The first of these visits, in September 1740, is thus satirically described by Voltaire: “I was conducted into his majesty’s apartment, in which I found nothing but four bare walls. By the light of a wax candle I perceived a small truckle bed, two feet and a half wide, in a closet, upon which lay a little man, wrapped up in a morning gown of blue cloth. It was his majesty, who lay sweating and shaking, beneath a beggarly coverlet, in a violent ague fit. I made my bow, and began my acquaintance by feeling his pulse, as if I had been his first physician. The fit left him, and he rose, dressed himself, and sat down to table with Algarotti, Keizerling, Maupertuis, the ambassador to the states-general, and myself; where, at supper, we treated most profoundly on the immortality of the soul, natural liberty, and the _Androgynes_ of Plato.” Frederick says, in a letter to Jordan, dated September 24th: “I have at length seen Voltaire, whom I was so anxious to become acquainted with; but, alas! I saw him when I was under the influence of my fever, and when my mind and my body were equally languid. Now, with persons like him, one must not be ill; on the contrary, one must be very well, and even, if possible, in better health than usual. He has the eloquence of Cicero, the mildness of Pliny, and the wisdom of Agrippa: he unites, in a word, all that is desirable of the virtues and talents of three of the greatest men of antiquity. His intellect is always at work; and every drop of ink that falls from his pen, is transformed at once into wit. He declaimed to us _Mahomet_, an admirable tragedy he has composed, which transported us with delight: for myself, I could only admire in silence.”