And be thankful for your Potsdam grenadiers and their pipe-clay!-- Happily he has his Books about him; his flute: Duhan, too, is here, still more or less didactic in some branches; always instructive and companionable, to him.

The Crown-Prince reads a great deal; very many French Books, new and old, he reads; among the new, we need not doubt, the _Henriade_ of M.Arouet Junior (who now calls himself VOLTAIRE), which has risen like a star of the first magnitude in these years.
[London, 1723, in surreptitious incomplete state, _La Ligue_ the title; then at length, London, 1726, as _Henriade,_ in splendid 4to,--by subscription (King, Prince and Princess of Wales at the top of it), which yielded 8,000 pounds: see Voltaire, _OEuvres Completes,_ xiii.
408.] An incomparable piece, patronized by Royalty in England; the delight of all kindred Courts.

The light dancing march of this new "Epic," and the brisk clash of cymbal music audible in it, had, as we find afterwards, greatly captivated the young man.

All is not pipe-clay, then, and torpid formalism; aloft from the murk of commonplace rise glancings of a starry splendor, betokening--oh, how much! Out of Books, rumors and experiences, young imagination is forming to itself some Picture of the World as it is, as it has been.

The curtains of this strange life-theatre are mounting, mounting,--wondrously as in the case of all young souls; but with what specialties, moods or phenomena of light and shadow, to this young soul, is not in any point recorded for us.