Imatges de pàgina
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are turned for literature, will find in me a friend; feveral have found a father. These are my fentiments; and they who have lived with me, know I entertain no others.

I thought myself oblig'd to address the public, for once in my life, in my own behalf. As to my tragedy, I shall fay nothing about it. Confuting criticisms is a vain felf-love, which we fhould get the better of; but confounding calumny is a duty we are bound to perform.

ADVER

ADVERTISEMENT

Prefixed to the edition of Mahomet,

Of the year 1743*.

Thought it would be doing fome ferit would be vice to the lovers of the Belles-lettres, to publish the tragedy of Mahomet, which has been fo much disfigured in France, in two fpurious editions. I am certain the author wrote it in the year 1736, and sent it at that time to the prince royal, fince king of Pruffia, who was cultivating literature with furprising fuccefs, and who ftill makes it his chief amusement.

I was in the city of Lille in the year 1741, when M. de Voltaire arrived there to spend a few days. that town the best

There was then in

company of players that ever appeared in the provinces. They reprefented this piece in a manner

*This piece, in the original, is called The pub

fher's advertisement.

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that fatisfied a very numerous affembly; the governor and the intendant of the province went to fee it feveral times. Every body thought it wrote in fo new a taste, and the subject, so very delicate in itself, handled with fuch wifdom and prudence, that several prelates refolved to fee it acted by the fame players in a private house. Their opinion agreed with that of the public. The author was also happy enough to get his manuscript conveyed into the hands of one of the first men of Europe, and of the church*, who fupports with vigour the weight of public affairs, and who judges of literary works, with a true refined tafte at an age to which few people arrive, and at which, fewer ftill, preferve their wit and delicacy. He faid the piece was wrote with all requifite circumfpection, that the dangers of the fubject could not poffibly be more wifely avoided, but, as for the poetry, it was capable of fome corrections. In confequence the author has fince made

Suppofed to be cardinal Fleury.

feveral

several amendments to his play. This was alfo the opinion of another perfon, equal in rank and learning to the first.

In fine, the tragedy approved of, befides, in the ordinary forms, was reprefented in Paris, the ninth of Auguft, 1742. There was an entire box full of the chief magiftrates of that town; fome public ministers were also prefent. They all thought of it as the perfons I have already mentioned.

Others, however, differed from the general determination. Whether, in the rapidity of the reprefentation, they had not closely enough followed the thread of the piece, or, that they were not accuftomed to the theatre, they were offended at Mahomet's ordering a murder, and making use of his religion to encourage to affaffination, a young man whom he chofe for the inftrument of his crime. Thefe perfons, ftruck with the heinoufnefs of fuch an act, did not reflect that it is confidered in the piece as the most horrible of all crimes, and that, even, it is morally impoffible to confider it in any

other

other light. In a word, they only faw one fide of the question, which is the moft general fource of our mistakes. They were certainly in the right to be alarmed, in confidering only this fide with which they were offended. A little more attention would have eafily changed their minds. But in the first heat of their zeal, they faid the piece was of a very dangerous tendency, fit to produce Clements* and Ravaillacs +.

This opinion is indeed very strange, and has probably been retracted by thofe persons who first formed it. It is as much as to fay, that Hermione encourages people to murder kings; Electra, to kill a mother; or, Cleopatra and Medea, one's children. It is faying that Harpagon forms mifers; the Gamefter, gamefters; Tartuffe, hypocrites. The injustice, even against Mahomet, would be greater than against any of these other plays, for the crime of the false

Two religious affaffins, the firft, of Henry the third; and the second, of Henry the fourth; kings of France.

prophet

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