Beautiful interlude, or half-hour of orchestral fiddling in this Voltaire Drama; half-hour which could not last! On the heel of which there unhappily followed an Afterpiece or codicil to the Berlin Visit; which, so to speak, set the whole theatre on fire, and finished by explosion worse than AKAKIA itself.

A thing still famous to mankind;--of which some intelligible notion must be left with readers.
The essence of the story is briefly this.

Voltaire, by his fine deportment in parting with Friedrich, had been allowed to retain his Decorations, his Letter of Agreement, his Royal BOOK OF POESIES (one of those "Twelve Copies," printed AU DONJON DU CHATEAU, in happier times!)--and in short, to go his ways as a friend, not as a runaway or one dismissed.

But now, by his late procedures at Leipzig, and "firings out of port-holes" in that manner, he had awakened Friedrich's indignation again,--Friedrich's regret at allowing him to take those articles with him; and produced a resolution in Friedrich to have them back.

They are not generally articles of much moment; but as marks of friendship, they are now all falsities.