“I look very innocent when I am attacked about the essay, and say, ‘I don’t know what you mean!’ I shall set about a new edition as soon as your lordship comes to town; for the first thousand is in great part sold, tho’ the booksellers have done me all the prejudice in their power.” The new edition was even more successful than the first. Mrs. Montagu’s defence may appear a little too apologetic now; but it is marked by good taste, by evidences of deep thought, by flashes of wit, and by the grasp she has, firmly and gracefully, on her subject. She deals with dramatic poetry and the historical drama, examines the first and second parts of “Henry IV.,” treats of the preternatural beings of Shakespeare, and ends by a comparison of “Cinna” and “Julius Cæsar.” If any may differ with her in respect to Corneille, whose third act of “Cinna” is worthy of the great French dramatic poet, no reader will hesitate to praise the earnestness and delicacy with which this Lady of the Last Century has executed her noble task. A French translation appeared in Paris in 1777—the year before Voltaire died. In England, six editions of the essay were published, the last in 1810. In 1827, it had the honour of being noticed with high praise, by M. Villemain, in his “Nouveaux Mélanges Historiques et Littéraires;” and in 1840, an edition in Italian was published in Florence. Few English readers had read Voltaire so thoughtfully as Mrs. Montagu, and perhaps none reflected more on what they read than she did, or gave more graceful expression to consequent judgment. One side of Voltaire’s character she described (while the witty Frenchman was preparing his attack on Shakespeare) to Lord Kames. “Voltaire sent a tragedy to Paris, which he said was composed in ten days. The players sent it back to him to correct. At threescore and ten one should not think his wit would outrun his judgment; but he seems to begin a second infancy in wit and philosophy,—a dangerous thing to one who has such an antipathy to leading-strings.” It was Voltaire’s self-praise that offended Mrs. Montagu as much as his offensive condescension to, and disparagement of, Shakespeare. When she was told that Voltaire had said boastingly: “C’est moi qui autrefois parlai le premier de ce Shakespeare. C’est moi qui le premier montrai aux Français quelques perles que j’avais trouvé dans son fumier.” “Ah!” replied Mrs. Montagu, with great readiness, “C’est un fumier qui a fertilisé une terre bien ingrate.” French fashionable circles, which loved wit and cared not a jot who suffered by it, received and repeated the saying of the accomplished English lady as if it had been ten times more brilliant than it was in reality. Mrs. Montagu’s defence of Shakespeare was not too tenderly treated by her own friends. All the frankness of friendship was cheerfully given to it. The plain-spoken Dowager Countess Gower thus wrote soon after the appearance of the Vindication: