Nor does his sympathy blind him to faults of execution.

Voltaire's good sense and sound judgment were as much at the service of his friends in warning them of shortcomings, as in eulogising what they achieved.

And he had good faith enough to complain to his friends, instead of complaining of them.

In one place he tells them, what is perfectly true, that their journeymen are far too declamatory, and too much addicted to substitute vague and puerile dissertations for that solid instruction which is what the reader of an Encyclopaedia seeks.

In another he remonstrates against certain frivolous affectations, and some of the coxcombries of literary modishness.