A LETTER From the Sovereign Pontiff, BENEDICT the FOURTEENTH, To Mr. de VOLTAIRE. BENEDICT the Fourteenth, pope, to our beloved fon, apoftolic greeting and be nediction. L AST week was prefented to us your very fine tragedy of Mahomet, which we read with the greatest pleasure. Cardinal Paffionei has fince prefented to us your excellent poem of Fontenoy. Mr. Leprotti has alfo given us the diftich, which has been placed under our por trait. Yesterday we received your letter of the seventeenth of Auguft, from cardinal Valenti. These are so many kind actions, for which we acknowlege our obligations and thanks, affuring you, at the fame time, of the due esteem we entertain of your justly applauded merit. * Lambertinus hic eft Romæ decus et pater orbis Qui mundum fcriptis docuit, virtutibus ornat. When the above-mentioned diftich was published at Rome, one of your countrymen is faid to have found fault with a word in it, in public conversation, afferting that the particle hic, should certainly have been long instead of being short, as it is in that distich. We answered, that he must mistake, as the word hic may be either long or short, Virgil having made it fhort in this verse; Solus hic inflexit fenfus animumque labentem; And having made it long in this other line; Hic finis Priami fatorum, hic exitus illum. We thought we anfwered this objection pretty well, confidering it is fifty years fince we have read Virgil. Though this is, properly speaking, your own cause, yet we have fo good an opinion of your probity and candour, that we make you judge of this dispute between us and our adversary; and we conclude with giving you our apostolic benediction. Dated at Rome, this 19th of of our exaltation the fixth year. K RO A LETTER To Pope BENEDICT the Fourteenth. T HE features of your holinefs are not better expressed in the medals I have received from your great goodness, than your genius and mind in the letter which you deigned to honour me with, and for which I offer your holiness my moft humble and fincere thanks. Indeed I am obliged to acknowlege your infallibility in decifions of literature, as well as in things of a more ferious nature: Your holiness is much better acquainted with the Latin, than the Frenchman whom you were pleased to cor rect; for my part, I admire how you can remember Virgil fo exactly. The popes have al ways been the most distinguished for learning a mong the fovereign princes, and none of the popes have joined to fo much erudition*, fo many ornaments of polite learning: Agnofco rerum dominos gentemque togatam, *Benedict the fourteenth was a very laborious and ingenious writer. fifteen volumes in folio. before he was made pope, the canon law. His printed works make He was remarkable, even for his great knowlege in If the Frenchman, who mistook in his criticism, relative to the particle hic, had Virgil by. heart as well as your holiness, he might have quoted a verfe, in which it is both long and fhort in the fame line. This fine verfe feemed to me as a prefage of the favours conferred on me by your bounty. This is it: Hic vir hic eft tibi quem promitti fæpius audis. How must Rome have rejoiced when Benedict the fourteenth was exalted to its fee! I kifs your facred feet with fentiments of the greatest reverence and gratitude, etc. K 2 Of the EXCESSIVE DELICACY of the FRENCH TASTE in their Dramatic Representations. In a Letter from Mr. de VOLTAIRE, to the Marquifs SCIPIO MAFFEI, Author of the Italian Merope, and of feveral other celebrated performances. SIR, THE HE antient Greeks and Romans, from whom the moderns of all nations have borrowed almost every thing they know, addressed their works, without the vain form of compliment, to their friends, and to the learned. It is under these titles that I offer you the ho mage of the French Merope. The Italians, who have been the reftorers of many of the fine arts, and the inventors of fome, were the first that, under the inspection of pope Leo the tenth, revived tragedy. And in this age, in which the art of Sophocles began to be enervated by love-intrigues, often foreign to the subject; or debased by low buffoonery, which is a difhonour to the taste of your ingenious countrymen; you, Sir, are the first who have had the courage and the talents to compose a tragedy free from gallantry, a tragedy, worthy of the flourishing days of Athens, in |