ng; which Voltaire often
adopts, and is supremely good at; and in which Friedrich, who is also
fond of it, by no means succeeds so well."

Enough, Friedrich got to Wesel, back to his business, in a day or two;
and had done, as we forever have, with the Strasburg Escapade and its
Doggerel.

FRIEDRICH FINDS M. DE MAUPERTUIS; NOT YET M. DE VOLTAIRE.

Friedrich got to Wesel on the 29th; found Maupertuis waiting there,
according to appointment: an elaborately polite, somewhat sublime
scientific gentleman; ready to "engraft on the Berlin crab-tree,"
and produce real apples and Academics there, so soon as the King, the
proprietor, may have leisure for such a thing. Algarotti has already
the honor of some acquaintance with Maupertuis. Maupertuis has been
at Brussels, on the road hither; saw Voltaire and even Madame,--which
latter was rather a ticklish operation, owing to grudges and tiffs of
quarrel that had risen, but it proved successful under the delicate
guidance of Voltaire. Voltaire is up to oiling the wheels: "There you
are, Monsieur, like the [don't name What, though profane Voltaire does,
writing to Maupertuis a month ago]--Three Kings running after you!" A
new Pension to you from France; Russia outbidding France to have you;
and then that LETTER of Friedrich's, which is in all the Newspapers:
"Three Kings,"--you plainly great man, Trismegistus of the Sciences
called Pure! Madame honors you, has always done: one word of apology
to the high female mind, it will work wonders;--come now! [Voltaire,
_OEuvres,_ lxxii. 217, 216, 230 (Hague, 21st July, 1740, and Brussels,
9th Aug. &c).]

No reader guesses in our time what a shining celestial body the
Maupertuis, who is now fallen so dim again, then was to mankind. In
cultivated French society there is no such lion as M. Maupertuis since
he returned from flattening the Earth in the Arctic regions. "The Exact
Sciences, what else is there to depend on?" thinks French cultivated
society: "and has not Monsieur done a feat in that line?" Monsieur,
with fine ex-military manners, has a certain austere gravity, reticent
loftiness and polite dogmatism, which confirms that opinion. A studious
ex-military man,--was Captain of Dragoons once, but too fond of
study,--who is conscious to himself, or who would fain be conscious,
that he is, in all points, mathematical, moral and other, the man. A
difficult man to live with in society. Comes really near the limit of
what we call gen