Works of Voltaire

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE TEMPLE OF TASTE. That cardinal o'er all the realm f Revered, not he who holds the helm, But he who o'er Parnassus reigns, Renowned for his harmonious strains; The patron whom all bards respect, Who can instruct them and protect, Whose eloquence we all admire, Who with a true poetic fire, In Latin verse can reason right, Plato with Virgil can unite, Who vindicates high heaven to man, And quite subverts Lucretius' plan. That cardinal, whom every one must know by this picture, desired me one day to accompany him to the Temple of Taste. Tis a place, said he, which resembles the Temple of Friendship, which everybody speaks of, which few visit, and which most of those who travel to it, have never thoroughly examined. Jean Baptist Rousseau, in exile, became embittered against Voltaire, who had said of the former's Ode to Posterity, that it was not likely to reach its destination. He circulated several unflattering criticisms on Voltaire's recent productions, including Zaz, the tragedy which placed the young author at the head of the dramatic poets. Voltaire took a merry revenge in this variegated piece, TheTemple of Taste, which set the town laughing at the good-humored badinage he so freely distributes among his literary and fashionable contemporaries. ] Cardinal de Fleury. I answered frankly, I must own, To me taste's laws are little known, To favor you that God inclines, He to your hands the keys consigns; You are his vicar here deputed, And o'er his Church pope constituted. In furious fret all Rome may rage, And rave at this my honest page; But there's a difference very plain, 'Twixt you and Rome's pope, I'll maintain; For Sorbonne's doctors all aver God's vicar upon earth may err: But when I hear you reason strong, I think you can't be in the wrong; So jus...