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him that it was not quite right to print his hook at atime when he might be reproached for violating itsprecepts. He permitted me to stop the edition. 1went to Holland entirely to do him this little service ;but the bookseller asked so much money in compen-sation, that the king, who in his heart was not sorry tosee himself in print, preferred being so for nothing,rather than to pay not to be.”
We have extracted this whole account as highlycharacteristic, and as explanatory of much that fol-lowed. Frederic Joved and enjoyed talent, and washimself a man of genius; he was simple-mindedas a German; unaccustomed to show and luxury;but he was a king and a soldier. He was young andambitious. Voltaire laughed at his economy, ridiculedhis plainness, saw through his pretensions to liberalopinions, and jested wittily on their friendship. Yet,withal, he was flattered by it. He saw a refuge and asupport against the persecutions he feared in his owncountry ; and though he would have preferred that asovereign who called him friend had been more royal inoutward show, he was forced to be satisfied that thoughbadly dressed and meanly attended, yet he was really aking , with millions in his coffres, and thousands ofsoldiers at his command, and, above all, a man ofgenius. lt He is the most delightful man in the world,”he writes, ’‘and would be sought by every one, evenwere he not a king: philosophical without austerity,full of gentleness, complaisance, and agreeable qualities;forgetting that he is a sovereign as soon as he is withhis friends, and so forgetting, that it required aneffort of memory to recollect that he was one.” Suchwas the impression which the young king made on hisolder friend, who had been accustomed to courts androyalty. But still he felt that the friend of a king isnot half as independent in the royal palace as in anotherkingdom. Probably madame du Chatelet’s admirableunderstanding helped to keep him firm; at any rate,while she lived he declined all Frederic’s invitations,