108 VOLTAIRE. 



desired.* His admiration of Louis XIV. was no doubt 

 very sincere, and it was not perhaps necessary, in the 

 pursuit of court favour under his successor, to soften 

 the harsher features of his character. Yet there is some 

 partiality to him shown throughout the work. Thus 

 the atrocious butchery and havoc in the Palatinate could 

 not be passed over, and, if mentioned, must be blamed ; 

 but the historian censures it as slightly as possible 

 when he says, that at a distance, and in the midst of 

 his pleasures, the king only saw " an exercise of his 

 power and his belligerent rights, while, had he been 

 on the spot, he would only have seen the horrors of 

 the spectacle," (Ch. xvi.) 



The best of the Romances are ' Zadig/ one beautiful 

 chapter of which our Parnell has versified and im- 

 proved in his ' Hermit ;' the e Ingenu ;' and, above all, 

 ' Candide.' Some are disposed to place this last at the 

 head of all his works ; and even Dr. Johnson, with all 

 his extreme prejudices against a Frenchman, an 

 unbeliever, and a leveller, never spoke of it without 

 unstinted admiration, professing that had he seen it, 

 he should not have written ' Rasselas.'f It is indeed a 

 most extraordinary performance ; and while it has such 



* Cor. Gen., iv. 113. " Je ne ferai pas certainement de Valen- 

 court un grand homme ; il etait excessivement mediocre ; mais j'enjoli- 

 verai son article pour vous plaire." It appears (ib. 44) that his 

 first publication was a most imperfect sketch, and written when he 

 was without sufficient materials. These afterwards poured in from 

 all quarters, and he extended the next edition a third. But how 

 much matter must have been sent to him of a more than suspicious 

 quality ! 



f There was an interval of several months, as my learned friend 

 Mr. Croker has clearly ascertained, between the two works ; but 

 Johnson had never seen ' Candide ' when he came by a singular coin- 

 cidence on the very same ground. 



