ilar
opinions, and had been accustomed to practise similar dissimulation.

The Prince wrote to his idol in the style of a worshipper; and Voltaire
replied with exquisite grace and address. A correspondence followed,
which may be studied with advantage by those who wish to become
proficients in the ignoble art of flattery. No man ever paid
compliments better than Voltaire. His sweetest confectionery had always
a delicate, yet stimulating flavor, which was delightful to palates
wearied by the coarse preparations of inferior artists. It was only from
his hand that so much sugar could be swallowed without making the
swallower sick. Copies of verses, writing desks, trinkets of amber, were
exchanged between the friends. Frederic confided his writings to
Voltaire; and Voltaire applauded, as if Frederic had been Racine and
Bossuet in one. One of his Royal Highness's performances was a
refutation of Machiavelli. Voltaire undertook to convey it to the press.
It was entitled the Anti-Machiavel, and was an edifying homily against
rapacity, perfidy, arbitrary government, unjust war, in short, against
almost everything for which its author is now remembered among men.

The old King uttered now and then a ferocious growl at the diversions of
Rheinsberg. But his health was broken; his end was approaching; and his
vigor was impaired. He had only one pleasure left, that of seeing tall
soldiers. He could always be propitiated by a present of a grenadier of
six feet four or six feet five; and such presents were from time to time
judiciously offered by his son.

Early in the year 1740 Frederic William met death with a firmness and
dignity worthy of a better and wiser man; and Frederic, who had just
completed his twenty-eighth year, became King of Prussia. His character
was little understood. That he had good abilities, indeed, no person who
had talked with him, or corresponded with him, could doubt. But the easy
Epicurean life which he had led, his love of good cookery and good wine,
of music, of conversation, of light literature, led many to regard him
as a sensual and intellectual voluptuary. His habit of canting about
moderation, peace, liberty, and the happiness which a good mind derives
from the happiness of others, had imposed on some who should have known
better. Those who thought best of him, expected a Telemachus after
Fenelon's pattern. Others predicted the approach of a Medicean age,--an
age propitious to learning and art, and