38 VOLTAIRE. 



upon to recognise his existence and his acts ; we are 

 even required to feel for him when he falls by the 

 hands of an assassin ; to accomplish his destruction 

 the spirits Discord and Fanaticism are evoked from 

 hell ; the form of Guise, whom Valois had murdered, 

 is assumed, and the King expires uttering a speech 

 calculated to excite great interest in his fate. 



This, however, must be reckoned as the least of the 

 objections to which the poem is exposed ; nor is the 

 want of scenes surrounded with peril to try the hero's 

 courage, nor even the feeble and unskilful manner in 

 which the great event of the piece, Henry's conversion 

 to obtain the crown, the most fatal defect. The piece 

 is without dramatic interest ; the characters are not 

 sustained in action, still less in speech indeed there is 

 hardly any speaking in the poem. It is truly singu- 

 lar to find a writer, whose forte as a poet lay in 

 dramatic composition, almost entirely abandon his 

 stronghold when he comes to compose his epic. The 

 action proceeds, but it proceeds by way of narrative. 

 The characters are unfolded, but it is by the descrip- 

 tions of the author, not by their own words. Indeed 

 there are very few characters brought forward, and 

 scarcely any but the hero himself bear their parts in 

 the action. Want of fine metaphors, and penury of 

 figurative expression, have been always imputed to it ; 

 and though there is no lack of similes, these are not 

 very happy. But the cardinal defect is that the author 

 appears perpetually before us ; it is a history rather than 

 a poem a history in numerous verse, and beautifully 

 composed, but not more dramatic, and certainly less 

 beautifully composed, than many passages of Livy, and 



