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time of Charles II., having asked Bishop Wilkins how she could get to the moon without being able to stop on the way, his lordship replied, "Your Grace has built so many castles in the air that you could not fail to find one to rest in."

AULUS VITELLIUS.

[Emperor of Rome; born about 15 A.D.; commanded the German legions, and proclaimed emperor after the death of Galba; having defeated the partisans of Otho, was himself put to death by Vespasian's general Antonius, A.D. 69.]

The dead body of an enemy always smells sweet.

Riding over the field of Bedriacum, a few days after the battle which gave him the empire, April 14, 69; to this detestable remark he added, "especially of a fellow-citizen" (et melius civis). -SUETONIUS: Life. His vices and cruelty having made him universally hated, he was dragged out of his palace and along the Via Sacra by the soldiery of Vespasian, subjected to the most contemptuous indignities, put to death by lingering tortures, and dragged by a horse into the Tiber. His last words were, "Yet I was once your emperor."

VOLTAIRE.

[François Marie Arouet, who assumed the name of Voltaire; born near Sceaux, Nov. 21, 1694; educated in Paris; confined for a year in the Bastille, 1717, where he wrote the "Henriade" and "Edipus;" visited England, 1726; wrote "The Life of Charles XII.," 1730; elected to the Academy, 1746; lived at the court of Frederick the Great, 1750-53; established himself at Ferney, near Geneva, 1755; visited Paris, 1778, where he died May 30.]

The kingdom of heaven must have fallen into regency.

Voltaire was put into the Bastille for libelling the regent and his family. The Duc de Brancas, having obtained his release, October, 1718, took him to the palace to thank the prince. Being obliged to wait a long time, Voltaire amused himself by looking out of the window; and seeing rain, snow, and hail falling together, turned to the duke with the remark, "In such weather as this, sir, would not one say that the kingdom of heaven had also

fallen into regency?" (Monsieur, en voyant un pareil temps, ne dirait-on pas que le ciel est aussi tombé en régence?) The regent told him to be careful, and he would take care of him; to which the poet coolly replied, "I should find it very good if his Majesty should be pleased henceforth to charge himself with my board, but I beg your Royal Highness not to trouble yourself further with my lodging."

Here is a letter which will never reach its address.

In 1722 Voltaire was sent on a diplomatic mission to Holland, and met in Brussels the French poet Jean Baptiste Rousseau, who handed him an ode or poem on "Immortality." The weak production drew from Voltaire the comment, "Voilà une lettre qui n'arrivera jamais à son adresse." A gentleman who had written a tragedy told Sheridan that Cumberland had offered to write a prologue to it; "and perhaps," he added, "Mr. Sheridan would not object to supply an epilogue." "Trust me, my dear sir," he replied, "it will never come to that."

Years after their meeting at Brussels, Voltaire said of Rousseau, "He despises me because I sometimes neglect to rhyme, and I despise him because he knows nothing except to rhyme."

Voltaire made more than one visit to Holland, where he brought out his "Henriade," and mixed in polite society. Nevertheless, he joined the canals, ducks, and rabble of that country in one farewell, the alliterative form of which cannot be preserved in English: "Adieu, canaux, canards, canaille!"

I begin my name, the Chevalier de Rohan ends his.

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At a dinner at the Duc de Sully's, in December, 1725, Voltaire contradicted the Chevalier de Rohan-Chabot, who asked who that young man was who talked with so much assurance (si haut): “I am the first of my name,” replied the poet, "you are the last of yours;' or, as also given, “I do not trail after me a great name, but I do honor to the name I bear." The guests applauded the poet, and the chevalier left the table. The next day Voltaire was called to a carriage in front of the Duc de Sully's house, and as he stepped into it was beaten by four of the chevalier's lackeys; which caused the Bishop of Blois to say, "How unfortunate we should be if poets had no shoulders!"

(Nous serions bien malheureux si les poêtes n'avaient point d'épaules.) When Voltaire appealed to the regent for justice, the latter dryly remarked, "It has been done you" (On vous l'a faite). The poet then attempted to vindicate himself by challenging the chevalier, and was shut up in the Bastille. During his captivity of fifteen days, he asked the lieutenant of police what was done with people who forged lettres de cachet; he replied that they were hanged. "That is right," said Voltaire, "in anticipation of the time when those who sign genuine ones shall be served in the same way."

Sir, had you been but a gentleman, I should not have visited you.

To Congreve, who replied to Voltaire's salutation as a dramatist of wit and imagination, "I am not an author, sir: I am a gentleman." Congreve, at the time of Voltaire's visit to England, was an old man, retired with pensions, and disposed to speak contemptuously of his literary achievements.

Other sayings of Voltaire's date from this visit to England. Thus he said of their parliamentary elections, "The English go mad once every seven years." He compared the people to their own beer, "froth on top, dregs at the bottom, the middle excellent." "The hangman," he said, "should write their history, for he has usually settled their disputes." He wrote in a letter: “If there were but one religion in England, its despotism would be formidable; if there were only two, they would throttle each other: but there are thirty, and they live happily and peaceably." The Marquis Caraccioli, Neapolitan ambassador in the last century, said, "There are in England sixty different religious sects, and only one gravy (melted butter)" (Il y a en Angleterre soixante sectes religieuses différentes, et une seule sauce). This resembles Talleyrand's remark that he found in the United States thirty-two religions and but one course at dinner (plat). The marquis also said of England, "The only fruit that ripen there are apples, for they are roasted." But this was more pointedly expressed by a Frenchman, the Comte de Lauraguais, who said, on his return from a first trip to England, that he found there "no ripe fruit but baked potatoes, and nothing polished (poli) but steel."

Is Trajan pleased?

On the return of Louis XV. from the battle of Fontenoy, November, 1745, Voltaire produced an opera called "The Temple of Glory," in which the king was represented as Trajan giving peace to the world, and receiving the crown denied to conquerors but reserved to the heroic friends of humanity. The piece was successful; and, as Louis passed out, Voltaire asked the Duc de Richelieu, in a tone loud enough to be heard by the king, "Is Trajan pleased?" (Trajan, est-il content?) Less flattered by the comparison than offended by the familiarity of a poet he had never liked, the French Trajan turned his back upon Voltaire without a word. It was perhaps because the Duc de Richelieu did not suggest a reply. At a time, says Fournier, when wit was every thing and good sense nothing, when a clever mot expiated a foolish action, any thing could be allowed in a king of France, except silence. Wit was one of the necessary articles of his trade, and Louis XV. lost a part of his popularity in not taking pains to be provided with it. At one time, according to Chamfort, the plan of a full court which the king was to hold was presented to him. Every thing was arranged between Louis, Mme. de Pompadour, and the ministers. The replies which the king was to make were dictated to him; and the entire proceeding was explained in a written programme, where can be read, "Here the king will look stern; here his Majesty's brow will become smooth again; here the king will make such and such a gesture," etc. The programme is still in existence. Euvres Choisies, p. 46.

The king's only answer to an application of Voltaire to visit Frederick the Great was, "My kingdom will then contain one fool less."

I think I advised you to go on living, if only to enrage those who pay you annuities.

In a letter to Mme. du Deffand, 1754. He also said of himself in April of that year, "As soon as I feel the symptoms of an indigestion, I say to myself, Three or four princes will gain by my

death.'"

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In the year 1755, when he settled at Geneva, he bought a bear; and, having heard that a priest had written a book justifying

the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, he wrote: "Send me that abominable book, and I will put it into my bear's cage."

Perhaps we were both mistaken.

During his stay at "Les Délices," in Geneva, Voltaire was visited by the Italian Casanova, who said, in answer to his host's praise of Haller, that the Bernese savant did not return the compliment by speaking well of Voltaire. 'Perhaps we were both mistaken," was the simple reply (Peut-être nous nous trompons tous les deux).

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Theano, the priestess of Delphi, told Timæonides, who had often reviled her, that, notwithstanding his unkindness, she always spoke well of him, but had the luck still to find that her panegyric had the same fate with his satire, - to be equally discredited. STERNE: Koran. Prior derived an epigram from

this: :

"You always speak ill of me,

I always speak well of thee;

But, spite of all our noise and pother,
The world believes not one nor t'other."

Écrasez l'infâme!

At the time of his settlement at Ferney, Voltaire began to use the expression which has become famous, "Écrasez le fantôme, écrasez le colosse,” and finally, “écrasez l'infâme." Thus to d'Alembert he wrote, "Courage: continue, you and your colleagues, [of "The Encyclopædia"] to overthrow the hideous phantom, enemy of philosophy and persecutor of philosophers."— PARTON: Life, II. 284; and again, "To overthrow the colossus, only five or six philosophers who understand one another are necessary;" then he explained his meaning: "The object is not to hinder our lackeys from going to mass or sermon: it is to rescue fathers of families from the tyranny of impostors, and to inspire the spirit of tolerance." He then adopted "Écrasez l'infâme" as his motto, writing it first to d'Alembert, June 23, 1760: "I end all my letters with 'Crush the infamous thing,' just as Cato always said, 'Such is my opinion, and Carthage must be destroyed."" Then he defines it more clearly: "I want you to

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