In his old and enfeebled age, the horrors of the first French
revolution made him a Tory; while he always lamented, as one
of the worst effects of its excesses, that they must
necessarily retard to a distant period the progress and
establishment of civil liberty. But why are we to believe his
contempt for crowned heads should have prevented his writing a
memoir of "Royal and Noble Authors?" Their literary labours,
when all brought together by himself, would not, it is
believed, tend much to raise, or much to alter his opinion of
them.

In his letters from Paris, written in the years 1765, 1766,
1767 and 1771, it will be seen, that so far from being
infinitely more occupied with "the fashions and gossip of
Versailles and Marli than with a great moral revolution which
was taking place in his sight," he was truly aware of the
state of the public mind, and foresaw all that was coming on.

Of Rousseau he has proved that he knew more, and that he
judged him more accurately, than Mr. Hume, and many others who
were then duped by his mad pride and disturbed understanding.

Voltaire had convicted himself of the basest of vain lies in
the intercourse he sought with Mr. Walpole. The details of
this transaction, and the letters which passed at the time,
are already printed in the quarto edition of his works. In
the short notes of his life left by himself, and from which
all the dates in this notice are taken, it is thus mentioned: