Voltaire's residence in England extended over three years (1726-29). Bolingbroke, Peterborough, Chesterfield, Pope, Swift, Gay, Thomson, Young, Samuel Clarke were among his acquaintances. He discovered the genius of that semi-barbarian Shakespeare, but found the only reasonable English tragedy in Addison's "Cato." He admired the epic power of Milton, and scorned Milton's allegory of Sin and Death. He found a master of philosophy in Locke. He effected a partial entrance into the scientific system of Newton. He read with zeal the writings of those pupils of Bayle, the English Deists. He honoured English freedom and the spirit of religious toleration. In 1728 the _Henriade_ was published by subscription in London, and brought the author prodigious praise and not a little pelf. He collected material for his _Histoire de Charles XII._, and, observing English life and manners, prepared the _Lettres Philosophiques_, which were to make the mind of England favourably known to his countrymen. _Charles XII._, like _La Ligue_, was printed at Rouen, and smuggled into Paris. The tragedies _Brutus_ and _Eriphyle_, both of which show the influence of the English drama, were coldly received. Voltaire rose from his fall, and produced _Zaire_ (1732), a kind of eighteenth-century French "Othello," which proved a triumph; it was held that Corneille and Racine had been surpassed. In 1733 a little work of mingled verse and prose, the _Temple du Gout_, in which recent and contemporary writers were criticised, gratified the self-esteem of some, and wounded the vanity of a larger number of his fellow-authors. The _Lettres Philosophiques sur les Anglais_, which followed, were condemned by the Parliament to be burnt by the public executioner. With other audacities of his pen, the storm increased. Voltaire took shelter (1734) in Champagne, at Cirey, the chateau of Madame du Chatelet.