poem in England with uncommon success. It was dedicated to the queen; and the subscription, headed by the Princess Caroline, amounted to about two thousand pounds. This sum, it has been said and repeated by biographers, became, judiciously invested, the foundation of his fortune.
The great epics of the world may be counted on the fingers, and among these is the "Henriade." It was from the first hailed as the worthy representative of France in that very select assembly. The world of letters, and the most fastidious critics, agreed in recognising it as an extraordinary production, which placed its author among the first poets of his time. So greatly did Frederick of Prussia admire the "Henriade," that he took considerable pains to procure the publication of an elaborately-illustrated edition of it, which was never completed, but for which he wrote a preface, generally published with the poem, expressing his enthusiastic delight in the work and unbounded respect for its author. Much as the taste of the French people in poetry has changed since then, it continues to command high esteem as a principal modern classic, and to be issued in cheap editions.
Along with it Voltaire published essays on epic poetry, and on the most illustrious representatives of that province of song. In these, while distinguishing and allowing for the differences of national tastes, he censures renowned poets evidently with thorough honesty, but with more freedom than common opinion warrants: he finds Homer very imperfect in point of art, and accuses Milton of a great number of gross faults, as, for instance, the speech of Sin, the portress of Hell, which he calls "a disgusting and abominable history." He quotes passages
