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The Squashed version of
Philosophic Letters on the English
by
François-Marie Arouet (Voltaire)
1733

I: THE QUAKERS

My curiosity having been aroused regarding the doctrines and history of these singular people, I sought to satisfy it by a visit to one of the most celebrated of English Quakers. He was a well-preserved old man, who had never known illness, because he had never yielded to passion or intemperance; not in all my life have I seen a man of an aspect at once so noble and so engaging. He received me with his hat on his head, and advanced towards me without the slightest bow; but there was far more courtesy in the open kindliness of his countenance than is to be seen in the custom of dragging one leg behind the other, or of holding in the hand that which was meant to cover the head.

"Sir," I said, bowing low and gliding one foot towards him, after our manner.

"I flatter myself that my honest curiosity will not displease you, and that you will be willing to do me the honour of instructing me as to your religion."

"The folk of thy country," he replied, "are too prone to paying compliments and making reverences; but I have never seen one of them, who had the same curiosity as thou. Enter and let us dine together."

After a healthy and frugal meal, I set myself to questioning him. I opened with the old inquiry of good Catholics to Huguenots. "My dear sir," I said to him, "have you been baptized?"

"No," answered the Quaker; "neither I nor my brethren."

"Morbleu! I replied. "Then you are not Christians?"

"Swear not, my son," he said gently; "we try to be good Christians; but we believe not that Christianity consists in throwing cold water on the head, with a little salt."

"Ventrebleu" I retorted. "Have you forgotten that Jesus Christ was baptized by John?"

"Once more, my friend, no swearing," replied the mild Quaker. "Christ was baptized by John, but himself baptized no one. We are disciples of Christ, not of John."

He proceeded to give me briefly the reasons for some peculiarities which expose this sect to the sneers of others.

"Confess," he said, "that thou hast had much ado not to smile at my accepting thy courtesies with my hat on my head, and at my calling thee 'thou.' Yet thou must surely know that at the time of Christ no nation was so foolish as to substitute the plural for the singular. It was not until long afterwards that men began to call each other 'you,' instead of 'thou' as if they were double, and to usurp the impudent titles of 'majesty', 'eminence,' 'holiness,' that some worms of the earth bestow on other worms. It is the better to guard ourselves against this unworthy interchange of lies and flatteries that we address kings and cobblers in the same terms, since for men we have nothing but charity, and respect only for the laws.

"We don a costume differing a little from that of other men, as a constant reminder that we are unlike them. Others wear the tokens of their dignities; we wear those of Christian humility. We never take an oath, not even in a court of justice, for we think that the name of the Almighty should not be prostituted in the miserable wranglings of men. We never go to war, not because we fear death- on the contrary, we bless the moment that unites us with the Being of Beings- but because we are not tigers, nor bulldogs, but Christian men, whom God has commanded to love our enemies and suffer without murmuring. When London is illuminated after a victory, when the air is filled with the pealing of bells and the roar of cannon, we mourn in silence over the murders that have stirred the people to rejoice."

II: ANGLICANS AND PRESBYTERIANS

This is the land of sects. An Englishman is a free man and goes to heaven by any road he pleases.

But although anybody may serve God after his own fashion, their true religion, the one in which fortunes are made, is the Episcopal sect, called the Anglican Church, or, simply and pre-eminently, the Church, No office can be held in England or Ireland except by the faithful Anglicans, a circumstance which has led to the conversion of many Nonconformists.

The Anglican clergy have retained many Catholic ceremonies, above all, that of receiving tithes, with a most scrupulous attention. They have also a pious ambition for religious ascendancy, and do what they can to foment a holy zeal against Nonconformists. But a Whig ministry is just now in power, and the Whigs are hostile to Episcopacy. They have prohibited the lower clergy from meeting in convocation, a sort of clerical House of Commons; and the clergy are limited to the obscurity of their parishes, and to the melancholy task of praying God for a government that they would only be too happy to disturb. The bishops, however, sit in the House of Lords in spite of the Whigs, because the old abuse continues of counting them as barons.

As regards morals, the Anglican clergy are better regulated than those of France, for three reasons- they are all educated at Oxford or Cambridge, far from the corruption of the capital, and they are only called to high church office late in life, at an age when men have lost every passion but avarice. They do not make bishops or colonels here of young men fresh from college. Moreover, the clergy are nearly all married, and the ill manners contracted at the universities, and the slightness of the intercourse between men and women, oblige a bishop, as a rule, to be content with his own wife.

When English clergymen hear that in France young men famous for their dissipations, and elevated to bishoprics by the intrigues of women make love publicly, amuse themselves by writing amorous ballads, give elaborate suppers every day, and in addition pray for the light of the Holy Spirit and boldly call themselves the successors of the Apostles, the Englishmen thank God that they are Protestants.

But they are vile heretics, to be burnt by all the devils, as Rabelais puts it; which is why I have nothing to do with them.

The Anglican religion only embraces England and Ireland. Presbyterianism, which is Calvinism pure and simple, is the dominant religion in Scotland. Its ministers affect a sober gait and an air of displeasure, wear enormous hats and long cloaks over short coats, preach through their noses, and give the name of Scarlet Women to all Churches who have ecclesiastics fortunate enough to draw fifty thousand livres of income, and laymen good-natured enough to stand it.

Although the Episcopal and Presbyterian sects are the two prevailing ones in Great Britain, all others are welcome, and all live fairly well together; although most of the preachers detest each other with all the heartiness of a Jansenist damning a Jesuit.

Were there but one religion in England, there would be a danger of despotism; were there but two, they would cut each other's throats. But there are thirty, and accordingly they dwell together in peace.

Ill: THE GOVERNMENT

The members of the English Parliament are fond of comparing themselves with the ancient Romans; but, except that there are some senators in London who are suspected, wrongly, no doubt, of selling their votes, I can see nothing in common between Rome and England. The two nations, for good or ill, are entirely different.

The horrible folly of religious wars was unknown among the Romans; this abomination has been reserved for the devotees of a faith of humility and patience. But a more essential difference between Rome and England, and one in which the latter has all the advantage, is that the fruit of the Roman civil wars was slavery, while that of the English civil wars has been liberty. The English nation is the only one on earth that has succeeded in tempering the power of kings by resisting them. By effort upon effort it has succeeded in establishing a wise government in which the prince, all powerful for the doing of good, has his hands tied from the doing of evil; where the nobles are great without intolerance, and without vassals; and where the people, without confusion, take their due share in the control of national affairs.

The houses of lords and commons are the arbiters of the nation, the king is the over-arbiter. This balance was lacking among the Romans; nobles and people were always at issue, and there was no intermediary power to reconcile them.

It has cost a great deal, no doubt, to establish liberty in England; the idol of despotic power has been drowned in seas of blood. But the English do not think they have bought their freedom at too high a price. Other nations have not had fewer troubles, have not shed less blood; but the blood they have shed in the cause of their liberty has but cemented their servitude.

This happy concert of king, lords and commons in the government of England has not always existed. England was for ages a country sorely oppressed. But in the clashes of kings and nobles it fortunately happens that the bonds of the peoples are more or less relaxed. English liberty was born of the quarrels of tyrants. The chief object of Magna Carta, let it be admitted, was to place the kings in dependence upon the barons; but the rest of the nation was favoured also in some degree, in order that it might range itself on the side of its professed protectors.

A man is not in this country exempt from certain taxes because he is a noble or a priest; all taxation is controlled by the House of Commons, which, although second in rank, is first in power.

The House of Lords may reject the bill of the Commons for taxation; but it may not amend it; the Lords must either reject it or accept it entire. When the bill is confirmed by the Lords and approved by the king, then everybody pays - not according to his quality (which is absurd), but according to his revenue.

There are no poll-taxes or other arbitrary levies, but a land-tax which remains the same, even although the revenues from lands increase; so that nobody suffers extortion. The peasant's feet are not tortured by sabots; he eats white bread; he dresses well; he need not hesitate to increase his stock or tile his roof for fear that next year he will have to submit to new exactions by the tax-collectors.

IV: COMMERCE

Commerce, which has enriched the citizens in England, has contributed to make them free, and freedom has in its turn extended commerce. Thereby has been erected the greatness of the state. It is commerce that has gradually established the naval forces through which the English are masters of the sea.

An English merchant is quite justly proud of himself and his occupation. The younger sons of noblemen do not despise a business career. Lord Townsend, a minister of state, has a brother who is content to be a city merchant, When Lord Oxford governed England, his younger son was a commercial agent at Aleppo whence he refused to return, and where, some years ago, he died.

This custom, which is unfortunately dying out, would seem monstrous to German grandees with quartering on the brain. In Germany they are all princes; they cannot conceive that the son of a peer of England could lower himself to be a rich and powerful citizen.

In France anybody who likes may be a marquis, and whosoever arrives from the corner of some province, with money to spend and a name ending with 'ac' or 'ille,' may say 'a man such as I, a man of my quality,' and may show sovereign contempt for a mere merchant. The merchant so often hears his occupation spoken of with disdain that he is fool enough to blush for it.

Yet I cannot tell which is the more valuable to the state- a lordling who knows precisely at what hour the king rises and at what hour he goes to bed, and assumes airs of loftiness when playing the slave in a minister's ante-chamber, or a merchant who enriches his country, issues from his office orders to Surat and Cairo, and contributes to the happiness of the world.

V: TRAGEDY AND COMEDY

The drama of England, like that of Spain, was fully grown when the French drama was in a state of childishness. Shakespeare, who is accounted to be the English Corneille, flourished at about the same time as Lope de Vega; and it was Shakespeare who created the English drama. He possessed a fertile and powerful genius, that had within its scope both the normal and the sublime; but he ignored rules entirely, and had not the smallest spark of good taste. It is a risky thing to say, but true, that he ruined the English drama.

In these monstrous farces of his called tragedies, there are scenes so beautiful, fragments 'so impressive and terrible', that the pieces have always been played with immense success. Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ultimately condones their defects. Most of the fantastic and colossal creations of this author have, with the lapse of two centuries, established a claim to be considered sublime. Most of the modern authors have copied him; but where Shakespeare is applauded they are hissed, and you can believe that the veneration in which the old author is held increases proportionately to the contempt for the new ones. It is not considered that he should not be copied; the failure of his imitators only leads to his being thought inimitable.

You are aware that in the tragedy of the Moor of Venice, a very touching piece, a husband smothers his wife on the stage, and that when the poor woman is being smothered she cries out that she is unjustly slain. You know that in Hamlet the grave-diggers drink and sing catches while digging a grave, and joke about the skulls they come across in a manner suited to the class of men who do such work. But it will surprise you to learn that these vulgarities were imitated during the reign of Charles II- the heyday of polite manners, the golden age of the fine arts.

The first Englishman to write a really sane tragic piece, elegant from beginning to end, was the illustrious Mr. Addison. His Cato of Utica is a masterpiece in diction and in beauty of verse. Cato himself seems to me the finest character in any drama; but the others are far inferior to him, and the piece is disfigured by a most unconvincing love intrigue which inflicts a weariness that kills the play, The custom of dragging in a superfluous love affair came from Paris to London, along with our ribbons and our wigs, about 1660. The ladies who adorn the theatres with their presence insist upon hearing nothing but love. Addison was weal enough to bend the severity of his nature in compliance with the manners of his time; he spoilt a masterpiece through simple desire to please.

Since Cato, dramas have become more regular, audiences more exacting, authors more correct and less daring. I have seen some new plays that are judicious, but uninspiring. It would seem that [he English, so far, have only been meant to produce irregular beauties. The brilliant monstrosities of Shakespeare please a thousand times more thin discreet modern productions. The poetic genius of the English up to now resembles a gnarled tree planted by nature, casting out branches right and left, growing unequally and forcefully; seek to shape it into the trim likeness of the trees of the garden at Marly, and it perishes.

The man who has carried farthest the glory of the English comic stage is the late Mr. Congreve. He has written few pieces, but ail excellent of their kind. The rules are carefully observed, and the plays are full of characters shaded with extreme delicacy. Mr. Congreve was infirm and almost dying when I met him. He had one fault- that of looking down upon the profession which had brought him fame and fortune. He spoke of his works to me as trifles beneath his notice, and asked me to regard him simply as a private gentleman who lived very plainly. I replied that if he had had the misfortune to be merely a private gentleman like anybody else, I should never have come to see him. His ill-placed vanity disgusted me.

His comedies; however, are the neatest and choicest on the English stage. Vanbrugh's are the liveliest and Wycherley's the most vigorous.

Do not ask me to give details of these English comedies that I admire so keenly; laughter cannot be communicated in a translation. If you wish to know English comedy, there is nothing for it but to go to London for three years; learn English thoroughly, and see a comedy every day.

It is otherwise with tragedy; tragedy is concerned with great passions and heroic follies consecrated by ancient errors in fable and history. Electra belongs to the Spaniards, the English and ourselves as much as to the Greeks; but comedy is the living portraiture of a nation's absurdities, and unless you know the nation through and through, it is not for you to Judge the portraits.