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doubt with a little irony. I will repeat his words, and then give my reason for quoting them. After translating a passage in Maffei's Merope, Monsieur de Voltaire adds, Tous ces traits sont naifs: tout y est convenable à ceux que vous introduisez sar la scene, et aux mœurs que vous leur donnez. Ces familiaritès naturelles eussent etè, à ce que je crois, bien recuès dans Athenes; mais Paris et notre parterre veulent une autre espece de simplicitè. I doubt, I say, whether there is not a grain of sneer in this and other passages of that epistle; yet the force of truth is not damaged by being tinged with ridicule. Maffei was to represent a Grecian story: surely the Athenians were as competent judges of Grecian manners and of the propriety of introducing them, as the Parterre of Paris. On the contrary, says Voltaire [and I cannot but admire his reasoning] there were but ten thousand citizens at Athens, and Paris has near eight hundred thousand inhabitants, among whom one may reckon thirty thousand judges of dramatic works.—Indeed!—but allowing so numerous a tribunal, I believe this is the only instance in which it was ever pretended that thirtythou-
