s a Titular King, cannot do without some kind of Titular
Army,--were it only to blare about as Life-guard, and beat kettle-drums
on occasion. A certain tall high-sniffing M. de St. Lambert, a young
Lorrainer of long pedigree and light purse, had just taken refuge in
this Life-guard [Summer 1748, or so], I know not whether as Captain or
Lieutenant, just come from the Netherlands Wars: of grave stiff manners;
for the rest, a good-looking young fellow; thought to have some poetic
genius, even;--who is precious, surely, in such an out-of-the-way
place. Welcome to Voltaire, to Madame still more. Alas, readers know the
History,--on which we must not dwell. Madame, a brown geometric Lady,
age now forty-two, with a Great Man who has scandalously ceased to
love her, casts her eye upon St. Lambert: 'Yes, you would be the
shoeing-horn, Monsieur, if one had time, you fine florid fellow, hardly
yet into your thirties--' And tries him with a little coquetry; I
always think, perhaps in this view chiefly? And then, at any rate, as he
responded, the thing itself became so interesting: 'Our Ulysses-bow,
we can still bend it, then, aha! 'And is not that a pretty stag withal,
worth bringing down; florid, just entering his thirties, and with the
susceptibilities of genius! Voltaire was not blind, could he have helped
it,--had he been tremulously alive to help it. 'Your Verses to her, my
St. Lambert,--ah, Tibullus never did the like of them. Yes, to you
are the roses, my fine young friend, to me are the thorns:' thus
sings Voltaire in response; [--OEuvres,--xvii. 223 (EPITRE A M. DE
ST. LAMBERT, 1749); &c. &c. In--Memoires sur Voltaire par Longchamp
et Wagniere--(Paris, 1826), ii. 229 et seq., details enough and more.]
perhaps not thinking it would go so far. And it went,--alas, it went to
all lengths, mentionable and not mentionable: and M. le Marquis had
to be coaxed home in the Spring of 1749,--still earlier it had been
suitabler;--and in September ensuing, M. de St. Lambert looking his
demurest, there is an important lying-in to be transacted!
Newton's PRINCIPIA is, by that time, drawing diligently to its
close;--complicated by such far abstruser Problems, not of the geometric
sort! Poor little lean brown woman, what a Life, after all; what an End
of a Life!"--

WAR-PASSAGES IN 1747.

The War, since Friedrich got out of it, does not abate in animosity, nor
want for bloodshed, battle and sieging; but offers little now memorable.
M