out (at which there is some laughing): a coarse-featured,
blusterous, rather triumphant-looking man, blusterous, though
finely complacent for the nonce; in copious dressing-gown and fur
cap; comfortably SQUEEZING the Earth and her meridians flat (as if
HE had done it), with his left hand; and with the other, and its
outstretched finger, asking mankind, "Are not you aware, then?"--
"Are not we!" answers Voltaire by and by, with endless waggeries
upon him, though at present so reverent. Friedrich, in these same
days, writes this Autograph; which who of men or lions
could resist?


TO MONSIEUR DE MAUPERTUIS, at Paris.

(No date;--datable, June, 1740.)

"My heart and my inclination excited in me, from the moment I
mounted the throne, the desire of having you here, that you might
put our Berlin Academy into the shape you alone are capable of
giving it. Come, then, come and insert into this wild crab-tree
the graft of the Sciences, that it may bear fruit. You have shown
the Figure of the Earth to mankind; show also to a King how sweet
it is to possess such a man as you.

"Monsieur de Maupertuis,--votre tres-affectionne

"FEDERIC" (SIC).
[ OEuvres, xvii. i. 334. The fantastic
"Federic," instead of "Frederic," is, by this time, the common
signature to French Letters.]