it appears that the patriarch, affecting, says Boswell, the English style of expression, characterised the illustrious sage of Fleet Street as "a superstitious dog," but, after hearing a disparaging remark of Johnson's about Frederick the Great, he exclaimed, "An honest fellow!" This, with a remark about Pope and Dryden, is all the record that the prince of recorders brought away from Ferney. Had there been room in his very exclusive Pantheon for more than one deity, we might have learned much about Voltaire which now will never be known, but which the irrepressible interest of Boswell would easily have extracted,—as thus: "Finding my illustrious host in a specially communicative humour, I ventured to say, 'The world, sir, would be very glad to know why you call yourself Voltaire,'"—or, "Talking, at dinner, of his confinement in the Bastille, I expressed my wonder that notwithstanding the injuries he had received from the Government he had never attacked it, but only the priesthood; to which he replied,"—what can now only be matter of speculation.
It was several years after this that Doctor Burney, father of the once famous authoress of 'Evelina,' paid a diffident visit to Ferney, having no introduction. After describing the scenery, the church, the theatre, the buildings, and the chateau itself, into which he was allowed to penetrate, "a very neat and elegant house, not large nor affectedly decorated," he had sight of the great man:—
"He was going to his workmen. My heart leaped at the sight of so extraordinary a man. He had just then quitted his garden, and was crossing the court before his house. Seeing my chaise, and me on the point of mounting it, he made
