nd the invitation, and Diderot willingly enough went homeward by
the northern route by which he had come. He passed Koenigsberg, where, if
he had known it, Kant was then meditating the Critic of Pure Reason. It
is hardly probable that Diderot met the famous worthy who was destined
to deal so heavy a blow to the Encyclopaedic way of thinking, and to
leave a name not less illustrious than Frederick or Catherine. A court
official was sent in charge of the philosopher. The troubles of posting
by the sea-road between Koenigsberg and Memel had moved him to the
composition of some very bad verses on his first journey; and the horror
of crossing the Dwina inspired others that were no better on his return.
The weather was hard; four carriages were broken in the journey. He
expected to be drowned as the ice creaked under his horses' feet at
Riga, and he thought that he had broken an arm and a shoulder as he
crossed the ferry at Mittau. But all ended well, and he found himself
once more under the roof of Prince Galitzin at the Hague. Hence he
wrote to his wife and his other friends in Paris, that it must be a
great consolation to them to know that he was only separated from them
by a journey of four days. That journey was not taken, however, for
nearly four months. Diderot had promised the Empress that he would
publish a set of the regulations for the various institutions which she
had founded for the improvement of her realm. This could only be done,
or could best be done, in Holland. His life there was spent as usual in
the slavery of proof-sheets, tempered by daily bursts of conversation,
rhapsody, discussion, and dreamy contemplation. He made the acquaintance
of a certain Bjoernstaehl, a professor of oriental languages at the
university of Lund in Sweden, and a few pages in this obscure writer's
obscure book contain the only glimpse that we have of the philosopher on
his travels.[89] Diderot was as ecstatic in conversation, as we know him
to have been in his correspondence, in praise of the august friend whom
he had left. The least of his compliments was that she united the charms
of Cleopatra to the soul of Caesar, or sometimes it was, to the soul of
Brutus.

[88] D'Alembert au Roi de Prusse. Feb. 14, 1774.

[89] _Briefe aus seinen auslaendischen Reisen_, iii. 217-233.
(Leipsic, 1780--a German translation from the Swedish.)

"At the Hague," says Bjoernstaehl, "we go about every day with M. Diderot.
He has views