Solliciter l’honneur d’embrasser leur defense!’
The devil addresses the deity with the following piece of high-flown sentimentality:
‘Pour braver les remords, et la gêne et la flamme,
Je ne demande rien qu’un seul rayon d’espoir.’
We know, indeed, from whence the allusion is taken, and we wonder the more at the affectation implied in the alteration. It is like some of Pope’s refinements on Isaiah. In giving an account of the sorrow which prevails in heaven at the disasters of the church of Christ, the author has expressed a trite theological sentiment with more felicity than we recollect to have seen it expressed before:
‘On entend à ces mots toutes les voix célestes
D’une douce tristesse exhaler les soupirs.
La harpe ainsi murmure au souffle des zéphirs.
Les habitants du ciel n’ont point ces sons funestes—
Qu’ici-bas les malheurs arrachent aux humains.