The King grudges to part with his Reader, who makes him laugh.

La Mettrie sets out; arrives at his Patient's just when Madame Tyrconnel is sitting down to table: he eats and drinks, talks and laughs more than all the guests; when he has got crammed (EN A JUSQU'AU MENTON), they bring him a pie, of eagle disguised as pheasant, which had arrived from the North, plenty of bad lard, pork-hash and ginger in it; my gentleman eats the whole pie, and dies next day at Lord Tyrconnel's, assisted by two Doctors," Cothenius and Lieberkuhn, "whom he used to mock at....

How I should have liked to ask him, at the article of death, about that Orange-skin!" [--OEuvres de Voltaire,--lxxiv.

439, 450.] Add this trait too, from authentic Nicolai, to complete the matter: "An Irish Priest, Father Macmahon, Tyrconnel's Chaplain [more power to him], wanted to convert La Mettrie: he pushed into the sick-room;--encouraged by some who wished to make La Mettrie contemptible to Friedrich [the charitable souls].

La Mettrie would have nothing to do with this Priest and his talk; who, however, still sat and waited.