t. But it has that
defect which has been noticed already in _Zadig_, and which, by its
absence, constitutes the supremacy of _Candide_. There is in it a sort
of "break in the middle." The earlier stages of the courtship of
Formosante are quite interesting; but when she and her lover begin
separately to wander over the world, in order that their chronicler may
make satiric observations on the nations thereof, one feels inclined to
say, as Mr. Mowbray Morris said to Mr. Matthew Arnold (who thought it
was Mr. Traill):

Can't you give us something new?

[Sidenote: Some minors.]

_Le Blanc et le Noir_ rises yet again, and though it has perhaps not
many of Voltaire's _mots de flamme_, it is more of a fairy moral
tale--neither a merely fantastic mow, nor sicklied over with its
morality--than almost any other. It is noteworthy, too, that the author
has hardly any recourse to his usual clove of garlic to give seasoning.
_Jeannot et Colin_ might have been Marmontel's or Miss Edgeworth's,
being merely the usual story of two rustic lads, one of whom becomes
rich and corrupt till, later, he is succoured by the other. Now
Marmontel and Miss Edgeworth are excellent persons and writers; but
their work is not work for Voltaire.

The _Lettres d'Amabed_[358] are the dirtiest and the dullest of the
whole batch, and the _Histoire de Jenni_, though not particularly dirty,
is very dull indeed, being the "History of a Good Deist," a thing
without which (as Mr. Carlyle used to say) we could do. The same sort of
"purpose" mars _Les Oreilles du Comte de Chesterfield_, in which, after
the first page, there is practically nothing about Lord Chesterfield or
his deafness, but which contains a good deal of Voltaire's crispest
writing, especially the definition of that English freedom which he
sometimes used to extol. With thirty guineas a year,[359] the
materialist doctor Sidrac informs the unfortunate Goudman, who has lost
a living by the said deafness, "on peut dire tout ce qu'on pense de la
compagnie des Indes, du parlement, de nos colonies, du roi, de l'etat en
general, de l'homme et de Dieu--ce qui est un grand amusement." But the
piece itself would be more amusing if Voltaire could let the Bible
alone, though he does not here come under the stroke of Diderot's
sledge-hammer as he does in _Amabed_.

One seldom, however, echoes this last wish, and remembers the stroke
referred to, more than in reference to _Le Taureau Blanc_. Here, if
t