282.] Finally, here is what Friedrich thought of it, ten days after parting with Voltaire.

We will read this also (though otherwise ahead of us as yet); to be certified on all sides, and sated for the rest of our lives, concerning the Friedrich-Voltaire First Interview.
KING FRIEDRICH TO M.JORDAN (at Berlin).
POTSDAM, 24th September, 1740.
"Most respectable Inspector of the poor, the invalids, orphans, crazy people and Bedlams,--I have read with mature meditation the very profound Jordanic Letter which was waiting here;"-- and do accept your learned proposal.
"I have seen that Voltaire whom I was so curious to know; but I saw him with the Quartan hanging on me, and my mind as unstrung as my body.

With men of his kind one ought not to be sick; one ought even to be specially well, and in better health than common, if one could.
"He has the eloquence of Cicero, the mildness of Pliny, the wisdom of Agrippa; he combines, in short, what is to be collected of virtues and talents from the three greatest men of Antiquity.

His intellect is at work incessantly; every drop of ink is a trait of wit from his pen.
He declaimed his MAHOMET to us, an admirable Tragedy which he has done,"-- which the Official people smelling heresies in it ("toleration," "horrors of fanaticism," and the like) will not let him act, as readers too well know:--"he transported us out of ourselves; I could only admire and hold my tongue.

The Du Chatelet is lucky to have him: for of the good things he flings out at random, a person who had no faculty but memory might make a brilliant Book.