'A man of pleasing physiognomy,' says Formey, 'and expressed himself well.

I received his visit 14th January, 1752,'-- to which latter small circumstance (welcome as a fixed date to us here) La Beaumelle's Biography is now pretty much reduced for mankind.

[Formey, ii.

221.] He continued Maupertuis's adorer: and was not a bad creature, only a dull wooden one, with obstinate temper.

A LIFE OF MAUPERTUIS of his writing was sent forth lately, [--Vie de Maupertuis--( cited above), Paris, 1866.] after lying hidden a hundred years: but it is dull, dead, painfully ligneous, like all the rest; and of new or of pleasant tells us nothing.
"His enmity to M.de Voltaire did prove perpetual:--a bramble that might have been dealt with by fingers, or by fingers and scissors, but could not by axes, and their hewing and brandishing.