quelques parens prennent part differemment à la scene, etc. Nous n'inferons pas
de là que toute comedie doive avoir des scenes de bouffonnerie et des scenes
attendrissantes: il y a beaucoup de tres bonnes pieces où il ne regne que de la
gayeté; d'autres toutes serieuses; d'autres melangées: d'autres où
l'attendrissement va jusques aux larmes: il ne faut donner l'exclusion à aucun
genre: et si l'on me demandoit, quel genre est le meilleur, je repondrois, celui
qui est le mieux traité. Surely if a comedy may be toute serieuse, tragedy may
now and then, soberly, be indulged in a smile. Who shall proscribe it? Shall the
critic, who in self-defence declares that no kind ought to be excluded from
comedy, give laws to Shakespeare?
    I am aware that the preface from whence I have quoted these passages does
not stand in monsieur de Voltaire's name, but in that of his editor; yet who
doubts that the editor and author were the same person? Or where is the editor,
who has so happily possessed himself of his author's style and brilliant ease of
argument? These passages were indubitably the genuine sentiments of that great
writer. In his epistle to Maffei, prefixed to his Merope, he delivers almost the
same opinion, though I doubt with a little irony. I will repeat his words, and
then give my reason for quoting them. After translating a passage in Maffei's
Merope, monsieur de Voltaire adds, Tous ces traits sont naïfs: tout y est
convenable à ceux que vous introduisez sur la scene, et aux moeurs que vous leur
donnez. Ces familiarités naturelles eussent été, à ce que je crois, bien reçues
dans Athenes; mais Paris et notre parterre veulent une autre espece de
simplicité. I doubt, I say, whether there is not a grain of sneer in this and
other passages of that epistle; yet the force of truth is not damaged by being
tinged with ridicule. Maffei was to represent a Grecian story: surely the
Athenians were as competent judges of Grecian manners, and of the propriety of
introducing them, as the parterre of Paris. On the contrary, says Voltaire [and
I cannot but admire his reasoning] there were but ten thousand citizens at
Athens, and Paris has near eight hundred thousand inhabitants, among whom one
may reckon thirty thousand judges of dramatic works. - Indeed! - But allowing so
numerous a tribunal, I believe this is the only instance in which it was ever
pretended that thirty thousand persons, living near two thousand years after