98 VOLTAIRE. 



cal and satirical romance. Soon after his establish- 

 ment at Geneva he finished his great historical work, 

 of all his writings the most valuable, and perhaps the 

 most original, the * Essai sur les Mceurs des Nations ;' 

 and he then produced the composition which in origi- 

 nality comes next to it, and in genius is the most per- 

 fect of all his performances, the celebrated ' Candide.' 

 The ' Essai ' had been in great part written at Cirey, 

 but being printed much later, it was first published in 

 1757,* the ' Candide' early in 1759. The former, of 

 course, was avowed, but the latter was studiously de- 

 nied even to the Theiriots and Thibouvilles, his most 

 familiar friends, though Frederick II. appears to have 

 been intrusted with the secret at the very date of these 

 denials.-j- 



The two master-pieces which I have now mentioned 

 in one respect differed materially : the design of the 

 History was quite original ; of the Romance there 

 had been examples before. But in the execution 

 both possessed a very high merit, and a merit of the 

 very same kind the truth with which great principles 

 were seized, and the admirable lightness of the touches 

 by which both the opinions and the comments upon 

 them were presented to the mind. 



* It was the fate of many writings left by Voltaire at Cirey, and 

 among others, of some critical dissertations and translations for the 

 Essay, to be burnt by the base fanaticism or low jealousy of the 

 Marquess's brother, after Madame du Chatelet's death. The 

 ' General Dissertation on History' was written in 1764, and pub- 

 lished the year after. Voltaire, in the advertisement prefixed to it 

 in an edition of his works, erroneously mentions it as written at 

 Cirey. 



f Cor. avec les Sour., i. 796. Cor. Gen., v. 225, 329. 



