e art of conversation. Philosophism
sits joyful in her glittering saloons, the dinner-guest of Opulence
grown ingenuous, the very nobles proud to sit by her; and preaches,
lifted up over all Bastilles, a coming millennium. From far Ferney,
Patriarch Voltaire gives sign: veterans Diderot, D'Alembert have
lived to see this day; these with their younger Marmontels, Morellets,
Chamforts, Raynals, make glad the spicy board of rich ministering
Dowager, of philosophic Farmer-General. O nights and suppers of the
gods! Of a truth, the long-demonstrated will now be done: 'the Age
of Revolutions approaches' (as Jean Jacques wrote), but then of happy
blessed ones. Man awakens from his long somnambulism; chases the
Phantasms that beleagured and bewitched him. Behold the new morning
glittering down the eastern steeps; fly, false Phantasms, from its
shafts of light; let the Absurd fly utterly forsaking this lower
Earth for ever. It is Truth and Astraea Redux that (in the shape of
Philosophism) henceforth reign. For what imaginable purpose was man
made, if not to be 'happy'? By victorious Analysis, and Progress of the
Species, happiness enough now awaits him. Kings can become philosophers;
or else philosophers Kings. Let but Society be once rightly
constituted,--by victorious Analysis. The stomach that is empty shall be
filled; the throat that is dry shall be wetted with wine. Labour itself
shall be all one as rest; not grievous, but joyous. Wheatfields, one
would think, cannot come to grow untilled; no man made clayey, or made
weary thereby;--unless indeed machinery will do it? Gratuitous Tailors
and Restaurateurs may start up, at fit intervals, one as yet sees not
how. But if each will, according to rule of Benevolence, have a care
for all, then surely--no one will be uncared for. Nay, who knows but,
by sufficiently victorious Analysis, 'human life may be indefinitely
lengthened,' and men get rid of Death, as they have already done of
the Devil? We shall then be happy in spite of Death and the Devil.--So
preaches magniloquent Philosophism her Redeunt Saturnia regna.

The prophetic song of Paris and its Philosophes is audible enough in
the Versailles Oeil-de-Boeuf; and the Oeil-de-Boeuf, intent chiefly on
nearer blessedness, can answer, at worst, with a polite "Why not?" Good
old cheery Maurepas is too joyful a Prime Minister to dash the world's
joy. Sufficient for the day be its own evil. Cheery old man, he cuts his
jokes, and hovers