I bury my town purposes, when, about three weeks since, the French Alzire was first sent down to me by my bookseller; and now the actors, perfect in their parts, are ready to begin its representation. This charge against myself I send you for two reasons; such a precipitation will excuse the faults in my own version, and convince you of my zeal to save you from a duller. My letter is in English, because I have seen proofs in print that you are master of our tongue; while, on the contrary, I neither write nor speak in yours with freedom

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or correctness.

"Be pleased to honour me with your commands, to whom I may address for you my version of Alzira. I take acquaintance with your spirit, not without a melancholy sense of what I lost by being absent in the tour of Scotland at a time when many of my friends enjoyed your personal intimacy here in London. But I know you in your noblest self, as millions now know Homer and Euripides, and as future millions will Voltaire, when envy shall be choaked with dust, or

France deserve it for producing you. I beg to have a place assigned me in the list of

the sincerest of,

"Sir,

"Your most humble,

"and obedient servant,

"From my House in Petty France, Westminster."

"A. HILL."

Mr. Hill must either have been disappointed in his expectation of bringing out Alzira at the Theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, or the dramatic accounts have committed an error by asserting that both Zara and Alzira were performed first at Drury Lanc.

Condorcet says of this tragedy, "In Alzire we behold the noble, yet wild, impetu ous virtues of the man of nature, combating the vice of society, corrupted by fanaticism and ambition, and yielding to virtue rendered perfect by reason in the soul of Alzares, or in the dying and disabused Gusman. Here we are taught how society corrupts mankind when it makes prejudice suc

ceed ignorance, and how greatly it improves mankind when error is banished by truth."

XVII. ARIOSTO.

Voltaire asked an abbé who was just returned from Italy, what he thought of Ariosto? He replied, that he considered him as a great poet. Voltaire said warmly, "A great poet! you should say that the author of Orlando Furioso is the greatest of all the poets."

XVIII. MARIAMNE.

It is said by the biographer, that this tragedy was not suffered to go on; because, when Mariamne took the cup of poison. from Herod, a wit exclaimed loudly, “La reine boit;" alluding to the custom of those who met on le jour des rois, (our twelfth day,) to cry out with a great clamour every time the king or queen of the evening drank; a substitute, it may be supposed, for the trumpets and drums which, when some sove

reigns dine or sup in state, proclaim their drinking; as in Hamlet, on hearing the sound of warlike music, Horatio says, "What does this mean, my Lord?" Hamlet replies,

The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassel, and the swagg'ring upspring reels;
And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.

The slightest imitation of this royal custom might add greatly to the mirth of a large company met to enjoy the twelfth-day,

or le jour des rois; but scarcely any thing can appear more ridiculous than a whole audience sacrificing their gravity and judgement to such an ill-timed outcry; it seems as if a wise assembly of serious and judicious critics were all at once transformed, by a magical expression, into laughing idiots.

XIX.

ADELAIDE.

An instance similar to the above happened

to prove the condemnation of this tragedy also. When Vendome asked the noble and affecting question, "Es tu content Couci?" another, or perhaps the same very witty personage took upon him to answer loudly, "Coussi, coussi." The critics were again seized with a fit of noisy mirth, and could no longer attend to the play. If one malici ous wit could convert men of sense into fools, or if one fool could lead an audience, the French authors must feel themselves in a very critical predicament on the presentation of a new drama. In England such impertinent disturbers would be turned out of the theatre, and the play have a fair hearing.

XX. LA MOTTE.

Voltaire being in company with several persons of wit and fashion who were most severely criticising the productions of La Motte, weary of their illiberality, he generously resolved to put a stop to the conversation, and taking a manuscript from his