If a man, how he then had enraptured his queen."

For this effort of wit, Voltaire was paid with thirty lashes on his bare back, administered by the king's sergeant-at-arms, and was compelled to sign the following curious receipt for the same:—

"Received from the righthand of Conrad

Backoffner, thirty lashes on my bare

back, being in full for an epigram on

Frederick the Third, King of Prussia."

I say received by me, VOLTAIRE.

Vive le Roi!


The church at Gondhurst, in Kent, is a fine old building, and remarkable for several reasons; one of which is, that thirty-nine different parishes may be distinctly seen from it, and in clear weather the sea, off Hastings, a distance of twenty-seven miles and a half.