good fellow, without being in the least a prig,
as I am afraid Zadig was, that one wonders how Voltaire came to think of
him) and of Mademoiselle Cunegonde (nobody will ever know anything about
style who does not feel what the continual repetition in Candide's mouth
of the "Mademoiselle" does) of the indomitable Pangloss, and the
detestable baron, and the forgivable Paquette, and that philosopher
Martin, who did _not_ "let cheerfulness break in," and the admirable
Cacambo, who shows that, much as he hated Rousseau, Voltaire himself was
not proof against the noble savage mania.[355]

As a piece (_v. sup._) of art or craft, the thing is beyond praise or
pay. It could not be improved, on its own specification, except that
perhaps the author might have told us how Mademoiselle Cunegonde, who
had kept her beauty through some very severe experiences, suddenly lost
it. It is idle as literary, though not as historical, criticism to say,
as has been often said about the Byng passage, that Voltaire's smartness
rather "goes off through the touch-hole," seeing that the admiral's
execution did very considerably "encourage the others." It is
superfluous to urge the unnecessary "smuts," which are sometimes not in
the least amusing. All these and other sought-for knots are lost in the
admirable smoothness of this reed, which waves in the winds of time with
unwitherable greenness, and slips through the hand, as you stroke it,
with a coaxing tickle. To praise its detail would again be idle--nobody
ought to read such praise who can read itself; and if anybody, having
read its first page, fails to see that it is, and how it is,
praiseworthy, he never will or would be converted if all the eulogies of
the most golden-mouthed critics of the world were poured upon him in a
steady shower. As a whole it is undoubtedly the best, and (except part
of _Zadig_) it is nowhere else matched in the book of the romances of
Voltaire, while for those who demand "purposes" and "morals," it stands
almost alone. It is the comic "Vanity of Human Wishes" in prose, as
_Rasselas_ is the tragic or, at least, serious version: and, as has been
said, the two make an unsurpassable sandwich, or, at least, _tartine_.
Nor could it have been told, in any other way than by prose fiction,
with anything like the same effect, either as regards critical judgment
or popular acceptance.

[Sidenote: _Zadig_ and its satellites.]

_Zadig_, as has been indicated already, probably r