Metaphysical writers, replied Voltaire, are like minuet-dancers; who being dressed to the greatest advantage, make a couple of bows, move through the room in the finest attitudes, display all their graces, are in continual motion without advancing a step, and finish at the identical point from which they set out. Perhaps he borrowed this thought from the following lines in Pope’s Dunciad: Or set on metaphysic ground to prance, Show all his paces, not a step advance. This, I hope, will satisfy you for the present; in my next, I shall send you what farther particulars I think worth your notice concerning this singular man.—Mean while, I am, &c. [3] The same allusion, though probably Voltaire did not know it, was long since made by Cowley— Bacon like Moses led us forth at last The barren wilderness he past, Did on the very border stand Of the blest promised land, And from the mountain top of his exalted wit Saw it himself, and shewed us it. LETTER XXX. Geneva. Considered as a matter, Voltaire appears in a very amiable light. He is affable, humane, and generous to his tenants and dependants. He loves to see them prosper; and takes part in their private and domestic concerns, with the attention of a patriarch.—He promotes industry and manufactures among them, by every means he can devise: by his care and patronage alone, Ferney, from a wretched village, whose inhabitants were sunk in sloth and poverty, is become a flourishing and commodious little town. That acrimony, which appears in some of Voltaire’s works, seems to be excited only against rival wits, and contemporary writers, who refuse him that distinguished place on Parnassus, to which his talents entitle him. If he has been the author of severe satire, he has also been the object of a great deal. Who has been the aggressor, it would be difficult to determine; but it must be confessed, that where he has not been irritated as a writer, he appears a good-humoured man; and, in particular instances, displays a true philanthropy.—The whole of his conduct respecting the Calas family;—his protection of the Sirvens, his patronage of the young lady descended from Corneille, and many examples, which might be mentioned, are all of this nature. Some people will tell you, that all the bustle he made, on these, and similar occasions, proceeded from vanity; but in my mind, the man who takes pains to justify oppressed innocence, to rouse the indignation of mankind against cruelty, and to relieve indigent merit, is in reality benevolent, however vain he may be of such actions.—Such a man is unquestionably a more useful member of society, than the humblest monk, who has no other plan in life, than the working out his own salvation in a corner.