Page:Voltaire (Hamley).djvu/178

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
FINAL RELATIONS WITH FREDERICK.
159

were most unsparingly ridiculed. For some years this composition remained in manuscript, imparted no doubt to a favoured few; but at length, amid loud disclaimers of privity or consent on the part of the author, it found its way into print. With so much to forgive on both sides, it is more than probable that real friendship never again subsisted between them: but their alliance was of a kind that flourishes best outside the sphere of personal intimacy; and it is to the credit of both these illustrious men that in a few years they renewed an amicable correspondence, and maintained it, with mutual courtesies and good offices, till Voltaire's death, when Frederick had a solemn service performed for him in the Catholic Cathedral of Berlin, and himself composed, though in the midst of a campaign, his old servant's eulogy.