Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1853-04-30


re was at one time sincere in his admiration Of Shaks
peare and that he was transformed into " taste calum-
nator only by reason of his attachment to the system
Of classic art After careful examination Of all that he
has written on the subject found in his Coespon-
dence and his Commentaries we have to the
clusion that he admired Shakespeare genius
he was able TO understand him. and that far but
hated him as rival dramatic art SO long nobody in
France but himself admired the English dramast he
quite patronizng and audatory ascrbing to him fine
genius" though somewhat 'uncultiyaed" Writing in
1885 to the Able Desontaines he remarks that France
is not the only country where tragedies written and
our taste does not delight all nations In general
stage devoid of action and deficient in subjects of
allied interest v Had you but seen the piece of
Shakespeare Julius Cesar played as have seen it, and
pretty nearly haze translated a. declarations of
love and our confdantes would seem miserable enough
comparison" Here it will be seen Voltaire says
word for Shakespeare and two for himself having eye
especially his translation He long professed regard
the English playwright with considerable esteem, pro-
nouncing his genius all his and his faults those of
his age and entertained doubt but that Shakespeare
had lived in the time Of Addison he would have been
equally admirable with that elegant writer, In my
opinion he says in lettert Horace Walpole Shaks-
peare precisely like Lope de Vega and Calderon lie
is the chaos of tragedy in which there are thousand
CLEANS of light" This up to the year 1869 change
the spirit of his criticism 1t was in this
wise One Perrot LIE Tourneur connected asst seems with
the royal library Paris had the presumption to trans
late Shakespeare into French and actually procured for
his work the patronage of the King, and not satisfied
with this dared style the English bard :" crea
tive god in the sublime art of the theatres which, indeed
received from his hands existence and its Perfection
TN for lie IN
had boldly asserted that until his work. Shakespeare had
been entirely unknown in France, rather ravested"
This last was the unkndest cut Of ALL for reflected
all of Shakespeare that Votare deemed most valuable
to wit his translation of " Julius Caesar" Accordingly,
in less than months time after the appearance of LIE
Tourneurs version Of Shakpeares complete works Vol
tare took occasion vent his spleen the hapess Ii
brarian, whom in his correspondence he compliments
"un miserable sun impudent mbecile, !" sun faquin
&C., usque ad nausedm. Have you read two volumes"
he writes to friend, by that creature, lie Tourneur
in which he wishes to make accept Shakespeare the
sole model of true tragedy He calls him the god Of the
STAGE He sacrifices all the French without exception to
his IDOL in days Of yore they sacrificed pigs to Ceres
DO you not feel intense hate towards this impudent
doty The horrible part Of it is that the has fol-
lowers in France and the comb Of this calamity and
horror, it was who showed France the pearls had
found in this enormous dung-he Little did think
that should day help to trample the of
Cornee and Racine and ornament with them the brows
Of barbaric player few days after he burst in
despairng accents follows; The abominaton of de-
ISOLATION is in the temple of the Lord Lekan, who is
angry you are tells that almost all the young men
Of Paris for LIE Tourneur / have the end of
and good taste. shall die leaving France barba
ian" Not satisfied with thus disseminating his wrath
ul thunderbols against the shapeless Titan" he
,nce called him. he next proceeded to draw up paper
On the subject which he read before the French
Academy. As specimen of ravng and impotent drvel
i ranscends any thing out of the French After repro
batting in few curt phrases the prevalent Anglomania
which, satisfied with introducing into Paris du ros
beef de mouo and the fashion of promenading en- rac
les motins forgetting" he adds, that Jrac after all
comes from the French do almost all the words in the
English tongue he launches at into what he after
wards called his aeum against Giles Shakespeare and
PierrotLe Tourneur though is worthy Of remark that
poor Shakespeare has bear nearly all the of his
abuse this occasion. This paper in fact deemed
violent that it had TO be somewhat tempered before il
was read before the Forty Shakespeare is styled
Glow comedian man Of no education " barbara
who outdid the barbarism Of his tines writer Of
farces," drunken savage" &C.. to the end
of the chapter 1t is very Significantly limited that Ry
mer, thelearned Rymer" than half right when
he pushed the severity Of his criticism SO far as to say
that there not monkey in Africa not baboon
but had taste than Shakespeare Such are a few
specimens of yOaires Indignation at the literary infa
my which the foreigners es velches) seeking
this time to spread throughout France is instructive
note the change which Shakspeares Sudden popularity
wrought in the Sage Of Ferney. His philosophy quite
him the thought that there should be any other
god before him.
This is the only instance in which Voaire PLAYED
the part of literary poltroon and tergyersator Every
body knows how, while he affected to admire CorneiTe he
yet conryed always to magn him by faint praise Says
Schegel he perpetuay maintains that the French ma
ton, and, possible still the French stage is the
first in the world and that nevertheless Cornee and Ra
cine, with all their exceences have left very much to
be done. The reader is commonly left in situation
which enables him very easily discover who is in Vol
tares opinion The great genius destined 10 supply all
these Deficiencies and to surpass Cornee and Racine as
much they do the ragedians Of foreign nations Now
Votare wrote tragedies. The sgregious vanity of the
philosophical patriarch induced him to consider anothers
praise much detracton from his own Madame de
sevgn6, Fontenele La Motte Marivaux and others Of
the old school, placed Cornee the head os the French
DRAMA assigned to Racine place far below him. and to
Yotare lower yet Herein is found the secret Of his
preference for Racine Cornee and hence also his
dsparagement Of the latter Another case in illustration
Of this intellectual bias which sometimes distorted the
philosophers judgment is his conduct towards Boleau
whom at one time he could not enough exto and admire
the master Of composition" and the Legislator Of
good taste throughout Europe" II happened, however,
that the Able Bateux day took il into bis head to
draw parallel between the Hcnriade and the Lutrn Of
u ~ -