VOLTAIRE

To Lady Hervey (1725?)

Hervey, would you know the passion
You have kindled in my breast?
Trifling is the inclination
That by words can be expressed.

In my silence see the lover:
True love is best by silence known;
In my eyes you'll discover
All the power of your own.

Letter to Pierre Desmaizeaux (1725?)

I hear Prevost hath a mind to bring you a second time as an evidence against me. He sais I have told you I had given him five and twenty books for thirty guineas. I remember very well, Sir, I told you at Rainbow's Coffee-House that I had given him twenty subscription receipts for the Henriade and received thirty guineas down; but I never meant to have parted with thirty copies at three guineas each, for thirty-one pounds, I have agreed with him upon quite another foot; and I am not such a fool (tho' a writer) to give away all my property to a bookseller.

Therefore I desire you to remember that I never told you of my having made so silly a bargain. I told, I own, I had thirty pounds or some equivalent down, but I did not say twas all the bargain, this I insist upon and beseech you to recollect our conversation: for I am sure I never told a tale so contrary to truth, to reason, and to my interest. I hope you will not back the injustice of a bookseller who abuses you against a man of honour who is your most humble servant. Voltaire.

I beseech you to send me an answer to my lodging without any delay. I shall be extremely obliged to you.

(British Museum, Add. MSS. 4288, fol. 229. Printed by J. Churton Collins and by Ballantyne.)

Letter to Joseph Craddock (1773)

Ferney, October 9, 1773.

S^r

Thanks to your muse a foreign copper shines
Turn'd in to gold, and coin'd in sterling lines.

You have done too much honour to an old sick man of eighty.—I am with the most sincere esteem and gratitude, Sir, your obedient servant,

Voltaire.

(Ballantyne, Voltaire's Visit to England, p. 69.)

[With Voltaire these Specimens must end. To quote Père Le Courayer, Letourneur, Suard, or Baron D'Holbach would be unduly to prolong an argument that should stop on the threshold of the eighteenth century.]