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.M.Prynne was brought before 23_Voltaire_Letter23 1/10/07 2:12 PM Page 95Twenty-Third Letter, On the Esteem Due to Men of Letters 95the Court of Star Chamber, condemned to see his fine book burnedby the executioner, and to have his ears cut off; you can read abouthis trial in the public registers.In Italy one must be careful to avoid condemning the Opera andexcommunicating Signor Senesino or Signora Cuzzoni.17 As for me,I dare to wish that in France one might suppress all those bad booksthat attack our theaters; for once the Italians and the English learnthat we stigmatize as disgraceful an art in which we excel, that wecondemn as impious a play performed for the clergy and in convents,that we dishonor the entertainment in which Louis XIV and LouisXV took parts, that we call devilish those works overseen by the moststringent magistrates and performed in the presence of a virtuousqueen when, I say, foreigners learn of this insolence, this lack ofrespect for royal authority, this gothic barbarity that some dare callChristian severity, what might they think of our nation, and howcould they understand, either that our laws would countenance soinfamous an art, or that we dare to call infamous an art authorized bylaw, rewarded by sovereigns, cultivated by great men, and admiredby other nations; and, more, that, in the same bookshop, Father LeBrun s18 condemnation of our plays is found side by side with theimmortal works of Racine, Corneille, Molière, etc.? 23_Voltaire_Letter23 1/10/07 2:12 PM Page 96 24_Voltaire_Letter24 1/10/07 2:13 PM Page 97Twenty-Fourth LetterOn the AcademiesThe English had an Academy of Sciences long before we did, but itis not as well regulated as is ours, and this perhaps only because it isthe older, for, had it been formed after the Academy of Paris, it wouldhave adopted some of its wise regulations, and improved others.The Royal Society of London1 lacks the two elements most nec-essary to men rewards and rules.A geometer, a chemist in Paris isassured of a small fortune if he is a member of the Academy; on theother hand, a member of the Royal Society in London must paysomething.In England anyone who says, I love the arts, and wantsto be a member of the Society becomes one instantly.But in France,to be a member and pensioner of the Academy it is not enough to bea lover of knowledge; one must be learned and contend for admis-sion against rivals who are all the more imposing because they aredriven by the desire for glory, by self-interest, even by the difficultyof the process, and by that rigidity of spirit that results from therelentless study of mathematics.2Our Academy of Sciences is wisely limited to the study of nature,and, to be sure, that is a field large enough to occupy fifty or sixtypeople.The one in London mixes literature and science without dis-crimination.It seems to me that it is better to have an academydevoted to literature, so that matters are not jumbled together, andone does not see a dissertation on Roman hair styles next to a hun-dred new formulae for curves.Since the London Society offers little order and no support, andsince the one in Paris is built on a very different foundation, it is notsurprising that the Transactions of our academy should be superiorto theirs; well-disciplined and well-paid soldiers must at length over-come volunteers.It is true that the Royal Society had its Newton,but it did not produce him; indeed, there were few members whounderstood him; a genius like M.Newton belonged to all theAcademies of Europe, because all had much to learn from him.3In the last years of the reign of Queen Anne, the famous DoctorSwift presented a project to create an academy that would define thelanguage, following the example of the French Academy.The project97 24_Voltaire_Letter24 1/10/07 2:13 PM Page 9898 Philosophical Letterswas supported by the Earl of Oxford, the Lord Treasurer ofEngland, and even more by Viscount Bolingbroke, Secretary ofState, who had the gift of speaking extemporaneously in Parliamentwith as much purity of language as Swift demonstrated in his writ-ing, and who would have been the protector and ornament of thisacademy.4 Its members were to be those men whose works willendure as long as the English language: Doctor Swift; M.Prior,whom we have seen as special envoy and who in England enjoys thesame reputation that La Fontaine has with us; M.Pope, the Boileauof England; M.Congreve, whom one might call their Molière; sev-eral others whose names I now forget would all have made thiscompany flourish in its infancy.But the Queen died suddenly; theWhigs took it into their heads to hang the protectors of the acade-my, which, as you may imagine, was a mortal blow to literature.The members of this company would have had a great advantageover those who first formed the French Academy; for Swift, Prior,Congreve, Dryden, Pope, Addison, etc., had established theEnglish language in their writing, whereas Chapelain, Colletet,Cassaigne, Faret, Perrin, Cotin, your first Academicians, were thelaughingstock of your nation, and their names have become so con-temptible that if some decent author had the misfortune to becalled Chapelain or Cotin, he would be obliged to change hisname.5 Above all, the English Academy ought to have set for itselftasks that were different from ours.One day an English wit askedme for the Transactions of the French Academy. It does not pro-duce Transactions, I answered him, but it has published sixty oreighty volumes of compliments. He skimmed one or two; he couldnot manage to understand their style, although he understood allour good authors quite well [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]
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.M.Prynne was brought before 23_Voltaire_Letter23 1/10/07 2:12 PM Page 95Twenty-Third Letter, On the Esteem Due to Men of Letters 95the Court of Star Chamber, condemned to see his fine book burnedby the executioner, and to have his ears cut off; you can read abouthis trial in the public registers.In Italy one must be careful to avoid condemning the Opera andexcommunicating Signor Senesino or Signora Cuzzoni.17 As for me,I dare to wish that in France one might suppress all those bad booksthat attack our theaters; for once the Italians and the English learnthat we stigmatize as disgraceful an art in which we excel, that wecondemn as impious a play performed for the clergy and in convents,that we dishonor the entertainment in which Louis XIV and LouisXV took parts, that we call devilish those works overseen by the moststringent magistrates and performed in the presence of a virtuousqueen when, I say, foreigners learn of this insolence, this lack ofrespect for royal authority, this gothic barbarity that some dare callChristian severity, what might they think of our nation, and howcould they understand, either that our laws would countenance soinfamous an art, or that we dare to call infamous an art authorized bylaw, rewarded by sovereigns, cultivated by great men, and admiredby other nations; and, more, that, in the same bookshop, Father LeBrun s18 condemnation of our plays is found side by side with theimmortal works of Racine, Corneille, Molière, etc.? 23_Voltaire_Letter23 1/10/07 2:12 PM Page 96 24_Voltaire_Letter24 1/10/07 2:13 PM Page 97Twenty-Fourth LetterOn the AcademiesThe English had an Academy of Sciences long before we did, but itis not as well regulated as is ours, and this perhaps only because it isthe older, for, had it been formed after the Academy of Paris, it wouldhave adopted some of its wise regulations, and improved others.The Royal Society of London1 lacks the two elements most nec-essary to men rewards and rules.A geometer, a chemist in Paris isassured of a small fortune if he is a member of the Academy; on theother hand, a member of the Royal Society in London must paysomething.In England anyone who says, I love the arts, and wantsto be a member of the Society becomes one instantly.But in France,to be a member and pensioner of the Academy it is not enough to bea lover of knowledge; one must be learned and contend for admis-sion against rivals who are all the more imposing because they aredriven by the desire for glory, by self-interest, even by the difficultyof the process, and by that rigidity of spirit that results from therelentless study of mathematics.2Our Academy of Sciences is wisely limited to the study of nature,and, to be sure, that is a field large enough to occupy fifty or sixtypeople.The one in London mixes literature and science without dis-crimination.It seems to me that it is better to have an academydevoted to literature, so that matters are not jumbled together, andone does not see a dissertation on Roman hair styles next to a hun-dred new formulae for curves.Since the London Society offers little order and no support, andsince the one in Paris is built on a very different foundation, it is notsurprising that the Transactions of our academy should be superiorto theirs; well-disciplined and well-paid soldiers must at length over-come volunteers.It is true that the Royal Society had its Newton,but it did not produce him; indeed, there were few members whounderstood him; a genius like M.Newton belonged to all theAcademies of Europe, because all had much to learn from him.3In the last years of the reign of Queen Anne, the famous DoctorSwift presented a project to create an academy that would define thelanguage, following the example of the French Academy.The project97 24_Voltaire_Letter24 1/10/07 2:13 PM Page 9898 Philosophical Letterswas supported by the Earl of Oxford, the Lord Treasurer ofEngland, and even more by Viscount Bolingbroke, Secretary ofState, who had the gift of speaking extemporaneously in Parliamentwith as much purity of language as Swift demonstrated in his writ-ing, and who would have been the protector and ornament of thisacademy.4 Its members were to be those men whose works willendure as long as the English language: Doctor Swift; M.Prior,whom we have seen as special envoy and who in England enjoys thesame reputation that La Fontaine has with us; M.Pope, the Boileauof England; M.Congreve, whom one might call their Molière; sev-eral others whose names I now forget would all have made thiscompany flourish in its infancy.But the Queen died suddenly; theWhigs took it into their heads to hang the protectors of the acade-my, which, as you may imagine, was a mortal blow to literature.The members of this company would have had a great advantageover those who first formed the French Academy; for Swift, Prior,Congreve, Dryden, Pope, Addison, etc., had established theEnglish language in their writing, whereas Chapelain, Colletet,Cassaigne, Faret, Perrin, Cotin, your first Academicians, were thelaughingstock of your nation, and their names have become so con-temptible that if some decent author had the misfortune to becalled Chapelain or Cotin, he would be obliged to change hisname.5 Above all, the English Academy ought to have set for itselftasks that were different from ours.One day an English wit askedme for the Transactions of the French Academy. It does not pro-duce Transactions, I answered him, but it has published sixty oreighty volumes of compliments. He skimmed one or two; he couldnot manage to understand their style, although he understood allour good authors quite well [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]