; and that Maupertuis
answered, 'I cannot interfere in a bad business (ME MELER D'UNE MAUVAISE
AFFAIRE).'" The other French Biographies, definable as "IGNOR-AMUS
speaking in a loud voice to IGNOR-ATIS," require to be altogether swept
aside in this matter. Even "Clog." jumbling Voltaire's undated LETTERS
into confusion thrice confounded, and droning out vituperatively in the
dark, becomes a MINUS quantity in these Friedrich affairs. In regard
to the Hirsch Process, our one irrefragable set of evidences is: The
Prussian LAW-REPORT by KLEIN,--especially the Documents produced in
Court, and the Sentence given. [Ernst Ferdinand Klein,--Annalen
der Gesetzgebung und Rechtsgelehrsamkeit in den Preussischen
Staaten--(Berlin und Stettin), 1790, v. 215-260.] Other lights are to
be gathered, with severe scrutiny and caution, from the circumambient
contemporary rumor,--especially from the PREFACE to a "Comedy" so called
of "TANTALE EN PROCES (Tantalus," Voltaire, "at Law");--which PREFACE is
evidently Hirsch's own Story, put into language for him by some humane
friend, and addressed to a "clear-seeing Public." [TANTALE EN PROCES
(ascribed to Friedrich himself, by some wonderful persons!) is
in--Supplement aux OEuvres Posthumes de Frederic II.--(Cologne, 1789),
i. 319 et seq. Among the weakest of Comedies (might be by D'Arnaud, or
some such hand); nothing in it worth reading except the Preface.] "And
in fine," says my Manuscript, "by sweeping out the distinctly false,
and well discriminating the indubitable from what is still in part
dubitable, sufficient twilight [abridgable in a high degree, I hope!]
rises over the Affair, to render it visible in all its main features."

THE VOLTAIRE-HIRSCH TRANSACTION: PART I. ORIGIN OF LAWSUIT (10th
November-25th December, 1750).

"Saxon STEUER-SCHEIN, some readers know, is, in the rough, equivalent to
Exchequer Bill. Payable at the Saxon Treasury; to Prussians, in gold; to
all other men, in paper only,--which (thanks to Bruhl and his unheard-of
expenditures and financierings) is now at a discount say of 25, or even
30 per cent. By Article Eleventh of the Dresden TREATY OF PEACE, King
Friedrich, if our readers have not forgotten, got stipulated, That all
Prussian holders of these SCHEINE should be paid in gold; interest
at the due days; and at the due days principal itself:--in gold they,
whatever became of others. No farther specifications, as to proof,
method, limits or conditions of any