ABBE DE PRADES.--"De Prades, 'Abbe de Prades, Reader to the King,' though happily not an enemy of Voltaire's, is in some sort La Beaumelle's counterpart, or brother with a difference; concerning whom also, one wants only to know the exact date of his arrival. As La Beaumelle felt too strait-tied in the Geneva vestures (where it had been good for him to adjust himself, and stay); so did De Prades in the Sorbonne ditto,--and burst out, on taking Orders, not into eloquent Preachings or edifying Devotional Exercises; but into loud blurts of mere heresy and heterodoxy. Blurts which were very loud, and I believe very stupid; which failed of being sublime even to the Philosophic world; and kindled the Sorbonne into burning his Book, and almost burning himself, had not he at once run for it. "Ran to Holland, and there continued blurting more at large,--decidedly stupid for most part, thinks Voltaire, 'but with glorious Passages, worth your Majesty's attention;'--upon which, D'Alembert too helping, poor De Prades was invited to the Readership, vacant by La Mettrie's eagle-pie; and came gladly, and stayed. At what date? one occasionally asks: for there are Royal Letters, dateless, but written in his hand, that raise such question in the utter dimness otherwise. Date is 'September, 1752.' [Preuss, i. 368; ii. 115.] Farther question one does not ask about De Prades. Rather an emphatic intrusive kind of fellow, I should guess;--wrote, he, not Friedrich, that ABRIDGMENT OF PLEURY'S ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, and other the like dreary Pieces, which used to be inflicted on mankind as Friedrich's. "For the rest, having place and small pension,--not, like La Beaumelle, obliged to pirate and annotate for 7 pounds 10s.--he went on steadily, a good while; got a Canonry of Glogau [small Catholic benefice, bad if it was not better than its now occupant];--and unluckily, in the Seven-Years-War time, fell into treasonous Correspondence with his countrymen; which it was feared might be fatal, when found out. But no, not fatal. Friedrich did lock him in Magdeburg for some months; then let him out: 'Home to Glogau, sirrah; stick to your Canonry henceforth, and let us hear no more of you at all!' Which shall be his fate in these pages also." Good, my friend; no more of him, then! Only recollect "September, 1752," if dateless Royal Letters in De Prades's hand turn up. Chapter X. DEMON NEWSWRITER, OF 1752. It must be owned, the King's French Colony of Wits were a sorry set of people. They tempt one to ask, What is the good of wit, then, if this be it? Here are people sparkling with wit, and have not understanding enough to discern what lies under their nose. Cannot live wisely with anybody, least of all with one another.