ke
(solemnly emphatic statement of what you already know; concentrated
struggle to get on wing, and failure by so narrow a miss; struggle which
gets only on tiptoe, and won't cease wriggling and flapping); and
then (to your horror) they prove to be carefully cleaned of all
the Maupertuis-VOLTAIRE matter;--edition being SUBSEQUENT to that
world-famous explosion. CAVEAT EMPTOR.--Our Excerpt proceeds:--

"Industrious Konig, like other mathematical people, has been listening
to these Oracles on the 'Law of Minimum,' by the Perpetual President;
and grieves to find, after study, That said Law does not quite hold;
that in fact it is, like Descartes's old key or general door, worth
little or nothing; as Leibnitz long ago seems to have transiently
recognized. Konig has put his strictures on paper: but will not dream
of publishing, till the Perpetual President have examined them and
satisfied himself; and that is Konig's business at present, as he knocks
on Maupertuis, while Sol is crossing the Line. Maupertuis has a House of
the due style: Wife a daughter of Minister Borck's (high Borcks, 'old
as the DIUVEL'); no children;--his back courts always a good deal dirty
with pelicans, bustards, perhaps snakes and other zoological wretches,
which sometimes intrude into the drawing-rooms, otherwise very fine. A
man of some whims, some habits; arbitrary by nature, but really honest,
though rather sublimish in his interior, with red Wig and yellow bottom.

"Konig, all filial gladness, is received gladly;--though, by degrees,
with some surprise, on the paternal part, to find Konig ripened out of
son, client and pupil, into independent posture of a grown man. Frankly
certain enough about himself, and about the axioms of mathematics.
Standing, evidently, on his own legs; kindly as ever, but on these
new terms,--in fact rather an outspoken free-and-easy fellow (I should
guess), not thinking that offence can be taken among friends. Formey
confesses, this was uncomfortable to Maupertuis; in fact, a shock which
he could not recover from. They had various meetings, over dinner aud
otherwise, at the Perpetual President's, for perhaps two weeks at
this time (dates all to be had in Formey's Note-book, if anybody would
consult); in the whole course of which the shock to the Perpetual
President increased, instead of diminishing. Republican freedom and
equality is evidently Konig's method; Konig heeds not a whit the
oracular talent or majestic positio