VOLTAIRE. 49 



And hiss, and sting, and with each other's blood 

 Impure, profane the monarchs of the wood." 



The 'Loi Naturelle,' though not without consider- 

 able beauties, and altogether free from exceptionable 

 passages, is every way inferior to this fine poem. The 

 'Desastre de Lisbonne' is of the same merit; and 

 though the object is to cry down those who deny the 

 existence of evil, it conducts the argument with perfect 

 decency nay, the turn given to it at the close is of a 

 purely religious character. 



" Le passe n'est pour nous qu'un triste souvenir, 

 Le present est affreux s'il n'est point d'avenir ; 

 Si la nuit du tombeau detruit 1'etre qui pense, 

 Un jour tout sera bien ' voila notre esperance !' 

 Tout est bien aujourd'hui voila 1'illusion !" 



" Sad the remembrance of the moments past, 

 And sad the present, if they be the last ! 

 O'er all our landscape evil sheds a gloom, 

 If all our prospect 's bounded by the tomb ; 

 When we say, ' all is well,' from truth we stray, 

 Our comfort is, ' all will be well one day.' " 



It is melancholy to reflect on the use which was 

 sometimes made of such a rich genius, and to think of 

 the benefits which might have been showered down 

 upon mankind by the wise and temperate employment 

 of those treasures. Great as were the services unde- 

 niably rendered in spite of the evil mixture, they sink 

 into nothing compared with what might have been 

 hoped from their pure and diligent devotion to the 

 best interests of mankind. 



There needs no comment upon the numerous class 

 of the lighter and shorter productions, the vers de 

 societe, the epigrams, the jeuoc < esprit, in which he 



E 



