Page:Once a Week Dec 1860 to June 61.pdf/82

. 12, 1861.] head he wore an immense wig, unpowdered and unkempt, which nearly hid his face, and surmounted it with a shabby old three-cornered hat, and proceeding to the Café de Procope, while the play was yet in progress, he called for a small roll of bread, a bavaroise, and the Gazette.

This café, which stood opposite the Comédie Française, seems to have borne some humble resemblance to Wills’s, and one or two other London coffee-houses of nearly the same period, though bearing a more exclusively theatrical character; for there, we are told, “had been held for upwards of sixty years, the tribunal of these self-styled aristarchs, who fancied they could pass judgment without appeal on plays, authors, and actors.” And to the judgment of such a tribunal, on the second appearance of his work, was Voltaire satisfied to submit himself! and up till eleven o’clock, at which time the self-constituted critics had dispersed, did he sit there in silence, spectacles on nose, pretending to read the Gazette, and drinking in every word of praise or blame, as if on the breath of this gang of idlers depended his fame or obscurity!

The affair of his “Confession” speaks for itself, especially followed, as it was, by his delight that the applause given by the multitude to the passages against the clergy in Irène, produced not many days after, should do away with the bad effect of the Confession on the public!

Of the same spirit smacks his never-ceasing mortification at the coldness of the king and court, whom he pretended, individually, to despise; but not till all hope, of softening or winning them to receive and notice him, had departed.

But, perhaps, in a little speech to d’Alembert, is more epigrammatically expressed than anywhere else this passion of his for general applause.

“If you meet,” said he, as d’Alembert was quitting Ferney, after a six weeks’ visit, “any dévots on your way, tell them that I have finished my church; and if you meet any gens aimables, tell them that I have finished my theatre.”

2em

Scandinavian swords rose midst the host,

Like billows toss’d;

And in the moonlight, on that bloody plain,

The noble twain,

Mightier than all, amidst the dead and dying,

The beauteous Sven and aged Ulf were lying.

Oh, Father! must I, in my youth’s bright day,

Thus pass away?

No more a mother’s hand my locks of gold

Will fondly hold;

No more my love, whilst other maids are sleeping,

Will watch for me—her sweet eyes dim with weeping.”