English ears unmusical, halting, and monotonous; and, accordingly, the twelve-syllable line has seldom been used among us except to close the Spenserian stanza. The passages selected for translation will be given in this volume in blank verse, which—because it is more pleasing to our ears, and more suitable to our notions of an epic, and also because Voltaire's lines lend themselves to it with peculiar facility—does more justice, perhaps, than any other measure would to the poet; but it may be well to give the first few lines forming the exordium of the poem, in a fashion which endeavours to convey the sound as well as the sense of the original:—
"That hero's praise I sing who lord of France did reign,
In right of his good sword and of his royal strain,
Who wise the State to rule, by long misfortune taught,
Stilled faction, and forgave the foe who mercy sought,
O'erthrew Mayenne, with Spain's and League's combined
array,
And, master of the realm, ruled with paternal sway."
Henry of Valois, in his camp before Paris, despairing of success against the League, entreats Bourbon to seek aid from Elizabeth, trusting to the renown and the persuasions of his envoy to make a friend of our great Queen. Bourbon departs accordingly, and, approaching our coast, is driven by a storm to Jersey, where he meets with a venerable hermit, who prophesies that he will be victorious, and will ascend the throne, and gives him very pious and excellent advice respecting the use he should make of his victory. Henry then resumes his voyage; and it will probably propitiate English readers to translate the description of our country under Elizabeth as Henry saw it:—
