32 VOLTAIRE. 



not ? See ! see ! that liberty you so often have wished 

 for." Nothing can be more poor than the version in 

 blank verse of the first Catilinarian, unless perhaps it 

 be Catiline's exclamation on rushing forth from the 

 Senate 



" I will not burn without my funeral pile : 

 It shall be in the common fire rather than mine own, 

 For fall I will with all, ere fall alone." 



Nor is the speech before the battle better rendered ; 

 thus 



" And if our destiny envy our virtue 

 The honour of the day, yet let us vow 

 To sell ourselves at such a price as may 

 Undo the world to buy us, and make Fate, 

 While she tempts ours, fear her own estate." 



A piece of rant and fustian which the poet probably 

 thought Sallust had not the genius to think of. The 

 description of Catiline's body after the battle is not 

 perhaps quite so bad, nor the idea lent to the historian 

 so feeble 



" Yet did his look retain 



Some of its fierceness, and his hands still moved, 

 As if he laboured yet to grasp the state 

 With these rebellious parts." 



Altogether the piece is incomparably inferior to 

 Voltaire's in every part on which a comparison can 

 be made. In learning, it is true, the Frenchman is 

 far surpassed, who might have written his ' Catiline ' 

 without ever having read a line either of the orator or 

 of the historian ; but the Englishman's far greater 

 failure is not excused by his attempt being the more 

 learned. 



