E VISIT.

Voltaire's Visit lasted, in all, about Thirty-two Months; and is
divisible into Three Acts or Stages. The first we have seen: how
it commenced in brightness as of the sun, and ended, by that Hirsch
business, in whirlwinds of smoke and soot,--Voltaire retiring, on his
passionate prayer, to that silent Country-house which he calls the
Marquisat; there to lie in hospital, and wash himself a little, and let
the skies wash themselves.

The Hirsch business having blown over, as all things do, Voltaire
resumed his place among the Court-Planets, and did his revolutions;
striving to forget that there ever was a Hirsch, or a soot-explosion of
that nature. In words nobody reminded him of it, the King least of all:
and by degrees matters were again tolerably glorious, and all might have
gone well enough; though the primal perfect splendor, such fuliginous
reminiscence being ineffaceable, never could be quite re-attained. The
diamond Cross of Merit, the Chamberlain gold Key, hung bright upon the
man; a man the admired of men. He had work to do: work of his own which
he reckoned priceless (that immortal SIECLE DE LOUIS QUATORZE; which
he stood by, and honestly did, while here; the one fixed axis in those
fooleries and whirlings of his);--work for the King, "two hours,
one hour, a day," which the King reckoned priceless in its sort. For
Friedrich himself Voltaire has, with touches of real love coming out
now and then, a very sincere admiration mixed with fear; and delights
in shining to him, and being well with him, as the greatest pleasure now
left in life. Besides the King, he had society enough, French in type,
and brilliant enough: plenty of society; or, at his wish, what was still
better, none at all. He was bedded, boarded, lodged, as if beneficent
fairies had done it for him; and for all these things no price asked,
you might say, but that he would not throw himself out of window! Had
the man been wise--But he was not wise. He had, if no big gloomy devil
in him among the bright angels that were there, a multitude of ravening
tumultuary imps, or little devils very ILL-CHAINED; and was lodged,
he and his restless little devils, in a skin far too thin for him and
them!--

Reckoning up the matter, one cannot find that Voltaire ever could have
been a blessing at Berlin, either for Friedrich or himself; and it is to
be owned that Friedrich was not wise in so longing for him, or clasping
him so frankly in his arms. As Fri