traits are richly drawn, and start, as it were, from the canvas, with life-like vigour."-Revue Ency. vol. 2, p. 305.. VOLTAIRE (F. M. Arouet de) Le Siècle de Louis XIV. et celui de Louis XV. Paris, 1821, 4 vols. 8vo. and 12mo. "I finished the Siècle de Louis XIV, and believe that Voltaire had for this work an advantage which he has seldom enjoyed. When he treats of a distant period, he is not a man to turn over musty, monkish writers to instruct himself. He follows some compilation, varnishes it over with the magic of his style, and produces a most agreeable, superficial, inaccurate performance. But there the information, both written and oral, lay within his reach, and he seems to have taken great pains to consult it. Without any thing of the majesty of the great historians, he has comprised, in two small volumes, a variety of facts, told in an easy, clear, and lively style. To this merit he has also added that of throwing aside all trivial circumstances, and chosing no events, but such as are either useful or entertaining. His method (of treating every article in a distinct chapter) I think vicious: as they are all connected in human affairs, and as they are often the cause of each other, why separate them in History? The first volume is much less interesting than the second; arts and manners were a subject almost untouched, but so many writers had exhausted the battles and sieges of Louis XIVth's reign, that it was impossibie to add anything new, especially in so confined an abridgement. Besides, those detached particulars wanted less that art of narrating, which Voltaire never possessed, with all his other talents; I mean in prose, for there are some very fine narrations in his tragedies."-Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, vol. 2, p. 69, The great names which distinguish the reign of Louis XIV. are thus classed by M. Maury:" Louis XIV had at the head of his armies, Turenne, Condé, Luxembourg, Catinat, Créqui, Boufflers, Montesquiou, Vendome and Villars; Duquesne, Tourvile and Zoray directed his councils; Bossuet, Bourdaloue and Masillon instructed him in his duties. In his senate he had Molé and Lamoignon; Tulon and d'Aguesseau. Vauban fortified his cities; Riquet planned his canals; Perrault and Mansard erected his palaces. Paget, Girardon, le Poussin, le Sueur and le Brun embellished them. Lenôtre laid out his gardens; Corneille, Racine, Molière, Quinault, La Fontaine, La Bruyère, Boileau, enlightened and amused him. Montausier, Bossuet, Beauvilliers, Fénélon, Huet, Fléchier, and the Abbé Fleury educated his children. At the head of this august assemblage of immortal genius, the first Royal Protector of the French Academy, proud of the nation to whose grandeur he has so much contributed, and supported by the great men of whom he was the distinguished patron, presents himself, thus gloriously attended, to posterity." -Histoire de l'Empire de Russie, sous Pierrele-Grand. Paris, 1803, 2 vols. 18mo. "The author of this History has been accused of having made use of the same facts as in his History of Charles XII; he has also been accused of having, in some instances, sacrificed truth to his love for antitheses and the marvellous. His introduction is dry; his division into chapters has been greatly censured; and some wits have entitled the Czar, le Roi Chapitré. The success of the work has been chiefly owing to the charm of imagination for which its author is so much distinguished." -Barbier's Bibl. vol. 4, p. 155. -Histoire de Charles XII. Paris, 1817, 1 vol 8vo. N. "We had nothing worthy of mention relative to the History of Sweden, before the publication of Voltaire's Charles XII. It is his best historical composition. It is universally read and admired. Quintus Curtius has been accused of having given his History of Alexander the air of a romance. The adventures of Charles XII are also of so singular a kind, that it is very possible the same accusation may, in after times, be brought against the historian of Charles XII."-Barbier's Bibl. vol. 4, p. 160. "The Histoire de Charles XII, an author gravely asserts, has obtained for Voltaire the title of the French QuintusCurtius. If this be the case, where shall we find his Alexander? If not in the person of Charles, the eulogium is as much out of place, as the line of Pope "From Macedonia's madman to the Swede, is unjust, not to say absurd."-Craufurd's Essais, &c. vol. 3, p. 126. -Essai sur l'Histoire générale et sur les Mours et l'Esprit des nations, depuis Charlemagne jusqu'à nos jours. Paris, 1757, 8 vols. 8vo. “The Essai sur l'Histoire générale, written for Madame du Chatelet, is in many respects worthy of admiration; but the author's hatred of the Jews, and of the Christian religion, is sometimes carried beyond all reasonable bounds."-Craufurd's Essais, &c. vol. 3, p. 128. |
