erish distemper, which, for several months after, impeded his movements, would he have yielded to it. He has much busines

itor, and the only well-informed one, as we said) prints with accuracy; but cannot be read at all (in the sense of UNDERSTOOD) without other light.] this of the agu

f decision falls. How he does his Inspections we know;-and there are still weightier matters afoot here, in a silent way, of which we shall have to speak before long, and all the world will speak. Business enough, parts of it grave and silent, going on, and the much th

ded in Laveaux's poor HISTORY, and in all the Anecdote-Books, transacted itself one day. Subst

them?' 'Your Majesty, those old Sovereigns are to obtain Heavenly mercy by them, to be delivered out of Purgatory by them.'-'Purgatory? It is a sore thing for the Forests, all this while! And they are not yet out, those poor souls, after so many hundred years of praying?' Monks have a fatal apprehension, No. 'When will they be out, and the thing complete?' Monks cannot say. 'Send me a courier whenever it is complete!' sneers the King, and leaves them to their TE-DEUM." [C. Hildebrandt's Modern Edition of the

rible accounts are running up, enough to sink the world at last, while the heavier whip is lazily withheld, and lazy blasphemy, fallen torpid, chronic, and quite unconscious of being blasphemous, insinuates itself into the very heart's-blood of mankind! Patience, however; the heavy whip too is coming,-unless universal death be coming. King Friedrich is not the man to wield such

h the Britannic Majesty there; both of them much at a loss about their Spanish War, and the French and other aspects upon it: "Suppose his Prussian Majesty were to give himself to France against us!" We will hope, not. Harrington's reply is to the effect, "Hum, drum:-Berg and Julich, say you? Impossible to answe

s one of the concerns he silently attends to, on occasion, while riding about in the Cleve Countries. Then there is another small item of business, important to do well, which is now in silence diligently getting under way at Wesel; which also is of remarkable nature, and will astonish the Gazetteer and Diplomatic circles. This is th

e least memory of them, on just cause of a Friedrich or the like, so impatient are men of what is putrid and extinct:-and a quite unnoticed thing, Voltaire's First Interview, all readers are on the alert for it, and ready to demand of me impossibilities about it! Patience, readers. You shall see it, withou

ately; forming now one scheme of route for him, now another; Newspapers, and even private friends, being a good deal uncertain about his movements. Rumor now ran, since his reappearance in the Cleve Countries, th

aralleled Prince in her Palace: "You, Madame?" answers the Du Chatelet, privately, with a toss of her head: "His Majesty, I hope, belongs more to M. de Voltaire and me: he shall lodge here, please Heaven!" Voltaire, I can observe, has sublime hostelry arrangements chalked out for his Majesty, in ca

is Majesty is fallen ill at Wesel; has an aguish fever hanging on him, and only hopes to come:" VOILA, Madame!-Next Letter, Wesel, Monday, 5th September, is to the effect: "Do still much hope to come; to-morrow is my trembling da

TO M. DE VOLTAI

yself not in a condition to undertake such a journey without risk. I would ask of you, then, if the road from Brussels to Cleve would not to you seem too long for a meeting; it is the one means of seeing you which re

ses [polite, rather than sincere] to Madame the MARQUISE, that I cannot have the satisfaction of seeing her at Brussel

r can tell you of;-"where I shall be able to possess you at my ease. If the sight of you don't cure me, I will send f

n the bad misdated Editions even does worse;-and we are left to thick darkness, to our own p

RST INTERVIEW, ON

hovering in that dark element;-which do at last (so luminous are certainties always, or "sparks" that will shine steady) coalesce into some feeble general twilight, feeble but indubitable;

no time in packing himself: King's Courier on Thursday late; Voltaire on the road on Saturday early, or the night before. With Madame's shrill blessing (not the most musical in this vexing case), and plenty of fuss. "Was wont to travel in considerable sty

cross; through Geldern and Goch to Cleve: between the Maas and Rhine this last portion. Flat damp country; tolerably under tillage; original constituents bog and sand. Distances I guess to be: To T

or several weeks after quitting Ginkel's. Any other light I can get upon it, is darkness visible. Busching pointedly informs me, [Erdbeschreibung, v. 659, 677.] "It is a Parish [or patch of country under one priest], and Till AND it are a Jurisdiction" (pair of patches under one court of justice):-which does not much illuminate the inquiring mind. Small patch, this of Moyland, size not given; "was bought," says he, "in 1695, by Friedrich afterwards First King, from the Family of Spaen,"-we once knew a Lieutenant Spaen, of those Dutch regions,-"and was named a Royal Mansion ever thereafter." Who lived in it; what kind of thin

any doubt upon it. "CHATEAU DE MEUSE"-hanging out a prospect of MORS to us-is bad usage to readers. Of an intelligent man, not to say a Trismegistus of men, one expects he will know in what town he is, after three days' experience, as here. But he does not always; he hangs

T OF THE INTERVIEW T

casm, for causes we shall see by and by,-Voltaire, at the request of friends, writes down, as his Friedrich Reminiscences, that scandalous VIE PRIVEE above spoken of, a most sad Document; and this is the passage referring to "the littl

he little Mansion-Royal of Meuse (CHATEAU DE MEUSE), a couple of leagues from Cleve,"-fell ill at Wesel; and there is no Chateau de MEUSE in the world (ERRORS 2d AND 3d),-"he wrote to me that he expected I would make the advances. I went, accordingly, to present my profound homages. Maupertuis, who already had his views, an

mber, 1740; world all bathed in moonshine; and mortals mostly shrunk into their huts, out of the raw air. "He" Rambonet "wore big linen ruffles at his wrists, very dirty [visibly so in the moonlight? ERROR 5th extends AD LIBITUM over all the following details]; a holed hat; an old offi

t of fever. I made my reverence, and began the acquaintance by feeling his pulse, as if I had been his chief physician. The fit over, he dressed himself, and took his place at table. Algarotti, Keyserling, Maupertuis, and the King's Envoy to the States-General"-one Rasfeld (skilled in HERSTAL matters, I could guess),-"we were of this s

hing more of it; launching off now into new errors, about HERSTAL, the ANTI-MACHIAVEL, and so forth: new and uglier errors

nd circuitously homewards. Three Suppers there had been, two busy Days intervening; discussions about Fate and the Androgynoi of Plato by no means the one thing done by Voltaire and the rest, on this occasion. We shall find elsewhere, "he declaimed his MAHOMET" (sublime new Tragedy, not yet come out), in the course of these three evenings, to the "speechless admiration" of his Royal Ho

the Wesel Troops laid Liege under contribution. The pretext of this fine Marching of Troops,"-not a pretext at all, but the assertion, correct in all points, of just claims long trodden down, and now made good with more spirit than had been expected,-"was certain rights which the King pretended to, over a suburb of Liege. He even charged me to work at a Manifesto; and I made one,

graces; and moreover he was a King, which always forms a potent seduction, so weak is human nature. Usually it is we of the writing sort that flatter Kings:

UGHT OF THE INTER

etween ruddy morning and the storms of the afternoon! Here are two Letters from Voltaire; fine transparent human Letters, as hi

IS (with the King). "THE H

swer of M. Smith,"-probably some German or Dutch SCHMIDT, spelt here in English, connected with the Sciences,

u took to the right,"-King, homewards, got to HAM that evening,-"I could have thought I was at the Last Judgment, where the Bon Dieu separates the elect

h. Instruct me of your pleasures, of your designs. You will doubtless see M. de Valori,"-readers know de Valori; his Book has been published; edited, as too usual, by a Human Nightmare, ignorant of his subject and indeed of almost all other things, and liable to mistakes in eve

a moment. I pray you do not forget me to M. de Keyserling,"-Caesarion whom we once had at Cirey; a head

er like to hear about him? If so, he has only to speak!] is arguing at

they will be forwarded wherever I am; and I shall be, anywhere on

somely known to the reader of Voltaire's Letters), had done, what is rather an endemical disorder at this time, some Verses for the King of Prussia, which he wished to be presented to his Majesty. The presentation, owing to acciden

. DE CIDEVILL

OF PRUSSIA'S PALACE,

us of the North, I did well design to pay my court to him with them. He was at that time to have come to Brussels incognito: we expected him there; but the Quartan Fever, which

his friends; indeed so completely forgetting it that he made me too almost forget it, and I needed an effort of memory to recollect that I here saw sitting at the foot of my bed a Sovereign who had an Army of 100,000 men. That was the moment to have read your amiable Verses to him:"-yes; b

will read this also (though otherwise ahead of us as yet); to be certified on all sides,

H TO M. JORDA

4th Septem

ple and Bedlams,-I have read with mature meditation the very profound Jor

anging on me, and my mind as unstrung as my body. With men of his kind one ought not to be

ople smelling heresies in it ("toleration," "horrors of fanaticism," and the like) will not let him act, as readers too well know:-"he transported us out of ourselves; I could only admire and hold my tongue. The Du Chatelet is lucky to have him: for of the good things he flings out at random, a person who had no faculty but memory might make a brilliant Book. That Minerv

t, most amiable, most jovial Jordan;-I salute thee, with assurance of all those ol

d; for I have been working, I am going to work still, like

tous return home. Readers cannot yet attend his Majesty there, till they have brough