h food; but I hope you will not hereafter trouble
yourself concerning my lodging."

Voltaire, with his activity of mind, and living to so great an age,
must necessarily produce many works. They are voluminous, consisting of
history, poetry, and philosophy. His dramatic pieces are numerous, many
of which are considered second only to Shakespeare's. "Oedipus," "Zadig,"
"Ingenu," "Zaire," "Henri-ade," "Irene," "Tancred," "Mahomet,"
"Merope," "Saul," "Alzire," "Le Fanatisme," "Mariamne," "Gaston de
Foix," "Enfant Prodigue," "Pucelle d'Orleans," an essay on "Fire," the
"Elements," "History of Charles XII.," "Lectures on Man," "Letters on
England," "Memoirs," "Voyage of Sacramentado," "Micromegas," "Maid of
Orleans," "Brutus," "Adelaide," "Death of Caesar," "Temple of Taste,"
"Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations," "An Examination of the Holy
Scriptures," and the "Philosophical Dictionary," are works that emanated
from the active brain of this wit, poet, satirist, and philosopher.

In 1722, while at Brussels, Voltaire met Jean Baptiste Rousseau, whose
misfortunes he deplored, and whose poetic talents he esteemed. Voltaire
read some of his poems to Rousseau, and he in return read to Voltaire
his "Ode addressed to Posterity," which Voltaire, it is asserted, told
him would never arrive at the place to which it was addressed. The two
poets parted irreconcileable foes.

In 1725, Voltaire was again shut up in the Bastile, through attempting
to revenge an insult inflicted upon him by a courtier. At the end of six
months he was released, but ordered to quit Paris. He sought refuge in
England, in 1726. He was the guest in that country of a Mr. Falconer,
of Wandsworth, whose hospitality he remembered with affection so long as
life lasted. Voltaire was known to most of the wits and Freethinkers of
that day in England. At this early age he was at war with Christianity.
"His visit to England," says Lamartine, "gave assurance and gravity to
his incredulity; for in France he had only known libertines--in
England he knew philosophers." He went to visit Congreve, who had the
affectation to tell him that he (Congreve) valued himself, not on his
authorship, but as a man of the world. To which Voltaire administered
a just rebuke by saying, "I should never have come so far to see a
gentleman!"

Voltaire soon acquired an ample fortune, much of which was expended
in aiding men of letters, and in encouraging such youth as he thought
discov