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Updated: September 19, 2025
He learned the English language exceptionally well, and practiced writing it in prose and verse. He associated on terms of intimacy with Lord Bolingbroke, whom he had already known in France, with Swift, Pope, and Gay. He drew an epigram from Young. He brought out a new and amended edition of the "Henriade," with a dedication in English to Queen Caroline.
The principal personages are Voltaire, holding in his hand a roll of paper inscribed La Henriade; next him is a female personification of this favourite poem, whom he is presenting to Apollo crowned with rays of glory; Louis XIV. with his queen and court, are observing these chief figures.
This was pointed out to the Queen, and she was told that, without conferring on Voltaire the honour of a presentation, she might see him in the State apartments. She was not averse to following this advice, and appeared embarrassed solely about what she should say to him. She was recommended to talk about nothing but the "Henriade," "Merope," and "Zaira."
"You have heard him say much more than this at times? The words he has just uttered are not those of the sermon or poem you mentioned?" M. Peyron opened his hands expansively before him. "Oh, mon Dieu, no, monsieur," he answered, with effusion. "You should hear him recite it. He's never done. It is whole chapters whole chapters; a perfect Henriade in parrot-talk.
With the exception of his letters, of Candide, of Akakia, and of a few other of his shorter pieces, the vast mass of his productions has been already consigned to oblivion. How many persons now living have travelled through La Henriade or La Pucelle? How many have so much as glanced at the imposing volumes of L'Esprit des Moeurs?
The Abbe de la Ville told him that Voltaire had complained that his Henriade had been translated into Neapolitan verse in such sort that it excited laughter. "Voltaire is wrong," said Galiani, "for the Neapolitan dialect is of such a nature that it is impossible to write verses in it that are not laughable. And why should he be vexed; he who makes people laugh is sure of being beloved.
They forget that art has never been and cannot be continuously progressive; that it is only the sciences connected with art that are capable of progress; and that the "Henriade" is not a greater poem than the "Divine Comedy" because Voltaire has learned the falsity of the Ptolemaic astronomy.
In later years, the force and freedom of this talent were witnessed to by illustrations of a more important character in a magnificent edition of Voltaire's Henriade, published in 1825, and of the well known Life of Napoleon by Laurent.
In England he occupied himself chiefly with literature; published his "Henriade," for which he obtained a large subscription; wrote his tragedy of "Brutus," his "Philosophical Letters," and other works.
Under the regency that followed, Voltaire got into trouble again and again through the sharpness of his pen, and at last, accused of verse that satirised the Regent, he was locked up on the 17th of May, 1717 in the Bastille. There he wrote the first two books of his Henriade, and finished a play on OEdipus, which he had begun at the age of eighteen.
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