o the rule then current: in contemplative rare moments, the
man, looking back through the dim posterns of the mind, might see afar
off a certain pirouetting Figure, once far from indifferent, and not yet
quite melted into cheerless gray smoke, as so much of the rest is--to
Mr. Mackinsy and us. I have made, in the Scotch Mackenzie circles, what
inquiry was due; find no evidence, but various likelihoods, that this of
the Barberina and him is fact, and a piece of his biography. As to the
inference deduced from it, in regard to Friedrich and the Earl of Bute,
on a critical occasion,--that rests entirely with Zimmermann; and
the candid mind inclines to admit that, probably, it is but rumor and
conjecture; street-dust sticking to the Doctor's shoes, and demanding
merely to be well swept out again. Heigho!--

Barberina, though a dancer, did not want for more essential graces.
Very sprightly, very pretty and intelligent; not without piquancy and
pungency: the King himself has been known to take tea with her in mixed
society, though nothing more; and with passionate young gentlemen she
was very successful. Not long after her coming to Berlin, she made
conquest of Cocceji, the celebrated Chancellor's Son; who finding no
other resource, at length privately married her. Voltaire's Collini,
when he came to Berlin, in 1750, recommended by a Signora Sister of the
Barberina's, found the Barberina and her Mother dining daily with this
Cocceji as their guest: [Collini, _Mon Sejour aupres de Voltaire_ (a
Paris, 1807), pp. 13-19.] Signora Barberina privately informed Collini
how the matter was; Signorina still dancing all the same,--though
she had money in the English funds withal; and Friedrich had been so
generous as give her the fixing of her own salary, when she came to
him, this-side-uppermost, in the way we described. She had fixed, too
modestly thinks Collini, on 5,000 thalers (about 750 pounds) a year;
having heart and head as well as heels, poor little soul. Perhaps her
notablest feat in History, after all, was her leading this Collini, as
she now did, into the service of Voltaire, to be Voltaire's Secretary.
As will be seen. Whereby we have obtained a loyal little Book, more
credible than most others, about that notable man.

At a subsequent period, Barberina decided on declaring her marriage with
Cocceji; she drew her money from the English funds, purchased a fine
mansion, and went to live with the said Cocceji there, giving up