236
PRINCIPLES OF
Chap. XIII.
and renders him weak and irresolute, appears in Mr Voltaire's translation a thorough sceptic and freethinker. In the course of a few lines, he expresses his doubt of the existence of a God; he treats the priests as liars and hypocrites, and the Christian religion as a system which debases human nature, and makes a coward of a hero:
Dieux justes! S'il en est———
De nos prêtres menteurs bénir l'hypocrisie———
Et d'un heros guerrier, fait un Chrêtien timide—
De nos prêtres menteurs bénir l'hypocrisie———
Et d'un heros guerrier, fait un Chrêtien timide—
Now, who gave Mr Voltaire a right thus to transmute the pious and superstitious Hamlet into a modern philosophe and Esprit fort? Whether the French author meant by this transmutation to convey to his countrymen a favourable idea of our English bard, we cannot pre-tend
