London, April the 13th o. s. 1752

My dear friend,

. . . Voltaire sent me from Berlin his History du siècle de Louis XIV. It came at a very proper time; lord Bolingbroke had just taught me how history should be read; Voltaire shows me how it should be written. I am sensible that it will meet with almost as many critics as readers. Voltaire must be criticised: besides, every man's favourite is attacked; for every prejudice is exposed, and our prejudices are our mistresses; reason is at best our wife, very often heard indeed, but seldom minded. It is the history of the human understanding, written by a man of parts, for the use of men of parts. Weak minds will not like it, even though they do not understand it; which is commonly the measure of their admiration. Dull ones will want those minute, and uninteresting détails, with which most other histories are incumbered. He tells me all I want to know, and nothing more. His reflections are short, just, and produce others in his readers. Free from religious, philosophical, political, and national prejudices, beyond any historian I ever met with, he relates all those matters as truly and as impartially, as certain regards, which must always be to some degree observed, will allow him: for one sees plainly, that he often says much less than he would say, if he might. He has made me much better acquainted with the times of Lewis XIV, than the innumerable volumes which I had read could do; and hath suggested this reflection to me, which I had never made before — his vanity, not his knowledge, made him encourage all, and introduce many, arts and sciences in his country. He opened in a manner the human understanding in France, and brought it to its utmost perfection; his age equalled in all, and greatly exceeded in many things (pardon me, pedants!) the Augustan. This was great and rapid; but still it might be done, by the encouragement, the applause, and the rewards, of a vain, liberal, and magnificent prince. What is much more surprising, is, that he stopped the operations of the human mind, just where he pleased; and seemed to say, 'thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.' For, a bigot to his religion, and jealous of his power, free and rational thoughts upon either, never entered into a French reign during his reign; and the greatest geniuses that ever any age produced, never entertained a doubt of the divine right of kings, or the infallibility of the church. Poets, orators, and philosophers, ignorant of their natural rights, cherished their chains; and blind active faith triumphed, in those great minds, over silent and passive reason. The reverse of this seems now to be the case in France: reason opens itself; fancy and invention fade and decline.

I will send you a copy of this history by lord Huntingdon, as I think it very probable that it is not allowed to be published and sold at Paris. Pray read it more than once, and with attention, particularly the second volume, which contains short, but very clear accounts of many very interesting things, which are talked of by everybody, though fairly understood by very few. There are two very puerile affectations, which I wish this book had been free from; the one is, the total subversion of all the old established French orthography; the other is, the not making use of any one capital letter throughout the whole book, except at the beginning of a paragraph. It offends my eyes to see rome, paris, france, cæsar, henry the 4th, etc., begin with small letters; and I do not conceive, that there can be any reason for doing it half so strong as the reason of long usage is to the contrary. This is an affectation below Voltaire; who, I am not ashamed to say that I admire and delight in, as an author, equally in prose and in verse. . . .