Leigh Hunt, in _The Town_, describing Voltaire's visit to England, says that he wrote to Swift from Maiden Lane, in English, but that the language "seems a little too perfect." There is a second letter to Swift "which looks more authentic. But there is no doubt that Voltaire, while in England, made himself such a master of the language as to be able to write in it with a singular correctness for a foreigner. He was then young. He had been imprisoned in the Bastille for a libel, came over here on his release; procured many subscriptions for the _Henriade_; published in English an essay on epic poetry, and remained some years, during which he became acquainted with the principal men of letters--Pope, Congreve, and Young. He is said to have talked so indecently at Pope's table (probably no more than was thought decent by the belles in France) that the good old lady, the poet's mother, was obliged to retire. Objecting, at Lord Chesterfield's table, to the allegories of Milton, Young is said to have accosted him in the well-known couplet: 'Thou art so witty, profligate, and thin, Thou seem'st a Milton, with his Death and Sin.' But this story has been doubted. Young, though not so thin, was as witty and profligate in his way as Voltaire; for, even when affecting a hermit-like sense of religion, he was a servile flatterer and preferment-hunter. The secret of the gloomy tone in his _Night-Thoughts_ was his not having too much, and his missing a bishopric. This is the reason why the _Night-Thoughts_ are overdone, and have not stood their ground. Voltaire left England with such a mass of subscriptions for his _Henriade_ as laid the foundation of his fortunes, and with great admiration of English talent and genius, particularly that of Newton and Locke, which, with all his insinuations against our poetry, he took warm pains to extend and never gave up. He was fond to the last of showing he had not forgotten his English. Somebody telling him that Johnson had spoken well of his talents, he said, in English, 'He is a clever fellow'; but the gentleman observing that the doctor did not think well of his religion, he added, 'A superstitious dog.'"