is more striking; but Racine pleases the French because he
has more softness and tenderness.'

SHERLOCK. "'How did you find [LIKE] the English fare (LA CHERE
ANGLAISE?'--which Voltaire mischievously takes for 'the dear
Englishwoman').

VOLTAIRE. "'I found her very fresh and white,'--truly! [It should
be remembered, that when he made this pun upon Women he was in his
eighty-third year.]

SHERLOCK. "'Their language?'

VOLTAIRE. "'Energetic, precise and barbarous; they are the only Nation
that pronounce their A as E.... [And some time afterwards] Though I
cannot perfectly pronounce English, my ear is sensible of the harmony of
your language and of your versification. Pope and Dryden have the most
harmony in Poetry; Addison in Prose.' [Takes now the interrogating
side.]

VOLTAIRE. "'How have you liked (AVEX-VOUS TROUVE) the French?'

SHERLOCK. "'Amiable and witty. I only find one fault with them: they
imitate the English too much.'

VOLTAIRE. "'How! Do you think us worthy to be originals ourselves?'

SHERLOCK. "'Yes, Sir.'

VOLTAIRE. "'So do I too:--but it is of your Government that we are
envious.'

SHERLOCK. "'I have found the French freer than I expected.'

VOLTAIRE. "'Yes, as to walking, or eating whatever he pleases, or
lolling in his elbow-chair, a Frenchman is free enough; but as to
taxes--Ah, Monsieur, you are a lucky Nation; you can do what you like;
poor we are born in slavery: we cannot even die as we will; we must have
a Priest [can't get buried otherwise; am often thinking of that!]...
Well, if the English do sell themselves, it is a proof that they are
worth something: we French don't sell ourselves, probably because we are
worth nothing.'

SHERLOCK. "'What is your opinion of the ELOISE' [Rousseau's immortal
Work]?

VOLTAIRE. "'That it will not be read twenty years hence.'

SHERLOCK. "'Mademoiselle de l'Enclos wrote some good LETTERS?'

VOLTAIRE. "'She never wrote one; they were by the wretched Crebillon'
[my beggarly old "Rival" in the Pompadour epoch]!...

VOLTAIRE. "'The Italians are a Nation of brokers. Italy is an
Old-Clothes shop; in which there are many Old Dresses of exquisite
taste.... But we are still to know, Whether the subjects of the Pope
or of the Grand Turk are the more abject.' [We have now gone to the
Drawing-room, I think, though it is not jotted.]

"He talked of England and of Shakspeare; and explained to Madame Denis
part of a Scene in Henry Fifth, where the King ma