VOLTAIRE AMONG ENGLISH

Waikato Times, Volume XX, Issue 1681, 14 April 1883, Page 4

VOLTAIRE AMONG ENGLISH

It was probably,, duriiig_ r yolt{iiiVß'a sojourn eithei'Mlaidch Dine 1 oM Milliter •Squarp jityt hii-f, adroitness, ftfu\ fluent lim§£e^'y-|Over' ( o\iu,'languiig9> 1 saved Jinn hiihirom what might nave neca'ari' unpleasant adventure. , 4 tic ' chanced, , one day to be strolling' along the" streets When his peculiar appearance, attraoj^d, attention. A crowd collected, .uicl some ribald fellow \hfiffaj\ yj^Uj jeejs and |wt?,j;o taunt "him with his nationality.' Nothing is so easily excited >as tbp f passions of a rabble, and tite" passions of a 1 rabble when , their victim ; ,is defenceless, rarely, exjiaiist themselves in words. The in(3ci l 6alifo , were already preparing to pcjre'iiftn SyitU mud,' and mud would no douDt have been'fol lowed with missiles' of a more formidable kind. But Voltaire w«s' coital tb tfhV crisis. " Urflil'ly cdnfr6nti ing'bfti ass'nilltnts'.'ho lriounted'on a stond which happened to be at hand, and began an oration of wliich the fiist sentence only has beeh"pres'orve'd/ üß'i\i\eu B'i\i\e Eimlislimcu," Jio cried, "am I not sufOciently unhajtpV iii iibt h.u ing been" bom among you ?" How lie proceeded we Know not, but his harangue! was, if we are to beliqvd >Wagni6rc, so effective that the crowd was not ■ merely appeased, hut eaier t to carry him on their shoulders in trmmpji, to hi,s JocWings.' Thiq was not the ' only occasion on which he experienced the rudeness with which the vulgur were in those dayu accustomed to treat his countrymen, He happened to be taking tlio air of tho river when one >ot the men in ohitrge >of the boat, preceiving that his passeiigoi 1 ' was a Freiiclnnan, began.toboartof the superior privileges fcnjoycd by English subjects ; he belonged, he bind, not to a land of slaves but to a land, of,, ,fi;ecineii. Wanning with his thefne, the fallow concluded his olleiisivo remarks by exclaiming with an oatli that hu would lathor be a boatman on the Thames than an Archbishop in Fiance. The sequel of the story is amu&ing. ■\Vithin a few houis the man was sci/ed by a press-gang, and the next day A'oltane&.iw him atthc window of a prison with his legs manacled, and his hand stictched tlnough the bais, craving alms. "Ah, .sir," lephed tlio captnc, '" tlie abominaljli* (iovenutient lia\e forced me away from my wife and childion to seryc in a'king's bhip, and have tliiown me in piibon, and ch.'iiucd my foot for fear I .should escape before tlio .ship .sails." A Ficnch gentleman who was with Yoltaiie at the time ownul that lie felt a malicious pleasure fit seeing that the English, who wcic so fond of taunting their neighbours with seivitudc, were m truth quite as much slaves themselves. " But I," adds Voltaiic in one of those, noble leflcutious which so often Hash across his pages, " felt a sentiment more humane : I was gticml to think that theie was so little liberty on the caitii." — Com full Magazine.