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 sion, as was done in Rome. The horrible folly of a war of religion was never known among the Romans; that abomination was reserved for the devout preachers of humility and patience. Pompey and Cæsar, Antony and Augustus, did not fight in order to decide whether the high priest should wear his robe over his shirt or his shirt over his robe."

This, he says, the English have done, though he thinks they never will be guilty of such folly again. He then goes on to draw a comparison between the Governments of Rome and of England altogether to our advantage, and in which he ceases to be sarcastic:—

"The fruit of civil wars in Rome has been slavery—in England, liberty. The English have shed a great deal of blood, no doubt, in their struggles for liberty; but others have shed as much, with the result only of cementing their bonds.

"That which becomes a revolution in England is only a sedition in other countries. A city takes up arms to defend its privileges, whether in Spain, Barbary, or Turkey; immediately mercenary soldiers subjugate it, executioners punish it, and the rest of the nation kisses the rod. The French think the government of this isle of Britain more stormy than the sea which surrounds it, and this is true—but it is when the king begins the tempest, by wishing to make himself master of the vessel of which he is only chief pilot. The civil wars of France have been longer, more cruel, more fertile in crime, than those of England; but not one of them has had for its object a wise liberty."

After describing the condition of the country in the time of King John—

"Whilst the barons, the bishops, the popes, thus tore to pieces the land where each wished to rule, the people, the most useful and even the most virtuous part of a community of men, composed of those who study laws and sciences, of