He had just then quitted his Garden, and was crossing the court before his House.

Seeing my chaise, and me on the point of mounting it, he made a sign to his servant who had been my CICERONE, to go to him; in order, I suppose, to inquire who I was.
After they had exchanged a few words together, he," M.de Voltaire, "approached the place where I was standing motionless, in order to contemplate his person as much as I could while his eyes were turned from me; but on seeiug him move towards me, I found myself drawn by some irresistible power towards him; and, without knowing what I did, I insensibly met him half-way.
"It is not easy to conceive it possible for life to subsist in a form so nearly composed of mere skin and bone as that of M.de Voltaire." Extremely lean old Gentleman! "He complained of decrepitude, and said, He supposed I was anxious to form an idea of the figure of one walking after death.

However, his eyes and whole countenance are still full of fire; and though so emaciated, a more lively expression cannot be imagined.
"He inquired after English news; and observed that Poetical squabbles had given way to Political ones; but seemed to think the spirit of opposition as necessary in poetry as in politics.

_'Les querelles d'auteurs sont pour le bien de la litterature, comme dans un gouvernement libre les querelles des grands, et les clameurs des petits, sont necessaires a la liberte._' And added, 'When critics are silent, it does not so much prove the Age to be correct, as dull.' He inquired what Poets we had now; I told him we had Mason and Gray.

'They write but little,' said he: 'and you seem to have no one who lords it over the rest, like Dryden, Pope and Swift.' I told him that it was one of the inconveniences of Periodical Journals, however well executed, that they often silenced modest men of genius, while impudent blockheads were impenetrable, and unable to feel the critic's scourge: that Mr.Gray and Mr.Mason had both been illiberally treated by mechanical critics, even in newspapers; and added, that modesty and love of quiet seemed in these gentlemen to have got the better even of their love of fame.
"During this conversation, we approached the buildings that he was constructing near the road to his Chateau.