Which he had to do,--towards King Friedrich, usual refuge of the persecuted; seldom inexorable, where there was worth, even under bad forms, recognizable; and not a friend to burning poor men or their books, if it could be helped. La Mettrie got some post, like D'Arget's, or still more nominal; "readership;" some small pension to live upon; and shelter to shoot forth his wildfire, when he could hold it no longer: fire, not of a malignant incendiary kind, but pleasantly lambent, though maddish, as Friedrich perceived. Thus had La Mettrie found a Goshen;--and stood in considerable favor, at Court and in Berlin Society in the years now current. According to Nicolai, Friedrich never esteemed La Mettrie, which is easy to believe, but found him a jester and ingenious madcap, out of whom a great deal of merriment could be had, over wine or the like. To judge by Nicolai's authentic specimen, their Colloquies ran sometimes pretty deep into the cynical, under showers of wildfire playing about; and the high-jinks must have been highish. [--Anekdoten,--vi. 197-227.] When there had been enough of this, Friedrich would lend his La Mettrie to the French Excellency, Milord Tyrconnel, to oblige his Excellency, and get La Mettrie out of the way for a while. Milord is at Berlin; a Jacobite Irishman, of blusterous Irish qualities, though with plenty of sagacity and rough sense; likes La Mettrie; and is not much a favorite with Friedrich. Tyrconnel had said, at first,--when Rothenburg, privately from Friedrich, came to consult him, "What are, in practical form, those 'assistances from the Most Christian Majesty,' should we MAKE Alliance with him, as your Excellency proposes, and chance to be attacked?"--"MORBLEU, assistance enough [enumerating several]: MAIS MORBLEU, SI VOUS NOUS TROMPEX, VOUS SEREZ ECRASES (if you deceive us, you will be squelched)!" [Valori, ii. 130, &c.] "He had been chosen for his rough tongue," says Valori; our French Court being piqued at Friedrich and his sarcasms. Tyrconnel gives splendid dinners: Voltaire often of them; does not love Potsdam, nor is loved by it. Nay, I sometimes think a certain DEMON NEWSWRITER (of whom by and by), but do not know, may be some hungry Attache of Tyrconnel's. Hungry Attache, shut out from the divine Suppers and upper planetary movements, and reduced to look on them from his cold hutch, in a dog-like angry and hungry manner? His flying allusions to Voltaire, "SON (Friedrich's) SQUELETTE D'APOLLON, skeleton of an Apollo," and the like, are barkings almost rabid.