but withal confessed to his wife. The result was, no measuring of
swords took place; and Rohan only blighted by public opinion, or
incapable of farther blight that way, went at large; a convenient
LETTRE DE CACHET having put Arouet again in the Bastille.
Where for six months Arouet lodged a second time, the innocent not
the guilty; making, we can well suppose, innumerable reflections
on the phenomena of human life. Imprisonment once over, he hastily
quitted for England; shaking the dust of ungrateful France off his
feet,--resolved to change his unhappy name, for one thing.

"Smelfungus, denouncing the torpid fatuity of Voltaire's
Biographers, says he never met with one Frenchman, even of the
Literary classes, who could tell him whence this name VOLTAIRE
originated. 'A PETITE TERRE, small family estate,' they said; and
sent him hunting through Topographies, far and wide, to no
purpose. Others answered, 'Volterra in Italy, some connection with
Volterra,'--and seemed even to know that this was but fatuity.
'In ever-talking, ever-printing Paris, is it as in Timbuctoo,
then, which neither prints nor has anything to print?' exclaims
poor Smelfungus! He tells us at last, the name VOLTAIRE is a mere
Anagram of AROUET L. J.--you try it;
A.R.O.U.E.T.L.J.=V.O.L.T.A.I.R.E and perceive at once, with
obligations to Smelfungus, that he has settled this small matter
for you, and that you can be silent upon it forever thenceforth.

"The anagram VOLTAIRE, gloomily settled in the Bastille in this
manner, can be reckoned a very famous wide-sounding outer result
of the Rohan impertinence and blackguardism; but it is not worth
naming beside the inner intrinsic result, of banishing Voltaire to
England at this point of his course. England was full of