fortunate cocks that scratch on it, that the man Voltaire is here;
but to shoot lightnings into it, and set it ablaze one day!
That was an important alternative; truly of world-importance to
the poor generations that now are; and it was settled, in good
part, by this voyage to England, as one may surmise. Such is
sometimes the use of a dissolute Rohan in this world; for the gods
make implements of all manner of things.

"M. de Voltaire (for we now drop the Arouet altogether, and never
hear of it more) came to England--when? Quitted England--when?
Sorrow on all fatuous Biographers, who spend their time not in
laying permanent foundation-stones, but in fencing with the wind!
--I at last find indisputably, it was in 1726 that he came to
England: [Got out of the Bastille, with orders to leave France,
"29th April" of that year ( OEuvres de Voltaire, italic> i. 40 n.).] and he himself tells us that he quitted it 'in
1728.' Spent, therefore, some two years there in all,--last year
of George I.'s reign, and first of George II.'s. But mere inanity
and darkness visible reign, in all his Biographies, over this
period of his life, which was above all others worth
investigating: seek not to know it; no man has inquired into it,
probably no competent man now ever will. By hints in certain
Letters of the period, we learn that he lodged, or at one time
lodged, in 'Maiden Lane, Covent Garden;' one of those old Houses
that yet stand in Maiden Lane: for which small fact let us be
thankful. His own Letters of the period are dated now and then
from 'Wandsworth.' Allusions there are to Bolingbroke; but the
Wandsworth is not Bolingbroke's mansion, which stood in Battersea;
the Wandsworth was one Edward Fawkener's; a man somewhat admirable
to young Voltaire, but extinct now, or nearly so, in human memory.