enraptured with his poetry, and had almost conceived a passion for his person. Voltaire read the poem, found it inimitable, and fancied a thousand beauties in a lady of so fine discernment. In short, he was actually fallen in love with a creature of his own imagination, and entreated his dear ugly friend-for so he familiarly used to call Piron-to procure him an interview with a lady of so much merit. Piron promised in a few days to gratify his request; and in the meantime came every morning to tell Voltaire that the young lady was upon her journey, and would arrive very shortly; adding many pathetic exclamations on her beauty, and the delicacy of her behaviour. Our poet was at last wound up to the height of expectation; which, when Piron saw, he informed him that the lady was actually arrived, that the chief motive of her journey was to see a man so justly celebrated as M. Voltaire, and that she entreated the honour of his company that very evening. Our poet in raptures prepared himself for the interview, which he expected with the utmost impatience.

The hour at last came, and Voltaire eagerly flew to satisfy at once his love and his curiosity. Upon being introduced into the apartment of his fancied angel, he was at first a little disconcerted to find Madame du Châtelet of the party; but guess his confusion, when he beheld his ugly friend, dressed up in a lappet-head and petticoat, approach to salute him. In short, he was informed that Piron himself was the fair one who wrote the panegyric, and who consequently expected the proper return of gratitude. "Well," said Voltaire, turning his disappointment to a jest, "if Piron had a grain less wit, I could never have forgiven him.' This adventure has since served as the groundwork of a comedy called "La Métromanie," infinitely the best modern performance upon the French theatre.

Some disappointments of this kind served to turn our poet from a passion which only tended to obstruct his advancement in more exalted pursuits. His mind, which at that time was pretty well balanced between pleasure and philosophy, quickly began to incline to the latter. He now

thirsted after a more comprehensive knowledge of mankind than either books or his own country could possibly bestow.

England, about this time, was coming into repute throughout Europe, as the land of philosophers. Newton, Locke, and others began to attract the attention of the curious, and drew hither a concourse of learned men from every part of Europe. Not our learning alone, but our politics also began to be regarded with admiration : a government in which subordination and liberty were blended in such just proportions, was now generally studied as the finest model of civil society. This was an inducement sufficient to make Voltaire pay a visit to this land of philosophers and of liberty.

Accordingly, in the year 1726, he came over to England. A previous acquaintance with Atterbury, bishop of Rochester, and the Lord Bolingbroke, was sufficient to introduce him among the polite, and his fame as a poet got him the acquaintance of the learned, in a country where foreigners generally find but a cool reception. He only wanted introduction: his own merit was enough to procure the rest. As a companion, no man ever exceeded him when he pleased to lead the conversation; which, however, was not always the case. In company which he either disliked or despised, few could be more reserved than he; but when he was warmed in discourse, and had got over a hesitating manner which sometimes he was subject to, it was rapture to hear him. His meagre visage seemed insensibly to gather beauty; every muscle in it had meaning, and his eye beamed with unusual brightness. The person who writes this Memoir, who had the honour and the pleasure of being his acquaintance, remembers to have seen him in a select company of wits of both sexes at Paris, when the subject happened to turn upon English taste and learning. Fontenelle, who was of the party, and who, being unacquainted with the language or authors of the country he undertook to condemn, with a spirit truly vulgar began to revile both. Diderot, who liked the English, and knew something of their literary pretensions, attempted to vindicate their

poetry and learning, but with unequal abilities. The company quickly perceived that Fontenelle was superior in the dispute, and were surprised at the silence which Voltaire had preserved all the former part of the night, particularly as the conversation happened to turn upon one of his favourite topics. Fontenelle continued his triumph till about twelve o'clock, when Voltaire appeared at last roused from his reverie. His whole frame seemed animated. He began his defence with the utmost elegance mixed with spirit, and now and then let fall the finest strokes of raillery upon his antagonist; and his harangue lasted till three in the morning. I must confess, that, whether from national partiality, or from the elegant sensibility of his manner, I never was so much charmed, nor did I ever remember so absolute a victory as he gained in this dispute.

Upon his arrival in England, his first care was to learn so much of the language as might enable him to mix in conversation, and study more thoroughly the genius of the people. Foreigners are unanimous in allowing the English language to be the most difficult to learn of any in Europe. Some have spent years in the study to no purpose; but such was the application, and such the memory of our poet, that in six weeks he was able to speak it with tolerable propriety. In short, his conduct in this particular was such as may serve for a model to future travellers. The French who before visited this island were never at the trouble of attaining our language, but contented with barely describing the buildings and palaces of the kingdom, and transcribing a character of the people from former travellers, who were themselves unacquainted with our national peculiarities. Accordingly, we find few of their books in which the English are not characterised as morose, melancholy, excessive lovers of pudding, and haters of mankind. This stupid account has been continued down from Scaliger to Muralt, while the virtues and vices which were peculiar to the country were wholly unknown. Voltaire quickly perceived that pride seemed to be our characteristic quality; a source from

whence we derived our excellences as well as our defects. He perceived that the only way to understand the English was to learn their language, adopt their manners, and even to applaud their oddities. With this view, when sufficiently initiated into our language, he joined in companies of every rank: lords, poets, and artisans were successively visited, and he attained at the same time a proficiency in our language, laws, and government, and thorough insight into our national character. Before him, our reputation for learning had for some time been established in Europe; but, then, we were regarded as entirely destitute of taste, and our men of wit known not even by name among the literati. He was the first foreigner who saw the amazing irregular beauties of Shakspeare, gave Milton the character he deserved, spoke of every English poet with some degree of applause, and opened a new page of beauty to the eyes of his astonished countrymen. It is to him we owe that our language has taken the place of the Italian among the polite, and that even ladies are taught to admire Milton, Pope, and Otway. The greatest part of our poet's time, during a residence of two years in England, was spent at Wandsworth, the seat of his Excellency Sir Everard Falkener. With this gentleman he had contracted an intimacy at Paris; and as Sir Everard had insisted upon his company before he left France, he now could not refuse. Here he spent his time in that tranquillity and learned ease which are so grateful to men of speculation; had leisure to examine the difference between our government and that of which he was born a subject; and to improve by our example his natural passion for liberty.

He was resolved, however, to give some lasting testimony of that love which he had for freedom, and which has ever made one of the strongest features in his character. The elder Brutus, condemning his own son in its cause, seemed a fine subject for this purpose, and naturally suited to the British theatre. The first act of this play he accordingly wrote in English, and communicated it to his friends for their approbation. It was somewhat surprising to find a stranger, who had resided in the

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"I am not ignorant that both the Greeks and the English have frequently erred, in producing what is shocking, instead of what should be terrible, the disgusting and the incredible for what should have been tragic and marvellous. The art of writing was in its infancy at Athens in the time of Eschylus, and at London in the time of Shakspeare. However, both the one and the other, with all their faults, frequently abound with a fine pathetic, and strike us with beauties beyond the reach of art to imitate. Those Frenchmen who, only acquainted with translations or common report, pretend to censure either, somewhat resemble the blind man who should assert that the rose is destitute of beauty because he perceives the thorns by the touch.

"But, though sometimes the two nations of which I am speaking transcend the bounds of propriety, and present us with objects of affright instead of terror, we, on the other hand, as scrupulous as they are rash, stop short of beauty for fear of being carried beyond it; and seldom arrive at the pathetic for fear of transgressing its bounds.

"I am by no means for having the theatre become a place of carnage, as we often find in Shakspeare and his successors, who, destitute of his genius, have only imitated his faults; but still I insist, that there are numberless incidents which may at present appear shocking to a French spectator, which, if set off with elegance of diction and propriety of representation, would be capable of giving a

pleasure beyond what we can at present conceive."

This gives us a tolerably just representation of the state in which Voltaire found the French theatre. His Edipus was written in this dry manner, where most of the terrible incidents were delivered in cold recitation, and not represented before the spectator. But, by observing our tragedies, like a skilful artist, he joined their fire to French correctness, and formed a manner peculiarly his own.

In studies of this nature he spent his time at Wandsworth, still employed either improving himself in our own language, or borrowing its beauties to transplant into his own. His leisure hours were generally spent in the company of our poets, Congreve, Pope, Young, &c., or among such of our nobility as were remarkable either for arts or arms, as Peterborough, Oxford, and Walpole. He was frequently heard to say, that Peterborough had taught him the art of despising riches, Walpole the art of acquiring them, but Harley alone the secret of being con tented.

The first time he visited Mr. Congreve, he met with a reception very different from what he had expected. The English dramatist, grown rich by means of his profession, affected to despise it, and assured Voltaire, that he chose rather to be regarded as a gentleman than a poet. This was a meanness which somewhat disgusted the Frenchman, particularly as he himself owed all his reputation to his excellence in poetry; he therefore informed Mr. Congreve, that his fame as a writer was the only inducement he had to see him, and though he could condescend to desire the acquaintance of a man of wit and learning, he was above soliciting the company of any private gentleman whatsoever. The reflection of another upon this occasion was, that he certainly is below the profession who presumes to think himself above it.

M. Voltaire has often told his friends, that he never observed in himself such a succession of opposite passions as he experienced upon his first interview with Mr. Pope. When he first entered the room, and perceived our poor melancholy

English poet, naturally deformed, and wasted as he was with sickness and study, he could not help regarding him with the utmost compassion. But, when Pope began to speak, and to reason upon moral obligations, and dress the most delicate sentiments in the most charming diction, Voltaire's pity began to be changed into admiration, and at last even into envy. It is not uncommon with him to assert, that no man ever pleased him so much in serious conversation, nor any whose sentiments mended so much upon recollection.

There is a story commonly told of his being in company with Dr. Young and some others, when the conversation happened to turn upon Milton's Paradise Lost. He displayed, as the story goes, all his critical skill in condemning the allegorical personages which Milton has introduced into his poem, and this with the utmost vivacity and unbounded freedom of speech. Upon which Young, regarding him with a fixed eye, spoke the following epigram:

"So very witty, wicked, and so thin;

Fit emblem sure of Milton, Death, and Sin." However, I only mention this to show what trifles are generally ascribed to men when once grown famous. The wretchedness of the epigram will readily convince those who have any pretensions to taste that Dr. Young could never have been the author: probably some blockhead made the verses first, and the story after.

Among the number of those who either patronised him, or enrolled themselves in the list of his friends, was the Duchess of Marlborough. She found infinite pleasure in the agreeable vivacity of his conversation; but mistook his levity for want of principle. Such a man seemed to her the properest person to digest the memoirs of her life; which, even so early as this, she had an inclination of publishing. She proposed the task accordingly to him, and he readily undertook to oblige her. But when she showed him her materials, and began to dictate the use she would have them turned to, Voltaire appeared no longer the good-natured, complying creature which she took him for. He found some characters were to be blackened

without just grounds, some of her actions to be vindicated that deserved censure, and a mistress to be exposed to whom she owed infinite obligations. Our poet accordingly remonstrated with her grace, and seemed to intimate the inconsistency of such a conduct with gratitude and justice; he gravely assured her that the publication of secrets which were communicated under the seal of friendship, would give the world no high opinion of her morals. He was thus continuing his discourse, when the Duchess, quite in a passion, snatched the papers out of his hands :—' -"I thought," said she, the man had sense; but I find him at bottom either a fool or a philosopher."

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He was but two years in England, yet it is somewhat strange to think, how much he either wrote, published, or studied during so short a residence. He gave amongst his friends a criticism he had written in English upon Milton, which he concludes in this manner: "It requires reach of thought to discover the defects of Milton; his excellences lie obvious to every capacity; he atones for a few faults by a thousand beauties; and, like Satan, the hero of his own poem, even when fallen, he wears the appearance of majesty."

But the performance upon which he founds his most lasting share of fame was published in this country. The French language had hitherto been deemed unsusceptible of the true epic dignity. Several unsuccessful attempts by Ronsard, Chapelaine, and others, had made critics despair of ever seeing an heroic poem in the language; and some writers had laid it down as actually impossible. Voltaire, who seemed to be born to encounter difficulty, undertook the task, and that at an age when pleasure is apt to silence the voice of ambition. This poem, the Henriade," was first published under the title of the "League.' He began it in the Bastille, enlarged and corrected it for several years afterwards, and had some thoughts of publishing it in France. Upon showing the manuscript to Fontenelle, his friend, he was by him advised to retrench several passages which seemed to be written with too warm a spirit of