Intrinsically the Friedrich correspondence at this time, with Voltaire especially, among many friends now on the wing towards Berlin and sending letters, has,--if you are forced into struggling for some understanding of it, and do get to read parts of it with the eyes of Friedrich and Voltaire,--has a certain amiability; and is nothing like so waste and dreary as it looks in the chaotic or sacked-city condition. Friedrich writes with brevity, oftenest on practicalities (the ANTI-MACHIAVEL, the coming Interview, and the like), evidently no time to spare; writes always with considerable sincerity; with friendliness, much admiration, and an ingenuous vivacity, to M. de Voltaire. Voltaire, at his leisure in Brussels or the Old Palace and its spider-webs, writes much more expansively; not with insincerity, he either;--with endless airy graciosities, and ingenious twirls, and touches of flattering unction, which latter, he is aware, must not be laid on too thick. As thus:-- In regard to the ANTI-MACHIAVEL,--Sire, deign to give me your permissions as to the scoundrel of a Van Duren; well worth while, Sire,--"IT is a monument for the latest posterity; the only Book worthy of a King for these fifteen hundred years." This is a strongish trowelful, thrown on direct, with adroitness; and even this has a kind of sincerity. Safer, however, to do it in the oblique or reflex way,--by Ambassador Cumas, for example:-- "I will tell you boldly, Sir [you M. de Camas], I put more value on this Book (ANTI-MACHIAVEL) than on the Emperor Julian's CAESAR, or on the MAXIMS of Marcus Aurelius,"--I do indeed, having a kind of property in it withal! [Voltaire, _OEuvres,_ lxxii. 280 (to Camas, 18th October, 1740).] In fact, Voltaire too is beautiful, in this part of the Correspondence; but much in a twitter,--the Queen of Sheba, not the sedate Solomon, in prospect of what is coming. He plumes himself a little, we perceive, to his d'Argentals and French Correspondents, on this sublime intercourse he has got into with a Crowned Head, the cynosure of mankind:---Perhaps even you, my best friend, did not quite know me, and what merits I had! Plumes himself a little; but studies to be modest withal; has not much of the peacock, and of the turkey has nothing, to his old friends. All which is very naive and transparent; natural and even pretty, on the part of M. de Voltaire as the weaker vessel.--For the rest, it is certain Maupertuis is getting under way at Paris towards the Cleve rendezvous. Brussels, too, is so near these Cleve Countries; within two days' good driving:--if only the times and routes would rightly intersect?