ned well; one of his chief enjoyments
was, to give and receive from his fellow-creatures in that way. I hope,
and indeed have evidence, that he required good sense as the staple;
but in the form, he allowed great latitude. He by no means affected
solemnity, rather the reverse; goes much upon the bantering vein; far
too much, according to the complaining parties. Took pleasure (cruel
mortal!) in stirring up his company by the whip, and even by the whip
applied to RAWS; for we find he had "established," like the Dublin
Hackney-Coachman, "raws for himself;" and habitually plied his implement
there, when desirous to get into the gallop. In an inhuman manner, said
the suffering Cattle; who used to rebel against it, and go off in the
sulks from time to time. It is certain he could, especially in his
younger years, put up with a great deal of zanyism, ingenious foolery
and rough tumbling, if it had any basis to tumble on; though with years
he became more saturnine.

By far his chief Artist in this kind, indeed properly the only one, was
La Mettrie, whom we once saw transiently as Army-Surgeon at Fontenoy: he
is now out of all that (flung out, with the dogs at his heels); has been
safe in Berlin for three years past. Friedrich not only tolerates the
poor madcap, but takes some pleasure in him: madcap we say, though poor
La Mettrie had remarkable gifts, exuberant laughter one of them, and
was far from intending to be mad. Not Zanyism, but Wisdom of the highest
nature, was what he drove at,--unluckily, with open mouth, and mind all
in tumult. La Mettrie had left the Army, soon after that busy Fontenoy
evening: Chivalrous Grammont, his patron and protector, who had saved
him from many scrapes, lay shot on the field. La Mettrie, rushing on
with mouth open and mind in tumult, had, from of old, been continually
getting into scrapes. Unorthodox to a degree; the Sorbonne greedy
for him long since; such his audacities in print, his heavy hits,
boisterous, quizzical, logical. And now he had set to attacking the
Medical Faculty, to quizzing Medicine in his wild way; Doctor Astruc,
Doctor This and That, of the first celebrity, taking it very ill. So
that La Mettrie had to demit; to get out of France rather in a hurry,
lest worse befell.

He had studied at Leyden, under Boerhaave. He had in fact considerable
medical and other talent, had he not been so tumultuous and
open-mouthed. He fled to Leyden; and shot forth, in safety there, his
fi