Edward Bruce Hamley

“ La Mettrie gallantly finished this too-seductive dish, and died the next day; and Voltaire, after recording the catastrophe (which does not seem to have caused him very lively regret) , observes, "I should have liked to put to La Mettrie, in the article of death, fresh inquiries about the orange-skin. That fine soul, on the point of quitting the world, would not have dared to lie. There is great reason to suppose that he spoke the truth."
There were other things, hard to bear, about which he could have no consolatory doubts, that tended to lessen the charm of his intercourse with the king. ”

“ In fact, you would be perfect if you were not man."
So the suppers went on as before, Voltaire was again in the ascendant, scandal was reduced to speak of him in whispers—only, along with his Court-favour, sprang up and flourished the envy which it excited among his fellow-courtiers, especially his countrymen.
A Doctor La Mettrie, one of these French adventurers, imparted to Voltaire, as a piece of news likely to gratify him, that Frederick had said, "I still want Voltaire for another year—one sucks the orange before throwing away the skin;" ”

“ For six months the poet supported the actor and gave him his first notions of his art; and, as Le Kain records many years later, "now he calls me his great actor, his Garrick, his favourite son—these are titles which I owe only to his goodness; but that which I adopt in the bottom of my heart is, 'a pupil penetrated with respect and gratitude.'" He goes on to sketch his great friend's character:—
"M. de Voltaire has always been constant to his friends. His character is impetuous, his heart good and compassionate. ”

“ You are the most seductive creature that I know, capable of making everybody love you when you wish. You have so many graces of intellect that you can at the same time offend, and deserve the indulgence of everybody. ”

“ Profound and just in his judgments on the works of others, full of amenity, of politeness, and of grace in his intercourse with the world—inflexible towards those who have offended him,—there you have his character drawn from nature. ”

“ To say the truth, he occasionally seems to the present writer to be not at his happiest in giving point to these; while compliance with the taste of his times, which was in favour of extensive dealings with the heathen mythology, renders his allusions, relating as they frequently do to goddesses, Fates, Loves, &c., a little trite at the present day. The following "Madrigals" to the three sisters of Frederick the Great are, in the original, excellent specimens of the grace and adroitness which were often needed to excuse his audacity ”

“ To love all three!"
He arrived at Berlin in July 1750. There now commenced the singular relations between the two most notable men of their time, which seemed to be, at first, so full of pleasure and advantage for both. ”