Note 40 — INTRODUCTION.
Reading edition
The lines here referred to were written about eight years after Sir Isaac Newton’s death. Voltaire supposes an apotheosis of Newton to have taken place, among the planets personified by some of the deities of the heathen mythology. Thus ascribing intelligence to the stars, he considers them, by a poetical fiction, as being in the confidence of the Most High—the true God; and to those subordinate deities, or, perhaps, a fancied superior order of angelic beings, the poet makes his figurative address; which may be thus rendered in English verse:—
Ye confidents of the Most High,
Ye everlasting lights!
Who deck, with your refulgent fires,
The scene of godlike rights!
Whose wings o’erspread the glorious throne
Whereon your Lord is plac’d,
That Lord, by whose transcendent pow’r
Your borrow’d rays are grac’d;
Speak out, bright orbs of heaven’s expanse!
And frankly let us know:
To the exalted Newton’s name,
Can you refuse to bow?