knowlege of facts and dates, which confifts in re lating, when fuch a man, ufelefs, perhaps, or pernicious to the world, left it; a mere dictio nary science, which clogs the memory, without informing the judgment.

I mean the hiftory of the mind of man; that leads us into the knowlege of manners, and traces out, fault by fault, and prejudice after prejudice, the effects of human passions; that lays before us the evils produced by ignorance or mistaken knowlege; that, above all, marks out the progress of arts, through the lavage broils of potentates, and the overthrow of empires.

Such hiftories are precious in my eyes; and I fhall value them more, on account of the rank in which they must place you, Sir, among those to whom mankind is indebted for new pleasures and inftructions, Pofterity will emulate your country, which has rendered you fuch distinguished honours, has erected you a ftatue with this infcription, To THE MARQUIS SCIPIO MAFFEI, LIVING. As fine an infcription in its kind, as that at Monpellier; To LEWIS THE FOURTEENTH, AFTER HIS DEATH. Vouchsafe to add, Sir, to the homages of your fellow citizens, that of a foreigner, whofe esteem and attachment for you, are as fincere as if I had been a native of Verona,

Of SHAKESPEARE; and the Taste of the ENGLISH in their Theatrical

Entertainments.

*

In a PREFACE to the Tragedy of

CESAR, 1738.

WE

E give this edition of the tragedy of the Death of Caefar, by Mr. de Voltaire, who, we can fafely fay, is the firft that has made the English mufes known in France. He tranflated into verfe fome years ago, feveral pafiages out of the best poets of England, for the inftruction of his friends; and, by that means, he induced many to learn the English; fo that, now, this language is become familiar to men of letters. It is doing service to our minds to embellish them thus with the riches of foreign countries.

Among the moft fingular extracts from the English poets that our friend tranflated for us, was the scene of Antony and the people of Rome, taken from the tragedy of Julius Caefar, which was wrote an hundred and fifty years ago

*This, in the original, is called the publisher's preface.

by the famous Shakespear, and acted to this day with fuch fuccefs on the theatres of London. We asked for the whole play, but it was impofGible to translate it.

Shakespear was a great genius, but he lived in an ignorant age, and one finds in all his pieces the barbarifm of the times, much more than the genius of the writer. Mr. de Voltaire, instead of tranflating the monstrous compofition of Shakespear, wrote, in the English taste, this Julius Caefar, which we do now prefent to the public. This imitation is not like the Sir Politic of Mr. de St. Evremond, who, without any knowlege of the English stage, or being even acquainted with the language, published his Sir Politic, with an intent to make English comedy known to the French. It may be justly said of that comedy that it was neither in the taste of the English, nor of any other nation.

1 It is eafy to perceive in the tragedy of the death of Caefar, the genius and the character of the English writers, as well as that of the Roman people. There reigns through it that prodominant love of liberty, and that boldness of fentiment, which is feldom to be met with in French authors.

The English have another tragedy of the death of Caefar, wrote by the duke of Buckingham. There is one in Italian, by the abbe Conti, a Venetian nobleman. Thele performances agree but in this particular, that there is no love in any of them. None of these authors debafed this grand fubject with an intrigue of gallantry; but about five and thirty years ago

:

one of the greatest wits in France * having joinxed with miss Barbier to compose a Julius Caefar, he took care to represent Caefar and Brutus as lovers, and as jealous of each other. This ridicule is one of the most striking examples of the force of cuftom. Nobody dares to correct the French stage in this particular. In Racine, Mithridates, Alexander and Porus must be gallants. Corneille did not get the better of this weaknefs in any one inftance. None of his plays are without love, and, it must be confeffed, that in his tragedies, if you except the Cid and Polyeuctes, this paffion is as ill painted as it is improperly introduced. Our prefent author has, perhaps, gone into the other extreme. Several people complain that this play contains too much ferocity; they are struck with horror at seeing Brutus facrificing to the love of his country, not only his benefactor, but his father. All that can be answered is, that fuch was the character - of Brutus, and that men must be drawn fuch as they are. There ftill fubfifts a letter wrote by this high-spirited Roman, in which he declares, he would kill his very father for the fafety of the republic. It is known that Caefar was his father: that is enough to justify this boldness of Mr. de Voltaire.

ร

DISSERTATION

On ANTIENT and MODERN TRAGEDY.

Addreffed to his Eminence Cardinal QUERINI, a noble Venetian, Bishop of Brefcia, and Librarian of the Vatican.

My LORD,

IT

T was worthy of such a genius as your lordfhip's, and of a perfon who is at the head of the most antient library in the world, to devote yourself entirely to literature. We must have expected such princes of the church under a pontiff *, who had enlightened the Christian world before he governed it. But if the learned in general are indebted to you, I am more particularly fo than the reft, for the honour you have done me in tranflating into fuch beautiful verfe the Henriade, and the poem of Fontenoy. The two virtuous heroes I have fung, are become, at prefent, yours. You have added beauties to my writ ings, in order to render the names of Henry the

* Benedict the fourteenth.