Parnell's Vigil of Venus: British Poets, 1794, vii. 7.]
[kr] [{280}] ——driven him to repose.—[MS.]
[342] [Compare Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, lib. iv., passim.]
[343] [{281}] [In his appreciation of Voltaire, Byron, no doubt, had in mind certain strictures of the lake school—"a school, as it is called, I presume, from their education being still incomplete." Coleridge, in The Friend (1850, i. 168), contrasting Voltaire with Erasmus, affirms that "the knowledge of the one was solid through its whole extent, and that of the other extensive at a chief rate in its superficiality," and characterizes "the wit of the Frenchman" as being "without imagery, without character, and without that pathos which gives the magic charm to genuine humour;" and Wordsworth, in the second book of The Excursion (Works of Wordsworth, 1889, p. 434), "unalarmed" by any consideration of wit or humour, writes down Voltaire's Optimist (Candide, ou L'Optimisme), which was accidentally discovered by the "Wanderer" in the "Solitary's" pent-house, "swoln with scorching damp," as "the dull product of a scoffer's pen." Byron reverts to these contumelies in a note to the Fifth Canto of Don Juan (see Life, Appendix, p. 809), and lashes "the school" secundum artem.]
Coping with all and leaving all behind
Within himself existed all mankind—
And laughing at their faults betrayed his own
His own was ridicule which as the Wind.—[MS.]
[344] [{282}] [In his youth Voltaire was imprisoned for a year (1717-18) in the Bastille, by the regent Duke of Orleans, on account of certain unacknowledged lampoons (Regnante Puero, etc.); but throughout his long life, so far from "shaking thrones," he showed himself eager to accept the patronage and friendship of the greatest monarchs of the age—of Louis XV., of George II. and his queen, Caroline of Anspach, of Frederick II., and of Catharine of Russia. Even the Pope Benedict XIV. accepted the dedication of Mahomet (1745), and bestowed an apostolical benediction on "his dear son." On the other hand, his abhorrence of war, his protection of the oppressed, and, above all, the questioning spirit of his historical and philosophical writings (e.g. Les Lettres sur les Anglais, 1733; Annales de l'Empire depuis Charlemagne, 1753, etc.) were felt to be subversive of civil as well as ecclesiastical tyranny, and, no doubt, helped to precipitate the Revolution.
The first half of the line may be illustrated by his quarrel with Maupertuis, the President of the Berlin Academy, which resulted in the production of the famous Diatribe of Doctor Akakia, Physician to the Pope (1752), by a malicious attack on Maupertuis's successor, Le Franc de Pompignan, and by his caricature of the critic Elie Catharine Fréron, as Frélon ("Wasp"), in L'Ecossaise, which was played at Paris in 1760.—Life of Voltaire, by F. Espinasse, 1892, pp. 94, 114, 144.]
——concentering thought
And gathering wisdom——.—[MS.]