Lambertini's liberty and joviality of speech did not, in spite of his strict virtue and most zealous administration, commend him to the more severe cardinals, and when Clement XII. died, on February 6, 1740, he was not regarded as a candidate for the Papacy. But the struggle of French, Spanish, and Austrian partisans continued for six months without prospect of a settlement, and in the intolerable heat of the summer the cardinals cast about, as usual, for an outsider. Lambertini had humorously recommended himself from time to time. He used to say, President de Brosses reports: "If you want a good fellow (_coglione_--a particularly gross word) choose me."[326] The Emperor Joseph II., who did not want an inflexible Pope, supported his candidature, and he was assuredly the most distinguished of the cardinals to whom the wearied voters now looked. He was elected on August 17th, and he took the name of Benedict XIV. He was now sixty-five years old: a round, full-faced, merry little man, with piercing small eyes and an obstinate resolution to live at peace with the world. A few years later,[327] he describes his daily life to his friend Cardinal Tencin. He rises early and takes a cup of chocolate and a crust. At midday he has a soup, an entrée, a roast, and a pear: on "fast" days he reduces himself to a _pot-au-feu_ and a pear, but it does not agree with him to observe the law of abstinence from meat, and he advises the cardinals to follow his example. In the evening he takes only a glass of water with a little cinnamon, and he retires very late. He works hard all day and feels that he is justified in seeking relief in sprightly conversation. Indeed, when one surveys the vast published series of Benedict's Bulls (some of which are lengthy and severe treatises), rescripts, works, and letters, one realizes that his industry was phenomenal. When he had to condemn some volume of the new sceptical literature which was springing up in Europe, he read it himself three times and reflected long on it. His interest ranged from England, whose political affairs he followed closely, to the mountains of Syria and the missions of China. Every branch of Papal administration had his personal attention. He thought little of the cardinals, and often pours genial irony on them in his innumerable letters. Of his two predecessors, Benedict XIII. "had not the least idea of government," and Clement XII. "passed his life in conversation," and "it is with the oxen from this stable [the cardinals promoted by them] that we have to work today."[328] In finance, politics, administration, liturgy, and all other respects he had inherited a formidable task, and he discharged it in such wise that he died at peace with all except his Roman reactionaries. The Catholic rulers deeply appreciated him. Frederick of Prussia had a genial regard for him. Horace Walpole celebrated his virtues in Latin verse, and one of the Pitts treasured a bust of him. Voltaire, through Cardinal