lation, which was maintained in both articles, is suscep-
tible of an easy explanation. The tyranny of dramatic
taste and opinion was then as potential in France, as
intolerant and unsparing, as was the tyranny of religious
dogma. Against the latter Voltaire was perpetually
protesting ; in behalf of the former he frequently mani-
fested the disposition to act the part of persecutor.
Few in consequence could then be found to express
openly views which were beginning to be entertained
privately. In particular, no French periodical would
have been willing to make itself directly responsible
for the unpatriotic and scandalous sentiments that were
conveyed in these two articles.

Unpatriotic as coming from an Englishman they could
not be deemed ; but scandalous in Voltaire's eyes they
certainly were. The second article does not particu-
larly concern us here. Our interest is limited to the
first, which has a certain significance as indicating the
views that in some quarters Frenchmen were beginning
to entertain of the comparative merits of Shakespeare
and Corneille. In this article they were both spoken
of as the fathers of dramatic poetry in their respective
countries. They were both described as excelling in
tragedy and even in comedy. It was the sublime
which chiefly characterized Corneille. On the other
hand, Shakespeare had distinguished himself in so many

188

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

different ways that it was difficult to say in which he
most excelled. If one were compelled to make a deci-
sion, he would perhaps select the species which Longinus
calls the terribly beautiful as that in which the drama-
tist surpassed himself. The ghost scene in ^Hamlet/
the writer went on to declare, is incontestably the
masterpiece of the stage in this line. It presents a
great variety of objects, all diversified in a thousand
different fashions, all proper to fill the spectator with
terror and awe. There is not a single one of these
variations which does not form a picture worthy of the
pencil of Raphael

The remarks about the French author had been com-
plimentary ; still, the comparison with the English one
could hardly be called flattering. Worse yet was to
follow. The eloquence of Corneille was declared to be
always equal, majestic, and sublime. As in that con-
sisted the eloquence of the Romans, it was no surprising
matter therefore that his subjects should be taken from
Roman history. Scenes in Cinna were given as master-
pieces in this style. But the dead fly which the writer
now proceeded to cast into this laudatory ointment
made it peculiarly offensive to the patriotic heart
" Though Corneille," he added, " is full of elevation and
a masculine eloquence, and though he abounds in sen-
tentious speeches and profound maxims, in which he
equals Tacitus himself, one will vainly search in his
writings for that inexhaustible fund of an imagination
equally pathetic and sublime, fantastic and picturesque,
sombre and gay, and that prodigious variety of charac-
ters, all so well marked, all so well contrasted, that there

J«4

THE APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

is not a single one of their speeches which can be trans-
ferred from the one to the other: talents which are
peculiar to Shakespeare, and in which he surpasses all
other poets. He is, so to speak, the mirror of nature,
in which all the traits of the human soul are reflected
as perfectly as the features of the countenance are dis-
played in the glass of ordinary mirrors."

As if this were not enough, the writer went on to
make a comparison between the wa}^ the two authors
had treated their subjects. He found in all the plots of
Comeille a sensible uniformity in the principal charac-
ters ; in those of Shakespeare an infinite variety. Even
when the latter makes ambition the leading motive, as
in Macbeth and Richard III., one cannot sufficiently
admire, we are told, the skill which renders conspicuous
the distinguishing differences between the two. Hence
the conclusion was drawn that in general CorneiUe was
inferior to Shakespeare. He consoled the former's
countrymen, however, by crediting their dramatist with
superiority in certain particulars. The French author
surpassed the English in the talent of introducing skil-
fully the various incidents of his plays and in the art of
rendering them regular. But even this acknowledg-
ment of his superiority was more than counterbalanced
by the implied depreciation which followed of this very
regularity in which he was admitted to excel ^* In a
word," he continued, ^^ one can say that Shakespeare has
too much genius to subject himself to the rules of the
stage, and that Comeille, had he been a great genius,
would have been less subservient to them." Then
follows the dreadful conclusion of the whole matter.

185

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

^' Shakespeare,^' summed up the writer, ^^was incon-
testably a great poetic genius, and Corneille an excel-
lent dramatic poet"

Well might such a parallel pretend to be a transla-
tion. As an original contribution it would have out-
raged all the reputable public sentiment of France.
Well might the writer take refuge in the assertion that
it was the reproduction of the views of the men of an-
other race. The author of the article manifestly felt
that he was carrjring audacity to an extreme in even
presenting in his own tongue matter so repellent to
good sense and good taste. He therefore appended a
note for the purpose of expressing his dissent from
these sweeping statements. Still, his dissent was of the
mildest character. " These distinctions," he wrote, " are
very forced. There could be much to say about all thiB.
But let us permit the English to do honor to their great
men." This method of publishing his own opinions
under the guise of revealing to his countrymen the opin-
ions of a foreign people was a device — not to call it a
trick — which had been learned from Voltaire himself.
It was one of the early fruits of that author's teachings,
often destined ultimately to destroy in many instances
the dogmas of their creator. The note further enabled
the writer to keep up the fiction of the pretended for-
eign origin of the views set forth. This imputation of
an alien source from which these reprehensible senti-
ments were derived, was made still more pronounced
in the article on Racine and Otway which followed
in the next number of the periodical. There the dec-
laration was expressly made that it wa.s not only

186

TEE APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

traDslated from the English, but that it was translated
literally.

At the time these articles appeared England and
France were in the midst of the Seven Years' War. The
contest extended over the two hemispheres. England,
under the able and energetic administration of Pitt, was
triumphant alike in the East and the West. Voltaire
was in many respects a genuine cosmopolitan. But his
cosmopolitanism had been rudely shaken by the succes-
sive blows which had been dealt to the prestige of his
native land. For the loss of Canada he cared little ; for
the retention of India, where he had the interest of per-
sonal investment, he cared a great deal. The war too
displeased him. He justly felt that it had been under-
taken with as little reason as it had been carried on
with little success. To the disasters of France by land
and sea was now added this assault, as he deemed it,
upon the supremacy of the French drama. He seems to
have been more disturbed by it than by the material
losses his country had sustained. Bad too as was this
first article, he was further irritated by the second — the
authorship of which has been ascribed to the Abb^-
Provost — on Otway and Racine. This last-named
writer was the god of his dramatic idolatry. But here
he was not only put, as a mere matter of course, below
Comeille, but Otway was reckoned his equal, and was
proclaimed in some respects his superior.

It is a natural inference from his comments that
Voltaire accepted without reserve the legend of the
foreign origin of these articles. His outraged feelings
found expression at once in his correspondence. ^'I

187

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

am angry with the English/' he said in one of his
letters. " Not only have they taken Pondicherry — at
least I believe so — but they publish that their Shakes-
peare is infinitely above Gilles." Thus he wrote to the
Marquise du Deffand, known more particularly to students
of our eighteenth-century literature as the friend and
correspondent of Horace Walpole. In order to give her
a full compi*ehension of the ridiculousness of the pre-
tensions put forth in behalf of Shakespeare, he fur-
nished her with a slight sketch of ' Richard III/ His
account of that tragedy is not so far out of the way, for
Voltaire, as might have been anticipated. There are
probably in it not more than half a score of instances of
errors of fact or of inference. It would be a waste of
time and space, out of all proportion to their intrinsic
importance, to trace the variations from exact truth, or
misunderstandings of it, or perversions of it, which are
scattered up and down the brief account of the play
contained in this letter. Two of them, however, are per-
haps worth some notice. Shakespeare had represented
as a special mourner attending the interment of the
corpse of Henry VI. the widow of that king's slaughtered
son. She was the daughter of the Earl of Warwick,
and subsequently became the wife of Richard. Voltaire
took her to be, not the widow of the son of Henry VI.,
but the widow of Henry VI., himself. It required
almost a genius for inaccuracy to make this particular
mistake, with the text of the original before his eyes.
Still, he accomplished it. In his account Richard is
therefore represented as wooing not a young woman,
but the fierce Margaret of Anjou, who was actually

188

THE APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

more than a score of years older than himself. To her
face he celebrates her personal charms. He tells her
that it was the hope of making her and her beauty his
own which had led him to commit the crimes he did.
There is something amusing in the young Richard
addressing these remarks, as he does in Voltaire's
account, to a woman of over fifty years of age. Had he
found in Shakespeare a blunder so gross, there would
have been hardly any limit to the delight with which
he would have gloated over it, or to the frequency with
which he would have called to it the attention of his
correspondents and readers.

Perhaps no such gentle term as blundering can be
applied to another passage in this account of the tragedy.
In the altercation which is i*epresented as having gone
on between Richard and the mourning daughter-in-law
of the king, the latter is described by Shakespeare as
spitting at him in her wrath. To Richard's question
why she does this — it is only from this question of his
that the text of the play lets us into the knowledge of
the fact — she answers that she wishes it were mortal
poison for his sake. To that he replies that never came
poison from so sweet a place. The conversation is as-
suredly violent enough not to stand in need of exag-
geration. But in no such feeble way does it appear in
Voltaire's report. Here is the incident with its atten-
dant circumstances, as found in his account : The so-
called queen not merely spits at her questioner, she
^^ spits in his face. Richard thanks her and asserts that
nothing is so sweet as her spittle." The face, the thanks,
and the particular comment made by Richard are all

189

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

Voltaire's contribution to the scene ; Shakespeare had
neglected to introduce any of them. It was pabulum
of this sort which the French critic dealt out to his con-
fiding countrymen as specimens of the work of the
English author. Naturally he was grieved at what he
depicted. ^'Is it not true," he asked, '^that if our
water-carriers made dramatic pieces, they would make
them more refined ? " It is certainly to be hoped that
they would report more honestly those they had read.
^^ Is it not sad," he concluded, '^ that the same country
which has produced Newton has produced these mon-
sters, and that it admires them ? " ^

He said to his correspondent that he told her all this
because he was full of it. He was fuller of it, as we
see, than he was of knowledge of it. His letters
during this period show that these two articles in
the Journal Encydopidique troubled him deeply. He
could offer no reasonable objection to their appearance
in a French periodical To exhibit to his countrymen
the opinions and tastes of other peoples was something
for which he had been wont to contend clamorously.
But in spite of his probably genuine belief in the
foreign authorship of these pieces, he was vaguely con-
scious that they represented the views of a certain body
of his countrymen. These would be cheered by reading
sentiments of this sort in an influential periodical
printed in their own tongue. Voltaire, too, felt at heart
that he himself was personally concerned. In defend-
ing the repute of the great writers of his land, he had
constantly in mind his own repute. If they were

1 Letter to the Marqaiie da Deffond of Dec. 9, 1760.

190

THE APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

wrong, if their art was inferior, he too was wrong and
his art was inferior, possibly more inferior. If, there-
fore, he could not becomingly object to the diffusion in
France of this poison, he could at least furnish a
speedy antidote. Before these articles could do their
deadly work he hastened to prepare a specific which
should counteract their evil effects. He at once set
about composing a treatise on the English drama
and its inferiority to the French. ^^ Zeal for my
country has seized me," he wrote to D'Argental. " I
have been made indignant by an English brochure, in
which Shakespeare is preferred exceedingly to Cor-
neille.'' ^ The overweening arrogance of the islanders
ought in his opinion to be rebuked. « Aid me," he
Mrrote nearly a month later, " to avenge my country fw
this Anglican insolence." ^

As a result of his labors early in 1761 appeared at
Paris his dissertation against the barbarous English,^ as
in his correspondence he at one time described it ; or
at another, as the apology of his masters against the
English.^ The treatise came out anonymously. It was
the method of publication he preferred for many rea-
sons, but particularly because it enabled him to speak of
himself and do full justice to his own merits. The
publisher naturally took care that the secret of the
authorship should not be kept. Voltaire, who declared
that the work as originally printed was as full of errors

1 Letter of Dec. 16, 1760.

* Letter of Jau. 9, 1761.

* Letter to the Comte d'Argental, Feb. 16, 1761.
« Letter of April 11, 1761, to D'ArgentaL

191

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

as it was of lines,^ was indignant at the revelation. At
least he pretended to be ; still no one is ever able to
ascertain his real feelings abont a transaction of this
sort from what he sa}^ himself* He wrote to his friend
D'Argental with an assumption of great indignation
that this justification of Comeille, this plea against
Shakespeare, this preference given to French refinement
over English barbarism had been announced as the work
^^ of your creature of the Alps. " ^ This first edition bore
the title of Appel d toutes les nations de V Europe.^ Three
years later it waa published with some changes and
additions as a treatise on the English drama. Its
ostensible author was then J^rdme Carr^, one of the
numerous aliases under which Voltaire wrote. It is
upon the form of it which appeared in 1764, that all
conunent is based which is made here upon the work.

The opening paragraph of this treatise revealed the
reason of its production. The longer he thought of the
matter, the more important had it become in Voltaire's
mind. The articles in the Journal Encydopidique had
been dignified as we have seen, by the name of a brochure.
They now developed into two volumes, though it was
admitted that they were little ones. From any record
of the time and place of the publication of these, biblio-
graphical research would have retired baffled ; but Vol-
taire contented himself with assuming it as a fact.

1 Letter to DamilaTille, April 22, 1761.

* Letter of March 19, 1761 to D'Argental; alBo of March 29 to the
same.

* The fnll title is Appel h toiuUB U» natiansde I* Europe des jugemenU d'un
Seriwun Anglaia <m mani/este au sujet dee honnetirs du pavilion entre les
thS&tree de JLondres et de Paris. Bengeeco, Bibliographies etc., tome ii, p. 96.

192

THE APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

^^ Two litUe English books/' he said, ^^ teach us that
this nation celebrated by so many good works and great
enterprises, possesses in addition two excellent tragic
poets. One is Shakespeare, who, we are assured, leaves
Comeille far behind him ; the other the tender Otway,
much superior to the tender Racine." Here again the
English source of these articles appears accepted in all
sincerity. In this treatise he took the two sets of com-
parisons under consideration; it is the first alone to
which we need pay attention.

It was, Voltaire said, and said justly, a matter of taste.
Accordingly it did not seem possible that any reply
could be made to the English contention. The dispute
was certainly one which could not be settled by those
immediately concerned. One could hardly expect to
convince a whole people that the very taste they showed
was positive proof that they showed bad taste. What
resource, therefore, remained for those who sought to
ascertain the truth ? There was but one way, Voltaire
told us, to set the question at rest. This was by calling
for the verdict of other nations. Let them decide be-
tween the stage of London and of Paris. Let the
readers from St. Petersburg to Naples pass judgment
upon their comparative merits. It was with this idea
in his mind that he had composed his treatise. It was
this which had suggested the original title. It was to
be an appeal to all the nations of Europe.

The proposition had on its face a look of fairness.

There was a wide difference between the taste of the

French and the English in dramatic art. Since it was

asking too much of either to submit to the judgment

13 193

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

of the other, what more equitable course presented itself
than to refer the point in dispute to the arbitration of
foreigners ? From the very nature of things they can
be assumed to be disinterested. They have no national
prepossessions. Accordingly it can &irly be expected
that their decision will be impartial* Plausible as this
method may seem, it can impose only upon those who
do not take the trouble to think. This would be true
of such an appeal in any case. Few men there are who
are capable of judging the merit of poetry in a foreign
tongue. The number of those capable of judging the
comparative merits of poetry in two foreign tongues is
far fewer. Even if they have the requisite taste, they
rarely have the requisite familiarity with both languages
which enables them to exercise their taste to the best
advantage. The value of the foreign verdict is conse-
quently always vitiated by the very limited number of
those to whom the appeal can be properly made. There
is, besides, the inherent defect belonging to the body
which is to render the decision. Some of the judges
will have knowledge, but little taste. Others will have
taste, but little knowledge.

But the method proposed, untrustworthy at any time,
would at this time have been ridiculously untrustworthy
in the case of Shakespeare and Comeille. French was
then read and spoken all over the Continent. English
was a comparatively unknown tongue. Voltaire could
not, or would not see the worthlessness of any verdict
pronounced by the tribunal he had selected. He how-
ever unconsciously revealed the hopelessness of expecting
from it under any circumstances an impartial decision.

194

THE APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

Foreign nations, he implied, had already spoken. No
man of letters^ be he Russian or Italian, German or
Spanish, Dutch or Swiss, but knew the Cinna of Cor-
neille. Few there were who had read or could read
Shakespeare. This he tells us himself. Yet the pre-
tensions of two authors were to be submitted to a body
of men who were thoroughly familiar with the works of
one of them. Of those of the other they knew little
and naturally cared less. They were not acquainted
with the speech in which these were written. Further-
more, they would certainly never take the requisite
pains to learn it, which would be a necessary preliminary
to enable them to decide upon the merits of what was
referred to their judgment.

It is accordingly obvious that there was but one way
in which the Continent could be put into a position to
judge of Shakespeare — that is, by attaining a familiarity
with the language in which he wrote so intimate that
his works could be read with ease. A complete transla-
tion could give a certain degree of knowledge of the
poet's intellectual characteristics. It could give a better
one of his dramatic methods, a still better one of the
mere matter of his plays. But a translation, however
excellent, could furnish only the faintest possible Con-
ception of his manner, of his force and fire, above all of
his poetry as poetry. This would be true, in particular,
of a version made into a tongue so remote as is the
French from the English both in diction and spirit.
Such a view as this of the situation was something that
might fairly be called self-evident ; but it seems never
to have occurred to Voltaire. To provide for the lack-

195

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

ing knowledge of the English author, not even was a
oomplete translation essential in his eyes. An outline
of the plot, with the rendering into prose of a few pas-
sages, struck him as all that was really needed. Yet
even under these circumstances a further question would
naturally present itself to the man looking for an im-
partial decision. Who was the one that could be de-
pended upon to supply fairly the meagre information
required? It excites a mingled feeling of amusement
and astonishment to find Voltaire entertaining no doubt
that he was the proper person to communicate this knowl-
edge. His undertaking it grave at once to the whole
proceeding the character of farce. It was very much
the same as intrusting to the devil's advocate the duty
of urging the reasons for the canonization of a saint

The proposition itself had been delightfully preposter-
ous ; the performance was to be even more so. Voltaire
set about it as gravely as if he were a judge, and not an
advocate. There was, as he had indicated, a presump-
tion in favor of the French dramatist, in consequence of
the familiarity of foreigners with his works, and of their
ignorance of Shakespeare. Still it was only a presump-
tion. It was now his purpose to give to the educated
men of all nations the ability to decide for themselves
the question of superiority between the two dramatists.
Of Oorneille it was not necessary to say anything^ for
with him they were already acquainted. He on his part
would undertake to supply them with the knowledge of
Shakespeai^e requisite for reaching a decision. Voltaire
appears to have been impressed with the generositjr
which had induced him to set about this task. It

196

THE APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

a singular culmination to the successive steps he had
taken to settle impartially the matter in dispute. He
had selected his own tribunal. He had selected one
which at that time^ according to his own account, would
be naturally biassed in favor of his own side. He was
now to set forth to the judges he had chosen the merits of
the side to which he was opposed. This he did by giving
a somewhat detailed account of the tragedy of *• Hamlet'
It is fair to say at the outset that the outline he fur-
nished of the plot of this play is far more accurate than
that he ever gave of the whole plot or single scene of
any other of the pieces of Shakespeare upon which from
time to time he dilated. This does not imply that it
is accurate in itself. It is a charitable supposition that
several of his statements are based upon imperfect or
confused recollection. But the blunders are not gross
ones, as is usually the case in his comments. The mis-
takes, the exaggerations, the omissions, the jumbling
together of events out of their proper order, tend, it is
true, to give an injurious impression of the original.
Still, even when taken collectively, they are not serious,
especially when compared with the havoc he was wont
to make with the characters and incidents of other plays.
There are versions given by him in prose of nearly
a dozen different passages in the tragedy. Not one
of them is long ; some are very short. In three instances
attention is called to the fact that the lines translated
had been starred by Pope in his edition as worthy of
admiration. It is clear from these that at the time of
writing his ^Appeal' Voltaire had the original in his
hand. Yet with the book open before his eyes he began

197

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

his account of the play with a blunder. Horatio, as all
readers of ^ Hamlet ' know, is not a soldier. He is the
friend and fellow-student of the hero of the play. He
it is who in the opening scene accompanies the sentinels
to their night watch to witness the sight of something
which on their mere report he has been unwilling to
accept as having actually occurred. He it is who is
asked to address the ghost, because he is a scholar. But
Voltaire makes no account whatever of his presence.
In his outline of the plot he does not appear at all until
considerably later in the play. Both the soldier who in
the first scene is relieved, the two soldiers who relieve
him, and Horatio brought along to be a witness of the
apparition, are all compressed into two sentinels, one of
whom is addressed by the other as a scholar. This, for
Voltaire, is not a very gross error; but there was no
possible excuse for making any error at all.

There is another feature which detracts more decidedly
from the impartiality which was vaunted to be charac-
teristic of ttus account In addition to the necessarily
fragmentary character of the sketch of * Hamlet,' all the
details are accompanied with a running conmient of
direct or implied depreciation. Yet this meagre abstract,
this imperfect and one-sided account of the play, from
which no one could get the remotest conception of its
real interest or power, was complacently put forward as
an exact and lifelike portrayal. " Such," asserted the
reputed author, J^rAme Carr^ " is precisely the famous
tragedy of ^Hamlet,* the masterpiece of the London
theatre. Such is the work which is preferred to CVrnwi.'*
At the time of its publication men could never have had

198

THE APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

the slightest doubt as to the identity of J^rOme Carr^,
had no other source of information been available, after
he had told us, as he did in this treatise, that it was
Voltaire who had been the first to make known to his
countrymen the beauties of Shakespeare. This, like the
reference to Addison's ^ Cato,' was the burden of the song
he now invariably sang. Nor did he fail to repeat his
remark that Shakespeare exhibited certain beauties. He
conceded here as elsewhere that there were in his writ-
ings traces of genius and lines full of nature and force.
In making this admission, which he did constantly,
Voltaire honestly thought that he was paying the highest
possible tribute to the merit of the English dramatist,
and that it was exceedingly to his own credit that he
was not so offended by his barbarism as to deny him
the justice which was his due.

The puzzling question which Voltaire further felt
obliged to consider was the continuous devotion to
Shakespeare of Shakespeare's countrymen. How was it
to be accounted for? How could any one have his soul
so stirred as to see tragedies like * Hamlet ' with pleasure ?
— for he tells us that all the pieces of the divine
Shakespeare, as he now began to call him ironically,
were written in this style. How could throngs continue
. to attend their representation in an age which had pro-
duced the * Cato ' of Addison ? Of the fact itself there
was no doubt It almost shook his faith in human
nature. It was in this way he descanted upon the
conventions which he had been coming more and more
to confuse with the essentials of art if not with art
itself. ^^ Why should one, after this," he said, *^ speak

199

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

to US of the rules of Aristotle, and of the three unities
and of the proprieties ; of the necessity of neyer per-
mitting the scene to be vacant, and of never allowing
any one to enter upon it or to leave it without manifest
reason; of skilfully linking the parts of the plot, of
giving it a natural denouement; of expressing one's
self in noble and simple terms ; of making princes speak
with the becomingness they always exhibit or should
wish to exhibit ; of never deviating from the rules of
the language. It is evident that one can enchant a
whole nation without giving himself so much trouble/'
For this continuous popularity Voltaire contrived to
put forth an explanation which, it seemed to him, might
serve in lieu of a better. It constituted the basis of all
his subsequent comments upon the perverted taste mani*
fested by the English in their admiration of Shake*
speare. The theatre in their country had been and
remained open to all classes in the community. Sailors,
shopkeepers, boys, coachmen, butchers, tradesmen of
all sorts loved passionately spectacular exhibitions.
Give them cock-fights, bull-fights, prize-fights, inter-
ments, duels, gibbets, sorceries, ghosts, and they would
throng to the show in crowds. In this taste too shared
more than one man of high positioiL The citizens of
London found in Shakespeare everything which could
please those fondest of novelty and excitement The
courtiers were swept along by the torrent. For one
hundred and fifty years there had been nothing better.
Admiration had steadily strengthened itself, and had
finally become idolatry. Certain strokes of genius,
certain happy versee which every one learned by heart

200

THE APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

and never forgot, had gained favor for the rest These
beauties of detail had made the fortune of the piece as
a whole. Such was Voltaire's explanation of the pro-
longed popularity of Shakespeare's plays. If it was no
better, it was no absurder than several similar efforts
to account for it, which have been and still continue to
be put forth by the countrymen of the great dramatist.
The play presented one further problem which he
tried to solve. It consisted in the nature of the inci-
dents which enter into the development of the plot.
For the solution which he found for it, such as it was,
he was indebted to one of Shakespeare's commentators.
How came it that so many marvellous occurrences were
accumulated in a single head? He had here in view
the whole circle of pieces with which he was familiar.
His explanation lay in the fact that Shakespeare took
all his tragedies from history and romances. In the in-
stance of this particular drama he had simply put into
dialogue the story of Claudius, of Gertrude, and of
Hamlet, written entirely by Saxo the grammarian, to
whom, he piously added, glory be given. All that there
is true in this remark was taken from Theobald ; all that
is false — which most of it is — was Voltaire's own.
Theobald was the first to point out that the remote ori-
ginal of the plot of * Hamlet ' was to be found in the
Danish history of Saxo Grammaticus. He supplied a
brief summary of the material circumstances of the ac-
count there given.^ It is from what he found in Theo-
bald's edition that Voltaire derived all which he said
about the source of the tragedy. The inferences he drew

^ Theobald's Shakespeare, ed. of 1733, vol. yii. p. 226.

201

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

from the information he got were entirely his own ; and
as was not unusual, they were entirely incorrect.

Voltaire's ^ Appeal ' contained in conclusion some re-
flections upon La Placets yersion of Shakespeare. He
regretted that this translator, whose name however he
never mentioned, had, out of a false delicacy, not rendered
faithfully certain parts of Otway's * Venice Preserved.'
Still more did he lament that with the same hardhearted-
ness he had deprived the French reader of some of the
most beautiful passages of ^ Othello.' The failure was un-
pardonable. For the sake of this French reader Voltaire
took it upon himself to remedy such scandalous neglect.
He proceeded to translate a few sentences from the first
scene of ^ Othello,' in which lago, in accordance with
his character, announces to Brabantio, with all possible
coarseness, the flight of his daughter with the Moor.
La Place had given a version of the entire scene. He
had, however, committed the inexcusable crime of
softening anything in it which might seem offensive to
French taste. Voltaire's sense of justice was outraged.
These coarse passages should have been the ones above
all selected for exact translation. Furthermore they
should have been translated in all their coarseness.
This was the only way to get a proper conception of the
work of the English dramatist With the laudable
object of representing Shakespeare as he really is, and
of furthermore exposing the unfaithfulness of La Place,
he himself took the occasion to render a few passages
from ^ Othello.' His scent for garbage was keen, and
either through ignorance or malice he sometimes caused
very healthy food to partake of its odor. If he found

202

THE APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

or fancied he found anything objectionable, anything
suggestive of coarse associations to a coarse mind, he
took care that it should be produced with a directness, or
rather a bluntness, which would inevitably carry with
it sensations of disgust to every one possessed of deli-i
cacy and refinement. What was healthy his touch
turned too often into putrefaction. All this he called'
giving his countrymen a faithful and correct idea of
Shakespeare. He was not in the least ashamed of the
part he played. On the contrary, he took in it infinite
gratification. It was with peculiar feelings of self-satis-
faction that he contemplated the result of his labors.
At the end of his treatise he announced that the reader
was now in a position to pass judgment in the trial which
had been conducted between the stages of London and
Paris.

208

CHAPTER X

THE GOMMENTABIES ON GOBNEIUiE

«« The Appeal to the Nations " seems to have fallen
flat, so far as that statement can be made of any work
written by Voltaire. For those who knew nothing of
the English dramatist it was unnecessary. Upon them
it could have no other effect than to impart a still
darker shade to the density of their ignorance, and to
confirm them still more in their indisposition to be
enlightened. For them on that very account interest
was lacking. They were so perfectly satisfied with their
own stage that they did not even care to learn about
the stage of another country. On the other hand to
those who really knew something of Shakespeare the
treatise was shallow and inconclusive. Its sophistry
and unfairness were obtrusively apparent. Of these
two classes of readers the former was at that time in
the vast majority. The little impression made on its
indifiFerence by this appeal can be inferred from the con-
duct of the Comte d'Argental, Voltaire's faithful friend
and supporter. Though sent to him to superintend its
publication, he did not deem it worth while to mention
it in his letters. ^^ The dissertation against the barbarous
English," wrote Voltaire, " you do not speak of it" i

1 Letter of Feb. 16, 1760.
204

THE COMMENTARIES ON CORNEILLE

As an offset to this silence the members of the class
who knew even a little of English literature, did not
speak well of it. When the treatise was republished in
1764 in the volume entitled Contez de ChuiUaume VadSf
its futility and unfairness struck Grimm, one of Vol-
taire's warmest admirers. ** I should like to take away
from it," he wrote of the volume, " only the observa-
tions upon the English theatre. Jdrdme Carr^ does
not exhibit good faith, and expresses several rash
judgments." *

The subject, however, continued to prey upon Vol-
taire's mind. A very short time before the treatise was
written he had been deeply agitated by the information
that Mademoiselle Clairon, who was to take the part of
Am^narde in his tragedy of Tancride^ was proposing to
hang the theatre in black and to erect a scaffold in the
third act. He wrote to aU his friends about the matter.
He expostulated with the great actress herself. **Let
us not imitate," he said to her, *^ that which makes the
English odious. Never did the Greeks, who understood
so well the art of stage representation, think of this
invention of barbarians." ^ He had clamored, he cried,
during thirty or forty years for more action, for more
spectacular exhibition in these dialogues in verse which
went under the name of tragedies. But while he had
asked for more water, he had not desired a deluge.
"To prepare a scaffold," he wrote further, "for the
mere pleasure of putting there some hangman's assist-

1 Grimm, Correspondance UttOraire (1829), 15 Mai, 1764, tome iii,
pige476.

* Letter of Oct 16, 1760, to Mademoiselle Clairon.

205

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

ants, is to dishonor the only art in which the French
distinguish themselves; it is to sacrifice propriety to
barbarism.'^ The more he thought of the matter, the
greater became the state of excitement into which he
worked himself. Such an abominable proceeding, he
declared, was good only for the English stage.^ Study
their philosophy, he cried, imitate their liberality of
thought, but guard against imitating their sayage scene.^
How can the French public, he wrote on another occa-
sion, adopt the English barbarism, the English vio-
lence, the English conduct of an English play? ** Poor
French," he ended, " you are in mire of every sort" '
Restore the reign of good taste, was his almost despair-
ing appeal.

He felt the need of active measures to arrest the
decadence which in his opinion was overtaking the
French stage. When he had first brought Shakespeare
to the attention of his countrymen, he had never once
dreamed of the position that dramatist was speedily to
occupy. That any one — at least outside of England —
should place him on a level with ComeiUe and Racine,
had probably never occurred to his thoughts. That in
particular, any Frenchman should exalt him above those
authors, had it appeared to him possible, would have
struck him with horror as well as indignation. It was
because of this security that he had allowed himself to
speak of him in terms which he was now disposed to
regret. He began to reproach himself for what he had

^ Letter to the Marquise da Deffand, Oct. 27, 1760.

* Letter to Thieriot, Oct. 27, 1760.

• Letter to D'Argental, Dec. 15, 1760.

206

THE COMMENTARIES ON CORNEILLE

done. " I have unhappily," he wrote later to the Abb^
d'Olivet, " been the first who has made English poetry
known in France. I have spoken some good of it, just
as one praises an awkward child in the presence of a
child that one loves, when it wishes to excite the latter's
emulation. I have been taken too much at my word." ^
For Voltaire was fully perauaded that Shakespeare
would never have been known in France at all, had he
not taken the pains to introduce him to its notice. In
consequence he regarded it as the duty of his country-
men to adopt the view of him which he had formed and
expressed. That others should go beyond his scanty and
imperfect appreciation was something not to be endured.
He had, however, grown to be aware that even among
his own countrymen there were those who had come to
look upon the ill-favored child as preferable to the
beautiful one. There was unquestionably a party form-
ing in France who were disposed to talk despitefuUy of
the stately and dignified deity of French tragedy, and
pay their worship instead to ugly and outlandish gods.
He wrote to an Italian on the ridiculous deference paid
by some men of that country to Dante ; but he admitted
the existence of its counterpart in his own land.
" There are found with us," he said, ** in the eighteenth
century, persons who struggle to admire imaginations
as stupidly extravagant and as barbarous. These they
have the brutality to oppose to the masterpieces of
genius, of wisdom, and of eloquence which we have
in our tongue. tempora / judicium ! " * With his
dislike of this body of men was coupled his detestation

1 Letter of April 25, 1764. > LeUer to BettineUi, March, 1761.

207

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

of the Jansenists, who exhibited a Puritanic hostility
to the art he loved. " I should not know/* he wrote
to D'Argental, ^* how to end this long letter, without
telling you to what a degree I am revolted by the absurd
and debaaing presumption with which men atill affect
not to distinguish the theatre of the fair from the theatre
of Comeille, not to distinguish Gilles from Baron. It
casts an ugly opprobrium upon the only art which is

able to put France at the head of all nations I

had rather see the French stupid and barbarous as they
were twelve hundred years ago than to see them half-
civilized. " *

It was in a measure feelings of such a character that
prompted him to engage in a new undertaking. This
was a commentary upon the plays of Comeille, or rather
upon those of them which he deemed worthy of com-
ment. He began this task in 1761 and labored at it
assiduously for many months. The work partook neces-
sarily of the nature of drudgery ; though he said on one
occasion that it was better to write annotations upon
Comeille than to read what other people were then
writing. France was at that time engaged in its dis-
astrous war with England, in which every day brought
the report of fresh losses. ** All the news aflSict me," he
wrote ; *' all the new books tire me." ^ There were two
objects in particular which he professed to keep in view
in undertaking what to a man of genius must have
seemed the most tedious of occupations. One was to
fix the language. It was on the ground that it was

I Letter of Jane 21, 1761.

' Letter to the Maiqaue da Deffand, Aag. 18, 1761.

208

THE COMMENTARIES ON CORNEILLE

daily becoming more corrupt. The attempt was a
dream once cherished, the reason for it a belief once
held by great writers. With the advance of linguistic
knowledge both have now been left to those who are
not great, and who cannot write. The other object was
to establish a standard by which to test the excellence
of dramatic productions. As Voltaire said himself, his
aim was to be useful to the younger generation whose
tastes had not as yet been formed. In his secret heart
he felt it was desirable to save them from the devilish
devices of the spoilers who were intent upon destroying
the beautiful fabric of French tragedy. Accordingly
his commentary upon the plays, with the aid derived from
the members of the Academy, was to form a treatise on
both grammar and poetics.^ It was to show men how
to write and what to think.

But it was not solely for the benefit of his country-
men, or from admiration of the author whom with a
proud humility he called his master, that he was led to
assume the drudgery of this task. It was generously
undertaken and indefatigably carried through for the
sake of the grand-niece of the great dramatist, whom he
had adopted as a member of his family. As he spent
upon the work much time and toil he was happy to find
at last that the profits from it had secured the dowry of
a portionless girl. He set about insuring the pecuniary
and literary success of the undertaking with his wonted
skill and assiduity. In all such enterprises Voltaire,
while affecting the guilelessness of the dove, invariably

1 Letter to D'Argental, June 26, 1761, and to the Abb^ d'Oliyet,
October, 1761.

14 209

^'^ OF T. L

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

exhibited the possession of a double portion of the wis-
dom of the serpent. He aimed to secure for the work
the sanction of the French Academy, and as far as
possible its co-operation. He succeeded in wheedling
that respectable body into a sort of responsibility for his
criticisms upon language. Into ratifying his decisions
upon the merits of his author, it declined to be dragooned.
It is further a striking proof of the tremendous influence
then wielded by Voltaire that subscriptions to the work
came not only from his own country but from all parts
of Europe — from England, from Italy, from Germany,
from Russia. Persons in high or highest position all
oyer the continent contributed their aid. The King of
France took two hundred copies, the Empress of Russia
the same number. He had a right to rejoice over the
result of his labors. ^^ It is a very ungrateful and a
very disagreeable task," he wrote to a friend, ^^ but it
has served to marry two young people; something
which has never happened to any commentator, and
never will happen again." ^ The labor connected
with its preparation and publication extended from
1761 till 1764, in which last year the work made its
appearance.

The * Commentaries on Comeille,' considered as the
pastime of a great creative genius, is a striking illustra-
tion of Voltaire's many-sided activity. It is one of the
enterprises which make his life in some wa}rs the most
astounding in the history of literature. Our wonder is
heightened by the fact that while he was still engaged
in this piece of protracted drudgery, he threw himself

1 Letter to the MmrqaiBe da Deffand, VLky 9, 1764.

210

THE COMMENTARIES ON CORNEILLE

heart and soul into the conflict excited by the terrible
tragedy which had befallen the family of Calas. These
victims of as outrageous injustice as ever clothed itself
under legal forms stirred every feeling of pity and wrath
in his nature. The matter lay heavy on his heart. As
he said himself, it more than saddened his pleasures ; it
destroyed them. To the task of repairing the iniquitous
wrong which had been inflicted he devoted himself for
months which lengthened into years. He listened to
no dissuasions. Once having taken up the burden he
never let it faU. Alone, against odds apparently insur-
mountable at the outset, he set out to remedy this judi-
cial crime. Single-handed he beat down aU opposition.
He made himself heard by the deafest ears. He con-
verted indifference into active support; he animated
with his own persistency and fire those whom he had
succeeded in enlisting in the cause. He aroused the
conscience of all Europe; he made it share in his
horror. He overthrew the efforts of the parliament of
Toulouse to prevent investigation ; he drew upon it the
execration of all lands. He excited the sympathies of
foreign sovereigns ; he compelled the indifferent court
of France for very shame to intervene. Tardy justice
halted slowly on to right, so far as in it lay, a cruel
wrong. It could not indeed bring back the judicially
murdered dead ; but it could restore name and fame and
liberty and property to the persecuted survivors. It
was all his own work. Literature can boast no greater
achievement than was here accomplished by one of her
most wayward and irresponsible sons. No higher title
did Voltaire's many productions win for him than that

211

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

which came to him unsought, as defender of the rights
of outraged humanity in his rescue of the family of
Calas.

Yet the living tragedy in which he acted a chief part
did not divert thought or attention from that tragic
stage which he had earlier taken up for consideration.
All the while he was engaged in this fight for justice
he never lost sight of his literary enterprise. In the
one undertaking, however, there was hardly the unmixed
satisfaction which belonged to his efforts in the other.
It must be confessed that the work he did on the * Com-
mentaries,' though it contributed to the support of one
of the Comeille family, hardly contributed to the sup-
port of Comeille's reputation. His great predecessor
was for Voltaire a sacred author; but he anticipated
the higher criticism by finding perpetual fault with his
divinity. The annotations cannot be said to be written
in a sympathetic spirit. On one side the reader gets
from them the general impression that the particular
thing of which Comeille was profoundly ignorant was
his own tongue. The language he employed underwent
constant castigation. Solecisms, barbarisms, violations
of grammar without number were pointed out. On the
other side his prolixity, his fustian, his rhodomontade,
his far-fetched thoughts, his low and ridiculous expres-
sions, his multitude of bad verses were dwelt upon un-
ceasingly. As he reached the conclusion of his labors
he declared that the prodigious number of Corneille's
faults against language, against clearness of ideas and
of expression, against propriety, and finally against
interest, had dismayed him so much that he had not

212

THE COMMENTARIES ON CORNEILLE

ventured to say the half of what he would have been
able to say.^

The feeling that he had neglected any opportunity
to point out Comeille's faults was far from being shared
by the admirers of that author. They made no com-
plaint that he had not said enough. Great was the
indignation kindled among them by the ' Commentaries,'
great the clamor which arose in consequence. Voltaire
was conscious of the coming of the storm long before it
broke. But to all the outcry he answered complacently
that, while admiration was due to Comeille, much more
was devotion due to truth. His annotations, he knew,
would not please the fanatic worshippers of the dram-
atist ; but he cared more for the interests of good taste
than he did for their suffrages. He had said freely what
he thought ; it was impossible for him to say what he did
not think. He had aimed to be useful. In order to be
useful one must tell the truth. In this respect he had
done his duty, and to him belonged in consequence the
testimony of a good conscience. Pious reflections of
this sort turn up with great regularity in his private
correspondence, and are found not unfrequently in his
published works. Truth, he kept constantly repeating,
was to be preferred to anything and everything. Never
were more glowing eulogiums passed upon it. There is
something very entertaining in his persistent harping
upon the necessity of truth in this particular instance,
when we consider that in his controversial discussions
there was hardly another thing in the use of which he
could be more economical, when it suited his purposes

1 Letter to the Marquise da Deffand, May 9, 1764.

213

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

to indulge in it sparingly. It is perhaps eyen more
entertaining to find Voltaire constantly affirming that it
was impossible for him to say anything which he did
not think. He was naturally the highest authority in
regard to his own opinions; unfortunately he was not
always the most trustworthy. The student of his life,
in order to know what he does not mean, is too often
compelled to pay strict heed to what he asserts emphati-
cally and repeatedly.

Still, there is no question that in this instance he was
giving expression to his sincerest convictions. No one,
indeed, can read the commentary, and along with it his
correspondence during the time he was engaged in its
preparation, without becoming aware that the more
Voltaire occupied himself with Comeille, the greater
became his dissatisfaction with that dramatist, and the
profounder his idolatry of Racine. His study of the
former, he said, led him to find the latter admirable.
The one enchanted him; the other bored him. ^^Let
the world talk as it will,'' he wrote to a friend, '^ Racine
will gain every day, and Comeille will lose." To him
the former author was and continued to be the great,
the inimitable. In truth, Voltaire believed in Racine
almost as much as he did in himself. He was naturally
not disposed to be too lenient to Racine's great rival.
It was inevitable that his persistent depreciation of the
one author and glorification of the other should excite
the indignation of the partisans of the elder dramatist
They were unwilling to accord to Voltaire the monopoly
of either good taste or of truth ; for of both he constantly
talked as if they were in his sole possession. They

214

THE COMMENTARIES ON CORNEILLE

intimated that he had confounded two distinct things.
He had said devotion to truth ; he meant devotion to
Racine and himself.

It is not for the men of alien races to interfere in the
disputes carried on by Frenchmen as to the comparative
merits of these two authors. To us the interest lies
here in the fact that Voltaire took in many ways the
same view of Comeille which he had previously taken of
Shakespeare. The same language was used about the
one which had been employed in the case of the other.
Both were the founders of the stage in their respective
countries. To them, therefore, was due the glory to
which the creator is entitled. But they exhibited like-
wise the imperfections which belong to all early work.
For their faults the times in which they flourished were
responsible. Had they come later, they would have
done better. Both wrote splendid detached scenes;
but neither had produced a perfect whole. At times his
disposition to undervalue Comeille to his own country-
men led him to go farther. In certain particulars he
was willing to set Shakespeare above him. It would be
unjust to impute this merely to a desire to detract from
the reputation of lus predecessor. Of the sins forbidden
in the dramatic decalogue he saw and said that the only
one which was absolutely unpardonable was that of
tediousness. It was the one sin of which Shakespeare
was never guilty. When, consequently, he came to
contrast with his works the early plays of Comeille he
unhesitatingly gave the preference to the former on this
veiy account. The tragedies of Shakespeare, he said,
were still more monstrous than Clitandre ; but they did

215

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

not bore.' In one particular indeed he conceded the supe-
riority of the English dramatist to the playwrights of
eveiy age and clime. " I will confess," he said, " that of
all tragic authors Shakespeare is the one in whom are
found the fewest scenes given up purely to dialogue. In
each of them there is almost alwa3rs something new. It
is brought about, to be sure, at the expense of the rules of
decorum, of truth to life. It is by mingling together
the grotesque and the terrible. It is by passing from
a wineshop to a field of battle, from a graveyard to a
throne. But the result is, he interests." '

Of course the ideal was to arouse and maintain
interest without the use of those irregular and improper
agencies which interfere with the purity and perfection
of dramatic art. To this, Shakespeare had neither
attained nor thought of attaining. Voltaire, therefore,
never harbored the idea of putting him on a level with
Comeille. How could any really high position be given
to a man who disregarded the unities, who joined in the
same play the comic and the tragic, who filled his scene
with acts of violence and bloodshed committed in full
view of the audience ? From all these gross violations
of art the French dramatist in his roaturer works had
been thoroughly free. That one fact of itself established
his superiority. Voltaire's view of the two men was
summed up at the conclusion of his observations upon
' Julius Caesar ' which he appended to his so-called
translation of that play. '^ Like Shakespeare," he said
of Comeille, ^ he was unequal, and like him abounding

1 Cwnmentaries tur Comeille ; Remarqutt twr Midie.
' Ibid., Remarque» sur let Horacet, acte iii. tcene ir.

216

THE COMMENTARIES ON CORNEILLE

in genius. But the genius of Comeille was to that of
Shakespeare as is a lord compared with a man of the
people endowed by nature with the same spirit as him-
self." That the commoner always interested, while the
nobleman frequently wearied, was not to the purpose.
The former had gained his success by illegitimate
means. Art consists in interesting by beautiful and
noble portrayal, not by the production of monstrosities.
Still, there lurked always in his mind the consciousness
that the all-important thing is to interest. Perfection
that wearies can never hold its own against imperfec-
tion that charms. Was it really beauty that repelled,
was it monstrosity that attracted ? Voltaire never asked
himself the question.

He never indeed was able to free himself from
the delusion that it would be comparatively easy to
awaken and maintain interest, if one paid no heed to
the requirements of what he called art If the writer in-
terspersed in his plays duels, sorceries, deeds of violence,
murders, the attention of the audience could always be
held. Yet the observations he was constantly making
failed to sustain the position he took. He complained
of Comeille that in his early pieces he indulged in these
improper and reprehensible practices. Nevertheless, he
as constantly complained that these plays were tire-
some. He kept repeating that the English dramatists
who tried to imitate Shakespeare were invariably con-
demned for resorting to the very devices which, when
employed by him, were applauded. Success could be
assured, he told us, by neglecting art; yet these writers
had neglected art without securing success. It never

217

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

occurred to Voltaire that there might be a flaw some-
where in his reasoning ; that it was not merely the thing
done which had met with favor, but the way in which
it was done. He did not reflect that he who wields the
forces of nature must possess powers that enable him to
master them, or he will be torn in pieces by the agents
he has called to his help. In art, the end justifies the
means. If the great result desired has been attained in
defiance of the rules we have formulated, the rules must
be set aside as naught. It is really not art which is at
fault ; it is our definition of what constitutes art.

218

CHAPTER XI

SECOND APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

In his ^ Appeal to the Nations ' Voltaire had set out
to display the inferiority of Shakespeare to Comeille by
furnishing an abstract of the play of ^ Hamlet' It was
by this agency that foreign peoples were to learn all
that it was necessary to know in order to form a just
judgment of the English dramatist. The inadequacy,
not to say absurdity of the method pretty certainly came
home to him at last ; it was probably forced upon his
attention by the words and acts of others. No likeli-
hood existed that men who really desired to become even
slightly acquainted with Shakespeare would be content
with a way eminently designed to impart the show of
knowledge without its substance. They could learn
far more about the play in question, and with infinitely
more accuracy, by reading the partial version of it to be
found in the work of La Place.

Up to this time Voltaire had professed to speak a great
deal for Shakespeare ; he had certainly spoken much about
him. Still, it was only after the most beggarly fashion
that he had let Shakespeare speak for himself, even
through the inadequate agency of translation. He must
have become conscious that this contrast between his
words and his acts would strike his countrymen more

219

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

and more. Accordingly, while engaged in the prepara-
tion of his ' Commentaries on Comeille ' he made up his
mind to perform more than he had promised to the sub-
scribers of the edition. In order to show the difference
between the lord and the commoner, to exhibit unmis-
takably the superiority of the French stage to the English,
he set about an undertaking which was to be of the nature
of another appeal to the nations. This was to append
to the Cinna of Corneille a translation of the first three
acts of ^ JuUus Caesar.' The whole of one play and a
part of the other dealt with a conspiracy. The treat-
ment of a similar subject by the two authors would put
readers in a position to make a test of their comparative
merits.

To carry out his object properly it was all-essential,
he now said^ that the translation should be literal ; upon
this he laid special stress. There was no other one
thing which he deemed of so much importance, no
other one thing which he professed, after his work
appeai*ed, that he had kept more steadily in view. He
gave a general assurance in the preface to the version,
and special assuiunces in notes, that it was a reproduc-
tion of * Julius Caesar,' almost word for word, line for
line. Wherever there was blank verse in Shakespeare
he had turned it into blank verse. Wherever there was
prose he had rendered it in prose. What was familiar
and low in the original had been made familiar and low
in the translation. On the other hand, whenever the
language was elevated he had striven to make it elevated.
When it was bombastic care had been taken to render
it in the same vein. In fact to passages he so considered

220

SECOND APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

he added notes to the effect that his was a literal trans-
lation. A statement of this sort is sure to occur when-
ever he wished to call attention to anything which
struck him as especially objectionable. He even took
the pains to furnish explanations of the quibbles which
he found it impossible to render Uterally.

Voltaire's theory of translation had clearly undergone
a revolution since the appearance of the essay on EngUsh
tragedy which is contained in the Lettres philosophiques.
There he said that any version whatever is at best but a
faint copy of a fine picture. The man who attempted
to give a literal rendering sacrificed the spirit of his
author to his words. It was in accordance with this
view that he had put forth those free reproductions of
two or three passages in Shakespeare which up to this
time had constituted about all the direct contributions
that he had made to the knowledge of the English dram-
atist. But for his present purposes it was desirable
to follow another practice. It was exactness and literal-
ness upon which he now came to insist. In public and
private he prided himself upon the success which had
attended his efforts in that direction. Before his version
was published he forwarded it to the Cardinal de Bernis.
" Here/' said he, " is the very faithful translation of the
conspiracy against Caesar by Cassius and Brutus, which
is played every day at London, and is preferred infinitely
to the Cinna of Comeille. I beg you to tell me how a
people who have so many philosophers can have so
little taste." He seems never to have modified the sen-
timents here expressed. As late as 1776 he condemned
to an English visitor the version of La Place for its un-

221

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

faithfulness. ^^ As for me," he continued, *^ I translated
the three first acts of Julius Caesar with exactness. A
translator ought to lose his own genius and assume that
of his author. If the author be a fool, the translator
should be so too." *

One is reluctant to impute to a man of genius inten-
tional dishonesty ; but it is hard to resist the conviction
that Voltaire's course in this whole matter was de-
signedly dishonest, both in what he did and in what he
&iled to do. The scheme itself can only be saved from
the suspicion of deception by imputing to its promoter
self-deception ; and whatever were Voltaire^s other idl-
ings, lack of comprehension of what he was about is the
last thing which can be reasonably laid to his charge.
In the very first place he must have known that his
method of comparison was utterly valueless. Had the
conditions been reversed, no one would have been
quicker than he to point out the fraud which by its very
nature existed in the course he pursued of testing the
merits of two authors. No one would have been more
earnest in denouncing the injustice of an Englishman
presuming to decide upon the merits of Comeille, as
contrasted with Shakespeare, by setting even a good
translation of the former against an original of the lat-
ter. He had had a full opportunity to observe for him-
self the worthlessness of all such comparisons. The
Andramaqtie of his favorite Racine had been translated
into English by Ambrose Philips. In Voltaire's own

1 Sherlock's ' Letten from an English Trayeller,' translated from the
French original, London, 1 780. Letter xxiii. page 1 52 ; dated Fernej, April
S6, 1776.

222

SECOND APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

expressed opinion it was an excellent translation. It
was brought out in 1712 under the title of ^The Dis-
trest Mother,' and was acted not unfrequently during
the rest of the century. Yet no one then thought of
putting it on a level with any production of Shake-
speare. No one reads it now; no one would contem-
plate reading it for itself. The work has been left
hopelessly behind. Were an Englishman compelled to
derive from it his conception of Racine he would not
adjudge that dramatist a higher rank in literature than
the one held by his translator.

Furthermore, it is perfectiy easy to give an author's
meaning faithfully in another speech and yet produce
an utterly erroneous impression of his work. Words
which suggest noble associations in one tongue can be
rendered by words of precisely the same signification, as
found in the dictionary of another tongue, while yet in
the latter they convey commonplace or ignoble ideas. A
similar statement can be made indeed about any individ-
ual speech taken by itself. In it two words can exist
with precisely tiie same meaning, one of which can be
used everywhere without giving offence, the other hardly
anywhere. It is easy therefore to translate an author
literally and misrepresent him scandalously. To a cer-
tain extent it is an accident which only the extremest
familiarity with the two tongues can obviate. It
occurred now and then in the version of Shakespeare,
made by Le Toumeur, who was so far from seeking to
depreciate his author that he was eager to exalt him.
With Voltaire it was a practice to which he constanUy
resorted. The act may have been sometimes due to

223

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

ignorance, but there are instances in which the only
explanation possible is that it sprang from deliberate
malice or criminal carelessness. There were times in
which he committed forgery upon his author by imput-
ing to him what he did not say. A peculiarly glar-
ing illustration of it occurs in his version of 'Julius
Csesar.' In a footnote intimating his own faithfulness,
he called attention to a very gross word which he said the
original contained. As it was there, he was under the
necessity of translating it. The necessity was purely
of his own invention. The word which he complained
of by implication, was not there. It was never there
in any edition whatever. A term convejdng the same
idea did indeed appear; but it was one which could
have been used before an English audience of any period
without offence, and has been so used repeatedly.

But Voltaire's worst act from the purely literary
point of view was his rendering English blank verse
into the corresponding sort of verse in French. It was
as dishonest in intention as it was ridiculous in exe-
cution. No better expedient could have been found to
make his version unfaithful to the spirit of his original.
In the one tongue the measure was a peculiarly power-
ful instrument of expression. It had in consequence
become almost sacred to tragedy. Much of the finest
poetry of the language, much that was most beautiful
in diction and lofty in sentiment was associated with it.
Nothing of this sort belonged to it in French. There
it did not exist at all, and could not exist. Its struc-
ture was entirely unsuited to the genius of that tongue.
To render Shakespeare in it was infinitely worse than it

224

SECOND APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

would be to render Corneille into English in alexan-
drines ; to render him in doggerel would be the nearest
equivalent in our tongue to Voltaire's proceeding. Yet
this was the measure which he selected in order to give
his public a conception of Shakespeare.

Not content with choosing it, he deliberately mis-
represented it to those who knew nothing of its character.
He gave lus readers to understand that the measure did
not differ essentially in French from what it was in
English. Anybody, he said in the preface to his ver-
sion, could write blank verse, — which was indeed true
of the sort of blank verse he wrote himself. Anybody,
it can be added, who could make seriously such an asser-
tion about the English measure rules himself by that
veiy fact out of the consideration of any court of criti-
cism. Yet it was no hasty remark made in the heat
and hurry of composition or in the ill-humor of momen-
tary vexation. Later it was repeated essentially in the
Dietiannaire philosophiqtu.^ There we were told that
those who had written in blank verse did so because
they did not know how to lyme ; that blank verse is
bom of the inability to overcome that difficulty, and
from the desire to do something quickly. Yet he had
once professed envy of the English for the possession
of what he had termed the happy facility of blank
verse. Nor did his words here come into conflict alone
with assertions previously made ; they conflicted with
some he was making at the time in the comparative
truthftdness of his correspondence.

Under such conditions, therefore, Voltaire's wooden

^ Under Rime.
15 225

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

translation would have all the unpoetical quality of
prose without its accuracy. By the method he adopted
it was impossible to give any proper conception of
Shakespeare, had he sought to make his version a faith-
ful reproduction of the original. But he really sought
no such thing. Every step in what he did, as well as
every statement he made, was tainted with fraud. He
pretended that his version was a translation of the first
three acts of * Julius Csesar.' It was nothing of the
sort Not a single one of the events and speeches, both
in prose and verse, which follow the assassination of the
dictator was rendered. As regards mere quantity, the
part he omitted to translate was about a third of
the three acts which he professed that he had translated.
As regards quality, it contains the most striking and
powerful passages found in them. In it the genius of
Shakespeare is exhibited in its highest form. It
includes the flight and return of Antony after the
assassination, his interview with the conspirators, his
apostrophe to the corpse of the murdered ruler, the
address made by Brutus to the people, the funeral
oration pronounced by Antony over the dead body of
the dictator, with the portrayal of the tumult which
followed his speech. Without these, ^Julius Caesar'
would not be the play we all know. It is this part
more than any other which has caused the lofty scene it
depicts to be acted, as the author unconsciously prophe-
sied, in states yet unborn and accents yet unknown.
For Voltaire's purposes the omission was as wise as it
was dishonest Even his bald translation could hardly
have succeeded in hiding altogether the skill and

226

SECOND APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

effeotiveness displayed in these scenes. But there was
an additional reason for its omission. This portion of
the tragedy had been imitated by Voltaire himself in
his Miort de Cl%ar. Even the faint reproduction of its
power there found would have exposed the obligation
which, once acknowledged, he was now trying hard to

forget.

But, furthermore, in the part which he translated he
did not live up to his claims of faithfulness. The
rendering of prose by prose, of blank verse by blank
verse was in general fairly maintained. Yet to this
there were exceptions. These would not be worth the
slightest notice, were it not for the pertinaciousness
with which Voltaire kept insisting upon the literal
exactness he had observed. As one instance, the
speeches of the tribunes at the very opening of the play
are in blank verse ; they were rendered by him in prose.
But much more unfaithful was he in matters of greater
importance. His version was far from being a line for
line translation, as he pretended. A goodly number of
the speeches were cut down from a fourth to a half of
the length which they had in the original. In not a
single instance were they expanded. This abbreviation
was gained by the sacrifice of lines essential for convey-
ing the full sense. To give a clearer conception of his
method of proceeding, it may be well to cull a few sprigs
from the statistical garden. Let us leave aside the prose
and consider only those parts of the play which are in
blank verse. In the first three acts of the * Julius Cssar '
of Shakespeare there are about fourteen hundred and
twenty-five lines written in that measure. A little over

227

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

three hundred of these at the conclusion Voltaire
made no pretence to translate. This left somewhat
more than eleven hundred lines in that portion of these
three acts of which he in theory gave a literal version.
They were rendered in nine hundred and sixty-two.
These statistics are not particularly enlivening; but
they are very enlightening. The line for line translap-
tion disappears.

But much more serious than this were the misunder-
standings and perversions of meaning. A sort of excuse
can be made in the case of certain words, in conse-
quence of their employment by Shakespeare with a
signification which in the eighteenth century had be-
come somewhat archaic. Favor^ for instance, in the
sense of *• face,' ' countenance,' is found three times in
these three acts. In his two translations of it — once
he avoided rendering it — Voltaire gave as its French
equivalent araitit. This necessarily perverted the
meaning of the passages in which it occurred. Much
more inexcusable in a man assuming the functions of a
translator was his misunderstanding of the signification
of certain common words. At the veiy time he sub-
jected himself to a good deal of ridicule in England by
making in one instance his ignorance conspicuous in a
note. To the line spoken by Brutus, —

** Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius," —

he appended the following sage remark. *'The word
couT%e^^ he wrote, *' may perhaps be an allusion to the
course of the Lupercal. Course also signifies a ' change
of plates on the table.' "

228

SECOND. APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

But even such things were slight compared with the
studied care he took at times to lower the character of
Shakespeare's language. It was bad enough to render
the dramatist's powerful and poetic blank vei-se by the
lines much more prosaic than prose, which went under
that name in French. The fitness of the measure in
English for tragic representation was due to the fact that
it could pass at once from the language of ordinary con-
versation to the highest flights of the inspired imagina-
tion without strain and without the slightest impairment
of its dignity. In colloquial speech it could be familiar
without being mean. Voltaire did not know the dis-
tinction between the two adjectives in English. We
can get an idea of his conception of rendering what was
familiar in the original by a familiar equivalent in his
own tongue, by retranslating one of the couplets of his
version. Csesar, in addressing the company which had
assembled early at his house to escort him to the capitol,
makes use of the following words :

*' Good friends, go in and taste some wine with me.
And we, like friends, wUl straightway go together."

Voltaire's version of the lines, literally retranslated into
English, reads as follows :

*' Let us all go into the honse, let ns drink a bottle together,
And then like good friends we will go to the senate.**

Not satisfied with this peculiarly choice rendering, he
appended the following note to the first of the two lines :
**• Always the very greatest fidelity in the translation."
There was one instance, however, in which he did not

229

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

call the attention of his readers to the faithfulness of his
version. This was in the case of a noted passage about
which there has been and still continues to be much
comment, though little controyersy. Csesar, in replying
to the appeal of Metellus Cimber for the recall of his
brother from exile, concludes his refusal with these
words:

'* Enow Cssar doth not wrong, nor withoat eaose
WiU he be satiafied."

Such are the lines as they are found in the play as handed
down. But in his * Discoveries ' Ben Jonson reported
another version of them. There this passaire appears in
the foUowing form:

" CflBsar did never wrong bat with jnst cause."

This is cited by Jonson as an illustration of Shakespeare,
in the heat of composition, giving utterance at times to
things which were ridiculous. He also quoted them
sneeringly in the Induction to his * Staple of News.'
But whatever may have been the original of the speech,
there is but one form of it now which has authority.
There is but one form of it which Voltaire had a right
to render. But from the note to the passage in Theo-
bald's edition he had learned of the way in which Jonson
represented it. This accordingly he chose to translate,
and not the lines as found in the printed play. It is
with these words he rendered the passage :

** LoTsque C^sar fait tort, il a toujonra raison.

In this instance there is no escape from the conclusion
that the misrepresentation was deliberate.

280

SECOND APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

Pages could be taken up with exposing the intentional
un&ithfulness of this most faithful of translations.^
Throughout the annotations all the standard devices
were employed which tend to lower the estimate of an
author, while professing to treat him with candor. Not
even was praise spared. One scene in particular, Vol-
taire pointed out as full of grandeur, strength, and
genuine beauties. Remarks of this sort gave a fine air
of impartiality to his criticism, and added force to his
censure. He assumed constantly a half-apologetic tone

1 Ai one illoitimtion which mutt suffice for many, compare Voltaire's transla-
tion of a short passage in a speech of Portia's with the original. It is where
•he remonstrates with Brutus ibr the impatience he has exhibited with her,
when she has begged him to tell her what has caused his peculiar behavior. On
witnasiing his impatience she has left him, as he has bidden her,

" Hoping it was bat an effect of hamor,
Which sometime hath his hoar with ereiy man.
It will not let jon eat, nor talk, nor sleep.
And, conld it work bo much apon jonr shape
As it hath much preyaiFd on your condition,
I should not know jon, Bmtna. Dear mj lord.
Make me acquainted with jonr cause of grief."

The following is the extraordinary way in which this passage appears in Vol-
taire's renion :

" Je craignis de choqner les ennuis d'on eponx,
£t je pris ce moment pour an moment d'hnmeor,
Que souvent les maris font sentir k lenis femmes.
Non, je ne puis, Brutus, ni tous laisser parler,
Ki TOUS laisser manger, ni tous laisser dormir,
Sans saToir le sujet qui tonrmente Totre Ame.
Bmtos, mon cher Brutns, ah, ne me caches rien."

Was it ignorance or intention that led to this perTersion of the sense of the orig-
inal ? It almost seems as if it must be the latter, for Voltaire called particular
attention to this passage in a note, in which he said that it was one of those ad-
mired passages which had been marked by asterisks — that is, in the editions
of Pope and Warburton.

281

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

for the dramatist. It was not his fault, it was the fault
of his age, it was the fault of circumstances, that he so
constantly violated good taste. He had I'eceived but
little education. He had had the misfortune to be re-
duced to the condition of an actor. One ought not to be
too hard upon a man so situated for seeking the suffrages
of those to whose favor he was compelled to look for sup-
port It was therefore more in sorrow than indignation
that Voltaire affected to censure Shakespeare's deviations
from the dignity of tragedy. It was to please the taste
of a rude and ignorant audience that he had debased the
majesty of Roman history by making these masters of
the world talk at times like madmen and buffoons and
street-porters. It was also in a grieved way that he re-
prehended his anachronisms, his violations of the verity
of manners and customs,^ as indicated by the mention of
papers, exorcists, and other matters peculiar to England
or to modem times, but attributed by him to the Rome
of the republic. These constitute the kind of criticism
that one might expect to find coming from a pedant;
not from a poet, unless pedantry had overpowered inspira-
tion. It is somewhat irritating, in addition, to find them
pompously brought forward by an author who could not
claim exemption from the same practice; who, for in-
stance, in his tragedy of Mahomet^ had made one of his
characters " senator " of Mecca.

The version of * Julius Caesar,' taken as a whole, was
much nearer a travesty than a translation. The French
word for the discharge of this function, as rendered by

^ CoMtume, recently introdaced into French from the Italian, 10 the word
Voltaire uses.

232

SECOND APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

its corresponding etymological equivalent in English, ex-
pressed both its intention and its character. Shakespeare
had been traduced, not translated. The version had
been craftily calculated to mislead the reader ignorant
of the original. But Voltaire was eminently satisfied
with what he had done. He spoke of it both then and
afterward with pride. He boasted constantly of the
superiority of the methods he had followed to those of
La Place, whose translation of Shakespeare was still the
only one to which French readers had access. That
translation he censured constantly for its unfaithfulness.
To D'Argental he transmitted his own in August, 1762.
" I believe," he wrote, " that you will be convinced
that La Place is vety far from having made known
the English drama. Concede that it is well to be-
come acquainted with the excessive intemperance of its
extravagance."

In the preface to the version he returned to the
attack which he had previously made upon La Place in
his 'Appeal to the Nations.' "We have in French,"*
he said, " some imitations, some sketches, some extracts
from Shakespeare, but no translation, A desire has
apparently existed to treat tenderly our delicacy." No
weakness of this sort could be imputed to Voltaire
himself. From what he now and henceforth wrote, his
countrymen would inevitably come to the conclusion
that Shakespeare was addicted by choice to low and
coarse expressions, to indelicacy of thought, and to
grossness of speech. It was the inference actually
drawn and proclaimed by his disciples, Marmontel and
La Harpe. In this preface reappeared the same version

233

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

of the opening scene of * Othello,' which had done duty
in the * Appeal.' Against the euphemistic manner in
which the speeches of lago had in this case been rendered
by La Place, conveying the same idea as the original but
in softened language, Voltaire felt called upon again to
enter a protest. '^ I do not say/' he continued, *' that the
translator has done wrong to spare our eyes the reading
of this tit-bit. I only say that he has not made Shake-
speare known, and that no one can tell what is the
genius of an author, the genius of his time, of his lan-
guage by the imitations which have been given us under
the name of translation. There are not six consecutive
lines in the French *• Julius Caesar ' which can be found in
the English play." The magnificent mendacity of this
last assertion — the falsity of which any one who could
read English could detect at a glance — excites admiration
and even captivates the imagination by its matchless
effrontery. It shows how well Voltaire could rely upon
the ignorance of his readers and their faith in himself.
Yet even it is perhaps equalled by the assertion which
follows. "The translation," he wrote of his own,
"which is here given of 'Julius Csesar,' is the most
faithful which has ever been made in our language of
either an old or a foreign poet."

He had good reason for seeking to give a false im-
pression of La Place's version. It had now been before
the public for nearly a fifth of a century. During that
period, fragmentary as it was and in many respects
unsatisfactory, it had been slowly but steadily makii^
its way. The genius of Shakespeare was so great that,
even in the imperfect presentation of it there found, it

234

SECOND APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

was working havoc with the accepted caaons of French
dramatic art. The anxiety Voltaire felt at the growth
of sentiments hostile to the traditional beliefs and
practices which still dominated the stage, he made little
attempt to conceal His translation of * Julius Caesar '
was preceded by a note to the public which purported to
come from the publishers. Among other things, it
pointed out the resemblances and differences between
the English and Spanish theatres. In both there was
the same irr^ularify, the same mixture of tragic situa-
tion and gross buffoonery in the same piece. In the
English drama there was more passion, in the Spanish,
more grandeur ; more extravagance in Calderon and Lope
de Vega, more disgusting horror in Shakespeare. Then
the translator, in his capacity as publisher, displayed
his wrath by commenting upon the misguided beings
who had sought to recommend to the French public the
barbarous practices in which these two nations indulged.
" M. de Voltaire," wrote M. de Voltaire, " has during
the last twenty years of his life combated the mania of
some men of letters who, having learned from him to
know the beauties of these rude dramas, have believed
it their duty to praise almost everything in them, and
have conceived a new system of poetics, which, had they
been listened to, would have absolutely replunged the
dramatic art into chaos."

Accordingly, to show still more conclusively the
superiority of the French stage, Voltaire made also a
translation of the JBeracliui of Calderon in order that
his readers might contrast it with the H£racliu$ of
Comeille* This latter undertaking partook rather of

235

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

the nature of a work of supererogation. The motive to
enter upon it may have been in part a purely literaiy
one ; but it was also largely a personal one. There was
really no occasion for translating anything of Calderon.
It was not he who was threatening the supremacy of
CSomeille. It was not he who was loosening the hold
which French dramatic art had upon tiie French people.
The real mischief-maker, the real one to be dreaded was
Shakespeare. But the introduction of a translation
from the Spanish author veiled his motive for introduc-
ing his translation from the English one. So in the
preface to the Heraclius of Calderon he gravely kept up
the pretence that both translations were equally neces-
sary to the object he had in view. ^The reader/' he
said, ** had already made the comparison of the French
and English theatres in reading the conspiracy of
Brutus and Cassius after having read that of Cinna.
He will in like manner compare the Spanish theatre
with the French. If after that there remain any dis-
putes, they will not take place among cultivated people/'
The man who said this had been capable of saying a year
before it was published, that he pushed his"l>lasphemy
against his great predecessor so far, that were he con-
demned to re-read the Heraclius of Comeille or the
Heraclius of Calderon, he would give the preference to
the Spanish author.^

Voltaire followed up the preface which he put forth
under the name of his publishers with an avowed
preface of his own as translator. In this his intention
to make his version of ^ Julius CsBsar ' a sort of second

1 Letter to Cardinal de Bemis, May U, 1769,

236

SECOND APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

appeal to the nations was definitely stated. He had
taken the trouble to supply the readers of all countries
with the means of comparison. It was now left them,
he said, to decide for themselves upon the merits of the
two authors. A Frenchman or an Englishman might
be suspected of partiality. Here an opportunity had
been afforded by him to men not influenced by national
prepossessions or prejudices to weigh the thoughts, the
judgment, and the style of Shakespeare against the
thoughts, the judgment, and the style of Comeille. To
his translation he appended some observations upon the
original play itself. In it he expressed his wonder that
races so opposed in genius as the English and
Spanish should have agreed in the production of
dramatic pieces which revolted the taste of all other
nations. For this he recognized that there must be a
reason. Instead of one he gave four of them. He
began by asserting that both countries had never known
anything better. Spaniards must answer for their own
drama ; but so far as the English stage is concerned, the
remark was due to Voltaire's profound ignorance of both
the predecessors and contemporaries of Shakespeare.
Of the efforts put forth to cause it to conform to
the classic drama — efforts made years before Comeille
was bom — he never had the glimmering even of a
suspicion. Nor was the darkness of his ignorance on
this point ever illuminated by the slightest spark of
knowledge. He never ceased to repeat that the Eng-
lish had been unaware of the rules of the unities
until the era of the Restoration. He never learned
that some of the Elizabethans had observed them, and

237

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

that others who knew them had deliberately rejected
them.

His other explanations were better. They consist
essentially in the statement of the fact that these foreign
pieces do not weary the spectators. He admitted their
attractiveness in representation. Bizarre and barbarous
as they were, they never failed to interest. Besides, they
were natural. The naturalness, to be sure, was of a low
and base sort. Caesar, who, according to Voltaire's &ith-
ful translation, asks his comrades to take a drink, in no
ways resembles the real Caesar; for apparently in his
opinion no high-bom Roman would ever contemplate
such a proceeding, which in its very nature was unworthy
of the rulers of the world. Further, these plays appealed
to the fondness of the populace for spectacular exhibi-
tions. It required a very cultivated taste, such as the
Italians had possessed in the sixteenth century, and the
Ftench in the seventeenth, to desire theatrical pieces
that conformed merely to what was reasonable and was
judiciously written. Both Lope de Vega and Shake-
speare had flourished in a time when taste had not yet
been formed. Consequently these authors had corrupted
that of their countiymen ; and the inferiority in genius
of those who had imitated them had served to establish
their reputations on a still firmer basis. In consequence
the theatres of these nations had always remained in a
state of infancy. The French would have been like
them had not the reign of good taste come in with
Louis XIV. Still, he conceded that their drama erred in
turn from too much refinement. He remarked almost
regretfully that could the movement and action of these

238

SECOND APPEAL TO THE NATIONS

nide foreign theatres be combined with the judgment,
the elegancy, the nobility, the decorum of the French
stage, perfection would be reached, assuming that it
did not already exist in the Iphiginie and Athalie of
Racine.

289

CHAPTER XII

THE CRITIC CRITICISED

Up to this time Voltaire had paid no attention to the
criticisms which had been passed upon him in England.
Of the existence and nature of some of them he could
hardly have been unaware. Still, assailed as he was on
many sides and about many things, these probably did
not aflfect him seriously enough to provoke reply, or
even comment. He kept sufficiently well-informed in
regard to English opinion to know that it continued to
set Shakespeare far above Comeille. Ridiculous as was
such a view on the part of the countrymen of Newton
and Locke, he was compelled to accept the fact. But
as yet he had come into no personal collision either with
the supporters of this opinion, or with those who had
championed the English dramatist against his own
attacks. This state of things was now to undergo a
change.

While Voltaire was appealing directly to the nations
of Europe, tlie English had begun to do so Indirectly
and undesignedly. The fii-st proceeding of this char-
acter which in some slight degree attracted the attention
of the Continent was the work of Henry Home, who in
1752 had taken his seat upon the Scottish bench under
the title of Lord Kames. Ten years later he brought out

240

THE CRITIC CRITICISED

a treatise in three volumes entitled ^ Elements of Criti-
cism.' For a work of the kind it met with much success
while the author lived ; nor was its sale checked by his
death, which took place in 1782. Not long after its
publication it was translated into German. It covered
a great deal of ground. There was scarcely any topic
about which tastes differed that escaped Kames*s judicial
eye ; though he modestly said that he had omitted the
definite article bef oi*e the word * Elements ' of the title,
because its introduction would imply that nothing which
could be criticised had been left unconsidered. He took
up at the outset the subject of emotions and passions,
and closed with a discussion of gardening and architec-
ture. About every point in dispute he furnished a set
of rules neatly ticketed and labelled. By these the
student could test the value of all that he read. By
them he could ascertain definitely what he ought to
admire or to disapprove. Furthermore he would be able
to tell why he admired or disapproved.

A consideration of the elements which go to the for-
mation of judgment and taste is not apt, under the most
favorable circumstances, to furnish easy reading. No-
where in these volumes is the difficulty inherent in the
subject lightened by any brilliancy of treatment. It was
serious throughout ; those who disliked it called it dry.
But one alleviation there is to him whose soul revolts
at critical discussion in the style of a text-book of law.
No sooner had Kames laid down his principle than he
proceeded to illustrate it by extracts taken from the works
of great writers. The reader was told in each case
whether the author should receive praise or blame for
16 241

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

the passage selected. Not unfrequently he was told he
ought to blame where he felt he ought to praise. But
whether he agreed in opinion with his legal adviser or
not, he could not fail to entertain gratitude for the fre-
quent recurrence of these oases of quotation in the desert
of dry disquisition through which he was ploughing his
way. Moreover, it is fair to say that the system of the
hard-headed lawyer did not turn out in its practical work-
ings as badly as might have been expected. The old
Scotch judge had a good deal of appreciation of the
beautiful y as well as sagacity in detecting weaknesses
and improprieties of thought and expression. While,
therefore, his work cannot be called entertaining, it is
very often suggestive and instructive. Still, its interest,
at least to us at the present day, consists more in those
portions of it which the author did not write than in
those which he did« The extracts are almost invariably
worth reading, even when the criticisms are not worth
heeding.

As regards his judgment of Shakespeare's art, Kames
was frequently much in advance of his time, though he
had not freed himself entirely from its cant In general,
however, he expressed for the poet the most unbounded
admiration. He spoke of him as the finest genius for
the stage the world had ever known. Yet this admira-
tion did not hinder him from pointing out the blemishes
which he discovered in the great dramatist He acted
consistently as the stem and inflexible lord of sessions,
who metes out justice, or what he deems justice, with an
impartial hand. While selecting a large number of pas-
sages for praise he found fault with othera that did not

242

THE CRITIC CRITICISED

conform to the principles of taste he had laid down.
He found fault indeed with some which men before and
since his time have generally agreed to regard with
admiration. The orbit through which the mind of Shake-
speare revolved was altogether too vast for Kames to
measure by any of the critical appliances which he had
at command Those views of life which the dramatist
had divined by the intuitive perception of genius had
never been suggested to the Scotch judge by anything
he had met with in his limited experience. Still if he
found something to blame, he found far more to praise ;
and the unstinted measure with which he dealt out his
commendation is one proof of how much the reputation
of the great Elizabethan had risen, not indeed with the
mass of men, but with the critical fraternity, during the
course of the century.

But Shakespeare's writings were far from being the
only works from which extracts were derived. Illustra-
tions of the principles he laid down were taken from
several of the most eminent authors of ancient and
modem times. Among these Comeille and Racine
received a good deal of attention. Their various errors
were pointed out with an unsparing hand. It was
rarely the case that examples were chosen from them to
exhibit beauties of expression ; while to exemplify faults
their writings were drawn upon lavishly. In truth the
whole French drama itself was attacked in general
terms as having been composed in a style, formal,
pompous, and declamatory, which suited not with the
expression of any passion whatever. Not satisfied with
criticising the dead, Kames in one instance made a

243

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

target of the living. The writings of Voltaire formed a
pretty constant subject of comment.

Much of what he said could hardly have furnished the
French author agreeable reading. The Henriade^ in
particular, came in for a great deal of severe criticism.
That work disagreed with all the principles of art
which Karnes had laid down. He found fault with the
subject. An epic poem no one ought ever to think of
rearing upon recent and well-known events in the history
of one's own country. He found fault with the verse.
No subject of that important nature could be clothed in
ryme, and supported by it on an elevated plane. Tasso
and Ariosto had both suffered on this account ; far more
Voltaire. In fact an epic poem could not be produced
anyway in the French tongue. The veiy character of
the language forbade it. This was one of the prejudices
prevailing among his own countr3rmen which the writer
of the Henriade had long before felt called upon to
combat. Here it was reiterated almost offensively.
Furthermore Kames found fault with the treatment.
Voltaire had no business to introduce imaginary beings
into a work fiUed with well-known historical personages.
The blending of fictitious characters with real ones was
bad enough under any circumstances ; but the introduc-
tion of such creations as the god of Sleep, the demons of
Discord, of Fanaticism, and of War, in a history so
recent as that of Heniy IV., was simply intolerable. He
further censured the love-episode in the poem as insuffer-
able in consequence of the discordant mixture of
allegory with real life.

Voltaire, like most men who are liberal in their

244

THE CRITIC CRITICISED

criticism of others, was keenly sensitive to any reflections
made upon his own writings. Those of his countrymen
who presumed to discharge that office were, in his
opinion, either the vilest of the vile or were acting under
the influence of a malignant diabolical spirit. He had
likewise none of that reticence which is supposed to
characterize and generally does characterize great souls.
If anything hurt him, he cried aloud. Not unf requently
he shrieked, he filled the air with exclamations of pain.
He burdened his letters to his friends with complaints of
the way in which he was made an object of persecution.
It was on the side of literature that he was perhaps
most sensitive. His supremacy there had hardly been
denied by those who objected most violently to his
religious and political opinions. It was often conceded
grudgingly ; nevertheless it was conceded. To attacks
of this nature, coming from a man of the character and
position of Karnes, he was not accustomed. It must
have been nearly two years after the publication of the
Scotch judge's work, before he came to know of its
existence. The reading of it cut him to the quick.
His resentment was aroused not merely by the character
of the strictures upon himself and others, but by the
quarter from which they came. It was bad enough that
any person whatever, besides pointing out particular
defects of the French dramatic writers, should assert
frequently and imply constantly their general inferiority
to Shakespeare ; but that this man should be a Scotch-
man was in his eyes adding insult to injury. Appar-
ently he would as soon have expected criticism from an
Eskimo.

245

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

He sought at once to take vengeance for the affront
His review of the work of Karnes appeared in 1764 in
the Gazette littSraire de V Europe. This was a periodi-
cal started a short time before, in which he took a good
deal of interest. Hume was at that time in Paris and
heard of the projected criticism before it appeared;
for everything that Voltaire did or was going to do
was widely discussed in the literary circles of that city
both before and after it was done. Hume was not
specially intimate with Kames ; but he had that patriotic
instinct which prompts every Scotchman of letters to
stand up for every countryman, reputable or disreputable,
who belongs to his profession. He ti-ied to prevent the
publication of the review. Naturally it was to no pur-
pose. ^^ Our friend, I mean your friend, Lord Kames,"
he wrote to Dr. Blair, ^ had much provoked Voltaire,
who never forgives, and never thinks any enemy below
his notice." He then gave an account of the article which
had appeared in the Gazette littiraire and of his own
ill-success in keeping it from the public. ^* I tried," he
continued, ^^ to have it suppressed before it was printed ;
but the authors of that Gazette told me that they durst
neither suppress nor alter anything that came from
Voltaire. I suppose his lordship holds that satiric wit
as cheap as he does all the rest of the human race ; and
will not be in the least mortified by his censure." ^

It is hardly necessary to say that Voltaire's review is
delightful reading. He could always be depended upon
to be entertaining. He was so witty, indeed, that he
was even witty when he tried to be. He could not

1 Barton's Home, rol. ii. p. 193 ; Letter of April 26, 1764.

246

THE CRITIC CRITICISED

indeed save himself from perpetrating a blunder; he
began with a most unnecessary one. Frenchmen have
never been noted for the accuracy with which they
reproduce foreign names ; and it must be admitted that
for the man of any nationality not to commit this par-
ticular error in the case of another speech requires not
only extensive knowledge but perpetual vigilance. But
of all offenders in this respect Voltaire was much the
worst. It seems to have required great familiarity on
his part with an English author to enable him to spell
his name correctly. He played all sorts of fantastic
tricks with the letters. He varied their order. He
substituted others for those which the man himself had
chosen to employ. If a letter was doubled he omitted
one ; if it was single he doubled it. For illustration,
Addison's name usually appeared as Addisson or Adisson.
Walpole was sometimes Walpool, Van Brugh was
Wanbruck, Otway was Otwai. Mistakes of this sort, of
no great importance in themselves, could be pardoned
were they the mere accident of momentary inattention
or of a failing memory ; but some of the most flagrant
examples are where the author's names must have been
before his eyes. The present is a case in point. Lord
Kames appears as ^^ Lord Makaimes."

Towards his newly created Lord Makaimes, Voltaire
maintained throughout an ironically deferential tone.
" No one," he remarked, " can have a profounder knowl-
edge of nature and the arts than this philosopher, and
he puts forth every effort to render the world as wise as
he is himself. He proves to us at the outset that we
have five senses, and that we feel less the pleasant im-

247

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

pression made upon our eyes and ears by colors and sounds
than we do a kick on the leg or a knock on the head. . . .
He teaches ua that women pass sometimes from pity
to love. ... In considering the measurements of time
and space we come mathematically to the conclusion
that time seems long to a girl who is going to be
married^ and short to a man who is going to be hanged.^'
It was in this way he travestied some of the statements
and arguments in the work. After further criticising
Kames's censures of Corneille and Racine, and his
assertions of their inferiority to the divine Shakespeare,
Voltaire indulged in an ironically contemplative comment
upon the treatise itself and the country from which it
came. " It is a wonderful result of the progress of
human culture/' he observed, ^^that at this day there
come to us from Scotland rules of taste in all the arts,
from epic poetry to gardening. Every day the mind of
man expands, and we ought not to despair of receiving
ere long treatises on poetry and rhetoric from the
Orkney isles. True it is," he added with apparent
regretfulness, "that in this country we still prefer to
see great artists than great discoursers upon the arts."

In this reply to Kames care had been taken not to
say anything of the Henriade. No indication was given
that a single word had appeared in the work criticised
to the discredit of the author of that epic. Voltaire was
altogether too crafty to proclaim aloud his own personal
grievances. The bare mention of these would have been
certain to send to the study of this treatise the hostile
critics of his own country. Without this particular
incentive he could rely upon their not being tempted to

248

THE CRITIC CRITICISED

look into an English book upon such a subject He
therefore took care that no hint should be given that
either he himself or his views had been attacked. It
was not his own cause that he represented himself as
defending. It was that of ComeiUe and Racine, and
therefore that of taste and art. He is none the less to
be credited with perfect sincerity. There is no question
that he honestly believed that the adoption by the
French of the methods of the English stage would be a
return to barbarism. Yet, for all that, the feeling which
inspired his article was personal, and not national. The
sensitiveness he showed both then and afterwards to the
censures of Kames proves conclusively how much nearer
to his heart was his anxiety about his own fame than
about the fortunes of French literature. It was not
care for the reputation of Comeille and Racine that
troubled him ; it was care for his own. The condem-
nation of the Henriade as a failure, coming as it did
from a comparatively obscure Scotch judge, could hardly
have affected him more had it been pronounced by
Aristotle himself. His resentment ceased only with

Us life.

The biographer of Mrs. Montagu tells us that Kames
read to her the article of Voltaire, not only laughing
himself but raising inexpressible laughter in his listener.*
Of the amusement it gave the lady, we need feel no
doubt. That of the former probably resembled more
the grim sort of smiling which an Indian exhibits when
tortured at the stake. Yet Kames could not have failed
to recognize the effectiveness of the blow he had dealt.

1 Dotan's 'Lady of the Last Centarj/ p. 163.

249

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

It made itself more apparent as time went on. Voltaire
speedily retomed to the attack. A £ew yean after
came ont his stoiy entitled U Homme aux fumrtmU iau.
It concludes with a sapper at which many sabjects are
discussed. In the report given of the conversation that
went on, a rough assault is mentioned as havii^ been
made upon the French stage by a Scotch judge, who had
taken it into his head to lay down rules of taste, and
to criticise some of the most admiraUe passages of
Racine without knowing French. Not satisfied with
this allusion, Voltaire appended a note. Its object was
to illustrate by a remarkable example how this great
Scottish judge instructed his readers as to the manner
in which heroes of tragedy ought to express themselves
in order to express themselves with esprit. The passage
selected was the speech made by Falstaff in presenting
his prisoner. Sir John Colevile, to Prince John of
Lancaster in the second part of ' Heniy IV.' ' Kames
had introduced it into his work as a specimen of wit in
the thought, and particularly of that sort of wit which
is created by ludicrous images. Voltaire seized upon
the citation. He translated it in full. To his version
be added the comment that this absurd and abominable
gallimaufry, very frequent in the divine Shakespeare, is
what Mr. John Home proposes as the model of good
taste and wit in tragedy. " But, in recompense,'* he
added, ^^ Mr. Home finds the Iphiginie and the Phidre
of Racine extremely ridiculous."

The representation of Kames as not knowing French,
it suited Voltaire to assert, apparently on the ground

^ Act IT. K. 3.

250

THE CRITIC CRITICISED

that had he known French he would not have made the
criticisms he did. The further assertion that because
exception had been taken to certain passages in Racine's
plays, these plays had been found extremely ridiculous,
is merely an illustration of that convenient and delight-
fid kind of memory which enables its possessor, whenever
it suits his purpose, not only to forget what the object
of his attack has said, but to recollect what he has not
said. But his comments upon his own critic are of slight-
est importance when contrasted with those to which
he gave free scope upon the extract from Shakespeare.
No more amusing set of blunders, exhibiting all sorts of
misconception and misinformation, was ever perpetrated
by Voltaire himself than what he accomplished in the
limits of this brief note. We need not find too much
fault with his calling ' Henry IV.' a tragedy, or with his
representation of Falstaff presenting his prisoner to the
king instead of the king's son, or with his christening the
author whom he was criticising with the name of John
instead of Henry. Petty details of this sort, he would
have said contemptuously, are not worth heeding. But
why does he style the speech he translated a piece of
abominable buffoonery ? Why is it utterly inappropriate
to be said by the person speaking it, or to be heard by
the person to whom it is spoken ? Voltaire gives us to
understand the reason in introducing his version of
the passage in question. It is inappropriate, it is
buffoonery, because it comes from the Lord Chief
Justice. As he had converted a younger son of the
king into the king himself, so he further proceeded to
elevate Falstaff to this high judicial position. It is the

251

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

putting a speech of such a character into the mouth of
such a dignitary that led him to regard the passage as
absurd and abominable. The blending of the Lord Chief
Justice and Falstaff into one person — especially con-
sidering their relation to each other in the play — is as
amusing as anything that Falstaff has been reported
by Shakespeare as ever having uttered himself.

The origin of the blunder is easy to trace. In the
list of the personages of the play in the editions to which
Voltaire had access, the Lord Chief Justice appears
simply under that title. His name is not given. He is
immediately followed by Sir John Falstaff. Voltaire
had gathered whatever knowledge he then possessed or
remembered of these two characters, not from reading
the piece itself, but from reading the extract taken from
it by Kames, and from consulting the list of dramatis
personsB printed at its beginning. When he saw the
two in close conjunction, he jumped to the conclusion
that Falstaff and the unnamed Lord Chief Justice, who
preceded him on the page, were one and the same
person. It is not the only instance in which he mani-
fested the amazing extent of his ignorance of this
famous character. As in the tale just mentioned he
had raised him to high judicial position, so in his
* Philosophical Dictionaiy' he promoted him corres-
pondingly in the military service. A part of the
article on * Taste ' in that work was given up to point-
ing out the superiority of the great French to the great
English dramatist. " One does not see in Comeille,"
he remarked, " an heir to the throne talking to a general
of the army with the beautiful naturalness which

252

THE CRITIC CRITICISED

Shakespeare sets forth in the Prince of Wales who
subsequently became Henry IV." Then follows a
translation of the speech of the Prince to Falstaff in
reply to the inquiry of the latter as to the time of day.^
Voltaire's criticism is interesting for the ignorance both
of English literature and of English history which it
displays. It is hardly necessary to say that the Falstaff
of Shakespeare became a general of the army about the
time the Prince of Wales, with whom he converses,
became king under the title of Henry IV.

In another article ^ in this same ^ Philosophical Diction-
ary, Voltaire made some further comments upon his
Scotch critic. He was engaged in his favorite occupa-
tion of celebrating the beauty of certain passages in
Racine. One of them contained a line which had fallen
under the condemnation of Kames. He turned abruptly
aside from his disquisition on the beauty of sentiment
and of verse to be found in the play he was considering, in
order to inform the world that a Scotch judge, who has
sought to give rules of poetry and of taste to his country-
men, has declared that he does not like the verse, —

** Mais toat dort, et I'arm^e, et lea vents, et Neptune."

Had he only known that it was an imitation of Euripides,

it might perhaps have found favor in his eyes ; but he

prefers the answer of the soldier in the first scene of

* Hamlet,'

** Not a mouse stirring." ■

* Henry IV. Part 1, act i. bc 2.
' Art dramatique.

' Voltaire translates these words here, Je n*ai pas entendu une souris
trotter, in another place, Je n*ai pas im trotter une souris.

253

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

This is natural, he represents Karnes as saying ; tins is
the way a soldier ought to speak. Voltaire's further
comment sets sharply before us the difference in the
point of view from which tragic representation was then
looked at by the two nations. " Yes, my lord judge,"
he wrote, '^ it is natural in a guard-house, but not in a
tragedy. Know that the French against whom you
inveigh, admit simplicity, but not what is low and coarse.
One must be sure of the goodness of his taste before
establishing it as law. I am sorry for the litigants, if
you judge them as you judge poetry/'

Voltaire himself never had the slightest doubt of the
goodness of his own taste. That a Scotchman should
presume to have a taste opposed to his filled him with
disgust. Kames had furnished him with many oppor-
tunities for experiencing this feeling. There were
several passages in his work in which the views enter-
tained by Voltaire were controverted, though with no
mention of his name and possibly with no thought of
him personally. The doctrine of the unities in particular
had been attacked with much vigor. Views of this sort
might have been put forth without subjecting their
holder to comment; not so the strictures upon the
Henriade. Voltaire showed how profoundly he had
been irritated by them in the defence he kept making,
never ostensibly of himself, but always of his country-
men. "The author of the three volumes of the
* Elements of Criticism ' " he wrote, " censures Shake-
speare sometimes; but he censures much more Racine and
our tragic writers." He admitted the justice of one of
the criticisms of Comeille, but he went on to assert that

254

THE CRITIC CRITICISED

the French dramatist not only rose higher than the English
one, but that he never sank so low. The opinion would
have had more weight had he not sought to fortify it by
examples. These, as we have seen, did not so much
illustrate Voltaire's knowledge of his art, as it did his
ignorance of the author he was discussing.

On his part Karnes was surprised — at any rate he
affected surprise — at the commotion he had caused.
In a note to a later edition — the fifth edition of 1774 —
he apologized for what he had said about the Henriade.
His apology remains to this day altogether the best
thing in his book which is purely original. In a bland
way he expressed great regret for having indulged in
the strictures he had made, though carefully implying at
the same time that they were unquestionably true. The
reading of this apology must have been gall and worm-
wood to Voltaire's sensitive nature, if it ever fell under
his eye, which it is likely its writer took care that it
should. It is not at all improbable that the renewed out-
burst against Kames which appeared two years later in
the ' Letter to the French Academy ' owed its origin to
this note. It was substantially as follows. ^' When I
commenced author," observed Kames, " my aim was to
amuse, and perhaps to instruct, but never to give pain.'*
There is something peculiarly delightful to the reader of
his work in finding its writer saying in all sincerity that
it had been his principal object to amuse. Coke might
as justly have avowed such a motive for writing the
* Institutes.' There is more ground for the assertion
that it had never been his design to give pain. Accord-
ingly he had taken care, he said, to avoid commenting

255

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

upon the productions of living authoiu But the
Henriade had furnished so fair an opportunity to illus-
trate the doctrines of the text, that he had yielded in
this instance to the temptation, and had bjpoken his rule.
But he had had no idea that his slight criticisms would
ever reach Voltaire. To his surprise he found that they
had done so, and that they had stirred up some resent-
ment. At this he was afBicted. He had no right to
wound the mind any more than the body. Besides, his
course showed ingratitude to a celebrated author from
whom he had derived much entertainment. The only
excuse he could make was that he had no intention to
give offence. At this point came in the sting which
accompanied all this honey. He did not regard it as an
excuse, he added, that his criticism was just. But as his
offence was public, he took the opportunity to make the
apology equally so. *'I hope it will be satisfactory,"
he concluded. '^ Perhaps not ; I owe it, however, to my
own character."

It would have required a peculiarly constituted mind
to regard it as satisfactory. With all his genius Vol-
taire could not well have concocted a better example of
that mean sort of apology which does not apologize.
While professing to draw it out, Kames had turned the
blade in the wound. He was right, however, in think-
ing that even the most abject excuses would have been
of no avail. Voltaire never got over the criticism which
had censured the Henriade as cold and unnatural, which
had blamed its action as being too recent and familiar,
and had declared that its reputation could be only short-
lived. It hurt him the more because he thought and

256

THE CRITIC CRITICISED

said that Karnes had made some very excellent observa-
tions; and the judgment he had displayed in these
rendered him especially sensitive to the discredit cast
upon his own production. He cherished his resentment
to his dying day. In his attack upon Shakespeare
towards the close of his life, in the famous letter sent to
the French Academy, he could not refrain from bringing
in again an allusion to his critic. He spoke of him as a
great Scottish judge who had published a work which
he was now careful to call, not ^ Elements of Criticism,'
but * Elements of English Criticism.' In this its author
had had the misfortune to compare the first scene of
that monstrosity called * Hamlet ' with the first scene
of that masterpiece of French literature, the Iphiginie of
Racine. The old complaint was revived ; the old com-*
parison was lugged in. The mouse the sentinel had
not seen was once more brought to the view of a French
audience. It had not actually stirred in the English
play ; but after the publication of Kames's work it never
ceased to disturb Voltaire's rest as long as he lived.

17 267

CHAPTER Xm

THE VOLTAIRE-WALFOLE COBRESPONDENOS

From the blow which the criticism of Karnes had in-
flicted upon his vanity, Voltaire never entirely recovered.
A little later he had the opportunity of observing another
example of the perversity of the countrymen of Addison,
in a quarter where once he would have least expected to
find it He could gather from it additional evidence which
went to show that the fanaticism of the English in their
worship of the monstrous creations of their favorite drar
matist had now taken complete possession of all classes.
That select company of superior beings in which he had
found many sympathizers during his residence in Eng-
land, was giving every indication of disappearing as a
recognizable body. It had always been limited in influ-
ence; it was now becoming limited in numbers. Its
views lingered in a languishing way in the critical litera-
ture of the time. But rarely was it the case that they
were proclaimed in the self-assured tone which had
formerly characterized their utterance. How far this
blind admiration of Shakespeare was extending was
brought home to Voltaire by a correspondence — it is
hardly proper to call it a controversy — which in 1768
he carried on with Horace Walpole. The challenge he
offered was declined with, insincerities as flattering as
any which he himself had ever used There was an

258

THE VOLTAIRE-WALPOLE CORRESPONDENCE

affected submission to the strength of his arguments.
He was highly gratified by the extravagance of the praise
he received ; but it is hardly credible that he could have
been imposed upon by his correspondent's pretended
recantation of his opinions.

Walpole's ^ Castle of Otranto ' had come out anony-
mously at the very end of 1764. A few months later
appeared the second edition, to which he contributed an
additional preface. In this he acknowledged the author-
ship of the work, and described the motives which had
led to its production. It was an attempt to blend two
kinds of romance, the ancient and the modern. The
incidents of the story were to be as marvellous and im-
probable as in the former ; the personages were to think
and talk and act as naturally as they did in the latter.
For that reason he had made the inferior characters
behave and express themselves as they would be expected
to do in real life. In so doing he professed to have
followed the example of '^ that great master of nature,
Shakespeare." He avowed his approval of much-dis-
approved passages in the works of that dramatist on the
ground that they added by contrast to the beauty and
effectiveness of the play. Among these, a good deal to
the horror of some professional critics of the time, he
specifically mentioned the grave-diggers' scene in
* Hamlet'

These sentiments led him to combat the views ex-
pressed in the ^ Commentaries on Corneille ' about the
mixture of the comic and the tragic in the same play.
Such a practice had been there declared intolerable.
Against this assertion Walpole appealed to Voltaire's

259

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

own words, found in places where it was not his object
either to recommend or to deciy the course adopted by
English dramatists, especially by the greatest of them
all. These consequently might be justly supposed to
reflect his impartial judgment Of Voltaire himself he
spoke with respect, indeed with admiration. But he
added that while he was a genius, he was not a genius .
of Shakespeare's magnitude. He believed — which was
to some extent true — that he was receding from the
liberality of his earlier opinions. Contrasting indeed
his present utterances with his past, Walpole expressed
himself sorry to see that Voltaire's judgment was grow-
ing weaker, when it ought to be further matured.

To maintsdn that the genius of Voltaire was inferior
to that of Shakespeare would strike many, perhaps most
Frenchmen, of that time with as much surprise, not to
say horror, as it would similarly strike men now to say
that it was superior. But to no one then would it have
seemed a greater profanation than to Voltaire himself.
I haye called attention to the fact that, in the preface to
his translation of 'Julius Caesar,' he had pointed out
with the serenest satisfaction that any one who took the
pains to compare his version of Shakespeare's play with
his own Mart de Char could easily decide whether the
tragic art had made any advance since the days of Eliza-
beth. But Walpole had not been content with asserting
Voltaire's inferiority as a dramatic poet. He had carried
his rank heresy still farther. He had impugned his
competency as a critic. He indulged in a note to the
effect that Voltaire's knowledge of the force and power
of the English language was about on a level with his

260

THE VOLTAIRE'WALPOLE CORRESPONDENCE

knowledge of English history. Of his ignorance of the
latter he gave a glaring example. To his annotations
upon Pierre Comeille, the commentator had appended
remarks upon two pieces of Thomas Comeille, which
still held then their place upon the stage. One of these
bore the title of Le Comte d'Hsaex^ the favorite of Queen
Elizabeth. The younger brother did not fare much
better at the hands of the critic than the elder. A
great deal had Voltaire to say of the gross perversions
of truth in this piece, the plot of which was based upon
events which had occurred so near the time of its produc-
tion. It could be palliated, but not pardoned, on the
ground that French audiences were then totally igno-
rant of English history. Consequently they were not
affected by the manifest impropriety of representing the
young Essex and an old woman like Queen Elizabeth as
lovers. Now they were better insti'ucted. In conse-
quence such misrepresentations of fact would no longer
be tolerated.

Accordingly, from his ample stores of historical knowl-
edge Voltaire set out to correct the errors of the author
and to supply precise information to his countrymen.
With this object in view he was led to give an account of
the successive favorites of Queen Elizabeth. The first,
he said, was Robert Dudley, son to the Duke of Northum-
berland. This lover, he went on to inform his readers,
was succeeded by the Earl of Leicester. The observa-
tion did not tend to inspire confidence in the exactness
of the information he was seeking to impart. By mak-
ing it he had advertised his ignoi-ance of the fact that
Robert Dudley and the Earl of Leicester were one and

261

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

the same person. The mistake deiiyed its importance,
such as it was, from its occurrence in critical remarks
which laid special stress upon the necessity of accuracy
in a work of the imagination — a place where accuracy
is of the very least possible account. Walpole dwelt
upon the blunder with ill-concealed satisfaction. It was
not the only error in Voltaire's somewhat pretentious
historical note of which he could have taken notice. In
particular the famous story of the cloak, laid at Elizabeth's
feet, was in it transferred from Raleigh to Essex. He
contented himself, however, with specifying the con-
version of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, into two
persons. This he introduced mainly to show that the
severe criticisms of Voltaire upon Shakespeare were
more likely the effusions of wit and precipitation than
the result of judgmeiTt and attention.

Three years later Walpole brought out his * Historic
Doubts on the Life and Reign of Richard III.' Notice
of this latter work — > he had doubtless never heard of
the previous one — came to Voltaire's ears. He wrote
to the author and begged of him a copy.^ Walpole was
unquestionably flattered by the request. It was like
an intimation from a great monarch to a commoner
that his acquaintance was desired. At the same time
he was disconcerted by it and somewhat disturbed.
There came into his mind the recollection of the cen-
sure passed on Voltaire's views, and the comparison
between his genius and that of Shakespeare, which he
had made in the preface to his romance. This work had

1 Letter of Voltaire to Walpole, June 8, 1768, in Lord Orford's Worka
(1798), vol. V. p. 629.

262

THE VOLTAIRE-WALPOLE CORRESPONDENCE

the year before been translated into French. It was
likely at any moment to fall into the hands of the man
whose glance swept at intervals the whole literature of
Europe. The only course which it seemed to him
proper to follow was to have the opinions which he had
expressed come to Voltaire's knowledge directly from
himself.

This was the action he determined to take. Accord-
ingly he wrote to Voltaire that while he appreciated the
honor done him, he felt that with justice to himself he
could not comply with his request without sending him
also the volume containing the criticisms he had pre-
viously expressed. All this was accompanied with
many marks of homage to the greatness of the man he
addressed, and many complimentary expressions. The
historical work, he said, he sent with fear and trembling
to the first genius of Europe who had illustrated every
science. Whatever merit there were in his own writings,
provided any merit existed at all, was due to his having
studied those of Voltaire. But the other book stood
on a different footing. In the preface to this trifling
romance, as he termed it, he had taken the liberty to
find fault with the criticisms which the French author
had made on Shakespeare. He could not therefore
accept even the honor of Voltaire's correspondence,
without letting him judge whether he deserved it. " I
might retract," he continued, — "I might beg your
pardon; but having said nothing but what I thought,
nothing iUiberal or unbecoming a gentleman, it would
be treating you with ingratitude and impertinence to
suppose you would either be offended with my remarks,

263

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

or pleased with my recantation. You are as much above
wanting flattery, as I am above oflfering it to you." * It
is no easy matter to tell whether the former or the
latter part of this final sentence contains the greater
falsehood.

Voltaire did not altogether like this letter; but he
liked far less the criticism found in the preface to * The
Castle of Otranto.' To most of his countrymen one of
the remarks contained in it would have been more than
startling. Walpole's friend, the Marquise du Deffand,
to whom he communicated all these details, was a
good deal disturbed when she learned of that extraor-
dinary comparison between the genius of Shakespeare
and of Voltaire. With the latter she corresponded,
though her admiration of his character was clearly not
equal to her admiration of his abilities. Of these she
had the then usual extravagant estimate. She could
not read a line of English; her knowledge of Shake-
speare was of the vaguest and shadowiest character.
But the imputation of his superiority to her celebrated
countryman shocked her beyond expression. She recog-
nized the terrible nature of the provocation given.
Knowing Voltaire as she did, she could not conceive of
his ever forgiving it. **You have determined that
Shakespeare had more genius than he," she wrote to
Walpole. " Do you believe that he will pardon you ?
It is all that I — even I — can do to pardon you." ^

1 Letter of June 21, 1768, in Cnnningham's ' Letters of Horace
WaJpole/ vol. v. p. 108.

2 Letter of June 28, 1768; 'Letters of the BCarquise du Deffand to
HorKe Walpole ' (1810), vol. i. p. 244.

264

THE VOLTAIRE-WALPOLE CORRESPONDENCE

It ifi right to say here — it is further a symptom of
the change coming over the national taste — that this
correspondence between the two men set the Marquise
a little later to re-reading, as she said, or more probably
to reading for the first time, the English dramatist. Of
course it was in the translation of La Place. The
perusal filled her with enthusiasm. ^^ I cannot express
to you," she wrote to Walpole, " what an effect these
pieces have wrought upon me. They have done to my
soul what Lillium. does to the body, they have resus-
citated me. Oh ! I admire your Shakespeare ; he makes
me adopt all his faults. He almost makes me believe
that there is no necessity of any rules, that rules are
the trammels of genius; they chill, they stifle. . . .
There are many things in bad taste, I agree to it, and
which can easily be cut out. But for the failure of the
three unities, far from being shocked by it, I approve of
it, there result from it such grand beauties. . . . Ah I
there is a course of reading which pleases me, which is
going to occupy me for some time." ^

But though Voltaire did not like what he read, he
returned in kind the compliments he had received.^ He
found the preface to Walpole's historical work too
short. He praised the philosophic mind of the author
and his manly style. He told him that his father had
been a great minister and an excellent speaker, but he
could never have written so well as did his son. After
various flattering remarks of this nature he set out to
reply to what had been said in the preface to *The
Castle of Otranto.' He protested against the accusa-

1 Ibid. p. 279 ; letter of Dec. 15, 1768. '^ Letter of July 15, 1768.

265

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

tion that he undervalued Shakespeare; he complained
that in the existence of this disposition on his part the
English were now too much inclined to believe. He
proceeded to set forth, in the way which had become
habitual to him, his own services. He had been the
first to make English literature known to his country*
men. He had proclaimed the gpreatness of Locke and
Newton, and for so doing he had been persecuted for
thirty years by a swarm of fanatics. " I have been your
apostle and jj^ur martyr," he wrote; *4n truth, it is
not just for the English to complain of me." As for
Shakespeare himself, he had long ago said that had it
been the good fortune of that dramatist to have Uved
in the time of Addison, he would have combined with
his own genius Addison's purity and elegance. His
genius, he had asserted, was his own; his faults were
the faults of his age.

Not satisfied with defending himself from this par-
ticular charge, Voltaire proceeded to reply to criti-
cisms found in this preface in which the excellence of
Shakespeare was only indirectly involved. The superi-
ority of the French stage to that of all other nations
was with him a cherished article of faith. The sincerity
with which he believed it, the tenacity with which he
held it, the frequency and fervor with which he pro-
claimed it, will go far to account for the f my into which
he later fell as he contemplated the derelictions of some
of his countrymen in the preference they expressed for
the English drama and its great dramatist. A quarter
of a century before, in the epistle to Maffei prefixed to
Mirope he had maintained the superiority of the stage

266

THE VOLTAIRE-WALPOLE CORRESPONDENCE

of France to that of Greece. He there expressed him-
self as disposed to believe that a more refined taste
existed in the modern country than in the ancient In
the principal city of Greece, theatrical pieces, he said,
appear to have been represented only on the occasion
of the four solemn festivals ; whereas in the principal
city of France there was always more than one every
day of the year. Further, at Athens the number of
citizens was computed at only ten thousand ; while Paris
had nearly eight hundred thousand inhabitants, of whom
about thirty thousand were competent critics of dra-
matic performances, and passed judgment upon them
almost every day of their lives.

Remarks of this sort had amused Walpole, as well
they n^ight. They gave him ample opportunity to
indulge in somewhat sarcastic comments, of which he
had not been slow to avail himself. Voltaire had re-
marked that the familiar dialogue found in the Msrope
of Maffei, natural as it was and agreeable to the char-
acters and manners represented, would doubtless have
been well received at Athens ; but he implied that it
would have met with scant favor at Paris. There, he
said, they expected a simplicity of another kind. It
struck Walpole that even thirty thousand men, assum-
ing the existence of this numerous tribiftial, living two
thousand years after the events made the subject of a
tragedy, were hardly as competent judges of the manners
belonging to a Greek play as were the Greeks them-
selves. The amusement he expressed at the preference
given to the verdict rendered by the parterre of Paris
over that of an Athenian audience nettled Voltaire a

267

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

good (leal. The subject was too important in his eyes
to be treated jestingly. *' You have made game of me
to some extent," he wrote to Walpole. " The French
understand raillery; but I am going to answer you
seriously."

And with the utmost seriousness he repeated all his
previous assertions. "I have believed," he wrote, "I
believe, and I shall believe that Paris is much superior
to Athens in the matter of tragedies and comedies.
Molidre, and even Regnard, appear to me to surpass
Aristophanes. ... I will say to you boldly that aU the
Greek tragedies seem to me to be the work of school-
boys in comparison with the sublime scenes of Comeille
and the perfect tragedies of Racine. " He repeated also
his previous remark about the audiences of the two
cities. There were, he declared, more men of taste in
Paris than in Athens. Against the ten thousand citizens
of the latter place he brought forward again the thirty
thousand of the former, who took pleasure in the fine
arte. Furthermore, one special advantege the stage of
the one city had over that of the other : At Athens the
populace attended theatrical exhibitions. At Paris they
were never permitted to be present save on festival and
festive occasions, or when no price was charged for
admission. The polished, the refined, were consequently
the only judges. In addition, the presence of the female
sex, with the deference paid to its feelings and wishes,
had imparted more delicacy to French sentiments, more
decorum to French manners, more refinement to French
taste. " I^ave us," he cried, " our theatre. You are

rich enough otherwise."

268

THE VOLTAIRE'WALPOLE CORRESPONDENCE

Without being aware of it himself, Voltaire in these
last sentences had hit upon the causes which had been
mainly instrumental in producing the divergences be-
tween the stage of Shakespeare and that of ComeiUe
and Racine. He had unconsciously pointed out the
principal agency which had imparted to each its dis-
tinctive character. The English theatre was the theatre
of the nation ; the French was the theatre of a class.
The energy, the liberty, the disregard of useless con-
ventions which Voltaire had found in the drama of the
land to which he had come, were not really due, as he
fancied, to the different character of the people, any
more than was what was in his eyes its rudeness, its
license, its disregard of decorum. Similarly the elegance,
the delicacy, the beauty of the drama of which he
boasted, did not owe their existence to the character of
the people he had left behind, any more than did the
monotony, the lifelessness, the dull dialogue of which
he constantly complained.

These are not and cannot be distinctive features of
the stages of different nations in which the social life is
essentially the same ; they are the marks which dis-
tinguish the drama of an aristocracy from that of a
whole people. Results essentially alike would have
followed in each country, had the conditions been alike.
The French theatre was the theatre of the drawing-
room, the theatre of women who would shudder at the
sight of imaginary blood shed in an imaginary quarrel,
the theatre of men who would turn into jest the utter-
ance of deepest emotion, or the portrayal of strong
situations which were outside of the conventional repre-

269

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

sentations to which they had been accustomed. The
drawing-room may be delightful and beautiful ; but it is
not the place to develop force and fire. The literature
of a class will appeal but to a class, nor to that will it
appeal forever. It is a hot-house production as com-
pared with that which springs from the soil and grows
in the open air exposed to sunshine and storm. It was
here that French classicism had failed. The country-
men and contemporaries of Voltaire were becoming
dimly conscious that something was wrong with their
drama ; that what it had gained in beauty, it had lost in
naturalness and power. They were blindly groping
about for a remedy. They were beginning to realize in
a vague way that no literature of any sort can succeed
permanently which does not strike its roots deep down
into the national character and life.

With these movements of the spirit Voltaire had so
little sjrmpathy that he did not even comprehend their
meaning, and felt indignation whenever he came to
know of their existence. The long and elaborate letter
he sent to Walpole was a manifesto in behalf of the
principles and practices of the French stage such as it
had come down from the time of Cardinal Richelieu.
It was of the nature of a challenge ; he spent time and
thought upon it in order to provoke a reply. It is plain
that he hoped, and pretty certainly expected that a dis-
cussion would go on between himself and Walpole. He
sent his letter to the Duchess of Choiseul, the wife
of the minister. He asked her to read it, and if she
approved of his sentiments to have it forwarded. In
the course of his letter to her he begged her to take the

270

THE VOLTAIRE'WALPOLE CORRESPONDENCE

part of the French against the English, with whom he
was now at war. The delusion that a controversy upon
the comparative merits of ComeiUe and Shakespeare
was a national and not an individual quarrel appears,
perhaps for the first time, to have entered his head.
Once there, it took complete possession of it. *^ Judge
between Walpole and me," he wrote to the Duchess.
'^He has sent me his works," he added, ^4n which he
justifies the tyrant, Richard III., for whom neither of us,
you or I, care a particle. But he also gives to his vulgar
buffoon, Shakespeare, preference over Racine and Cor-
neiUe, and that is something for which I care a great
deaL" ^ The clown, the buffoon, were now the epithets
which he applied pretty regularly to the English
dramatist, especially in his correspondence. The terms
represented sentiments which he was beginning to en-
tertain strongly. In public he might speak of Shake-
speare's beautiful but savage nature, of his tragedy
which like the earth at the creation was without form
and void, a chaos out of which flashed intermittently
dazzling rays of light ; but in his private thoughts he
appeared to him more and more the clownish actor, the
Gilles who delighted the rustics at market-places and at
fairs.

Voltaire, in his letter to the Duchess, had spoken of
the communication he had received from Walpole as
a declaration of war. He wished her to be the judge
of the combat he was carrying on for his country ;
he wished, he said, to fight under her orders. But
Walpole had no more notion of accepting a challenge

1 Letter of July 15, 1768, to the Dachesse de Choueul.

271

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

of this sort than he had had of offering one. He may
very properly have doubted his abilities when matched
against those of Voltaire. In tnith he was little cal-
culated to make a defence of Shakespeare, either in
consequence of the knowledge he possessed, or the
appreciation he felt, great as in many ways the latter

subject with the Marquise du Deffand he remarked very
justly, as regards the preface to ^ The Castle of Otranto,'
that he had not asserted in it any superiority of the
English theatre to the French. Such, however, had
been the state of mind attributed to him in the letter
which the Duchess of Choiseul had received. The
impression to that effect was due to a certain way of
understanding, or rather of misunderstanding, on the
part of Voltaire, which in cases of this nature he had
assiduously cultivated. If any one affirmed his infe-
riority as a dramatist, he invariably managed to mistake
it for an assertion of the inferiority of the French theatre
in general and of ComeiUe and Racine in particular.
Walpole's disavowal of the charge was doubtless due in
part to the necessity of considering the national suscep-
tibilities of his friend, who had been already sufficiently
horrified by his assumption of the superiority of the
English dramatist to Voltaire. On other occasions he
had stoutly maintained to her that he would be willing
to be burned at the stake for the primacy of Shake-
speare. " He is," he wrote to her, " the most beautiful
genius to which nature has given birth." ^

But while these feelings had made him a partisan of

^ Letters of the MarqniBe da Deffaud to Walpole, yoI. i. p. 243.

272

THE VOLTAIRE-WALPOLE CORRESPONDENCE

Shakespeare, they did not equip him for appearing in
the rOle of his defender. In fact, over him as over so
many hundreds since, the great drsmiatist had exerted
the peculiar power once ascribed to the moon, of addling
men's brains and making them mad. In this very
volume, dealing with Richard III., appears the first
example of that long line of absurd theories connected
with Shakespeare's life and writings, which give to the
man of melancholy temperament and tendencies gloomy
views as to the immense abysses of asininity in human
nature which still lurk unexplored. *The Winter's
Tale,' in Walpole's opinion, should be ranked among
the Histories. It had been left to him to discover its
drift, which had hitherto escaped the notice of critics
and commentators. It was intended as an indirect
apology for Queen Elizabeth's mother, Anne Boleyn.
It therefore constituted in reality the second part of

* Henry VIII.' The unreasonable jealousy of Leontes
formed a true picture of that monarch. Passages were
cited to prove the fact; and though passages can be
cited to prove anything, it must be conceded that these
as marshalled by him form a fairly strong argument
to show that to be true which we know to be &lse.
Walpole's theory was based upon the assumption that

* The Winter's Tale ' — which throughout he persisted
in calling ' The Winter Evening's Tale ' — was written
in the time of Queen Elizabeth ; for it was then generally
taken for granted that in none of his later productions
would Shakespeare have been so reckless of geography,
history, and the unities as he had shown himself in all
these in this one play. As soon as the assumption was

18 273

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

proved to be false, the superstructure built upon it fell
with its fall.

On any ground, however, Walpole would have been
justified in not entering into controversy. As he sub-
sequently said himself, all Englishmen would be sub-
stantially on one side, and all Frenchmen on the other.
But he had an additional reason for his disinclination.
Voltaire, as we have seen, had sent his reply to the
Duchess of Choiseul to be forwarded. But the Duchess
of Choiseul was herself a friend of Walpole. More
than that, she was an intimate friend of the Marquise du
Deffand, Walpole's correspondent To her was not
only Voltaire's reply at once shown, but also the letter
to the Duchess accompanying it, in which he had ex-
pressed bis indifference to Richard III., and on the other
hand his expectation of taking part in an international
quarrel, in which, according to his own account, he had
now become involved. The two ladies spent the even-
ing of the day these documents came in reading them
together.^ The Duchess went beyond Voltaire's ex-
pectation, and unquestionably beyond his desires, in her
willingness to forward his communication. He had
given as his reason for seeking to transmit his reply
through her instead of the regular channels, that Wal-
pole's declaration of war, as he termed it, had very
likely reached him through the Duke. He based this
belief upon the fact that it was so spirituelle and polished.
It was therefore natural for him to assume that since it
was of such a character, it must have found its way to

1 Letters of Madame da Deffand to Walpole ; letter of July SI, 1768,
Yol. i. p. 251 .

274

THE VOLTAIRE-WALPOLE CORRESPONDENCE

him through the medium of her husband, the prime
minister. It is hardly credible that Voltaire himself
could have fancied that his correspondent would not
see through this thinnest of disguises. His course
had been dictated merely by the wish to interest the
Duchess in the controversy in which he was hoping to
become engaged. As a matter of fact he had himself in-
formed Walpole of the proper way to send him the
book for which he had asked ; and there is no reason to
doubt that it had been forwarded in accordance with his
directions. The Duchess could be relied upon not to be
duped by the pretence. She more than complied with
Voltaire's request. She not only transmitted to Wal-
pole the reply sent through her, but passed over to the
Marquise the accompan}dng letter to herself to be for-
warded to him at the same time. This latter action
was of course to be kept a secret. In the general game
of cheating which was going on, the honors rested
easily with the two noble ladies. Voltaire was an adept
in every sort of finesse; but by this time he was
assuredly old enough to know that in attempting to
practise it on a clever woman, he would be beaten the
moment he showed his hand.

Along with the documents went urgent entreaties to
Walpole from the Marquise du Deffand not to enter
into any controversy with Voltaire about Shakespeare.
She herself most cordially approved of the sentiments
found in the reply the latter had sent. It struck her as
unanswerable, at least at that time. To Voltaire him-
self she wrote that his letter to Walpole seemed to her
a masterpiece of taste, of good sense, of eloquence, of

275

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

politeness, and of various other abstract nouns. ^ Na-
tional pride," she added, ^^ is great among the English.
They are reluctant to accord us superiority in matters
of taste, while we recognise in them complete superior-
ity, with the exception of you, in matters of reasoning." ^
She had not yet read her Shakespeare ; and with this
belief of hers she doubtless supposed that any con-
troversy about him would result in the speedy annihila-
tion of her English friend. That Voltaire was seeking
to have one was evident. This letter of his, she wrote to
Walpole, was merely the first skinnish to bring about a
little war between you and him in regard to Shake-
speare. ^' In the name of God," she exclaimed, ^^ do not
fall into this trap. Get out of the affair as politely as
possible, but avoid war." It was her own advice ; she
added that it was also the advice of the Duchess of
Choiseul.^

Walpole needed no urging to follow this counsel. It
was in fullest accord with both his own convictions
and intentions. It had never been his design, he wrote
to his correspondent, to enter into a controversy. He
saw and said that Voltaire was only seeking an occasion
to air his sentiments. That his vanity had been sorely
wounded by the declaration of the superiority of Shake-
speare to himself was likewise evident. But Walpole's
disinclination to continue the discussion was furthermore
much increased by the disgust he felt at the double-
dealing which Voltaire's letter to the Duchess of Choiseul

1 Letter oC Au^iist 14, 1768 to Voltaire: in ' Letters of Madame da
Deffand to Walpole/ toI. iv. p. 99.

« Ibid. vol. i. p. 251. Letter of July 21, 1768.

276

THE VOLTAIRE-WALPOLE CORRESPONDENCE

revealed. He pointed out to the Marquise the kind of
good faith which had been exhibited in the matter.
^^ He seeks me out," he wrote, ^' he asks of me my
* Richard,' I send it to him, and then he speaks of it as
if I had been intriguing to get him to read it." * How-
ever, he assured his anxious friend that he would take
occasion to soothe Voltaire's wounded feelings in his
reply, a copy of which he would transmit to her. He
carried out his promise so effectually that she was
deceived by it herself, or at least pretended to be
deceived. "Walpole," she wrote to Voltaire, "is
thoroughly converted; his past errors must be par-
doned."^ When the originals of this correspondence
came into Walpole's possession after her death, he
wrote a comment against this assertion, that it was only
the friendship of the Marquise for him that had led her
to make such a statement, which he certainly had
never authorized. " I had broken off all commerce with
Voltaire," he added, " being indignant at his falsehoods
and his petty tricks." Walpole's own self-love had
been a good deal hurt by the slighting mention of his
^ Richard HI.' made in the letter to the Duchess of
Choiseul, as well as by the implication conveyed in it
that he had been plotting to secure from the French
author a recognition of the work. He never got over
this feeling.

But on the present occasion he made no manifestation
of it. He set out to perform a certain task, and fully
did he carry through what he had planned. When it

1 Letters of Madame da Deffand to Walpole, vol. i. p. S52.
« Ibid. vol. iv. p. 100.

277

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

came to exchanging compliments he proved himself no
unworthy competitor of the most skilled adulator of
Europe, if indeed it be not conceded that he displayed
decided superiority. There was assuredly a delicacy, an
artistic finish in his falsehoods which his correspondent
never surpassed. He could not, to be sure, rival
Frederick the Great in the extent and profusion of
praise he lavished upon the patriarch of Femey. He
was not equal to saying, as did the king, that here was a
Frenchman who had surpassed Vergil in his own art ;
that in this one man were united the different merits of
Sophocles, Euripides, Thucydides, and Quintus Curtius.
But then Frederick was sincere in these wholesale
laudations, at least at intervals ; whereas Walpole had
to struggle to express views he did not hold, and to coin
phrases not one of which he believed. To him, there-
fore, must be awarded that credit which is bestowed upon
the artist who triumphs over obstacles apparently insur-
mountable. He had fulfilled the condition which Vol-
taire was wont to proclaim as one of the tests of genius,
that the greater the difficulty, the greater the glory.

Full of flattering remarks as had been his first letter,
Walpole surpassed it altogether in this reply. He made
amplest confession of his error. One would wish to be
in the wrong, he said, in 6rder to have his mistakes
pointed out in so obliging and masterly a manner. He
would consider Shakespeare himself to blame, if he had
seen Voltaire's reply and had then failed to conform to
the rules laid down in it. " When he lived," he contin-
ued, " there had not been a Voltaire both to give laws to
the stage, and to show on what good sense those laws were

278

THE VOLTAIRE-WALPOLE CORRESPONDENCE

founded." He was prouder of receiving rules from him
than of contesting them. It had been presumptuous on
his part to dispute with him before making his acquaint-
ance through this correspondence. Now it would be
ungrateful, since he had been both noticed and forgiven.
Voltaire was one of those truly great and rare men who
know at once how to conquer and to pardon.^

Other flattering falsehoods of this sort are scattered
up and down the pages of this not very long letter.
Walpole was apparently uncertain which to admire more
in the man he was addressing, the greatness of his
genius or the goodness of his heart. One would suppose
that Voltaire, unless totally incapacitated by vanity,
should have felt the ring of insincerity in these words,
even if he did not suspect them of irony. Yet there is
nothing in his writings to indicate that any impression
of either sort had been made upon his mind. He was so
used to receiving as well as dispensing incense, pungent
and penetrating enough to offend ordinary nostrils, that
it is possible that what seems to us fumes absolutely
unendurable may have afforded his organs nothing more
than an agreeable titillation. Certain it is he henceforth
always spoke of Walpole with much respect. The latter
deserved some such recognition for the skill with which
he effected a retreat from a contest in which success
would have depended, not on the weight of the argument,
but upon the prejudices of the reader. Furthermore, he
had a right to plume himself upon the fact that on
his correspondent's own field of adulation he had met

1 I^etter of Walpole to Voltaire, July 27, 1768 ; Cnnningham'B ' Let-
ten of Walpole/ Tol. y. p. 112.

279

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

him squarely and had had no reason tx) feel a sense of
inferiority. To him in the interchange of complimentary
mendacities which went on between the two, the palm
must in justice be awarded. From another and a
higher point of view his letter was distinctly discredit-
able. He was utterly insincere. He not only dis-
believed what be had written, but in his secret heart he
was ashamed of himself for having written it. The
result followed which might have been expected. With
all his admiration for his genius, he never thought or
spoke well of Voltaire again.

280

CHAPTER XIV

TWO NEW ENGLISH ADVEKSABIES

Befobe the correspondence described in the last
chapter had taken place, a mightier antagonist than Vol-
taire had ever met loomed up for a moment. Had the
preliminary skirmishes which occurred developed into a
regular conflict, there would have been a battle-royal
which would have been memorable in the history of liter-
ary controversy. In 1766, Dr. Johnson had brought out
his edition of Shakespeare. In its celebrated preface he
had said a good deal to irritate the admirers of his author ;
but he had said a great deal more to irritate the critics
who for a century had been trying to measure the
gigantic proportions of the great Elizabethan by the
limited tape-lines of their rules. To many of the views
then generally accepted he had run counter. He had
treated the unities with disrespect. In his opinion they
gave more trouble to the poet than pleasure to the
auditor. He had further defended tragi-comedy. Not
only had he spoken of the theories he combated as foolish,
but he had strongly insinuated that those holding them
were fools. He represented that the course adopted by
Shakespeare had exposed him to the censures of critics
who formed their judgments upon narrower principles
than those which the dramatist himself bad adopted.

281

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

Two of these critics — one a native and one a
foreigner — he mentioned in the same paragia{A; and
the Frenchman could hardly have been pleased at finding
himself associated with the Englishman who was
selected for animadveiBion. The latter was John Dennis,
the then generallj depreciated critic of a bygone age.
He had found fault with Shakespeare because in his
'CoriolanuSy' Menenius, a Roman senator, had been
converted into a buffoon. This was a view of the
character which would naturally meet with the approval
of Voltaire. In a note to his version of ' Julius Csesar '
he had himself remarked that Casca had been made a
sort of buffoon. What Johnson had specially in mind,
however, was the disgust the French author had expressed
because the king in * Hamlet ' had been represented as a
drunkard. Neither of these hostile criticisms can be
accepted as merited, because neither of them had any
justification in fact. It requires a thorough-going belief
not so much in the dignity of tragedy as in its pomposity,
to consider Menenius a buffoon. That he is very far
from being, though he has the wit to clothe his wisdom
in humorous language. Claudius too is represented in
^ Hamlet ' as being fond of drinking ; but nowhere does
be appear in a state of intoxication. Johnson accepted,
however, both these characterizations as correct. He
defended the propriety of them in the places where they
appeared. Shakespeare he said, wanted a buffoon, and
wanting one, he went into the senate-house for that
which the senate-house would certainly have afforded
him. He wanted to make the Danish ruler not only
odious but despicable. Therefore he added to his other

282

TWO NEW ENGLISH ADVERSARIES

vices that of drunkennesB, to which kings are subject as
well as other men. Shakespeare had made nature pre-
dominant over accident. Preserving the essential
character he had not paid much heed to distinctions
which were superinduced or adventitious. After pointing
out in this way the futility of the criticisms which he
had been combating, he summed up his opinion of them
and of those who had uttered them in the following
words: "These," he wrote, "are the petty cavils of
petty minds."

The cavils might be petty ; but the mind of the man
who had given them utterance was not petty, and John-
son knew it The hostility which Voltaire's criticism of
Shakespeare had evoked in England often took now, as
in this case, the form of unwarrantable personal depre-
ciation. There were several other passages in this noted
preface in which his views were attacked and he himself
slightingly mentioned. In his disdainful rejection of the
obligation of the unities Johnson had observed that the
violations of these rules were becoming to the compre-
hensive genius of Shakespeare, while the censures passed
upon him for disregarding them were suitable to the
minute and slender criticisms of Voltaire. The French
author was unquestionably stung by the somewhat con-
temptuous tone that was employed. He had indeed a
right to resent it. Whether his views were correct or
absurd, — and very absurd at this day they seem to most
— the epithet of " petty " applied to a man of his intel-
lectual powers and rank was indefensible. He noticed
the attack in one of the essays now found in his ^ Philo-
sophical Dictionary.' It is the one which treats of

283

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

< Dramatic Art' In it he repeated all his old criticifima
of the English theatre. He spoke of it as full of life
and passion, but uniting in the same piece buffooneiy
and horror. The unities of time and place are grossly
violated. The vilest of the rabble appear on the stage
along with the greatest princes ; and the princes often
use the language of the rabble.

But he had also something to say of the attack upon
himself in this preface of which mention has just been
made. "I have cast my eyes," he remarked, **over an
edition of Shakespeare put forth by Mr. Samuel Jonh-
son.'' He was true to the habit early acquired and
steadily maintained. With the very volume before him
he could not succeed in speUing properly the name of the
author whose views he was combating. ** I have seen,*'
he continued, *' that in it those foreigners are treated as
possessing petty minds who are astonished to find in the
pieces of this great Shakespeare a Roman senator playing
the buffoon, and a king appearing on the stage intoxi-
cated. I do not wish to suspect Mr. Jonhson of being a
sorry jester and to be too fond of wine : but I find it a
little extraordinary that he counts buffooneiy and drunk-
enness among the beauties of the tragic theatre.'' This
is language far more courteous than that of his antago-
nist ; but as an argument it cannot be said to be par-
ticularly conclusive. The real point in dispute had
been evaded.

In truth any prepossession in favor of Voltaire due to
the greater politeness of the language he employed is
rudely shaken by finding him once more resorting in
article to his old and disreputable trick of selecting,

284

TWO NEW ENGLISH ADVERSARIES

peculiarly representative of Shakespeare, passages ^hich
he believed ^ould be specially offensive to his own
countrymen either on the score of delicacy or of dra-
matic art. He quoted the line of Vergil which repre-
sented the Britons as utterly separated from the rest of the
world. The implication was that it was as true of their
taste as of their geographical position. For confirmation
he referred his readers to that exact translation of the
first three acts of ^ Julius Caesar,' the exactness of which
we have learned to know too well. He quoted again the
coarse sentence in the speech of lago in the opening
scene of * Othello,' which twice before had been made to
do duty. ^^It is this," he said, commenting upon it,
" which they speak on the tragic stage of London." He
gave some further illustrations of what he held forth as
distinguishing characteristics of English dramatic art.
He translated the short conversation of Cleopatra with
the peasant who brings her the asp,^ and a part of that
which went on between Henry V. and the Princess Kath-
arine.* To have a king's daughter wooed by a king in
the way here represented was to him very strange ; so
in rendering it, he contrived to make it stranger by some
extraordinary blunders.' Furthermore, he called atten-

1 Antony and Cleopatra, act y., scene 2.

* Henry V,, act v., acene 2.

' It 18 not always easy to decide whether Voltaire's mistranslations are
dne to ignorance or to intention. There are some of slight importance in
the two short passages here rendered ; hut in the interview between the
king and the Princess Katharine there are two most extraordinary per-
versions of the sense. In one of the speeches of the monarch to the prin-
cess he tells her that he is glad she cannot understand English, for if she
coald, ** thon wooldst find me snch a plain king that thon wonldst think
I had sold my farm to buy my crown." Voltaire translated *'farm" by

285

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

tion to the scene in this same play in which the princess
is represented as trying to learn English from her maid-
of -honor. He could not mar it by translation, for it was
almost entirely in French. Still, for the benefit of his
countrymen he was careful to select from it a peculiarly
obscene allusion which, as being in a foreign tongue, the
ordinary Englishman would never have understood. He
dwelt upon it with unmistakable pleasure. ^^ All this,"
he added, '^has been played for a long time upon the
London stage in the presence of the court." This state-
ment was a fabrication of his own. He himself had
never seen ' Henry V.' played, nor at that period indeed
had many Englishmen. It had been revived for the first
time since the Restoration several years after Voltaire
had left England. In addition, this last scene upon
which he commented — utterly unnecessary to the con-
duct of the piece — had very certainly never been played
since the Elizabethan age.

It must not be inferred that the essay on * Dramatic
Art' consisted entirely of attack. Voltaire was alto-
gether too crafty to resort to a method of criticism which
would have detracted from that attitude of impartiality
which he affected to maintain. He devoted a few para-
graphs to saying something in the way of approval. Yet
if his method of censure was objectionable, his praise
was much more so. Never in his later years did Voltaire
display his venom towards Shakespeare more manifestly

femme. Tbe king is further represented as saying that he knew no ways
"to mince it in love/' — that is, to speak primly and affectedly. Vol-
taire must have supposed that the king had in Tiew some cnlinary opera-
tion, for he rendered " mince " by hacker menu.

286

TWO NEW ENGLISH ADVERSARIES

than when he pretended to appear in the rdle of his
advocate. Even when his observations are apparently
truthful, they exhibit that unveracious veracity which
produces the effect of a lie. In this particular instance
he magnanimously set out to defend him against a
hostile opinion which either had no existence at all, or
owed to his own efforts whatever existence it had.
" The Italians, the French," he wrote, " the men of let-
ters of every country who have not dwelt some time in
England, take him only for a Gille of the fair, for a
farceur very much below Harlequin, for the most con-
temptible buffoon who has ever amused the populace."
With a fine sense of fair play he assured his readers that
this opinion was a mistake. In spite of the extraordi-
nary stuff with which he had just been regaling them,
Shakespeare was really a genius. To demonstrate it, he
quoted three short passages from ^ Julius Caesar,' or as he
called it, ' The Death of Csesar/ Nor would he omit,
he said, the beautiful monologue of Hamlet which was
in everybody's mouth. So once more appeared that ex-
traordinary version of it which had been first published
in the * Philosophical Letters.' Now it was no longer
spoken of as having been translated. It had been imitated
in French, Voltaire asserted, with that circumspection
which is demanded by the language of a people scrupu-
lous to excess in matters of decorum. The necessary
inference was that an exact rendering of it would have
offended their susceptibilities. To all this followed what
he regarded as a concession to English prejudices which
justified him in entertaining the highest admiration for
his own fairness and candor. Shakespeare would have

287

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

been a perfect poet, had he only lived in the time of
Addison.

Boswell tells us that he ui^ged Johnson to reply to
this attack. Voltaire, he justly thought, was an an-
tagonist with whom he should not disdain to contend.
Johnson said that he perhaps might; but he never
did. His constitutional indolence was pretty certain to
prevail over any inclination he may have felt. Besides,
he could not fail to see, as did Walpole, that his views
would hardly influence any but his own countrymen;
and every day they stood less and less in need of being
convinced of their truthfulness. In France the only
ones who could successf uUy combat Voltaire on the mat-
ters in dispute were Frenchmen themselves; and they
had already done this sufficiently to give him percep-
tible uneasiness. But the task which. Johnson refused
was taken up by another ; taken up perhaps before he
had refused it. In the latter part of April, 1769, appeared
anonymously a work entitled ^ An Essay on the Writings
and Genius of Shakespeare, compared with the Greek
and French dramatic poets, with some remarks upon the
misrepresentations of Mons. de Voltaire.*

The writer of this work was the noted head of the
blue-stocking world, Mrs. Elizabeth Montsgu. In under-
taking it she was animated by no special hostility to
Voltaire personally. She had indeed for him that reluc-
tant admiration which religious souls of a highly intel-
lectual cast could not then keep from exhilnting for the
most brilliant man of letters of lus time. She enter-
tained the regulation horror of lus impiety, but she was
also impressed by his wit, even when it was most

288

TWO NEW ENGLISH ADVERSARIES

wicked, as in Candide ; and in her secret heart it would
perhaps have been dijB&cult for her to tell which of the
two qualities attracted her the most. But like the rest
of the English race she was more irritated by his attacks
on the greatness of Shakespeare than she was by those
on the credibility of the Bible. This found at times
peculiarly energetic expression. In 1755 Voltaire's
Orphelin de la Chine had been published. She wrote to
her sister that she had read it without caring for it.
" When I compare this indifference/* she said, *' with the
interest, the admiration, the surprise with which I read
what the saucy Frenchman calls Usfarees monstreuses of
Shakespeare, I could bum him and his tragedy. . . .
Oh 1 that we were as sure our fleets and armies could
drive the French out of America as that our poets and
tragedians can drive them out of Parnassus. I hate to
see these tame creatures, taught to pace by art, attack
fancy's sweetest child." ^

Mrs. Montagu unquestionably thought that she ad-
mired Shakespeare. She did so after a fashion ; but it
was the inept fashion of the earlier half of the eigh-
teenth century, which her advancing and more advanced
contemporaries were outgrowing. ^^Had Shakespeare
lived in Sophocles' age and country," she wrote in 1760,
^^ what a writer had he been ! what powers had he by
nature, and alas I what deficiencies in art! "^ It was
with a faith of this sort that she set out to champion
the cause of fancy's sweetest child, and incidenteJly dis-
lodge his French rivals from their habitations on Par-

1 Letters of Mrs. Montaga, vol. iv. p. 7 ; letter of Nov. 18, 1755.
^ Ibid. Tol. iT. p. 301 ; letter of Sept. 10.
19 289

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

nassus. Thei« was nothing in the contents of the book
she published to indicate that it was the work of a
woman. Indeed there was a good deal to give the
impression that its author was a man. But the secret
was not long kept. Manifestly indeed to a pretty large
circle it was only officially a secret. In December
Mrs. Montagu wrote to a friend in her large style that
the authorship having been whispered about, the news
had circulated with incredible swiftness. If there had
been any doubt about the success of the work, this dis-
closure would have removed it at once. The first edition
of one thousand copies was soon after exhausted. As
such books go, this must be deemed a laige sale. A
second edition appeared in May, 1770, another in 1772,
and a fourth in 1776. Others followed later. It was
reprinted in Dublin, then the chosen home of the book
pirate. As early as 1771 it was translated into Grerman
by Eschenburg, who a few years later was to bring out
a complete version of Shakespeare's plays. The number
of editions, and the way the work was spoken of by men
of great and of little ability, furnish an interesting illus-
tration of how much social position and reputation can
do to advance the fortunes of a book — especiaUy when
a general but superficial acquaintance exists with the
subject, coupled with an ignorance of it really profound.
How little value such a work may have in itself, it has
exceeding value in the histoiy of criticism.

In the periodical press of the time the ^ Essay ' was
spoken of in all cases favorably, and in some cases with
unbounded applause. Indeed it is haid» or rather im-
possible, to believe that the secret of its authorship had

290

TWO NEW ENGLISH ADVERSARIES

been kept from the writers in these publications ; for i^
certain instances they reviewed it with an enthusiasm
of praise which had never been bestowed by them upon
the dramatist whose cause it professed to champion.
Its author was described as the only essayist, almost the
only critic, who had yet appeared worthy of Shake-
speare. If the partisans of Voltaire, said one of them,
^' have one grain of modesty or candor, the controversy,
if so unequal a conflict can be so called, is now at an
end." ^ " The age," said the writer further, " has
scarcely produced a more fair, judicious, and classical
performance of its kind than this essay." Part of the
&vor with which the book was received was due to its
flattery of English self-love. It had charged presump-
tion upon the man who had ventured to impute bar-
barism and ignorance to a country which understood
Sophocles and Euripides as well as any in Europe.
This statement was about the only one to which the critic
just cited took exception. The author should have said
it was a country that understood these tragic writers,
not as well as, but better than any other.

But it must not be imagined that it was merely
anonymous or long-forgotten writers in long-forgotten
reviews who indulged in this enthusiastic language.
From all quartei'S, both at the time and afterward, came
praise. An early admirer was George Grenville, a man
of special interest to Americans as the originator of
the Stamp Act. Within less than a month after the
publication of the work he wrote to Lord Lyttelton
from his home at Wotton that they were reading the

1 Critical Review, May, 1769, toL xxvii. pp. 350 ff.

291

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

* Essay * over and over by their fireside, in order to form
the taste of their young people.^ We know that Sir
Joshua Reynolds had the highest opinion of the treatise.
Warton, in his * History of English Poetiy /spoke of it as
** the most elegant and judicious piece of criticism which
the present age has produced."' By Harris, in his
account of modern critics contained in his ^ Philological
Enquiries/ the authoress is designated as '^ the ornament
of her sex, the critic and patroness of our illustrious
Shakespeare." ^ Potter, in his translation of ^schylus,
paid profuse compliments to several living writers, but
to none more than " the elegant female author of the
^ Essay on the Genius and Writings of Shakespeare.' "
Davies, in his *Life of Garrick,' thought that the
various powers of the great dramatist had been as
faithfully, warmly, and even critically described by that
actor in his jubilee-ode as had been done, he was almost
inclined to say, '^ by the excellent pen of the learned
and judicious Mrs. Montagu." ^ The force of panegyric,
it was felt, could no further go* A few years later he
returned to the subject in his * Dramatic MisceUanies '
in the course of some comments he was making upon
Voltaire's mistakes in his account of ^ Hamlet' ^ Mrs.
Montagu," he there wrote, ^has by an incomparable
defence of our author, defeated the weak attempts of
this envious but brilliant Frenchman to Uast the laurels
of our great poet" *

Equal enthusiasm was felt and expressed for the

1 Qrenrille Correspondence, vol. it. p. 4S4.

' Note in toI. i. (1774), Diasertmtion i, end of g 2.

* Book i. chap. 4. * Vol ii. p. 225 (ed. of 1806).

« Vol. iiL p. 103 (1784-85).

292

TWO NEW ENGLISH ADVERSARIES

* Essay * by members of her own sex. All petty female
jealousy fled abashed before this wonderful display of
critical sagacity. The tuneful virgins of the time had
long been in the habit of celebrating the writer as the
ornament of the social and literary world. They came
forward now to chant her praises again. The spirit
which animated them all can be seen, for example, in
Hannah More, who had not yet assumed her brevet
title of Mrs. In the epilogue to her pastoral drama of

* The Search for Happiness ' ^ she commemorated her
sister-authoress in these words:

*< When all-accomplished Montagu can spread
Fresh-gathered laurels round her Shakespeare's head."

Tributes like this could be multiplied almost endlessly.
As an illustration of a very general feeling, take the
way the work was referred to by one of Grarrick's
female correspondents in a letter written to him from
Dijon. She gave expression in it to a very genuine
admiration for Voltaire. But one reason of her fondness
for him would have been little to his satisfaction, had
he known of it. " I own," she wrote, " I think we are
all under a peculiar obligation to him, for had he not
gone beyond his depth, and injudiciously criticised
our immortal Shakespeare, our language would never
have been enriched by its masterpiece. I mean Mra.
Montagu's * Essay,' which does honor to our country
and much more to our sex.*'*

All this is somewhat trying to the modem man who

1 Pablished in July, 1773.

^ Letter of Mrs. Pye, dated May 16, 1774, 'Garrick Correspondeuce/
Tol. i. p. 628.

298

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

desires to believe that any criticism is worth anjrthing.
Yet there is a worst behind. Extravagant as is the
laudation which has already been recounted, it was
surpassed by the words of one much greater as a man
of letters than any of those so far mentioned. Cowper
had not yet sunk into insanity ; but he certainly gave
alarming indication of the aberration of judgment ac-
companying it in a letter he wrote to Lady Hesketh in
1788. "I no longer wonder," he said, ^^that Mrs.
Montagu stands at the head of all that is learned, and
that every critic veils his bonnet to her superior judg-
ment. I am now reading and have reached the middle
of her * Essay on the Genius of Shakespeare,' a book
of which, strange as it may seem, though I must have
read formerly, I had absolutely forgot the existence."
This loss of memory will not seem so strange to us as it
did to Cowper. The work is one which, unless cir-
cumstances call attention to it, is of a kind very easy to
forget. But it did not so strike the poet. ^ The learn-
ing," he continued, '^ the good sense, the sound judg-
ment, and the wit displayed in it justify not only my
compliment, but all compliments that have either already
been paid to her talents, or shall be paid hereafter.
Voltaire, I doubt not, rejoiced that his antagonist wrote
in English, and that his countrymen could not possibly
be judges of the dispute. Could they have known how
much she was in the right, and by how many thousand
miles the bard of Avon is superior to all their drama-
tists, the French critic would have lost half his fame
among them." It was somewhat unfortunate, in view
of this last remark, that Mrs. Montagu's work had been

294

TWO NEW ENGLISH ADVERSARIES

translated while Voltaire was still living, and the faith
of his admirers had not been perceptibly shaken in
consequence.

Of all the prominent men of letters of the time Dr.
Johnson was perhaps the only one who avowed dissent
from the high estimate taken of the work. His un-
favorable opinion was genuine, because it was given
before he knew who was its author ; it was unprejudiced
because in it he himself had been complimented. He
expressed surprise to Boswell that Reynolds should be
fond of the book. " Neither I, nor Beauclerk, nor Mrs.
Thrale could get through it,** he added. When this
disparaging remark was published in the ^ Journal of a
Tour to the Hebrides/ Mrs. Thrale, now become Mrs.
Piozzi, tried to wriggle out of having shared in this feel-
ing. It was in vain. Boswell, who was possessed by
the devil of accuracy, shut off every loophole of escape.^
The biographer further reports that Johnson growled
out the following amiable criticism in reply to a remark
of Reynolds that the ' Essay ' did Mrs. Montagu honor.
" Yes, sir," he said ; " it does her honor, but it would do
nobody else honor." He then went on to declare that
there was not one sentence of true criticism in the book.
These were unquestionably his honest sentiments. Yet
in the additions which he made to his life of Young he
expressed himself as being indebted for some of them to
^ Mrs. Montagu, the famous champion of Shakespeare."
In truth her name 6ame so generally to be associated
with that of the great dramatist that the mention of

1 See in ' Gentleman's Magazine ' for 1786, vol. zIt!. p. 285, Boeweirs
letter of April 17.

295

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

the one was apt to bring up the mention of the other.
Walpole admired her none too much ; yet in his letters
she was dubbed half-humorously, half-contemptuouslj,
Mrs. Montagu of Shakespearshire.

Modem criticism is very far from sharing in the en-
thusiasm which this work created on its first appear-
ance. It is never celebrated now in the exaggerated
style once regularly employed. It is moderate approval
only which is given it in these days, even by those who
preserve themselves from any prejudice against it by re-
fraining from its perusal. In fact, so far from being
spoken of with praise, it is much oftener mentioned
with contempt. It must be said that there is a great
deal more to justify the later opinion than the earlier.
To the reader of it at the present day — he is a some-
what solitary character — it is in many respects one of
the most exasperating of books. Mrs. Montagu was as
little fitted by her knowledge to defend Shakespeare as
Voltaire was by his to attack him. As much as he, she
was under the sway of the pedantic rules and prejudices
she affected to despise and occasionally pretended to
condemn. All the ignorance about the subject she
treated, which had been accumulated and handed down
by successive generations of critics, was faithfully re-
produced in her pages. In them appeared in its most
offensive form that apologetic tone of the eighteenth
century which represented Shakespeare as abounding in
faults due to his poverty, to the low condition of the
stage, and the necessity he lay under of consulting the
barbarous taste of the time in which he flourished. She
had been saved as by fire from censuring him for his

296

TWO NEW ENGLISH ADVERSARIES

neglect of the unities ; for she conceded that Dr. John^
son in his ingenious preface had greatly obviated all that
could be objected to him on that score.

But in other respects she was faithful to the criticism
of the past, puerile where it was not ignorant. She
spoke of Shakespeare as rude and illiterate.^ She con-
ceded the nonsense, the indecorums, the in^egularities of
his plays. He had not been tutored by any rules of art
or informed by acquaintance with just and regular
dramas.^ He was in truth so little under the discipline
of art that we are apt to ascribe his happiest successes as
well as his most unfortunate failings to chance.' These
are some of her general criticisms; her specific ones
display the same marvellous insight. By following mi-
nutely the chronicles of the time he had embarrassed his
drama with too great a number of persons and events.^
She found the speech of Brutus to the people, in *' Julius
CaDsar,' quaint and affected.^ She exhibited her utter
incapacity to comprehend the rhetorical skill of Antony
by declaring that the repetition of the epithet " honor-
able" in his speech was perhaps too frequent.* The
character of Pistol in the second part of Henry IV. was
too much for her to understand.^ Following previous
critics she found many bombast speeches in the tragedy
of ^ Macbeth.' ^ Like her predecessors she unfortunately
forgot to particularize them; lapse of time has now
made it difficult to discover them.

So much for her critical acumen. In the communi-

1 Essay, etc. (1769) p. 115. a Ibid. p. 71. « Ibid. p. 100.

* Ibid. p. 71. * Ibid. p. 273. « Ibid. p. 128.

7 Ibid. p. 186.

297

SHAKESPEARE AAD VOLTAIRE

cation of erroneous information this defender of Shake-
speare proved herself no unworthy rival of his assailant
We are told that the age in which he lived was rude and
void of taste ; ^ that he wrote at a time when learning
was tinctured with pedantry, when wit was unpolished
and mirth was ill-bred ; ^ that in the court of Elizabeth
a scientific jargon was spoken ; that a certain obscurity
of style was universally affected ; ' that all the writers
of the time were disposed to indulge, not merely in ob-
scurity, but in obscure bombast.^ The scientific jargon
here mentioned seems to have been the particular dis-
covery of Mrs. Montagu herself. In another place she
tells us that it not only pervaded the court, but the uni-
versities ; that statesmen and scholars employed it, and
necessarily tliis had a pernicious influence upon Shake-
speare's style.^ What makes this pernicious influence
hard to comprehend is the further information vouch-
safed that the theatre was not then frequented by per-
sons of rank. The plays Shakespeare wrote were acted,
we are informed, in paltry taverns, to unlettered audi-
ences just emerging from barbarity.*

This Elizabethan audience, to whose wretched taste
Shakespeare too often catered, met with but little mercy
at Mrs. Montagu's hands. In one place it was described
as rude and illiterate,^ in another as fierce and barbarous.'
It was its members who preferred to speeches the hurly-
burly of action, it was they who were most pleased when
the playwright, to use her ornate language, ^ raised the

> KaB»y» p. SS6. * Ibid p. 10. ' Ihid. p. 10.

« IbidV 1^^- * ^i<l P* 2^ * ^^^ P" 71

^ Ibid, p, 7h » Wd. p. 15a

298

TWO NEW ENGLISH ADVERSARIES

bloody ghost and reared tiie warlike standard." It was
they who delighted in sanguinary skirmishes upon the
stage, which she could wish had always been hissed.^
Correct taste too was naturally offended by the transi-
tion from grave and important to light and ludicrous
subjects, and still more with that from great and illus-
trious to low and mean persons.* For all these offences
against art, that dreadful audience was responsible. It
compelled the author to consult their barbarous prefer-
ences and tastes. One naturally wonders who it could
have been that was responsible for the production of
those magnificent passages of which she in other parts
of her * Essay ' boasted.

Mrs. Montagu's general conclusion about Shakespeare
was that " he wrote to please an untaught people, guided
wholly by their feelings, and to those feelings he applied,
and they are often touched by circumstances that have
not dignity and splendor enough to please the eye accus-
tomed to the specious miracles of ostentatious art and
the nice selections of refined judgment." ' In the words
just quoted we have the summary of her opinions con-
veyed in elegant language befitting their value. Her book
abounded in the finest of fine writing. It was pervaded
throughout by a faint reflection of Johnson's orotund
phrase, but unfortunately without Johnson's weight of
thought. In this grandiloquent style was also conveyed
an easy erudition which ranged at will over the literatures
of all ages and climes. There was no subject about which
she did not have definite views ; none which she considered
herself incompetent to discuss. She could not read the

1 Essa/, pp. 74-75. ^ Ibid. p. 101. « Ibid. p. 276.

299

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

Greek tragedians in the original; she could not haTe
spoken more confidently about them had she known
them by heart. In certain particulars Voltaire and she
were well mated Vast as was the disproportion between
their intellects, there was one common ground upon
which they met. Neither ever shrank from cultivating
the fertile fields of human gullibility by the exhibition
of any hesitancy in pretending to a knowledge they did
not possess.

300

CHAPTER XV

ATTACK AND DEFENCE IN ENGLAND

The statements cited in the last chapter from Mrs*
Montagu's * Essay 'are sufficient to show the modern
reader that she had ignorantly sacrificed the cause she had
professed to advocate* She had vehemently proclaimed
Shakespeare's superiority; she had conceded nearly
everything which had been brought forward to establish
his inferiority. How came it, then, that this utterly in-
adequate work met with so enthusiastic a welcome?
How came it tliat she, with knowledge and powers hardly
more respectable than those of a highly intelligent school-
girl, should have been celebrated almost everywhere as a
great critic ? Of the fact itself as regards both particu-
lars, there can be no question. Feeble and pretentious
as was the ' Essay,' it was hailed on nearly all sides as a
triumphant vindication of the dramatist. Obviously
such success could not be entirely due to the social posi-
tion of the authoress, powerful as that factor was in
securing it. There must have been other agencies at
work. It becomes accordingly of some interest in the
history of Shakespearean criticism to trace what were the
causes, outside of this specific one, which contributed to
bring about a result which strikes us now as so exceed-
ingly singular.

301

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

One reason lies upon the surface. Mrs. Montagu had
neither the knowledge nor the judgment to see not
merely how inadequate, but actually prejudicial to her
own side was the defence she had set up. But fortu-
nately for her, the age was generally in the same situa*
tion as herself. There had been a great advance during
the century in the rectification of the text of Shake-
speare, and in the explanation of obscure words and
phrases. There had been an even greater advance in the
appreciation, or rather in ihe extension of the apprecia-
tion of his powers. But there had been but little cor-
responding advance in the scientific criticism of the skill
he had shown in his vocation. The success of Mrs.
Montstgu*s work was due largely at ihe time to the very
things which we now regard as its defects. It was
assisted by the general ignorance, which then prevailed,
of Shakespeare not as a poet, but as a dramatic artist.
Johnson's powerful voice was making itself heard in com-
bating some of these delusions ; but it had by no means
overcome them. Lessing's far more triumphant vindica-
tion of the practices of the poet had only just appeared
in Germany and was scarcely known at all in Great
Britain. Consequently the views to which Mrs. Mon-
tagu gave expression were largely in harmony with those
generally held in theory. They had come down from
the past with little contradiction ; they had apparently
been strengthened, even in England, by the powerful in-
fluence of Voltaire ; and though they were about to give
up the ghost, they never seemed destined to a longer life
than just before they died. As a result, her concession
of the deficiencies of her author was simply regarded as

302

ATTACK AND DEFENCE IN ENGLAND

an evidence of her candor and impartiality. It is these
characteristics which to a certain extent kept alive her
work later on the Continent, long after it had been nearly
forgotten in the country of its birth. As late as 1828 it
was translated into Italian, and at that time and later it
was spoken of favorably by Continental critics-

In one way in particular it appealed directly to the
age in which it was published. One of the articles of
faith to which the eighteenth century clung was its su-
periority to the age of Elizabeth. Its learning was incal-
culably greater, its language was more polished, its taste
was more refined. It strikes the modem reader with
constant amusement to find pigmy playwrights who then
wrote for the theatre, and critics who discussed what
these wrote, designating the latter part of the sixteenth
century as rude and barbarous, and talking patronizingly
of their superiority to a generation which had produced
Raleigh and Sidney and Spenser and Bacon ; and con-
trasting to their advantage the art displayed in their own
productions with that exhibited in those of that body of
dramatists, with Shakespeare at their head, whom Dry-
den, looking across the chasm of the civil war, had styled
the giant-race before the flood. Yet the belief existed
then in full force. There was not the slightest suspi-
cion that the whole question of the unities had been
threshed out in the Elizabethan age as completely as in
the Georgian. There were then some few who knew it
or suspected it; the vast majority were as ignorant of
the fact as was Voltaire himself or any Frenchman of the
time. All Mrs. Montagu's absurd utterances about the
early stage, and the character of the early audiences, were

303

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

consequently accepted as exact statements of fact. The
terrible state of things then existing was additional evi-
dence of the greatness of Shakespeare. He had tri-
umphed without art ; it was because he was superior to
art. He pi-oduced effects which the most rigid observ-
ance of the rules could not approach even remotely.
This led no one, as might have been supposed, to the
natural inference that there must be something wrong
with the rules. On the contrary, with the abstract
correctness of these, few as yet ventured to find fault.
The contention was that by the special privilege of
genius Shakespeare had been exempted from their
operation.

There were still other causes that contributed to the
success of the work. Among these must be reckoned
the personal hostility which Voltaire's attacks upon
Shakespeare had aroused in England, and the consequent
disposition to approve anything which controverted his
opinions or affected to treat them with disrespect. One
fact there is which is suggestive as to the attitude of the
English at this time. For several years after Voltaire's
return from exile his plays had been invariably adapted
for the London stage very shortly after they had been pro-
duced upon that of Paris. BrutuBy Zdire^ Alzire^ Mahomet
had followed one another in succession. Of Zaire there
had been two different translations, though only one had
been acted. Even La Mart de Ctsar had been used as the
foundation of a tragedy, whose fortunes were no better
than those of its original. In truth English playwrights
were disposed at that time to lay hands upon anything
and everything Voltaire wrote for the theatre, without

304

ATTACK AND DEFENCE IN ENGLAND

regard to the way it was received in the land of its birth.
The first turn of the tide came with the publication in
1744 of the preface to M^rope. The great success of
that play upon the French stage did not lead to any
speedy reproduction of it upon the English. It was
brought out several years after its appearance in France ;
it was printed, as we have seen, with a preface containing
an attack upon its author. After Mhrope Voltaire com-
posed during the rest of his life about thirty dramatic
pieces of all kinds. More than half of these were trage-
dies. But of these thirty only a beggarly number were
adapted for the London stage, and usually long after
they had been published or produced in France.

The sudden cessation of interest in Voltaire is sugges-
tive. The following list of his pieces fitted for repre-
sentation in England, with the date of their appearance,
will show the change of attitude which had been assumed
by the men of that country. The Orphelin de la Chine
of 1755 was adapted by Murphy and brought out in 1759.
The comedy of L^ JEcossaise^ belonging to 1760, was
translated by Colman, and in 1767 appeared on the Lon-
don boards under the title of ^ The English Merchant.'
The TancrMe of 1760 formed the model of the ' Almida '
of Madame Celesia, the daughter of Mallet. It was
brought out in 1771 by Garrick rather as a return for
favors done him while abroad than for any interest he
had in the piece itself. In the same year also Les Scythes
of 1767 was reproduced as ' Zobeide.' The adaptation
was the work of Joseph Cradock. In 1776 the Shmiramis
of 1748 was translated by Ayscough and brought out at
Drury Lane. To this summary may be added that the
20 805

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

versioii of Oreste which Dr. Francklin had made in his
translation of Voltaire's writings was in 1768 selected by
Mrs. Yates for her benefit at Covent Garden, and later,
in 1774, was played by her at Drury Lane. Further,
Murphy brought out in 1764 a prose piece entitied ^ No
One's Enemy but his Own,' which was taken from the
littie comedy in verse, called L^ Indiscrete written in 1724.
With the exception of ^ The English Merchant,' none of
these pieces had much success, none outlived their first
season. Two of them at least were distinct failures.

It was the state of feeling thus indicated which con-
tributed no small share in inducing England to welcome
Mrs. Montagu's book with acclamation. Even more
perhaps did the counter-attack contained in it add to its
popularity. Much of it was taken up with criticising
French plays for their intolerable tediousness, languor,
and lack of truthfulness of characterization. Their
beauties were trivial, their faults were essential. She
pointed out the defects of Comeille and Racine and in-
sisted as a mere matter of course upon the inferiority of
both to Shakespeare. Comparisons of this sort between
the great writers of different nationalities constitute the
most unprofitable branch of criticism. They are rarely
anything else than the expression of personal tastes and
prejudices, usually combined with ignorance of one of
the authors contrasted, and sometimes with ignorance of
both. The)'^ of course never convince one's opponents ;
in truth they rarely convince any one worth convincing.
The best they can do is to irritate. But tbey always
appeal to national prepossessions, and on this account
are sure to meet with a certain degree of favor. The

806

ATTACK AND DEFENCE IN ENGLAND

only excuse that can be pleaded for Mrs. Montagu's at-
tack upon the French tragedians is that the example had
been set her by Voltaire. Unfortunately, she imitated him
also in practices least worthy of imitation. Though one
of her chapters was devoted to Oinnaj several of her ani-
madversions weie directed against pieces of ComeUle
which his commentator himself had thought so poorly of
that he had refused to make them the subject of
annotation. Her conduct was almost as bad as that of
Abb^ Le Blanc, who, in order to give his countrymen a
conception of the taste of the English for scenes of
violence in theatrical representation and incidentally to
reveal to them the character of Shakespeare's plays, had
devoted a long letter to a detailed account of the plot
of * Titus Andronicus.' ^

The injustice of such criticism always destroys its
force with men not carried away by prejudice ; for the
greatness of a writer is not to be measured by his
poorest work, but by his best. Far more effective,
therefore, was Mrs. Montagu's direct attack upon her
opponent. She pleased herself and pleased her readers
by exposing mistakes which Voltaire had made in his
version of 'Julius Caesar.' She applied to him the
remark of Pope about the interpreters of Homer who
first misunderstand their author, and then triumph in
the awkwardness of their own translation. The censure
was well deserved. In this most faithful of versions it
was easy for her to point out error after error. She
condoled with Voltaire upon these mistakes. Why had

^ Lettres de Monsieur VAhb€ Le Blanc, tome iii. pp. 91-103 (ed. of
1751).

307

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

he not secured a better English dictionaiy ? she asked ;
for it was clear that it was on the dictionaiy that he
relied, and not upon his own knowledge Why had not
some friend prevented him from falling into these
blunders ? Many of his countrymen understood English
very well, and could easily have explained to him the
meaning of words and phrases he misunderstood and
misconstrued. The observations she made upon this
point are almost all unanswerable, though in one
instance she herself misinterpreted the passage she set
out to correct. But none of her critics, French or
English, knew enough to detect it. The remarks upon
Voltaire's errors of translation are the only portions of
her book now worth reading. Still, it is just to admit
that there are also in it some observations which can be
seen to be sensible, as soon as they are unrolled from
the swathing of fine language in which they are envel-
oped. It is also &ir to observe that, while Mrs. Mon-
tagu made many comments upon Shakespeare of the
same character as Voltaire himself, she did not lay upon
them the stress he had done. Nor were they made
prominent, as they have been in the pages of the pre-
ceding chapter, by being brought together. On the
contrary, these absurd criticisms were scattered through
the book, and upon most readers made but littie im-
pression, from the fact of being dwarfed in importance
by the praise everywhere heaped upon the poet.

Successful as was the work in England, it did not
attract the attention of Voltaire at the time. He per-
haps knew nothing of it until a good while later, when
it was translated into French, as a consequence of the

308

ATTACK AND DEFENCE IN ENGLAND

controversy about Shakespeare which he himself had
set in motion. But his side was not without a defender
even in the land of his critic. It was only a few years
after the publication of Mrs. Montagu's work that a
vsrriter in the most widely circulated English periodical
of the century was able to announce that the distin-
guished female champion of Shakespeare had found an
antagonist well worthy of her notice, and if possible of
her correction.^ This was a man little known then, and
so much less since that the work he produced has not
unfrequently been attributed to some one else. His
name was Edward Taylor. The son of a dignitary in
the English church, after his education at Eton and
Cambridge he had gone to Germany to pursue the study
of the civil law. He remained on the Continent several
years. He was there at the time when French ideas
about the stage were not merely prevalent but prevail-
ing. The influence of Voltaire was at its highest. In
the visits he paid to various parts of Europe Taylor
found all men of substantially the same way of thinking.
He came back to England somewhere about 1770, and
spent the rest of his life in retirement. He came back
with the fullest belief in the views about Shakespeare
and the stage which the large majority of his country-
men were now disposed to question, and many had
begun to abandon. Naturally the heterodox opinions
expressed filled him with pain where they did not with
disgust. The attack by Dr. Johnson upon the unities,
in his celebrated preface, excited his indignation. The
remarks of Mrs. Montagu about Comeille and Racine

1 Gentleman's Magazine, February, 1775, rol. xlv. p. 90.

309

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

he regarded as unfair. These feelings led him to burst
forth from his retirement in a reply to both. His ti'eatise
was entitled ^ Cursory Remarks on Tragedy, on Shake-
speare, and on certain French and Italian Poets, princi-
pally Tragedians.' It appeared in July, 1774*

The work is written from a position with which we
in modem times have grown to be reasonably familiar.
It is that of the cosmopolitan who rises so superior to the
prejudices of birth and nationality that he prefers the
productions or institutions of any other country or race
to those of his own. So well acquainted have we
become with this class of persons that their mental
processes, or what they call such, have ceased in conse-
quence either to irritate or to interest. They now
serve little other purpose than to impose upon us an
additional tribute of that tediousness which the goddess
of ennui exacts as a compensatory due for the increase
of knowledge and the advance of civilization. Such
men, however, have always existed, and will always
continue to exist. Shakespeare, whose all-embracing
eye missed nothing, recognized them in the so-called
Italianated travellers of his time. He characterized them
duly. " Farewell, monsieur traveller," says Rosalind to
Jaques. ^ Look you disable all the benefits of your own
country, be out of love with your nativity, and almost
chide God for making you that countenance you are, or
I will scarce think you have swam in a gondola."

Of the class of works produced by minds of this calibre
and character, Taylor's treatise was an excellent example.
He accepted Voltaire's estimate of Shakespeare with-
out reservation. The tone throughout his volume is

310

ATTACK AND DEFENCE IN ENGLAND

the condescending tone of him who recognizes that his
freedom from national prepossessions and his familiarity
with foreign literatures have lifted his judgment far above
that of the herd. From the eminence he had attained he
could survey everything with that fine impartiality which
it was not in the power of those to exhibit who lacked his
privileges of observation. He was glad indeed to enter-
tain a high opinion of Shakespeare in certain ways. But
he must not be asked, he told us, to consider the grotesque
and misshapen pieces this writer had produced as speci-
mens of great dramatic art. No record exists to indicate
that any such question had ever been asked him. He un-
questionably recognized, however, that it would be a mis-
fortune for his countrymen, if silence on his part should
deprive them of the benefit to be derived from his obser-
vations and reflections ; if in consequence of his failure
to enlighten them, they should continue to go wrong in
their estimate of their greatest dramatist, when they could
so easily be set right. Therefore he laid clearly before
them his exact position. He conceded that in the ca-
pacity of characterization Shakespeare was unsurpassed.
As*a poet pure and simple he rose above all ; it was only
as a tragic poet that he had failed.

The interest of this book, so far as it has any interest
now, is due to its being about the last expression of what
in the earlier part of the century had been a very
prevalent critical view. There is nothing in the work
which is* original. The attitude is the old attitude; the
examples are the old examples ; the beliefs are the old
beliefs. Not to Voltaire himself were the unities of
time and place dearer. The introduction consisted of a

811

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

fierce attack upon " a certain critic " for the views he
had expressed in regard to these rules. This critic was
Dr. Johnson. Taylor's argument in behalf of their
rightfulness was the one which came to be regularly
employed after the preface to Shakespeare had been
published ; it seems never to have been made prominent
before, if indeed brought forward at all. It was not so
much the impossibility of the change of scene which
was henceforth insisted upon, as its impropriety. The
spectator's feelings were supposed to be lacerated and his
life made temporarily miserable by being asked to
imagine himself in one place at the beginning of a
drama, and in a subsequent scene to be transported to a
spot scores and even hundreds of miles away. The
possibility of the existence of such feelings it has been
perhaps rash to question. Examples of like states of
mind can be observed in other fields of literary contro-
versy. Instances exist in the history of criticism where
some men have been rendered unhappy because blank
verse has been used in poetry instead of ryme. Others
have been similarly afflicted because ryme has been
used instead of blank verse. There is little limit to
man's capability of making himself miserable ; and if one
gives himself up with his whole heart to the task of
becoming wretched because certain practices are not
observed — be it of the unities or of anything else — he
can feel a reasonable confidence that his efforts, if long
enough continued, will be rewarded with success.

But if there was nothing new in Taylor's reasoning,
he made up for its lack of novelty by vehemence of
assertion. In the conclusion of his introduction he pro-

812

ATTACK AND DEFENCE IN ENGLAND

fessed himself ashamed to argue any longer in defence
of a doctrine which was not only supported by authorities
of greatest weight and consequence, but was in itself
consistent with reason and good sense. Having thus
disposed of Dr. Johnson in the introductory matter, he
turned his attention to the * £s8ay * of Mrs. Montagu —
especially to that portion of it which was taken up with
comments on Corneille and Racine. These writings he
defended from her criticisms, though he never once
mentioned her name or indicated her sex. He contro-
verted in particular the view which ranked Shakespeare
superior to these two tragedians. To both he was
distinctly inferior as a dramatic artist. On his exact
merits he was able to pronounce a definite opinion.
^ With an impartiality,'' he said, *^ that becomes every
man who dares to think for himself, let us allow Him
great merit as a comic vmter, greater still as a poet, but
little, very little, as a tragedian." But though in this
last particular Taylor celebrated the superiority of both
Corneille and Racine, he reserved his highest praise for
Voltaire. He it was who had brought the French
drama to the utmost degree of perfection to which it
was capable of being raised. Inferentially he was a
much greater dramatist than Shakespeare. Taylor did
not assert this ; but it follows legitimately from what he
said. The French author seems never to have known
the height to which he had been exalted by his English
admirer. This work apparently failed to fall under his
eye. It was unfortunate for him, unfortunate for its
author ; for the admiration expressed, unlike Walpole's,
was genuine and sincere ; and whatever opinion we may

813

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

entertain of its intelligence, it would have been reckoned
by Voltaire as displaying peculiarly fine critical judgment.
This treatise was spoken of very respectfully in the
periodical press, wherever it was criticised at all. But
it excited attention nowhere else. Dr. Johnson took not
the least notice of the attack made upon himself. It is
possible that he never heard of its existence ; it is
certain that Boswell makes to it no reference. One of
the reviewers asserted that as against Johnson the
author had the advantage; but, there was added,
^^against the literary Amazon he gains no ground.**^
The literary Amazon preserved the same silence as the
lexicog^pher. To the modem reader indeed there is
something entertaining in Mrs. Montagu on the one
hand, appearing as the champion of Shakespeare and
the critic of Comeille ; and on the other, Taylor as the
champion of Comeille and the expounder of Shake-
speare's inferiority as a dramatic artist. Yet there was
more propriety about it than shows on the surface.
The two champions were very well-matched. Both
made use of the very amplest of vocabularies. As, with
unconscious irony, a reviewer said of one of them, both
expressed themselves ** in a genteel style of language.**
Of their eloquence, their taste, and their erudition critics
spoke in glowing terms and with equal justice. Both
could talk learnedly in regard to matters they knew little
about; and the arguments of both, when subjected to
strict scmtiny, hardly amount to much more than the
assertion of personal opinion.

1 Monthly Uoview, vol. !i. p. 281, October, 1774.

CHAPTER XVI

PESSIHIBTIG VIEWS OF YOLTAIBB

It was not the unwillingness of the English to accept
his estimate of their greatest dramatist which disturbed
Voltaire. From the middle of the century, if not
earlier, he had abandoned all hope of seeing them con-
verted from the error of their ways. In the failure to
say anything about Shakespeare during the sixth decade,
there had been no affectation on his part. He had
taught the Continent all that it was really necessary to
know about the English dramatist He had pointed out
precisely his merits and defects. His duty had accord-
ingly been discharged, and he was willing at the time to
abide by the results. To him, therefore, the considera-
tion of Shakespeare had become a closed incident. The
subject had been adequately discussed ; the verdict had
been pronounced. There was no need of saying any-
thing more.

As he was something of a philanthropist as well as a
philosopher, the aberration of the English brought him,
to be sure, a certain regret. That a nation usually so
sensible should miss the right way, when it had been
so clearly pointed out to them by Addison, was indeed
something almost inexplicable. But he had learned to
recognize the hopelessness of efforts to rescue these
deluded fanatics from the slough into which they were

315

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

constantly plunging deeper. While his own disbelief in
Shakespeare was increasing, at least in virulence of
expression, if not in intensity of feeling, the belief of
Englishmen in their dramatist was, on the other hand,
even more distinctly increasing. Men with opinions
like those of Bolingbroke, Chesterfield, and Hume un-
doubtedly continued to exist. Traces of them can be
found not unfrequently in the periodicals of the time, and
they occasionally promulgated their opinions, as did Rich-
ardson and Blair, from their seats in the universities.
But Voltaire saw that such persons were not merely in
a minority, but in a minority constantly becoming
smaller. Even most of those who were willing to con-
cede that Shakespeare did not obey the laws, and was
therefore, strictly speaking, deficient in art, still insisted
upon the superiority of his genius ; still maintained, as
the merest matter of course, that in tragedy he tax
surpassed Comeille and Racine, and in comedy was the
equal of Molidre. But a party was now coming to the
front who denied that the defects imputed to him were
defects. They were beginning to express contempt for
the observances which in Voltaire's eyes constituted the
decorum, the elegance, the perfection of theatrical art
This was the harm which devotion to Shakespeare had
wrought. The English had become indissolubly wedded
to a barbarous taste. It was to be regretted; but it
could not be remedied. The French critic felt about
them as did the Hebrew prophet about Ephraim. They
were joined to their idols, and therefore to be let alone.

His feeUng of hopelessness about the countrymen of
Shakespeare had been manifested, as we have seen, by

816

PESSIMISTIC VIEWS OF VOLTAIRE

the middle of the centuiy ; ^ but as time went on it took
a deeper hold of his heaxt. Two yeaxs before his death
he had an interview with an English traveller, the Rev.
Martin Sherlock, whom readers of Carlyle's ^ Frederick
the Great ' will remember. Sherlock gave a pretty full
account of the conversation. He represented Voltaire
as saying some very shocking things about Moses. It
is needless to remark that a man who could talk in a
reckless way about the Hebrew lawgiver would not
exhibit much delicacy in discussing the English drama-
tist. In response to Sherlock's inquiry he expressed his
assent to Bolingbroke's assertion that the English had
not one good tragedy. The inevitable *Cato ' of Addison
was once more brought on the carpet. Still Voltaire
had never refused to concede that a power greater than
Addison possessed had definitely determined the future
of the English stage. '* Shakespeare," he said, " had a
wonderful genius, but no taste. He has spoiled the
taste of the nation. He has been their taste for two
hundred years, and what is the taste of a nation for two
hundred years will be so for two thousand. This taste
becomes a religion, and there are in your country many
fanatics in regard to that author." ^

One argument to prove the inferiority of Shakespeare
\ upon which Voltaire laid special stress was that, while
■ the works of the French tragedians were acted every-
where, the English dramatist had never been able to
I overleap the narrow bounds of nationality. It became
the bifrden of his cry that Shakespeare was known to

1 See page 137.

^ Letters from an Englbh Traveller (1780) ; letter xziii. p. 156.

317

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

the English only, and caxed for by them only. He
asserted it in his *• Appeal to the Nations,' written nearly
twenty years before his death. From that time onward
he enforced it again and again both in public cmd in
private. His words were repeated everywhere by his
disciples. On the failure of Shakespeare to interest
men of other races he expressed himself, for illustration,
in the following manner in a letter to Saurin written as
early as 1765. ^^ He was a savage," he said, *' who had
some imagination. He has written many happy lines ;
but his pieces can please only at London and in Canada.
It is not a good sign for the taste of a nation when that
which it admires meets with favor only at home." ^ It
was in this way that he continued to talk till the end
of his life. His last public utterances called special
attention to the differences in this respect between the
fortunes of the tragic writers of the two nations. In
his first letter to the French Academy in 1776 he
declared that England was opposed in her dramatic
belief and practice to the rest of Europe. **0n no
foreign theatre," he wrote, *^has any piece of Shake-
speare ever been represented." He took up the same
theme in his second letter which was prefixed to his
tragedy of Irhie. There he declared that the French
masterpieces were acted before all the courts of Europe
and in the Italian academies. ^' They are played," he
wrote, *^ from the borders of the Arctic sea to the sea
that separates Europe from Africa. Let the same honor
be done to a single piece of Shakespeare, and tlien we
shall be able to enter into an argument"

1 Letter of Dec. 4, 1766.
318

PESSIMISTIC VIEWS OF VOLTAIRE

Yet while he was uttering these words, tlie literary
leyolution was in full progress in Germany which was
to dethrone Comeille, Racine, and himself, and to raise
Shakespeare, not to one of these vacated thrones, but to
a throne above them all. He did not appear to heed
the violent reaction which was taking place in that
country against the dogmas of the French school of
criticism and the practices of the French stage. The
agitation which had been set in motion by Lessing had
been carried forward and deepened and broadened by
Herder. To Shakespeare the young and daring spirits
of the Storm and Stress school were paying their tribute
of unquestioning allegiance. He was exalted as the
supreme god of the theatrical world ; all other authors
had become inferior deities. At the very time indeed
that the French writer was proclaiming that not a
single play of the English dramatist had been produced
upon a foreign stage, the famous actor Schr^er was
bringing out with unexampled success on the boards of
the Hamburg theatre piece after piece of Shakespeare.
The great poet had already begun his conquering march.
Accordingly Voltaire's theory that the English drama
was the representative of bad taste, because it was op-
posed to the taste of other nations, was undergoing demo-
lition before his very eyes. He did not seem to see it.
Perhaps it was because the dangers nearer home which he
felt approaching absorbed his attention, or at any rate di-
verted his mind from contemplating those at a distance.

These dangers which threatened all which he held
most dear had been for a long time gathering. Symptoms
of revolt against the rigid rules of the French theatre

819

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

had been manifesting themselves with increasing force
since the middle of the century. It was in part due to
the general disposition then prevalent to throw off all
restraints of mere authority. It was likewise due to
the steadily increasing familiarity with the masterpieces
of foreign stages. In them was found a practice utterly
at variance with the theories of the classicists. Lope de
Vega, Calderon, and Shakespeare had all disregarded
the unities, had all intermingled comic scenes with
tragic in their writings. Acquaintance with their plays
had begun to affect the belief of men of letters. It was,
to be sure, only in the feeblest way that they ventured to
carry their belief into practice, even if they ventured
to do so at all. They acted as did the English revolters
of the eighteenth century against the doctrines of
classicism, or as Lessing in Germany, who had labo-
riously pointed out the inapplicability of these doctrines
to modem conditions. Like them they conformed to a
faith which they did not hold. But the scepticism was
there, and it constantly grew more defiant in its utter-
ance. As early as 1764 Voltaire had denounced in the
preface to his version of ^Julius Caesar' the revolt
which had been going on against the long-established
usages of the French stage. At that time he had com-
paratively littie fear of its extension. While he disliked,
he had not learned to dread. Of some things indeed
he was calmly confident. La Motte, he told us in his
^ Commentaries on Comeille,' had argued against the
observance of the unities. That heresy, he observed,
had not made any headway.^

^ Remargues attr Us diseours de Comeille.

320

PESSIMISTIC VIEWS OF VOLTAIRE

But as time passed on, he lost his sense of securit}^
The condition of things in France troubled him. Dur-
ing the last dozen years of his life his writings, espe-
cially his correspondence, are filled with the most
dolorous lamentations as to the future of literature.
Along with it was a fiery wrath against most of the
contemporary works that gained the favor of the public.
Not content with the time-honored epithets of Goth and
Gothic and Vandal to designate the writers and writings
he despised, he added the term AUobroge, taken from
the name of the tribe which had inhabited the region
where he had made his home. But the appellation he
came to favor particularly was that of Velches. After
using it in a treatise published in 1764, it appeared
pretty frequently in his writings whenever he wished to
express a pretty strong feeling of disgust Etjmaolog-
ically the word, like the English " Welsh," is a Teutonic
derivative from the Latin Oallus, With the Germans
it designated the inhabitants of France or Italy. As
used by Voltaire it referred to the descendants of the
barbarous Celtic tribes which inhabited ancient Gaul,
and was equivalent to Goth in the disparaging sense
that term had everywhere in the eighteenth century, or
to Philistine as that was employed in the nineteenth.
It is the enemies of light and learning and art who are
meant. Specifically Voltaire applied it to those who
liked in literature what he disliked. Those possessed
of true taste — that is, the same taste as his own — were
Frenchmen ; all others were Velches. During his later
life one infers from his writings that the latter must
have constituted a powerful body.
21 821

. SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

His correspondence during these years bears ample
witness to the feelings of dissatisfaction with which he
looked upon the literary situation in France. Eyery-
thing in his opinion was in a state of decadence. Pre-
cision, clearness, grace had for a long time gone out of
fashion. Almost eveiy one who wrote, whether in prose
or verse, wrote in a style allobroge and unintelligible.^
The great age had passed away and had given place to
the petty. The bizarre had succeeded to the natural.'
France was encountering the lot of all nations which
cultivated literature. Each had its one brilliant period
for ten periods in which the despicable and the vile
prevailed.' True as was the general decadence, it was
particularly true of the drama. Men had no longer
strength enough to write tragedy, or wit enough to write
comedy. Especially bad was the taste that reigned at
Paris. Nothing was so applauded there as pieces fit only
to be played at fairs. Voltaire made no effort to conceal
his contempt for the insipid plays produced at the capital,
the dull authors who wrote them, the spiritless actors who
performed them.^ Nothing was so much in favor as
comic opera ; but that was not going to regenerate the
stage. " We are to-day in the mire,*' he wrote in 1767,
" and the semi-quavers will not drag us out." •

It was, in fine, the age of the bizarre and the gigant-
esque. So he summed up the situation. The drama

1 Letter to Lft Harpe of Feb. 25, 1772.

3 Letter to M. de Chabanon, Dec. 7, 17G7, and to D'Argental, Sept.
26, 1770.

• Letter to D'Argental, Dec. 7, 1767.

« Letter to M. de. Thibonville, March 15, 1769.

* Letter to M. DamilayiUe of Sept. 4, 1767.

322

PESSIMISTIC VIEWS OF VOLTAIRE

had gone to pieces in its two great branches. Comedy
was as dead as the Roman empire itself.^ Nothing suc-
ceeded but the sentimental. It would be an imperti-
nence to make any one laugh.^ It was even worse in
tragedy. The crowning atrocity was ready to be perpe-
trated ; and there was eveiy indication that it would be
received with favor. *' I have been told of a tragedy in
prose," he wrote in 1770, " which it is said, will meet
with success. See there the finishing stroke given
to the fine arts." ^ This final blow of fate he saw no
prospect of averting. " We are to have it," he repeated
later of the prose tragedy. ^^The world is going to
end," he exclaimed ; " Antichrist has come." * This was
the constant burden of his complaint about the one art
in which he took the deepest interest. The theatre, he
wrote to Richelieu, was like everything else, going to
the devil.^ The enemies of taste were even more
powerful than those of reason. " Go on, my Velches,"
he said in the bitterness of his soul ; ^^ may God bless you I
You are the scum of the human race." ^ He was to die
soon, but the burden of his complaint was that the stage
would die before him.^ All he could comfort himself
with was the thought that the time would come when
the pieces now so much praised would sink into the
river of oblivion, while the great works of the age of
Louis XIV. would be found floating on its surface.

1 Letter of Not. 30, 1767, to M. de Chabanon.

s Letter of April 25, 1770, to LeKaiD.

> Letter of Sept. 26, 1770, to D'Argental.

« Letter of Sept. 5, 1772, to lyArgentaL

* Letter of Feb. 27, 1769.

^ Letter of Sept 2, 1767, to D* Ar|;c(^ntal.

f Letter of Ck;t. 16, 1767, to D'Argental.

323

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

The wannest admirers of Voltaire must concede that
in his latest years he abused the privilege of the aged to
praise the past at the expense of the present. The pes-
simistic views he took were largely due to the fact that
men were beginning to think differently from him who
had so long been the literary dictator of Europe. His
attitude towards literature is in consequence in striking
contrast with that which he maintained towards other
subjects. The great advocate of toleration in matters of
religion and politics was the most intolerant of men in
the matter of dramatic art He had an abiding confi-
dence — it can not be called a serene one — that the
taste which he himself had was the only taste worth
having. He resented^ he resisted attempts to set up ^^
any other standards than those he approved, or to in-
troduce any practices which he disapproved. AU means
to counteract such efforts were legitimate. For this pur-
pose he could not wield the axe or kindle the fiigot;
but all the powers of irony, of sarcasm, of invective he
possessed in amplest measure, — and it must be added
those of misrepresentation and calumny — these he em-
ployed without hesitation and without scruple. Could
he have had his way, he would have shown himself the
indefatigable and relentless persecutor in the work of
enforcing the true gospel of taste and in visiting with
condign punishment all heretical dissent. And nothing
irritated him more than that France should seem to turn
away from her own drama, and worship that of other
nations. His anger was directed against the imitators
of these rude writers of foreign lands and against the
writers themselves. The Spanish stage was as bad as

324

PESSIMISTIC VIEWS OF VOLTAIRE

the English. The example of Lope de Vega was as
much to be avoided as that of Shakespeare. But the
former served little more than to point a moral. The
last was a present threatening peril.

There was further a personal as well as a literary
reason for his unwillingness to have Shakespeare's writ-
ings too well known. He would not have admitted it
to others ; perhaps he would not have done so to him-
self. Yet Voltaire must necessarily have been conscious
of how much he was indebted to the English dramatist.
He was equally conscious that he had never acknowl-
edged it, save in a single instance where at first he
had felt it to be for his interest to take that course.
From the outset the English had naturally known of
the obligations he lay under. After his attacks upon
Shakespeare they dwelt upon his plagiarism, as they
termed it, persistently. So long, however, as such an
accusation was confined to them he did not concern him-
self about it. Anything said in their tongue was little
likely in those days to reach the ears of his constituency
of the Continent. Men dwelling there might read Eng-
lish romances, or even poetry; but they were not af-
fected by English criticism. But the charge of plagiar-
ism from Shakespeare was now extending from England
to France. He became sensitive to it. No one can fail
to remark this feeling on his part who reads the preface
composed by himself, but purporting to come from the
publishers, which was prefixed to his version of ^ Julius
Csesar.'

One of the paragraphs of this preface is a quasi-
defence of himself from the charge of having borrowed

325

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

from the English dramatist. Oq this same subject he
liberated his soul very freely in his notes. He took care
to point out that both authors had based their plays
upon the narratives contained in Plutarch. They nat-
urally made use of the same incidents, and gave the
same details. This would explain the resemblances be-
tween the two pieces where they resembled each other
at all. Men, in consequence, he said, would be enabled
to see if Voltaire owed so much to Shakespeare as had
been pretended. What he neglected to mention, how-
ever, was that he had carefully refrained from translat-
ing those passages of the original which in his tragedy he
had taken from the English author, but which the Eng-
lish author had not taken from Plutarch. It was clear
that with increasing familiarity with Shakespeare, knowl-
edge of these obligations on his part would become more
widely diffused. It was already manifest to a few at
the time; it was soon to be revealed to many by the
agency of Le Toumeur's version. Some of his admirers
admitted the fact cheerfully. In their eyes no discredit
attached to him for that reason. So far their contention
was a just one. It was the failure to acknowledge it,
the effort to hide it, that alone was censurable. Coupled
too with this concealment, his now constant depreciation
of the man to whom he was indebted could hardly be
regarded as being in the best of taste.

Naturally he was little disposed to look with approval
upon the efforts to naturalize Shakespeare upon the
French stage which about this time were beginning to
be made. Few of them, however, met with any more
favor from the public than they did from him. But one

826

PESSIMISTIC VIEWS OF VOLTAIRE

exception there was to this general indifference. In 1769
an adaptation of ^ Hamlet ' was brought out at Paris.
It was attended with great success. Its author was
Ducis, who was fated to succeed to the chair in the
Academy which Voltaire's death had vacated. Three
years later followed with similar good fortune a version
of * Romeo and Juliet ' by the same writer. The Patri-
arch of Femey» as he was now commonly called, heard
of these occurrences, in his retreat near the Genevan lake.
He was not pleased The applause which had been
lavished upon such pieces was an additional evidence of
the general decadence. This was the view he took be-
fore he read either of the works. In regard to Samlet
he gave vent to his dissatisfaction in a letter to D'Argen-
tal. ^^The spectres are going to become the fashion,"
he wrote. ^' I have opened the course modestly ; they
are now going to run at full speed. I have wished to
enliven the stage somewhat by more action ; and every-
thing has become absolutely action and pantomime.
Nothing is so sacred that it is not abused. In every-
thing we are going to plunge into the extravagant and
the gigantesque. Farewell to the beautiful, farewell
to tender sentiment, farewell to everything. Music will
soon be no more than an Italian charivari; and our
dramatic poetry only feats of leger-de-main." ^ The same
feeling showed itself when he heard of the favor with
which Ducis's adaptation of *• Romeo and Juliet ' had been
received. His own play of Zes Lois de Minos had not
secured representation. ^^ I console myself for the suc-
cess of this Bomeo^'^ he wrote, ^^and for the success

^ Letter of Oct. 13, 1769.
327

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

of all the absurd works written in a barbarous style, of
which our Velches have so often been the dupes. It
must be that a piece passably written should be ignored
when the Visigoth pieces are run after." *

The reading of these plays of Ducis could not have
&iled, however, to bring him a certain degree of comfort.
They assuredly relieved him of any anxiety he may have
felt that Shakespeare would be revealed by them to his
countrymen. Ducis knew nothing of English. The two
tragedies he had then adapted were taken not from the
original, but from the fragmentary versions of La Place.
In the eyes of the editor of his works, who in 1826 con-
tinued to repeat the conventional criticism of the eigh-
teenth century, he had distinctly improved upon the
original. " M. Ducis," he wrote, " with an art which men
would have admired more if they had been better able
to appreciate the difficulties of the undertaking, has
known how to reduce to proportion and to subject to the
laws established by our dramatic system, the gigantesque
and monstrous works of the English tragedian. He has
known how to disengage his simple and sublime traits
from the impure alloy which dishonors them, and to
render them with that force, that fervor, that truth of
expression which allies the claims of imitative talent with
those of original genius, which almost equalizes them." ^

Far more indeed than Voltaire himself had Ducis con-
formed in many particulars to the canons of French art.
The former kept constantly asserting that he had wished
to enlarge only a little the bounds of the drama. He had

1 Letter to D'Argental of September 5, 1772.
' CEavres de J. F. Dacis (1S26), tome i. p. 1l.

328

PESSIMISTIC VIEWS OF VOLTAIRE

expressed anxiety at the career of dramatic extravagance
which was now to be run, especially in the way of spec-
tral appearances. There was no need of his fear. His
ghost in Simiramis had carried audacity and defiance of
convention to its extreme by appearing in the day-time
in the midst of a crowded assembly. The ghost which
Ducis introduced was of so retiring a character that he
never showed himself to the spectators at all. Once only
was there a fleeting glimpse conveyed of his actual exist-
ence, when Hamlet was heard addressing him behind the
scenes in these words :

" Fly, dreadful spectre 1
Carry to the depths of the grave thy frightful aspect. " ^

The ghost seems to have been more terrified than the
one to whom he appeared ; for he heeded the injunction
and never presented himself again, even in the compara-
tive safety of the green-room. All we learn about him
henceforth is from the disclosures made by Hamlet to his
friend, Norceste. Voltaire must have recognized that in
these faintest of reproductions there was as little danger
of Shakespeare's manner and power being made known
to his countrymen as there had been through his own
representations and translations.

1 Dacis, Hamlet, acte ii. sc^ne 5.

329

CHAPTER XVn

I
I

LBTOUfiNBUB'S TBAN8LATI0K OF SHAKX8PBABB

Thb partial translation of Shakespeare by La Place
Voltaire had found fault with repeatedly. He had cen-
sured it in particular for what he called its unfaithful-
ness. Much written by the English dramatist had in his
opinion been modified or omitted in order to adapt the
language employed to the delicacy and politeness of the
French. La Place's version was confessedly only of parts
of plays, not of the whole of them. He had naturally
selected those scenes which struck him as most charac-
teristic of his author or which would exhibit him at his
best. The feeling had now come to amount almost to a
mania with Voltaire that those passages should be chosen
by preference which would exhibit him at his worst.
This was the only way in which a real knowledge of the
English theatre could be conveyed to his countrymen.

Fragmentary and inadequate as was in many ways this
translation, it had assuredly accomplished a great deal in
making the French acquainted with Shakespeare. Still,
it was not a work that could impart genuine or thorough
knowledge of the dramatist. Nor could it have done so,
had the rendering been infinitely better than it was. For
that it was altogether too imperfect. While, therefore, it
had annoyed Voltaire, it had not caused him any anxiety.
He felt indeed a certain confidence in the triumph of his

330

LETOURNEUR'S TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE

own views after he had made that word for word and line
for line translation of *• Julius Caesar/ which had revealed
to the nations the deficiency of Shakespeare in the high-
est art He felt that in so doing he had satisfied all
reasonable requirements of the Continent. He clearly
entertained no expectation of the appearance of a com-
plete translation of the works of this rude dramatist.
It was impossible that pieces in which the coarse taste of
the English delighted could be represented in their gross-
ness to a refined and polished people like the French.
This may seem a little strange to us now. But we must
not forget that the French of the eighteenth century,
however lawless they may have been in act, paid partic-
ular attention to delicacy of speech. A translation of
* Tristram Shandy ' had been brought out at Paris. Vol-
taire wrote a review of it — at least it is usually ascribed
to him — in which he observed that certain omissions
had been made. He added with much satisfaction that a
complete translation could no more be produced of Sterne
than it could of Shakespeare. *^ We are living at a time,"
he said, ^* when the most singular works are attempted,
but not when they succeed.'*

It was not a long while after the appearance of the
« Commentaries on Comeille ' that he wrote these words.
From the comparatively serene state of mind indicated by
them he was rudely awakened some ten years later by
the sight of two volumes of a translation of Shakespeare
with the promise of others to follow, till all the plays
had been rendered into FrencL The work bore on its
titiepage that it was dedicated to the king. It contained
a list of more than eight hundred subscribers. These

831

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

had put themselves down for over twelve hmidred copies.
The character of the names was even more striking than
their number. At their head stood the king and the
queen. Following them were the other members of the
royal family, the brothers and the aunts of the monarch.
Launched under such auspices the undertaking had been
assured of success from the outset. The list of subscrib-
ers was in truth fairly dazzling. It included names of
members of the nobility of every grade and of influential
men of eveiy profession. Princes, dukes, marquises,
counts, viscounts, chevaliers, or the consorts of such
titled persona, were found on eveiy page. Dignitaries
of the church, archbishops and bishops, were not absent.
Along with them were officers of the anny and of the
navy, members of the Academy, judges, advocates, pro-
fessois, physicians, architects, bankers, mayors of cities.
Nor was the subscription confined to France. It came
from all over Europe. Voltaire's friend and correspond-
ent, the Empress of Russia, was on the list, besides
official representatives of various other powers. About
one fourth of the supporters of the enterprise were Eng-
lishmen. At the head of these were the king and the
Prince of Wales. Among them can be found the name
of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and naturally those of
the two distinguished actors, Garrick and Henderson.
Rarely if ever has an undertaking of this particular
nature been begun with brighter prospecta

The work was not only dedicated to the king ; it con-
tained an epistle addressed to him. This was signed by
the Comte de Catuelan, Le Toumeur, and Fontaine-
Malherbe. These were the three original collaborators

332

LETOURNEUR'S TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE

in the translation. But though the first place was given
as a matter of courtesy to the noble, he who stood
second on the list was the one really responsible for the
undertaking. Pierre Le Toumeur, if biographical
notices are to be trusted, was a man of high character,
of blameless conduct, free from anxiety about his own
reputation and from envy at the reputation of others.
Furthermore, he was possessed of a good deal of ability.
He devoted his life largely to making known to his
countrymen the literature of foreign countries, especially
of England. One of his earliest works was a translation
of the ^ Night Thoughts ' of Young. One of his latest
was a translation of the ' Clarissa ' of Richardson. At
the very time he was engaged on this, his most important
undertaking, the version of Shakespeare, he produced
also a version of Ossian. His character and his qualifi-
cations had been the means of securing him various
positions of importance and trust. At this particular
period he was secretary to the king's brother, who was
subsequently to ascend the throne as Louis XVHI. It
was probably through the relation he held to this person
that the undertaking came to receive the support of the
royal family.

The translation was in prose. The first two volumes
of it appeared in March 1776. These contained versions
of * Othello,' * The Tempest,' and of * Julius CsDsar.' Of
the way the original was rendered, Voltaire never ex-
pressed an opinion, favorable or unfavorable, beyond his
usual censure of unfaithfulness in either omitting or
softening any of the vulgar phrases which he himself
now invariably took pains to render in their original

333

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

coarseness, and not onfrequently with additional coarse-
nessy as fair specimens of Shakespeare's general manner.
What interested him, what excited him, was not so much
the translation, as the prefatory matter with which it
had been introduced. He was equally outraged by what
he found in it and by what he did not find. The
opinions expressed were the ostensible ground upon
which he based his attack upon the work ; but a princi-
pal inspiring motive was what it had failed to say. This
prefatory matter, which extends to one hundred and
forty pages, plays so important a part in the controversy
which now arose that it is necessary to give of it a
fairly full account. It is interesting, furthermore, as
indicating the point of view which a certain body of
Frenchmen were now coming to take.

It began with the Epistle to the King which has been
already mentioned. This was full of the warmest praise
of the great English dramatist. It contained many
things which, whether so intended or not, Voltaire
might construe as an attack upon his proceedings, as
they certainly were upon his opinions. It asserted that
Shakespeare had never been exhibited to a rival nation,
superb in its taste, save under a kind of ridiculous
travesty which disfigured his beautiful proportions.
This may possibly have been a reference to the versions
of ^ Hamlet ' and ^ Romeo and Juliet,' which had been
made by Ducis. These had brought forth from Voltaire
himself a number of subdued growls; but there bad
been nothing in their character to produce any actual
explosion on his part They bore the slightest
relation to their originals; and while he was h

384

LETOURNEUR'S TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE

by the success they met, he was not alanned by it.
But it is hardly likely that Le Toumeur had in mind
an author like Ducis, who was as ardent an admirer of
Shakespeare as he was himself. It seems more reasonable
to suppose that the ridiculous travesties sp6ken of by the
translator alluded to Voltaire's description of the plot
of ^ Hamlet ' and his version of ^ Julius Caesar.' The
phrase employed was certainly not inappropriate.

There were other things as bad in the Epistle, if not
worse. The king was well known to have a taste for
seeking the society of the humblest of his subjects. In
this respect he was told that Shakespeare resembled
him. Like him the dramatist had gone to seek for
truth and nature, and for the objects of his benevolence
under the lowly roof of the laborer and the artisan.
As the monarch had desired to know all classes, so
Shakespeare had not disdained to paint them. Why
should the philosopher and the man of letters be
prouder than their sovereign, and blush to make the
acquaintance of persons in humble stations of life?
It was quite evident that the monarch and the drama-
tist were fully in sympathy with each other. *^ In these
fii*st days of justice and impartiality," went on the
Epistle, ** Shakespeare can appear with confidence in
the countiy of Comeille and Racine and Molidre, to
ask of the French the tribute of gloiy which each
people gives to genius, and which he would have re-
ceived from these three great men, had he been known
to them."

This Epistle was universally regarded by the clas-
sicists as being in the worst possible taste. Immediately

385

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

following it were a number of pages devoted to con-
troverting certain statements which had been made
by Marmontel. That author had published a few years
before a dissertation in which he had allowed himself
the luxury of indulging in certain assertions about
Shakespeare and the EngUsh theatre and people. They
were the outcome of crude ideas working upon scanty
and imperfect information. Marmontel plainly knew
nothing at first hand of what he was talking about.
All his facts came to him through the medium of
Voltaire, and, not very correct in the first instance, had
been badly damaged in the transmission. He informed
us, for example, that Shakespeare began writing at the
commencement of the seventeenth century, and that he
seems to have had an acquaintance with the irregular
Spanish theatre. This last statement he derived and
developed from Voltaire's remarks upon the Cid in his
^ Commentaries on Comeille.' That author had observed
with his usual accuracy that the custom of mixing comic
scenes with tragic had infected the English theatre
from the Spanish. All that Marmontel had to do fur-
ther was to assert that it had infected Shakespeare in
particular. This dramatist, he conceded, stood still at
the head of the English stage and was almost the only
one who was fervently applauded. Such a condition of
things, however, could not last always : for Marmontel's
ignorance of the past gave him the usual further con-
fidence possessed by this sort of ignorance in its capacity
of foretelling the future. He felt equal to making the
prediction that Shakespeare's manner would not con-
tinue to be fully approved, even in his own country,

886

LETOURNEUR'S TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE

save by the populace. The populace, he confessed, was
powerful The English had indeed got from France at
the time of the Restoration a taste for propriety, for
nature in its beauty.^ To Molifere, Racine, and Boileau
they owed Wycherley, Congreve, Rochester, and Dryden.
These poets of the second age had charmed the court
of Charles II.

In the general muddle of misinformation here con-
veyed, it is perhaps not worth while to notice such
insignificant details as that Congreve was only a boy
in the reign of Charles II., and that Rochester never
wrote a play which charmed any court, and the only
original one imputed to him could never have charmed
any one outside of a brothel. These are the most venial
of errors compared with what followed. The French
have always been a gallant race, and their critics not
unfrequently attack a Uterature they know nothing
about with the same desperate hardihood with which
their soldiers venture upon a redoubt, in utter indiffer-
ence to the strength of its position or to the number of
its defenders. Never was there a better illusti'ation of
this characteristic offered than in this instance by
Marmontel. He gravely observed that while the most
cultivated part of the English nation, in accord with
the rest of Europe, admired the ingenious and decent
comedy of Congreve, the populace, true to the traditions
and feelings transmitted from former times, remained
faithful to the earlier writers. It continued to applaud
upon the theatre comedy that was coarse and obscene
and tragedy that was but little better.

^ La belle nature is Marmontel's pliraae.

22 337

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

Ordinarily the man who discourses upon topics he
knows absolutely nothing about is likely to pay for it
at some time a heavy penalty. But men are sometimes
saved by their badness as well as by their goodness.
Marmontel's ignorance is so very ignorant that it con-
tributes to enjoyment. The very impudence of its
falsities excites a sort of tender interest in the man.
What Englishman could be vexed at an author who
tells us in all seriousness that Congreve is a purer
writer than Shakespeare ? Le Toumeur, however, was
a good deal exasperated. He possessed unusual knowl-
edge of English liteiuture for a Frenchman of that time.
He exposed with some heat the absurdity of these
assertions. He expressed himself as being in ignorance
of any warrant Marmontel had for charges so thought-
lessly hazarded — an ignorance in which we may be
sure Maimontel himself fully participated. Fortunately,
however, for the latter, he was not in a court of law,
and was not obliged to confess publicly what he did
not know. Le Toumeur repelled with a good deal of
asperity the remark that repi*esented Shakespeare as an
author addicted to indecency and obscenity. He ob-
served very justly that in spite of occasional coarse
expressions he was a very pure writer, and had never
been reckoned otherwise. There were in his plays no
indelicate situations; in the plays which the French
critic had called decent, it seemed at times aa if there
were no other kind of situations. To praise by way
of contrast with the Elizabethan drama the unbridled
license which had turned the theatre of the Restoration
into a school of debauchery, made it a practically in-

888

LETOURNEUR'S TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE

soluble question whether Marmontel were more igno-
rant of the earlier dramatists whom he censured or of
the later ones whom he commended.

After Le Toumeur had finished the examination of
most of Marmontel's assertions there was very little
left of that author. In truth, nonsense of the sort he
had been venting would never have been hazarded by a
man who had even a faint inkling of knowledge of what
he was talking about. The critic, however, was not
quite so successful when he came to Marmontel's rcr
marks upon the dropping of the grave-diggers' scene
by Garrick in his alteration of ' Hamlet.' This proceed-
ing had given unmixed joy to the men of the classical
school in France. At last the English had begun to
see the folly of their ways. At last the reign of puri-
fied taste was to dawn on that benighted land. Reason
was triumphing over that blind admiration which had
led a whole nation to accept the faults of its greatest
dramatist as beauties. •' Every day," wrote Marmontel,
^' Shakespeare is abridged, is chastened. The celebrated
Garrick has just cut out in his stage the grave-diggers'
scene and nearly all the fifth act. Both play and author
have been only the more applauded." There could be
no denial of the fact of the excision, though the applause
with which it had been greeted was of a piece with
most of the other information which Marmontel chose
to communicate from the inexhaustible store-house of
his ignorance or invention. Le Toumeur tried to
account for a procedure which could not be explained
away. The principal cause he assigned was the necessity
of cutting down the piece so as to fit it for representa-

839

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

tion in the limited time allotted. It was a lame apology.
He evidently felt it to be such ; for he ended by declar-
ing that while at Garrick's theatre the play had been
shortened, the multitude thronged to the other theatre,
where ^ Hamlet ' was performed in its entirety. Still,
before his translation of Shakespeare was completed,
Le Toumeur had the satisfaction of seeing the altera-
tion, which Garrick had never dared to print, disdain-
fully dropped from the stage where it had made ita
first appearance.^

The refutation of Marmontel was followed by an ac-
count of the Stratford jubilee. This had been an under-
taking of Garrick's devising. In 1758 the Rev. Francis
Gastrell, who had come into the possession of New Place,
had cut down the famous mulberry-tree which was tra-
ditionally held to have been planted by Shakespeare's
own hands. The interest inspired by it, with the con-
sequent throng of visitors, had caused the clergyman
much discomfort. Accordingly he took this means to
relieve himself of the annoyance. If a nearly contempo-
rary account can be trusted, the act produced an explo-
sion of popular wrath. The reverend gentleman, no.
longer revered, found it desirable to hasten his departure
from Stratford, and to make his absence permanent.^
Souvenirs of various kinds were fitshioned from the
wood of the sacred tree. Several years later the mayor,
aldermen, and burgesses of Stratford elected Garrick an

1 For a foil account of Garrick's alteration of 'Hamlet' and its
fortunes, see the preceding Tolnme of this series, 'Shakespeare as a
Dramatic Artist/ pp. 161-173.

3 Victor's History of the Theatres of London from the year 1760, etc.
London, 1771, vol. i. p. 201.

340

LETOURNEURS TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE

honorary burgess of the corporation. In May, 1769, he
was waited upon by the proper officers of the place and
presented with its freedom. The parchment granting it
was enclosed in a box of curious workmanship made out
of the famous mulberry-tree and adorned with devices
by an eminent carver of Birmingham.

As a return for the honor done him, and with the
intent of being of some service to the place, Grarrick
planned a jubilee to celebrate Shakespeare's memory.
The original scheme was to have one every seven years.
The first was to take place in September, 1769. After
opening with the performance of an oratorio in the
church, there was to follow a series of ceremonies of
various kinds. These were to occupy three days. Mas-
querades, assemblies, balls, races, processions, fire-works,
the acting of a play were some of the festivities which
were to add to the interest of the occasion. Extensive
preparations were made for the various pageants. More
than one hundred trees near Stratford were cut down to
enlarge the prospect. A wooden amphitheatre in the form
of an octagon was constructed on the banks of the Avon
for the proper performance of certain functions. Ame
composed music for the occasion ; Garrick wrote for it a
jubilee-ode in honor of the poet, which he recited him-
self. Everything was done by the actor that could be
done by him to make the celebration a success. Unfor-
tunately the weather was unpropitious, and few of the
ceremonies could be carried out with the magnificence
intended. Large sums had been spent in preparation for
a great procession in which the persons composing it
were to appear in the habits of various characters belong-

341

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

ing to the Shakespearean drama. The rain compelled its
abandonment, as well as of a number of other events of
interest. Above all, the little town was in no position
to deal adequately with the large crowd which poured
into it. Complaints of the extortion practised abounded
on all sides. The inhabitants were described as looking
upon the jubilee not so much as a celebration designed
to honor the memory of their dead townsman as an op-
portunity afforded them by Providence to fleece the visi-
tors whom the lack of proper accommodations had placed
at their mercy.

The enemies of Garrick had from the outset been dis-
posed to cast ridicule upon the undertaking. They
naturally rejoiced in the misadventures attending it.
The press swarmed with a whole series of publications in
prose and verse, some burlesquing the jubilee and every-
thing connected with it, some attacking and some defend-
ing Grarrick; for against him every charge had been
brought which enmity and envy could inspire. Foote,
always to be relied upon when ridicule assumed the
nature of malignity, satirized the whole celebration in
one of his comments upon the events of the day which
he was in the habit of giving at the end of his pieces.
He defined a jubilee at the close of a performance of his
* Devil upon Two Sticks.' This play, brought out at the
Haymarket the previous year, had been revived in Sep-
tember, 1769. ^* A jubilee," he said, ^* as it hath lately
appeared, is a public invitation, circulated and urged by
puffing, to go without horses to an obscure borough with-
out representatives, governed by a mayor and aldermen
who are no magistrates, to celebrate a great poet whose

342

LETOURNEUR'S TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE

own works have made him immortal, by an ode without
poetry, music without melody, dinner without victuals,
and lodgings without beds; a masquerade where half
the people appeared bare-faced, a horse-race up to the
knees in water, fireworks extinguished as soon as they
were lighted, and a gingerbread amphitheatre which, like
a house of cards, tumbled to pieces as soon as it was
finished." * All this was essentially repeated with some
added details in a farce printed after Grarrick's death —
it was never acted. In it he was represented as solilo-
quizing in the future life about the personages of all
classes who had thronged to this performance, and the
reception they had met. "That jubilee," he is repre-
sented as saying to himself, " to which lords and ladies,
knights, squires, and justices of the peace, country lads
and country lasses, authors and players, pimps, fiddlers,
files de Joie and demi-reps, pickpockets, gamesters, jock-
eys and sharpers, — all ran in crowds, at my sole invita-
tion, to be lodged without beds, to be fed without
victuals, to be wet to the skin in seeing a race that was
never run, and in viewing a pageant which was never
shown; and all this to celebrate a poet whose works
have made him immortal." '

Even among Garrick's friends there had been a dispo-
sition to treat the whole performance jocosely rather than
seriously. The project of repeating it at regularly recur-
ring intervals fell through, though there were citizens of
Stratford who later were anxious to have it made an an-

1 Gentleman's Magaiine, toL xxxix, p. 458, Sept., 1769. The pa»-
nge is not to be fonnd in the published play.

' Ganick in the Shades, or a Peep into Elysiom (1779), act ii.

343

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

nual festival.^ But in those days of infiequeut and
incomplete communication no intimation of any disap-
pointment in connection with it had reached foreign
lands. In them were repeated none of the contemptuous
epithets applied to it in England. Continental Europe
did not hear the criticism, the disparagement, the impu-
tation of personal motives. It was the great central fact
of the jubilee itself that arrested its attention and dazzled
its eyes. Here, as it seemed, was a whole nation rising
up as one man to honor an author who had been in his
grave for more than one hundred and fifty years. He
had owed nothing to the accident of birth. He had
belonged to no illustrious class. He had not added
wealth or power to his country's resources. He had been
the member of a despised profession. Yet a tribute
which kings would have been proud to receive and had
never been able to secure had been awarded him by the
grateful acclamations of a whole people. For thi-ee days
a great festival had been celebrated with pomp and cere-
mony and at vast expense in his honor. It was made
more emphatic by the then professed intention to repeat
it, if not every year, at least every seven years.

Such a tribute naturally struck the imagination of
foreigners. Le Toumeur made the most of it. He gave
a glowing account of the festival. He described it as
the most remarkable event which the annals of the theatre
recorded, since dramatic poetry had flourished in modem
Europe. In so speaking of it he was doing nothing more
than reflect the general sentiment of the Continent ; in-
deed he was repeating what had been said by English

^ Garrick Correspondeuce, yol. i. p. 414.

344

LETOURNEUR'S TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE

writeis themselves. It necessarily tended to make the
minds of men somewhat doubtful of the opinion in regard
to Shakespeare which Voltaire had so frequently and so
magisterially pronounced. The old feeling, to which he
had himself been the first to give utterance, came once
more to the lips of many, but now with an expressed ref-
erence to his later views. Could a whole nation imite in
paying this tribute of honor to a writer long dead who
had been represented to them as merely a barbarian with
occasional flashes of genius ? Could a reputation which
inspired such a ceremonial more than two hundred years
after the author's birth be founded upon bad taste and
imperfect judgment? The celebration set Europe to
thinking.

In one way it affected Voltaire himself. Long before,
he had been impressed with the respect which waited in
England upon those belonging to the actor's profession.
He had been struck not so much by the admiration which
followed them while living, as by the honors paid them
after death. In France on the contrary, they were denied
burial in consecrated ground, and were even in danger of
having their dead bodies thrust into the common sewers.
The court demanded of the players that they should act ;
the church damned them for acting. Voltaire was never
weary of contrasting the different treatment awarded
them in the two countries. A little more than a year
after he had left Protestant England the celebrated
actress, Mrs. Oldfield, had been buried in Westminster
Abbey. Her body had lain in state near by in the Jeru-
salem chamber. Men high in social position had been
the pall-bearers at her funeral. In Catholic France, but a

845

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

few months before, had died suddenly the young, the bril-
liant, the beautiful Adrienne Lecouvieur, the idol of
Parisian theatregoers. She had been buried like a dog
in a waste place, secretly and at night No funeral rites
were celebrated over her remains, no stone had risen over
the spot where her body lay. The place was left un-
marked and unenclosed Voltaire never ceased to feel
bitterly over the different treatment bestowed upon the
two actresses, alike beautiful, alike gifted, and alike
frail.

It was natural that this new tribute to a man who
had been an actor as well as a dramatist should impress
him profoundly. Years after, he referred to it in one of
the opening sentences of the discourse upon Shakespeare
sent to the French Academy. At the time itself he
mentioned it in a letter belonging to the very month in
which the Stratford celebration took place. It is written
with even more than his usual delightful inaccuracy.
There is hardly a sentence in it which misses its op-
portunity to embody some blunder in the statement of
facts. But for all that the feeling it expressed was
deep and genuine. He commented on the low position
of the actor in France. ^* The English," he wrote, ^^ have
given us a hundred years ago another example. They
have erected in the cathedral of Stratford a magnificent
monument to Shakespeare, who, however, is not at all
comparable to Molifere, either for art or for the repre-
sentation of manners. You are not ignorant of the fact
that they are about to establish a kind of secular games
in honor of Shakespeare in England. They are to be
celebrated with extreme magnificence. They have had,

346

LETOURNEUR'S TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE

it is said, tables for a thousand persons. The expense
which has been incurred at the festival would enrich
the whole French Parnassus. It seems to me that
genius is not encoun^ed in France with any such pro-
fusion«" ^

Le Toumeur followed his account of the jubilee with
a life of Shakespeare. In it occurred several passages
which disgusted the classicists even more than the
Epistle to the King ; they put Voltaire beside himself
with rage. They ran counter to all the opinions he had
been promulgating ever since his return from England.
One observation in particular he could never forgive.
Le Toumeur said that, at a time when the Italians were
corrupted by bad taste, listening to puerile conceits, and
disdaining everything natural, when France took de-
light in mystery-plays and similar farcical productions,
to the scandal of taste, Shakespeare had revived in Eng-
land the art of Plautus and Sophocles, dead for two
thousand years. Rather he had created it, so that it de-
served to be called the art of Shakespeare as weU as that
of Sophocles. Furthermore he directly controverted the
patronizing view which Voltaire had constantiy put
forth, that the dramatist would have done much better
if he had only had the good fortune to live in the days
of Addison. The exact contrary was the truth. Had
he come later he would not have done so well. He
would have found in existence a well-worn road over
which he would have been compelled to travel. His
originality would have been destroyed. He would have
been forced into involuntary imitation. His steps would

1 Letter to M. de Chamfort, Sept. 27, 1769.

347

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

have been impeded by a multitude of obstructions which
would have hindered the freedom of his movements. He
would have been subjected to a mass of rules forbidding
him to do this, compelling him to do that If he should
have ventured to disregard them, the fine wits, like so
many gibbering ghosts, would have encircled and as-
sailed on every side the daring explorer of new dramatic
worlds. He closed this portion of his eulogy with a ref-
erence to those cold and pusillanimous critics who, meas-
uring nature with insufficient rules, find gigantesque its
noble and majestic proportions, and in order to regard
them as beautiful, would reduce them so as to agree with
the petty ideas which they themselves had formed.

This was certainly throwing down the gauntlet with a
vengeance. Le Toumeur did not pretend that he had
any particular person or persons in mind in writing such
words as these. But the opinions he controverted were
the ones which Voltaire had taught his disciples. His
sayings they parroted, his criticisms they repeated, his
conclusions they set down as absolutely irrefutable.
Throughout the whole prefatory matter there were fre-
quent passages which treated with scant respect all the
views which he had been proclaiming for years as being
of the nature of axiomatic truths. Shakespeare's intro-
duction of the representatives of every class on the stage
was defended. All these offensive views were put even
more offensively in the discourse which followed the life.
This purported to be made up of selections from the
various prefaces of the English editors of Shakespeare :
Rowe, Pope, Warburton, Theobald, Hanmer, Johnson,
Sewell, and others who were included under a compre-

348

LETOURNEUR'S TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE

hensive **&€." The passages purporting to be taken
from these writers were woven together without distinc-
tion so as to form a continuous criticism. Le Toumeur
pretended to add only some ideas of his own, some
phrases necessary to the development and connection
of these scattered parts. It was a device worthy of
Voltaire himself. Under the shelter of these English
names the translator could securely proclaim the supe-
riority of Shakespeare to all other writers. He could
with impunity direct his censures against the most
cherished doctrines of the classicists.

The opportunity was fully improved. No heretical
utterances of Voltaire about religion were so adapted to
shock the devout as those expressed here about the Eng-
lish poet were calculated to horrify the devotees of
the French drama. Even Mercier was outdone. Never
in fact had audacity been more audacious. If Shake-
speare's course, we were told, was contrary to the pre-
cepts of Aristotle, it is certain that Aristotle himself
would have modified his precepts and ordained other
rules, had Shakespeare been a resident of Athens and
introduced upon the scene representations grander and
vaster than those of Sophocles and Euripides. Further,
it was nothing but an abuse of criticism to proscribe one
form of the drama and to hold up another as peculiarly
sacred. Superstition which had deferred to laws im-
posed by mere authority should be shaken off. From
them an appeal should be made to the laws of nature.
Le Toumeur indeed raged without restraint through
this portion of the prefatory matter. Several of the pas-
sages in it were taken bodily, it is true, from the pref-

349

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

aces of the English editors. For instance, Johnson's
attack upon the doctrine of the unities was pretty fully
given. But there was a good deal that was suggested
by what he found, rather than translated from it. There
was even more which the investigator will search for in
vain in the writings of any English author. For that
the utterances of Voltaire and his disciples were too
often in the translator's thoughts. Care in fact was
taken to point out the inferiority of the much lauded
'Cato' of Addison. It may be added that Le Tour-
neur in this discourse introduced, as he said, into the
language the English word ^* romantic," which was
in no short time to become the designation of a party.
He appended a note defining its meaning, and distin-
guishing it from romane%que and piUareBqae}

Furthermore the conclusion of the prefatory matter
might be construed into additional cause of offence.
Objections to the undertaking, Le Toumeur said, had
been made both by Englishmen and Frenchmen. Those
urged by the former hardly concern us here. But the
objections of the latter were of two kinds, and the
translator's reply to them involved a reflection upon
the followers of Voltaire and upon the characterization
of the English dramatist by Voltaire himself. At Paris,
said Le Toumeur, '^ some thoughtless Aristarchs have
already weighed in their limited balances the merits of
Shakespeare. As he has never been translated and
known in France, they know the precise sum of his
beauties and defects. Without having read the poet,
without understanding his language, they paint him in

1 Page cxviii.
350

LETOURNEUR'S TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE

one word as a savage." They conceded hiiUy he went
on to say, some happy and forcible lines, but he had
nothing that was precious to offer to a delicate and
refined people. These constituted one class of objectors
to the translation. The other was made up of men filled
with direful presentiments at the idea of introducing
into France a nature so powerful as Shakespeare's.
Monstrous spectacles would be exhibited on the French
stage. Blood would flow. The dead would be buried,
and atrocities of all sorts would be committed in the
sight of the spectators. '^ Our great poets," these persons
are represented as saying, *' will be insulted by a foreign
race, which confounds all species of composition, and
will crush our masterpieces under the weight of its
black and bizarre productions."

Well might the classicists stand aghast at the open
avowal of the heretical sentiments here given. WeU
might they consider views of this sort as being in the
most atrociously bad taste. Many even of those who
had originally favored the undertaking were a good deal
shocked. Tremendous was the sensation tMs first in-
stalment of the translation caused. Grimm, the chron-
icler of the literary situation in Paris during these
years, gives us an account of the varying views then
and there entertained. It is all the more trustworthy,
because he was not an extreme partisan of either side,
though his sympathies lay mainly with the drama of
the land in which he had come to live. In spite of the
liberality of his views many of the sentiments found in
this prefatory matter seemed to him shocking, when not
in bad taste. He belonged to the second class which

351

>^ OFTV;t

-^ ... y

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

Le Toumeur had described, who feared that the French
stage would be in danger of serious harm if the methods
of the English were followed. It was not because he
depreciated Shakespeare; with his greatness he had
been impressed far more than was ever Voltaire. And
while he shared generally in the latter's feelings about
the French theatre, unlike him he did not think it
desirable that the English theatre should conform to it.
In his eyes the stages of the two countries were rep-
resentative of the races inhabiting them. What was
befitting the one was therefore unsuited to the other.
The English dramatists who had tried to adopt French
methods had failed miserably. A like fate, in his opinion,
would befall the French writers who sought to imitate
Shakespeare.^

This was the harm which in Grimm's eyes could be
and perhaps would be wrought by the translation. It
might tempt young and ambitious authors into a field
where they would meet only with disaster. What hope
of success could they have if once they abandoned the
pure and delicate taste which marked the productions of
their own land ? They might try to imitate, but they
could not expect to approach remotely the genius of
Shakespeare, all-powerful in producing sublimity even
when he put himself outside of the rules, and by the
mere force of inspiration and imagination supported in
his pieces what is most untrue to life and monstrous.
" Who else than he," wrote Grimm, " can hope to pre-
serve, as did he in those most vast and complicated com-
positions, that marvellous light which never ceases to

1 Grimm's Correspondance Utt&aire, tome ix. p. 21.

352

LETOURNEUR'S TRANSLATION OF SHAKESPEARE

illuminate the progress of the action, which bursts out,
so to speaky of itself over all the parts of the subject?
Who can ever hope to flatter himself that he can sustain
that great stock of interest which the author himself
seems to interrupt of his own accord, and is always sure
to take up again with the same energy ? What genius
has ever penetrated more profoundly into the character
and all the passions of human nature ? "

There was, as Grimm's words show, a sense of danger
in the air. Naturally the translation, with the defiant
utterances of its prefatory matter, aroused the passions
of the partisans of both sides. It excited the interest
even of those who were ignorant or indifferent. "It
has been a long time," wrote Grimm, " since we have
seen the appearance of any work which has deserved
more censure and more eulogies, in regard to which
there have been more keen disputes, and about which in
fine, public opinion has been more divided and un-
certain. Those who, from having been brought up from
infancy in the fear and respect of our great masters,
render to them that exclusive and superstitious worship
which differs in no respect from theological intolerance,
have regarded the translators as sacrilegious wretches
who wished to introduce into the country monsters and
barbarous divinities. The devotees of Femey have not
been able to witness without a good deal of ill-humor a
work which is about to instruct France as to that
admirable skill with which M. de Voltaire has known
how to appropriate to himself the beauties of Shake-
speare, and the less admirable bad faith with which he
has afterward permitted himself to translate him. Those
23 353

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

who have desired to preserve an air of impartiality have
rendered to the finest genius of England the justice due
him, but they have revenged themselves upon his
translator." ^ That indeed became the common method
of compromise. Madame du Deffand, for instance, wrote
to Walpole, that she was enchanted with * Othello.'
While she could not tell whether the translation was
faithful or not, it seemed to her that Shakespeare could
not have written better. On the other hand what the
translators had written out of their own heads was
insipid to the last degree.

^ Grimm's Cmrespimdanee litt&airef tome ix. p. 15.

354

CHAPTER XVIII

THE WRATH OF VOLTAIRE

Months seem to have passed before the two volumes
of Le Toumeur's translation came into the hands of
Voltaire. In his published correspondence the first
letter in regard to it bears the date of the nineteenth
of July. If all this time he was ignorant of what had
occasioned so much discussion at Paris, the exchange
of news that took place between the French capital and
Femey must have been peculiarly imperfect and un-
satisfactoiy. The subscription for the proposed trans-
lation had in fact been going on since the early part of
1775 ; and it is almost impossible to believe that some
inkling of the nature of the undertaking had not reached
his ears. There was so much finesse, not to caU it
trickery, in all of Voltaire's proceedings, that too much
reliance need not be placed by the reader upon dates
which the writer feels himself compelled to follow.^

In July certainly he had the two volumes, and had
read the prefatory matter. His indignation was aroused

1 In Grimm's Correspondance litt&aire, tome ix. p. 117 ff., under June,
1776, aeyeral pages of the ' Letter to the French Academy/ read August
25, are given : and Voltaire's letter to D*Argental, dated Jnlj 19, in
Voltaire's Correspondence, is spoken of as haying been forwarded the
preceding month. I am unable to explain the discrepancy in the dates,
saye on the theory that those in Grimm's Correspondence haye been
wrongly given.

355

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

to the highest pitch by the dreadful sentiments there
expressed. If these did not constitute an attack upon
him personally, they certainly did upon the gospel
which he had persistently preached. Here too were
men, devoted followers of his own, who were held up to
scorn for their inability to comprehend the proportions
of the colossal figure which it was beyond their power
to measure. But in addition to the atrocious doctrines
which he found energetically proclaimed, there was
something of far greater importance in his eyes which
he did not find. In those scores of pages dealing with
the drama not once had the name of Voltaire been
mentioned. Not a word had been said of the true
successor of Comeille and Racine. Not an allusion
even had there been to the greatest living man of letters,
whose fame filled all Europe, unless the contradiction
of the views he cherished and loudly proclaimed could
be so construed. The offence was unpardonable. It is
true that Voltaire's name had strictly no business in
the work. The translator was not writing about the
French stage but about the English. He was not ex-
patiating on the living, but on the dead. Nor could he
weU have referred to Voltaire personally without con-
trasting the attitude of persistent depreciation which
he had now assumed, with his early recognition, im-
perfect as it was, of the genius of Shakespeare. But to
any considerations of this sort the great French author
was insensible. To write anything about the stage and
fail to mention its most conspicuous living ornament
was an offence which his insatiable vanity could not
forgive. So blinded was he by his fury that he suc-

856

THE WRATH OF VOLTAIRE

ceeded at first in overlooking any reference whatever to
Comeille and Racine also. It was one of the grievances
he originally put forth against this translation that
their names had never been mentioned even once. He
spoke of them ; he was thinking of himself.

But there were particular observations scattered up
and down the prefatory matter which filled him with
special wrath. Here was a work which told Frenchmen
that Shakespeare had never been rendered into their
tongue at aU. Ridiculous travesties existed, but no
translation. Accordingly he was actually imknown to
those who made him the subject of disparaging criticism.
The positive crime of this assertion was almost as bad in
Voltaire's eyes as the negative one of omitting to men-
tion his own name. Was it not he who had brought this
monstrous author to the knowledge of his countrymen ?
Had he not, nearly half a century before, furnished them
with a version of the monologue of Hamlet ? Had he
not since translated the three acts of ^Julius Csesar,'
word for word, line for line ? Had he not given a de-
scription of two or three of Shakespeare's most renowned
plays, and thereby enabled all men to judge of these
pieces ? Had he not indicated the exact degree to which
he was to be admired ? All these services in behalf of
the living and the dead were now ignored. The adorers
of the new divinity had forgotten to recognize the debt
they owed to the man who had introduced him to their
worship. For a long time past they had been restrained
with difiSculty from passing the critical bounds he had
set up ; some there were who had had the audacity to
treat with derision their sacred character. But this

367

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

latest departure exceeded all precedent. A translatioii
had come out which spoke with contempt of the petty
critics of Paris who knew nothing of Shakespeare of
their own knowledge and contented themselves with
echoing the opinions of those who were incompetent to
form any opinions worth heeding. In fine, the French
people had been told that Shakespeare was ^' the creator
god of the sublime dramatic art, which had received from
him its existence and perfection.'' ^ Voltaire was angered
to the depths of his soul.

We come now to one of the most extraordinary epi-
sodes in a life full of extraordinary passages. The state of
mind the perusal of this prefatory matter produced in
Voltaire would hardly be credited, did not his own letters
survive to prove it. He fairly foamed at the mouth with
rage. One could almost fancy that Shakespeare himself
had somehow done him a gross personal injury. The far-
cical nature of the performance in which he was soon en-
gaged occasionally came over him at first, and he tried to
laugh about it. But it was too serious in his eyes to be
long treated with levity. The * Letter to the French Acad-
emy/ the public outcome of it all, was made compara-
tively tame to suit the decorum of the dignified body to
which it was addressed. But in his private correspond-
ence he gave full vent to his wrath. The spectacle he
was now about to exhibit can bring delight only to those
who witness with pleasure the weaknesses of a great
spirit. Never did offended vanity, masking under the

^ Voltaire, in a note to the ' Letter to the French Academy/ qnotes this
passage from " Page 3 du programme" It is not in the preface to the
translation.

858

THE WRATH OF VOLTAIRE

guise of love of country and of devotion to the cause of
taste, exhibit itself in a more outrageous form. Never
did it conduct its operations after a more unscrupulous
and discreditable fashion. The paroxysm lasted in its
full fury between three and four months ; but the dis-
ease of which it was a manifestation ended only with
Voltaire's life.

In the first transports of his indignation he dashed off
a letter to his faithful friend, D' Argental. To the author
of the translation he applied a number of abusive terms.
In fact he never spoke of him afterwards without indulg-
ing in the choicest billingsgate at his command. He
never once referred to his two coadjutors. All his invec-
tives were reserved for Le Toumeur alone. The slight-
est suggestion of his name or work was the signal
henceforth for Voltaire, either in conversation or in corre-
spondence, to go off into a wild orgy of abusive epithets.
It was in the following way he burst out in the letter
previously mentioned, which bears the date of July 19,
1776:

'^I must tell you how much I am angry, for the honor of
the theatre, at a man named Tourneur, who is called secre-
tary of the booksellers and who does not appear to me to be
the secretary of good taste. Have you read two volumes of
this wretch, in which he wishes to make as look upon Shake-
speare as the only model of genuine tragedy? He calls
him the god of the theatre* He sacrifices all the French
without exception to his idol, as formerly pigs were sacri-
ficed to Ceres. He does not even condescend to mention
Gomeille and Bacine. These two great men are simply en-
veloped in the general proscription, without having even

859

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

their names spoken. There are two volumes printed of this
Shakespeare, which would be taken for pieces to be played
at the fair and composed about two hundred years ago.
This scribbler has found the secret of engaging the king,
the queen, and all the royal family to subscribe to his
work. Have you read his abominable balderdash,^ of
which there are to be five volumes more? Have you a
sufficiently vigorous detestation of this impudent blockhead?
Will you put up with the affront which he has offered to
France? There are not in France raps on the knuckles
enough, foolscaps enough, pillories enough for such a charla-
tan ! * The blood boils in my old veins in talking to you of
him. If he has not made you angry, I hold you a man
incapable of wrath. That which is frightful is that the
monster has a party in France; and to fill up the measure
of the calamity and horror, it is I who long ago was the
first to speak of this Shakespeare. It is I who was the
first to show the French some pearls which I had found in
his enormous dunghill. I did not then expect that one day
I should contribute to trample under foot the crowns of
Corneille and Bacine in order to adorn the brow of a barba-
rian stage-player.'^

The letter was a manifesto announcing hostilitiea It
was designed to be made public ; and it was accordingly
made public. Copies of it were speedily circulated
throughout Paris. It was carried to England; and a
few months later a translation of it appeared in the Eng-
lish papers. But Voltaire had no idea of resting content
with any mere outburst of momentaiy indignation. He
contemplated a more systematic and effective attack upon

* Grimoin. * Faquin.

860

THE WRATH OF VOLTAIRE

this Shakespeare propaganda which had shamelessly in-
truded itself into the yeiy citadel of true art. He had
determined to declare war against the translator and the
translation. This seemed somewhat petty. He dignified
it in his own thoughts, and tried to dignify it to others
— to some extent he succeeded — by calling it a war
against England. He sought to make it an international
question. He was fighting, he said, for the honor of his
own land. He was pleading the cause of Comeille and
Racine, that is, of good taste, against the advance of that
barbarism which was aiming to defile the beauty and the
majesty of the French stage. For thib purpose he wished
to secure to his support the influence of the French
Academy. With that end in view he began operations
at once. He prepared a letter to that body with the
design of exposing the barbarousness of the much ex-
tolled Shakespeare.

The ' Letter,^ as found in his works, did not, in all
probability, differ materially from what it was when first
written. There was nothing new in it in the way of
criticism, nothing which Voltaire had not already said
before, and in some instances had said many times. It
was enriched, however, with some additional illustrations
of ignorance which vaimted itself as exceeding knowl-
edge. One of the most striking of these has been given
earlier.^ But there were a number of others. Two, in
particular, deserve mention, because they confirm the
impression that there was no recklessness of assertion on
any point about which he knew little or nothing, of
which Voltaire was not capable, if he thought it would

^ See the accoant of ' Gorbodac/ pp. 35-40,

361

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

help the side he was advocating. He gravely informed
his readers that almost all the words of the English lan-
guage were derived from the French. He communi-
cated the hitherto unsuspected and still undiscovered
information that in the time of Henry VII. a permanent
theatre had been established in London, which was still
subsisting. This may be defended on the ground that
evil was done in order that good might result. By a
false statement of fact he was helping to destroy a false
belief that Shakespeare was the creator of the English
stage. These, however, are mere incidental inaccuracies.
The discourse collects in an impressive whole the errors
of all sorts which had been scattered through his numer-
ous treatises. As now printed, it is divided into two
parts. The first consisted mainly of an attack upon Le
Toumeur. But he was not mentioned by name. He
appears simply as the translator. The second was rather
a consideration of the general subject of the theatre, in
the course of which Voltaire sought to explain how it
came about that Shakespeare wrote in the manner he
did and gained the reputation he had.

Of course he could not refrain from venting his own
grievances. He told the members of the assembled Acad-
emy, as he had been telling everybody else for years,
that a man of letters, one of their own number, had been
the first to introduce into France the knowledge of the
English dramatist, as well as of several other English
authors. He had sought to add to French literature
some of the excellences in which English literature ex-
celled. For this he had been persecuted at the time.
He had been reproached with want of patriotism. But

362

THE WRATH OF VOLTAIRE

now his countrymen had gone to the other extreme and
cared for little else than that which they had once con-
temned. It was implied, though not asserted, that it
was Voltaire alone who had preserved that golden mean
between extremes which is as much the characteristic of
intellectual as of moral virtue. The charge made by
Le Toumeur in his preface that Shakespeare was un-
known in France, or rather disfigui'ed, filled him with
wrath. Voltaire had in the highest degree the courage
of his mendacities, nor did he flinch on this occasion
from repeating his fraudulent declaration that never
had there been so faithful a translation as his of ^ Julius
Caesar.^ He had rendered everjrthing with scrupulous
care, words, lines, figures, spirit. If Le Toumeur re-
proached France for not having an exact translation of
Shakespeare, all the more incumbent was it upon him
to translate him exactly. But this he had not done.
He had indeed brought upon the stage the artisans
in ^ Julius Caesar ; ' but he had not rendered the quib-
bles found in the speeches which the shoemaker ad-
dressed to the tribunes. It made no difference to the
now highly developed conscientiousness of the critic
that this feat could not well be accomplished in a
foreign tongue. Le Toumeur had proclaimed Shake-
speare the creator god of the theatre. To withhold any-
thing which he had said was therefore committing sacri-
lege against his divinity.

Voltaire also resorted to his now well-worn device of
selecting passages from Shakespeare which he fancied
would be peculiarly offensive to his hearers. If there
was anything exceedingly plain-spoken or indecent in

363

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

the original of these, he contrived, whenever possible,
to heighten this characteristie in his version. In one in-
stance, where he contributed additional coarseness to a
phrase in the porter's speech in ^Macbeth," he appended
in the published ^ Letter ' an apologetic note, not to de-
fend his own conduct, but to assail his author's. It was
to the effect that he asked pardon of cultivated readers,
and especially of the ladies, for the faithfulness of his
translation. He had, however, been compelled to ex-
pose the infamy with which certain Velches had desired
to cover France. With this same noble object in view
he had chosen for translation part of the opening scenes
of * Othello,' of ^ Romeo and Juliet,' and of *Lear.'
He rendered also a few sentences of the conversation
between Henry V. and the French king's daughter, and
of the porter's speech in ^ Macbeth.' None of these scenes
were given in full ; only so much was selected as con-
tained some coaise word or allusion, or some expression
the utterance of which under the circumstances would
be apt to strike his coimtrymen as inappropriate or un-
dignified. And not only did he give but a small part of
the conversation, he sought to create the belief that what
he left untranslated was much worse than what he trans-
lated. Take as one illustration out of many, his treat-
ment of the opening scene in ^ Romeo and Juliet' He
introduced it with the avowed object of comparing it
with an admired passage in Racine's Bajazet. Let us
not linger over the thorough dishonesty of a comparison
of this sort. He translated so much of the conversation
that went on between the two servants of the house of
Montague as would serve his purpose. When he reached

364

THE WRATH OF VOLTAIRE

the part that was inoffensive he carefully stopped with
the remark that respect and politeness did not permit
him to go farther. It is performances of this sort which
awaken disagreeable feelings in him most inclined to ad-
mire Voltaire ; for morally they are far more debasing
than the coarsest phrase or vilest allusion that can be
found anywhere in Shakespeare.

It is obvious indeed that not a single one of the pas-
sages inserted by Voltaire in this ^ Letter/ whether re-
garded as appropriate or not to the character who spoke
it, would ever have been selected by any one as a speci-
men of the genius of the English dramatist. They had
been laboriously culled out of his works for no other
reason than that they expressed or suggested what would
be repulsive. Voltaire had made as careful a choice as
he could, not merely of passages which would be offen-
sive to French taste, but of passages containing phrases
which would be offensive to the taste of everybody. He
as carefully neglected to give anything which would
furnish any manifestation of Shakespeare's genius at its
best ; or if he did, his version was of a nature to arouse
quite other ideas in the minds of his readers than those
which the original would inspire. He likewise repeated
in briefer terms his account of portions of ' Hamlet.' In
so doing he called attention to the anachronisms found
in that play, to its mixture of low scenes with tragic, to
its disregard of the unities of time and place. He ended
up his discourse with asking his audience to picture in
their minds Louis XIV. at Versailles, surrounded by his
brilliant court Into the midst of the heroes, the great
men, the beautiful women who composed that assem-

365

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

blage plunges a buffoon covered with tatteis. This is Le
Toumeur. He proposes to them to abandon Comeille,
Racine, and Molidre for a mountebank — this is Shake-
speare — who has exhibited some happy sallies of wit
and makes some contortions. ^'How do you believe,"
he asked, "that proposition would be received?" So
much for the buffoon tiunslator and the mountebank
who had been translated. At the end of the first part
he remarked with satisfaction that the sentiments to
which he had given expression had also found utterance
among English men of letters. They had been made
by Rymer himself, even the savant Rymer. It was his
reliance upon this most igpiorant as well as most wretched
of critics that had led him into his blundering account
of *Gorboduc.* He quoted, however, with unction his
words in which Shakespeare had been spoken of as in-
ferior in taste to a pug of Barbary.* It was conse-
quently with pride that Voltaire pointed to his own
finer impartiality of judgment, unmoved either by the
extravagance of depreciation or the extravagance of
admiration. "Permit me, gentlemen," he concluded
this part of his * Letter,* " to take a middle course be-
tween Rymer and the translator of Shakespeare; and
to regard this Shakespeare neither as a god nor as a
monkey."

Such is largely the * Letter ' which Voltaire called a
faithful exposition of the merits of Shakespeare as con-
trasted with those of French dramatic poetry. No sooner
was it finished than he set about summoning his adhe-
rents to his assistance in this new crusade. He forwarded

1 Rymer's Short View of Tragedy (1693), p. 124. S«e page 39.

366

THE WRATH OF VOLTAIRE

it at once to his intimate friend D*Alembert. Him he
addressed as secretary of good taste even more than as
secretary of the Academy. "Come to my rescue," he
wrote. "Read my statement of the case against our
enemy." The enemy here referred to was not Shake-
speare but Shakespeare's translator. He desired D' Alem-
bert to show to Marmontel and to La Harpe what he had
transmitted. He asked his help against those who were
striving to make his countrymen too English. He asked
it because he was pleading for France against England.
The nature of the aid he coveted was intimated rather
than expressed. What Voltaire was seeking was the
support of the Academy. It had been of great service
to him in the pubUcation of his < Comment^es on Cor-
neille.' His aim now was to secure its aid in what he
chose to call a war against England. What he there-
fore desired in this instance was an official letter from
D'Alembert as secretary, so that the attack on the trans-
lation should seem to have, if it did not actually have
the sanction of the Academy.^

Before D'Alembert had had time to reply, the actor
Le Kain had arrived at Femey. He brought with him
bad news. His report made all the deeper impression
because he was as full of anger as his host. To the latter
he announced that almost all the young people of Paris
were on the side of Le Tourneur. The new generation
was crying up Shakespeare. As expressed in Voltaire's
language, the English boards and the English brothels
were prevailing over the dramas of Racine and the beau-
tiful scenes of Comeille. In Paris there was nothing

1 Letter to D'Alembert, July 26, 1776.

867

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

grander and more decent than the buffoonery of the
London stage. Voltaire's mind was full of the gloomiest
forebodings. D'Argental had written him a letter sym-
pathizing with his indignation. It is not unlikely that
this nobleman, horrified by Le Toumeur's preface, had
withdrawn his subscription ; for his name appears on the
first list. A single fact of that nature would enable
Voltaire, with his magnificent powers of generalization,
to assert, as he did a little later, that all respectable persons
were withdrawing their support from the enterprise. To
this old friend he poured forth the deep sorrows of his
soul. ^* The abomination of desolation," he wrote, **is in
the temple of the Lord. ... I have seen the end of tbe
reign of reason and good taste. I am going to die, leav-
ing France barbarous. But happily you live, and I flat-
ter myself that the queen will not leave her new countiy,
of which she constitutes the charm, a prey to savages
and monsters. I flatter myself that Marshal Duras will
not have done the Academy the honor of belonging to it
in order to see us devoured by the Hottentots. I have
sometimes complained of the Velches; but I have de-
sired to avenge France before I die."

He was going, he said, to make a fight for his country.
He went on to tell his correspondent of the discourse he
had prepared on Shakespeare — now in the hands of
D'Alembert — and of his hopes and wishes in regard to
its publication. In it he had striven to suppress his
grief, in order to let only his reason speak. He was not
disposed to have it printed, unless the Academy gave it
an authorized approval. Such was not its usage. But
he thought that body might break for once over its rules.

368

THE WRATH OF VOLTAIRE

The occasion was one of unusual seriousness, and nice
customs should give way to stem necessities. An official
approval would be of the nature of a deci'ee against the
progress of barbarism. He concluded his letter as if he
were about to march to the stake or mount the scaffold
in all the majesty of conscious martyrdom. " I know," he
said, '^ that I shall make for myself cruel enemies ; but
some day, perhaps, the nation will be glad that I sacri'
ficed myself for her sake." * That time has never come.
France has never denied Voltaire's intellectual greatness,
however diverse have been the views taken of his char-
acter. As represented by some, she has looked upon him /
as little other than a jesting monkey possessed of genius ; j
as represented by others, as not merely a genius, but as \
a valiant soldier fighting for the reign of justice, good- \
will, and truth on earth. Further than this she has de-
clined to go. She has found as insupemble difficulties in
enrolling him in the company of the martyrs as in that
of the saints.

D'Alembert in the meanwhile fell readily in with the
objects aimed at by his friend, so far as they could be
carried out. At a private meeting of the Academy, held
on the 8d of August, the letter of Voltaire was read.
On the following day D'Alembert, as secretary, wrote to
the author that his remarks on Shakespeare appeared to
the members so interesting, as regarded literature in gen-
eral and French literature in particular, so useful above
all for the maintenance of good taste, that it was felt to
be desirable that the public should have the pleasure of
listening to his production. Accordingly they desired

1 Letter to D'Argental, J11I7 30, 1776.
24 369

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

his permission to read it again at the open meeting of
the 25th of August. It was then that prizes were to be
distributed.^ This particular method of bringing the
*' Letter ' before the public seems to have been the ex-
pedient of Voltaire^s partisans, rather than of Voltaire
himself ; but it had something of the effect of giving it
what he ardently desired, a sort of official sanction. Mrs.
Montagu, indeed, subsequently wrote to Garrick that it
was much against the inclination of all but three or four
members of the Academy that the paper was read.^ This
statement bears its refutation on its face. There was
pretty surely a minority opposed to the action and per-
haps a strong minority; but it could hardly have failed
to receive the willing assent of the majority.

The plan of reading it on this occasion was of course
based upon the supposition that the author could be in-
duced to give his consent. The solemn farce of begging
Voltaire to comply with a request to do something he
was longing to have done, D'Alembert went through
with imperturbable gravity. But he added certain con-
ditions imposed by the Academy. Voltaire, in his first
letter on the subject to his friend, had recognized the
necessity of refraining from all undue manifestations of
wrath when setting out to plead before a judicial body.
In this first draft he had not sufficiently restmined his
anger. He was told that the discourse could not be read
in public in the condition it was. The name of the
translator attacked must be suppressed; in fact, there

^ Letter of D'AIembert to Voltaire, Aag. 4, 1776.
^ Letter to Garrick from Sandellord, Not. 3, 1776. Garrick Corre-
spondence, Tol. ii. page 188.

370

THE WRATH OF VOLTAIRE

were three of them, and not one alone. Everything
indeed which had the appearance of offensive personality
must go. But besides this there were passages quoted
from Shakespeare too outspoken to be hazarded in a pub-,
lie assembly. These must be cut out

To the official communication to his dear and illustri-
ous confrdre which D'Alembert sent as perpetual secre-
tary of the Academy, he added a personal postscript of
his own to his dear master. He was desirous that the
* Letter ' should be read as a sort of protest against the
bad taste which a certain class of men of letters were
striving to bring into vogue. It was therefore important
that for the coarse speeches, unreadable in public, other
passages should be substituted, which would be equally
ridiculous but also readable. These of course could be
easily found. So thought D'Alembert, whose knowledge
of Shakespeare was in an inverse ratio to his knowledge
of mathematics. Accordingly he asked Voltaire to send
on these additional citations. He would charge himself
with the easy task of cutting out the objectionable pas-
sages. But time was pressing. Whatever was done
must be done quickly.^

Two replies came from Voltaire, one following three
days after the other.^ He consented to sacrifice the
name of Le Toumeur. Still, he gave his correspondent
to understand that this reprobate, though not to be men-
tioned, was the one in fact who was solely responsible
for the preface — that abominable preface in which
Shakespeare had been elevated to the throne of dramatic

% D'Alembert to Voltaire, Augiut 4, 1776.
* VoUaiie to D'Alembert; letters of August 10 and 13.

371

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

arty and in which by some oversight the name of Vol-
taire did not chance to appear. He it was who in this
intixKluctory matter had insulted the French writers
with all the insolence of a pedant ruling over school-
boys. He was as impertinent as he was tedious. With
that affluence of imagination or parsimony of truth —
according as one is disposed to look at it — which char-
acterized Voltaire in his controversies, he added that he
had been overwhelmed by letters from Paris on this
subject ; that all decent people were irritated against the
translator; that several had withdrawn their subscrip-
tions. It was expedient, he continued, that men should
put in the pillory of Parnassus this rascal of a Le Toui*-
neur, who in the tone of a master, gives us English
buffoons to set up in the place of Comeille and Racine ;
who treats us as everybody ought to treat him. Still, he
was perfectly willing to let his villanous name go un-
mentioned.

It was different, however, with the passages which
had been selected. Voltaire was aware, as D'Alembert
was not, that it was no easy matter to find others as
suitable for his purpose. He had carefully culled
out from the mass of Shakespeare's writings everything he
knew which would be offensive to his audience. If these
were thrown aside there were no others that could take
their place and produce the effect he aimed at. Their
retention was therefore all-important. These vulgarities,
these coarse words and phrases must be made known.
The public must be put in a position ^^ to see the divine
Shakespeare in all his abominableness and in all his
incredible vileness." He suggested a way out of the

872

THE WRATH OF VOLTAIRE

difficulty. D'Alembert, in reading, was to hesitate at
these passages. He was to stop and apologize. He was
to say that respect for the august assembly before which
he stood would not permit him to repeat the offensive
words and phrases he found in the extracts cited. An
effective contrast would be thus brought out between
the admirable pieces of Comeille and Racine and the
terms of the market and the brothel which the divine
Shakespeare had constantly put in the mouths of his
heroes and heroines. ^* The great thing/' he continued,
'^ is to inspire the nation with the disgust and detestation
it ought to have for buffoon Le Tourneur, extoUer of
buffoon Shakespeare ; to hold back our youth from the
slough into which they are precipitating themselves;
to preserve a little our honor, if there is any remaining
to us." Such were Voltaire*s exhortations. The way to
preserve the honor of French dramatists was to give an
utterly false impression of the character of the writings
of the English dramatist. ^^ I am still persuaded," he
wrote further, " that when you shall inform the Academy
that you cannot pronounce at the Louvre what Shake-
speare pronounced familiarly before Queen Elizabeth,
the hearer, who will be glad of your reticence, will let
his imagination run far beyond the English indecencies
which will remain unuttered on the tip of your tongue."
On this point he was specially urgent. It was the
main subject of both his letters to D'Alembert. To
reinforce his request he wrote to La Harpe, begging
him to second his appeal. The same fiery earnestness,
the same indefatigable activity which he had displayed
in championing the cause of victims of persecution he

373

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

now exhibited in behalf of his own wounded yanitjr,
though he disguised it under the name of zeal for the
reputation of French writers whom no one had attacked.
He complimented La Harpe on the patriotic and meri-
torious work which he and others had done in daring to
defend in the Academy Sophocles and Comeille, Eurip-
ides and Racine against Gilles Shakespeare and Pierrot
Le Toumeur. The risk involved in this undertaking
will not be likely to strike the foreign reader as making
a heavy demand upon the courage. In the way it was
to be performed it involved, however, the necessity of
doing a good deal of dirty work. Voltaire himself had
no conception where the foulness really lay. He fancied
it in Shakespeare, and not in himself and his associates.
The filthiness of the contest was in his eyes equal to its
desperate nature. " You will have to wash your hands
after that battle," he wrote, " for you will have fought
with the night-scavengers. I never expected France to
sink one day into this abyss of ordure into which it has
plunged." ^

In order, therefore, that France should be preserved
from any further defilement, it was absolutely essential
that coarse passages in the writings of the English dram-
atist should be wrenched from their context and pre-
sented as fair specimens of his general work. The helot
Shakespeare must be seen in his drunkenness, to save
the Spartan Parisian from similar degradation. This
consideration Voltaire impressed strongly upon La
Harpe. "My principal intention," he wrote, " and the
true aim of my labors is to have the public fully

1 Letter of Ang. 15, 1776.
374

THE WRATH OF VOLTAIRE

informed of the infamous vileness which men dare to
oppose to the majesty of our stage. It is clear that
one cannot gain the knowledge of this baseness save by
making a literal translation of the vulgar words of the
delicate Shakespeare." It was true that D'Alembert
could not disgrace himself by pronouncing aloud at the
Louvre before the ladies coarse expressions which were
spoken boldly every day in London. Still there was
the expedient already indicated. He could stop as he
reached them. By his very suppression of the proper
word he would inform the audience that he did not
dare [^to translate the decent Shakespeare in all his
native force. ^* I think," he added, ^* this reticence and
this modesty will gratify the assembly, who will imagine
much more mischief than can be spoken to them." ^

D'Alembert required no urging. La Harpe's interces-
sion was apparently not needed to induce him to carry
out this peculiar method of sustaining the honor of the
French stage. He put himself wholly at Voltaire's
disposition. He assured him in his reply that his orders
should be executed to the very letter. He had become
infected with his friend's lunacy, and fancied that a
translation of Shakespeare into French with a laudatory
preface was a declaration of war between France and
England. His reply is a singular illustration of the
influence exerted by a man of genius. D'Alembert's
self-love had not been wounded. He had no wrongs
real or fancied to avenge. He was as innocent of any
knowledge of Shakespeare as either La Harpe or
Marmontel. Yet he could hardly have exhibited more

1 Letter of Voltaire to La Harpe, Aagiut 15, 1776.

875

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

enthusiasm if his own fortune and fame had been at
stake. He repeated with docility all the phrases which
Voltaire had taught him. It was a war between France
and England. The day of the reading he spoke of as a
day of battle, in which the French must endeavor not
to be beaten as at Cr^cy and Poitiers. In the large
language on this really petty matter which passed
between two of the greatest men of Europe, the contest
was to be a struggle to the death. " It is necessary,"
wrote D'Alembert, " that either Shakespeare or Racine
remain upon the field. It is necessary to make these
gloomy and insolent English see that our men of letters
know how to fight against them better than do our
soldiers and generals. I shall cry out on Sunday in
rushing to the charge, Vive Saint-Denii'Voltaire^ et
meure George-Shakespeare,^* ^ Since Don Quixote's en-
counter with the windmills, literature has presented no
contest of quite the same character.

D'Alembert, however, repeated his warnings as to
what could and what could not be done. He regretted
that he would be compelled to leave out some of the
passages which were peculiarly objectionable. But the
printer could re-instate them. The wider world of
readers would thereby be enabled to become familiar
with them in all their foulness. Still, even in that case,
the grave Academy could assume no responsibility for
the publication of the work. It would therefore be
better not to seek for its endorsement, but to print
the treatise without any retrenchments. The author
could content himself with announcing that, out of

1 D'Alembert to Voltaire, Aug. 20, 1776.

876

THE WRATH OF VOLTAIRE

respect for the assembly brought together at the Louvre,
excisions had been made at the public reading of that
which Shakespeare pronounced openly before Queen
Elizabeth. In this way the superior delicacy of the
French court and people would be shown, while at
the same time there would be indicated to the public the
unspeakable vileness of the man whom an ignorant and
tasteless generation were celebrating as the creator god
of the modem stage.

877

CHAPTER XIX

THB DAY OF ST. LOUIS

Sunday, the twenty-fifth of August, the day of St.
Louis, came at last. A large and brilliant assemblage
gathered at the hall of the Forty. Members of the
nobility, ladies of the court, many of the most brilliant
beauties of whom Paris could boast, were present on the
occasion. A large number of Englishmen attended the
exercises, amounting, it is said by some, to nearly a
third of ti.e audienL Among them were the British
ambassador and Mrs. Montagu, who was spending the
summer at the French capital The pieces which had
received prizes were first read. They were followed by
an eulogium upon Homer, and then came the attack
upon Shakespeare.

In those days mail communication between Paris and
Femey took about a week. The train had been laid,
the mine was about to be fired, which was to blow
Shakespeare and his admirers into the air. Voltaire
waited in some doubt and anxiety for the report. In
a letter written duiing the interval, he reveals to us,
inadvertently, as it were, the real cause of his agitated
state of mind. D'Argental had encouraged him by the
noble wrath, as Voltaire called it, which he had mani-
fested against Le Tourneur. To him he communicated
more freely than to any one else the feelings which had

378

THE DAY OF ST. LOUIS

stirred up this bitterness in his heart. ^* It is said," he
wrote, '^ to the shame of our nation, that he " — that is,
Le Toumeur — ** has a large party made up of writers of
dramas and of tragedies in prose, seconded by some
Velches who believe themselves to belong to the parlia-
ment of England. All these gentlemen, I am told,
abjure Racine, and sacrifice me to their foreign divin-
ity."^ These last words it was which made manifest
where and how the iron had entered his soul. It was
bad enough to abjure Racine; but the immolation of
Voltaire to this strange god was convincing proof of
the frightful decadence which had overtaken literature.
His indignation kept rising at the terrible and debasing
idolatry into which a portion of his cotintiymen had
fallen. '^ There is no example," he added, '^ of a similar
overturn of spirit, of a similar turpitude. The Gilles
and the Pierrots of the fair of St. Germain, fifty years
ago, were Cinnas and Polyeuctes in comparison with the
personages of that drunkard of a Shakespeare whom
Le Toumeur calls the god of the theatre."

He was in a state of wrath, as he confessed himself.
The first news that reached him from what he looked
upon as the scene of conflict, brought him comfort and
indeed exultation. He had discomfited the enemy. The
Marquis de Villevieille set out for Femey early in the
morning of the day following the meeting of the Acad-
emy to convey the glad tidings. He purposed to kill, if
necessary, some post-horses in order to be the first to
render to the Patriarch an account of his triumph. So
we learn from D'Alembert, who had faithfully carried

^ Letter of Aug. 21, 1776, to D'ArgentaL

379

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

oat his master's instnictions, so &r as he had been per-
mitted. Following the military figure of speech set him
by his chief, he was able to annoonce a great victory.
The * Letter/ ^ he wrote to Voltaire, had been received
with the utmost favor. It had met with fervent ap-
plause. It was unfortunate indeed that certain passages
had to be omitted in order not to shock the piety of the
devotees or the delicacy of the ladies. Still, enough had
been preserved to cause much laughter and to contrib-
ute effectually to the winning of the battle.

In a similar strain wrote La Harpe to the grand-duke
of Russia, for whom he acted the part of literary pur-
veyor. ** M. de Voltaire," he said, ** sent us a piece upon
Shakespeare, in which, placed between Comeille and
Racine, he combats like a brave general for the glory of
the French theatre against that of London, and against
the siUy enthusiasts who have desired to overthrow our
stage and substitute for it the mountebank trestles of
barbarism/'' To us at this distance of time all this
perturbation of mind, this anxiety about the result, seems
as uncalled for as the military language employed seems
ridiculous. There was so little to excite surprise in the
favor with which the * Letter' was received that the
surprise would have been had it met with anything
but favor. It was addressed to the prejudices of the
auditors. They came prepared to sympathize; or if
indifferent, they were easy to be persuaded that the
cause for which Voltaire was pleading was the cause
of France. Furthermore the * Letter ' was the produc-

1 Letter of D'Alembert to Voltaiie, Aug. 27. 1776.
* Cor rupm danee litUiraire, toL i. p. 417.

380

THE DAY OF ST. LOUIS

tion of a man who had himself but little acquaintance
and less sympathy with Shakespeare, addressed to a
body of men, the large majority of whom had no
acquaintance with him at aU. It could not properly be
said of them that their knowledge of the English drama-
tist was less, but that their ignorance of him was more.
National prepossession, reinforced by the celebrity of the
critic, the greatest genius of his time, would induce them
to welcome his views with enthusiasm. Under such con-
ditions, if the reading was to be considered a battle, the
victory was certain to be one gained with ease.

Considerations of this sort did not occur to Voltaire.
He was elated at the news of his success. He began to
dream of a general vigorous onslaught upon this army
of barbarians who were threatening the overthrow of
the reign of good taste. He made up his mind, .he
declared, to labor for the resurrection of common-sense.
He revolved a plan previously contemplated of making a
more extended examination of the French theatre and
the London fair. Before the day of St. Louis came, he
had observed in one of his letters that he had always
recognized the faults of ComeiUe; he had spoken of
them, if anything, too often. But they were the faults
of a great man, while the one opposed to him the Eng-
lish critic Rymer had with good reason called a villa-
nous ape.^ He was beginning to entertain for Shake-
speare a feeling of positive hatred. The favor with
which his attack upon him had been received tended
now still more to intensify his dislike. He was deter-
mined to convert the victory he had achieved over the

1 Letter of Aug. 15, 1776, to La Harpe.

881

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

partasans of the English dramatist into a total rout.
This made him unwilling to follow the cooise which
D^Alembert had declared to be necessaiyY if he wished
the treatise to come out as piinted by the authorized
publisher of the Academy.^ This was the omission of
the coarse words and passages which he had quoted.
To these Voltaire clung, and all of them appear to have
been retained.

In the first flush of exultation at the news of his
success, his denunciation of Shakespeare increased in
violence. He professed himself more than ever
astonished at the superstitious veneration with which
he was regarded by the English. His thoughts on that
matter he communicated to D'Alembert in reply to his
account of the success which had attended the reading.
^* X have always wondered,'* he wrote, ^^ that a nation
which has produced geniuses full of taste and even of
delicacy, as well as philosophers worthy of you yourself,
should be willing to pride themselves upon this abomi-
nable Shakespeare, who is in truth only a village buffoon
and has not written two decent lines. There is in that
obstinacy of bad taste a national madness for which it is
difficult to assign a reason." To another correspondent
at about the same time he revealed the secret of Le
Toumeur's conduct. He had been overcome by the
love of money. He was willing to exhibit the baseness
of sacrificing France to England in order to obtain sub-
scriptions for his translation from the men of the latter
country who came to visit Paris. / *^ It is impossible,''
he said, *^ for a man who is not an absolute fool to have

^ D'Alembert's letter of Aag. S7, 1776.

882

THE DAY OF ST, LOUTS

preferred in cold blood a Gilles such as Shakespeare to
Comeille and Racine. That infamy can only have been
committed under the influence of a sordid avarice which
ran after guineas." ^

Having thus satisfactorily disposed of the motives of
Le Toumeur for translating Shakespeare, he went on to
give an equally satisfactory explanation of the origin of
the error of the English in admiring him. It was all
due to the acting of Garrick. The player had created
an illusion which had enveloped with its atmosphere the
playwright. He had represented naturally what Shake-
speare had disfigured by ridiculous exaggerations. In
consequence some of the English had come to consider
Shakespeare superior to Comeille because Garrick was
superior to Mol4. This explanation, though it reveals
to us the mind of the philosopher, can hardly be said
to reveal the philosophic mind. Yet during the contro-
versy that raged in Parisian circles after this meeting of
the Academy, it was a reason for Shakespeare's popu-
larity with his countrymen not unfrequently given.
Madame Necker wrote to Garrick that it was the argu-
ment employed by critics among her personal friends
to explain away her enthusiasm for the English drama-
tist, and her growing indifference to the plays produced
upon the French stage. " You deceive yourself," they
said. '^ It is only a majestic phantom which Mr. Gar-
rick, that puissant enchanter, has evoked from the depths
of the grave. When the charm ceases, Shakespeare
re-enters into night." ^ All this naturally failed to

^ Letter of Sept. 7, 1776, from Voltaire to M. de Vaines.
' Garrick Correspondence, toI. ii. p. 624.

383

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

account for that enthusiasm which had styled him the
inimitablei the divine, not only long before Grarrick was
heard of on the stage, but even before he was bom, and
to the existence of which Voltaire had himself borne fre-
quent witness. Reflections of this sort possibly came to
him as he was writing the letter. At all events he left
the English to their fate. ^ I abandon them to their
reprobate minds,'' he concluded ; *^ and I shall not make
a recantation in order to please them."

These last words suggest a state of mind of which he
now began to make frequent manifestation. It is diffi-
cult indeed to put a serious interpretation upon his
language in the moment of what he deemed his great
victory. One naturally supposes that he must be jesting.
But there is no jocoseness either in the manner or the
matter of what he said. The tone throughout is serious.
V It is a tribute to the strength of outraged vanity that
the one man in Europe who was gifted by nature with
the keenest sense of the ridiculous seems to have had
no suspicion of the ridiculous part he was playing. He
had declared war against England, he said, and in his
opinion England must be as much impressed with
the gravity of the situation as he was himself. Unsup-
ported, deserted even by those who should have been
his allies, he had singly sustained the shock of conflict.
" I am but an old hussar," he wrote, " but I have fought
all alone against an army of Pandours. I flatter myself
that at the end there will be found some true French-
men who will join me, if there are some Velches who
abandon me."^

1 Letter of September 7 to M. de Vuneft.

384

THE DAY OF ST. LOUIS

All his utterances at this time pointed to the existence
of a dreadful state of war, with its manoBuvres and stratar-
g^msy and the devices of the enemy to neutralize his
own efforts. Copies of his ^Letter to the Academy,'
which he was distributing, failed to reach their destina-
tion. It was an old complaint of his, and in those days
of lax administration and careless handling of the mails,
to say nothing of espionage and confiscation of forbidden
matter, it was undoubtedly often a subject of just com-
plaint. But the reason he assigned for the miscarriage
in this particular instance partook of the singular
delusion which had now gained possession of his mind.
^* It must be," he wrote, ** that some spy of the English
has stopped my packages on the way, or that there is
in France some great man who prefers Shakespeare to
Comeille and Racine, and who takes sides against me." ^
The serious international nature of the controversy in
which he was engaged was deeply impressed upon his
mind. " I do not know," he had written a few weeks l^
earlier to the same correspondent, '* whether, after having
declared war against England, I shall be able to make
my peace with it. I have no Canada to give it, no
Indian company to sacrifice to it. But I shall not ask
pardon of it for having sustained the beauties of Comeille
and Racine against Gilles and Pierrot, and I do not
believe that the English ambassador will ask of the king
the suppression of my declaration of war." ^

These manifestations of wounded vanity are bad
enough ; but there is a still stranger part to this story.

1 Letter of Oct. 2, 1776, to M. de Vainee.
* Letter of Sept. 4, 1776, to M. de Vainee.
25 385

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

It is hard to believe, yet the evidence leads to but one
conclusion. The man whose pointed periods had driven
injustice and cruelty from the strongholds in which they
had intrenched themselves; who had wrung from a
reluctant church and state unwilling reparation for the
wrongs done to the families of Calas and Sirven ; whose
indefatigable efforts had reversed the infamous decisions
of judicial tribunals ; the champion of the persecuted to
whom the wronged everywhere appealed for redress;
the philosopher whose proclamation of the gospel of
toleration had influenced the actions of the proudest
potentates of Europe ; this great apostle of liberty of
speech would have been delighted, could he have suc-
ceeded in getting the translation of Shakespeare sup-
pressed. At any rate he sought to have it taken out from
under the patronage of the royal family. A letter of his
to the Due de Richelieu with tentative suggestions of
this nature cannot well bear any other interpretation.

To this nobleman he sent a copy of his attack upon the
English dramatist. In the communication accompanying
it he told him that the fouinder of the Academy did not
love the English. He was persuaded that the present
representative of the family, who had made those same
English pass under the Caudine Forks, would not take
the part of Shakespeare against Comeille and Racine.
One can pardon that people, he continued, ^^ for boasting
of their buffoons and merry-andrews. But is it per-
mitted French men of letters to dare to prefer these
burlesque shows of the fair, so low, so disgusting, so
absurd, to masterpieces such as Oinna and Athalie f ''
All respectable people at Paris, it seemed to him, were

386

THE DAY OF ST. LOUIS

full of indignation at the despicable insolence of this
sort which had been exhibited. He wished the Duke,
the gi'and-nephew of the founder of the Academy, not
only to shaie in this indignation, but to take steps
to counteract the wrong done to the nation. ^'Le
Tourneur," he wrote, ^^ has dared to put the name of the
king and the queen at the head of his edition, which is
to dishonor France throughout Europe." It was the
duty of Richelieu to step forth as the protector of his
country in this war.^

Precisely what sort of a reply was made to this appeal
we have no means of ascertaining. We can only infer
something of its nature from the answer it received from
Voltaire. Richelieu's sense of the ridiculous was keen.
It is pretty clear that he was more amused by the sensi-
tiveness of his correspondent about his own reputation
than impressed by his zeal for the reputation of Comeille
and Racine. He undoubtedly did not feel that the
fortunes of France were at stake because a French
writer had written an essay which gave extravagant
praise to an English dramatist, while neglecting to
mention the name of a certain eminent living man of
letters. As he himself was one of the subscribers to the
translation, he was not likely to make any attempt to
persuade the royal family to withdraw its patronage
from the work. Indeed, even had he had any inclination
to accede to Voltaire's wishes, he was not ignorant of
the tsct that he was quite a different man from the great
cardinal whose name he bore, and occupied an altogether
different position. He may have thought that Voltaire

1 Letter to Richeliea, Sept. 11, 1776.

387

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

was in earnest ; but he apparently did not let him sup-
pose that he thought so. It is probable that he affected
to treat the proposal as not seriously made.

If so, he was at once undeceived. Voltaire gave him
to understand that, accustomed as he was to find the
Duke laughing at everything and everybody, his corre-
spondent included, tins was no laughing matter. On the
contrary, it was very serious. " You are our dean,*' he
wrote ; ^^ you are the nephew of the Cardinal Richelieu.
Certainly he would not have suffered a great work to be
dedicated to Louis XIII., in which France was sacrificed
to England. During my life of more than eighty years
I have seen ridiculous and insolent performances ; but I
have never seen any equal to this. It is of you princi-
pally that I have thought it right to demand justice." ^
But Voltaire evidently inferred from the Duke's reply
that no help was to come from that quarter. A letter
which he had received a few days before from D'Alem-
bert had shown him plainly that no help could come
from any quarter. For this result he was himself
largely responsible."^ The mortification his vanity had
endured from the remarks found in the preface of Le
Toumeur had led him unthinkingly into displaying a
lack of tact of which he had soon occasion to repent.
It is not the only instance of the sort which can be met
with in studying his career.

No one appreciated more fully than Voltaire the in-
fluence wielded by women at that time in political and
social circles. No one in the preceding reign had paid
more assiduous court than he to the Pompadour. He

1 Letter to Richeliea, Oct. 15, 1776.

888

THE DAY OF ST. LOUIS ,

was just as eager now to conciliate the queen of Louis
XVI. To gain her support and that of the princesses
in the controversy upon which he had entered was
something that lay near his heart. In his ^Letter to
the Academy' he said several things which were de-
signed for them and for them alone. In successive
letters to D'Alembert he urgently insisted upon the
retention — whatever else was omitted — of that which
he had prepared to induce them to espouse his cause.
'* I conjure you," he wrote, " to leave standing my ap-
peal to the queen and our princesses. It is necessary
to engage them to take our side."* The queen espe-
cially was to be won over ; of that result he was hope-
ful. She loves the tragic theatre, said Voltaire; she
distinguishes the good from the bad ; she will in conse-
quence be the upholder of good taste. So the passage
was not stricken out in the reading, nor unfortunately
for Voltaire certain others which revealed the sensitive-
ness he felt at the patronage which had been bestowed
upon Le Tourneur's translation by the royal family.
He called upon the courts of Europe, upon the literary
academies, upon the cultivated men of all lands, upon
the men of taste in every condition of life to judge
between the French and the English dramatists. This
was a mere preliminary to the impassioned appeal he
addressed to those whose favor in this particular
emergency he believed to be of more worth than
that of all the other personages he had mentioned.
"I dare," he continued, "to demand justice of the
Queen of France, of our princesses, of the daughters

1 Letter of Aag. 13, 1766,
389

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

of 80 many heroes, who know how heroes ought to
talk."

y^ In Voltaire's anxiety to impress upon the ladies of
the court his conception how heroes ought to talk, he
forgot to follow the politic way of talking to those
of them who found themselves described, doubtless
in some cases to their astonishment, as daughters of
heroes. In attacking in the manner he did the version
of Le Toumeur he had really attacked the persons whom
he was most solicitous to gain over to his side. The
translator, be said in his ' Letter,' had sought to sacri-
fice France to England in a work which he had dedi-
cated to the king and for which he had obtained the
subscriptions of the queen and the princesses. Not a
single one of his compatriots whose pieces were repre-
sented on the stages of all the nations of Europe, even
upon the stage itself of the English, was spoken of in
his preface of one hundred and thirty pages. The name
of the great Comeille was found but a single time.
^^Why," he added, ^^did he wish to humiliate his coun-
try ? " The purport of all this was plain enough even
to the meanest capacity. It was not the fancied slight
put upon the great French tragedians of the past which
troubled Voltaire. It was the failure to recognize and
celebrate the great Fi^ench tragedian of the pi'esent.

The vanity displayed was surpassed by the tactlessness.
The remarks just cited were really a covert insult. That
neither Voltaire nor his partisans saw it, is a proof how
completely they were blinded by the dust they them-
selves had raised. There can hardly be the slightest
question that the court appreciated the absurdity of the

390

THE DAY OF ST. LOUIS

pretension of warfare that had been put forth, and
the ridiculousness of the clamor that had been raised.
Under any circumstances to call a work which had
been dedicated by permission to the king a sacrifice of
France to England was not judicious. If this view were
accepted, only one conclusion cotfld follow. The court
lacked either patriotism or perspicacity. This was not
the way to conciliate the favor of the king or queen or
of the rest of the royal family. It could not have been
agreeable to them to be stigmatized by implication as
unpatriotic because a translation of Shakespeare had
been brought forth under their auspices. They had in-
deed made themselves in a measure responsible for its
character and success. Le Toumeur furthermore was
the private secretary of that member of the reigning
family who in default of the survival of legitimate issue
would inherit the crown. Wherever known, the trans-
lator was regarded with respect. It was naturally not
a gratifying circumstance to have terms of gross abuse
heaped upon him, as had been done in the first pub-
lished letter of Voltaire to D'Argental, because he had
been engaged in a work which had received the ap-
proval and encouragement of the court.

The consequences were not long in manifesting them-
selves. It soon appeared that the triumph on the day of
St. Louis had not been so complete as D'Alembert had
announced, and as Voltaire had been led to believe.
About six weeks after the great victory the former was
under the necessity of communicating to his commander-
in-Kshief some mournful tidings. The success of which
he had boasted had been followed by unpleasant re^

391

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

^ verses. He had f umished the ^ Letter ' to the bookseller
for publication, as he had been directed. That person,
not having a suspicion that there would be the slight^
est obstacle in the way of its sale, had given it at once
to the printer. No sooner had he done so than he met
with a refusal to allow it to be sold. This was the first
item of the interesting news, as he called them, which
D'Alembert was enabled to communicate to his corre-
spondent. The second was like unto it, only it was a
good deal worse. The Academy had asked of the king
five hundred livres a year, in order to increase its prizes,
and arouse still more the emulation of the younger men
of letters. This too had been refused. The report ex-
isted that the devotees at Versailles had persuaded the
king that the extracts, culled with so much pains from
^ Shakespeare for their coarseness, were injurious to re-
ligion; "although," added D'Alembert with natural
Indignation, "at the public reading aU the indecent
passages had been cut out." He ended the communicar
tion of his unpleasant tidings with bewaiUng the credit
possessed at court by these I^ypocritical slanderers.^

Criticism which depends for its success upon mis-
representation and misquotation pays for any temporary
victory it achieves with ultimate defeat. The tinfair-
ness and unscrupulousness of the course Voltaire, had
adopted was easily seen by those Frenchmen present at
the meeting of the Academy who chanced to know any-
thing about Shakespeare. Even in that hall filled with
ignorant sympathizers there had been found dissenters
from the general applause the * Letter* had received.

1 D'Alembert to Voltiure, Oct 15, 1776.

892

THE DAY OF ST. LOUIS

When azmoTmcing the victory, D'Alembert had written
to Voltaire that it was hardly necessary to say that the
English who were present on the occasion went away
exceedingly dissatisfied. Their disgust could be en-
dured with equanimity, if not seen with pleasure. But
others too were there who had to be considered. While
arrangements were making for this attack upon the
translation, D'Alembert had admitted that among the
Parisian men of letters there were some deserters from
the good cause, there were some traitorous brothers.
He assured his correspondent, however, that these
would be taken and hanged. It is clear that some of
these traitors, lost to the sense of shame as well as of
sin, had made their way to the meeting. D'Alembert
somewhat grudgingly conceded the fact. Equally ill-
pleased as the English, he wrote to Voltaire, were certain
Frenchmen, who, not content with being beaten by the
islanders on land and sea, wished also to be put to flight
on the stage. This, converted into the language of com-
mon-sense, meant that there were Frenchmen present who
had not lost their reasoning faculties sufficiently to con-
sider admiration of Shakespeare as a crime, or to regard a
translation of his works into their language as an act of
treason. They doubtless thought that if the plays of
Coimeille and Bacine could not stand a comparison with
a version, which, even if it represented fairly the mean-
ing of the original, could not convey any proper concep-
tion of its poetry, they had better be relegated at once
to insignificance and obscurity.

Voltaire was thrown into a state of astonishment
and dismay by the tidings communicated by D'Alembert.

393

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

That there was anything injurious to religion in his
attack upon Shakespeare was too ridiculous to be
spoken of seriously. It might be offensive to delicacy ;
it certainly was not to piety. There was clearly some
other agency which had brought about a refusal to
license the sale of the work, though his partisans con-
tented themselves with the one just specified. He tried
vainly to fathom the cause that had produced the
prohibition. The charge against the ^ Letter ' might
have been, he fancied, the work of the translator. As
he had been found capable of exalting Shakespeare, he
was conceivably liable to commit any other iniquity.
Voltaire suggested that Le Toumeur, conscious that he
could have nothing to say for himself, had perhaps
insinuated to the great nobleman upon whom he de-
pended, that there was heresy, deism, atheism, in this
diatribe against his author. His word would be believed ;
for no one took the trouble to read for himself.^

This was a possible explanation; but it was not
altogether satisfactory even to its author. Any one
indeed can now see that the plea of impiety for refusing
permission to sell the piece was the baldest sort of
pretext ; it ought to have been seen by everybody then.
But to whatever cause the prohibition was due, the
melancholy fact of its existence could not be denied.
The little work which was to crush the infamous con-
spirator who was seeking to sacrifice France to England
had been struck down in the house of the authorized
defenders of the realm. To add to the misery of the
situation, the Academy which had cheered Voltaire

1 Voltaire to D'Alembert, Oct. 7, 1776.

894

THE DAY OF ST, LOUIS
on in his attack had met with a rebuff from the

same quarter. That was the penalty it had paid for
standing up for the honor of the national literature.
Well might the old man believe that the age of deca-
dence, so long impending, was now fully arrived.
Everywhere the foes of good taste were triumphant.
He had been contemplating the composition of a second
letter, moi*e interesting, he said, than the first. But the
evil news he received took the heart out of him. There
was no use in forming new projects or undertaking new
enterprises. **I die disagreeably," he wrote; "I have
seen literature die in France."^

In reply D' Alembert was able to send somewhat more
encouraging news to the despondent octogenarian. The
tone of his letter was however decidedly different from
that earlier one in which he had announced to his leader
that the deserters would be taken and hanged. The
situation of affedrs had in fact undergone a complete
reversal. The deserters were apparently to inflict the
punishment instead of receiving it. Voltaire was in-
formed by his correspondent that he would not be
burned : owing to the clemency of his judges he would
merely be hanged.' His * Letter to the Academy ' could
now be bought by the public. D'Alembert himself had
seen it offered for sale at the Tuileries. " The prohibi-
tion," he wrote, ** of saying anything against the English
theatre and against Shakespeare has been removed."
Still none the less, he continued, did the idiotic belief
prevail at Versailles that this ^ Letter ' was an impious

1 Voltaire to D'Alembert, Oct. 7, 1776.
' D'Alembert to Voltaire, Oct. 15, 1776.

395

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

work. In consequence the money for the increase of
prizes had been definitely refused to the Academy.
But he exhorted his friend not to cease his prosecutioii
of the war, to go on with that second letter demolishing
the English drama and its great dramatist Voltaire
tried to take heart He would devote himself, he said,
to the flogging of Shakespeare. But he failed to cany
out his resolution. The preface to his tragedy of Irenes
which goes under the name of the second letter to the
Academy, was not written at this time.

396

£ai h

* '^

CHAPTER XX

INDIFFEBBNCE OF THE ENGLISH

AxTTHORS are frequently disposed to take thexnselyes
very seriously. This is a feeling on their part about
themselves which is rarely shared in by their brethren.
With them it is more often made a subject of ridicule
than of solemn consideration. But while this is true in
general, it was not true in the case of Voltaire. Seri-
ously as he took himself, he was taken just as seri-
ously by many of his contemporaries. There was some
warrant for their state of mind. He had accomplished
so much that lay outside the legitimate fields of literary
activity ; he had so impressed men by the fact that single-
handed he had overthrown the decisions of judicial
tribunals; he had even been so successful in modify-
ing the policy of great sovereigns, that little limit was
set to what it was in his power to perform. He had
declared war, he said, against England. Men asked
themselves gravely, what would be the consequence.
The belief in the momentous nature of this proceeding
was shared in by others as well as by himself.

That Voltaire with his insatiable vanity, coupled
with his long literary sovereignty, should entertain the
feeling about the importance of any action he took is
not so veiy surprising ; but that it should be exhibited

397

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

by so clear-headed an observer as Grimm shows to what
an extent this singular mental distortion had come to
exist among men of letters. That generally impartial
reporter of what was then going on in France had
previously spoken with the slightest trace of irony of
the somewhat touching state of amiable feeling which
had been for some time existing between France and
England. He expressed a fear that bitterness might
arise in consequence of the translation of Shakespeare,
and the patriotic resentment, as it was called, of Voltaire,
which had led him to attack it. How widely the
delusion prevailed as to the international importance of
this action is evidenced by the &ct that this generally
;^cool observer regarded the * Letter to the French
Academy ' as what its author called it, a declaration of
war in form. He remarked that it was difficult to
foresee what might be the consequences. Would the
English people permit the French Academy to discuss
quietly the justness of Shakespeare's claim to the
idolatry with which he was regarded by that whole
nation ? Would they recognize the competence of the
tribunal?^ The answer to both questions was ridic-
ulously easy. The decision of the French Academy on
the merits of Shakespeare would have as much weight
with Englishmen as a similar decision of any learned
body in England on the merits of Comeille would have
with Frenchmen. It is undoubtedly the truth, as Grimm
remarked, that contemptuous and hostile remarks, so
frequently indulged in by men of letters, contribute
powerfully to the ill-will that springs up between

1 Corrupondance Uu&atre, tome ix., p. 117 IL

398

INDIFFERENCE OF THE ENGLISH

nations. But it is their criticism of a whole people
that irritates ; rarely the criticism of individual authors.
As to any ill effect to be produced by the * Letter to
the French Academy ' Grimm's mind was speedily set at
rest. It was a proof, he remarked later, of the pacific
disposition reigning among the rival nations of Europe
that the extraordinary diatribe of Voltaire was listened
to with patience from beginning to end by the large
number of English who were present, and among them
by the English ambassador, who sat gravely through
the whole reading, not once permitting a smile to be
seen upon his face at any of the amusing passages with
which the discourse abounded. The only sign of re-
sentment reported as having been displayed is recorded
by La Harpe. Its importance may be estimated from
the fact that it came from a boy of ten or twelve years
of age. Like all good English people he had been
brought up, La Harpe ^ tells us, in the religion of Shake-
speare. He is represented as boiling over with wrath V
at the sarcasms of Voltaire and at the laughter of the
assembly. He wanted to hiss. He found it hard to
understand why he had not as much right to relieve
his feelings in that fashion as the others had by applause.
Assuming that he was possessed of all the precocity
which this account requires, he must have longed to
hiss on general principles, and not from any real knowl-
edge of Shakespeare's plays or appreciation of Voltaire's
sarcasms. There was indeed this justification for his
state of mind, that there would have been full as much
intelligence in the hissing to which he would have given

^ La Harpe, Corretpcndance litMraire, tome i. p. 417 (ed. of 1802),

899

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

utterance, as there actually was in the applause mani-
fested by the majority of the assembly. The incident,
however, if not so exaggerated as to be practically
apocryphal, was assuredly of no possible importance.
The attitude of the British ambassador was that main-
tained by his compatriots. It was evident enough that
if the Academy wished to determine the question of
Shakespeare's merit, the English could not prevent it if

^ they tried. It was equally evident that they had no
disposition to tiy.

Voltaire's private letter of July 19 to D'Argental,
which had at once been made public, had been put forth
as a manifesto of hostilities. It was so spoken of gen-

^ erally. The * Letter to the Academy ' which followed
was the actual declaration of war against the English.
Such he himself loudly proclaimed it. But in order
to have a war there must necessarily be two parties.
Unfortunately for Voltaire's proclamation of hostilities,
the English, once full of resentment at his disparage-
ment of Shakespeare, did not now seem to care enough
about the matter to make a fight. So far from answer-
ing his attack upon their favorite dramatist, they can
hardly be said to have discussed it at all. Whatever
plans may have been formed — if any were formed —
of replying to his charges, ended in talk. His letter
to D'Argental denouncing Le Toumeur and his ver-
sion had been carried over to England. A transla-
tion of it appeared in the newspapers. It excited
amusement and derision a good deal more than it did
irritation; but even of the former there was little ex-
hibition. Hardly a word of comment upon this letter

400

INDIFFERENCE OF THE ENGLISH

appeared in any periodical publication of whatever char-
acter. Horace Walpole is the only person of literary \/
prominence who seems to have left any record of the
impression it made ; and this was confined to his private
correspondence. He transmitted to Mason Voltaire's
letter to D^Argental in the original French. He spoke
of it as a sUly torrent of ribaldry and described its
author as the worst of dunces, a genius turned fool with
envy.^ Voltaire's further discourse to the French Acad-
emy he characterized later as being ^^as downright
Billingsgate as an apple- woman would utter, if you over- /
turned her wheelbarrow." " It hurts me," he added,
'' when a real genius like Voltaire can feel more spite
than admiration, though I am persuaded his rancour is
grounded upon his conscious inferiority."^ In these
words Walpole may be said to have embodied the com-
mon English opinion of the * Letter.'

A translation of this attack upon Shakespeare came
out at London in March, 1777. The same indifference
continued to be manifested. As had been the case
with the original, the translation excited but little com-
ment. A careful examination of the magazines of the
period — the periodical publications in which the indig-
nant Briton of those days usually vented his wrath —
shows only barest references to the ^ Letter ' either by
regular contributors or occasional correspondents. The
long-estabUshed and leading reviews of the time, the
^ Monthly ' and the ^ Critical,' had merely brief notices of

^ Letter to Mason, Sept. 17,1776, Cunningham's edition of Walpole's
Correspondence, toI. yi. p. 375.

2 Ibid., p. 379. Letter to Mason of Oct. 8, 1776.
26 401

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

it, the longest being but a dozen lines. Their omission to
consider it at length is significant of the little interest
it inspired, because they not unf requently paid a good
deal of attention to works produced in foreign lan-
guages, and might naturally be supposed to have a
special interest in this particular piece. There was how-
ever then published another review, the * London. ' Dur-
ing the first part of its brief existence it was rather a
personal organ of Kenrick, its founder, than an organ of
public opinion. It had little circulation and less in^
fluence. The course it took is the only exception to the
general rule of indifference which prevailed. In this
review a large share of the ^ Letter ' was translated with
a few running comments. The general character of
the estimate expressed by it was summed up in the
opening paragraph of the criticism. In it the discourse
was described as exhibiting the vanity, petulance, and
invidious disposition of its celebrated author.^ This
was very mild for Kenrick, whom many will remember
mainly from Macaulay's designation of him as '^the
polecat." To be abused by him was no distinction ; he
abused everybody. Besides these notices, a few epi-
gi*ams in the magazines, a few passages translated, gen-
erally without comment, in the newspapers, make up
all the part which England played in this so-called war.
Doubtless in the multifarious literature of the years
immediately following Voltaire's deaths further refer-
ences to his attack on Shakespeare can be found; for

1 The ' London Reyiew/ toI. it. p. 50 (1776). Kenrick farther sent to
the ' Gentleman's Magazine ' (Dec. 1776, vol. zlri. p. 556) a not altogether
agreeable character of Voltaire, which he said had been commanicated to
him by a French gentleman.

402

INDIFFERENCE OF THE ENGLISH

though the English did not reply, they were not likely
to forget. Still the few which have come under my
own obseryation do not rival in bitterness some of those
produced much earlier in the century. Beattie indeed
spoke with much contempt of Voltaire and his followers,
who fancied that nothing was in taste unless it was in
the French taste ; who condemned Shakespeare's plays
as absurd farces, because formed upon a plan which
they did not approve. Criticism of this sort, he added,
was as much below the notice of rational inquiry as
modes of hair-dressing or patterns of shoe-buckles.^
But the charge more commonly repeated was that of
plagiarism. Davies, in his *• Dramatic Miscellanies,'
said, for instance, that no ghost would ever have ap-
peared upon the French stage, had not Voltaire been
struck by that in * Hamlet.' " Thence," he added, " he
warmed his Simiramis with that fire which he stole
from the man whom he admires, envies, viUfies, and
grossly misrepresents."*

But not often was even so much irritation as this
displayed. The truth is that by this time the English
had generally settled down into the comfortable con-
viction of Shakespeare's assured superiority to all
dramatists ancient or modem. That any one should
take a different view rarely begot resentment; it was
rather a feeling of compassion that was aroused for
the intellectual shortcomings of the person entertain-
ing it. The general attitude is pretty fairly con-
veyed in an article which appeared in 1772 in the

^ BiflBertations Moral and Critical, bj James Beattie, 1783| p. 183.
* Dramatic Miscellanies, rol. iii. p. 36.

403

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

leading review of the time. It is one of a series of
highly favorable notices of the QueUvyM 9ur VEneyclo^
ptdie which had been published the preceding year.
v/ " When Mr. Voltaire," said the writer, " affects to place
Comeille above our divine Shakespeare, we feel no in-
dignation at such a preposterous preference ; we do not
even charge the critic with a total want of taste and
judgment in the works of genius. We know the inno-
cent vanity which attends the amor patricB^ and forgive
him while

' He holda his fiirthing candle to the san/ " ^

Accordingly Voltaire need have felt no anxiety that
the English ambassador would insist upon the suppres-
sion by the French government of his declaration of war.
He could have safely dismissed the fear that any apology,
any recantation, would be required on his part, that in
fact anything would be demanded of him personally in
exchange for the ratification of a treaty of peace. The
time had gone by for any feelings approaching sen-
sitiveness. An attack upon Shakespeare was either
received with absolute indifference or produced the same
amused wonderment with which one would now regard
an attack upon the Copemican system. An attitude,
not controversial but contemptuous, was taken towards
those, whether natives or foreigners, who continued
still to cherish the rapidly disappearing belief of a
vanished age that Shakespeare was simply an inspired
barbarian. We can find it exemplified in Maurice
Morgann's Essay on Falstaff. This came out the year
following the appearance of the ^ Letter to the French

^ Monthly Review, vol. xlvii. p. 536.

404

INDIFFERENCE OF THE ENGLISH

Academy.' It expressed in a confident and indeed inso-
lent way the view of Shakespeare which the English
were now coming generally to hold. ** When the hand
of time," said Morgann, ^* shall have brushed off his
present editors and commentators, and when the very
name of Voltaire, and even the memory of the language
in which he has written, shall be no more, the Appala-
chian Mountains, the banks of the Ohio, and the plains
of Sciola shall resound with the accents of this barbarian.
In his native tongue he shall roll the genuine passions
of nature ; nor shall the griefs of Lear be alleviated, or
the charms and wit of Rosalind be abated by time." ^

There was another reason too for this indifference.
Voltaire suffered to some extent from the penalty which
those men undergo who establish a reputation for humor.
He was liable not to be taken seriously, even when he was
most serious. To a certain extent it was so in the case
of this particular discourse. It was regarded by some as
little more than a piece of pleasantry on the part of ^^ the
old joker of Femey," ^ as he was styled in one of the
reviews. Why therefore should he be answered in
earnest ? Garrick indeed wrote to Madame Necker that
rods were in preparation for Voltaire by several English
wits. Mrs. Montagu, on her return from Paris in Octo-
ber, had sent him the ' Letter to the French Academy.'
In it, as has been remarked, his cutting out of the grave-
diggers' scene had been mentioned with approval and
adduced as a proof of the revival of taste among the
English. It was a sore point with the actor. He had

1 Morgann's Essay, etc. (1777), p. 65.

> Monthly Review, yoL liv. p. 400, May, 1776.

405

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

now come to see that his alteration had met with no
favor from the educated class of his countrymen. He
was also far from pleased with being reckoned as an ally
of the French author in his depreciation of Shakespeare.
"His letter to the French Academy," he wrote to
Madame Necker, " is no addition to his genius or his
generosity, and his errors are without end. I pity his
ill-placed anger." ^ The punishment, however, which he
predicted as being in store for Voltaire always remained
in store. It was never taken out of it. Everything
there was of that nature has been already indicated here.
The only reply that came from England was written by
an Italian in the French tongue.

This was the work of Baretti, the friend of Dr. John-
son and the calumniator of Mrs. Piozzi. It is itself a
proof of the indifference prevalent among the English
that he was the only person who undertook the task.
In fact, it was their indifference which he gave as his
reason for undertaking it. Everybody was asleep, he
remarked, and Voltaire was permitted to speak without
contradiction. This had prompted him to produce tus
apology for the poet ; and for the sake of being read in
France, to produce it in a tongue which he said he had
not mastered fully, though he had studied it much.^
" I have taken courage," he wrote, " to unmask an in-
solent impostor, who for half a century has sought to
make himself accepted in all Europe as a special scholar
in English and Italian, though he has no real apprecia-

* Gam'ck CorrespondeDce, toI. ii. p. 190. Letter of Nor. 10, 1776.

* The Barton collection in the Boston Public Li brarj contains Baretti's
treatise with annotations by himself. Words and sentences are altered,
and errors he had made in his nse of the French language are corrected.

406

INDIFFERENCE OF THE ENGLISH

tion of the one or of the other." The work was through-
out in harmony with the somewhat violent tone of this
passage. It began with denying Voltaire's knowledge
of English and ended with denying his knowledge of
Italian. The two treatises in the former tongue which
had been produced during his exile, Baretti declared
were not really the composition of the French author:
nor in that tongue had he written a single letter after
his return to his native land. For neither of these
assertions did he give any authority ; and the one in
regard to his correspondence we know to be false.

Baretti was much more successful in attacking the
unpoetic character of Voltaire's translations of poetic
phrases and passages. These renderings he asserted, and
asserted justly, could in some instances be due only to
ignorance or to malice. The version of * Julius Caesar,'
in particular, of the faithfulness of which Voltaire was
constantly boasting, was attacked with peculiar savage-
ness. It was made, Baretti said, in the style of a school-
girl. * Julius Caesar ' had not been translated, but had
been assassinated. Criticism couched in such language
cannot be deemed genial ; but for all that, it was in
this case entitled to a good deal of consideration. Ba-
retti may not have been the highest type of man, but his
knowledge and ability were conceded by men much abler
than himself. Upon the accuracy and excellence of a
translation from English into French he spoke with dis-
tinct authority. He was familiar with both languages ;
and his exposure of the unfaithfulness of some of Vol-
taire's renderings in spirit, even where it was not in
meaning, was one not to be met successfully.

407

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

Baretti's explanation of the outbuist of wrath directed
against Le Toumeur was based indeed upon the ground
that Voltaire was conscious of the inadequacy of his own
renderings. Others might be simple enough to believe
what he had written ; but that was a pitch of credulity
at which the author himself had not arrived. A man,
he observed, does not call another a scoundrel, an imbe*
cile, a buffoon, for nothing. The reason for this abuse
was manifest If the new version came out, Voltaire be-
lieved that his own reputation as censor of English lit-
erature would be destroyed at once. Baretti represented
him as soliloquizing after the following fashion : ^^ My
enemies will not fail to compare my translation of
Shakespeare with Le Toumeur's. They will recognize
at once its inaccuracy and unfaithfulness. People will
see the English dramatist with other eyes than mine.
All the horde of scribblers with whom France abounds,
will hurl themselves upon me." The Italian on his part
undertook to console the Frenchman by assuring him
that nobody would ever undertake the trouble to insti-
tute a comparison between the two versions. Le Tour-
neur's he had not seen, but he knew it must be poor,
because no good version of Shakespeare could be made
into any language descended from the Latin. Least of
all could it be made into French with its poetry enchained
in alexandrines, reminding one of a procession of monks
marching two and two with equal and grave steps along
a perfectly straight road. It is an additional proof of the
indifference of the English to this assumed state of war
that Baretti's defence did not excite even as much com-
ment as Voltaire's attack. Scarcely any notice whatever

408

INDIFFERENCE OF THE ENGLISH

was taken of it in the periodical literature of the time.
It was violently assailed indeed in this same ^ London
Review ' of Kenrick's. The discourse was there amiably
described as ^^ impertinent effusions of the vanity of a
self-conceited foreigner: who would be thought to know
everything and hardly knows anything." ^ In compari-
son with this criticism the previous comment upon Vol-
taire's * Letter ' can be deemed eulogy.

But if Voltaire had not stirred up an international
war, he had added fuel to a civil one. The controversy
which went on in France in regard to Le Toumeur's
version lies almost entirely outside of the limits of this
work. But in that country it raged violently. During
this and the years immediately following, the merit of the
translation was a subject of constant and heated discus-
sion in the literary journals of France and the literaiy
circles of its capital. " There are very strong parties pro
and con here at Paris," wrote one of Garrick's correspond-
ents in May, 1777. ** All the Voltairians cry it down ;
others ag^in are more enthusiastic (if possible) than we
are who have tasted of the Avon. For my own part the
best I can say of it is, that it is Shakespeare reduced to the
simple state of nature, despoiled of his gorgeous pomp
and majesty, his brilliancy and his graces, but not dis-
figured." ^ Such was the report of an English woman who
had, according to her own account, pointed out to Le
Toumeur some of the mistakes he had made. She looked,
however, upon the whole controversy with a good deal
of indifference. Not so another friend of Garrick's, who

1 London Reyiew (1777), toI. t. p. 531.

' Grarrick CoxxeBpondence, toL ii. p. 214. Letter of Maj 30, 1777.

409

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

was a Frenchwoman. She belonged to the Voltairian
party, though in deference to her correspondent she
tried to assume a tone of impartiality. In this she was
not entirely successf ul, for her own indignation had been
kindled by the views contained in that terrible prefatory
matter which Le Toumeur had so shamelessly put forth.
" You are right," wrote Madame Riccoboni, " in believing
that La Harpe will attack your favorite poet He is
enraged against the translation of which the foolish
preface has disgusted everybody. Shakespeare stood in
no need of their awkward eulogies." There was the sore
spot. The praise bestowed upon the English dramatist
had excited the susceptibilities of the Voltairians to the
utmost; it was something which could not be forgiven.
^^That preface," continued the irate woman, *' badly
written, more badly reasoned, has done considerable harm
to the translation, and tends to make prominent the
faults and the unfaithfulness with which its authors are
reproached." ^

The controversy on the Continent concerns us here
only so far as English writers were directly or indirectly
swept into its current. The reply of Rutledge to Vol-
taire may therefore be dismissed in a few words ; for
though of English descent he was bom in France, and
in that country spent his life. In its language also his
works were written. Two or three months after the
* Letter to the French Academy' was published, he
brought out some observations upon it in reply. Though
the grandson of an Irish Jacobite, he had not renounced
allegiance to Shakespeare, even if he had to Shake-

1 Garrick ConespondADce, toI. ii. p. 623.

410

INDIFFERENCE OF THE ENGLISH

speare's country. He asserted his superiority to the
dramatists of other lands. He maintained the correct-
ness of his course in mtroducing into the scene charac-
ters of all sorts from the highest to the lowest. This in
French eyes was a proceeding utterly unworthy of the
dignity of Melpomene, as they phrased it; and their
avoidance of it was unquestionably responsible for the
extent to which they relied upon the pomp of declama-
tion to supply the lack of action. Upon the inferiority
of their methods Rutledge insisted strongly. But unlike
Baretti, in combating the views of the man he criticised,
he was uniformly respectful and even courteous in his
language. . Still perfectly familiar as he was with both
the French and English tongues, he was necessarily
struck by the bad faith which Voltaire had frequently
exhibited, especially in his pretence that the so-called
blank verse into which he had translated * JuUus Caesar '
revealed in the slightest degree the character and effect
of English blank verse. False statements of this nature
he had no hesitation in exposing. But his share in the
controversy belongs rather to French than to English
literature. For us it is only important to dwell upon
the part played by Mrs. Montagu's * Essay.'

No sooner had Voltaire's ' Letter ' been published than
the partisans of Shakespeare arranged to have this work
translated. Its writer had been spending her summer in
the French capital. Two of her sayings had been widely
circulated in the literary salons of Paris, and perhaps
increased the disposition to produce her * Essay ' for the
benefit of those who were interested in the controversy.
They are not very remarkable, but they are distinctly

411

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

better than anjrthing to be found in her pretentioufi and
over-praised book. One was a comment upon Voltaire's
remark in the published letter to D'Argental that he
had been the first to exhibit to his countrymen some
pearls which were found in Shakespeare's enormous
dunghiU. ^It is a dunghill,'' said Mrs. Montagu,
when the letter was shown her, *^ which has fertilized a
veiy ungratefid soil." This was a renewal of the old
charge of plagiarism which the French author was never
allowed to forget. Her second saying was her reply to
the journalist Suard, who, after the reading on the day
of St. Louis, had expressed to her some concern lest
what she had heard might have proved displeasing.
^' Not at all," was her answer ; ^^ I never professed myself
to be a friend of Monsieur de Voltaire." In her private
letters, however, she displayed somewhat more feeling.
She wrote to Garrick that during the meeting of the
Academy, she had ^^ felt the same indignation and scorn
at the reading Voltaire's paper, as I should have done
if I had seen Harlequin cutting capers and striking his
wooden sword on the monument of a Caesar or an
Alexander the Great."'

The ^ Essay ' on Shakespeare was accordingly trans-
lated, and came out in the course of the year following
the publication of the ^ Letter to the Academy.' Though
produced long before, it was regarded by many as a sort
of reply to that discourse. From the attention paid to
it by both parties, it must have met with a good deal of
success. Clear-headed and impartial observers saw indeed

^ Ganick CorrespoDdenoe, toI. ii. p. 188. Letter of Nor. 3, 1776.

412

INDIFFERENCE OF THE ENGLISH

that Mrs. Montagu had unwittingly given up the cause
she was striving to champion; that she had really
acknowledged the justice of all the charges which had
been brought against Shakespeare to prove that he was
deficient in art. But in France still more even than in
England the very weakness of the ^ Essay ' contributed
to its favorable reception. It was far better suited to the
ideas and tastes there prevailing than the uncompromis-
ing preface of Le Toumeur, which had sent a shock to
French classicism through its entire being. That had
been too strong meat to suit the queasy stomachs of any
but the most radical revolters against the practices of the
French drama. The foreign admirers of the ^ Essay/
like the English, were more impressed with its assertion
of Shakespeare's merits than by its admission of his
faults. The very admission, indeed, showing clearly the
candor of the writer, gave added strength to the
encomiums in which she indulged.

So the war went on. Voltaire from his retreat at
Femey was constantly animating his cohorts. Yet one
gets the impression from the correspondence of the clos-
ing year and a half of his life that he secretly felt that
he was fighting for a losing cause. The references in it
to current events are not many ; but they all point one
way. The pessimistic view of the condition of literature
in France became, if anything, more pessimistic. The
admiration for Shakespeare was merely one of many signs
of that inundation of ignorance and bad taste which
could not much longer be held in check. " I succumb,"
he wrote, *^ under my maladies, under my enemies, under
the factious friends of Shakespeare, under the devotees,

413

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

under all the barbarians." ^ Even when he urged on his
followers to continue fighting there was an undertone of
depression. To friends and partisans he broke out into
frequent lamentation. *' I saw the end of the reign of
Augustus," he wrote to La Harpe in January, 1778,
^ and I am now in the Lower Empire. ... I confess to
you that the barbarism of Du Belloi and his associates
is almost as unendurable as the barbarism of Shake-
speare. Du Belloi is a hundred times more inexcus-
able, for he had models, and the English buffoon had
none." It was for La Harpe to revive the reign of good
taste. It was he who must struggle bravely for it in
prose and verse. With impatience he waited, he said,
the result of his correspondent's reply to that Monti^
la shakespSarienne?

In certain ways the disciple he exhorted was better
fitted than he himself to carry on the war which he
had begun. For, after all, Voltaire remained a good
deal impressed in his heart by much which he had found
in Shakespeare, even at the veiy time he was relieving
his resentment at the growing interest in the English
dramatist by heaping upon him terms of abuse. He
could not, however, escape entirely from his own sense
of justice and keenness of appreciation. But for an im-
partial examination of Shakespeare's merits, from the
Voltairian point of view, uncontaminated by the preju-
dices which dog the footsteps of even the slightest
knowledge, La Harpe had been for a long period pre-
eminently equipped. He could not read a sentence of

^ Letter to Madame de Saint-Jalien, Oct. SO, 1776.
* Letter of Jan. 14, 1778.

414

INDIFFERENCE OF THE ENGLISH

the English author.^ But an insignificant obstacle like
that, instead of acting as a deterrent to the expression
of opinion, gave it only freer and fuller course. Planted
upon the solid rock of ignorance, he was enabled to
survey without disturbing emotion the whole field of
English literature, and to dispense praise and blame
with that calm severity of judgment which belongs only
to the intelligent and uninformed. When Baretti's
reply to Voltaire fell into his hands he was consequently
enabled to describe it with calmness and without bias as
the work of a sort of Anglicized fool. Caliban, highly
praised in the treatise he thus criticised, was represented
as a grotesque and fantastic creation suited only to pieces
that were to be played at fairs. Other views he contro-
verted with the same imperial ignorance. ^^ The soph-
isms of these crazy persons," he concluded, "who are
striving to put Shakespeare above Sophocles and
Euripides, above Comeille and Racine, belong to the
number of remarkable extravagances in the history of
the human spirit"^

Le Toumeur^s translation, however, gave La Harpe
some slight knowledge of the English dramatist. He
improved it to the uttermost. He went to work on a
criticism of ' Othello.' . He set out to treat not only the
conduct of the piece, but to compare the style of the

^ I base this fltntemeiit npon Grimm, who certainly ought to have
known, and who expressly asserts that La Harpe did not know a word of
English. {Correspondance litt&aire, tome ix. p. 119.) While I enter-
tain no doubt on the point, it is right to add that La Harpe himself con-
stantly gives the impression in his writings, or rather implies, that he is
familiar with the English tongue.

* La Harpe, Correspondance litt&aire (1802), tomeiL p. 179.

415

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

original with that of the French version. Proceedings of
this sort somewhat shocked Grimm. He had lived long
in Paris ; he had become pretty fully imbued with the
ideas about dramatic art which prevailed in his adopted
country. But the Teutonic strain in his blood could
not abide with satisfaction the sight of a discussion
going on about the comparative worth of productions
which the critics could not read. He had witnessed a
similar exhibition in the case of Homer, whose merits
had been magisterially pronounced upon by men who
did not understand Greek. A like procedure was now
taking place in the case of Shakespeare. Knowledge
of the language in which he wrote was not deemed
essential; hardly indeed knowledge of what he wrote.
*^ Hspritj^^ was Grimm's sarcastic comment, ** supplies
everything." ^

There was balm, however, to be applied to the harassed
feelings of Voltaire. His closing days were to be the
most triumphant of the many triumphant days of his
life. In 1778 he was in his eighty-fourth year. He
had for a long while been ailing. At least he was
always complaining in his correspondence of his various
maladies, even at the time he was accomplishing work,
to do which would have tasked the strength of an
ordinary man in the full vigor of his powers, if it did
not break him down entirely. He boasted of his ill-
health very much as he boasted of the faithfulness of
his translation of ' Julius Cssar.' Voltaire was in
truth a valetudinarian by profession, — at least he be-
came so, — and like many such men seems to have been

^ Grimm, Corretpandance Ittt&aire, tome ix. p. 119.

416

INDIFFERENCE OF THE ENGLISH

endowed by nature with the capacity of living forever.
Certain it is he possessed a sort of health which gave
him constant disquiet, and enabled him to outlive nearly
all his actual contemporaries. It looks indeed as if he
might have rivalled Fontenelle in length of life, and
have reached too his hundredth year, had it not been
for that fatal visit to Paris. In February, 1778, he
suddenly left the quiet of Femey, and most unexpect-
edly made his appearance in the French capital. The
ostensible pretext for the journey was his desire of
having the tragedy of Irine brought out under his own
immediate supervision. He carried with him also a
reply to Mrs. Montagu which he had composed in the
closing months of the previous year.

It was going on towards thirty years since he had
last set foot in the city. A whole generation had come
upon the stage since his departure from it in 1750.
Those who composed it had never seen the man ; but
they had read his writings, they had imbibed his views,
they felt for him personally the veneration of disciples
for the great master. Tremendous was the commotion
when the news of his arrival was noised abroad ; more
tremendous the enthusiasm. Paris went mad with ex-
citement and joy. The clergy, to be sure, stood largely
aloof ; but for this Voltaire cared little. The court
viewed his coming with dislike ; and for this he cared a
great deal. But, after all, what were court and clergy to
the acclamations of a whole people who hailed him as
the deliverer of the human mind from intellectual and
spiritual bondage, and, what was even dearer to his
heart, as the triumphant champion who had compelled
27 417

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

religious fanaticism and political injustice to let go
their victims, though fairly in their toils. Crowds
waited for hours in the streets to gain a momentary
glimpse of his person. The gates of buildings he was
to enter were besieged by multitudes who gave way
slowly to permit him to pass, and closed upon his foot-
steps with clappings of hands and cries of joy. His
ordinary movements indeed were like the journeys of a
royal progress; but no monarch ever received from
enthusiastic subjects a more spontaneous tribute of
loyalty and admiration and love than was paid by high
and low to this uncrowned king. Versailles looked on
in moody silence at an outburst of adoration which it
dared make no attempt to repress. A clerical party
there was which was filled with hot indignation at this
display of idolatrous devotion. In their eyes it was
directed to an enemy of God who had made a mock
of the religion of his country and had held its priest-
hood up to scorn. Never before had the world witnessed
such an example of defiant apostasy. Peter had denied
his Lord; but he had repented. Voltaire had done
worse. He had denied the devil, and he had not re-
pented. But it was useless to think of stemming the
tide of popular transport, which burst all barriers
and bore down everything before it. The wiser heads
felt too that there was nothing about it permanent,
and that the only safe way was to let it run its
course unchecked. Voltaire himself saw the vanity
of the adulation he received; he recognized its tran-
sitory character. None the less did he enjoy it, and,
happily for him, he died before the inevitable reaction

418

INDIFFERENCE OF THE ENGLISH

had time to set in. Followed wherever he went by
enthusiastic crowds, f6ted in every quarter, received
with homage by the Academy, crowned in the theatre,
the honors lavished upon a man still full of energy and
fire, but feeble with the weight of more than fourscore
years, proved too much for his strength. No one will
grudge the old warrior the glories of his parting day.
He did not die, it is true, in the odor of sanctity ; in
place of it he had been stifled by the incense of popular
applause.

But even when the hour of death was drawing nigh,
he did not lose sight of one object which had so long
occupied his thoughts. The play of iHney as originally
published,^ was accompanied by a dedicatory preface
to the French Academy, which in later editions went
under the title of a letter to that body. This prelim-
inary discourse had been read at the meeting of the 19th
of March — three days after the first public represen-
tation of the tragedy — and had been received with ap-
proval and applause. Thanks had been solemnly
tendered to the octogenarian for this renewed vindica-
tion of French taste and art. Two thirds of it was
given up to a reply to Mrs. Montagu's ^ Essay.' It was
rather a defence of ComeiUe, and especially of Racine,
against her charges, than an attack upon Shakespeare.
In regard to him he did little more than go over for the
twentieth time the old ground. His pieces were not
acted outside of England; they mingled prose and
verse; they were a hodge-podge of serious and comic
scenes, in which the princes talked like streetrporters

^ Bengesco's BthHographie^ to]. I p. 85.

419

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

and the porters like princes; they stretched over in-
definite spaces of time. Of course he could not refrain
from remarking that he had been the first to extract a
little gold from the mud in which the genius of Shake-
speare had been plunged by his age. He had been say-
ing it for forty years ; it had now become as inveterate
a habit as dram-drinking. But this preface, otherwise
unimportant, shows us that the controversy was still
going on as to the comparative merits of Comeille and
Shakespeare. "I blush," he said, "to join together
these two names ; but I learn that this incredible dis-
pute is renewed in the midst of Paris." His last letter
to D'Alembert transmitted this dedicatory epistle and
begged him to let him know whether it was unworthy
of the Academy a^d his correspondent, and if he might
hope it would be of any use.

This is the final utterance of Voltaire on Shakespeare.
It is interesting, as everything he wrote was interesting ;
but, like the previous ^ Letter to the Academy,' it added
nothing to what he had said before. Repetition was all
the argument he used; and not merely the repetition
of his own words, but of those which his disciples had
learned from him. He quoted La Harpe as gravely as
if he did not know that an echo cannot add anything
to the meaning and force of the original voice. But
there is in this discourse but little trace of the truculent
tone which he had displayed tow£vrds Le Toumeur.
While combating the opinions of Mrs. Montagu he
treated her with old-fashioned courtesy. There was an
occasional flash of the ancient fire, as, for instance, in his
comment upon her condemnation of Racine for his

420

INDIFFERENCE OF THE ENGLISH

constant introduction of love-scenes into his tragedies.
" It is beautiful without doubt," he said, " for a lady to
reprove that universal passion which causes her sex to
reign." But strokes of even this kind are unusual.
In general the piece is tame. It lacks throughout that
virulence which is always dear to the reader when ex-
hibited against views he does not hold or authors he
does not like. Considering indeed the later utterances
of Voltaire which have been quoted, breathing, as they
do, defiance and threatenings and slaughter, it is beauti-
ful, to use his own phrase, to find him concluding this
preface in a spirit of meekness and charity to all. He
inveighed in this closing discourse against making a
national quarrel out of a question of literature. He
assumed the attitude of a man who had never been
influenced by the prepossessions of country or race. ^^ I
have done justice," he cried, ^^to the English Shake-
speare and to the Spanish Calderon. I have never
paid heed to national prejudice." Who will charge
with insincerity the words of a dying man ? The force
of self-delusion could no farther go.

421

CHAPTER XXI

ULTBR RB8ULT8 OF THE CONTBOVERSY

In the mean while the cause of all this tumult, the
main object of all these attacks, made no sig^. He had
been assailed with the epithets of scribbler, scoundrel,
scavenger, fool, and he had held his peace. None the
less had he persisted steadily in the prosecution of bis
diabolical task. Henceforth the work was wholly his
own. His two coadjutors had retired with the publication
of the first instalment ; one of them indeed died in 1780.
In 1778 appeared two additional volumes, with the names
of about one hundred and fifty new subscribers. What
is of interest here is that they were nearly all French.
In the fifth volume which came out the following year
were added to the whole number about fifty more names.
It was mortifying to the adherents of pure art that such
an undertaking should meet with such success. But,
after all, what difference did it make if useless compila-
tions and wretched versions were received with favor
by an undisceming public I *' What matters it,** said
La Harpe, ^' to enlightened spirits, who read only for
instruction or pleasure, that Messrs. Le Toumeur and
company translate in a barbarous style the barbarous
farces of Shakespeare?**^ The comments of the wren
upon the eagle are always of interest, not for any value

1 La Harpe, CorreMpondance litUraire (1802), tome iii. p. 220.

422

LATER RESULTS OF THE CONTROVERSY

they have in themselves, but because they indicate the
wren's state of mind.

That some of his old friends and correspondents are
to be found in these last lists of subscribers would
have brought an additional pang to Voltaire's heart,
had he been living. The truth is that his violence, as
might have been expected, had overshot the mark. He
had aimed to impair the fortunes of the translation, if
not destroy it altogether. He had actually done all that
lay in his power to help it forward. His attacks upon
it had aroused curiosity. Had there been any question
as to the outcome of the undertaking, the kind of war-
fare he waged against it would have insured its success.
The publication of the successive instalments went on
steadily. Its twenty volumes are usually described as
having been completed in 1782 ; but its nineteenth
bears the date of the year following.

Le Toumeur, in spite of the provocation which he
had received, had never returned the railings of his
adversaries. In his later volumes, however, he intro-
duced a number of critical opinions expressed by other
writers. In a few instances they came from ** Mistriss
Montaigu ; '' but mainly they were taken from Eschen-
burg, who was just then engaged in putting through
the press the revision and completion of Wieland's
translation of Shakespeare. Le Toumeur would have
been more than human had he not experienced a quiet
pleasure in transcribing some of the views of the Ger-
man professor. They were indicative of the new ideas
that were beginning to prevail in his country. By
Eschenburg Voltaire was reckoned among the imitators

423

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

of Shakespeare. Nor were his partisans treated
much respect. These opinions of his Le Toumeor in-
troduced without committing himself to their justice.
They constituted part of the literary history of the
English dramatist, and therefore had a right to be in-
serted. In giving them he simply remarked that men
who judged others must expect to be judged them-
selves ; but it is noticeable that he indirectly called atten*
tion to the fact that there was nothing personal in
these critic<il comments which he was publishing. They
were purely literary. He could not but remind by
implication his readers of the terms of gross abuse with
which he himself had been assailed. **Some other
writers/* he wrote, '^ still living and distinguished among
us, undergo also the purely literary criticism of the
German translator. If he is deceived, it is their priv-
ilege to count his opinion as of no value. For myself,
a faithful translator, and indifferent to these discussions,
my object is to get together that which can make clear
and interesting the work which I have undertaken to
make current in our tongue.'*

It probably gave no great pang to Le Toumeur^s feel-
ings to reproduce the disparaging opinions expressed of
the abilities of the men who had made upon him so violent
an onslaught But he himself indulged in no attacks
upon his opponents. He spoke indeed of the cold and
jealous criticism which Voltaire had passed upon * Juliua
Caesar,* and referred to an essay of his own in which he
had replied to that author's censures upon the play with
more of detail than was due to any merit they pos-
sessed. Once only did he make any reference to tb»

424

LATER RESULTS OF THE CONTROVERSY

tempest of the tea-pot nature which had been stirred up
by his translation. It was in a notice to the subscribers
accompanying the volumes brought out in 1781. In
that he spoke of the kind of bizarre war which had
been waged against the work at its bkth^ to the extraor-
dinary wrath of a great poet, the panegyrist of Shake-
speare so long as he wsus unknown, his enemy as soon
as he was translated. Over all the obstacles then raised
in the way of its success the work had triumphed. The
contempt which Le Toumeur justly felt for the commo-
tion which had been aroused was very thinly veUed.
" At so much noise," he remarked, " at the tocsin of
certain critics, who multiplied their clamors much more
than their reasons, one would have supposed that
Shakespeare was an enemy who threatened to invade
France, and that the translation of an English poet,
which in old time would have conferred a sert of liter-
ary distinction, had become a kind of outrage against
the country," By this time indeed the agitation had
pretty well died out. The men who had been foremost
in exciting it had apparently begun to feel somewhat
ashamed of the course they had taken. Let us at least
give them that much credit for the peaceful attitude
that most of them now assumed. Le Toumeur at the
time felt himself justified in saying that everybody had
now come to concede, some openly, some secretly, that
the foreign author was possessed of extraordinary merit.
With the translation itself it is easy to find fault.
Being in prose, it was necessarily inadequate. Many
passages were imperfectly and some wrongly rendered.
Nor was the special criticism contained in the work

425

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

always of a character to be treated with much respect.
But there is no translation of Shakespeare into French,
no translation of Comeille or of Racine into English,
with which fault cannot easily be found. A great prose
work can be rendered into another tongue so as to give
the foreigner a reasonably fair conception of the effect
produced by it upon the mind of him to whom its
language is native. Not so in the case of a great poem.
There thought and feeling and expression are too inex-
tricably blended to be successfully separated. Even if
the version produces effect, it will rarely be the effect
wrought by the original. This is true of langui^es
closely allied ; but it is immeasurably truer of languages
so alien in spirit and genius as French and English.
In them the inherent difficulty assumes almost the
nature of an impossibility. The form may be success-
fully imitated ; the meaning may be preserved ; the ver-
sification n\ay be reproduced : what has disappeared in
the process is the incommunicable something which
gives to poetry its value and distinction. It is not per-
haps a task beyond human power to represent Shake-
speare adequately in French or Comeille in English ; but
Shakespeare will be really known to Frenchmen and Cor-
neiUe to Englishmen only when in each case a genius of
essentially the same kind and equal in degree shall
devote himself to the task of reproducing the one in
the language of the other. The difficulty is that when
such a man comes, he will find other and more impor-
tant work to do than that of translation.

It therefore follows that no Frenchman can be made
to feel through the medium of translation what Shake-

426

LATER RESULTS OF THE CONTROVERSY

speare is to Englishmen, and no Englishman what
Comeille is to Frenchmen. In poetry the manner is, if
anything, more important than the matter ; and manner
cannot be rendered. Baretti had asserted in his reply
to Voltaire that no one could really understand the
grreat Elizabethan dramatist without making himself
familiar with the language in which he wrote and hear-
ing his pieces constantly played. This opinion excited
the derision of La Harpe. As very few persons could
be induced to undergo this preliminary preparation, it
was a necessary consequence that practically no one but
a native had a right to sit in judgment upon Shake-
speare. To a man who relied for his critical conclusions
more upon esprit than upon knowledge, this seemed the
most ridiculous of views. Yet it was the very view
which his master had proclaimed long before in regard
to works much easier of comprehension than tragedies.
In his *' Philosophical Letters,' Voltaire had declared that
the only way a man could appreciate English comedy was
for him to go to England, spend three years in London,
make himself master of the tongue, and visit the play-
house every night. Observations such as these disclose
his full appreciation of the limitations put upon the
judgment of the critic to whom ample knowledge of
the language of an author is denied. But while it shows
how well he understood the difficulties that stand in the
way of the foreign reader of a great poet in getting a
full conception of his greatness, it further makes
almost ridiculously conspicuous his matchless effron-
tery in stating again and again that by his bald and *
unpoetic versions he had put the inhabitants of the

427

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

Continent in a position to decide upon the merits of
Shakespeare.

An adequate translation of a poet of the highest
rank is in general about as visionary an object of pursuit
as the quest of the Holy Grail. But though it is hope-
less by this agency to convey the full appreciation of his
genius, an approximation to this result is always possible.
Accordingly attempts of such a nature are always to
be welcomed and encouraged. The poorest version of
a firreat foreign work may contribute somethins^, a s^ood
ve^n will Contribute much, to break down th! baiS^
existing between literatures and incidentally between
nations. The very failures made point the way to those
who foUow to devise improvements. Translation gives
an idea, even if an unsatisfactory one, of the genius of
the writer and of the race to which he belongs. What-
ever faults may be found with the version of Le Toumeur
— and many have justly been found — it was an honest
attempt to furnish his countrymen with a conception of
what Shakespeare really was, not by piecemeal fragments
like La Place's, not by poetic renderings which carefully
left out the poetry, like Voltaire's, still less by descrip-
tions designedly intended to turn into ridicule what was
described. Whatever its errors and deficiencies, French-
men had now for the first time an opportunity to get
some understanding of the reasons which had produced
the enthusiastic admiration felt in England for their
great dramatist. It was pioneer work Le Tourneur did,
and it was certain to exhibit the defects under which
pioneer work invariably labors. But that is no reason
for failing to render it the praise to which it is justly
entitled. 428

LATER RESULTS OF THE CONTROVERSY

Le Toumeur had succeeded in carrying through his
undertaking. But though Voltaire had failed in his im-
mediate object of preventing the continued publication
of the translation, none the less did his words bear fruit.
Upon the Frenchmen who then knew and appreciated
Shakespeare, what he said produced no effect, or an effect
quite contrary to what he intended. But, after all, these
were comparatively few in number. The enthusiastic
admiration then professed for the English author had
been, in the case of many, little more than a freak of
fashion. If left to run its natural course, it would in
time have been displaced by some other fashion, if Vol-
taire had never said a word. As it was, he merely has-
tened the inevitable, and gave it strength after it had
arrived. There seems little doubt that his ^Letter to
the French Academy ^ produced an immediate effect upon
that group of idle and thoughtless persons who relied
upon others for their opinions and knowing nothing and
caring less for the matter in dispute, naturally floated
with the general current and tended to swell its volume.
After the day of St. Louis there was probably a distinct
falling off in the number not of those who felt real
enthusiasm for Shakespeare, but of those who had been
pretending to feel it. Grimm gives us the sentiments of
the set with which he came mainly in contact. The
' Letter ' of Voltaire, he said, was a criticism, displaying
little moderation, both of the translation and of the
original. But it was comical, it made men laugh ; and
the author who produces that effect, most of all in
France, cannot fail to be right. In consequence it was
generally decided in Paris that the poet who for two

429

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

hundred years had been the delight of England was
nothing but a barbarous actor, and his translators
deserved to be shut up in a lunatic asylum.^

This is an exaggerated statement made shortly after
the reading of the * Lietter/ and drawn from the opinion
of a limited class. Still it contains a certain portion of
truth which in process of the years was to become much
truer. For another cause came gradually in to hasten
the decay of the sentiment which had first been disposed
to welcome Shakespeare with fervor. The touching
amiability, then widely commented on, between France
and England, was to disappear. Further it was to be
replaced in time by positive hatred. The reasons for
the estrangement were even then manifesting themselves.
The one country secretly favored the cause of the
colonies which had revolted from the other. It soon
proceeded to give them open aid. The war which
sprang up naturally did not contribute to the popularity
of English literature in France. Still its effects were
slight compared with the hostility and aversion that
were aroused when the more terrible struggle which came
later had widened the breach between the two peoples
and imparted peculiar bitterness to their feelings. In the
long series of Napoleonic wars the vital centre of resist-
ance to all the aims and efforts of the emperor was the
island whose sea-walls made her invasion impracticable.
During this period nothing English could be or was
popular in France* It was inevitable that Shakespeare
should be included in the general proscription. It was
no time then for Frenchmen to be asked to abandon their

1 Corrupcndance Utt&aire, tome tx. p. 842, November, 1776.

430

LATER RESULTS OF THE CONTROVERSY

dramatic deities for those of their hated foe. It took a
long period after the peace to heal the literary as well as
social alienation produced by years of conflict* It was
a long while before the question of dramatic art could be
discussed calmly. The estimate taken of Shakespeare
by Voltaire found readier and wider acceptance when
the Anglomania which had prevailed during his later
life had been converted into Anglophobia. His influence
more than held its own after the Revolution ; it distinctly
increased. His misapprehensions and misstatements
were accepted with unquestioning faith by his country-
men. No one can glance even superficially at much of
French critical literature between 1800 and 1830 with-
out recog^zing how completely it reflects the views of
Voltaire, and repeats almost his very words. The cus-
tom has not entirely died out at the present day.

France had to wait fifty years for her deliverance ; to
Germany it came much earlier. The revolution was
going on in that country during the last years of
Voltaire's life, though he himself may have been un-
aware of it. There is little question but it would have
come there some time before, had it not been for him ;
there is no question that his all-powerful influence dur-
ing the eighteenth century distinctly retarded in every
quarter the appreciation of Shakespeare's greatness. It
made men content to remain in ignorance ; and as long
as ignorance existed there was little disposition to con-
trovert what he said. Evidence of this state of things
comes from many sources; here we confine ourselves
to one. The same English traveller to whom in 1776
Voltaire had communicated his opinion of the English

431

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

admiration of their greatest dramatist bears witness to
the wide prevalence on the Continent of his critical views
at the very time they were on the point of being crushed
by the mightier spirit he had evoked, bat found to his
dismay that he could not exorcise. In his journeys over
Europe whithersoever he had gone, whether it were from
Paris to Berlin or from Berlin to Naples, Sherlock com-
plained that he had heard the name of Shakespeare con-
stantly profaned, whenever it came up for consideration.
The words '* monstrous farces*' and " gjrave-digger
scenes " had been repeated in every town. For a long
time he could not conceive why every one uttered these
two phrases and these alone* But one day he chanced
to open a volume of Voltaire. The mystery was at once
dispelled. Both expressions were found in the work,
and from these, men everywhere had learned them by
heart.^ The ovine nature of man shows itself nowhere
more distinctly than in criticism ; and when a magnifi-
cent old bell-wether, like Voltaire, led the way, the
whole flock would be sure to hurry after him, ignorant
of the ground over which they were going, careless to
what end the path led which they had taken.

Sherlock had another opportunity to witness the influ-
ence of Voltaire in the instance of a man of far mightier
powers than the educated tourists with whom he came
in contact. In 1779 he was at Berlin. There he was
admitted to an audience with the Prussian monarch.
Sherlock had celebrated Frederick in his writings: he
had also distinguished himself by his zeal for Shake-

1 Sherlock's Letters, ed. 1802, vol. ii. p. 249, under sub-title, A Fng-
meut on Shakespeare from Advice to a Tonng Poet

432

LATER RESULTS OF THE CONTROVERSY

speare, though like Mrs. Montagu's, it was a zeal not
altogether according to knowledge. The great king
commented upon this enthusiasm, and attacked the great
dramatist with vigor. He began gently, but warmed to
the work as he proceeded. **• You admire Shakespeare ? "
he asked of Sherlock. *^I do, sir," was the reply, ^^as
the greatest genius that ever existed." But it was not
for nothing that Frederick had read French literature all
his life, and associated with its most celebrated contem-
porary author. ** Permit me to observe," he answered
— or as Sherlock expresses it, he condescended to say —
**that when a man undertakes to labor in any art, of
which the rules are fixed and determinate, he ought to
confine himself to those rules. Aristotle — " The men-
tion of that name was the signal for what were undoubt-
edly the usual remarks upon the unities, though they
were not given by the reporter of the interview. All
that we are told here is that the king spoke with great
strength and learning.^

Strength and learning come easy to a king in the eyes
of the admirer who is permitted to enjoy the privilege of
an interview. The usual result followed. The ancient
philosopher declared it di£Gicult to contend in argument
with the master of thirty legions. Sherlock found him-
self in a far harder case. He had to carry on a dispute
with the hero of thirty battlefields. When we take into
further consideration the respective intellects of the two
men, the disparity assumes a character almost painful.
According to his own account, Sherlock said all he could

^ Sherlock's Letten, ed. 1802, toI. ii. p. 79.

as 483

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

consistently with the respect he owed to his royal oppo-
nent. He appealed from Aristotle's rules to the tribunal
of nature and reason. He insisted — humbly insisted,
he tells us — upon the incontestable prerogative of
genius to create, and that consequently Shakespeare had
the same right to invent a species of poetry as had
Thespis. It was all to no purpose. He found that the
monarch had been corrupted by Voltaire. *^ I was al-
ways obliged to agree that he was right,'' says Sherlock,
pensively, ^^ while I endeavored to prove that he was
wrong."

Frederick, as we all know, was the unconscious leader
who was to guide the German people to the promised
land, which he was so far himself from desiring to enter
that he turned away from it with eyes of aversion. There
is no more striking picture of the change of mind which
was coming over the Continent, and the disgust and even
horror which was inspired by it among the classicists,
than his essay on German literature, which came out in
1780. No one now, after reading it, will recognize the
strength and learning which Sherlock found in profusion
in his hero. On the contrary, he will be mainly impressed
by the ease with which a great king can exhibit himself
as a poor critic. There is nothing original, nothing
striking in anything which is found in its pages. It is
but a rehash of commonplaces which had been said over
and over again, and derive their only importance here
from the fact of having been uttered by a man who was
a genius in spite of being a monarch. It is Voltaire's
ideas to which he gives expression ; it is practically Vol-
taire's very words which he repeats. It is in the follow-

434

LATER RESULTS OF THE CONTROVERSY

ing way that he discourses upon the mighty revolution
which was going on before his eyes : —

" To convince you," he wrote, " how little is the taste
which prevails even in our days in Germany, you have
only to be present at the public spectacles. You will
see there represented the abominable pieces of Shake-
speare, and all the audience in transports of joy in listen-
ing to these ridiculous farces worthy of the savages of
Canada. I call them farces because they sin against
all the rules of the theatre. These rules are not arbi-
trary, you find them in the 'Poetics* of Aristotle, where
the unity of place, the unity of time, and the unity of
interest are prescribed as the sole means of rendering
tragedies interesting. Instead in the English pieces the
scene lasts for the space of some years. Where is the
likeness to reality? There are street-porters and dig-
gers who make their appearance and hold conversations
worthy of themselves, then come princes and kings.
How can this bizarre mixture of baseness and grandeur,
of buffoonery and tragedy, move and please ? One can
forgive Shakespeare these bizarre errors ; for the birth
of the arts is never the period of their nativity. But
there is yet a Goetz von Berlichingen, which appears
upon the stage, a detestable imitation of these bad Eng-
lish pieces, and the pit applauds and demands with
enthusiasm the repetition of these disgusting irration-
alities. I know there is no disputing about tastes:
however, permit me to tell you that those who find as
much pleasure in rope-dancers, in puppets, as in Ra-
cine's tragedies, wish only to kill time. They prefer
that which speaks to the eyes to that which speaks to

485

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

their minds, and that which is only a spectacle to that
which touches the heart." ^

Fortunately for his success in war, Frederick had not
felt himself under any obligation to use the equipments
and formations which had enabled Aristotle's pupil to
conquer the world. He did not display the same sagac-
ity in the field of criticism. The result was what might
have been expected. He could hold his own against
Europe in arms ; he was powerless to contend success-
fully with Shakespeare. The agencies that were to
overthrow all his cherished dramatic beliefs were in
active operation during the latter part of his life. Nine
years before his essay appeared, another English travel-
ler had visited Berlin. It was Dr. John Moore, a writer
of some note in his day and not altogether forgotten now.
He had the privilege of being present at various festivals
of the court. At Sans-souci he found the great French
actor Le Kain appearing in some of his principal charac-
ters. Two at least of Voltaire's plays he saw performed,
— one the tragedy of Mahomet^ the other the king's &tvo-
rite piece, the tragedy of (Edipe. This was the continu-
ation of an ancient custom. But if Moore found the
occupant of the throne rejoicing in listening to Voltaire,
he found the heir to it deep in the study of Shakespeare.
He was taking pains to learn the English language. He
had at this time read two or three of the plays of its
greatest author. Moore teUs us that he was almost in-
clined to dissuade him from the study of Shakespeare,
full comprehension of whom it was difficult for even

1 Z)e la litt&ature alUmande (1780), p. 22, in Seuffert's DeuUelu
lAU€ratwrdmdcmaUf 1883.

436

LATER RESULTS OF THE CONTROVERSY

Englishmen to gain, and almost impossible for foreign-
ers. The prince admitted all this. But though he
might never be able to appreciate the dramatist fully,
he was determined to persevere : for he was confident
that he should understand enough to repay him for all
his trouble. Some detached parts he had already mas-
tered, and these struck him as superior to anything he
had met in the works of any other poet. The present
and the future were here in juxtaposition. The reign-
ing monarch listening to Voltaire, the future monarch
studying Shakespeare, were indicative of the order of
things going out and of the order of things coming in.^

* Works of John Moore, voL i. p. 288 (ed. of 1820). Letter from
Potsdam.

487

CHAPTER XXn

OBNERAL CONCLUSIONS

A WORK of this character, which sets out to give only
a single phase of the most varied literary life that was
ever lived, is certain, if taken by itself, to produce a dis-
torted and erroneous impression of the man. So far
as his relations to Shakespeare are concerned, Voltaire
does not appear to advantage. The evidence has been
given fully in the preceding pages ; it seems to me a
not unwarranted claim that it has been given fairly.
If so, there can hardly be any question as to the ver-
dict to be rendered. The record is one of persistent
misrepresentation; in some instances, though it is a
hard thing to say, of deliberate falsification. There
was at times more than the suggestion of the \mtnie,
there was its actual assertion; while the suppression
of the true was regularly exhibited in all the later
references to the English dramatist

This course on the part of Voltaire was not in all
cases due to intention to misrepresent. It was partly
the result of ingrained habits of mind, to the ability
he possessed of persuading himself that things actu-
ally were what he wished them to be. To some extent
he imposed upon himself. But there are instances in
which no such palliation can be pleaded in his behalf.

438

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

He resorted of set purpose to devices for evading and
perverting the evidence when the statement of the
simple facts would have been damaging to the side he
was advocating. By so doing he was largely success-
ful in imposing upon the men of his own time; nor
even at the present day has his influence in this respect
altogether ceased with his countiymen. His contem-
poraries, as a general rule, did not know enough of
Shakespeare to controvert his statements. Those of
them who really knew did not have repute enough
with the public to make headway against his author-
ity. Those who came later to know rarely cared
enough about his views to take the trouble to expose
their falsity. Hence his misrepresentations, widely cir-
culated at the outset, continue still to be repeated
occasionally, though they no longer have the general
acceptance they gained at the time of their original
utterance. The influence they then exerted cannot
be questioned. So far as Shakespeare was concerned,
Femey became in the later life of Voltaire a centre
for the diffusion of ignorance. His admirers attributed
to the Patriarch not merely the impartiality which he
affected, but an intimacy of acquaintance with the
dramatist and his writings to which he had not the
least pretension. With the ability to produce belief
in his omniscience among his readers Voltaire was
peculiarly gifted. No one ever possessed as much as
he this most valuable of assets among those belonging
to the critic's stock in trade. No one ever exhibited
more than he that adroitness which leads others to
believe that you know what you do not know.

489

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

Certain conclusions — two in particular — there are
which follow legitimately from the survey which has
been taken of Voltaire^s attitude towards Shakespeare.
They have been more than once implied in the com-
ments made in the course of this narrative ; they have
in some instances been asserted. But in this closing
chapter it seems desirable to bring into juxtaposition
and prominence some general truths which, though
indicated if not expressed already, are in danger of
being overlooked, separated and scattered as they have
been in the preceding pages. One is that there was
never any real change in Voltaire^s opinion about
Shakespeare. The contrary has been often affirmed.
Charges to that effect were even brought against him
in his lifetime, and they have been pretty constantly
repeated since his death. For them there is no just
foundation. In his estimate of the English dramatist,
Voltaire is entitled to whatever credit belongs to con-
sistency. That which Shakespeare appeared to him
in the beginning, he remained to the end. It is by
the marked difference he displayed in the manifesta-
tion of his feelings that men have been led to assume
that his views varied. In his later years he was dis-
posed to lay more and more stress upon what he
regarded as the deficiencies of the dramatist, upon prac-
tices of his which seemed to him censurable. Equally
he came to pass over in silence what he had once
thought worthy of being mentioned with praise. But
in neither instance was this conduct due to any change
in his own opinion. It sprang from the irritation he
felt at the change of opinion which was going on

440

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

among his countiymen. He was angered by the undue
admiration, as it struck him, that they were papng
to Shakespeare ; at the disposition they were manifest-
ing to rank him above the great dramatists of his own
land, and inferentially above himself.

But though outraged vaniiy plays a most conspicu-
ous part in the course he took, it is important to repeat
again what has been previously remarked, that in what
he said Voltaire was in general perfectly sincere. He
honestly believed that the art of Shakespeare was rude
and barbarous. It was not an allied type, with ideas
and methods peculiar to itself, but a distinctly debased
and debasing type, the prevalence of which would lead
to the retiu*n of barbarism. In denouncing the Eng-
lish author he therefore felt that he was standing up
for the cause of good sense and good taste. It was
his duty to do everything that lay in his power to
prevent the spread of a degrading superstition which
was celebrating Shakespeare as the supreme divinity
of the dramatic world. Without question he inter-
preted very liberally the privilege of representation,
or rather of misrepresentation, which it was permitted
him to take in order to arrest the progress of this
cult. His beliefs do not excuse his underhand efforts
to give a false impression of the man and his writings ;
but they explain them, as well as the outbursts of anger
and vituperation to which he occasionally gave way.
There was perhaps a further reason for his vexation
and his violence. It is hard to escape from the impres-
sion that in Voltaire's inmost soul there lurked, in
spite of his colossal self-conceit, a vague consciousness

441

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

of inferiority, whenever he came to measure himself
with the great dramatist. In contrast with that mighty
personality, his own personality felt dwarfed. He was
overpowered by something, he knew not what To
him were applicable the words of the soothsayer to
Antony. Near Shakespeare, Voltaire's angel became
a fear.

Another conclusion to which the survey leads is that
Voltaire really retarded the appreciation of Shakespeare
on the Continent, instead of advancing it. No one can
doubt the powerful impulse he gave at the outset to the
desire displayed there to become acquainted with the
English playwright But the desire had manifested it-
self before he had uttered a word. Had he preserved
silence it would have spread in time, though altogether
more slowly. But it would have had then a natural
and healthy growth, instead of the somewhat forced one
by which he caused it to be characterized. But as at
first he awakened wide curiosity, so later he was respon-
sible for the inadequate appreciation and unintelligent
disparagement which to a large extent came to prevail.
The depreciatory opinions which after the middle of the
centuiy he was in the habit of expressing availed noth-
ing where Shakespeare was reaUy known. But really
known Shakespeare was then to a comparatively limited
number on the Continent ; and from any desire to know
him the words of the French critic kept a vast body of
readers. Few realize to-day how mighty was Voltaire's
influence throughout Europe during the eighteenth cen-
tury. It was powerful in matters of religious opinion ;
but there it came into conflict with a potent hierarchy,

442

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

with an organized body of opponents, whose interests
were at stake as well as their convictions. But it was
not so in literature. There his ascendency was so para-
mount in his later life that it was almost hopeless for
any one to stand up against it. Furthermore, in his
views about the drama he was the advocate of long-
cherished and well-settled beliefs. In this case he was
fighting, not to destroy, but to strengthen and upbuild.
Accordingly he had on his side that conservative sen-
timent which was arrayed against him in matters of
religious belief.

Germany was the first to break away from this all-
powerful influence. Before the close of the century
she had succeeded in emancipating herself from the
thraldom of ideas which affected both critical apprecia-
tion and creative activity. It was not so, however, in
the Latin countries. In France, indeed, where the re-
volt began, it was arrested long before it attained to the
dignity of a revolution. The influence of Voltaire in
holding it in check can hardly be overrated. When
the temporary enthusiasm for Shakespeare which had
been awakened in his country commenced to wane, his
opinions gained steadily increasing potency. They came
finally to be accepted as incontrovertible gospel. The
French settled down into that state of serene satisfac-
tion with their own drama and into that comfortable
belief about Shakespeare which are indicated by Con-
dorcet in his life of Voltaire. "He taught us," said
that writer, " to perceive the merits of Shakespeare and
to regard his dramatic works as a mine whence our poets
could derive some treasures ; and when a ridiculous en-

443

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

thusiasm has presented as a model to the nation of
Racine and Voltaire the eloquent but savage and tnzane
poet, and has wished to give ns, for pictures full of
strength and true to nature, his canyases charged with
absurd compositions and coarse and disgusting carica-
tures, Voltaire has defended the cause of truth and rea-
son. He had reproached us with the too great timidity
of our drama ; he was obliged to reproach us with being
willing to introduce upon it the barbarous license of the
English stage."

So the great revolution which unsettied to their foun-
dations all other beliefs and all other institutions left
in that land, unquestioned and undisturbed, the time-
honored traditions of the classical stage. Other instru-
mentalities there were which contributed to this result ;
but to Voltaire's influence, more than to any single
agency, was due the fact that the stately fabric of the
French drama rode unchanged and uninjured through
those troubled waters. The sway of his opinions lasted
long after his death. It was not indeed till the coming
of a poetic spirit greater than his own that it was over-
thrown. There was, to be sure, a period during his life-
time when his ascendency seemed to be seriously shaken.
The counter-current of opposition ran so violentiy that
it gave him the most depressing views of the future of
literature. But it only threatened his supremacy; it
never came near subverting it. Even had not events
come speedily to the aid of his beliefs, it is doubtful if
his predominance would have been seriously disturbed.
His opinions were all-powerful, because he was the gen-
uine representative of the taste of his age. That feu^t

444

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

explains both the great vogue they had at the time and
the little vogue they have had since. The taste he rep-
resented is no longer our taste. In consequence the
views he took often seem to us peculiarly insufficient.
His criticism of the great English authors, whether favor-
able or unfavorable, would meet with little response now.
Most of all is this true in the case of Shakespeare.
Voltaire's intellect, keen, searching, and brilliant, felt
on one side the full attraction of the personality of
the dramatist. On other sides he lacked entirely the
comprehension that springs from knowledge or from
sympathy.

To Voltaire, indeed, much of Shakespeare always
remained a sealed book. His incapacity of apprecia-
tion could never have been remedied. It was congen-
ital ; it was due to his innate lack of insight into man's
spiritual nature. This is the wanting sense which ranks
him far below either Shakespeare or Dante, and explains
his inability to comprehend either. Towards both the
Italian and the English author his attitude was essen-
tially the same, though owing to circumstances the latter
occupied much more of his thought and attention. It is
additional proof of the vast influence he exerted that the
estimate he formed of both became to a great extent the
estimate of his contemporaries. In Italy and England
respectively it was modified or rejected altogether by the
fuller knowledge and deeper appreciation possessed by the
countrymen of the two poets. But outside of their own
lands Voltaire's opinion of Dante and Shakespeare be-
came for a while the one generally received. It could
not last indeed ; but for the time being it ruled, wher-

445

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

ever national partiality failed to counteract the credit
of the critic. English opinion, which was but little
affected by Voltaire's view of Shakespeare, was a good
deal influenced by his view of Dante. It is not that
the depreciatory judgment expressed always originated
with him; it is that his authority gave to it both
extension and stability. It is in truth a suggestive fact
that a large share of the critical utterance about the
Italian poet which came from the islanders during the
eighteenth century was essentially the same as that
which prevailed on the Continent in regard to the Eng-
lish dramatist. There is a similarity which approaches
the ridiculous not only in the ideas which were enter-
tained, but in the very words in which the ideas were
clothed. For both matter and expression Voltaire was
in each case largely responsible.

The radical change of opinion about Dante which
was to come over the vast body of educated men, Vol-
taire never lived to see. He died while the contest
was still going on in his own land about Shakespeare,
and while the result seemed still in doubt. Had he
remained quietly at Femey he might have rejoiced
in witnessing the full triumph of his own views; for
it is not impossible that he would have attained to
the age of FonteneUe, whose length of life was often
in his thoughts during his later years. So far as his
own happiness was concerned, it was fortunate that
he did not. The seed he had sown was destined to
yield a harvest which would have been little to his
liking. Like Cadmus he had planted dragon's-teeth ;
and they were destined (e- spring up armed men. But

^ 446

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

the revolution for which he had done so much to
prepare the way would have brought him personally
nothing but grief and despair. He would have been
filled with amazement and horror at the results to
which the doctrines he preached had unexpectedly led.
For his sympathies lay wholly with the old regime.
The favor of courts was dear to him; the society of
princes and nobles was congenial A wise and benevo-
lent despotism was in his eyes the ideal of human
government — not in itself so very objectionable, were
it not so extraordinarily rare to find a despotism either
wise or benevolent. He himself was delighted to play
the rdle of grand seigneur^ and he did it worthily. He
built homes for the industrious poor, he established
manufactures, he converted a desert wild into the seat
of a flourishing community. But nothing would have
filled him with as great indignation as to have his
subjects begin to question his right to control their
conduct for their own good. So it was well for him
that he saw not what the future had in store. He
lived on unconscious of the storm which was gather-
ing ; he died before the night of terror that was creep-
ing on had enveloped him in its gloom.

As in government his sjrmpathies were with the old
regime, so in literature they were with the old drama.
Returning from England he had preached the doctrines
of a pale romanticism ; he had followed afar off some
of its methods. But the moment the men who had
imbibed his principles began to press on in the course
in which he had led the way, the moment they
began to carry his doctrines to their legitimate conclu-

447

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

sions, he shrank back in disgust and horror. He would
admit only the slightest possible modification of the
practices of the ancient drama in the way of enlarging
its scope and treatment. He did all that lay in his
power to break down what was called the dignity of
history. He applied to it the most opprobrious terms.
But to the dignity of the drama he remained faithfuL
He constantly complained of the coldness of French
tragedy, of its languor, its dulness; but to the conven-
tions which made it cold and languid and dull save
when genius of the first order came to its rescue, he
clung with passionate tenacity.

The conduct of Voltaire is in truth the familiar stoiy
of the men who produce revolutions shuddering at the
words and acts of the men whom revolutions produce.
More^than any other person he was responsible for the
prevalence of that habit of inquiry which questions the
truth of all received facts and tests the reasonableness
of all received principles. He was further responsible
for that scepticism which struck at the heart of all
accepted beliefs and of all traditional ideas. It was
hopeless for him to expect that' the spirit of denial
which he had called up should spare the institutions
which he himself regarded as sacred. The critical
attitude which took no man's mere word for the truth
of the opinions he held, no matter how generally
regarded as truth, was not likely to stop short at the
discussion of the opinions Voltaire himself cherished
and promulgated. He was accordingly struck aghast
when the consequences of his own teachings came to
confront him in matters where he himself had not

448

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

changed. He had raged against all conservatism ex-
cept the particular varieties of it which he himself
affected. In the drama he was as strenuous a defender
of the traditional and conventional as was in religion
the most bigoted adherent of the creeds he ridiculed.
It was the existence of heretical views about the stage
which embittered him against Shakespeare, to whom
he attributed their increasing prevalence. It was this
which led him to resort to discreditable devices to
lower the estimate in which that dramatist was held.
It was the dislike and dread he felt for the great
Elizabethan which forces upon the attention one of
the most curious phases of Voltaire's character. It is
a striking example of the inconsistency of human na-
ture that the great apostle of tolerance in matters of
religion and government was one of the most intolerant
of men in matters of literature. To read his words, one
would fancy that fire, fagot, and sword, had it lain in
his power, would have been the doom of those who per-
sisted in promulgating opinions which he deemed in-
jurious to art. When it came to the infliction of the
penalty, the real kindKness of his nature would have led
him to spare the destined victim ; but the spirit which
prompted the persecution would have never been absent.
We have seen that he would have been glad to prevent
the publication of Le Toumeur's translation of Shake-
speare. There are instances when he displayed a desire
to employ active measures to suppress criticism which
was directed against his own views or was intended to
uphold views of which he disapproved. As men perse-
cuted others in the name of religion, so he would have
29 449

SHAKESPEARE AND VOLTAIRE

persecuted them in the name of taste. Without realiz-
ing it he made use of precisely the same sort of argu-
ments for protecting the integrity of the one which
excited his derision when applied to the defence of the
other. That refined and excellent art which France
possessed must be guarded by the severest measures
from debasement and profanation. No alien influences
must be permitted to contaminate its purity or threaten
its permanence. He could not perceive that the art
which cannot take care of itself will never be saved
by any repressive measures undertaken to preserve it
from decay.

It is an easy thing to find fault with Voltaire, and
unfortunately it is as easy a thing to give substantial
reasons for finding fault. His literary life, like that of
Pope, was largely one of intrigue and double-dealing,
of wanton attacks upon others, of unfounded suspicions
of attacks upon himself. In one way it has been amus-
ing to trace the windings of the tortuous course he pur-
sued in regard to Shakespeare. In another way it has
been depressing : for after all it can never be anything
but an unpleasant task to expose the foibles and faults
of a great nature. In his case there are special reasons
for reluctance. When everything has been said against
Voltaire that can justly be said, there remains to his
credit an incalculable sum of services rendered to the
progress of the race. He must be taken with his limi-
tations. With all his inconsistencies, his perversities,
his mendacities, his ignoble personal quarrels, he was a
man of generosity as well as of genius. Much more
than this can be said. We can never foi^t how cour*

450

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

ageous and how mighty a soldier he was in the war for
humanity. To vast multitudes in every station of life
he brought the gospel of liberty of thought and of
speech, the spirit of sympathy with the unfortunate
and the oppressed. But as to the men of his own
time he was an inspiration^ so also he was a fear.
Before that matchless ridicule, imbecility, narrowness,
and intolerance cowered affrighted. At the sound of
that trumpet-call which demanded that justice should
no longer be mute as well as blind, the persecutions of
bigotry were stayed, the decisions of iniquitous tribunals
were reversed, the indifference and inaction of men in
high places were converted into at least a pretended
zeal for righteousness and the right. His services in
these ways more than offset his questionable practices
in other fields. That he failed at times to render the
justice he demanded is little more than an illustra-
tion of the infirmities of our common nature. But
much can be forgiven to one who did so much for his
fellow-men.

451

INDEX

In this index, for the conyenience of readers, the dates of birth
and death of the persons mentioned have been given, wherever
ascertainable. The names of the works of Shakespeare or Vol-
taire, mentioned in the text, will be found only under their names ;
and to those of Voltaire the dates of original publication have been
given from Bengesco's bibliography. In the case of some works —
notably in that of the Diciionnaire Philosophique — this is no guide
to the date of the appearance of the passage found here, or of the
article cited.

Addison, Joseph [1672-1719], 27,

28, 91, 138, 142, 157, 247, 258,

266, 288, 315, 347; his Cato, 50,

52, 62, 68, 70, 81, 92, 137, 146,

199, 817, 350.
Adj^lb db Ponthibu, La Place's,

166.
iENBiD, Vergil's, 14.
JSscHTLus, 126, 292.
Albxandbine verses, 225, 408.
Alo ABOTTi, Francesco, Coant [1712-

1764], 108.
Alma, Prior's, 28.
Almtda, Madame Celesia's, 805.
Andbom AQUE, Racine's, 50, 222.
Appbl aux Nations, see under

Voltaire.
A?PIAK, 108.
Ariosto, Lndovico [1474-1533],

244.
Aristophanes, 268.
Aristotlx, 158, 170, 200, 249,

349, 483, 434, 435, 436.
Arnb, Thomas Angnstine [1710-

1778], 841.
Athalib, Kacine's, 140, 289, 886.
AvsGOuoH, George Edward (died

1779), 306.

Bacon, Francis [1561-1626], 29,

303.
Bajazet, Racine's, 364.
Ballantyne, Archibald, ISn,
Baretti, Giuseppe Marc' Antonio

[1719-1789], 411, 415, 427; his

reply to Voltaire, 406-409.
Baron, Michel [1658-1729], 208.
Barbinoton, Daines [1727-1800],

156-158.
Bastille, 1, 58, 59, 67.
Battle of thb Books, Swift's,

156.
Bayle, Pierre (1647-1706], 19.
Bbattie, James [1735-1803], 403.
BEAncLERK, Topham [1739-1780],

295.
Berkeley, George, Bishop [1685-

1753], 2, 26.

Bernis, Cardinal de [1715-1794],

221.
Blair, Hugh [1718-1800], 246,

816.
Blank Verse, 220, 224, 229, 812.
Boileau-Despueauz, Nicolas

[1636-17111 837.
Boleyn, Anne [1507-1536], 273.
BoLiNOBROKE, Henry St. John,

455

INDEX

ViBcomit [1678-1751], 2, 9, 10,

15, 4C, 72, 87, 88, 116, 137, 816,

817.
Bond, William [died 1785], 88, 89.
BoBWiLL, James [1740-1795], 288,

295, 814.
Brutus, Lee's, 75-77.
BuoKiNOHAM, Geoige yillien,

Duke of [1648-1721], 27, 48.
BuTLSB, Samuel [1612-1680], 27,

28.
Byron, George Gordon, Lord [1788-

1824], 48.

Calais, 1.

Galas family, 211, 886.

Caldkron [1601-1681], 155, 285,

236, 820, 421.
Campaion, Addison's, 28.
Canada, 187, 318, 385, 435.
Carr£, Jer6me, psendoDym of Vol-
taire, 192, 198, 199, 205.
Carltlk, Thomas [1795-1881],

817.
Castlk of Otranto, Walpole's,

259, 264, 265, 272.
Catharine II., Empress of Russia

[1729-1796], 210, 332.
Catiline, Ben Jonson's, 82, 83, 84.
Catiline, see Rome Sauvie, nnder

Voltaire.
Cato, Addison's, 50, 62, 62, 63,

69, 70, 81, 92, 187, 146, 199,

817, 850.
Catuslan, Comte de, 832.
Celesia (Dorothea Mallet), Ma-
dame [1738-1790], 305.
Charles II., King of England

[1630-1685], 48, 61, 141, 837.
Chesterfield, Philip Dormer

Stanhope, Earl of [1694-1778],

9, 86, 137, 147, 316.
Choissul, Dnc de [1719-1786] 274.
Choiseul, Dachesse de, 270-277.
Gibber, CoUey [1671-1757], 61,

90, 133.

Gibber, Susannah Maria (Ame),
[1714-1766], 6, 90.

Cicero, 82.

CiD, Comeille's, 156, 336.

CiNNA, Comeille's, 184, 195, 198,
220, 221, 807, 386.

CiREY, 59, 103.

Clairon, Mademoiselle [1728-
1803], 205.

Clarissa, Richardson's, 833.

Clarke, Samuel [1675-1729], % 26.

Clitandre, Comeille's, 215.

Cliye, Mrs. Catharine [1711-1785],
6.

Coke, Sir Edward [1562-1634],
255.

CoLUNs, Anthony [1676-1729], 26.

CoLicAN, George [1782-1794], 305.

GoMTB d'Essex Thomas, Comeille's,
261.

CoNDORCBT, Marquis de [1743-
1794], 443.

CoNOREYE, William [1670-1729],
2, 3, 61, 62, 837, 838.

GoRNEiLLE, Pierre [1606-1684], 9,
81, 104, 155, 170, 179, 180, 248,
248, 249, 254, 261, 268, 269,
271, 272, 806, 807, 309, 818, 314,
819, 885, 856, 359, 860, 361, 866,
367, 372, 373, 374, 880, 885-390,
893, 398, 415, 419, 420, 426,
427; English estimate of, as com-
pared with Shakespeare, 63, 186,
157, 182-192, 316, 383, 404;
Voltaire's similar estimate of, 68,
133, 163, 191-198, 206, 216, 219-
225, 237, 240, 252; Voltaire's
Commentaries on, 208-218 ; com-
pared with Calderon, 235.

CoRNEiLLE, Thomas [1625-1709],
261.

CoYENT Garden Theatre, 806.

Cowley, Abraham [1618-1667], 29.

CowPER, William [1781-1800], 204.

Cradook, Joseph [1742-1826], 805.

Critical Rbyiew, 20 91, 291, 401.

456

INDEX

Cbomwell, Olirer [1509-1658], 22,
34.

CUBSORT BbMARKS ON TrAOBOT,

OM Shakbspbare, Taylor's, 810.

D'Albmbbbt, Jean le Bond [1717-
1783], 867, 868, 369-377, 379,
382, 388, 389, 391-395, 420.

Dantk. Alighieri [1265-1321], 19,
50, 207, 445.

D'Aroental, Comte [1700-1788],
191, 192, 204, 208, 233, 327, 359,
368, 378, 391, 400, 401, 412.

Davies, Thomas [1712 T-1786],
292, 403.

Db Belloy, Pierre Laarent Bny-
rette [1727-1775], 414.

Deffamd, Madame du [1697-1780],

188, 264, 265, 272, 274-277,
354.

Denham, Sir John [1615-1669], 29.
Dennis, John [1657-1734], 12, 38,

282.
Descartbs, Ben^ [159^1650], 157.
Devil upon Two Sticks, Foote's,

342.
Dispensary, Garth's, 28.
Discoveries, Jonson's, 280.
Distrest Mother, Philips's, 223.
DoDiNGTON, George Bubb, Lord

Melcombe [1691-1762] 2, 88.
Dodsley's Museum, 156.
Dodsley's Select Collection of Old

Plays (1744), 38.
D'Olivet, Abb^ [1682-1768], 207.
Dorset, Charles Sackville, £arl of

[1638-1706], 27.
Dramatic Art, nee Art Dra-

matique, under Voltaire.
Dramatic Miscellanies, Davies',

292, 403.
Drury Lane Theatre, 6, 76, 89,

149, 305, 306.
Dryden, John [1631-1700], 27,

189, 149, 303, 387.
Dn Belloi, see De Belloy.

Dncis, Jean Francois [1733-1816],

827-829, 334, 335.
Dudley, Bobert, see Leicester.
DuNCOMBE, William [1690-1769],

74, 75, 88.

Elements of Criticism, Karnes',
241-257.

Euzabeth, Queen of England
[1538-1603], 261, 273, 373, 877.

English Mebcrant, Colman's,
305, 306.

Ennius, 104.

Epiooniad, Wilkie's, 147.

Eschbnburo, Johann Joachim
[1743-1820], 290, 423.

Essay on Falbtaff, Moi^i^aon's,
404.

Essay on the Genius and Writ-
ings OF Shakespeare, Mrs.
Montagu's, 288-304, 313 ; trans-
lated into French, 411-413.

Essex, Comte d', Thomas Cor-
neille's, 261.

Essex, Bobert Devereux, Earl of
[1567-1601], 262.

Euripides, 93, 253, 278, 291, 849,
874, 415.

Falkenbr, Sir Everard [1684-

1758], 2, 80, 81, 90, 135.
Fanatisme, le, see Mahomet, under

Voltaire.
Ferney, 278, 327, 353, 355, 367,

878, 879, 405, 418, 489, 446.
Fielding, Henry [1707-1754], 84.
Fletcheb, John [1579-1625], 7, 8.
Fontaine-Malherbe, Jean [17407-

1780], 832.
Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de

[1657-17.'i7], 417, 446.
FoNTENOY, battle of, 150.
Foote, Samuel [1720-1777], 148,

158, 842.
Francklin, Thomas [1721-1784J,

45, 143 n., 306.

467

INDEX

Frkderick II., The Great [1712-
1786], 41, 42, 161, 278, 817,
432-487.

French Acadbht, 42, 209, 210,
882, 361, 867, 869, 870, 871,
874, 376, 378-383, 392, 894,
896, 898-400, 419, 420.

French Lanouaob, nnivenality
of, 41-44.

Garriok, David [1717-1779], 6,
86, 87, 94, 146, 152, 292, 305,
882, 370, 888, 884, 405, 409,
412 ; his alteration of Hamlet,
889 ; devises the Shakespeare
jubilee, 840-344; Davies' life
of, 292.

Garrick in the Shades, 348.

Garth, Samuel [1660-1718], 27,
28.

Gastrell, Francis, 840.

Gat, John [1688-1782], 2.

Gazette LittAraire de l'£u-
ROPE, 246.

Georgia, colonization of, 86.

Gideon, Hill's, 151.

GiLDON, Charle8[1665-1724], 140 n.

GiLLE, GiLLBS, the buffoon of the
theatres of the fairs, 168, 188,
208, 271, 287, 874, 879, 883,
885.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
[1749-1882]; his Goetz von
Berlichingen, 485.

Grat'b Inn Jottrnal, Murphy's,
158.

Grenyille, George [1712-1770],
291.

GoRBODUC, Sackville and Norton's
35-40, 366.

Grimm, Friedrich Melchior, Baron
[1723-1807], 166, 168, 205, 351-
853, 355 n., 897, 398, 415 n., 416,
429.

Guthrie, William [1708-1770],
156.

Hamlet, Duds', 827, 884.
Hamlet's Soliloquy, Voltaire's

version of, 64-66, 175, 287, 857*
Hanmsr, Sir Thomas [1677-1746],

348.
Harris, James [1709-1780], 292.
Hatmarkbt Theatre, 842.
Henderson, John [1747-1785],

332.
Henry V., Hill's, 85.
Heraclius, Calderon's, 235-286.
H^RACLius, Comeille's, 285-286.
Herder, Johann Gottfried von

[1744-1803], 820.
Hill, Aaion [1685-1750], 75, 76,

113, 116, 148 ; account of, 83-

87 ; adapts Zaire and Alziie, 87-

94 ; attacks Voltaire and French

stage, 150-154.
Historic Doubts on the Lirx

AND Reion of Richard III.,

Walpole's, 262, 271, 278, 274,

277.
Home, Henry, see Kames.
Homer, 49, 50, 93, 150, 307, 878,

416.
Horace, 95, 158.
Hudibras, Butler's, 28.
Hume, David [1711-1776], 147,

246, 816.

Iliad, Homer's, 147.
India, 187.

Institutes, Coke's, 255.
Iphio^nie, Racine's, 289, 250, 257.

Janbekists, 208.

Jeffreys Geoi^, [1678-1755], 145.

Johnson, Samuel [1709-1784], 15,

296, 802, 309, 812, 813, 814, 348,

406; his criticism of Voltaire,

281-284, 288.
JoNsoN, Ben [1573 f-1637], 7, 8,

32, 88, 84, 89, 149, 155, 280.
Journal EngyolopAdique, 182,

190, 192.

458

INDEX

JOUBNAL OF TOTTB TO THE HEB-
RIDES, Boswell's, 295.
Jubilee, The Stratford, 840-S47.
Jubilee-ode, Garrick's, 292, 841.

Eames, Henry Home, Lord [1696-

1782], 240-258.
Kenrick, WiUUm [1725 M779],

402-409.

La Harpe, Jean Francois de [1789-

1803], 166, 166, 170, 238, 867.

873, 874, 875, 880, 899, 410, 414,

420, 422, 427.
La Mare, Abb^ de, 105.
La Motte, Antoine Houdart de

[1672-1781], 820.
La Place, Pierre Antoine de [1707-

1793], 34, 219, 265, 828, 880,

428 ; account of, 164-167 ; his

version of Shakespeare, 167-176 ;

Voltaire's criticism of, 202, 221,

238.
Le Blanc, AbW [1707-1774?], 807.
Lecouyreur, Adrienne [1692-

1730], 846.
Lre, Nathaniel [1658-1692] 75-77.
Leicester, Robert Dudley, Earl of,

[1582M588] 261, 262.
Le ELun, Henri Louis [1728-1778],

112, 867, 486.
Lbssino, Gotthold Ephraim [1729-

1781], 45, 127, 140 n., 173, 302,

319, 320.
Le Tournbur, Pierre [1736-1788],

84, 228, 326, 382, 388, 387, 888,

890, 891, 894, 400, 408, 409, 410,

418, 415, 420, 428, 429, 449 ; his

version of Shakespeare, 880-854,

422-426; Voltaire's attack on,

355-379.
Letters Concerning the Enoush

Nation, see Lettres Philoso-

phiqnes, under Voltaire.
LiLLO, George [1698-1789], 124.
Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, 94.

Locke, John [1682-1704], 2, 26,

182, 240, 265.
London Merchant, Lillo's, 124.
London Review, The, 402, 409.
Lope de Vega [1562-1685], 155,

161, 285, 238, 820, 825.
Ltttelton, George, Baron [1709-

1778], 2, 187, 291.

Macaulat, Thomas Babington,

Lord [1800-1859], 402.
Maffei, Francesco Scipione, Mar-

chese di [1675-1755], 140, 266,

267.
Mallet, David [17061-1765], 85,

151 »., 805.
Marie Antoinette, queen of

France [1755-1793], 868, 389,

390.
Marlt, 58.
Marmontel, Jean Francois [1728-

1799], 288, 367, 875; Le Tour-

neur's criticism of, 836-840.
Mason, William [1724-1797], 401.
Mercibr, Louis S^bastien [1740-

1814], 180 n., 849.
Merope, Hill's, 152-154.
Merope, Jeffrey's, 141-145.
Merope, Maffei's, 140, 266, 267.
Miller, James [1706-1744], 138.
Milton, John [1608-1674], 8, 28,

48-50.
Miscellanies, Harrington's, 157.
Mol4 Fran9ois Ren^ [1734-1802],

888.
MoLifeRE, Jean BaptLste Poquelin

[1622-1673], 9, 268, 316, 385,

837, 346, 866.
Montagu, Mrs. Elizabeth [1720-

1800], 249, 870, 378, 405, 428,

438; Essay of, attacking Voltaire,

288-808; Taylor's Reply to Essay

of, 809, 818, 314 ; translation into

French of Essay of, 411-414:

Voltaire's reply to Essay, 417,

420.

459

INDEX

Monthly Revibw, The, 401, 404.
Moore, John [1727-1802], 486.
More, Himnah [1745-1833], 293.
MOROANV, Maurice [1726-1802],

404.
Murphy, Arthur [1727-1805], 149,

158, 805, 806.
Mulberry-tree at New Place,

Stratford, 340.

Kecksr, Madame [1739-1794], 883,

405, 406.
Newton, Sir laaac [1642-1727], 2,

26, 132, 190, 240, 266.
NiOHT Thoughts, Young's, 333.
No One's Enemy but his Own,

Murphy's, 806.

Oldfield, Anne [1688-1730], 845.
OssiAN, 333.

Otwat, Thomas [1652-1685], 140i
182, 186, 187, 193, 202, 247.

Paradise Lost, Milton's, 28, 49.
Paradise Regained, Milton's, 28.
Pepys, Samuel [1633-17031 115.
Persjs, ^flchylus', 126.
Peterborough, Charles Mordaunt,

Earl of [1658-1785], 15.
PnfeDRE, Racine's, 250.
Philips, Ambrose [1765?-1749], 222.
Philips, John [1676-1709], 28.
Philological Enquiries, Harris's,

292.
Philosophical Dictionary, see

Dictionnaire Philosophique, under

Voltaire.
Philosophical Letters, see

Lettres Philosophiqnes, under

Voltaire.
Pierrot, contemptuous diminn-

tive of proper name Pierre, 874,

379, 885.
Piozzi, Hester Lynch [1741-1821],

295, 406.

Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham

[1708-1778], 187.
Plaindealek, The, 88.
Plautub, 847.
Plutarch, 74, 326.
Poitiers, 876.
Pompadour, Marquise de [1721-

1764], 388.

PONDICHERRY, 188.

Pope, Alexander [1688-1744], 2,
15, 38, 86, 87, 88, 116, 134, 142,
151 n., 159, 197, 231 n., 807, 348,
450; Voltaire's admiration of,
27.

Potter, Robert [1721-1804]. 292.

PrAvost, AbW [1697-1763], 187.

Prior, Matthew [1664-1721], 27,
28.

Pritchard, Mrs. Hannah [1711-
1768], 6, 24.

Prompter, The, 75, 89.

QuiNTUS Curtiub, 278.

Rabelais, Franfois [1495 f-1 553],
27.

Racine, Jean Baptiste [1689-1699],
9, 104, 133, 139, 140, 180, 206,
222, 223, 239, 249, 250, 251,
268, 269, 271, 272, 806, 309,
313, 385, 387, 356, 359, 360,
361, 364, 366, 367, 372-374,
376, 379, 380, 385, 386, 887,
393, 415, 419, 420, 426, 435,
444; English estimate of, 136,
156, 182, 186, 187, 193, 243,
248, 253, 254, 316; Voltaire's
preference of, to ComeiUe, 214,

915.
Raleigh, Sir Walter [1552 T-1618],

262, 303.
Reonard, Jean Franfois [1655-

1709], 268.
Reynolds, Sir Joshua [1728-1792],

292, 295.

460

INDEX

RiccoBOKi, Madame [1714-1792],

410.
RiCHABDSONi Samuel [1509-1761],

833.
RiCHABiNtOK, William [1743-1814],

316.
Richelieu, Cardinal [1585-1642],

270, 387.
RiCHEUBU, Dae de [1696-1788],

69, 386-388.
Rochester, John Wilmot, Earl of

[1648-1680], 27, 28, 48, 337.
Roman Revenge, Hill's, 116.
Romantic, 850.
Romeo, Ducis', 327.
Roscommon, Wentworth Dillon,

Earl of [1638 1-1685], 27.
RonssEAiT, Pierre [1716-1785], 182.
RowE, Nicholas [1674-1718], 184,

140, 848.
RuTLEDOE, James [1743-1794], 410.
Rtmer, Thomas [1641-1718], 88,

39, 366, 881.

Salmabius, Claudius [1588-1653],

48.
Samson Agonistes, Milton's, 28.
Saurin, Bernard Joseph [1706-

1781], 318.
Saxo Grammaticus [died c. 1208],

201.
Schk5der, Friedrich Ludwig[1744-

1816], 319.
Search itor Happiness, More's,

293.
Sewell, George [died 1726], 348.
Shadwell, Thomas [1642 1-1698],

167.
Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley,

Earl of [1671-1713], 8.
Shakespeare, William [1564-
1616] ; his

All's Well that Ends well^
115.

Antony and Cleopatra, 8,
167, 285.

461

As You Like It, 115, 140.

Coriolanus, 282, 284.

Cymbeline, 167.

Hamlet, 3, 4, 78, 167, 184, 199,
219, 258, 282, 292, 327, 835,
403 ; Ganick's alteration of,
339 ; graye-diggers' scene in,
172, 259, 889 ; Voltaire's imi-
tation and criticism of, 124-
130, 143, 201, 284, 365 ; his
outline of the plot of, 197 ; his
version of soliloquy in, 64-66,
175, 287.

Henry IY., Part i., 8, 258.

Henry IY., Part ii., 8, 250-252,
297.

Henry Y., 8, 85, 285, 286, 864.

Henry YI., Partiii, 167

Henry YIII., 278.

Julius Cjesar, 8, 4, 10, 80, 70,
72, 92, 114, 167, 287, 297, 333,
424 ; Yoltaire's imitations and
translation of, 47, 97-100, 118,
175, 216, 220, 221, 224-239,
260, 282. 285, 807, 320, 325,
831, 835, 857, 863, 407, 411,
416.

Lear, 3, 864 ; Yoltaire's use of,
79, 80.

Love's Labor's Lost, 115.

Macbeth, 3, 149, 167, 185, 297,
864, Yoltaire's imitation of,
121-124.

Measure for Measure, 115.

Merry Wives of Windsor,
167.

Midsummer Night's Dream,
115.

Much Ado About Nothing,
115.

Othello, 8, 167, 202, 234, 285,
838, 354, 364, 415 ; Yoltaire's
imitation of, 78-83, 124.

Richard II., 3.

Richard III., 3, 167, 168, 185;
Yoltaire's account of, 188-190.

INDEX

ROMBO AND JVLIST, 8, 189, 140,

827, 884, 864.

Taming of the Sheew, 115.

Tempest, 140, 188.

TiMON, 167.

Titus Andronicur, 807.

Troilus and Cressida, 8.

Twelfth Nioht, 116, 116, 140.

Winter's Tale, 115, 273.
Sherlock, Martin [died 1797],

222 n., 817, 431-484.
Short View of Tragedy, Rj-

mer^B, 89.
Sidney, Sir PhiUp [1554-1586],

808.
Simmons, Samael, 49.
SiRYEN Family, 886.
Sophocles, 45, 68, 187, 278, 289,

291, 847, 849, 374, 415.
Southerne, Thomas [1660-1746],

140.
Spenser, Edmand [15521-1599],

29, 803.
Splendid Shilling, Philips', 28.
Staple of News, Jonson's, 230.
Steele, Sir Richard [1672-1729],

61.
Sterne, Laurence [1718-1768],

881.
Stratford Jubilee, The, 840-847.
SuARD, Jean Baptiste Antoine

[1733-1817], 412.
Swift, Jonathan [1667-1745], 2,

27, 185, 156.

Tasso, Torquato [1544-1595], 244.
Taste, see Godt, under Voltaire.
Taylor, Edward [died 1797], 809-

814.
Theatre Anolois, La Place's, 84,

167.
Theobald, Lewis [1688-1744],

201, 280, 848.
Thomson, James [1700-1748], 2,

27, 88.
Tbrale, see Piozzi.

Thucydides, 278.
Tillotson, Jolm [1680-1694], 26.
TOLAND, John [1670-1722], 26.
ToNSON, Jacob [1656 ! -1786], 49.
Tragedies in Prose, 328.
Traoi-Comedy, 7, 281.
Tristram Shandy, Sterne's, 331.

Unities, the Dramatic, 7, 81,
114, 178, 254, 265, 273, 281, 283,
303, 309, 311, 433.

Vanbrugh, Sir John [1664-1726]

3, 61, 247.
Velches, 828, 828, 864, 868, 879,

884 ; defined, 821.
Venice Preserved, Otway's, 202.
Vergil, 50, 104, 278, 285.
Villemain, Abel Francois [1790-

1870], 40.
Voltaire, Francois Marie Aronet
de [1694-1778] ; his
Alzire (1786), 93, 118, 804.
Appel X toutes les nations
DE l'Europe (1761), 191-205,
219, 283, 284, 818.
Art Dramatique, 258, 284-

287.
Brutus (1731), 46, 72-77, 83,

148, 304.
Candide (1759) 48, 289.
Catiline, see Borne Sauvie.

CONTES DE OUILLAUME Vad£

(1764), 205.
(yORNEiLLE, Commentaries on

(1764), 208-218, 220, 259, 320,

381, 336, 839, 367.
CoRNEiLLE, Theatre de, avec

des Comraentairea, etc. (1764),

208-210.

DiCTIONNAIRE PhILOSOPHIQVB

(1764), 19, 48, 225, 253, 288.
£co8SAiSB, L' (1760), 305.
Epic Poetry, Essay on (1727),

46, 47-52.

462

INDEX

fipop^ 48.

Eriphylib (1779), 74, 78, 124-
126.

Fanatisme, Le, see Mahomet

FONTBNOY, La. bataille de
(1745), 150.

Gout, 262.

Henriade, La (1728 ; in 1723
as La Lioue), 2, 47, 87, 147 ;
criticism of, by Kames, 244,
248, 254, 255.

Homme aux quakante £cu8, L'
(1768), 250.

Indiscket, L* (1725), 306.

iKkNE (1779), 318, 396, 417, 419.

Lett&e 1 l'Acad^mie Fran-
9AI8E (1776), 255, 257, 318,
346, 858, 378, 380-385, 389,
392, 895, 398-403, 405-409,
411, 412, 420, 429 ; its char-
acter described, 361-366 ; ar-
rangements for its public
reading, 369-377.

Lettres Phi LosoPHiQUE8( 1734),
Letters concerning the English
Nation (1733), 46, 53-60, 80,
185, 221, 287, 427.

Lois ds Minos, Les (1773),
327.

Mahomet (1742), 74, 119, 133,
142, 149, 159, 232, 304, 436 ;
Macbeth imitated in, 121-124.

MAropb (1744), 74, 100, 119,
305 ; preface to, 140-142, 144,

148, 150, 266 ; Hill's adapte-
tion of, 152-154.

MoET DB Ci^AR, La (1736;
spnrions edition in 1785), 71,
74, 163, 164. 227, 260, 804 :
account of, 95-117.

CKdipe (1719), 74, 436.

Oreste, (1750), 74, 306.

Orphelin de la Chinb (1755),

149, 161,289, 305.

QOTSSTIOKS SUR ifENCTCLOPADIE

(1770-1772), 404.

Rome Sauvi^e (1752), or Cati-
LiNA on Rome Sauy^e, 84,
100 ; account of, 30-32.

Scythes, Les (1767), 305.

S^miramis (1749), 74, 78, 148,
144, 158, 159, 305, 329, 403;
imitation of Shakespeare in,
126; ghost scene in, compared
with Hamlet, 128-131.

Tancr^de (1761), 205, 305.

Welches Discoubs aux (1764),
in Contes de Guillanme Yad^.

ZAlfBE (1733), 76, 95, 100, 119,
135, 138, 140, 304 ; imitation
of Shakespeare in, 78-83, 124;
Hill's adapUtion of, 87-93, 113.

Waller, Edmund [1606-1687], 29.

Walpole, Horace, Earl of Orford
[1717-1797], 188, 288, 296, 854,
401; his correspondence with Vol-
taire, 258-280.

Walpole, Sir Robert, 2, 86, 247.

Warbubton, William [1698-17791
15, 26, 231 n., 348.

Warton, Thomas [1728-1790], 292.

WiELAND, Christoph Martin [1783-
1813], 423.

WiLKiE, WillUm [1721-1772], 147.

WoFFiNOTON, Mai^gai-et [17141-
1760], 6.

WooLSTON, Thomas [1670-1733],
26.

Wycherley, William [1640 ? -
1716], 8, 61, 337.

Yates, Mrs. Mary Ann [1728-

1787], 806.
Young, Edward [1683-1765], 2,

295, 333.

Zara, Hill's, 88-90, 138.
ZoBEiDB, Cradock's, 305.

463

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