Candide, observing a Milton, asked whether he did not look upon this author as a great man.
“Who?” said Pococurante, “that barbarian, who writes a long commentary in ten books of harsh verse on the first chapter of Genesis; that coarse imitator of the Greeks, who disfigures the Creation, and who, while Moses represents the Eternal producing the world by a word, makes the Messiah take a great pair of compasses from the armoury of heaven to circumscribe His work? How can I have any esteem for a writer who has spoiled Tasso’s hell and the devil, who transforms Lucifer sometimes into a toad and other times into a pygmy, who makes him repeat the same things a hundred times, who makes him dispute on theology, who, by a serious imitation of Ariosto’s comic invention of firearms, represents the devils cannonading in heaven? Neither I nor any man in Italy could take pleasure in those melancholy extravagances; and the marriage of Sin and Death, and the snakes brought forth by Sin, are enough to turn the stomach of anyone with the least taste, [and his long description of a pesthouse is good only for a gravedigger]. This obscure, whimsical, and disagreeable poem was despised upon its first publication, and I only treat it now as it was treated in its own country by contemporaries. For the matter of that I say what I think, and I care very little whether others think as I do.”
Candide was grieved at this speech, for he had a respect for Homer and was fond of Milton.
“Alas!” said he softly to Martin, “I am afraid that this man holds our German poets in very great contempt.”
“There would not be much harm in that,” said Martin.
“Oh! what a superior man,” said Candide below his breath. “What a great genius is this Pococurante! Nothing can please him.”