ROTHENBURG IS ILL; VOLTAIRE HAS BEEN TO SEE HIM ("Berlin, 14th," no month; year, too surely, 1751, as we shall find! Letter is IN VERSE).--"Lieberkuhn was going to kill poor Rothenburg; to send him off to Pluto,--for liking his dish a little;--monster Lieberkuhn! But Doctor Joyous," your reader, La Mettrie,--led by, need I say whom?--"has brought him back to us:--think of Lieberkuhn's solemn stare! Pretty contrasts, those, of sublime Quacksalverism, with Sense under the mask of Folly. May the haemorrhoidal vein"--follows HERE, note it, exquisite reader, that of "CUL DE MON HEROS," cited above!--... And then (a day or two after; King too haemorrhoidal to come twenty miles, but anxious to know): "Sire, no doubt Doctor Joyous (LE MEDECIN JOYEUX) has informed your Majesty that when we arrived, the Patient was sleeping tranquil; and Cothenius assured us, in Latin, that there was no danger. I know not what has passed since, but I am persuaded your Majesty approves my journey" (of a street or two),--MUST you speak of it, then! GOES TO AN EVENING-PARTY NOW AND THEN (To Niece Denis).--... "Madame Tyrconnel [French Excellency's Wife] has plenty of fine people at her house on an evening; perhaps too many" (one of the first houses in Berlin, this of my Lord Tyrcannel's, which we frequent a good deal).... "Madame got very well through her part of ANDROMAQUE [in those old play-acting times of ours]: never saw actresses with finer eyes,"--how should you! "As to Milord Tyrconnel, he is an Anglais of dignity,"--Irish in reality, and a thought blusterous. "He has a condensed (SERRE) caustic way of talk; and I know not what of frank which one finds in the English, and does not usually find in persons of his trade. French Tragedies played at Berlin, I myself taking part; an Englishman Envoy of France there: strange circumstances these, are n't they?" [To D'Argental this (--OEuvres de Voltaire,--lxxiv. 289).] Yes, that latter especially; and Milord Marischal our Prussian Envoy with you! Which the English note, sulkily, as a weather-symptom.