"Ought I not so to feel, when it is to M. de Voltaire alone that I am indebted for my first knowledge of the art I profess, and from respect to him, that M. the Duc d'Aumont, granted the order for my debut in the month of February, 1750? "By constant perseverance upon every occasion I have now, in the month of February, 1752, after a debut of seventeen months, surmounted all the obstacles raised against me both by the city and the court, and procured myself to be inserted on the list of King's comedians." FOOTNOTES: [E] This was M. de Voltaire's only nourishment, from five in the morning till three in the afternoon. LIFE OF WILLIAM GIFFORD, ESQ. AUTHOR OF THE BAEVIAD AND MAEVIAD, AND TRANSLATOR OF JUVENAL. (_Continued from page 367._) The repetitions of which I speak were always attended with applause, and sometimes with favours more substantial: little collections were now and then made, and I have received sixpence in an evening. To one who had long lived in the absolute want of money, such a resource seemed like a Peruvian mine. I furnished myself by degrees with paper, &c. and what was of more importance, with books of geometry, and of the higher branches of algebra, which I cautiously concealed. Poetry, even at this time, was no amusement of mine: it was subservient to other purposes; and I only had recourse to it, when I wanted money for my mathematical pursuits. But the clouds were gathering fast. My master's anger was raised to a terrible pitch by my indifference to his concerns, and still more by the reports which were brought to him of my presumptuous attempts at versification. I was required to give up my papers, and when I refused, my garret was searched, my little hoard of books discovered, and removed, and all future repetitions prohibited in the strictest manner. This was a very severe stroke, and I felt it most sensibly; it was followed by another severer still; a stroke which crushed the hopes I had so long and so fondly cherished, and resigned me at once to despair. Mr. Hugh Smerdon, on whose succession I had calculated, died, and was succeeded by a person not much older than myself, and certainly not so well qualified for the situation. I look back to that part of my life, which immediately followed this event, with little satisfaction; it was a period of gloom, and savage unsociability: by degrees I sunk into a kind of corporeal torpor; or, if roused into activity by the spirit of youth, wasted the exertion in splenetic and vexatious tricks, which alienated the few acquaintances compassion had yet left. So I crept on in silent discontent; unfriended and unpitied; indignant at the present, careless of the future, an object at once of apprehension and dislike.