excites them and calms them at will. He leads us to his end without preparation, and without letting us see it. Our heart is touched, our eyes are filled with tears, and that, too, always just at the moment that he chooses. .. It is not less extraordinary to see this same man commanding passions of an exactly opposite nature. The different weaknesses of men are painted by him with a touch as fine and amusing as his treatment of the vices is majestic and terrible. He excels no less in the coolness of reflection and reasoning than in the warmth of emotion. His maxims and sentiments are not only judicious and appropriate, but they display a peculiar fineness of discernment. This latter talent is all the more admirable in a man without experience of the world and without distinct knowledge of those great scenes of human life which nevertheless formed the continual food of his meditations. He seems to have known what is called the world only by a kind of inspiration. The veil of nature was lifted before his glance, and we recognize in reading his works that he was not less a great philosopher than he was a great poet."

curious and admirable beyond her own boundaries. Henceforward the reform movement declared itself openly and frankly. English literature became a famous study, and Anglomania a fashion daily increasing in extent. We have seen Voltaire in the ardor of his youth going too fast for the public; we shall now see the public going too fast for Voltaire. Little by little the innovations of the author of "Zaire" began to bear fruit, and the enthusiasm for Shakespeare became a passion. The first translation of his works appeared in 1745 in "Le Théâtre Anglais" (Paris, 1745, in 12mo). There was no author's or printer's name on the title-page, but it was no secret that the translation was by De la Place, whose "Venise sauveé," imitated from Otway's play of the same name, was performed at the Théâtre Français in 1747. The publication of this work was continued until 1748, and it met with entire success. The enterprise was bold and new, and De la Place thinks himself bound to make some apology for his audacity. He finds encouragement, he says, in the taste that educated Frenchmen have contracted, with so much eagerness, for the English language and literature. He does not try to conceal the difficulties of translation, but he still thinks the attempt possible. He begins with Shakespeare, because "this poet is to be regarded as the inventor of dramatic art in England." "I read and meditated his works with attention," the translator writes, "and I felt that in making them known I should perhaps The chief and constantly repeated comdiminish the reputation of the author, if plaints made by the French critics against his faults were alone remarked without any Shakespeare were his too frequent scenes regard to the differences of time, manners, of blood, his numerous changes of place and usages, and if he were judged and scene, and his variations of style to merely according to the 'Poetics of suit the character of the personages Aristotle. ... It matters little that Shakespeare worked in a manner different from our own; that very fact should be a reason for our increased curiosity. Such an examination can only tend to the perfection of art. . . . French esprit must not necessarily be that of all nations; and in reading Shakespeare we shall discover not only the differences between the French and the English genius, but also traits of force and new and original beauties.' De la Place recognizes in Shakespeare the qualities of the artist, the philosopher, and the comedian; he qualifies him as "a great man who studied the character and genius of his nation.... Never did poet have a more complete and extended empire over the passions. He

This was indeed vigorous and bold language, and never before had the praise of Shakespeare been sounded so loud or his banner borne so high in France. The fact that people listened to it and encouraged De la Place to continue his labors, is a remarkable evidence both of Voltaire's influence and of the progress of the literary taste of the country.

brought upon the stage. De la Place defends Shakespeare against each and all of these criticisms, fearlessly and without any attempt at compromise. "These liberties," he says, "which will lay Shakespeare open to the criticism of the French, do not appear to be contrary to the laws of nature or of reason, nor to that truth of sentiment which brings them all into harmony. Let us then beware of condemning irrevocably what our grandchildren will perhaps one day applaud."

The sentiments with which De la Place was animated are worthy of all praise; his translation is more open to criticism. He had taken for his motto "Non verbum reddere verbo," and he might conscientiously have boasted that he had rigor

"Le

ously kept his promise. His translation is edged no theatrical pieces but dramas; a curious mixture of prose and verse; and Beaumarchais soon followed and dehe often omits whole scenes, or merely veloped the drama in his play of "Euanalyzes them and gives extracts. Im- génie." Imitations, more or less direct, of portant features are passed over, and English works are abundant. We may Shakespeare's thoughts and words are mention Saurin's "Beverley," imitated often distorted. Finally, both the prose from Lillo's " George Barnwell " (1768), and the verse are very rough. Still the and "Blanche et Guiscard" from Thompwork rendered eminent service to art and son's "Tancred" (1763), De Belloy's literature, and helped on the dramatic re- Siège de Calais," played before the court form that was then in preparation. The in 1765; Barthe's comedy "Les Fausses first two volumes of the "Théâtre An- Infidélités" (1768), founded upon "The glais" contained the discourse on the En- Merry Wives of Windsor," and glish stage from which we have given Mariage Clandestin" (1775), imitated from extracts, "Othello," "Henry VI.," "Rich- the English of Garrick. Sedaine's ard III.," Hamlet," and "Macbeth."" Philosophe sans le sçavoir," likewise, The third volume contained replies to shows strong Shakespearian influence. critics, Cymbeline," "Julius Cæsar," The English prose works that were trans"Antony and Cleopatra," "Timon of lated and talked of at this time are innuAthens," and "The Merry Wives of merable. In fact, towards the end of the Windsor." The succeeding volumes contained analyses of the twenty-six remaining plays, together with translations of some of the pieces of Otway, Ben Jonson, and Beaumont and Fletcher.

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Henceforward the reform movement declared itself openly, and translations of English plays and English books began to abound. The bibliography of this period of the eighteenth century would alone form an interesting volume. In order to give some idea of the progress made, we need only to quote a few typical instances. In 1747, the celebrated president of the Parliament of Paris, François Hénault, produced an historical tragedy or drama entitled "François II.," in the preface to which the president avows his intense admiration for Shakespeare, and declares that his drama was inspired by Shakespeare, and more especially by "Henry VI." I have used the word drama, although really it had not yet been adopted in the theatrical vocabulary. The regular tradition of the French stage was, it is true, interrupted about this time by the introduction of the comédie larmoyante or tragédie bourgeoise, and the Abbé Desfontaines, a prominent critic, had proposed another definition. "Why," he asked, "do we not employ for pieces of this kind which are neither tragic nor comic, and are yet adapted to the stage, a word which exists in our language and which we have borrowed from the ancients, I mean the word drama?" When once the word was pronounced the thing grew up. La Chaussée is generally credited with the invention of this kind of piece; Voltaire, as we have seen, tried his hand at it; Diderot wrote the "Père de Famille" and the "Fils Naturel;" Mercier acknowl

eighteenth century, France became exceedingly curious about foreign literature, and, thanks to the introduction of Vol. taire, this curiosity was mainly concentrated upon Shakespeare. The great question of literary criticism at this period was as to the worth of Shakespeare, and the extent to which he ought to be admired and imitated.

Voltaire, partly from the influence of old training, and partly because he saw his literary supremacy threatened, did not look with unmixed satisfaction upon the movement. He saw the success of the rough translation of La Place, and, after writing his "Mort de César," he stopped short. He thought, perhaps, that he had said too much, and began to qualify his glorification of England and of things English; but, though he repressed his enthusiasm, he none the less continued to borrow without acknowledgment from English literature. The triumph of Romanticism was henceforward only a question of time; after the great political revolution it would be the turn of the literary revolution. But Voltaire, finding that the public had listened to him only too well, and that they were carrying his flag too far ahead so far, indeed, as no longer to have the air of being his soldiers-threw himself into the opposite scale. He felt that his royalty was being undermined, and that he was no longer at the head of his age and of his contemporaries. Trusting, therefore, to the power of his name and to his unparallelled literary glory, he determined to oppose the popular rush single-handed.

On many occasions Voltaire published polemical pamphlets under a pseudonym,

so that he might have full liberty to praise | taire's letters might be quoted in abunhis own works. It was thus that he be- dance, and their asperity will be found to gan his reactionary campaign against go on increasing until it culminates in Shakespeare, by a pamphlet, "Des Thé- the famous letters to the Academy on âtres Anglais," purporting to come from the occasion of the publication of Letourthe pen of Jérôme Carré, which was cir-neur's translation. In a letter to Duclos culated in Paris in the year 1761. In this (Dec. 25, 1761) he inveighs against the pamphlet Voltaire proposes to constitute appearance of the witches in "Macbeth." a tribunal of the nations to decide be- In June, 1762, he writes to Duclos : tween the merits of the French and En-"Shakespeare, qu'on oppose à Corneille, glish stage, on the issue raised by the c'est Madame Gigogne qu'on met à côté judgment of Pope, who placed Shake- de Mademoiselle Clairon." In August speare above Corneille, and that of John- of the same year, in a letter to the Comte son, who ranked Otway above Racine. d'Argental, he characterizes De la Place's Voltaire then takes "Hamlet," as being translation as an "excès énorme d'exthe best-known of Shakespeare's pieces, travagance." He asks D'Alembert what and gives a lengthy analysis of the plot. the Academy had thought of his "Fules His method, however, is remarkable César," and D'Alembert replies (Sept. 8, neither for justice nor for good faith. He 1762): "The Academy read with pleasure turns everything in "Hamlet" to ridicule, your translation of Julius Cæsar.' and purposely dwells upon the coarse For my part, I can hardly believe that, in terms and takes no notice of the beau- certain passages, the original is as bad as ties. After having garbled and misrepre- it appears in this translation. . . ." In sented the play entirely, he says in con- 1765 (Dec. 4), he once more bursts out clusion: "Such is exactly the famous against Shakespeare: "As for the Entragedy of Hamlet,' the masterpiece of glish, I cannot be ungrateful to you for the London stage; such is the work that having ridiculed Gilles Shakespeare: he people prefer to 'Cinna.'" The marvels was a savage who had some imagination; of the plot he attributes wholly to Saxo he wrote many happy verses, but his Grammaticus, whose romances "Clau- pieces are incapable of pleasing except dius," ," "Gertrude," and "Hamlet," Shake- at London and in Canada. It is not a speare, according to Voltaire, simply put good sign for the taste of a nation when into dialogue. As for the question why that which it admires succeeds only in its such a work could be popular in England, native land." The reaction against Shakehe says: The chairmen, sailors, coach-speare gradually warms into a passion. men, shopboys, and clerks passionately The field offered by private letters, by love shows; give them cock-fights, bull- pamphlets, and by the stage is not large baiting, duels, gibbets, ghosts, or sorcery, enough; he must carry on the struggle in and they will rush in crowds, and there is his commentaries on Corneille, in his more than one great lord quite as curious novels and tales, in his philosophical as the populace. The citizens of London works, and even in his speeches. In the found in the tragedies of Shakespeare all article on "L'Art Dramatique" in the that could please the curious. The court" Dictionnaire Philosophique," probably was obliged to follow the people. During dating from 1765, he expresses his surone hundred and fifty years there was prise that pieces like "Antony and Cleonothing better; the admiration grew patra," in which the base populace figures stronger and stronger until it became idol- side by side with princes, could have atry. A few traits of genius, a few happy been played before the court. verses, strong and natural, earned the Italians, the French, the men of letters acceptance of the rest, and soon the whole of all other countries who have not lived piece succeeded by the help of a few some time in England, take Shakespeare beauties of detail." In conclusion, Vol- for a mere Gilles de la Foire, a farceur taire asks if it is by his ignorance of the very much below Arlequin, for the most rules or by the indecency of his person- wretched buffoon that ever amused the ages that Shakespeare has the advantage populace. It is, however, in this same over Corneille. After this malignant val- man that we find passages that raise the edictory shaft, he says, with profound imagination and penetrate the heart. It self-satisfaction: "The reader is now in is truth, it is nature herself, speaking her a position to judge the case between the own language, without any admixture of tragedy of London and the tragedy of art." Voltaire was here bold enough Paris."

"The

to be inconsistent. He had seen beauShakespeare, and he saw them

The allusions to Shakespeare in Vol-ties in

still, but his literary royalty was endangered, and he was obliged to depreciate his rival on principle. In the article "Goût" in the same work, Voltaire declares that Corneille in his worst moments never falls so low as Shakespeare. There is also a cutting allusion under the word "Baiser" which the curious will look up for themselves..

The references in the novels and tales are numerous. At the end of the second chapter of the "Ingénu" he explains why classical tragedies do not succeed in England, while "the coarse works" of Shakespeare are constantly applauded. The reason is, he says, that the public is not a judge of fine verses, and so Addison's "Cato" fell, and "the empire of Shakespeare is growing stronger."

Feeling, perhaps, that he was going too far, Voltaire endeavored to excuse and diminish the severity of his attacks in a letter to Horace Walpole, dated July 15, 1768. The philosopher of Ferney then

wrote:

...

You have almost made your nation believe that I despise Shakespeare. I was the first to make him known to the French; forty years ago I translated some passages from his works, as also from those of Milton, Waller, Rochester, Dryden, and Pope. I can assure you that before me no one in France knew anything about English poetry. For thirty years I was persecuted by a swarm of fanatics.. I said a long time ago that if Shakespeare had come into the world in Addison's age, his genius would have possessed that elegance and purity which render Addison so worthy of commendation. I said that his genius was his own, and that his faults were those of his age. In my opinion he is precisely like Lope de Vega and Calderon. His was a fine nature, but utterly uncultivated. He had no regularity, no sense of propriety, no art; lowness and grandeur, buffoonery and sublimity, are found in his works side by side; his tragedy is a chaos in which there are a hundred traits de lumière.

The following year he wrote to Chamfort à propos of the Stratford jubilee (Sep. tember 27, 1769): "Genius is not encouraged in France with such profusion."

sions to which it led, may be formed from the fact that Grimm gravely expresses his fears lest the patriotic resentment of M. de Voltaire should trouble the precious harmony that had long existed between England and France. For many years the most touching union had reigned between the rival and neighboring nations. How close it had been in the literary world may be seen in the books and peri. odicals of the time, and amongst other indications of the intimacy and sympathy of the literary men of both nations, we may quote the private and foreign correspondence of David Garrick. On the material side, Anglomania and Gallomania were rife in the respective countries. The French borrowed their swords, their coaches, and their fashion of laying out gardens, from the English; who in return appropriated the frills and furbelows of the French court. In exchange for cooks and perruquiers we sent them philosophers. Our young lords ruined themselves on princesses of the opera, while the young French noblemen came over to our country and lost their money at Newmarket and Doncaster.

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It was

Letourneur's translation was published by subscription, and its appearance was looked forward to with impatience. It bears the title: Shakespeare, traduit de l'Anglais, dédié au Roi;" with the epigraph, "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto. - TERENCE." illustrated by MM. le Bas, Lemure, Alliamet, Saint-Aubin, Prévôt, Choffart, and De Launay, and the plates were sold independently of the book. The authors of the enterprise were the Comte de Catuélan, Letourneur, the translator of Young's

Night Thoughts," once one of the most popular books in France, and FontaineMalherbe. Bad as it is, this translation was the most complete and faithful that had yet appeared. The translators, however, had very primitive ideas of fidelity of rendering, and they spoiled the delicate beauties of Shakespeare by declamation. In the prefaces Letourneur showed himThis letter to Horace Walpole was self very disrespectful towards other gensoon forgotten and soon contradicted. iuses not less powerful in their way, and The publication of Letourneur's transla- not less pure than that of Shakespeare. tion in 1776 brought the indignation of He said, absurdly enough, that Shakethe inconstant Voltaire to a height. Com- speare had disdained to have taste. Morepromise was henceforward out of the over he attacked with volleys of heavy epiquestion. In the terrific tournament that grams the sustained dignity of the French was about to take place one of the cham-stage, and consequently attacked by implipions must remain on the field. Some cation Voltaire himself. "It is a long idea of the great fermentation and excite-time," wrote Grimm in his admirable corment that was caused by this translation respondence, "since any work has apof Shakespeare's works, and the discus-peared that has deserved more criticisin VOL. XXXIII. 1715

LIVING AGE.

and more praise, on which discussion has | He does not deign even to mention Corbeen more animated, and on which public neille or Racine. . . There are already opinion has been more divided and uncer- two volumes printed of this Shakespeare, tain. which one would take for fair pieces written two hundred years ago. This scribbler has contrived to induce the king, the queen, and the royal family to subscribe to his work. Have you read his abominable scrawl? Have you a hatred sufficiently vigorous for this impudent imbecile? Will you put up with the affront that he inflicts upon France? You and M. de Thibouville are too gentle. There are not in all France enough cuffs, enough dunce's caps, enough pillories for such a rogue. The blood dances in my old veins as I write to you about him. If he has not put you in a rage, I consider you a model of impassiveness. The dreadful point is that the monster has a party in France; and to crown the calamity and horror, it was I who first spoke of this Shakespeare; it was I who first showed to the French a few pearls that I had found in his enormous dungheap. I little expected that I should one day help to tread under foot the crowns of Racine and Voltaire in order to adorn the brow of a barbarian player."

"Those who, brought up from infancy in the fear and respect of our great models, render them that exclusive and superstitious worship which differs in no respect from theological intolerance, have looked upon the translators of Shakespeare as sacrilegious men who wished to introduce monstrous and barbarous divinities into the bosom of the fatherland. The devotees of Ferney could not witness without much ill-humor the appearance of a work which would show France the admirable skill with which M. de Voltaire has appropriated the beauties of Shakespeare, and the no less admirable bad faith with which he afterwards allowed himself to translate his works. Those who wanted to preserve an air of impartiality have rendered due justice to the finest genius of England, but have revenged themselves on the translators. The English, who were jealous of the glory of their stage, have complained that Shakespeare was translated too literally; others found that the translation, though very exact in certain respects, was very unfaithful in others; the majority would have been glad to have seen it more French. This translation has not really had any success except in the eyes of those who did not know Shakespeare, and who were burning to become acquainted with him. These read and devoured the translation without troubling themselves as to whether they were reading English or French. It was thus, for instance, that M. Sedaine read it, and the result was that he remained for several days in a kind of intoxication which it is difficult to describe, but easy to imagine, if one is at all acquainted with his turn of mind and his works."

Grimm's criticism of Letourneur's work is excellent, and there can be little doubt that if it had not been for its having been the occasion of Voltaire's scurrilous tirade, this translation would never have acquired a reputation which its literary merits do not justify. The first mention that Voltaire makes of it is in a letter to the Comte d'Argental, dated July 19, 1776, à propos of "un nommé Tourneur," as he calls him: "Have you read two volumes of that wretch in which he tries to make us consider Shakespeare as the only model of real tragedy? He calls him the dieu du théâtre. He sacrifices all Frenchmen without exception to his idol, just as of old they used to sacrifice pigs to Ceres.

Nothing could appease the wrath of Voltaire; nothing could cool his ardor. In spite of sickness and age he rushed into the field to defend his tottering literary royalty against the imposing invasion of the giant Shakespeare. He resolved to make a supreme effort, and accordingly wrote two discourses for the tribune of the Academy. The day chosen for their delivery was August 25, 1776, the anniversary of St. Louis.

If we should read only these two speeches, we might readily believe that the author was animated by a sincere conviction; his correspondence, however, reveals the spurs of jealousy, passion, and amour propre, that pricked on the octogenarian warrior. In another letter to D'Argental, dated July 24, he writes:

" My dear angel, the abomination of desolation is in the temple of the Lord. Lekain tells me that all the youth of Paris is in favor of Letourneur, that the English scaffolds and brothels are getting the better of the tragedies of Racine and the noble scenes of Corneille; that there is nothing great or decent at Paris except the Gilles of London; and that, in fine, a prose tragedy is about to be represented in which there is a meeting of butchers that promises to have a marvellous effect. I have seen the end of reason and taste. I shall die leaving France barbarian ; but,