A

LETTER

From Mr. de Voltaire to the Marchioness du Chastelet, on sending her his tragedy of Alzira.

I

MADAM,

T is paying you but a poor tribute, to lay at your feet a poetic performance, which flourishes but a moment, whofe merit confifts in the tranfitory indulgence of the public, and the illufion of the theatre; afterwards doomed to mix in the crowd, and be forgot.

What is, in fact, a novel put into action and verse, in the eyes of a perfon who reads the works of geometricians with the fame eafe that others read romances? what is it to her, who has found in Locke, that fage preceptor of mankind, her own fentiments, and the history of her own thoughts; and who, born to partake of the delights of the world, yet prefers truth to every thing? But,

madam,

madam, the greatest genius, and certainly the most desirable, is that, which excludes none of the fine arts. They all are the nourishment and the pleasure of the mind is there therefore any which we should not cultivate and approve? Happy the mind which is not parched up by the study of philosophy, nor enervated by the charms of the belles-lettres; which can be ftrengthened by Locke, inftructed by Clarke and Newton, elevated by the reading of Cicero and of Boffuet*, and adorned by the beauties of Virgil and of Taffo.

Such, madam, is your genius; I must not fear to say it, though you dread to hear it. Your example must encourage perfons of your fex and rank to think, that they may ftill be more ennobled by improving their reason; and that wit is an ornament to them. There was a time

* A French bishop, famous for his great eloquence, genius, and learning, as well as for his controverfy with the Proteftants of France, and his difputes with his brother bishop Fenelon, author of Telemachus.

in

in France, and even all over Europe,. when gentlemen thought it beneath their dignity, and women thought it beyond their sphere, to feek for knowledge. The first looked on themselves as born for war or for idleness, and the latter for drefs and coquetry. The ridicule which even Moliere and Boileau threw on learned women, feemed, in a polished age, to justify the prejudices of barbarism.

But Moliere, that legislator in the morals and decencies of the world, certainly did not pretend, when he exposed female pedantry, to laugh at wit or learning. He only attacks the abuse and affectation. of them, as in his Tartuffe, he attacks hypocrify but not virtue. Inftead of writing a fatyr against women, if the exact, the folid, the laborious, the elegant Boileau, had confulted some of the most ingenious ladies at court, he would have added to the art and merit of his works, fome flowers and graces, which would have given them still greater charms. In vain has he ftrove, in his fatyr against women, to ridicule a lady of rank who had learn

ed

ed aftronomy.

He would have done

better to have learned it himfelf. Philofophic genius has made fo great a progrefs in France these forty years past, that, if Boileau were still alive, he, who took upon him to ridicule a woman of fashion, becaufe fhe converfed privately with Roberval and Sauveur*, would be obliged to refpect and imitate thofe, who profit publicly of the knowledge of the Maupertuist, the Reaumurs, the Mairans,

* Two excellent mathematicians in the time of Lewis the XIVth.

+ Well known for his great knowledge in the mathematics, as well as of the belles-lettres; for his journey to Lapland, to measure a meridian of the earth; and for having been a great favourite of the prefent king of Pruffia, as well as prefident of his academy at Berlin. He died in the year 1758.

↑ One of the most diligent and accurate obfervers of nature in its minutest operations. His hiftory of infects is a complete work. He improved and perfected the Egyptian method of hatching of eggs, by the means of artificial heat, or fire. He died in the year 1756.

A very ingenious philofopher and polite writer. He has been fecretary to the academy of fciences of Paris.

the

the Dufays*, the Clairauts +; thofe truly learned men, whofe object is useful fcience, and, who, by making it agreeable, render it by degrees really neceffary to our nation. We are arrived at the period, I dare fay it, in which a poet must be a philofopher, and in which a woman may be one publicly.

In the beginning of the last age, the French learned the arrangement of words. The age of things is now arrived. She who read formerly Montaigne, Aftræa, and the tales of the queen of Navarre, was reckoned learned. The Defhoulierest and the Daciers ||, both famous in their

* An excellent botanist and chemist, director of the royal garden of plants at Paris, and member of the academy of fciences..

+ One of the greatest mathematicians and aftronomers of the prefent age. His calculations of the motion of the moon, are much efteemed, as well as those relative to the return of comets..

A most amiable female poet; her works are. full of that wit and delicacy peculiar to her fex.

A lady remarkable for her knowledge and fondnefs for the Greek, from which she tranflated feveral books. Her husband was as much a Grecian as she was; and indeed they became the two greatest pedants of the last age.

way,