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LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.

circles.* There is an amusing anecdote told, whichshows, however, that the charm of his reading did notalways suffice to gain unqualified approbation. Oneday so many petty criticisms were flung at him, that,irritated to the utmost, he exclaimed, “ Then it is onlyfit to be burnt!" and threw the poem into the fire.The president Hainaut sprang forward, and saved it,saying, as he gave it back to the author, “ You mustnot think that your poem is better than its hero.Yet, notwithstanding his faults, he was a great king, andthe best of men.” “ Remember,” the president after-wards wrote, “ that it cost me a pair of lace ruffles tosave it from the fire.”

The chief interest of the poem lies in the era of itsconception, and in the fact that its composition alleviatedthe horrors of his dungeon. At last he was set free.The duke of Orleans being informed of his innocence,he W'as liberated. The regent compensated for themistake by a present of money. Voltaire , on thankingthe regent, said, “ I thank your royal highness for con-tinuing to support me, but I entreat you not to burdenyourself again with finding me a lodging.” The genius

* Thatwe'may be impartial, we quote the opinion expressed of thispoem by a modern French critic. Barante , in his “Essay on FrenchLiterature of the Eighteenth Century,” remarks, Voltaire has most fallenin his reputation as an epic poet. He flattered himself in vain that he hadbestowed an epic on France . Such a work could not he produced in thetimes in which he lived, nor with a character like his. For epic poetry weneed the lively and free imagination of the first ages: knowledge must nothave weakened faith, enthusiasm of feeling, nor the variety and vigour of

character.By a serious and melancholy character, and pure and

true feelings, and the memory of adversity brooded over in solitude, anepic might be rendered as touching as it has been rendered sublime,and interest might stand in place of imagination. But if Virgil secludedhimself from the influence of the court of Augustus, Voltaire was farfrom avoiding that of the court of the regent. He composed an epicpoem with the same degree of interest as would have sufficed to enable himto write an epistle in verse. He fancied that an epic consisted in certainforms agreed upon, in prescribed supernatural agency. He fulfilled theserules, and believed that he had achieved a great work. He was not awarethat it is not a dream, a recital, and the introduction of divinities, that con-stitutes an epic poem; but an elevated and solemn imagination ; and, aboveall, simplicity and truth, under whatever form. The Iliad does not resemblethe Odyssey in the arrangement of its parts : these poems have nothing incommon, except the epic spirit.” So far the enlightened critic speaks.Then, to soothe ruffled French vanity, he adds, “ Nevertheless, it cannot bydenied that the ‘ Henriade 1 contains' great beauties j the poetry is not epic,but is sometimes elevated and pathetic.”