MR BIRRELL

Otago Witness, Issue 3415, 29 August 1919, Page 59

MR BIRRELL

AND A MAN WHO TRIED TO MAKE THE WORLD HABITABLE. His Fine Appreciation of a Wit Well Harnessed, to the Ohariot of Human Justice —of Voltaire's Courage and Zeal." Mr Augustine Birrell, K.C., has been reading the new book, "Voltaire ■ in His Letters," translated by S. G. Tallentyre, and writes abotu it in the Nation. It is pubished by John Murray. " Voltaire's" undying interest and unflagging, curiosity in all that concerned mankind, and his labours in the cause of justice, and fair-play for the victims of cruelty and superstition, have had their exceeding great reward after the very fashion that would' nave pleased him most —i.e., in the undying interest and unflagging curiosity his name and life-adven-tures - have continued to excite for more than 200 years, in all parts of the world; "To-day," he says, "we are not much concerned with Voltaire's anti-religion, or with his lack of reverence, for it is Ins humanity and fundamental sound good sense that have kept him alive and sweet, and make' it possible for me, for example, who hate both bawd and blasphemy, to keep a recast, of his famous bust on the mantelpiece in the library. Voltaire Comes to London. — " It would indeed be very hard upon an Englishman to be called upon to hate Voltire, particularly at the present time. Voltaire may be said to have set the fashion of a friendliness with Frenchmen which it took a Corsican to destroy. He arrived m England on Whit- Monday, May 30, 1726, and, with the exception of one hasty and secret journey to Paris, abode amongst us for two years and eight months, during which time he completely mastered our language. Was ever a compliment more delicately turned or con-, veyed than in this letter to Swift? 'At the Sign of the White Peruke, Covent Garden,-London, December 14, 1726. ' You will be surprised, sir, to receive from a' French traveller an essay in English on the Civil Wars of France. I beg your indulgence of one of your admirers, Avho through your writings has become so fond of the English language that he has the temerity to write in it himself.' (See 'Voltaire in His Letters,' p. 21.) He Gobbled. Up Our Literature. — "England in no small sense is responsible for Voltaire. We helped to make him what he became, though his wit, it must be admitted, was all nis own. He simply gobbled up our literature, good, bad, and indifferent. He found ' Hudibras' very much to his mind, declaring that there was more wit in it than in any other single book he knew. He even put the opening lines into French verse, reproducing both metre and spirit after a fashion which at all events excited the admiration of so good a judge as Mr Churton Collins. Voltaire admired Denham, and read Roscommon! He dutifully paid court to Pope. For Vanbrugh and Congreve he had, as naturally he would have, a high regard. Shakespeare, Milton, and Dryden he studied, note-book in hand. As for John Locke's ? famous essay, it was Voltaire's diet all his life. His devotion to Newton was* a noble trait in his character, nor ought the average Englishman and woman to forget that nearly all he or she knows about Sir Isaac—the story of the falling apple—they owe not indeed to the imagination of Voltaire, but to his unfailing French sense of the historical value of an anecdote. What He Did for Our Literature.— "Why are these facts, creditable in themselves and ""most agreeable to an Englishman's vanity, so little known? The answer contains good advice to foreign critics. It is because Voltaire did not sufficiently abase himself before our national r>oet, and once went .so far as to insinuate that Shakespeare -was a good bit of a barbarian. The fact that Voltaire knew Shakespeare's plays as few Englishmen then did availed him nothing.'' What' right had a countryman of Corneille, Racine, and Moliere to have an opinion of his own about Shakespeare? " Mrs Tallentyre provides us Avith a translation of a letter of Voltaire's to Horace Walpole in 1768, a portion _ of which shows how his charge of despising Shakespeare rankled in the mind of this affectionate man: 1 You have nearly succeeded in making your countrymen believe that I despise Shakespeare. I was the first writer who made Shakespeare known to the French; 40 years ago I translated passages from his works, as from Milton's, Waller's, Rochester's, Dryden's, and Pope's. I can assure you that before my time no one in France knew anything about English poetry, and had hardly ever heard of Locke. ... I have been your apostle and your martyr: truly it is not fair that the English should complain of me. ' I said long ago that if Shakespeare had lived in ,the time of Addison he would have added to his genius the elegance and the puritv which, make Addison admirable. I stated that his

genius was his own, and his faults the faults of his age. He is precisely, to my mind, like Lope de Vega, the Spaniard, and Oalderon. He is a fine but untutored ' nature; he has neither regularity nor propriety nor art—in the midst of his sublimity he sometimes descends to grbssness, and in the most impressive scenes to buffooneiy—his tragedy is chaos illuminated by a hundred shafts of light.' (' Voltaire in His Letters,' p. 217.) " There, fully stated, is the whole case against Voltaire. Which of us is now going to heave half-a-brick at Kim? " The famous i Letters Concerning the English Nation,' published in London in 1733, and written in English, is a volume all book-lovers love to possess. .... A Servant of Human Justice.— "And as for the t ' Treatise on Religious Toleration,' with John Calas for its text, who can read it without emotion and pride that England should have played a part in the education of its author? No one has ever, held the principle of toleration with so firm a grasp as Voltaire, who once wrote to Helvetius, whose works he abhorred* 'I wholly disapprove of what you say—and will defend to the death your right to say it.' "We must now be content to take a broad view of Voltaire, his life and actions. Was he not right, eternally right, to be furiously angry with the Church as that institution worked and had her horrid way in his day? ; . . . Voltaire was a practical man, who never made the slightest pretence to be a high priest of humanity. He tried his hardest, in tempore Louis' XV, to believe in God, and, perhaps, occasionally succeeded, but when cruelty raised its head he smote it, when he saw suffering he ran to relieve it. In an age of savage war, he alone of the servants of God. then extant denounced it. His life was one long personal risk; nor was it. due to cowardice, but to his fierce 'will to live,' in order that he- might go On exposing the evil deeds of enthroned' authority, that he was able, by extreme mobility and cunning, to dodge the risks and baffle the devil A Voltaire's Writs Ran Through Europe.—■ "In a certain sense Voltaire was a forerunner of a League of Nations. Voltaire's writs ran through Europe. Russia, Prussia, Austria, even the Vatican knew that superscription. -Nor was he always ridiculing—he was often down on his knees before tyranny and superstitution beseeching them to hold their cruel hands. And his prayers were not always in vain. "Voltaire was no revolutionary. He belonged, in part at all events, to the old regime. He hated priests far more than kings, but he would not have hated either could they but have learnt the principles of toleration. "To the last the news he loved best to hear was that justice, however tardy, had been done to someone. . . ."