--"Vou gui daignez me departir Les fruits d'une Muse divine, O roi! je ne puis consentir Que, sans daigner m'en avertir, Vous alliez prendre medecine. Je suis votre malade-ne, Et sur la casse et le sene, J'ai des notions non communes. Nous sommes de mene metier; Faut-il de moi vous defier, Et cacher vos bonnes fortunes?"-- Was there ever such a turn given to taking physic! Still better is this other, the topic worse,--HAEMORRHOIDS (a kind of annual or periodical affair with the Royal Patient, who used to feel improved after):-- ... (Ten or twelve verses on another point; then suddenly--) --"Que la veine hemorroidale De votre personne royale Cesse de troubler le repos! Quand pourrai-je d'une style honnete Dire: 'Le cul de mon heros Va tout aussi bien que sa tete'?"-- [In--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxii. 283, 267.] A kittenish grace in these things, which is pleasant in so old a cat. Smelfungus says: "He is a consummate Artist in Speech, our Voltaire: that, if you take the word SPEECH in its widest sense, and consider the much that can be spoken, and the infinitely more that cannot and should not, is Voltaire's supreme excellency among his fellow-creatures; never rivalled (to my poor judgment) anywhere before or since,--nor worth rivalling, if we knew it well." Another fine circumstance is, that Voltaire has frequent leave of absence; and in effect passes a great deal of his time altogether by himself, or in his own way otherwise. What with Friedrich's Review Journeys and Business Circuits, considerable separations do occur of themselves; and at any time, Voltaire has but to plead illness, which he often does; with ground and without, and get away for weeks, safe into the distance more or less remote. He is at the Marquisat (as we laboriously make out); at Berlin, in the empty Palace, perhaps in Lodgings of his own (though one would prefer the GRATIS method); nursing his maladies, which are many; writing his LOUIS QUATORZE; "lonely altogether, your Majesty, and sad of humor,"--yet giving his cosy little dinners, and running out, pretty often, if well invited, into the brilliancies and gayeties. No want of brilliant social life here, which can shine, more or less, and appreciate one's shining. The King's Supper-parties--Yes, and these, though the brightest, are not the only bright things in our Potsdam-Berlin world. Take with you, reader, one or two of the then and there Chief Figures; Voltaire's fellow-players; strutting and fretting their hour on that Stage of Life. They are mostly not quite strangers to you.