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    motft entirely printed , nothing being wanting but the printing of the cuts , which I must recommend here as particular master-pieces of art in their kind : 'tis the only beauty in the book that I can answer for . "

    It is worthy of remark , that Voltaire valued and retained till his death , a ready use of the English language , though the accomplished Mrs . Montague , in her Essay , 1769 ( p . 214 ) charged him , not very correctly , with having " depended entirely on the assistance of

    a Dictionary , to translate Shakespeare . Voltaire ' inclination to the English language , and ready use of it , he discovered on being introduced to Franklin , who in 1778 , was ambassador at Paris , from the United States , The anecdote is thus related in An .

    Reg . 1778 . p . & . " Having a great desire to be acquainted with Dr . Franklin , this celebrated American was introduced to him- Voltaire accosted and conversed with him some time in English , till Madam Denis [ his niece ] interrupted

    him by saying , that Dr . Franklin understood French , and the rest of the company wished to know the subject of their discourse . * Excuse me , my dfcar , ' replied Voltaire , * I have the vanity to shew , that I am not unacquainted with the language of a Franklin . '

    In the first part of this publication , u History of the Civil Wars of France ; " there are mare passages worthy of being quoted than I can crowd into this paper . I will select a few as they occur . Of Henry ' s childhood , Voltaire remarks , " He

    was not brought up like a prince in that effeminate pride which enervates the body , weakens the understanding and hardens the heart . His food was coarse , his clothes plain ; he went always bare-headed , was sent to school with the young companions of his

    age , climbed up with them among rocks and woods to the tops of the neighbouring mountains , according to the custom of that country and of those times . He was thus bred up with his subjects in a sort of equality , without which a prince is too apt to forget he is born a man , " Pp . 3 , 4 *

    c Mary Stuatfy Queen of Scotland /' is described as one " whom her beauty and Weakness led into great faults , greater miseries , and at last to a dreadfid death . ' She is said to have go-

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    verned entirely her young husband Francis , a boy of eighteen , without vice and without virtue , born with an infirm body and a weak mind . 11 P . 5 , Of the French Protestants Voltaire

    says , " Ihe superstition , the dull , ignorant knavery of the Monks , the over-grown power of Rome , men ' s passion for novelty , the ambition of Luther and Calvin , the policy of many princes ; all these had given rise 1 and countenance to this sect , free

    indeed from superstition , but running as headlong towards anarchy as the Church of Rome towards tyranny . " He adds , that * ' the Protestants h ^ ul been unmercifully persecuted in France j yet as " the ordinary effect 1

    of persecution , ' that " their sect increased every day , amidst the scaffolds and tortures . Conde , Coligny , all their adherents , all who were oppressed by the Guises turned Protestants at once ; they united their griefs , their vengeancoaiid their interests . " P . 7 .

    Amidst the horrid details of the massacre " on the eve of St . Bartholomew , in the month of August , 1572 » " we are told that some priests holding up a crucifix in one hand and a sword in the other , ran at the head of the murderers and encouraged them in the name of God to spare

    neither relations nor friends , " while Tavannes , Mareshall of France , an ignorant and superstitious soldier , who joined the fury of religion to the rage of party , rid a-horseback through Paris , crying to his soldiers , Let bloody let blood , bleeding is wholesome in the month of August as well as in May ., ' ' Charles IXth " fired with a carbine

    upon those miserable victims who fled to the river , while his mother " Catherine de Medicis * undisturbed and serene in the midst of the slaughter , looked down from a balcony

    situated towards the city , encouraged the assassins and laughed at the dying groans of the murdered . " Pp . 15 , 16 . Voltaire asserts , that ** in a week ' s time , more than a hundred thousand Protestants were massacred all over

    the kingdom , ' as " two or three governors only refused to comply with the king ' s orders . " One of these he justly applauds , Montmvriny Governor of Auvergne , " who wrote to the king the following letter : " Sir , u I have received an order , undeV your majesty ' s . seal , to put to death all

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    Book-Worm . No . XVII . 59

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1815, page 39, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1756/page/39/