VOLTAIRE. 19 



performance; for a young man of eighteen or nine- 

 teen, a truly wonderful one ; promising, perhaps, 

 considerably greater dramatic success than even the 

 author of ' Zaire' ever attained. But he unfortunately 

 preferred writing mult a than multum ; and this remark 

 is more peculiarly applicable to his dramatic compo- 

 sitions than to any of his other important efforts. 



The distinguishing beauty of the ' CEdipe* is its 

 fervid, correct, and powerful declamation ; and though 

 the most magnificent passage be taken from Sophocles, 

 there are numberless others of undoubted originality. 

 Into some of the inconsistencies, and even absurdities, 

 of the Greek plot he has fallen, and the most of 

 whatever is good in that plot certainly is not his own. 

 But no one who has either seen the representation or 

 read the poem, can easily forget the powerful im- 

 pression which its diction leaves on the mind. Some 

 of the passages are marked by their supposed allusion 

 to the priesthood of his own times ; and one especially 

 is generally given as his first declaration of war against 

 the sacred order : 



" Nos pretres ne sont point ce qu'un vain peuple pense 

 Notre credulite fait toute leur science." (Act iv. sc. 4.) 



But surely, when we observe that this is only the 



first expressions of the vox populi. Perhaps even the great union of 

 opinion in France, placing Corneille so far above Racine, is another 

 instance of erroneous judgment produced by accidental circum- 

 stances. Had Racine preceded Corneille, would the decision have 

 been the same ? There may, however, be some ground for giving 

 the same precedence to the latter that we yield to Massillon and 

 Bourdaloue over Bossuet. 



c 2 



