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The Works of Voltaire: Essays on literature, philosophy, art, history
The Works of Voltaire Essays on literature philosophy art history Author:Voltaire Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE " ANTI-LUCRETIUS " OF CARDINAL DE POLIGNAC. After reading the whole of the late Cardinal de Polignac's poem, I was confirmed in the opinion I had enter... more »tained of it, when his excellency did me the honor to read me the first canto. It is a matter of great surprise how anyone, in the midst of so many and so troublesome avocations, should have had either leisure or inclination to compose so long a work in verse, and in a foreign language, when, at the same time, he was not capable of writing four good lines of poetry in his own tongue. He appears to me to have united the fire of Lucretius with the elegance of Virgil; I especially admire in him that extreme ease with which he always expresses the most difficult things. His " Anti-Lucretius " may perhaps be somewhat too loose, and want that variety which generally pleases; but in this place I examine it as a philosopher, not as a poet. I cannot but think that so noble a soul as his should have done more justice to the morals of Epicurus, who, though undoubtedly a very bad natural philosopher, was nevertheless a good man, and carefully taught the principles of benignity, temperance, moderation, and justice; virtues which he rendered still more amiable by his example than his precepts. And yet we find this great man thus called upon in the " Anti-Lucretius," Book i, v. 524: Si virtutis eras avidus, etc. But Epicurus might, with great justice, have made the cardinal the following reply: " Had it been my happy lot, as it was yours, to have known the true God; had I, like you, been born in a pure and holy faith; I should certainly never have rejected the revelations of this God whose doctrine was unknown to my understanding, although my heart avowed its moral principles. I never could admit a belief in the deities, such as...« less