He visited Newton’s niece, Mrs. Conduit, who told him the famous story of Newton and the apple. Voltaire twice repeated it in his works, and thus preserved it for posterity. He frequently met and talked with Newton’s friend and disciple, Clarke.
In 1727, he was introduced at the English Court. Had he not dedicated “Œdipe” to its King? Just as in 1728 he was to dedicate his English edition of the “Henriade” to “that amiable philosopher on the throne,” Caroline, the wife of George II. At Court, doubtless, he met that lean malice, my Lord Hervey, and Lady Hervey, “beautiful Molly Lepell.” He met everybody, in fact, and saw everything. He went to Newmarket races and to a Quakers’ meeting. He was continually at the play. He mixed with bishops and boatmen, lords, play-actors, merchants and politicians. When on one of his rambles round London he was insulted by a mob, he mounted on a few handy steps: “Brave Englishmen!” said he, “am I not already unfortunate enough in not having been born among you?” And they were with him at once.
Perhaps he was not sorry to get away from the wits and the parties, to the quiet of Falkener’s villa. He had always something better to do than to be a social light for his own or other men’s entertainment.
When he was at Wandsworth he wrote, in English prose, the first act of “Brutus.” In these thirty-four months he composed nearly the whole of his “History of Charles XII.” of Sweden. In 1727, he took up his abode for a time at the Sign of the White Peruke, Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, that he might the more conveniently arrange for the publication by subscription of the new edition of his “Henriade.” “The English generally make good their words and promises,” he said long after. They did in 1728. The book went into three editions. From them Voltaire had omitted the tale of the noble exploits of Rosny, the ancestor of his false friend Sully.
Swift pushed the “Henriade” in Ireland. The English were inclined to think it too Catholic, as the Catholics had thought it too Protestant. But, in their character of a free and generous people, they bought and read it not the less.
After a few months’ residence in the country this amazing Frenchman was turning “Hudibras” into French verse.
After eighteen months, he wrote, in English, a little volume containing two essays: “An Essay upon the Civil Wars of France,” and upon “The Epick Poetry of the European Nations.” A presentation copy of the first edition of this daring little work, published in 1727, may still be seen in the British Museum with a few words in Voltaire’s handwriting in the corner—“to Sr. hanslone from his most humble servant voltaire.” Sir Hans Sloane was the President of the Royal Society. This book is now so rare as to be practically unobtainable. It went into a second edition in 1728, and into a fourth in 1731.
By it, by “Brutus,” and the “Henriade” Voltaire gained a sum of about two thousand pounds.
The chronology of the events of his English visit remains, and must remain, very imperfect. He wrote very few letters during that period and dates are not the forte of his English hosts. So much, however, is certain. He arrived in England about the end of the first week in May, 1726. By September, he had paid his stolen visit to France and returned to these shores. In January, 1727, he was presented at Court. On March 28th, he was at Newton’s lying-in-state in Westminster Abbey. In July the French authorities gave him permission to return to France for a while to see to some business, but he did not go. He spent the greater part of the year preparing his English edition of the “Henriade” and writing “Charles XII.” In December, 1727, appeared the two English essays. The year 1728 saw the publication of the English edition of his “Henriade.”
Archibald Ballantyne’s “Voltaire’s Visit to England” gives the best and most exhaustive account of that visit yet published.