st Seneca's champion. La Harpe, for various
reasons into which we need not now more particularly enter, got the ear
of the European public in the years of reaction after he had himself
deserted his old philosophic friends, and gone over to the conservative
camp. He found the world eager to listen to all that could be said
against men who were believed to have corrupted their age; and his
bitter misrepresentations, not seldom invigorated by lies, were the
origin of much of the vulgar prejudice that has only begun to melt away
in our own generation.

Rousseau died in 1778. The more versatile literary genius of the century
had died a couple of months earlier in the same year. It was not until
the occasion of Voltaire's triumphant visit to Paris, after an absence
of seven-and-twenty years, that he and Diderot at length met. Their
correspondence had been less constant and less cordial than was common
where Voltaire was concerned; but though their sympathy was imperfect,
there was no lack of mutual goodwill and admiration. The poet is said to
have done his best to push Diderot into the Academy, but the king was
incurably hostile, and Diderot was not anxious for an empty distinction.
He had none of that vanity nor eagerness for recognition--pardonable
enough, for that matter--which such distinctions gratify. And he perhaps
agreed with Voltaire himself, who said of academies and parliaments
that, when men come together, their ears instantly become elongated.
After Diderot's return from Russia Voltaire wrote to him: "I am
eighty-three years of age, and I repeat that I am inconsolable at the
thought of dying without ever having seen you. I have tried to collect
around me as many of your children as possible, but I am a long way from
having the whole family.... We are not so far apart, at bottom, and it
only needs a conversation to bring us to an understanding."[187]

[187] Dec. 8, 1776.

Of such conversations we have almost nothing to tell. No sacred bard has
commemorated the salutation of the heroes. We only know that at the end
of their first interview Diderot's facility of discourse had been so
copious that, after he had taken his leave, Voltaire said: "The man is
clever, assuredly; but he lacks one talent, and an essential
talent--that of dialogue." Diderot's remark about Voltaire was more
picturesque. "He is like one of those old haunted castles, which are
falling into ruins in every part; but you easily perceive that