on for hunting, and the tippling life he
leads this long time, throw him out when he comes among reasonable
persons.... "I expect my Sister of Brunswick, with the Duke and their
eldest Girl, the 4th of next month,"--to Carnival here. "It is seven
years since the Queen (our Mamma) has seen her. She holds a small
Board of Wit at Brunswick; of which your Doctor [Doctor Superville,
Dutch-French, whose perennial merit now is, That he did not burn
Wilhelmina's MEMOIRS, but left them safe to posterity, for long
centuries],--of which your Doctor is the director and oracle. You would
burst outright into laughing when she speaks of those matters. Her
natural vivacity and haste has not left her time to get to the bottom of
anything; she skips continually from one subject to the other, and
gives twenty decisions in a minute." [--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxvii. i.
202:--On Superville, see Preuss's Note, ib. 56.]

About a month before Rothenburg's death, which was so tragical to
Friedrich, there had fallen out, with a hideous dash of farce in it, the
death of La Mettrie. Here are Two Accounts, by different hands,--which
represent to us an immensity of babble in the then Voltaire circle.

LA METTRIE DIES.--Two Accounts: 1. King Friedrich's: to Wilhelmina.
"21st November, 1751.... We have lost poor La Mettrie. He died for a
piece of fun: ate, out of banter, a whole pheasant-pie; had a horrible
indigestion; took it into his head to have blood let, and convince the
German Doctors that bleeding was good in indigestion. But it succeeded
ill with him: he took a violent fever, which passed into putrid; and
carried him off. He is regretted by all that knew him. He was gay; BON
DIABLE, good Doctor, and very bad Author: by avoiding to read his Books,
one could manage to be well content with himself." [Ib. xxvii. i. 203.]

2. Voltaire's: to Niece Denis (NOT his first to her): Potsdam, 24th
December, 1751.... "No end to my astonishment. Milord Tyrconnel," always
ailing (died here himself), "sends to ask La Mettrie to come and see
him, to cure him or amuse him. The King grudges to part with his Reader,
who makes him laugh. La Mettrie sets out; arrives at his Patient's just
when Madame Tyrconnel is sitting down to table: he eats and drinks,
talks and laughs more than all the guests; when he has got crammed (EN A
JUSQU'AU MENTON), they bring him a pie, of eagle disguised as pheasant,
which had arrived from the North, plenty of bad lard, pork-hash and