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Memoirs of the Life and Writings of M. de Voltaire.

1752, and the author left the Pruffian dominions with all the marks of difgrace, "From my first arrival at "Potsdam," fays our author, "Mau"pertuis fhewed me the utmost ill"will. It firft difplayed itself on my "defiring him to admit Abbé Raynal "into his Academy. He refufed it " with disdain, and treated the Abbé "with contempt. I procured an order "from the King for him to fend the "patent to Abbé Raynal: Mauper "tuis, it may be fuppofed, did not "forgive me."

During M. de Voltaire's refidence in Pruffia, a man whom he thought a Genevese, or at least educated at Geneva, named Beaumelle, having been driven out of Denmark, arrived at Berlin, with the first edition of What fall ve fay, or My Thoughts. In this book was the following paffage: The King of Pruffia has heaped favours on men of learning, from the fame motives that the German Princes heap favours on buffoons and dwarfs." " This man, "profcribed in all countries, was, as "foon as he arrived, raised up (fays "M. de Voltaire) by Maupertuis as "an adversary against me;" which he proves by a letter from Beaumelle to M. Roques, a clergyman-in the country of Heffe Hambourg.

But to return: M. de Voltaire, before he left Berlin, received this letter from the king: "You are at liberty to quit my fervice when you please ; but, before you go, return me the contract of our engagement, the key (of Chamberlain), the cross (of the order of Merit), and the volume of poems which I lent you. I could wish

that had been expofed only to your ftrictures and thofe of Koenig; I facrifice them with all my heart to those who think to augment their own reputation by diminishing that of others; I have neither the folly nor the vanity of certain authors; the cabals of men of letters feem to me the difgrace of literature. Nevertheless, I efteem fuch men of honour as cultivate them; the leaders of cabals alone are contemptible in my eyes. March 16, 1753-'

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M. de Voltaire quitted Pruffia in March, 1753, after having refided in that kingdom three or four years. He intended to have gone to Plombieres, and there to have waited for the feafon of drinking the waters, but his bad ftate of health obliged him to stop at

Author of the Memoirs of Mad. Maintenon, &6. He died about two months ago.

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Leipfic. His humorous answer to Maupertuis's challenge(dated from that city) may be feen Vol. XLIII. p. 640. On his arrival at Francfort, he was put under an arrest, at the defire of the Pruffian refident, till the book of poems above mentioned (which he pretended the King had given him) was fent back from Hamburgh, to which place he was then going. His niece alfo was carried to prifon, four centinels were placed at her door, and a commiffary's clerk ftationed all night in her chamber; and Monf. de Voltaire, having broken his parole on pretence of making a tour to the waters at Wisbaden, was immediately purfued, brought back to Francfort, and guarded by ten foldiers. Of thefe indignities our poet complained most bitterly.

The Efay on General Hiflory was undertaken about the year 1740, in order to reconcile to the study of history an illuftrious and philofophical lady, who was an adept in almost all others. It was first printed at the Hague, very imperfectly and incorrectly, by a bookfeller who had it from a fervant of Prince Charles of Lorrain,it being taken in a box belonging to a prince who was plundered by the huffars in a bat, tle in Bohemia. Thus he had it by the laws of war, and it was a good prize. "But the fame huffars," fays the author, "feem to have conducted the impreffion." Part of this work was afterwards interwoven into his Annals of the Empire. After the death of the illuftrious lady, for whofe ufe this work was undertaken, the MS. which contained most part of the hif tory of the arts in the Eaft, was unhappily loft. These materials were furnished by M. Dadiki, a Greek of Smyrna, interpreter to K. George I.

The infamous poem ftyled La Pucelle, or The Maid of Orleans, was circulated about the year 1756. This M. de V. affected to afcribe" to a Calvinist of Languedoc (Beaumelle), the fame who forged the letters of Mad. de Maintenon;" and only own. ed his having been concerned in it twenty years before, with fome other young people, and that he inferted in it" thofe few paffages which are decent and modeft. Those who are fuch fools," he adds, "as to think they can hurt me by publishing this rhapsody under my name, ought to know, that, when they would imitate a painter of the school of Titian and Corregio, they fhould not afcribe to him an alehouse fign in the country." In anfwer to

this,

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Speech of King James I. against Duelling.

this, be it remembered, that, fo long ago as 1736, it was well known that M. de V. was compofing an heroi-comic poem in the taste of that of Ariofto; that in the Pucelle horrible blafphemies and monstrous obfcenities are subftituted to the fublime extravagances of the Orlando; and that M. de Voltaire had repeated feveral parts of it to his friends, and had lent it to the King of Pruffia, who was afraid of the author's fhewing it. (See bis letter of Feb. 27, 1747.) "You have lent," fays that prince, your Pucelle to the Duchefs of Wirtemberg: know that he has had it copied in the night time. Such are the perfons in whom you confide; they, who alone deferve your confi. dence, are those whom you diftrust." An information was laid against this poem before the Chancellor of ***

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as the quinteffence of all that Julian and Celfus had vented against Chiiftianity, and Boccace and Aretine against good morals. The blafphemer was told by that magiftrate, that, if a fingle line of fuch a tendency appeared either in paint or MS, he should cer tainly end his days in a dungeon, Hence the uneafinefs of M. de Voltaire when it began to be circulated; hence his feveral difavowals of it. Though he may, perhaps, be excufed for endeavouring to varnish himself, his doing it at the expence of M. de la Beaumelle is unpardonable. All who are acquainted with that writer, know that burlesque poetry is not his talent; that be has only written ferious verfes, odes and epiftles, and them only in his youth. At the very time when M. de V. was preparing a new edition of the Pucelle at Geneva, in 1762, he wrote as follows: "Thirty years ago, for my amusement, I vaulted on that rope, and two or three bad Giles's wanted to do the fame on the green of their fair; I leave to them that folly, to which my age, my infirmities, my way of thinking, do not allow me to pay, for the future, the least attention."

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(To be continued.)

Mr. URBAN,

HERE fend you a curious MS. for the publication of which there cannot be a more feasonable time than the prefent. It is part of a speech of King James I. upon his first coming into the Star Chamber, in order to fit as judge upon the trial of a gentleman who had fought a duel, againt which practice his Majefty Some time before had issued a procla

mation. I have neither been able to
learn the name of the gentleman
arraigned, nor of his antagonist; nor
do I find any mention of this trial in
Rapin, Guthrie, Smollet, or any of
our modern hiftorians, though it was
remarkable, as being the first time
that King fat to give judgment in
that court. If any of your learned
correspondents can give farther light
to this fubject, they will oblige seve
ral of your conftant readers, and
perhaps the public in general.
Å Well-wifber

HIS Majefty first of all apologized
for coming into court to unpre
pared, having only had notice of trial
the night before. He then proceeded
to confider the crime of bloodshed; "I
mean," said his Majesty, “blood which
is not thed by a lawful magiftrate on
order: It is firft an offence against God
apart; it is then an offence against God
and the King; it is then also an offence
against the King apart; and, finally,
against King and people.

"The offence against God is in this, that he kills his creature, and puts man out of his station where God has placed him; and non debet quifquam a Aatione recedere; and the Scripture doubteth not to term it the taking away of the foul of man, and so he doth, as out of his tabernacle and station.

"Next, they offend God and the King; becaufe mibi vindida ego retribuam. They take upon them God's office and the King's, who hath a sword, and bears it not in vain, as St. Paul fays. They fnatch revenge out of God's hand and the King's, as the glove was fnatched in this particular cafe. Then they do alfo wrong to the King, in destroying one of his fubjects, as they do to God in deftroying one of his creatures.

"And, laftly, they do a joint wrong to King and people, in taking away one fit to ferve the King and country, which is robbed of a patriarch, as the King is of a fubject; and the peace of the land, wherein the subject hath intereft, is also broken. And this fall ferve for the confideration of blood in general.

"Now I come to the blood of the duel; and I pray God I may go thro it with clearness and brevity.

"Of all bloodshed this of the duel is the worst: first, because it comes not upon revenge of other blood, which may ftir fome compaffion; as, when a

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Speech of King James I. against Duelling.

man had killed a father or a brother, it was lawful by the old law for the next of kin to kill the murderer, if he were caught before he entered into the city of refuge. But the duel is no revenge of former blood, but a fharpening and whetting fwords to fhed blood, and that many times for vain words, which may be recalled. To revenge that with blood which cannot be recalled, how vain a thing is it! for a man, by God's permiffion, may kill a man, but he cannot bring him to life again. A man haftily falls out with another, and fo to the lie, and so to ftrokes, and fo to murder: this is yet more to be pitied, because it is in heat; but to do it in cold blood, as the duel is performed,cafts away all plea of mercy both from God and the King.

"As to God, all divines, in all ages, and in all times, Papifts, Proteftants, Anabaptifts, Puritans, ail agree in this, that the duel is as damxation itself. What a time passed between the fe gentlemens falling out and the juftice's warrant? They went beyond fea, and came back again, and then they would fight at Rumford : and all this while they could not fay the Lord's prayer: for that is, Remitte, &c. ficut ut nos remittimus, &c. They were not capable to receive the facrament; for that is the feaft of cha-. rity. What cafe then had they been in, if God had taken away their fouls in the mean time? Clearly they had been in the ftate of damnation. He that is killed not only dieth in blood and choler, without time of repentance and amendment, but dieth, as to himn felf, in cold blood, being the author. of his own death; fo that he is not only, as Cain was, the murderer of his brother, but is also the killer of himfelf; fo that, by the law of the church, he is denied Chriftian burial. And hereupon I may exhort from duels; for, as Bellarmine fayeth of the Pope, that be bath an indirect power in temporal things, fo Kings may better challenge an indirect power and office in fpiritual things; and therefore, having charge as well of the fouls as bodies of my flock, I fay unto them, Beware of duels, which is a crime in cold blood; for it is a ftrange folly to think we may pray to God to forgive us aforehand." It is no better than the prayer of pirates, when they pray to God to fend them a good booty; for they pray for that whereon they must know that God cannot hear them. Through the blood of Chrift we pray for crimes paft, but

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not without repentance, which is a turning from fin; but here, in going on to fin, to pray (which is a prayer contrary to repentance), and thereby to hope to be faved, I cannot tell how this fhould be; let the Bishops define it. It is like the prayer of fome, who, as I have heard, have prayed before they went to kill themselves; or like the confeffion of the powder traitors, who confeffed beforehand to Garnet their horrible treafon, which they intended to execute, and received ablolution for it beforehand. So fome of the Papifts (I pray God that none fuch be here that hear me this day) hold, that the Pope may grant pardon for fins not only done, but to be done, tho' Cardinal Peronne doth difavow that opinion. But it were an opinion fit for duellifts; for otherwife they can have no hope of falvation."

His Majefty, having enlarged on the practice of duelling in foreign countries, and fearing to be thought tedious, makes this apology:

"Pardon me, I pray you, for b:ing fo long to-day; I will be so no more; for I will tell you a little jest of a minister in Scotland, who, upon the first reformation of religion, got into the pulpit with a mafs-book in his hand, and read a great deal of it to difcover the corruptions and vanities of the mafs; and, when he had done, he defired the people to bear with him, for that it should be the laft mafs that ever he meant to fay. So this thall be my laft oration in this place; not because I mean not to come hither again, but because I mean hereafter to do, as I would have you do, which is, not to lofe time, but to deliver your opinions shortly.

You speak of honour: It is true. it is a thing precious, or elfe why fhould men hazard their lives for it. But God is the fountain of all true honour; and next, thofe that he calls his gods, that fit next under him, and have it by tra dition from him. Where, therefore, will you have honour here amongst us who live in a monarchy, if not from the King? Men were bold to give the title of honour where it is not due. I have warn'd the marshals of it, that' the title of honour be not given to gentlemen; worship belongs to them, and not honour, which is proper to noblemen and counfeliors. For, what is the reafon, that a man, never so great in honour, being attainted, lofeth honour, but because the King relu

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