" Madame ****,” said I to him, "pretends you possess the philosopher's

stone."

He replied, "The world says so, but I myself doubt it."

"Do you then," continued I, "conceive it impossible to obtain it?"

He answered, "I have endeavoured for thirty years to convince myself of the impossibility; but to the present moment I have not succeeded. One cannot be a chemist without believing in the physical possibility of this great result."

When I took my leave, he requested I would write to him, and give him my opinion of Voltaire. Thus our correspondence commenced, which we carried on in the French language. I received twenty-three letters from this rare man, the last of which was written six months previous to his death.*

While I was at Bern I had read the Heloise of Rousseau, and I requested Haller to give me his opinion of it. "The little," said he, "that I have read of it, in compliance with the wishes of a friend, is sufficient to enable me to form an opinion of the whole work. It is the worst of all novels, because it is more eloquent than any other. You will see the Waadtland: it is a beautiful country, but do not expect to find the originals like Rousseau's brilliant pictures. He thinks it is allowed to lie in a novel. Your Petrarch did not lie. I have his Latin works. People will no longer read them, because they consider his Latin to be faulty; but they are wrong. Petrarch's love for the chaste Laura is not a fanciful invention. He loved her as any other man would have loved a woman who had won his affections: and if their love had been reciprocal, Petrarch would never have celebrated her in song."

Thus Haller spoke of Petrarch; when I asked his opinion of Rousseau, whose eloquence he said he hated, because all its splendour consisted in antithesis and paradox. Although this distinguished Swiss was one of the greatest philosophers of his age, yet he never boasted of his knowledge either in his family circle, or in his conversation with scientific men. He was affable and amiable, and seldom incurred the displeasure of any one. By what means he gained the affections of all who knew him, I know not. It is easier to say what he had not, than to explain the good qualities of which he was possessed. He had not the defects of those who are generally styled the learned and the great. He was a man of upright intentions, but he made nobody feel it, who possessed a less share of them than himself. He certainly despised those ignorant persons, who, instead of confining themselves within the bounds of their own insignificance, speak at random on all subjects, and who ever aim at making the well-informed appear ridiculous; but nevertheless he never allowed his contempt to be seen or felt. He left it to others to discover his superiority of mind, for it could not be concealed, but he did not expect them to acknowledge it. He expressed himself in elegant language, and whatever he advanced was replete with sound reasoning, but never over-ruled the sentiments of others. He seldom mentioned his own works, and if the conversation led to them, he changed it to some other subject. If he was obliged to contradict any one, he generally did so reluctantly.

* In the year 1777, at the age of 70.

Agreeably to my plan, I terminated my journey through French Switzerland, by a visit to Voltaire.

I found him just rising from dinner, surrounded by ladies and gentlemen.

C." At last," said I, on approaching him, "the happiest moment of my ife is arrived: I, at length, behold my great teacher; for the last twenty years, Sir, I have attended your school.

V." Do me this honour twenty years longer, and then do not fail to bring me the money for your schooling.'

C. "I promise, it shall not be withheld. But do you also promise, that you will then expect me."

V." I promise it, and would sooner die than break my promise."

A general laugh resounded applause to this first witty answer of Voltaire this was a matter of course. When two persons begin a contest, the laughers always countenance one at the expense of the other. These are little cabals, for which one must be prepared in good company. I was so; and I hoped that I should be able in my turn to lay a snare for Voltaire.

Two Englishmen, lately arrived, were now presented to him: one of them was Fox, afterwards so justly celebrated. Voltaire rose and said, "The gentlemen are English; oh! that I were likewise an Englishman!" This was a bad compliment. The Englishmen ought to have said, "Oh! that we were Frenchmen!" But they either were unwilling to lie, or were ashamed to tell the truth. A man of honour may, in my opinion, extol his own nation in preference to a foreign one, but he ought not to depreciate it.

We had scarcely sat down, when Voltaire again attacked me. He said with a smile, but very politely, "As a Venetian, you undoubtedly know Count Algarotti?" "I know him," I replied, "but not as a Venetian; for seven-eighths of my countrymen know not that there exists such a man as Count Algarotti. (I ought to have said, as a learned man.) I know him from an intercourse of two months in Padua, where he has lived for seven years; and I admire him because he is one of your admirers."

V. "We are friends. He has the esteem of all who know him. It is not necessary, therefore, that he should admire any one in order to gain esteem." C. "If he had not begun by admiring others, he would not have obtained fame. As an admirer of Newton, he enabled the ladies to treat of light." V. "Has he really effected this?"

C. "He has obtained his end, though not so completely as Monsieur de Fontenelle obtained his by his Plurality of Worlds."

V. "You are right. Tell him, if you should see him in Bologna, I expect his Letters on Russia. He may send them to me by the banker Bianchi at Milan. The Italians are said to be dissatisfied with his style of writing."

C. "Certainly. His own language cannot be found in his works: they are full of Gallicisms. We pity him."

V. "Does not then the French mode of construction embellish your language?"

C. "It renders it intolerable. The French language interspersed with Italian words could not be more intolerable, even if you, Monsieur de Voltaire, had written it."

V." You are right: all authors should write in pure language: Livy has been censured on account of his provincial Latin."

C." The Abbé Lazzarini told me, when I began to write, that he preferred Livy to Sallust.”

V. "Do you mean the Abbé Lazzarini, the author of the tragedy Ulisse il Giovane You must have been then very young. I wish I had known him. But I knew the Abbé Coeli, the friend of Newton, and author of the four tragedies which comprise the whole of the Roman History."

C. "I knew him, and admired him; and when I found myself in the company of these great men, I esteemed myself happy that I was young. In your company it seems to me as if it was but yesterday; but I am not humbled on this account: I wish I was the last-born of the human race." V. "

You then would certainly be more happy than the first-born. What branch of literature are you pursuing?"

C." None. But I may hereafter. At present I read as much as I can, and study mankind by travelling."

V. "The road is good, but the book extremely large. The end is more easily attained by reading history."

C." History lies. The facts related are uncertain, and the occupation tedious. To study the world, while wandering through it, amuses me. Horace, whom I know by heart, is my companion; I find him everywhere."

V. "Algarotti too is never without him. I am sure you are a friend to poetry."

C." It is my ruling passion."

V. "Have you composed many sonnets?"

C." From ten to fifteen, which I value; and from two to three thousand, which I never read a second time."

V." In Italy the love for sonnets is a kind of mania."

C. "Yes. If the desire to embellish a thought by harmonious words may be called mania. The art of writing sonnets, Monsieur de Voltaire, is not easy. The sentiment must not, for the sake of fourteen verses, be either extended or abridged, and the sentiment must not only be good, it is necessary that it be sublime."

V. "It is the bed of the tyrant Procrustes, and for that reason you have few good ones. We have not one, and the fault is in our language."

C." Perhaps also in the French taste. Your nation conceive that a sentiment, which exceeds the length of an Alexandrine, loses all strength and brilliancy."

V." And do not you think so?"

C. " By no means. But let us first agree as to the meaning of the term sentiment. A flash of wit, for instance, will not be suitable for a sonnet. V." Which Italian poet do you prefer?"

C. "Ariosto. I cannot, however, with propriety say, that I prefer him. In my opinion he is the only poet, and yet I know them all. When I read your censure on Ariosto about fifteen years ago, I was persuaded you would retract your judgment, when you had read his works."

V. "I thank you for believing I had not read Ariosto. I had read him, but I was young, and but imperfectly acquainted with your language. At the same time I was influenced by those of the Italian literati who were admirers of Tasso. Thus I unfortunately suffered an opinion on Ariosto to go abroad, which I considered as my own. It was not my own opinion; I admire your Ariosto."

C." I now breathe again. Do, I beseech you, excommunicate the book, in which you have ridiculed Ariosto."

All my books are excommunicated already. But you shall witness in what manner I have retracted my judgment of Ariosto."

Voltaire now astonished me. He recited by heart the two long passages of the 34th and 35th cantos of Orlando, where the divine poet makes Astolfo converse with the apostle John,-without missing one verse, or in a single instance violating the rules of prosody. He afterwards extolled the beauties of the poet by such observations as

became a truly great man: more sublime remarks could not have been expected even from an Italian commentator. I listened to him with the utmost attention, and watched, but in vain, to discover an error. Turning to the company, I declared, that my admiration was boundless, and that it should be made known throughout Italy. Voltaire

now said :

"The whole of Europe shall be informed by myself of the ample reparation, which is due to the greatest genius she ever produced."

He hardly knew how or when to put an end to his encomiums; and the next day he presented me with his own translation of a stanza : Quindi avvien che tra principi e signori

Patti e convenzion' sono si frali.
Tan lega oggi rè, papi e imperatori,
Doman saran nimici capitali:

Perchè, qual l'apparenze esteriori

Non anno i cor' non an gli animi tali :
Che non mirando al torto, più ch' al dritto
Attendon solamente al lor profitto.

This was his translation :

Les papes, les Césars appaisant leur querelle,
Jurent sur l'évangile une paix éternelle;
Vous les voyez demain l'un de l'autre ennemis ;
C'était pour se tromper qu'ils s'étaient réunis ;
Nul serment est gardé, nul accord n'est sincère,
Quand la bouche a parlé, le cœur dit le contraire.
Du ciel qu'ils attestaient ils bravaient le courroux,
L'intérêt est le Dieu, qui les gouverne tous.

Though none of the company, except myself, understood the Italian language, yet Voltaire's recitation on the preceding day procured him the applause of all present. After these applauses had subsided, Madame Denis, his niece, asked me, whether I considered the long passage recited by her uncle as one of the finest of that great poet. I replied, "Certainly, Madam, it is one of the finest, but not the finest." She inquired farther, "Has it been decided, then, which is the finest ?" I replied, "This was absolutely necessary; for otherwise, the apotheosis of the poet could not have taken place. "He has been canonized then?" (continued she) "I did not know that."

A general burst of laughter ensued, and all of them, Voltaire being foremost, declared themselves in favour of Madame Denis. I observed the utmost gravity. Voltaire, seemingly offended, said, "I know why you do not laugh. You mean to indicate that the part for which Ariosto has been called the Divine, must have been inspired."

C. "Most certainly."

V. “And which is the passage?"

C. "The last thirty-six stanzas of the twenty-third canto. They describe the madness of Orlando with so much truth, that they may be called technically correct. No one, except Ariosto, ever knew how madness comes upon us. He alone has been able to describe it. You, too, have doubtless shuddered while reading those stanzas. They stir up all the sensibilities of the soul."

V. "I remember them. All the frightfulness of love is there displayed; and I am impatient to read them again."

"Perhaps," said Madame Denis, "you will be so kind as to recite the pas sage," at the same time turning herself to her uncle as if to ask his consent.

C. "Why should I not?" I replied; "if you will have the goodness to listen to me."

Madame D. "What! have you taken the trouble to commit it to memory?"

C. "From the age of fifteen I have read Ariosto twice or three times annually: he must, therefore, have necessarily impressed my memory without any effort on my part-I might say almost involuntarily. His genealogies and historical episodes, however, are an exception: they fatigue the mind, and leave the heart unaffected. Horace is the only author whom I have wholly committed to memory; yet he too has some verses, in his epistles, that are too prosaic."

V. "I conceive it possible to learn Horace by heart; but to succeed with Ariosto, is no trifle. There are forty-six long cantos." "Say, rather, fifty-one."

C.

Voltaire was silent, but Madam Denis immediately resumed, and said,

Quick, quick: let us have the thirty-six stanzas of which you say that they excite horror, and which have obtained for the poet the appellation of Divine."

I immediately recited them, avoiding the usual declamation of the Italians. Ariosto needs not the artificial aid of a declaimer, which, after all, produces monotony. I perfectly agree with the French, that a singing delivery is intolerable. I repeated the stanzas just as if they had been prose, except as to tone, look, and change of voice. They perceived and felt the effort I made to repress my tears, without being able to suppress theirs. But when I came to the stanza,

Poichè, allargare il freno al dolor puote
Che resta solo senza altrui rispetto,
Giù dagli occhi rigando per le gote,
Sparge un fiume di lagrime sul petto.-

my tears flowed so copiously, that the whole company were affected, and they all wept. Madame Denis began to tremble, and Voltaire hastened towards me to embrace me; but I did not suffer myself to be interrupted: for Orlando, to be entirely overcome by madness, was yet to discover, that he reposed in the very bed in which the happy Medor had once clasped in his arms the charms of Angelica. This is in the succeeding stanza. My voice had hitherto been plaintive and hollow; I now assumed a tone appropriate to the horror excited by the madness of Orlando, which gave him such extraordinary power, that he effected destructions similar to those produced by an earthquake, or a flash of lightning. When I had finished the recital, the countenances of the company sufficiently expressed their approbation. Voltaire exclaimed, "I have always said, if you wish to make others weep, you must weep yourself. But to weep, one must feel; and to feel, one must have a soul." He then embraced me, and thanked me; he moreover promised to recite the same stanzas on the following day. He kept his word.

We resumed our conversation about Ariosto, and Madame Denis expressed her surprise, that the Roman Pontiff had not included his works in the list of prohibited books. Voltaire told her, the contrary had been done. Leo X. had excommunicated, by a particular bull, all those who should dare to condemn Ariosto. The two great houses of Este and Medici would not allow the poet to be injured; otherwise, he