Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 02.djvu/337

Rh saw on their navel, than they defended the town against the Turks.

One of our men of learning made a very significant remark. It was that those two great empires were annihilated, but that the works of Virgil, Horace, and Ovid still exist.

From the age of Augustus they made but one skip to the age of Louis XIV. A lady put the question why it was that with a great deal of wit there was no longer produced scarcely any work of genius?

Mr. Andrew answered that it was because such works had been produced in the last age. This idea was finely spun, and yet solidly true. It bore a thorough handling. After that they fell with some harshness upon a Scotchman, who had taken it into his head to give rules to taste, and to criticise the most admirable passages of Racine, without understanding French. But there was one Denina still more severely treated. He had abused Montesquieu's "Spirit of Laws" without comprehending him, and had especially censured what is the most liked and approved in that work.

This recalled to my mind Boileau's making a parade of his affected contempt of Tasso. One of the company advanced that Tasso, with all his faults, was as superior to Homer as Montesquieu, with his still greater imperfections, was above the farrago of Grotius. But there was presently a strong opposition made to these false criticisms,