N the preface to an ingenious volume, lately published, under the modeft title of Bagatelles, I lately faw the following obfervation, which my acquaintance with Voltaire has truly, too truly verified. "Authors are, in general, the reverfe of all other objects; they magnify, by diftance; they dimi. nish by approach it reminds me of a city built on a hill, and in perfpective; where the towers, the fpires, and lofty parts, are feen with admiration; but, on a nearer approach, we difcover ftreets, little alleys, and offenfive objects perhaps; till we are, at laft, taught to wish we never had quitted our first distance; and wish, though in vain, to be thus happily deceived, as before.”' narrow As this great author had ever in his eye, the realizing a proper for tune to retire upon, he has, fomehow or other, accomplished it; for, at prefent, he poffeffes a vaft tract of land in that part of Burgundy properly called the Pais de Gex: which ftretches almost to that gate of Geneva which opens into France, and that part of Switzerland bounding on the fouth-weft fide of the lake. It is plain, by anecdotes delivered to us from Berlin, that, during his long refidence there, and enjoying those fubftantial emoluments which that monarch denies even to his deliverers, the military gentlemen, Voltaire at laft fo enraged the king, by perpetual accounts of his mean behaviour; that one thing bringing on another, and joined to a quarrel with the great Maupertuis, then at the head of the academy of fciences in Berlin, Voltaire was difmiffed with a genteel kind of difgrace; being ordered to leave the golden key he wore, and to depart in twenty-four hours. It appeared that out of the ample allowance of the king of Pruffra, he had remitted every dollar home; though his majefty gave him a more ample penfion than ufual, to juftify his affectionate choice of this bofom friend, by fuppofing he would diffuse it among his fubjects; and thereby gain, if not a fettled, yet a tranfitory kind of popularity. The king lived to find the fallacy of his judgment in this parti cular, at leaft; and it is well known that this great little man, when the court went into deep mourning on fome near occafion, borrowed of fome friend a fuit that fitted him, rather than be at the expence of making a new one. That he was vexed to be found. out (and his good friend Maupertuis took efpecial care to enfilame the bill) appears by the fevere couplet or two left on his table, together with the king's picture and clef d'or; the purport of which was: "I received it with affection, " I return it with difdain; "As "As does a once fond lover to "his favourite, When his affection is turn'd "to hate." This is the purport, if not the exact tranflation. The king, as I heard, treated it with that proper contempt which Richard does the billet put into his hands the evening before the battle; which, as Sternhold and Hopkins have it on another occafion, may be either fung or faid. Voltaire was afterwards equally well received at the court of Manheim; and it was during his ftay here that he wrote his tragedy of Olympia; and, with his ufual accuracy, lays the fcene in the temple of Ephefus, two hundred years, at leaft, after that famous ftructure · was destroyed. And this reminds me of a ftrange anfwer he gave to old general Furftinberg at the fame court; who, giving him an hint, and with great diffidence to fo great an author; that a certain battle in his History of the War, was marked down as in the month of April, when really it happened in October; made anfwer, "Well fool! it was fought then; no matter when." What dependance on fuch a volatile hif torian ? The fame general was in England, as engineer-general to the Heffians; was governor to the prefent landgrave, during his minority; had great rank at the elector palatine's, as commandant of Manheim; and yet could not efcape the pointed ribaldry of our great author. One fmall circumftance at the court of Berlin feems neceffary, ere I drop the curtain there; that, as it came out afterwards, his majefty certainly availed himfelf (and perhaps it was his original view in the faid invitation) of his ftay there, to form certain odes, fince made public under the title of Philofophe fans Soucie; and which, if not Voltaire's, were corrected by him; on the quarrel the fecret ap peared, and Voltaire was rude enough to fay, I was his old wafherwoman, and was fent for only to clean his dirty fheers. Having been fo long accuftom ed to dethrone kings, and overi throw empires on paper, he thinks himself juftified in realizing these his chimeras; and this has been but a too general complaint at all courts, that the miniftry could not quietly go on in their work for him. When he left the palatine court, he retired to his new purchafe near Geneva. Various were the teal fons given for his fituation; name. ly, that he could dodge his perfe cutors from one country to ano ther, being in an hour either in Geneva, Switzerland, or Savoy! But where fuch property is, the ftake is too great for his perfon he would lefs value than an inch of his acquifitions. No author but himself ever per haps knew how to out-wit bookfellers; even thofe of Holland have felt his fuperiority of traffic; nay, while he has fold a copy at Paris, he would re-fell the fame to others at Leipfig, the Hague, Bruffels, Leige, Francfort, and elsewhere; with the addition only of a new title-page, or different introduction. He has a rented houfe, on the territory of Geneva, which he feldom vifits; and the real cause of diflike diflike was being prevented exhibiting a play there to the marfhal duke de Richelieu; for at the inftant, (which made the flight more confpicuous) they were going to lift the curtain, a caveat in form came from the ftates, and too powerfully attended to be gainfaid. At Fernex, his place of refidence, he found a large old French chateau, which he razed to the ground; and in its ftead, has erected a very noble feat-like houfe; but preferving fome awkward gateways, and turrets, the beauty of the building is much deformed on that front which faces the great road to Gex; and the back front is only visible to thofe walking there. Notwithstanding his long ftay in England, and his pretended attention to, and affectation of our tafte in planting, building, and gardening, every part of his demefne is equally frenchified as any citizen's plat of ground in the environs of Paris. All his woods are cut into walks ftar-fashion; and all the variety confifts in its being a star of greater or lefs magnitude, with more or fewer rays. Being the firft poffeffions he ever enjoyed, he takes all methods at table to inform his guests that every dish comes off the territoire; and as a gallows is the mark of a feigneurie or manor in France, he is not wanting alfo to inform you that he has as many potences as would ftring half the monarchs in Europe; and who, as he often fays, deferve no other or better exaltation. He feems fond (politically fo, perhaps becaufe the English at Geneva are his best friends in all kind of fubfcriptions, witnefs his edition of Corneille) to recount the honours he received, and connexions he made in England; and recounts that one evening all the geniufes were affembled in compli ment to him, at the earl of Peterborough's on Parfon's Green. As he had read and admired Addi̟fon's works, more than any other, he was happy to plant himfelf near fo great a man, himself being then a ftripling. It fo happened our English au thor was in one of his fits of taciturnity, but had drank too much, even fo as to be obliged to dif charge fome fhare of what he had loaded his ftomach, with; when the evening ended, and the company feparating, Voltaire waited. on Mr. Addison to the coach; confeffed his obligation at having had the honour to fit fo near him all the time; but added, "That he was forry to fay the beft thing which came out of his mouth that night was the claret." It was at the fame time he claims the merit of furnishing Mr. Pope with the metaphor of his ape in the first Effay on Man; and even fays, that many other of the best philofophical maxims were his own; particularly all that portion. of the third effay, which gives the hiftory of natural government. However his pen now may be unequal to tracts of length or foli, dity, his vein for the bon-mot and quick repartee remains, and moft likely will to the laft; one proof of this will ferve for the prefent. At the rehearfal of one of his own tragedies, Mr. Cramer, book feller feller at Geneva (and Voltaire's own immediate publisher) was finishing his part, which was to end with fome dying fentences; when Voltaire, all defpotic over thofe he thinks his dependents, cries out aloud; Cramer, you lived like a prince for the four preceding acts, but at the fifth you die like a bookfeller." Dr. Tronchin, the Boerhaave of this age, being prefent, could not help in 'kindnefs interfering; adding with all, "Why, Monf. de Voltaire, can you ever expect to have gentlemen to be at this expence of dreffes, and fatigue of getting fuch long parts, if you thus continue to upbraid them? On the contrary, I think they all deferve the greatest encouragement at your hands; and as to my friend Cramer, I declare, that, as far as I am a judge, he dies with the fame dignity he lived." Voltaire, who detefts advice, or being informed by an inferior (for an author is, in his eye, beyond even an Efculapius were he living) made this cool anfwer; " Pr'ythee, doctor, when you have got kings to kill, kill them your own way; let me kill mine as I pleafe." Mr. Voltaire's theatre is in one of his out-offices, is neatly fitted up, and may contain two hundred perfons; two changes of fcenes anfwer all the ends of French tra gedy or comedy; tho' they begin to follow the English custom of late, and think unity of time and place not effential in the leaft to good plays. Indeed, if my fancy ftretches fo far, as one night to imagine a parcel of deal planks to be Athens, the next evening Paris, and the day after old Rome; I may, by the fame change of ideas, change the fcenes too; and equally imagine the bufinefs of three days to be comprized into three hours; as that incidents of time and chance fhould fall into the compass of three hours; which it is impoffible fhould have occurred in as many days. But as French tragedy all cen ters in palace-plot, and cabinet. confpiracy; and as all their fpecies of comedy falls into the path of parlour-intrigue, their ftage may ftill fupport this folly half a century longer. The English being by their nature Ubiquarians, and feldom in one place long, must have painted canvafs as thick as their ideas; or they would fall afleep. To return to our little theatre at Fernex: the attendants are made up of the butler, coachman, groom, &c. I have caught the laughing dairy-maid in the habit of a prieftefs: and the old cook was found in the fact of being for that night a young vestal. But what abates the whole plea. fure, is the frequent and outra geous interruptions of Mr. Voltaire, who, when any paffage goes wrong, never fails to proclaim it: and will cross the stage in his night-cap and gown to fcold at an emprefs, or pull the cap of a queen. Great wits, fays a great author, are furely allied to madness; one would imagine this who faw our epic-writer on fuch a night. I remember his coachman not entering time enough to lay him down gently in the hour of death, in the character of a Turkish flave, he changed his tragedy part into 66 comic reafoning; and whimfically afked him for a receipt in full of all demands; for I am fure," faid Voltaire, "I must be in your debt, or you would not have used me fo, as to let me die thus like a beggar." After the moft ferious conclufion of a tragedy, or refined finishing of a comedy, this great man renders himself truly little, by fome jeft to the audience, lower, if poffible, than a merry andrew's at Bartholomew fair. And fo little does he think mu fic a part of the entertainment, that, when Mr. Hayes, now mafter of the king's band in Dublin, made up a pleafing fet in his orcheftra, he always fhortened their ingenuity by the warning-bell; or would be laughing in the pit or boxes with ladies, fo very loud, as to drown all efforts of harmony. This is rather the more furprifing, as he pays great attention to his niece, madame Dennis; who plays the harpfichord equal, if not fuperior, to any profeffor of the science. And, fince I have mentioned one lady of his houfhold, I am called upon to inform the reader that the defcendant of the great Corneille was at the eve of her fti pend, as a penfioner in fome convent in France; when he, with no fmall labour, found her out; and having married her to a French officer, one Depuy, Voltaire feem. ingly published Corneille's works by fubfcription, to make her a fortune equal to her husband; but, from many other concurrent circumftances in his life of avarice and penury, I do really believe Voltaire fhared the profits, which I hear amounted to near 5000l. fterling.` When we confider how many crowned heads efpoufed this un dertaking, this fum lefs furprises ; but this we know, that where (as the emprefs-queen for inftance) any great perfonage fubfcribed for an hundred, and only in politenefs took one copy; he fold all the reft at a market price, and fo trafficked with the generofity of his beft friends. The young couple live under his roof; and though never married himfelf, yet does he love to see others happy in that ftate; having, as I heard him fay, joined toge ther eighteen couple of fervants, during his refidence at Fernex: fcarce then above five years. He has other good houfes on his eftates; fuch as Tournaye, &c. for the French mark their fmalleft demefnes with a chateau; though perhaps the faid building fhall never be furnished or finished. Under thefe articles of finishing and furnishing, no houses are per haps fo infufferably defective as the country-houfes in France: thofe who can afford to have two houses, (namely, town and country) fend all their beft moveables to Paris; while those whofe circumfcribed fortunes never permit them that advantage, live in farms; which being tricked off with a few turrets and pinnacles, bears the name of chateau always. From this vanity of a little piece of property, occurs that perpetual jumble in the names of families, fo as hardly to be able ever to distin guifh one branch from another; for should a lord of a manor have ten fons, one takes the name of Du-bois (of the wood); a fecond de |