22 LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN,.

by malting them participate in the greatness of hisname. On his return from England, Voltaire deter-mined to acquire the popular favour, by his triumphsin the drama. At first he was not as successful as hewished : his “ Brutus” fell coldly on the gay, excite-ment-hunting Parisians; “ Eryphile,” on which hespent excessive pains,—remodelling and re-writing dif-ferent portions again and again, — had faults that theauthor’s quick eye discerned at once to be incurable,and he withdrew it after the first representation. “ Zaire ”repaid him for these disappointments ; — “ Zaire, ”which, whatever its faults may he, is so fresh, so elo-quent, so deeply and naturally pathetic. This play waswritten in twenty-two days. It was a happy thought.

1732. Voltaire writes concerning it: “ I never worked so fast;

the subject carried me on, and the piece wrote itself. I38 ' have tried to depict what has been long in my head, —■Turkish manners contrasted with Christian manners;and to unite, in the same picture, all that our religionhas of dignified, and even tender, with an affecting andpassionate love.” Two months afterwards, he writes :“ I wish you had witnessed the success of ‘ Zaire allow me to enjoy freely, with you, the pleasure ofsucceeding. Never was piece played so well as ‘ Zaire ’at the fourth representation. I wish you had been there;you would have seen that the public does not hate yourfriend. I appeared in a box, and the whole pit clapped.I blushed, and hid myself; but I should be deceitfuldid I not confess that I was deeply moved; — it isdelightful not to be put to shame in one’s own country.”But, after this triumph, he laboured to correct hispiece. He feared, he said, to have owed too much tothe large dark eyes of mademoiselle Gaussin, and to thepicturesque effect produced by the mingling of plumesand turbans on the stage. He felt, for the moment,that he had arrived at the height of literary renown,and that his task was nearly fulfilled. “ What labourand pains I go through,” he writes, “ for this smoke ofvain glory! Yet what should we do without the chimera?