aughter there (young Duchess
of Wurtemberg, on visit, as it chanced), [Wilhelmina-Friedrich
Correspondence (--OEuvres de Frederic,--xxvii. iii. 258, 249).] and all
manner of graces, melodies and beneficences; a little working, too,
at the ANNALES, in the big Library, between whiles. Five decidedly
melodious weeks. Beautiful interlude, or half-hour of orchestral
fiddling in this Voltaire Drama; half-hour which could not last! On the
heel of which there unhappily followed an Afterpiece or codicil to the
Berlin Visit; which, so to speak, set the whole theatre on fire, and
finished by explosion worse than AKAKIA itself. A thing still famous to
mankind;--of which some intelligible notion must be left with readers.

The essence of the story is briefly this. Voltaire, by his fine
deportment in parting with Friedrich, had been allowed to retain his
Decorations, his Letter of Agreement, his Royal BOOK OF POESIES (one
of those "Twelve Copies," printed AU DONJON DU CHATEAU, in happier
times!)--and in short, to go his ways as a friend, not as a runaway or
one dismissed. But now, by his late procedures at Leipzig, and
"firings out of port-holes" in that manner, he had awakened Friedrich's
indignation again,--Friedrich's regret at allowing him to take those
articles with him; and produced a resolution in Friedrich to have them
back. They are not generally articles of much moment; but as marks of
friendship, they are now all falsities. One of the articles might be
of frightful importance: that Book of Poesies; thrice-private OEUVRE DE
POESIES, in which are satirical spurts affecting more than one crowned
head: one shudders to think what fires a spiteful Voltaire might cause
by publishing these! This was Friedrich's idea;--and by no means a
chimerical one, as the Fact proved; said OEUVRE being actually reprinted
upon him, at Paris afterwards (not by Voltaire), in the crisis of the
Seven-Years War, to put him out with his Uncle of England, whom
it quizzed in passages. [Title of it is,--OEuvres du Philosophe de
Sans-Souci--(Paris, pretending to be "Potsdam," 1760), 1 vol. 12mo: at
Paris, "in January" this; whereupon, at Berlin, with despatch, "April
9th," "the real edition" (properly castrated) was sent forth, under
title, POESIES DIVERSES, 1 vol. big 8vo (Preuss, in--OEuvres de
Frederic,--x. Preface, p. x. See Formey, ii. 255, under date misprinted
"1763").] "We will have those articles back," thinks Friedrich; "that
OEUVRE most especia