ing; had to believe steadily that his Academy must be right; that
Konig was some loose bird, envious of an eagle Maupertuis, sitting aloft
on his high Academic perch: this Friedrich took for the truth of the
matter;--and could not let himself imagine that his sublime Perpetual
President, who was usually very prudent and Jove-like, had been led,
by his truculent vanity (which Friedrich knew to be immense in the man,
though kept well out of sight), into such playing of fantastic tricks
before high Heaven and other on-lookers. This view of the matter had
hitherto been Friedrich's; nor do I know that he ever inwardly departed
from it;--as outwardly he, for certain, never did; standing, King-like,
clear always for his Perpetual President, till this hurricane of
Pamphlets blew by. Voltaire's little Piece, therefore, was the
unwelcomest possible.

This new bolt of electric fire, launched upon the storm-tost President
from Berlin itself, and even from the King's House itself,--by whom, too
clearly recognizable,--what an irritating thing! Unseemly, in fact,
on Voltaire's part; but could not be helped by a Voltaire charged with
electricity. Friedrich evidently in considerable indignation, finding
that public measures would but worsen the uproar, took pen in hand;
wrote rapidly the indignant LETTER FROM AN ACADEMICIAN OF BERLIN TO AN
ACADEMICIAN OF PARIS: [--OEuvres de Frederic,--xv. 59-64 (not dated;
datable "October, 1752").] which Piece, of some length, we cannot give
here; but will briefly describe as manifesting no real knowledge of the
LAW-OF-THRIFT Controversy; but as taking the above loose view of it, and
as directed principally against "the pretended Member of our Academy"
(mischievous Voltaire, to wit), whom it characterizes as "such a
manifest retailer of lies," a "concocter of stupid libels:" "have you
ever seen an action more malicious, more dastardly, more infamous?"--and
other hard terms, the hardest he can find. This is the privilege of
anonymity, on both sides of it.

But imagine now a King and his Voltaire doing witty discourse over their
Supper of the gods (as, on the set days, is duly the case); with such a
consciousness, burning like Bude light, though close veiled, on the part
of Host and Guest! The Friedrich-Voltaire relation is evidently under
sore stress of weather, in those winter-autumn months of 1752,--brown
leaves, splashy rains and winds moaning outwardly withal. And, alas, the
irrepressibly electric