Il PRKFACE DE M. DE MAR.MOXTEL.
iii-4'\ avec des figures; elle est dédiée à la reine d'Angleterre*: et, pour ne rien laisser à désirer dans cette édition, j'ai cru devoir insérer dans ma préface celte épîlre dédicatoire. On sait que dans ce genre d'écrire M. de Voltaire a pris une route qui lui est propre. Les gens de goût, qui s'épargnent ordinairement la lecture des fades éloges (jue mémo nos plus grands auteurs n'ont pu se dispenser de prodiguer à leurs Mécènes, lisent avidementctavcc fruit les épîtres dédicatoires û'Alzire, de Zaïre, etc. Celle-ci est dans le même goût; on y reconnaît un philosophe judicieux et poli, qui sait louer les rois, même sans les flatter. Il n'écrivit cette épître qu'en anglais.
��TO THE QUEEN.
��M ADAM,
It is thc fate of Henry the Fourth to be protected by an englisli queen, He was assistée! by tliat great Elisabeth, who was in lier âge the giory of her sex. By whom can bis memory be so well protected, as by her who resembles so much Elisabeth in her Personal virtues ?
Your Majesty will find in this book bold impartial truths, morality unstained with superstition, a spirit of liberty, equally abhorrent of rébellion and of tyranny, the rights of kings always asserted, and those of mankind never laid aside.
The same spirit, in which it is written, gave me the confi- dence to offer it to the virtiious consort of a king who, among so many crowned heads, enjoys almost alone the inestimable honour of riilinga free nation, a king whomakes bis powercon- sist in being beloved, and his glory in being just.
Our Descartes, who was the greatest philosopher in Europe, before sir Isaac Newton appeared, dedicated his Principles to the celebrated princess palatine Elisabeth ; not, said he, because she was a princess (for true philosophers respect princes and never flatter them), but because of ail his readers she understood hini the best, and loved trutli the most.
I beg leave, Ma.dam (witbout comparing my self to Descartes), to dedicate the Henriade to Your Majesty, upon the like account, not only as the protectress of ail arts and sciences, but as the best judge of them.
��i . GuillclniinG-Dorothce-Charlottc de Brandobourg-Anspacli, femme de George II, morte le l*^"" décembre 1737, à cinquante-quatre ans.
�� �
