the mark; so wanton, yet so seemingly just; so bright, that while it
wandered round its target, in apparent though terrible playfulness, it
burned into the spot, and engraved there a brand, and a token indelible
and perpetual,--this no man could witness, when darted towards another,
and feel safe for himself. The very caprice and levity of the jester
seemed more perilous, because less to be calculated upon, than a
systematic principle of bitterness or satire. Bolingbroke compared him,
not unaptly, to a child who has possessed himself of Jupiter's bolts,
and who makes use of those bolts in sport which a god would only have
used in wrath.


* The reader will remember that this is a description of Voltaire as a
very young man. I do not know anywhere a more impressive, almost a more
ghastly, contrast than that which the pictures of Voltaire, grown old,
present to Largilliere's picture of him at the age of twenty-four; and
he was somewhat younger than twenty-four at the time of which the Count
now speaks.--ED.


Arouet's forehead was not remarkable for height, but it was nobly and
grandly formed, and, contradicting that of the mouth, wore a benevolent
expression. Though so young, there was already a wrinkle on the surface
of the front, and a prominence on the eyebrow, which showed that the wit
and the fancy of his conversation were, if not regulated, at least
contrasted, by more thoughtful and lofty characteristics of mind. At
the time I write, this man has obtained a high throne among the powers
of the lettered world. What he may yet be, it is in vain to guess: he
may be all that is great and good, or--the reverse; but I cannot but
believe that his career is only begun. Such men are born monarchs of