CHAP. V,] TRAVELS.

but lessened their well-bought conquest by lessening the 1755.
merit of those they had conquered. J5t. 27,

In a Life of Voltaire afterwards begun, but not finished,
in one of the magazines of the day, he recalled this conver-
sation in greater detail, to illustrate the general manner of
the famous Frenchman. " When he was warmed in
" discourse, and had got over a hesitating manner which
" sometimes he was subject to, it was rapture to hear him.
"His meagre visage seemed insensibly to gather beauty,
" every muscle in it had meaning, and his eye beamed with
"unusual brightness." Among the persons alleged to be
present, though this might be open to question if anything
of great strictness were involved, the names are used of the
vivid and noble talker, Diderot, and of Fontenelle, then on
the verge of the grave that waited for him nigh a hundred
years. The last, Goldsmith says, reviled the English in
everything; the first, with unequal ability, defended them;
and, to the surprise of all, Voltaire long continued silent.
At last he was roused from his reverie; a new life
pervaded his frame; he flung himself into an animated
defence of England; strokes of the finest raillery fell thick
and fast on his antagonist; and he spoke almost without
intermission for three hours. " I never was so much
"charmed," he added; "nor did I ever remember so
" absolute a victory as he gained in this dispute."*

Here Goldsmith was a worshipper at the footstool, and
Voltaire was on the throne; yet it is possible that when
the great Frenchman heard in later years the name of the
celebrated Englishman, he may have remembered this
night at Les Dtlices, and the enthusiasm of his young
admirer,—he may have recalled, with a smile for its fervent

* Miscellaneous Works, iii. 22d, 225,n explain liis quarrel with fritz.e