"I have seen that Voltaire whom I was so curious to know; but I saw him with the Quartan hanging on me, and my mind as unstrung as my body. With men of his kind one ought not to be sick; one ought even to be specially well, and in better health than common, if one could. "He has the eloquence of Cicero, the mildness of Pliny, the wisdom of Agrippa; he combines, in short, what is to be collected of virtues and talents from the three greatest men of Antiquity. His intellect is at work incessantly; every drop of ink is a trait of wit from his pen. He declaimed his MAHOMET to us, an admirable Tragedy which he has done,"--which the Official people smelling heresies in it ("toleration," "horrors of fanaticism," and the like) will not let him act, as readers too well know:--"he transported us out of ourselves; I could only admire and hold my tongue. The Du Chatelet is lucky to have him: for of the good things he flings out at random, a person who had no faculty but memory might make a brilliant Book. That Minerva has just published her Work on PHYSICS: not wholly bad. It was Konig"--whom we know, and whose late tempest in a certain teapot--"that dictated the theme to her: she has adjusted, ornamented here and there with some touch picked from Voltaire at her Suppers. The Chapter on Space is pitiable; the"--in short, she is still raw in the Pure Sciences, and should have waited.... "Adieu, most learned, most scientific, most profound Jordan,--or rather most gallant, most amiable, most jovial Jordan;--I salute thee, with assurance of all those old feelings which thou hast the art of inspiring in every one that knows thee. VALE. "I write the moment of my arrival: be obliged to me, friend; for I have been working, I am going to work still, like a Turk, or like a Jordan." [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xvii. 71.] This is hastily thrown off for Friend Jordan, the instant after his Majesty's circuitous return home. Readers cannot yet attend his Majesty there, till they have brought the Affair of Herstal, and other remainders of the Cleve Journey, along with them. Chapter V. -- AFFAIR OF HERSTAL. This Rambonet, whom Voltaire found walking in the court of the old Castle of Moyland, is an official gentleman, otherwise unknown to History, who has lately been engaged in a Public Affair; and is now off again about it, "on a hired hack" or otherwise,--with very good instructions in his head. Affair which, though in itself but small, is now beginning to make great noise in the world, as Friedrich wends homewards out of his Cleve Journey. He has set it fairly alight, Voltaire and he, before quitting Moyland; and now it will go of itself. The Affair of Herstal, or of the Bishop of Liege; Friedrich's first appearance on the stage of politics. Concerning which some very brief notice, if intelligible, will suffice readers of the present day.