[3] Crébillon, author of Catalina.
[4] Groseilles, literally; gooseberries or currents; but we have
taken the liberty here, and elsewhere, slightly to deviate from
the original text, in compliment to English customs, tastes,
idioms, &c.
[5] Russia: whose Empress, Catherine II, is intended by the
succeeding sentence.
[6] The well-known poetic vanity of Voltaire must be taken into
full account, when he thus talks of the easiness of producing
a (modern) Sophocles, or an Euripides; perhaps he thought his
own tragedies equal, or superior to theirs; and for what follows,
the French national prejudice in favour of their own dramatic
writers, and which is far more laudable than the English
indifference to the interests of the drama, should be recollected.
[7] To "astonished" the author might almost have added alarmed, or
disgusted. The conversant in music, know that song in parts, i.e.
harmonized, is peculiarly distasteful to the ear unaccustomed to
it; song, in unison, is the natural music of savage man; harmony
is art; to be pleased with it therefore, implies a mind and
ear cultivated and refined. The same remark hold good with
instrumental music.
[8] We apologize to our zealous correspondent for omitting the
ingenious defence of War, contained in the Note to this passage.
Its insertion would involve ourselves in a war--we mean of
"words, words, words." As a private opinion, we admit the
argument of the defence; though it militates so strongly with
passion and prejudice that its insertion would be the war-hoop
for a whole community of peace-makers to break in upon our
literary _otium._ We wish to be the last in the world to feed
a popular fallacy on any subject; but in some respects the
argument employed in the journal quoted by M.L.B. is of too
general a description to controvert the error in the present
case. We must be courteous--though not of the court: ours is a
system of non-intervention in politics; ever, in matters of
literary dispute we do little more than "bite our thumb." It is
hoped our correspondent will rightly understand us; and so now,
like Mr. Peake's bashful man in the farce, we offer our apology
for having apologized. By the way, in the, newspapers is
advertised a pamphlet, containing an apology for its
publication.--ED, M.
[9] It is a pity that when Voltaire wrote this clever paper, Gas and
Steam were not in vogue to add to the "astonishments" of Tullia.
This would also most miraculously have assisted Madame de Genlis,
in that no less clever exposition of the wonders of nature and
art, the story of Alphonso and Thelismon.
* * * * *