Arriving in England in 1726, Voltaire remained there upward of two years. Of this episode of his life, we have only the most meager account. It is certain, in a general way, that lie had the entrée to the best English society; he knew Bolingbroke, Pope, and we need not doubt, many others of the intellectually distinguished. Of his visit to the famous Mr. Congreve, and the little skirmish of wit between them, we have express record. It was a whim_ of Congreve to affect dislike of his fame as an author, as to a certain extent a disparagement of his claims as a person of quality. On his signifying to Voltaire that it was simply as this last he desired that his friends should regard him, he was answered to the effect, that had he been nothing more than the elegant gentle man he considered himself, M. de Voltaire would scarce have thought it worth while to solicit the honor of his acquaintance. To Voltaire, his residence in England was fruit ful of new knowledge and ideas; in the school of the English deists, Bolingbroke, Col lins, Tindal, Wollaston, etc., he found speculations much to his mind; the philosophies of Newton and Locke he studied diligently; and in his subsequent dramas there may be traced a distinct influence from Shakespeare, whom, however, he has expressly vilified, as a barbarous monster of a writer, intolerable to any reader with the least tincture of orthodox French gafit in him. Not the less the distinction remains with Voltaire of having been the first Frenchman to recognize in some decisive, if grudging and inade quate way, the essential superiority of our great national poet. The intellectual debt thus indicated was not the only one which Voltaire owed to England. While resident tilde, he published in a revised form his epic poem, the Henriade, a surreptitious edi tion of which had already appeared in France. The work was dedicated in English to queen Caroline; the subscription for it was headed by her and other members of the royal family; the rank and fashion of the country could not but follow the illustri ous example set them; and for result Voltaire could convey into his pocket the com fortable sum (stated so high as S:8,000),`which became the basis of his future fortune. From the time of his return to Paris in 1728, he had always on hand some speculation: in vestments in corn, bacon, or whatever a pretty penny could be turned by, with now and then a fat army-contract, which a friend might have interest to secure for him ; and so shrewd in his finance was he, that, owing but little to his books, which, despite of their immense popularity, were never a source of great profit to him, his income at his death is ascertained to have netted some £7,000 per annum, a revenue then to be styled prince ly. Of his literary labors, from this time forward unremitting, the sum of which re mains in something like ninety volumes, no detailed account can here be attempted. His was truly a universal genius; he wrote literally everything—histories, dramas, poems, disquisitions, literary, philosophical, and scientific; novels, for the most part with'some doctrinal purpose, of which his famous Candide, or the Optimist, may stand as the type; his literary correspondence was on an unexampled scale; and lie was sel dom without some fierce polemic on hand, in which his adversaries had to writhe for the amusement of the public, under the scourge of his envenomed wit.
In the gay society of Paris, he became acquainted with a certain Mine. du Chatelet, who was living apart from her husband, the marquis, though still on polite terms with him. She was asses spirituelle; a most fascinating women of the world, and in the mat ter of intellectual accomplishment, the bluest wonder of the period; most especially she was deep in mathematics, and had mastered the mysteries of Newton's Thine:Pia. As
himself an admirer of Newton, Voltaire could not but be charmed to meet him thus surprisingly put into petticoats; nor could a woman so intellectual as madame fail, in her turn, to appreciate the tender attentions of such a genius as M. de Voltaire. Their intimacy became extreme; and finally, in 1733—the husband of the lady behaving like a philosopher and man of fashion of the time, and continuing now and then to • • visit them—they went off to prosecute it undisturbed at Cirey, an old chateau in Cham pagne, the property of M. du Chatelet. Here, for the most part, they diligently studied Newton together for the next fifteen years. The arrangement seems to have been on the whole a not unhappy one; but toward the close it became complicated for M. de Voltaire by the advent of another lover, in the person of a Monsieur de Saint-Lambert. It is not conjectured that this gentleman knew anything of Newton, or was at all such a genius as Voltaire; hut it is certain that, on some other ground unexplained, lie found favor with Mine. du Chatelet. The philosophy which the husband had been good enough to practice in favor of Voltaire was now required of himself; and after a little unpleasantness he was able to reconcile himself to the inevitable. This curious triangu lar love-affair--oi .quare, if we include the husband—was not, however, of very long duration. In 1748 Mme. du Chatelet died in child-bed. Voltaire was overcome with grief ; and the touching reproach which, in the first agony of bereavement, lie addressed to the culpable M. de Saint-Latnbert, a fortunate chance has preserved for us: "Eh! mon Dieu ! Monsieur, de quoi coos avisiee vans de lui faire un enfant." This, which is now so shocking, illustrates strikingly the morals of a period in which it seemed entirely comma it fast.
To dissipate the sense of loneliness which overpowered him in the loss of his "divine Emilie," as he was wont, in his more lyrical moments, to call her, Voltaire once more betook himself to Paris, whence, in 1750, he proceeded to Berlin, on the invitation of the young king of Prussia, Frederick, since known as "the great." Between him and Voltaire much correspondence had already passed; and they seem to have entertained for each other a sincere admiration and regard. When they came together, however, it was found, as so often in such cases before and since, that it is not in the matter of ' mountains only that " distance lends enchantme,nt to the view." They quarreled bitterly, and parted; Voltaire, at his exit from the country, being subjected to indignities which he found it hard to forgive. Into the details of the quarrel we need not enter. When we say that the king was a poet at once most profuse and most execrable; and that the main function of Voltaire—himself a poet—was to criticise and correct his verses, it should almost seem that we indicate, without going further, a sufficient Orig0 malt. Voltaire detested the king's verses; the king could hardly have been even the very bad poet lie was, without heartily detesting Voltaire's criticism and corrections. Is it mar velous that in no long time they got heartily to detest each other? A reconciliation was afterward effected, and their literary correspondence was resumed under the old forms of friendliness; but meantime Voltaire had avenged himself in the amusing but most scandalous chronicle, entitled Vie Privee du Roi de Prusse, which was found at his death among his papers, and published, as there is pretty good reason to suppose the wicked wit meant it should be.