sk; and thus relieved the world
from the weight of more _Pantheisticons_!

With all this bustle of authorship, amidst temporary publications
which required such prompt ingenuity, and elaborate works which
matured the fruits of early studies, Toland was still not a sedentary
writer. I find that he often travelled on the continent; but how could
a guinealess author so easily transport himself from Flanders to
Germany, and appear at home in the courts of Berlin, Dresden, and
Hanover? Perhaps we may discover a concealed feature in the character
of our ambiguous philosopher.

In the only Life we have of Toland, by Des Maiseaux, prefixed to his
posthumous works, he tells us, that Toland was at the court of Berlin,
but "an incident, _too ludicrous to be mentioned_, obliged him to
leave that place sooner than he expected." Here is an incident in a
narrative clearly marked out, but never to be supplied! Whatever this
incident was, it had this important result, that it sent Toland away
in haste; but _why_ was he there? Our chronological biographer,[115]
"good easy man," suspects nothing more extraordinary when he tells us
Toland was at Berlin or Hanover, than when he finds him at Epsom;
imagines Toland only went to the Electoral Princess Sophia, and the
Queen of Prussia, who were "ladies of sublime genius," to entertain
them by vexing some grave German divines, with philosophical
conferences, and paradoxical conundrums; all the ravings of Toland's
idleness.[116]

This secret history of Toland can only be picked out by fine threads.
He professed to be a literary character--he had opened a periodical
"literary correspondence," as he terms it, with Prince Eugene; such as
we have witnessed in our days by Grimm and La Harpe, addressed to some
northern princes. He was a favourite with the Electoral Princess
Sophia and the Queen of Prussia, to whom he addressed his "Letters to
Serena." Was he a political agent? Yet how was it that Toland was
often driven home by distressed circumstances? He seems not to have
been a practical politician, for he managed his own affairs very ill.
Was the political intriguer rather a suspected than a confidential
servant of all his masters and mistresses? for it is evident no one
cared for him! The absence of moral integrity was probably never
disguised by the loquacious vanity of this literary adventurer.

In his posthumous works are several "Memorials" for the Earl of
Oxford, which throw a new light