SO LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.

sleep, and never leaves her desk except for coffee aidsupper.” This hard labour was productive of greatennui to their guests, and considerable ill health tothemselves • especially to Voltaire , whose constitutionwas feeble: but the result with him was, his volumi-nous works ■ and with her, a degree of scientific know-ledge surpassing that attained by almost every otheradept of the day. Her essays were full of most abstrusereasoning, and written in a clear and elegant style.Madame de Graffigny had the highest opinion of herunderstanding. “ I have been reading her dissertationon fire ; it is written with admirable clearness, preci-sion, and force of argument. I beg Voltaire ’s pardon,but it is far superior to his. What a woman ! Howlittle do I feel beside her ! If my body grew as small,

I could pass through a key-hole. When women dowrite, they surpass men ; but it requires centuries toform a woman like this.” Unfortunately, all thistalent was darkened by a vehement and irritable temper.By degrees the truth became manifest, that these sagesquarrelled violently. In madame de Graffigny ’s ac-count, some of these disputes are very whimsical.These are trifles ; but they display the inner nature ofthe man better than more important events, and deserverecord. Voltaire was writing the “ Age of Louis XIV. ,”in which he took great pride and pleasure, althoughfrom the tyranny then existing in France , the publish-ing of it would have doomed him to the Bastille.Madame du Chatelet locked up the manuscript, andwould not let him finish it. “ He is dying to do so,”madame de Graffigny writes ; “ it is the work, of allhis, which he prefers. She justifies herself by sayingthere is little pleasure in writing a book that cannot beprinted. I exhort him to go on, and to be satisfied'with the immortality he will gain. He said, yesterday,that assuredly he would finish it, but not here. Sheturns his head with her geometry; she likes nothingelse." — “ One day, being indisposed, the lady couldnot write ; so she went to bed, and sent for me, saying