Letters on the English

_I.--The Quakers_

Voltaire (see HISTORY) reached England in 1726. He had

quarrelled with a great noble, and the great noble's

lackeys had roundly thrashed him. Voltaire accordingly

issued a challenge to a duel; his adversary's reply was to

get him sent to prison, from which he was released on

condition that he leave immediately for England. He

remained there until 1729, and these three years may

fairly be said to have been the making of Voltaire. He

went with a reputation as an elegant young poet and

dramatist--he was then thirty-two; and this reputation

brought him into the society of the most famous political

and literary personages of the day. He became a disciple

of Newton, and gained a broad, if not a deep, knowledge of

philosophy. He left in 1729 fully equipped for his later

and greater career as philosopher, historian, and

satirist. The "Philosophic Letters on the English" were

definitely published, after various difficulties, in 1734;

an English translation, however, appeared in 1733. The

difficulties did not cease with publication, for the

French authorities were grievously displeased with

Voltaire's acid comparisons between the political and

intellectual liberty enjoyed by Englishmen with the

bondage of his own countrymen. The "Philosophic Letters"

purported to be addressed to the author's friend Theriot;

but they would seem to be essays in an epistolary form

rather than actual correspondence. Of England and its

people, Voltaire was both an observant and an appreciative

critic; hosts and guest alike had reason to be pleased

with his long and profitable visit.

My curiosity having been aroused regarding the doctrines and history of

these singular people, I sought to satisfy it by a visit to one of the

most celebrated of English Quakers. He was a well-preserved old man, who

had never known illness, because he had never yielded to passion or

intemperance; not in all my life have I seen a man of an aspect at once

so noble and so engaging. He received me with his hat on his head, and

advanced towards me without the slightest bow; but there was far more

courtesy in the open kindliness of his countenance than is to be seen in

the custom of dragging one leg behind the other, or of holding in the

hand that which was meant to cover the head.

"Sir," I said, bowing low, and gliding one foot towards him, after our

manner, "I flatter myself that my honest curiosity will not displease

you, and that you will be willing to do me the honour of instructing me

as to your religion."

"The folk of thy country," he replied, "are too prone to paying

compliments and making reverences; but I have never seen one of them who

had the same curiosity as thou. Enter, and let us dine together."

After a healthy and frugal meal, I set myself to questioning him. I

opened with the old enquiry of good Catholics to Huguenots. "My dear

sir," I said to him, "have you been baptised?"

"No," answered the Quaker, "neither I nor my brethren."

"_Morbleu!_" I replied, "then you are not Christians?"

"Swear not, my son," he said gently; "we try to be good Christians; but

we believe not that Christianity consists in throwing cold water on the

head, with a little salt."

"_Ventrebleu!_" I retorted, "have you forgotten that Jesus Christ was

baptised by John?"

"Once more, my friend, no swearing," replied the mild Quaker. "Christ

was baptised by John, but himself baptised no one. We are disciples of

Christ, not of John."

He proceeded to give me briefly the reasons for some peculiarities which

expose this sect to the sneers of others. "Confess," he said, "that thou

hast had much ado not to smile at my accepting thy courtesies with my

hat on my head, and at my calling thee 'thou.' Yet thou must surely know

that at the time of Christ no nation was so foolish as to substitute the

plural for the singular. It was not until long afterwards that men

began to call each other 'you' instead of 'thou,' as if they were

double, and to usurp the impudent titles of Majesty, Eminence, Holiness,

that some worms of the earth bestow on other worms. It is the better to

guard ourselves against this unworthy interchange of lies and flatteries

that we address kings and cobblers in the same terms, and offer

salutations to nobody; since for men we have nothing but charity, and

respect only for the laws.

"We don a costume differing a little from that of other men as a

constant reminder that we are unlike them. Others wear the tokens of

their dignities; we wear those of Christian humility. We never take an

oath, not even in a court of justice; for we think that the name of the

Almighty should not be prostituted in the miserable wranglings of men.

We never go to war--not because we fear death; on the contrary, we bless

the moment that unites us with the Being of Beings; but because we are

not wolves, nor tigers, nor bulldogs, but Christian men, whom God has

commanded to love our enemies and suffer without murmuring. When London

is illuminated after a victory, when the air is filled with the pealing

of bells and the roar of cannon, we mourn in silence over the murders

that have stirred the people to rejoice."

_II.--Anglicans and Presbyterians_

This is the land of sects. An Englishman is a free man, and goes to

Heaven by any road he pleases.

But although anybody may serve God after his own fashion, their true

religion, the one in which fortunes are made, is the Episcopal sect,

called the Anglican Church, or, simply and pre-eminently, the Church. No

office can be held in England or Ireland except by faithful Anglicans; a

circumstance which has led to the conversion of many Noncomformists.

The Anglican clergy have retained many Catholic ceremonies, above all

that of receiving tithes with a most scrupulous attention. They have

also a pious ambition for religious ascendancy, and do what they can to

foment a holy zeal against Nonconformists. But a Whig ministry is just

now in power, and the Whigs are hostile to Episcopacy. They have

prohibited the lower clergy from meeting in convocation, a sort of

clerical house of commons; and the clergy are limited to the obscurity

of their parishes, and to the melancholy task of praying God for a

government that they would be only too happy to disturb. The bishops,

however, sit in the House of Lords in spite of the Whigs, because the

old abuse continues of counting them as barons.

As regards morals, the Anglican clergy are better regulated than those

of France, for these reasons:--they are all educated at Oxford or

Cambridge, far from the corruption of the capital; and they are only

called to high church office late in life, at an age when men have lost

every passion but avarice. They do not make bishops or colonels here of

young men fresh from college. Moreover, the clergy are nearly all

married, and the ill manners contracted at the universities, and the

slightness of the intercourse between men and women, oblige a bishop as

a rule to be content with his own wife. Priests sometimes frequent inns,

for custom permits it; and if they get drunk, they do so discreetly and

without scandal.

When English clergymen hear that in France young men, famous for their

dissipations, and elevated to bishoprics by the intrigues of women, make

love publicly, amuse themselves by writing amorous ballads, give

elaborate suppers every day, and, in addition, pray for the light of the

Holy Spirit, and boldly call themselves the successors of the Apostles;

the Englishmen thank God that they are Protestants. But they are vile

heretics, to be burnt by all the devils, as Rabelais puts it; which is

the reason why I have nothing to do with them.

The Anglican religion only embraces England and Ireland.

Presbyterianism, which is Calvanism pure and simple, is the dominant

religion in Scotland. Its ministers affect a sober gait and an air of

displeasure, wear enormous hats, and long cloaks over short coats,

preach through their noses, and give the name of "Scarlet Woman" to all

churches who have ecclesiastics fortunate enough to draw fifty thousand

livres of income, and laymen good-natured enough to stand it.

Although the Episcopal and Presbyterian sects are the two prevailing

ones in Great Britain, all others are welcome, and all live fairly well

together; although most of their preachers detest each other with all

the heartiness of a Jansenist damning a Jesuit.

Were there but one religion in England, there would be a danger of

despotism; were there but two, they would cut each other's throats. But

there are thirty, and accordingly they dwell together in peace and

happiness.

_III.--The Government_

The members of the English Parliament are fond of comparing themselves

with the ancient Romans; but except that there are some senators in

London who are suspected, wrongly, no doubt, of selling their votes, I

can see nothing in common between Rome and England. The two nations, for

good or ill, are entirely different.

The horrible folly of religious wars was unknown among the Romans; this

abomination has been reserved for the devotees of a faith of humility

and patience. But a more essential difference between Rome and England,

and one in which the latter has all the advantage, is that the fruit of

the Roman civil wars was slavery, while that of the English civil wars

has been liberty. The English nation is the only one on earth that has

succeeded in tempering the power of kings by resisting them. By effort

upon effort it has succeeded in establishing a wise government in which

the Prince, all-powerful for the doing of good, has his hands tied for

the doing of evil; where the nobles are great without insolence and

without vassals; and where the people, without confusion, take their due

share in the control of national affairs.

The Houses of Lords and Commons are the arbiters of the nation, the King

is the over-arbiter. This balance was lacking among the Romans; nobles

and people were always at issue, and there was no intermediary power to

reconcile them.

It has cost a great deal, no doubt, to establish liberty in England; the

idol of despotic power has been drowned in seas of blood. But the

English do not think they have bought their freedom at too high a price.

Other nations have not had fewer troubles, have not shed less blood; but

the blood they have shed in the cause of their liberty has but cemented

their servitude.

This happy concert of King, Lords, and Commons in the government of

England has not always existed. England was for ages a country sorely

oppressed. But in the clashes of kings and nobles, it fortunately

happens that the bonds of the peoples are more or less relaxed. English

liberty was born of the quarrels of tyrants. The chief object of the

famous Magna Charta, let it be admitted, was to place the kings in

dependence upon the barons; but the rest of the nation was favoured also

in some degree in order that it might range itself on the side of its

professed protectors. The power of the nobility was undermined by Henry

VII., and the later kings have been wont to create new peers from time

to time with the idea of preserving the order of the peerage which they

formerly feared so profoundly, and counterbalancing the steadily-growing

strength of the Commons.

A man is not, in this country, exempt from certain taxes because he is a

noble or a priest; all taxation is controlled by the House of Commons,

which, although second in rank, is first in power.

The House of Lords may reject the bill of the Commons for taxation;

but it may not amend it; the Lords must either reject it or accept it

entire. When the bill is confirmed by the Lords and approved by the

King, then everybody pays--not according to his quality (which is

absurd), but according to his revenue. There are no poll-taxes or other

arbitrary levies, but a land tax, which remains the same, even although

the revenues from lands increase, so that nobody suffers extortion, and

nobody complains. The peasant's feet are not tortured by sabots; he eats

white bread; he dresses well; he need not hesitate to increase his stock

or tile his roof, for fear that next year he will have to submit to new

exactions by the tax-gatherer.

_IV.--Commerce_

Commerce, which has enriched the citizens in England, has contributed to

make them free, and freedom has in its turn extended commerce. Thereby

has been erected the greatness of the State. It is commerce which has

gradually established the naval forces through which the English are

masters of the sea.

An English merchant is quite justly proud of himself and his occupation;

he likes to compare himself, not without some warrant, with a Roman

citizen. The younger sons of noblemen do not despise a business career.

Lord Townsend, a Minister of State, has a brother who is content to be a

city merchant. When Lord Oxford governed England, his younger son was a

commercial agent at Aleppo, whence he refused to return, and where some

years ago he died.

This custom, which is unfortunately dying out, would seem monstrous to

German grandees with quarterings on the brain. In Germany they are all

princes; they cannot conceive that the son of a Peer of England would

lower himself to be a rich and powerful citizen. There have been in

Germany nearly thirty highnesses of the same name, not one of them with

a scrap of property beyond his coat of arms and his pride.

In France, anybody who likes may be a marquis, and whosoever arrives

from the corner of some province, with money to spend and a name ending

with Ac or Ille, may say, "a man such as I, a man of my quality," and

may show sovereign contempt for a mere merchant. The merchant so often

hears his occupation spoken of with disdain that he is fool enough to

blush for it. Yet I cannot tell which is the more valuable to the

State--a well-powdered lordling, who knows precisely at what hour the

king rises, and at what hour he goes to bed, and who assumes airs of

loftiness when playing the slave in a minister's ante-chamber; or a

merchant who enriches his country, issues from his office orders to

Surat and Cairo, and contributes to the happiness of the world.

_V.--Tragedy and Comedy_

The drama of England, like that of Spain, was fully grown when the

French drama was in a state of childishness. Shakespeare, who is

accounted to be the English Corneille, flourished at about the same time

as Lope de Vega; and it was Shakespeare who created the English drama.

He possessed a fertile and powerful genius, that had within its scope

both the normal and the sublime; but he ignored rules entirely, and had

not the smallest spark of good taste. It is a risky thing to say, but

true nevertheless--this author has ruined the English drama. In these

monstrous farces of his, called tragedies, there are scenes so

beautiful, fragments so impressive and terrible, that the pieces have

always been played with immense success. Time, which alone makes the

reputation of men, ultimately condones their defects. Most of the

fantastic and colossal creations of this author have with the lapse of

two centuries established a claim to be considered sublime; most of the

modern authors have copied him; but where Shakespeare is applauded,

they are hissed, and you can believe that the veneration in which the

old author is held increases proportionately to the contempt for the new

ones. It is not considered that he should not be copied; the failure of

his imitators only leads to his being thought inimitable. You are aware

that in the tragedy of the Moor of Venice, a very touching piece, a

husband smothers his wife on the stage, and that when the poor woman is

being smothered, she cries out that she is unjustly slain. You know that

in "Hamlet" the grave-diggers drink, and sing catches while digging a

grave, and joke about the skulls they come across in a manner suited to

the class of men who do such work. But it will surprise you to learn

that these vulgarities were imitated during the reign of Charles

II.--the heyday of polite manners, the golden age of the fine arts.

The first Englishman to write a really sane tragic piece, elegant from

beginning to end, was the illustrious Mr. Addison. His "Cato in Utica"

is a masterpiece in diction and in beauty of verse. Cato himself seems

to me the finest character in any drama; but the others are far inferior

to him, and the piece is disfigured by a most unconvincing love-intrigue

which inflicts a weariness that kills the play. The custom of dragging

in a superfluous love-affair came from Paris to London, along with our

ribbons and our wigs, about 1660. The ladies who adorn the theatres with

their presence insist upon hearing of nothing but love. The wise Addison

was weak enough to bend the severity of his nature in compliance with

the manners of his time; he spoilt a masterpiece through simple desire

to please.

Since "Cato," dramas have become more regular, audiences more exacting,

authors more correct and less daring. I have seen some new plays that

are judicious, but uninspiring. It would seem that the English, so far,

have only been meant to produce irregular beauties. The brilliant

monstrosities of Shakespeare please a thousand times more than discreet

modern productions. The poetic genius of the English, up to now,

resembles a gnarled tree planted by nature, casting out branches right

and left, growing unequally and forcefully; seek to shape it into the

trim likeness of the trees of the garden at Marly, and it perishes.

The man who has carried farthest the glory of the English comic stage is

Mr. Congreve. He has written few pieces, but all excellent of their

kind. The rules are carefully observed, and the plays are full of

characters shaded with extreme delicacy. Mr. Congreve was infirm and

almost dying when I met him. He had one fault--that of looking down upon

the profession which had brought him fame and fortune. He spoke of his

works to me as trifles beneath his notice, and asked me to regard him

simply as a private gentleman who lived very plainly. I replied that if

he had had the misfortune to be merely a private gentleman like anybody

else, I should never have gone to see him. His ill-placed vanity

disgusted me.

His comedies, however, are the neatest and choicest on the English

stage; Vanbrugh's are the liveliest, and Wycherley's the most vigorous.

Do not ask me to give details of these English comedies that I admire so

keenly; laughter cannot be communicated in a translation. If you wish to

know English comedy, there is nothing for it but to go to London for

three years, learn English thoroughly, and see a comedy every day.

It is otherwise with tragedy; tragedy is concerned with great passions

and heroic follies consecrated by ancient errors in fable and history.

Electra belongs to the Spaniards, to the English, and to ourselves as

much as to the Greeks; but comedy is the living portraiture of a

nation's absurdities, and unless you know the nation through and

through, it is not for you to judge the portraits.