; and in the
background Friedrich has inarticulately a feeling as if, in this man,
there were something grander than all Literatures: a Reform of human
Thought itself; a new "Gospel," good-tidings or God's-Message, by this
man;--which Friedrich does not suspect, as the world with horror does,
to be a new BA'SPEL, or Devil's-Message of bad-tidings! A sublime enough
Voltaire; radiant enough, over at Cirey yonder. To all lands, a visible
Phoebus Apollo, climbing the eastern steeps; with arrows of celestial
"new light" in his quiver; capable of stretching many a big foul Python,
belly uppermost, in its native mud, and ridding the poor world of her
Nightmares and Mud-Serpents in some measure, we may hope!--

And so there begins, from this point, a lively Correspondence between
Friedrich and Voltaire; which, with some interruptions of a notable
sort, continued during their mutual Life; and is a conspicuous feature
in the Biographies of both. The world talked much of it, and still
talks; and has now at last got it all collected, and elucidated into a
dimly legible form for studious readers. [Preuss, _OEuvres de Frederic,_
(xxi. xxii. xxiii., Berlin, 1853); who supersedes the lazy French
Editors in this matter.] It is by no means the diabolically wicked
Correspondence it was thought to be; the reverse, indeed, on both
sides;--but it has unfortunately become a very dull one, to the actual
generation of mankind. Not without intrinsic merit; on the contrary
(if you read intensely, and bring the extinct alive again), it sparkles
notably with epistolary grace and vivacity; and, on any terms, it has
still passages of biographical and other interest: but the substance
of it, then so new and shining, has fallen absolutely commonplace, the
property of all the world, since then; and is now very wearisome to the
reader. No doctrine or opinion in it that you have not heard, with clear
belief or clear disbelief, a hundred times, and could wish rather not
to hear again. The common fate of philosophical originalities in this
world. As a Biographical Document, it is worth a very strict perusal,
if you are interested that way in either Friedrich or Voltaire: finely
significant hints and traits, though often almost evanescent, so slight
are they, abound in this Correspondence; frankness, veracity under
graceful forms, being the rule of it, strange to say! As an illustration
of Two memorable Characters, and of their Century; showing on what
terms