it is as necessary to the soul as food to the body. Ishall re-write ' Eryphile,’ and the ‘ Death of Casar,’—all for this smoke. Meanwhile I am correcting the‘ History of Charles XII.’ for an edition in Holland ;and when this is done, I shall finish the ‘ Letters onEngland,’ which you know of,— that will be a month’swork; after which I must return to my dramas, andfinish, at last, by the ‘History of the Age of Louis XIV .’This, dear friend, is the plan of my life.”
New persecutions were in store for him, to disturbhis schemes. Mademoiselle de Couvreur was the mosteminent actress of the time ; she was his friend, andhad shown her generosity by attending on him at thedangerous moment of his attack of small pox. She wasworthy of his good opinion ; there was a dignity in hercharacter which imparted the chief charm to her acting,and rendered her estimable in private life. When shedied, according to the insulting practice of the Frenchclergy, burial rites and holy ground were denied thecorpse, and she was interred on the banks of the Seine .Voltaire could not restrain his indignation. Warmed byesteem for his friend, and contempt for the priesthood,he wrote her apotheosis, which drew on him the outcryof impiety, and forced him to conceal himself for somemonths in a village of Normandy .
Scarcely had this storm passed off, than another brokeover him. His exile in England occurred during thereign of George II. , at a time when literature boasted ofgreat and glorious names ; and if the principles of poli-tical liberty were less well understood than now, theyappeared in a highly flourishing condition to the French-man. He regarded with admiration the blessingsderived from toleration in religion, a comparatively freegovernment, a press unfettered by a censorship, and thegeneral diffusion of knowledge. He wished to describethese things and their effects to his countrymen, and hewrote his “ Lettres sur les Anglais.” There is nothing— save a passing Voltairian sarcasm here and there—toshock our notions in this work. It begins with an ac-c 4