A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 10. Voltaire
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bear no proportion to the height of their father, but the whole group makes him tremble, while other spectators are unmoved.
The celebrated sculptor, man of letters and of genius, who placed the colossal statue of Peter the Great at St. Petersburg, criticises with reason the attitude of the Moses of Michelangelo, and his small, tight vest, which is not even an Oriental costume; but, at the same time, he contemplates the air and expression of the head with ecstasy.
Rarity of Men of Taste.
It is afflicting to reflect on the prodigious number of men – above all, in cold and damp climates – who possess not the least spark of taste, who care not for the fine arts, who never read, and of whom a large portion read only a journal once a month, in order to be put in possession of current matter, and to furnish themselves with the ability of saying things at random, on subjects in regard to which they have only confused ideas.
Enter into a small provincial town: how rarely will you find more than one or two good libraries, and those private. Even in the capital of the provinces which possess academies, taste is very rare.
It is necessary to select the capital of a great kingdom to form the abode of taste, and yet even there it is very partially divided among a small number, the populace being wholly excluded. It is unknown to the families of traders, and those who are occupied in making fortunes, who are either engrossed with domestic details, or divided between unintellectual idleness and a game at cards. Every place which contains the courts of law, the offices of revenue, government, and commerce, is closed against the fine arts. It is the reproach of the human mind that a taste for the common and ordinary introduces only opulent idleness. I knew a commissioner in one of the offices at Versailles, who exclaimed: "I am very unhappy; I have not time to acquire a taste."
In a town like Paris, peopled with more than six hundred thousand persons, I do not think there are three thousand who cultivate a taste for the fine arts. When a dramatic masterpiece is represented, a circumstance so very rare, people exclaim: "All Paris is enchanted," but only three thousand copies, more or less, are printed.
Taste, then, like philosophy, belongs only to a small number of privileged souls. It was, therefore, great happiness for France to possess, in Louis XIV., a king born with taste.
Pauci, quos æquus amavit
Jupiter, aut ardens, evexit ad æthera virtus
Dis geniti, potuere.
To few great Jupiter imparts his grace,
And those of shining worth and heavenly race.
Ovid has said in vain, that God has created us to look up to heaven: "Erectos ad sidera tollere vultus." Men are always crouching on the ground. Why has a misshapen statue, or a bad picture, where the figures are disproportionate, never passed for a masterpiece? Why has an ill-built house never been regarded as a fine monument of architecture? Why in music will not sharp and discordant sounds please the ears of any one? And yet, very bad and barbarous tragedies, written in a style perfectly Allobrogian, have succeeded, even after the sublime scenes of Corneille, the affecting ones of Racine, and the fine pieces written since the latter poet. It is only at the theatre that we sometimes see detestable compositions succeed both in tragedy and comedy.
What is the reason of it? It is, that a species of delusion prevails at the theatre; it is, that the success depends upon two or three actors, and sometimes even upon a single one; and, above all, that a cabal is formed in favor of such pieces, whilst men of taste never form any. This cabal often lasts for an entire generation, and it is so much the more active, as its object is less to elevate the bad author than to depress the good one. A century possibly is necessary to adjust the real value of things in the drama.
There are three kinds of taste, which in the long run prevail in the empire of the arts. Poussin was obliged to quit France and leave the field to an inferior painter; Le Moine killed himself in despair; and Vanloo was near quitting the kingdom, to exercise his talents elsewhere. Connoisseurs alone have put all of them in possession of the rank belonging to them. We often witness all kinds of bad works meet with prodigious success. The solecisms, barbarisms, false statement, and extravagant bombast, are not felt for awhile, because the cabal and the senseless enthusiasm of the vulgar produce an intoxication which discriminates in nothing. The connoisseurs alone bring back the public in due time; and it is the only difference which exists between the most enlightened and the most cultivated of nations for the vulgar of Paris are in no respect beyond; the vulgar of other countries; but in Paris there is a sufficient number of correct opinions to lead the crowd. This crowd is rapidly excited in popular movements, but many years are necessary to establish in it a general good taste in the arts.
TAUROBOLIUM
Taurobolium, a sacrifice of expiation, very common in the third and fourth centuries. The throat of a bull was cut on a great stone slightly hollowed and perforated in various places. Underneath this stone was a trench, in which the person whose offence called for expiation received upon his body and his face the blood of the immolated animal. Julian the Philosopher condescended to submit to this expiation, to reconcile himself to the priests of the Gentiles.
TAX – FEE
Pope Pius II., in an epistle to John Peregal, acknowledges that the Roman court gives nothing without money; it sells even the imposition of hands and the gifts of the Holy Ghost; nor does it grant the remission of sins to any but the rich.
Before him, St. Antonine, archbishop of Florence, had observed that in the time of Boniface IX., who died in 1404, the Roman court was so infamously stained with simony, that benefices were conferred, not so much on merit, as on those who brought a deal of money. He adds, that this pope filled the world with plenary indulgences; so that the small churches, on their festival days, obtained them at a low price.
That pontiff's secretary, Theodoric de Nieur, does indeed inform us, that Boniface sent questors into different kingdoms, to sell indulgences to such as should offer them as much money as it would have cost them to make a journey to Rome to fetch them; so that they remitted all sins, even without penance, to such as confessed, and granted them, for money, dispensations for irregularities of every sort; saying, that they had in that respect all the power which Christ had granted to Peter, of binding and unbinding on earth.
And, what is still more singular, the price of every crime is fixed in a Latin work, printed at Rome by order of Leo X., and published on November 18, 1514, under the title of "Taxes of the Holy and Apostolic Chancery and Penitentiary."
Among many other editions of this book, published in different countries, the Paris edition – quarto 1520, Toussaint Denis, Rue St. Jacques, at the wooden cross, near St. Yves, with the king's privilege, for three years – bears in the frontispiece the arms of France, and those of the house of Medici, to which Leo N. belonged. This must have deceived the author of the "Picture of the Popes" (Tableau de Papes), who attributes the establishment of these taxes to Leo X., although Polydore Virgil, and Cardinal d'Ossat agree in fixing the period of the invention of the chancery tax about the year 1320, and the commencement of the penitentiary tax about sixteen years later, in the time of Benedict XII.
To give some idea of these taxes, we will here copy a few articles from the chapter of absolutions: Absolution for one who has carnally known his mother, his sister, etc., costs five drachmas. Absolution for one who has deflowered a virgin, six drachmas. Absolution for one who has revealed another's confession, seven drachmas. Absolution for one who has killed his father, his mother, etc., five drachmas. And so of other sins, as we shall shortly see; but, at the end of the book, the prices are estimated in ducats.
A sort of letters too are here spoken of, called confessional, by which, at the approach of death, the pope permits a confessor to be chosen, who gives full pardon for every sin; these letters are granted only to princes, and not to them without great difficulty. These particulars will be found in page 32 of the Paris edition.
The court of Rome was at length ashamed of this book, and suppressed it as far as it was able. It was even inserted in the expurgatory index of the Council of