A virgin queen the regal scepter sway'd, And fate itself her sovereign power obeyed. The wise Eliza, whose directing hand Had the great scale of Europe at command; And ruled a people that alike disdain Or freedom's ease, or slavery's iron chain. Of every loss her reign oblivion bred; There, flocks unnumbered graze each flowery mead. Britannia's vessels rule the azure seas, Corn fills her plains, and fruitage loads her trees. From pole to pole her gallant navies sweep The waters of the tributary deep. On Thames's banks each flower of genius thrives, There sports the Muse, and Mars his thunder gives. Three different powers at Westminster appear, And all admire the ties which join them there. Whom interest parts the laws together bring, The people's deputies, the peers and king. One whole they form, whose terror wide extends To neighboring nations, and their rights defends. Thrice happy times, when grateful subjects show That loyal, warm affection which is due! But happier still, when freedom's blessings spring From the wise conduct of a prudent king! O when, cried Bourbon, ravished at the sight, In France shall peace and glory thus unite? A poem flaunting on its front invidious praise like the foregoing of a foreign government so different from the government of France, could not be very acceptable to the ruling classes of his time in the author's own country. But in England, during the poet's two years' stay in that island, a revised edition of the "Henriade" was issued under auspices the most august and imposing. Queen Caroline headed the list of subscribers, and such was the brilliancy of the patronage extended to the poem that Voltaire, as is with probability said, netted forty thousand dollars from his English edition--a sum of money equivalent to, say, one hundred thousand dollars, present value. This early success laid the foundation of a fortune for Voltaire, which the skill, the prudence, the servility, the greed, and the unscrupulousness of the owner subsequently built into proportions that were nothing less than princely. Voltaire's annual income at his death was about a hundred thousand dollars. It seems incredible that a man so rich, and, in some ways, it must be acknowledged, so generous, should have been at the same time so mean, so sordid, so literally perjured in sordidness, as Voltaire is demonstrated, and admitted even by his farthest-going admirers, for instance, Mr. John Morley, to have been.