Goldsmith's, who was rather the translator of than actor in the occurrence; but the final paragraph refutes this apologetic attempt, for the author thus emphatically concludes-" I must confess that, whether from national partiality, or from the elegant sensibility of his manner (Voltaire), I never was so much charmed; nor did I ever remember so absolute a victory as he gained in the dispute.”—(Miscell. Works, vol. III. p. 224.) Can this expressed feeling of national partiality apply to a foreigner, whom we must suppose the author to be, if Goldsmith was only a translator, or does it not clearly denote Goldsmith himself? And yet, Voltaire was neither at the time, nor on the spot, when and where he is made so eminently triumphant !

If all this should bear so directly, as your Correspondent apprehends, " on poor Goldsmith's character for veracity and integrity," he must certainly discover some more tenable grounds of vindication. He must prove, either that Voltaire was in Paris when Goldsmith was in that capital in 1755, or that the latter did not intend to convey to his readers, that the person who relates the anecdote was himself. But that Voltaire continued absent from Paris during the long interval of 1750 to 1778, is demonstrable from his correspondence, and the uniform testimony of his biographers; and that Goldsmith meant no other than himself, as the witness and narrator of the conversation, is clear from the unvarying construction of his text by every reviewer, as well as by Mr. Prior himself.

But a deduction of dates will not only disprove Goldsmith's participation in the dramatic scene, but compel us to pronounce the whole a creation of his fancy—

"And dates are chiels that winna ding, And downa be refuted."

vested with so much interest. On this point, I adduce an irrefragable authority that of Grimm, or possibly that of Diderot himself; for their special articles are not always distinguished in the joint work-" Les Mémoires Historiques, Littéraires, &c. par le Baron de Grimm et M. Diderot." In volume i. page 339, (Lond. 1814) on reviewing the life and character of Fontenelle, immediately after his death, which occurred the 9th of January 1757, it is added, "M. Diderot l'ayant vu, il y a deux ou trois ans, pour la première fois de sa vie, ne put s'empêcher de verser quelques larmes . . M. de Fontenelle. . . . . lui demanda compte de ces pleurs. J'éprouve, lui répondit M. Diderot, un sentiment singulier. Au mot de sentiment, M. de Fontenelle l'arrêta et lui dit en souvient: Monsieur, il y a quatrevingts ans que j'ai relégué le sentiment dans l'églogue.'

The entire fabric of the story, is thus overthrown; for it will not surely be pretended, that Diderot, who was nearly sixty years younger than Fontenelle, and who, in this first interview, was so deeply affected at the sight of expiring genius, could have entered into the lists of dispute with the dying centenarian, who only heard through an ear-trumpet, and who most certainly was not then to be found" in a select company of wits of both sexes-reviling, with a spirit truly vulgar, English taste and learning, till about twelve o'clock," as Goldsmith depicts him on the occasion; and where he remained until three in the morning hearkening to his relentless victor-Voltaire !!! The circumstance in itself is doubtless of little moment, and can only derive interest in association with great names. Goldsmith, however, we know was not renowned for that stern regard for truth which so eminently marked his less amiable friend, Johnson will his fame much suffer from this particular deviation from it. Yet he, "who could adorn every thing" by his magic touch and the enchantment of his language, might well have dispensed with such aberrations-

; nor

ὅς τις καὶ τα καλά ψευδὴ λέγων Οὐ τοῖσδε χρῆται ταῖς καλοῖσα ἀληθέσιν. (Eurip. Incest. Trag. 71.)

character of George Primrose in the Vicar of Wakefield, "he wrote for bread," and calculated on the effects of a striking anecdote. It is, however, beyond doubt, that the prominent personages of this trilogic (see Schiller's Wallenstein) never did meet together in Paris; for Fontenelle and Diderot never saw each other until 1754 or 1755, as we have either Diderot's own testimony, or the equivalent one of his literary partner, for asserting; and Voltaire had left that capital in June 1750, not to return until February 1778, twenty-one years after the death of Fontenelle.

Goldsmith must, indeed, have greatly reckoned on the ignorance of his readers, when he thus produced three interlocutors of the highest eminence, to whom he assigned parts in signal variance with the ascertained position, character, and feelings of each of them. Voltaire, it was well known, was not in Paris; Fontenelle was not unfavourable to English taste or learning; and we have seen how little disposed Diderot could have been to engage in controversy with the Nestor of French literature: yet, the last was only two years consigned to his grave, and the others were resplendent in European celebrity, when thus exhibited to the English in 1759! Fontenelle's avoidance of contest, at any sacrifice, was notorious; Truth itself was secondary to it. "Si j'avais la main pleine de vérités je n'oserais l'ouvrir," was his emphatic declaration, lest dispute should arise-pusillanimous, no doubt, but significative of the man. And, for his sentiments in regard to Englishmen, it is sufficient to refer to his magnificent Eloge de Neuton, (sic) Œuvres de Fontenelle, tome vi. p. 327. Paris, 1752, in 12mo,*-where, though him

*These volumes were printed by Bru net, an ancestor of the compiler of the Manuel du Libraire. Several of the existing French printers can trace a filiation of nearly two centuries-the De Bures, Didots, and others. The learned family of the Estienne, or Stephens, lived in the Rue St. Jacques till the close of the last century, having continued in the possession for above 250 years. Our own Longmans, Paynes, Baldwins, &c. are also entitled to claim a remote professional ancestry. I could name others in Italy, Belgium, &c. and a curious article might,

self, from aversion to novelty, an adherent of the elder school of Descartes, as may be inferred from his Pluralité des Mondes, he not only pays ample homage to English genius, but, what continental jealousy then anxiously controverted, he unhesitatingly adjudged the discovery of the fluxional calculus to our illustrious countryman, preferably to Leibnitz. His words deserve transcription: M. Neuton est constamment le premier, et, de plusieurs années, le premier. M. Leibnitz, de son côté, est le premier qui ait publié ce calcul; et s'il l'avait pris de M. Neuton, il ressemblerait au Promethée de la fable, qui déroba le feu aux dieux, pour en faire part aux hommes." (p. 332.) With respect to Voltaire's defence of English learning and taste, he was liberal, indeed, in conceding the former; but, taste he utterly and invariably denied us; and how often, in illustration, has he perverted the sense of Shakspeare and Milton, as Mrs. Montague and others have shown? His ridiculous version (tradutore e traditore, as the Italians say, would here well apply) of the first scenes of Shakspeare's Julius Cæsar, is sufficient evidence of his disingenuousness. (See his Commentaires sur Corneille.) His own Mort de César, far inferior, indeed, to Shakspeare's, is singular for the absence of female characters;-an experiment that did not succeed; for it is never exhibited. What would the French stage do without love-scenes?

Readers are not often disposed to scrutinize the grounds and sources of pleasurable communications; "se non e vero," &c.; and no one knew better than Goldsmith the influence of an interesting episode or lively interlude, or, indeed, appears to have been less scrupulous in resorting to any instrument of effect. What, to the timorous conscience of your correspondent, assumes a character of gravity, was to him a light and venial exercise of ingenuity, as a means of livelihood. Mr. Prior, on the testimony of Dr. Percy, describes him as laughing at the success of the claptrap title of his book,

"

Letters on English History from a

I think, be framed on the subject. The Aldi, Stephani, and Elzevirs have had, and deserved to have, special biographers.

Nobleman to his Son," which was long ascribed to, and never disavowed by Lord Lyttleton, but which Mr. Prior evidently shows was Goldsmith's. I am far from being the advocate of any artifice, as this letter sufficiently testifies; and I regret that an author who has ever been the object of my admiration, should have laid himself open to any moral censure; but, in disclosing a truth, in defiance of Fon tenelle's maxim, I think that I perform a duty, and do an useful act, "TOUTWV ἐγὼ ἡδίω μὲν ἄν εἶχαν ὑμῖν ἕτερα ἐπιστελλείν, οὐ μέντοι χρησιμώτερα γε. (Thucyd. Z.id.). It is, however, I must say, a matter of surprise to me, that a statement, so incompatible with known facts and dates, should have escaped the vigilance of Mr. Prior, or the penetration of the reviewers, "Non erat tanti, perhaps they thought;" but A. B. has viewed the circumstance more seriously.

It may not be unacceptable to your readers to learn, that, though Voltaire was born at Châtenay, a village five miles from Paris (20 February 1694), his father and family's residence at the time was at No. 26, Rue des Marmousets, back of the Marché aux Fleurs, and near le Palais de Justice. Diderot, born at Langres, in 1713, editor, with D'Alembert, of the Encyclopedie, &c. lived at the corner of Rue St. Bénoit (St. Germain). In powers of conversation, he was exceeded by no man in Paris, certainly not by Fontenelle, nor even by Voltaire. He might, in that respect, however, rather be compared to Coleridge then to Johnson; but his writings betray a lamentable perversion of talents, like those of Voltaire. To say something striking, and to appear brilliant, every feeling of moral duty or social decency was set at nought:

-"tanto vi transporta L'amor de l'apperenza, e'l su pensiero." Dante Parad. xxix. 86.

Fontenelle inhabited, I have been informed, la Rue St. Anne. At his death he wanted only a few days of a full century (11th February 1657 to 9th January 1757), and had been above .circum.. eighty years an author;

stances, I venture to assert, unexampled in the records of literary life. Hippocrates, it is said, attained the age GENT. MAG. VOL. VIII.

of 104; but we can have no certainty of the fact. A. B.'s letter suggests a few other corrections which I submit to his notice: He states, that Goldsmith's Memoir "brings down the life of Voltaire only to the period of his departure from the court of Berlin in 1750;" but that year was the period of his departure for, not from the court of Berlin, where he arrived in July (Correspondence Générale, Lettre à M. D'Argental, 24 Juillet 1750), and remained until March 1753 (Lettre à M. D'Argens).* He had previously, in 1741 and 1743, paid two short visits to Frederic.

Monrion, where Goldsmith appears actually to have seen Voltaire, was a country retreat, which the latter inhabited for the first time in December 1755. On the 10th December of that year he writes to his friend D'Argental, "Je vais d'Alpe en Alpe passer une partie de l'hiver dans un petit ermitage, appelé Monrion, au pied de Lausanne, à l'abri du cruel vent du nord;" and he dates his next letter, the 16th, from that place. By a previous letter at the end of October, about six weeks before, he states, that he was preparing to remove thither, when stopped by the death of the person, a favourite porter, who had provided the house for him. "J'allais," he says, "à cette maison, où j'avais fait porter mes livres ... Mon Suisse est mort... J'ai été très affligé, très derangé." The date of his first possession of the house, is thus fixed between the 10th and 16th December 1755; and, as Goldsmith is represented as having landed at Dover the 1st of February 1756, their interview, at Monrion, must have occurred in that interval-probably, either at the end of December 1755, or early in January 1756, and not in May 1755, as your correspondent would give us to understand. Voltaire resided alternately at Les Delices in summer, and at Monrion in winter, until 1759, when he became proprietor of Ferney.

*This same error has, I find, crept into my Letter, inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine for April; but there the context shows that it is one of the press, or an inadvertence of the pen. If the passage in A. B.'s letter authorize the same inference, I grant him most willingly the full benefit of it.

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