VOLTAIRE. 39 



some of Sallust. The objection made to the intro- 

 duction of philosophy, as having no warrant from the 

 ancients, is hypercritical, beside being incorrect ; Vir- 

 gil's cosmogony in the sixth ^Eneid afforded a prece- 

 dent, if, in a modern poem, any were wanting. The 

 same answer may be given to the cavil against his 

 giving characters of persons introduced. Even Virgil 

 has a few touches of this kind, and Lucan largely 

 uses his moral pencil. But however admirable these 

 passages of the ' Henriade,' and how easily soever we 

 may be disposed to admit them as legitimate, they are 

 exceptionable, as the only means on which the poet 

 relies for bodying forth his conceptions. Again and 

 again the remark occurs ; we take the whole of the 

 portraits and of the action from the artist, and not 

 from the actors. 



If the failures are signal in great passages, such as 

 called for the full exertion of the poet's power for 

 example, the St. Bartholomew, and the famine ; the 

 death of Coligny in the former being altogether tame, 

 with the exception of the lines which represent him 

 as a king adored by his people, while his assassins, 

 awe-struck by his presence, kneel before him ;* the 

 latter being described by words conveying general ideas 

 of suffering or of disgust, not by things ; and the pic- 

 ture of the infernal Catherine de' Medicis receiving 

 Coligny's head,f if the failure be still more signal in 



* " Et de ces assassins ce grand homme entoure', 



Semblant un roi puissant par ses peuple adore." (ii. 219.) 



f " Medicis le regut avec indifference, 



Sans paraitre jouir du fruit de sa vengeance, 



Sans 



