me the other day reading a Latin author; and asked me with an air of contempt, whether I was defigned for the church. All this would be tolerable, if I was not doomed to converse with a fet of English, who are ftill more ignorant than the French, and from whom, with my utmost endeavours, I cannot be abfent fix hours in the day. Ld. is the only one among them who has common fenfe; and he is fo fcandalously debauched in his principles, as well as practice, that his converfation is equally fhocking to my morals and my, reafon. My only improvement here is in the company of the Duke and Prince Craon, and in the exercise of the academy: I have been abfent from the laft near three weeks, by reason of a sprain I got in the finews of my leg, which is not quite recovered. My duty to my dear mother; I hope you and the continue well. I am, Sir, Your dutiful fon, G. L." "Soiffons, Oct. 28. I thank you, my dear Sir, for complying to much with my inclinations, as to let me ftay fome time at Soiffons; but, as you have .not fixed how long, I wait for further orders. One of my chief reafons for difliking Luneville, was the multitude of English there, who moft of them were fuch worthlefs fellows, that they were a dishonour to the name and nation. these I was obliged to dine and fup, and pass a great part of my time. With "You may be fure I avoided it as much as poffible; but malgré moi, I fuffered a great deal. To prevent any comfort from other people, they had made a law among themselves not to admit any foreigner into their company; fo that there was nothing but English talked from June to January. On the contrary, my countrymen at Soiffons are men of virtue and good-fenfe; they mix perpetually with the French, and converfe for the moft part in that language. I will trouble you no more upon this fubject; but give me leave to fay, that, however capricious I may have been in other things, my fentiments in this particular are the fureft proofs I ever gave you of my ftrong and heredi. tary averfion to vice and folly. Mr. Stanhope is always at Fontainbleau. I went with Mr. Pointz to Paris for 4 days, when the Colonel was there to meet him: he received me with great civility and kindness. We have done expecting Mr. Walpole, who is obliged to keep ftrict guard over the Cardinal, for fear the German Minifters fhould take him from us; they pull and haul the poor old gentleman fo many ways, that he does not know where to turn, or into whofe arms to throw himself. "Ripperda's escape to England will very much embroil affairs, which did not feem to want another obstacle to hinder them from coming to an accommodation. If the devil is not very much wanting to his own interests in this business,. it is impoffible that the good work of peace fhould go on much longer. After all, moft young fellows are of his party, and wish he may bring matters to a war; for they make but ill minifters at a congrefs, but would make good foldiers in a campaign. "No news from and her beloved husband: their unreasonable fondness for each other can never laft; they will foon grow as cold to one another as the town to the Beggar's Opera. Pray Heaven I may prove a falfe prophet! but married love, and English mufic, are too domeftic to continue long in favour. "My duty to my dear mother: I am glad the has no complaint. You faynothing relating toyour own health, which makes me hope you are well. I as fondly love my bro. thers and fifters as if I was their parent. "There is no need of my concluding with a handfome period; you are above forced efforts of the head. I fhall therefore end this letter with a plain truth of the heart, that I am, Your most affectionate "Paris, Sept. 8, 1729. town. "The Duke of Orleans was fincerely, and without any affecta tion, tranfported at the birth of the dauphin. The fucceffion was a burthen too heavy for his indolence to fupport, and he pioufly fings hallelujah for his happy delivery from it. The good old cardinal cried for joy. It is very late, and I have not flept thefe three nights for the fquibs and crackers, and other noifes that the people make in the streets; fo muft beg leave to conclude, with affuring you that I am, dear Sir, Your affectionate and dutiful fon, "Dear Sir, Paris, Sept. 27. Mr. Stanhope is on his way to Spain. The caprice and stubbornnefs of the King of Spain, which is not always to be governed even by his wife, made it neceffary to fend a minifter to that court, of too much weight and authority to be trifled with. It is a melancholy reflection, that the wifeft councils and beft measures for the public good are fometimes to be fruftrated by the folly and incapacity of one man! "How low is the fervitude of human kind, when they are reduced to refpect the extravagance, and court the pride of a fenseless creature, who has no other character of royalty, than power to do mifchief." "However, I hope all will turn out well, and that his catholic majefty will behave himself a little like a king, fince the queen will have him be one in fpite of his teeth. About three months ago, the caught him going down ftairs at midnight, to abdicate, in his night-gown. He was fo infenfed at the furprise and "I am troubled and uneafy at my expences here, though you are fo good and generous not to mention, them in your letters. I am guilty of no extravagance; but do not know how to fave, as fome people do. This is the time of my life in which money will be ill faved, and your goodness is lavish of it to me I think without offending your prudence. My dear Sir, I know no happiness but in your kindness; and if ever I lofe that, I am the worft of wretches. I remain, Sir, Your dutiful fon, &c. only pity him; he has nothing more to be angry at. He is a man who pretends, that, in order to be more acquainted with the nature of the foul, we must go to the fouthern hemifphere, to diffe&t fome brains of giants, twelve feet high, and fome hairy men who wear monkies tails. He would have us intoxicate people with opium, in order to obferve in their dreams, the fprings of the human understanding. He proposes the digging á large hole, to penetrate to the centre of the earth. He would have the fick befmeared with refin, and their flesh pierced with long needles, well contrived; fo that the Phyfician fhall not be paid, if the patient be not cured. He pretends, that men might still live eight or nine hundred years, if they were preferved by the fame method that prevents eggs from being hatched. The maturity of man, he fays is not the age of manhood it is death. This point of maturity needs only be retarded. Laftly he affures us, that it is as eafy to fee the future as the past : that predictions are of the fame nature as memory; that every one may prophefy; that this depends only on a greater degree of activity in the mind, and that we have nothing to do but to exalt our fouls. All his book is filled, from one end to the other, with ideas of this ftamp. Be no more, therefore, furprifed at any thing. He was at work on his book when he perfecuted you; and I can tell you, Sir, when he tormented me too, in an other manner, the fame spirit infpired his work and his conduct. All this is unknown to those, who, charged with great affairs, Occupied occupied with the government of ftates, and the duty of rendering men happy, cannot look down on quarrels and on works like thefe. But as for me, who am only a man of letters,-me, who have always preferred this title to all,me, whofe employment it has been for more than forty years, to love truth and to fpeak it boldly, will not difguife what I think. It is faid, that your adverfary is at prefent very ill; I am not lefs fo; and if he carries to his grave his injuftice and his book, I fhall carry to mine the juftice which I think your due. I am, with as much truth as I have put in my letter, &c. &c." [As an answer to the Diatribe of Dr. Akahia, M. de Maupertuis wrote the following letter, to which M. de Voltaire gave the reply annexed.] "M. de Maupertuis to M. de Vol taire. I declare to you, that my health is good enough to find you out wherever you are, in order to be most completely revenged of you. Be thankful for the refpect and obedience which have hitherto with held my arm. Tremble. MAUPERTUIS." "M. de Voltaire's Anfwer. I have received the letter with which you honour me. You inform me that you are well, that your ftrength is perfectly re-established, and you threaten to come and affaf finate me, if I publish the letter of Beaumelle. This proceeding is neither like a prefident of an academy, nor like a good chriftian, fuch as you are. I congratulate you on your good health, but I am not fo ftrong as you: I have kept my bed for a fortnight, and I beg you to defer the little experiment in natural philofophy that you wish to make. You want, perhaps, to diffect me; but confider I am not a Patagonian, and my brain is fo fmall that the discovery of its fibres will give you no new idea of the foul. Befides, if you kill me, be fo good as to remember, that M. de la Beaumelle has promifed to purfue me even to hell: he will not fail to go thither in queft of me. Though the hole which is to be dug by your order, to the centre of the earth, and which is to lead directly to hell, be not yet begun, there are other ways of going to it, and he will find that I fhall be as illtreated in the other world, as you have perfecuted me in this. Would you, Sir, carry your animofity fo far? Again, be fo good as to attend a little. Little as you are pleased to exalt your foul to fee diftinctly into futurity, you will fee, that, if you come to affaffinate me at Leipfic, where you are not more beloved than any where elfe, and where your letter is depofited, you run fome risk of being hanged; which will too much forward the moment of your maturity, and would be very unfuitable to the prefident of an academy, I advife you first to have the letter of Beaumelle declared forged, and derogatory to your glory, in one of your affemblies: after which you will, perhaps, be more at liberty to kill me as a difturber of your felf-love. To conclude, I am till very weak: you will find me in bed, and I can only throw at your head my fquirt and my chamberpot. But as foon as I have recoverde a little ftrength, I will charge my my piftols cum pulvere Pyrio, and, multiplying the quantity by the fquare of the velocity, till the action and I are reduced to a cypher, I will lodge the lead in your brain, it feems in need of it. It will be a fad thing for you, that the Germans, whom you have fo much defpifed, fhould have invented powder, as you ought to lament their having invented printing. Adieu, my dear Prefident. Extract of a Letter from M. Vol. taire to the King of Pruffia. "Ferney, 1st Feb. 1773. SIRE, you porce ITHANK YOU for your pocas no finer. But I thank you much more for what you have taken from me than for what you have given me. In your last letter you have cut off nine whole years from my age. Never did our Controller General of the Finances make a more extraordinary alteration. Your Majefty has the goodness to compliment me on my attaining the age of feventy. You see how kings are always deceived. I am feventy-nine, if you pleafe, and upon the ftroke of eighty. Thus fhall I never fee, what I have fo paffionately wifhed for, the deftruction of those rogues, the Turks, who fhut up the women, and do not cultivate the fine arts." It is nothing more than giving of one's fuperfluity fomething to one's neighbour; but to be the advocate. of humankind, the defender of opprefied innocence, that is, indeed the way to immortalize you. The two caufes of Calas and Sirven, have given you the veneration due to fuch miracles. You have combated the united enemies of mankind, fuperftition, fanaticism, ignorance, chicane, bad judges, and the power repofed in them all together. To furmount fuch obftacles, required both talents and virtue. You have fhewn the world that you poffeffed both. You have carried your point. You defire, Sir, fome relief for the Sirven family. Can I refuse Or fhould praife me for the action, would there be the leaft room for it? I own to you, that I fhould be much better pleafed if my bill of exchange could pafs unknown. Nevertheless, if you think that my name, unhar monious as it is, may be of any use to thofe victims of the fpirit of perfecution, I leave it to your difcretion, and you may announce me, provided it be no way prejudicial to the parties." Letters between those celebrated EpiftolaryWriters, the Count de Buffy, and Madame de Sevigny; tranflated from the French. Madame de Sevigny to Count de Buffy. I "Paris, June 19, 1672. CANNOT comprehend how one could expofe one's felf a thousand times, as you have done, THE brightnefs of the Northern and not be killed a thousand times ftar is a mere Aurora Borealis. alfo. I am much occupied to-day VOL. XVII. N with |