ut of which a French
wit may be scarcely said to live; and kept up his intercourse with Mrs
Clayton by the following letter:

"_Paris, April_ 18, 1729.

"Madame,--Though I am out of London, the favours which your
ladyship has honoured me with, are not, nor ever will be, out of my
memory. I will remember, as long as I live, that the most
respectable lady, who waits, and is a friend to the most truly
great queen in the world, has vouchsafed to protect me, and receive
me with kindness while I was at London.

"I am just now arrived at Paris, and pay my respects to your Court,
before I see our own. I wish, for the honour of Versailles, and for
the improvement of virtue and letters, we could have here some
ladies like you. You see, my wishes are unbounded. So is the
respect and gratitude I am with, Madame, your most humble, obedient
servant,

"Voltaire."

We pass over a thousand triflings in the subsequent pages--the alarms of
court ladies for the loss of a royal smile, the sickness of a favourite
monkey, or the formidable "impossibility" of matching a set of old
china. Such are the calamities of having nothing to do. We see in those
pages instances of high-born men contented to linger round the court for
life, performing some petty office which, however, required constant
attendance on the court circle, and submitting, with many a groan, it
must be confessed, to the miserable routine of trivial duties and meagre
ceremonial, much fitter for their own footmen; while they left their own
magnificent mansions to solitude, their noble estates unvisited, their
tenantry uncheered, unprotected, and unencouraged by their residence in
their proper sphere, and finally degenerated into feeble gossips,
splenetic intriguers, and ridiculous encumbrances of the court itself.

Difficulty seems essential to the vigour of man. Difficulty seems
essential even to the vigour of nations. The old theory, that luxury is
the ruin of a state, was obviously untrue; for in no condition of the
earth could luxury ever go down to the multitude. But the true evil of
states is, the decay of the national activity, the chill of the national
ardour, the adoption of a trifling, indolent, vegetative style of being.
Into this life France had sunk, from the time of Louis XIV. Into this
life Germany had sunk, from