98 LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN.

rations now appear ordinary homage. No king hasever been the object of such excessive adulation.”

Voltaire , however, though he liked flattery, oftenavoided it, by not receiving the guests that poured in.Madame Denis did the honours of the house; andmany a traveller, who had gone far cut of his way tovisit the Man of the Age, left the chateau without seeinghim. It was thus he treated the comte de Guihert,esteemed in those days as a young man of promisingtalents, but who is best known to us as the object ofmademoiselle de l’Espinasse’s attachment. Guibert, afterpassing five days at Perney, left it without seeing itsmaster. Arriving at Geneva, he sent him four verses,which wittily, though somewhat blasphemously, ex-pressed his regret. The wit pleased.; the blasphemy,perhaps, pleased still more, as showing him to be of hisown way of thinking ; and Voltaire instantly sent afterhim, invited him back, and treated him with kindnessand distinction. • Many anecdotes are told of the badreception he gave others. But as every one, and inparticular every pretender to literature, thought itnecessary to visit Ferney, no wonder that he was oftenpushed to extremities by their intrusion and pretensions,and, impatient and whimsical as he was, got rid ofthem, as the humour dictated, by open rudeness orcovert ridicule.

The astonishing vivacity and energy of Voltaire ’stemperament led him to create, like Don Quixote,giants with whom to fight; but he was not alwaysmoved by the heroic benevolence that animated theSpanish knight, but by childish or more blameablewhims. He had built a church at Ferney (the onebelonging to the parish being mean and in disre-pair), and went to mass, for the edification of histenantry. After mass he delivered an exhortation againsttheft (some of the builders of his church having beenguilty of carrying off old materials), which, beingagainst all canonical rules, scandalised the congregationand incensed the priest. The bishop of the diocese, an